and seth jones from the center for strategic & international studies talks about the changing threats to u.s. homeland security. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. ♪ host: it is the "washington journal" for september 8. governor abbott signed a new voting law into law which notes several sniffing changes. those changes include hours of voting, voting requirements, and new rules for absentee ballots. it already faces challenges. governor abbott coined the law paradigm for other states who may be looking to make changes to their states election laws. we will go through the details and you can tell us if those changes are too restrictive, not restrictive enough, or just right.

if you say they are too restrictive, (202) 748-8000. not restrictive enough, (202) 748-8001. just right, (202) 748-8002 -- (202) 748-8002. you can post on facebook as well. our twitter feed is found at c-spanwj. in the moments leading up to these new laws, governor abbott made comments about the voting bill and what he thinks it accomplishes. here are his thoughts from yesterday. gov. abbott: in texas because of the early voting and voting on election day, it ensures that texas provides even more opportunities for people to engage in the voting process and the president of delaware as well as many other states across the entire country. the law does make it harder for

fraudulent votes to be cast. one area that makes it harder to keep, concerns mail-in ballots. mail-in ballots, this is an area where both republicans and democrats every -- agree has been the easiest way to cheat in the election process. the law i am about to sign fixes that problem. another issue that this law addresses is ballot harvesting. it makes ballot harvesting a third-degree felony. [applause] ballot harvesting is a serious problem in the state of texas. that comes from a federal district judge who was appointed to serve in texas by president barack obama. that federal district judge heard a case, a trial, and

during that trial, there was an abundance of evidence presented, an abundance of law presented and after all of the evidence was presented, the judge wrote an opinion deciding that case. in that opinion, that judge wrote that ballot harvesting occurs in abundance in the state of texas, showing the challenge that it poses and the reason why texas took up this cause to make sure that ballot harvesting fraud would be eliminated in the state of texas. the bottom line of what the law does is what the members around me have said all along, that texas law makes it easier than ever before for people to cast a ballot. it does also make sure that it is harder for people to cheat at

the ballot box. [applause] host: those comments from monday just before the signing of the law. we will get your opinion on the law. you could talk about how they compare with your state. here is how you can call us. if you think it is too restrictive and you want to tell us now -- why, (202) 748-8000. not richard if enough, -- not restrictive enough, (202) 748-8001. if you think they are just right, (202) 748-8002. joining is now, chuck lyndale. guest: good morning. host: remind viewers how this law in texas became a nationwide event. guest: and went nationwide when democratic house members left the state to break quorum and went to washington, d.c. to convince congress to pass

federal legislation. texas, we are one of maybe five states that have a majority for quorum. out of 150 house members, 51 democrats leave and they are the minority party. that was a watershed moment here and went national when they met the vice president. they held press conferences that were well attended on the capitol grounds. it became a cause. host: looking at the specifics of the new law, several of which the governor mentioned in the bit that we played, but we will show viewers on the screen. and it comes to drive-thru voting and changing -- changes on early voting hours, also protections for poll watchers, new rules for people who assist voters and opportunities to correct ballot mistakes and monthly checks for noncitizens. of those, which has produced a

lot of friction between the democrats and republicans in texas? what were the more controversial things? guest: i would say the poll watchers and the posing of the 24 hour drive-thru voting. the 24 hour voting and drive-thru voting was an innovation done in houston, our biggest county in the biggest counties in the country. they had been trending democratic for a long time, they are fully democratic now, harris county. they tried to help with the pandemic. they went to 24 hour voting. 127,000 votes were cast in drive-thru voting. wait in line, go through a tent, get handed a voting machine,

hand it back. that is not allowed in state law. it is not against state law, but because it is not allowed, republicans said it was illegal and added that to the law. democrats, 127,000 people voted. more than half of them were people of color. pretty successful endeavor. the poll watchers, poll watchers are volunteers that go to the polling places. they represent candidates and political parties. republicans see them as the eyes and ears of campaigns and also the public. they are looking for irregularities. democrats look at the history in texas and see that poll watchers have been used to intimidate

voters, especially voters of color in past elections so there is not a lot of trust there. those were the two points of friction. this is a sweeping bill. there is a lot in there. host: when the governor mentioned ballot harvesting, applause broke out. what happened? talk about why that is an issue for those who applaud the measure. guest: there have been instances of ballot harvesting in texas. the other point of friction in all of this is democrats see this effort as an extension of a lie. republicans tend to say how much fraud is too much, probably one instance.

you have that dichotomy of perspectives. there is voter fraud probably in every state. there are shenanigans taking place. is there enough to justify taking these steps? that was the point of conflict in texas host: when it comes to these signed into law, usually legal challenges come after that. is that the case? guest: they came before. two federal lawsuits were filed before this was signed into law. two more lawsuits were filed shortly after the governor or right around the time the governor signed his name. this does not take effect until december 3. there will be time for this. the battlefield is now in the courtroom. there is also at least one lawsuit in state court. host: one of the things that stems after this event is the topic of redistricting and how

texas is going to handle that. what is expected? guest: we have a special for september 20 -- a special session for september 20. it is one of the most partisan fights at our capital. there are raw wounds between the parties. republicans are angry at democrats for having skipped out of town. they blew up one special session. nothing could get done without a quorum so that whole 30 dear period, nothing got done. as for the second special session, the democratic block crumbled, democrats feel they have been shut out of the process of this voting bill. our governor, who is the only person who could call a special session and decide what they can handle, he sets the agenda. he said several high

conservative priorities in the last special session. democrats -- it is going to be a tough 30 dear period starting september 20. host: the person watching it is chuck. thanks for your time and explain this for us. you heard that explanation from him and now we will hear from you. if you think the passage of this law in texas is too restrictive, you want to tell us your thinking on that, (202) 748-8000 . not restrictive enough (202) 748-8001. perhaps you think it was just right, (202) 748-8002. post on social media. text us at (202) 748-8003. starting off, derek in washington, says it is not restrictive. thank you for holding on. go ahead. caller: thank you. this is allowed by the constitution.

the constitution is a white supremacy manifesto. only white men could vote when this was written. it was written for them. the only thing that matters about these laws, listen to what i am saying. how many judges. that is what mitch mcconnell realized. in order to maintain this, white supremacist had to take over the court in the supreme court. host: let me stop you there because we are talking about texas. you say it is not restrictive. tell us why. caller: it is not restrictive because it is allowed in the constitution. i am a progressive. if something is legal and all you see is the democrats complain when they have the power to legislate anything they want, they can change the voting law, they can change any of these laws they want. all they have to do is send a bill to joe biden. they don't want to do it. host: do you agree with the governor's decision? caller: i'm glad some of this

stuff is happening so these white women can get industry and stop it if they care about these laws. host: john in brooklyn, new york says the law is too restrictive. tell us why. caller: the law is too restrictive because it is a racist law against minorities and brown people. host: why is that? caller: closing polls, restricting how many days you can vote early, other things that these republicans are doing has nothing to do with fraud. you move the drop off boxes. i wish the conversations about republicans rules in general instead of just texas because there are a lot of states where the republicans know they are outnumbered. they cannot win.

i am from north carolina. you see what they did in my hometown. i live in new york now. but i was raised in north carolina. the republicans know they cannot win. the policy is not what people want. they have to make these voting restrictions and do not give people water. it is wrong. host: let's hear from a texan. this is henrietta. says the law is not restrictive. go ahead. caller: i do not believe it is restrictive enough. i worked during the 2020 election as a private investigator and there was fraud left and right. there is no way the justice department has time to investigate all the fraud going on. host: when you say all the fraud

going on, what do you mean by that specifically in texas' case ? caller: i am saying this investigation was held throughout the united states. i work in the texas area. host: and you are saying fraud is there? caller: going on left and right. it would never get to the courts. host: fraud such as what in texas? caller: fraud such as people stealing ballots from elderly, people that are leaders in nursing homes, the directors get paid so that they can send all the ballots from the elderly that are sick and have alzheimer's and they get paid to turn in the votes for a certain candidate. host: can you are saying you encountered this firsthand? caller: yes, sir. i had an affidavit signed and notarized. host: that is henrietta in texas. texans, you can call and give

your reactions to the governor this week. the rest of you can call on these lines and give your comments. this is cameron in seattle, washington saying, washington state has had vote by mail for years with no issues. the motor -- voter education process is based on the honor system. it raises questions." " how does preventing clerks from mailing emigrant applet since -- from mailing applications prevent fraud?" el nino saying, "stand up and take a bow, governor." still in arizona, "134 people for one dropbox. that seems restrictive for me." if you want to text us, (202)

748-8003. texas voting law is what we are talking about. you can tell us about the level of restrictions exists in the law. it would ban drive-through voting. it would also change voting hours or early voting hours. it would offer new mail-in voting requirements for partisan poll watchers. no unsolicited ballot applications. opportunities to create mail ballots. also monthly checks for noncitizens. that applies to texas. you can talk about that. maybe it applies to your home state as well. little rock, arkansas, says the changes are just right. ursula calling us. tell us why. caller: it is fine except for the poll watchers. i don't like that. if people are going to vote, they will vote. they will find a way to get out and vote. black people, most of us really

want to vote. i do not think it is going to stop anybody from voting. host: specifically, why do you find the changes just right? caller: except the poll watchers, it is ok. you need your id and everything. nothing is wrong with that. host: ursula in little rock. we will hear from rick, in virginia, saying changes are not restrictive. hello. caller: good morning. i wanted to point out that voting in america for the citizens should be considered one of the most sacred things that we have to do. it should have rules associated with the voting rights for citizens of america. it should not just be blase,

meaning no id, ballots mailed out to everybody. i have heard some people call in and ranting on republicans and how this is controlled. it is amazing that i have not heard anybody reflective of what democrats do in their cities and states. take california for instance. they had changed the rules in such a way that it is hard for republicans to get voted there, correct? host: when it comes to texas, what makes it not too restrictive? caller: rules and regulations. host: when it comes to texas, what makes it not restrictive? caller: say that again? host: when it comes to texas, what makes it not restrictive? caller: not restrictive? host: that is what you are saying, the changes are not restrictive. what makes it so?

or not restrictive enough? caller: i would think that there has to be more things to do because the one thing i was not sure with the gentleman you had on their was how much time before the election a person was allowed to vote. and we have gone from a voting day to a voting period, which everyone knows elections are coming up and it should give ample time for people to cast their vote in some way, shape, or form. host: that is raked in virginia. in germantown, maryland, susan says the changes signed into law are too restrictive. tell us why. caller: i think it is just plain discrimination, period. the changing demographic in texas and the rest of america is very obvious. they are hearing from their

constituents, particularly those in rural america. they are seeing their way of life die. host: what makes the changes discriminatory? caller: what makes the changes discriminatory? preventing minorities from voting, making it hard for them to vote. and saying that rights -- w hites are fighting hard to stay in important positions. in the short run, maybe, but in the long run, i think it will hurt the republican party very much and they will be the minority by 2040 and beyond. we will see a new order of things. host: that is susan in maryland. "the washington post" highlights other states that have made changes to bring voting laws -- their voting laws. they provide a map.

they highlight the fact that in 2021 that laws were made to pass voting. they highlight 11 states in which they became more restrictive, including idaho, wyoming, iowa, texas among them. 18 states doing that, california, oregon as part of that. colorado, new mexico, and minnesota including several on the east coast. there is a map you can find online, if you wish. texas is what we are focusing on, as far as the changes introduced by the governor there, signed into law. not restrictive enough is one way you can tell us, if that is what you think. maybe you think they are too restrictive. maybe you think they are just right. from oklahoma, this is jim on the line for not restrictive enough. hello. caller: every minority should be

insulted by the accusation that it is restrictive to them because everyone in this country that is a legal citizen has an id to conduct all business. it is not like elections sneak up on someone. democrats have a history of proving that they are the racist party from voting against equal rights to fighting to keep blacks in slavery. every democrat-controlled community that is run by democrats has serious poverty and poor conditions for democrats. host: when it comes to texas, you say it is not restrictive enough. why do you think that? caller: not only should people have a voter id, but they should go to their voting district and register to verify that is who they are. that is how a lot of states do it. host: leon twitter saying the new rules for assisting voters

are a criminal penalty, adding that it is not voter suppression that is the problem. it is the voters selection. the republican-controlled congress can step in and make its decision as to who won the board of elections. steve saying a 24 hour drive is how you order a cheeseburger, not cast a vote. ask every color if they know of anyone who is not able to get a photo -- every caller if they know of someone who is not able to get a photo id. " when it comes to the events of this week, governor abbott, god bless you and the republican party." there are a lot of ways you can reach us on facebook. tweet us, if you want. also text us, (202) 748-8003. in washington, d.c., dexter says the washington law -- dexter says the law is too restrictive. go ahead. caller: i think it is too

restrictive. the reason why is because all of the country, every time we have an election, you hear about hundreds of thousands of people being purged off the roads, being intimidated at the polls. i message to democrats is in texas, if they want to send partisan poll watchers to intimidate them and stop them from voting, maybe democrats should show up at those polling places and protect themselves from the partisan poll watchers. like the other caller that said these guys are putting these things in place so they can have a minority rule. they can talk and say all the things they want to say to try to justify the b.s., but we know. we have been dealing with this

for hundreds of years. if nobody knows what they are doing, we know exactly what they are doing. it is obvious. they can do all the propaganda they want to do. i am letting all of the note that we are not buying it. we don't care what you think. host: that is dexter in washington, d.c.. the pages of the "the washington post" this morning, an op-ed from an author who served for a number of years, and election officials should not be attacked for doing their job. "the two of us have been partisan opponents, representing opposing political party to the best of our abilities, but at this time, we share concerned about attacks on public services that successfully oversaw what was arguably the most secure election in our country's history record turnout during a pandemic. if such attacks go unaddressed, our system of self-governance will suffer long-term damage. in partnership with the center for election innovation and

research, we are launching a legal defense network which will conduct licensed attorneys with election administrators who need assistance." this piece goes on to say, the unyielding barrage of threats to election officials, republicans, democrats, locals, continues to this day. many received threats to themselves and their families regardless of which weather stays voted in 2020. often officials lacked the resources. more at the "the washington post" op-ed section. mary is next. mary in michigan. the laws passed in texas are not restrictive enough. go ahead. caller: i am of color and i am a vet and i will tell you what irks me, when these people say i'm a the -- say, the dems -- i

have always thought it was a privilege to vote. wherever i was stationed, i could vote because you can plan ahead and make sure that you vote. it is racist what the democrats are doing here, saying that we need to be able to pick up your balance. you need to drop them off in a box. if you can get to a dropbox and you can get to the polls -- then you can get to the polls. host: what is it about texas law that is not restrictive? caller: i think it should be voting day, period. host: lisa is up next, from houston, texas. says what was passed too restrictive. go ahead.

caller: i wanted to make sure that people understand, i have worked in the passed elections. i have been an election worker. just to say that. even just the application to vote by mail, just to do that, this is not vote by mail. this is the application to vote by mail. the democratic party is not being allowed to mail those out to people. that is ridiculous that we cannot mail out just the application to vote by mail. as an election worker, if i'm going to be an election worker coming up for the next big election and they have put in place, now those poll watchers will have more authority than the ones working there.

we should be the ones that can say something. if we say anything, we are possibly going to come under criminal charges when we are the ones trying to run. it is not like we are paid a lot of money to do this work. we do this -- it is not a regular job. this is just something we do during the elections. it is a nominal payment to do this work. it can be grueling at times. it is a 14 hour day that you have to try to do everything according to the rules. also, as far as the voter suppression, it goes so much deeper than voting. it is also registering to vote. i have spent many years here in this state try to register people to vote. you cannot even register online. you have to have what is called a wet signature on your voter registration. host: because you are

experiencing all of this, what do you think changes as far as elections on election day once these rules go into place? caller: i think it will depend on where you are. but in our area, somebody who is now a poll watcher, has zero training or experience, -- the election workers who have been trained will be the ones who could face criminal charges. but they can literally come and stand behind a person who is voting with their phone and videotape that. that is what a poll watcher can do and we can say nothing. host: let's hear from barbara in oklahoma. says the changes are just right. hello. caller: all of these people calling in about voter restrictions, i do not know if anybody remembers back when obama was running and this was

on the news so you can go back and check it. there was a black panther and i cannot remember what state it was, walking up and down in front of the voting place with a billy club and there was a white man down the steps and he would not even come up and vote and nobody called the police, nobody did anything. i am from california. i used to think california had really good loading applications and everything. but now, all you have to do now is have a drivers license and in california, you can vote. you can vote for anybody. it doesn't make any difference. host: since we are talking about texas, what makes you think it is just right? caller: i think texas is just right. host: why so? caller: because. there are really no restrictions. anybody, if they will get up off of their lazy butt and go vote.

i saw on the news one time a girl in a wheelchair and she wanted to vote so bad that she took her umbrella and in her wheelchair went down with her umbrella to the voting place and voted. host: that is barbara in oklahoma. again for the half-hour, we have been asking you what you think about changes when it comes to texas voting laws. we invite you to do so for the next half hour. (202) 748-8000 if you think the changes are too restrictive. (202) 748-8001 if you think it is not restrictive enough. (202) 748-8002 if you think it is just right. text us at (202) 748-8003. the previous caller mentioned changes when it comes to poll watchers with the associated press taking a look. the senate bills give partisan poll watchers new access, protections, and power. legislation will make it a crime to reject a poll watchers who meets the qualifications for the position. the measure will make it illegal to obstruct the poll watchers

view and the senate bill says if the poll watchers are entitled to stand, sit near enough to hear or see the activity, texas law prohibit poll watchers from watching someone actually cast a vote or a valid. also saying that the legislation empowers poll watchers to seek court orders against election officials who get in the way. proposals would require poll watchers to swear an oath that they will not harass voters. if you want to read more about that, it is the "associated press." at the top of the hour, our guest mentioned several texas democrats who came to washington, d.c. to talk about not only the bills being considered in texas, but also when it comes to nationwide bills in congress that deal with voting laws, the state representative for harris county was on this program in july. she talked about the voting legislation. a portion of that interview in july.

[video clip] >> we had large turnout in texas during the last election, particularly in harris county where i represent. there was a large democratic turnout. we immediately saw then that they attempted to try to change the rules of the game. instead of expanding voter access, all of the provisions you just enumerated in the new proposed bills. the second thing that we believe, the strongest impetus for this horrible legislation is what we have been calling the big lie, which stems all the way back from when donald trump began to kick and scream and say incorrectly that he won the election and that there was voter fraud, even though state after state continued to say that there was no fraud and that he did not win the election. shortly after that, you started

to see bills like house bill three, senate bill one in texas, and bills around the country start to appear. instead of maintaining access to the ballot, you started to see all of these really strange provisions seeking to criminalize people for simply trying to vote. [end video clip] host: that was from july. one of the other things making news in the papers. the taliban announcing that they have named an active cabinet. just to show you that. we will talk more about it in our next hour. craig whitlock, washington post investigative reporter, also the author of "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war" will join us for that conversation talking about not only history of afghanistan, but when it comes to current day.

let's hear from betty in south carolina, says when it comes to the changes, not far enough. go ahead. betty, hello. caller: i am glad that texas did try to change their voting rights because everybody that votes, it should be the one they voted for. i voted and i walked in and showed my license and they looked at me and said go vote. i did not have no problem. as far as being racist, i am not because i growed up with black people. i played with them. my daddy and mother did not say nothing about racism to me. i did not know about racism until now. now i hear it all the time. host: we will hear from chad in

garrison, texas. he says what was passed is too restrictive. good morning. caller: how are you? host: i am fine, go ahead. caller: i think it is too restrictive. why are they worried about it? why are they worried about the people coming in and just show your license and vote? you should be able to do that. we are all citizens. why they want to have poll watchers and people over your shoulder, they must be afraid of something. host: what about the new law is too restrictive? caller: why would you want somebody watching over you? while we you need somebody to come in there and -- what about mail-in ballots? i'm a soldier. they had soldiers putting in

their votes from overseas. when i was a soldier, i wanted to vote. they are afraid of it. host: what do you think will happen as far as the ability to vote in texas? do you think it will change the ability of people who want to vote? caller: of course. watch. you will see all of these people complaining. you will see a lot of people breaking the law when the vote comes out. we will see it all happening as soon as we start voting. you will see all these people complain about how they were treated and all of this and it is texas and they are mad because biden got in there. host: mike in clearwater, fortis says when it comes to those changes, he characterizes them as just right. good morning. caller: good morning. the greatest tv network in the history of television. anyways, the reason i say it is just right and we should reword

the question. it should be easier to vote and harder to cheat because believe me, cheating goes on in elections and people know this. there is a history on it. it is not a complex thing. bless their hearts, that is all i can say. host: what makes texas changes just right in your mind? caller: they have expanded the time to vote. they have made it harder to cheat. if you make it easy to cheat, people are going to cheat. that is how it works. if i get to choose my winning lotto ticket, of course i'm going to cheat on that. that is the nature of people. host: mike in florida. this is mlb from twitter when it comes to making comments about the events in texas, "voting is a right and not a privilege. driving is a privilege." amelia saying it is too restrictive. you always need id in georgia to

vote. in african american communities, you have 10 to 12 hours online. this is voter suppression. from sean in michigan, people are missing the point. even a democrats win in texas, it makes it possible to overturn those results. congress must act or we will lose our democracy. kevin bailey from facebook this morning, "voting edification is up. no more mail-in ballots except for the military and the elderly." shirley is next and says the changes are too restrictive. hello. caller: hello. host: you are on. caller: yes. in order to get your drivers license in texas, you have to have a birth certificate. host: ok? caller: and most people do not have a birth certificate to get

a drivers license, especially those senior citizens who were born at home. host: go ahead. caller: that makes it very restrictive. and also, there are a lot of senior citizens in rural areas who vote by mail and in order to vote by mail this time around, you have to have a valid id. host: and you say that is a difficulty for some people in texas to get one? caller: a lot of people do not drive, especially senior citizens, 70, 80, 90 years old who have been voting by mail for years and that never was required. now they will have to have picture id. host: does texas offer a picture

id that is not a driving license? caller: yes. host: is that difficult to get? caller: if you can get a, like i say, a lot of people that i know were not born in the hospital. they do not have a birth certificate. that is it. host: that is surely in texas. let's hear from william in south carolina saying the measures are not restrictive enough. hello. caller: hi. this is william in south carolina. i'm a vietnam veteran. i am 74 years old. all my life, i have seen the voting procedure in this country with rules and regulations. if you do not have rules and regulations to follow, they need

to go back to the path to have voter registration because several positions need to be approved by a citizen of the united states, not anybody else. that is one requirement that needs to be added. they need to be a citizen. if you are not a citizen, you should not be allowed to vote in any federal position and you need to have rules and regulations so that the voters know who the people are that are voting. it is not right. it is crooked. it will be crooked like it was in this passed election -- passed election. you will have people voting that are not required to be voting. host: that is william in south carolina. remind you of other efforts in congress to make changes on the federal level when it comes to election law, there is the

voting right advancement act voted on in the house and some of the elements of that, it would expand the formula that the department of justice can used to identify discriminatory voting patterns. those entities would need to get approval before making further changes to elections and then it would counter some of the supreme court ruling that made it harder to challenge discriminatory voting changes. that is some of the federal efforts that took place or are taking place in congress. several texas democrats came to washington, dc not only to talk about the efforts of what was going on in their state, but also to advocate for changes on the federal level as well. we are talking about the events in texas this week of the signing of that law. denny in california saying the changes are too restrictive. good morning. caller: good morning. they are way too restrictive. here in america, we should be trying to make everybody able to

vote. we should not be making things harder. we should be helping more people get to the polls that cannot vote. some people lose their licenses. some people have to renew their license. it is hard to get an appointment right now, especially with covid. a lot of things will happen, these are the things we should be looking out for. we are supposed to be looking out for the little guy. maybe you have a little bit of trouble getting there. anything that stops people from voting is restrictive. anything that takes rights with -- away from people who should be voting is restrictive. host: this is patty who says the changes are just right. caller: the woman who called in about the black man outside of the polling place was in virginia.

they are black panthers. the white man that turned them in was senator kennedy for your. host: when it comes to the texas law, you say it is just right. tell us why. caller: about the id. did anybody get turned away from covid shots? you have to show an id. we did in connecticut more than once. about connecticut, anything that happens in hartford stays in hartford and no one ever checks it out. that is why we have more republicans winning here. host: about texas law, what makes it just right? caller: it is just right and that is what it should be. it should be like that in every state. it is democrats like stacey abrams over here. she throws out these rules and regulations that are just for her. that is not fair. host: next up, north carolina, changes are too restrictive.

caller: good morning. i do not know how you do not jump out of the tv sometimes with some of these calls. thank you to everyone at c-span for what you do. here is my take on it. the texas law in itself and all of the voting process is too restrictive. i have a different take. i think it is too restrictive because we are already a quarter of the way through the 20th century. we need the technology. why isn't there a way? there is an app for everything. why isn't there a way to use a fingerprint or retina scanning to be able to vote? you would avoid all of the land -- all the lines, all the problems of notoriety, all of the problems of people looking over people's shoulder when they vote. host: with the issues with

cybersecurity, do you think that is a practical measure? caller: nothing is guaranteed. but there is also problems with voting the old-fashioned way. there has to be a way to encrypt this to make it safe and secure. host: i know it is texas law, but what makes it too restrictive? what changes it for people in texas? caller: not articulate for texas, i think the whole process -- not particularly for texas, i think the whole process is antiquated. old-fashioned and writing balance, etc.. host: the changes we have been talking about, anything of issue there? caller: i am not following what is going on in texas too much. i'm saying overall, the whole process is restrictive. host: keith in north carolina. michael often voice big -- off of facebook saying governor

abbott is restricting the rights of boats and is lying -- rights of votes and lie about his reasoning -- lying about his reasoning for doing it. "why do we have a safety to present voting turnout rate?" changes keeps voting from fraud, which democrats are afraid of. you're welcome to do that at facebook.com/c-span. texting us at (202) 748-8003. from cj in minneapolis, saying that the changes put into law in texas do not go far enough. good morning. caller: thank you. this is cj from minnesota and i was calling on behalf of the native american people who are considered the others. so when they vote, they do not even get the respect that they

are supposed to get. what makes you think the country is going to give them the respect of the regular american people who they consider american? host: how does that apply to the events in texas when it comes to their voting changes? caller: i do not care about that. i am talking about the rest of the nation. i which is calling because i got a chance to get in. host: you are calling about texas voting laws. what you think of those changes? caller: i don't care. host: carry it in oklahoma says the changes are just right. good morning. caller: i worked on the elections for almost 50 years. i know that there are a lot of different problems that go on in elections. when you have elections, you can have people that come in to vote, people that move, they calm and vote. -- they come and vote.

you have people with the same name that you have to be careful with because if they have the same name, they might not be the same person. it is a different address, a different person. we have had all different kinds of problems. we have had poll workers since the beginning of time as far as ids, even when i worked in california, that was back in the 1960's, you do have to have an id. a lot of people have loosened up the laws and when they loosened up the laws, they run into problems. host: so you characterized what happened in texas as just right? why is that? caller: i think it is just right because they need to make sure people have proper ids. otherwise, they are all these illegal aliens coming across the border. otherwise, all these illegal aliens coming across the border.

you will have people holding that should not be voting -- you will have people voting that should not be voting. host: one of the other events taking place in texas that concerns the recently signed law , the "the new york times" saying, "democrats raise pressure on president biden to take action saying that this was a letter sent to president biden saying we urge you to take legal action up into including the criminal prosecution of would-be vendor lattes attempting to use the -- vigilantes attempting to use the private right of action established by the unconstitutional law." the story adding that the justice department seeking a response to the letter by mr.

garland a day later in which he said that law enforcement officials were urgently exploring options to challenge the texas law in order to protect the rights of women and other persons including access to abortion. that is one of the other issues from texas. we are talking about the changes when it comes to voting laws this week and what you think about those changes. from maryland in fort washington saying the changes are too restrictive. tell us why. hello? go ahead. why do you think the changes are too restrictive? caller: because it is the idea behind it. this country has a history of denying people of color voting privileges. we know what is behind this.

people are calling in and commenting on this like they do not know the history. they know what these people are doing. host: how did you come to that conclusion? caller: by living it. host: in texas, why do you think that is the case? caller: because it is in the news now. it is nothing new. they've been doing it for years. host: when it comes to those changes, joanne from nevada saying it goes far enough. -- it does not go far enough. hello. caller: how are you this morning ? first, i have to give a shout out to mitch mcconnell. thank you for not making merrick garland a supreme court justice. although he is going after all of the red states in retaliation

now. host: when it comes to texas voting laws, you say that changes do not go far enough. caller: get off your butt and go vote. you know what surprised me when i was watching the iowa caucus on c-span -- host: let's go back to texas. why do you think the changes are not enough? caller: they say they cannot have an id. in the caucus, you have to have an id. they made us pay before they can vote. how illegal is that? you guys have to -- let's do the whole demographic of all of the state. host: that is joanne in nevada. from tim in rhode island texting us this morning saying when it comes to those changes, not restrictive enough. the senate has to cast their vote in person. social the voters -- so should the voters. michael saying, how can showing up to vote be more restrictive?

lonnie in texas saying that the u.s. election was the most secure an american history. he adds, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." that is glenn in kentucky texting us this morning as you can as well. from illinois, saying the changes are just right. we will hear from joe next. caller: am i on? host: yes you are. caller: the united states constitution gives the rights of the states to make their own voting laws. if the federal government wants more power over the people, why don't we have a constitutional convention to change the law? if you want to have the federal government running everything, you have to make a

constitutional change. host: so you are saying the changes in texas are right because the legislature can change them? caller: yes, that is exactly right. as you see, the people moving from new york to florida, from california to texas, you can move. if you do not like the laws, you can move. you can vote a new legislature in to change the laws you would -- the way you want them. that is the way the system works. host: nothing is restrictive in your mind? caller: it is their right to make that law. if the supreme court wants to knock it down, then the supreme court cannot get down. -- can't knock it down -- can knock it down. caller:? how are you doing today? ? host: go ahead.

caller: i have been to texas. if somebody offers you a bottle of water, you cannot take it. why is it only in the democratic states that they put -- they have people standing over top of them. why aren't they doing it and the republican state? about this abortion thing, if they are going to penalize a woman for having an abortion, which i did not think women should have abortions, they should take the -- host: we will leave it there. surely finishing off this hour. for those of you who participated, thanks for doing so. we will talk about issues with afghanistan with craig whitlock, the author of a new book called "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war called the afghanistan papers, a secret history of the war, and he will join us next. later on in the program, we look at the evolving threats.

that conversation with seth jones for the strategic -- center for strategic -- that a more when "washington journal" returns. >> 20 years ago on september the 11th 2001, two large commercial airliners flew into the world trade buildings in new york city. 2763 people lost their lives. a few minutes later, american airlines flight 77 crashed into the pentagon, killing a total of 189 people. a fourth plane, united 93, crashed into a field near shanks full, pennsylvania at three minutes past 10:00 a.m. on that morning 44 perished. these events, as everyone knows, were a great shock to our nation. and the world. as a small way to commemorate

this moment in u.s. history, here are some of the callers to the c-span network the morning after beginning at 6:00 a.m. >> the entire united states a shutdown. you are talking to people around the country and around the world who are shaken to their roots by this. >> a look back on the september 11 attacks on this episode of book notes plus. listen at c-span.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you will find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors to television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekend on -- weekends on c-span2. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: joining us is craig whitlock, an investigative reporter for the washington post and the author of "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war." mr. whitlock, thank you for coming on. guest: thanks for having me. host: in the first opening pages, you write this, mr. whitlock, and i will have you elaborate. "this book does not aim to provide an exhaustive record of the u.s. war in afghanistan as well as combat operations. rather, it is an attempt to ask what went wrong and how the presidents and the ministration failed to tell the truth. can you elaborate? guest: there are two things in her vogue and -- things interwoven in the book. first, how this level of deception and misleading the american people about what was really going on there contributed to the length of the war. frankly, under president bush, president obama, and president trump, whose administration did

not tell it straight to the american people about how badly things were going on afghanistan, how they did not have a clear mission for a very well articulated strategy. they kept telling the american people we were making progress in afghanistan and we we would -- and we would prevail in the war. according to documents i've obtained from the book, it was clear they knew the war was unwinnable. host: when it comes to those documents, what was that source material? guest: this is a little different for a book, particularly in washington. this is all based on public record. the washington post had to go to court twice, federal courts, to sue the federal government to obtain notes and transcripts from several hundred interviews with key insiders in the war over the last 20 years which to close -- which took us 20 years to obtain these we obtained these documents. they formed the backbone of this book. what people involved in the

three administrations really thought what was going on about the war. host: that is where you found the consistency about what is said about the war and what was happening when it comes to the war? guest: exactly. in these documents, you would have interviews with generals that say we know things are not going well and we do not have a strategy that we think is workable. yet in public, some of the same people or the president were saying the opposite, things were going great and they believed in their strategy and predictions of success. host: when it comes to the administrations themselves, even from the bush administration onward, is there a common denominator of what kept a sense of forthrightness when it came to activities of the war? >> that is a good question. i think early on the deceptions started small under bush, but as things got worse, they kind of started digging a hole and kept going. over time, it became harder for these three presidents or people who work for them to admit the

war was not going well. you have to remember in 2001 when the war started, there was an enormous level of public support for taking military action in afghanistan. it was seen as a war of self-defense, a just cause. polls showed virtually the whole country supported this. people thought we had won the war back in spring of 2002. the taliban had been removed from power and al qaeda's leadership had been killed, captured, or fled afghanistan. the american public thought this was a just war and thought we had one. -- won. from bush to obama to trump, it became harder and harder for them to admit this war that people thought we won was in fact losing, going in the wrong direction. no one wanted to admit that. host: craig whitlock is with us and if you want to ask questions about his book and what -- when he found out what was going on -- what he found out in various

white houses were guarding afghanistan, call us. (202) 748-8000 free democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8002 for independenta. you can also -- independents. you can also text us at (202) 748-8002 -- (202) 748-8003. i want to play you what he said at the time and give you context of what was happening behind the scenes. [video clip] >> as a spring thaw comes, we expect cells of trained killers to try to regroup, to murder, create mayhem, and try to undermine afghanistan's efforts to build a lasting peace. we know this from not only intelligence but from the history of military conflict in afghanistan. it has been one of initial

success followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. we are not going to repeat that mistake. host: so that is what he said at the time. tell us what is happening elsewhere within the bush administration. >> that is an important speech in april of 2002. president bush was reassuring americans that we had learned from the lessons experienced by other great powers in afghanistan like the russians during the soviet invasion of 1979 and in the 1980's and the british during the 19th century when you had these great powers invade afghanistan and get bogged down for years and years in losing war. bush was saying we are not going to let that happen to us, we have learned. yet on that same day, his defense secretary wrote a confidential memo that i obtained for the book and he addresses several of his

generals and top civilian aids in which he said i'm worried that if we don't have a plan to stabilize afghanistan, we will never be able to get u.s. troops out of their. he ended this memo -- there. he ended this memo with one word, help!. he is reassuring americans that we will not get bogged down in afghanistan but is writing this memo on the same day saying he is worried about that exact scenario. guest: was he the only one expressing concern at the time about what was happening? guest: i think everyone in the bush administration was concerned to one degree or another but as time went on, that fear started to grow that they were slowly losing their grip on afghanistan. frankly, the line got worse. about a year later, may 2003, donald rumsfeld took a trip to the capital of afghanistan and had a press conference with the president of afghanistan, and rumsfeld said he announced an

end to major combat operations in afghanistan. he said the heavy fighting was over, that they wanted to reassure americans that things were under control. yet in documents obtained through the book, you have several top officers and u.s. military i at -- military at headquarters in kabul saying they were flabbergasted by his statement. they said we were continuing major combat operations and there was no order to stop and the fighting gradually would intensify in years to come. this contrast between what the american people were being told in public and what was going on behind the scenes. host: mr. whitlock, you have probably heard as many as others as what happened in afghanistan starting with the bush administration started as one thing and ended up as another. in your book and mind, when does that pivot happen? guest: particularly when when we went into -- particularly when we went into iraq 2003.

most americans thought we had won the war in afghanistan. the bush administration had this false sense of confidence afghanistan was under control. they stopped paying attention to what was going on and were focusing their energy and resources and attention on planning to evade -- invade iraq. one year into the war, donald rumsfeld goes to president bush and says, there are two generals in town that i think you should probably have a meeting with. one was the general in charge of the middle east in iraq and the other was a general mcneil. bush applied to rumsfeld and said i want to be with general frank because of iraq but who is general mcneil? rumsfeld said sir, he is the commander in charge of the war in afghanistan. bush replied, well i do not need to meet with him.

so the commander-in-chief had forgotten the name of his top general on afghanistan. when rumsfeld was trying to set up a meeting with bush, he said i do not have time to deal with that. i'm focused on iraq. from that moment, that said a lot about where the bush administration's energy and attention was focused. guest: you write -- host: you write president bush was promising the united states would transform an impoverished country traumatized by warfare for the past century. bush offered no specific benchmarks for achieving them, writing so few people ask press concerns the united states committed to an open-ended mission. those who raised doubts were ignored. guest: that's right. this is another common theme, president bush, president obama, and president trump all promised in public to the american people we would not get in a "nationbuilding program," in afghanistan and we would not get stuck spending billions and

billions of dollars trying to modernize afghanistan into a modern-day state. this is something i think the american people were concerned about getting saddled with endless bills for building up a war-torn country. but the documents and interviews we obtained through the book show the complete opposite was happening on the ground. it is to different degrees but under bush, obama, and trump, we spend more than one of the $35 billion on nation building in afghanistan. to put that into perspective, that is more than the united states spent to rebuild western europe with the marshall plan after world war ii, once you adjust for inflation. so we spent more trying to rebuild afghanistan then we did on europe after the end of world war ii, yet we see now that we have virtually nothing to show for it in afghanistan because the taliban is taking over. host: the book is "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war." craig whitlock joining us from

the washington post. jerry in taylorsville, kentucky. republican line, you are first up. go ahead. caller: yes, with 9/11, it was a sad thing but they knew they were trying to do something to us when the bombs went off in the twin towers, when clinton was president. the higher ups do not want to listen to the lower people doing all of the work as far as trying to protect the country and people of the united states. i am a veteran and i served in the reagan administration. republicans don't take no crap from people when they mess with us. that is the bad part of the democrats. some countries do not want our democracy, they want to cs go broke and belly up. so we have to be careful -- see us go broke and belly up. so we have to be careful what we are doing. the united states should be number one spending money on

anything. if they are spending money on anything, it needs to be in defense of our country. host: that's jerry in to kentucky -- in kentucky. go ahead. guest: he brings up a good point. i don't know if there's much of a difference between democrats and republicans. the record is clear bush and obama both tried to support a democracy in afghanistan. we spent an enormous amount of money trying to build a new afghan government. we helped design their constitution. at first, it looked like democracy was going to go well. they had free and fair elections in 2004 for the first time in afghanistan. over time, that democracy started to fade. corruption took root in afghanistan and we helped foster it because we had spent so much money over there, more than the country could absorb. a lot of that money ended up in people's pockets.

over time, the afghan people became disillusioned with democracy, and that is why the taliban was able to come back. host: from john in mississippi, independent line. caller: hi. donald trump, when he was president, he surrendered the taliban. not biden, but trump. that is not noted enough. in the capital, when it was invaded, there was a gallo there with a hangman's news. no one talked about where it came from or who put it there. that also should be noted. host: that is john in long beach, mississippi. he mentioned the trump administration and events and actions that impacted the biden administration. anything to add? guest: that is true, the trump administration entered into direct negotiations with the taliban for the first time and trump had reached a deal with the taliban to withdraw all of the u.s. troops earlier this year. that was by the time he had left

office but he started the process of reaching a deal with the taliban to withdraw. to put that into context, obama tried too to negotiate indirectly with the taliban. obama wanted to end the war and trump wanted to end the war. neither one could quite do it. by the time joe biden came into office, he decided he would be the president in the war. this was a very chaotic way it went about but he was the first of the three presidents to make good on a promise to withdraw all u.s. troops from afghanistan. host: this is from leesburg, virginia, we hear from rick on the line for democrats. hello. caller: yeah, i know your reporter has been on this before a long time so i won't tell him anything he doesn't already know, but to the extent he suggests to your listeners or his readers that what he is saying is a scoop or news is a little disingenuous, trying to

sell a narrative, maybe one that did not sell well a year or two ago. cigar has been writing about this for years. if anybody wanted to pay attention, i served in afghanistan for five years. i lost count. we had a constant stream of punk than's and journalists parachuting in. they could've interviewed anyone. on the record come off the record. -- on the record, off the record. this just did not fit the narrative sold at the time. i would just comment that if you are defeatist, you do not belong in the military. our job, optimism is a force multiplier. our job is not to critique policy or whatever, our job is to make things happen, to achieve a mission. host: that is rick from leesburg, virginia. guest: i think rick brings up a

point in that certainly it was not news that things were not going well in afghanistan. many reporters that disclosed this for years and years and the american people knew things were not going well there. if you have a war that drags on for 20 years, by definition, it is not going well. what was news in the documents we had seen -- i had seen from the afghanistan papers or blunt admission by the people in charge they did not have a plan and new this war had become unwinnable. i mentioned general dan mcneill, a two time war commander and very bluntly said in these interviews that we did not have a plan. we did not have a strategy. we did not have a campaign plan at all. he didn't say we had a bad strategy or misguided tragedy, he said we did not have one period. i thought maybe that was a fluke and he was exaggerating, but his successor, general david richards, the one in charge of

u.s. and nato troops for about 15 months, he said the same thing. he said we have a lot of tactics but did not have a proper strategy. i am not a trained military historian but when was the last time you heard commanders from a war admit they were fighting this war without any strategy at all. pretty stunning. you have diplomats, white house diplomats saying they were distorting statistics to make things look like they were going well in afghanistan when they were not. many of them on these documents said we did not know what we were doing and did not have a fundamental understanding of afghanistan. news of these blonde admissions of failures was totally contradicting what was said in public. that is the crux of my book. host: there are pictures in the book and from the documents from the special and general for afghanistan reconstruction including an interview with rick boucher that talks about the form used and some findings that

come from the interviews that took place. what was important about this interview? guest: he was one of the ones that said we did not know what we were doing. that is pretty striking. ambassador boucher was the top u.s. diplomat for south asia, including afghanistan, during the bush administration. he also, as a career diplomat was a chief spokesperson of the state department. in his interview, he almost on burdens himself about how the united states really did not have a good understanding of afghanistan and did not know what it was doing. i want to make a point here, it took the washington post more than three years going to court to force the special inspector general to release this document to. this was not an easy thing to do. the government tried hard to hide the statements and admissions. we are still in court now for additional documents, trying to pry them loose. this is very difficult to get the truth of what was going on,

and the truth of what these people thought out into the public domain. host: the scope of the interviews with the special inspector general, was it u.s. officials or how wide-ranging were the interviews? guest: that is a good question. they were wide-ranging, particularly with other nato countries or allies in europe and canada. they also interviewed a number of afghan officials, not as many as americans but probably a couple dozen. we managed to obtain more than 400 interviews, notes and transcripts, that the inspector general conducted with paul. there's a couple hundred more out there that they have not disclosed yet that we are still in court trying to win access to. it's a pretty remarkable trove of information and interviews with hundreds of people who are involved in the war from the get in 2001 through the start of the trump administration. host: we have a viewer that texted us this morning, saying how much influence to the state department have over the various presidents in the early days of afghanistan? guest: that's a good question.

the state department is influenced but there is no question in these documents running through the last 20 years that the military, the defense department, has the biggest say in what was happening in afghanistan and most influence on the commanders in chief. that said, the final decision on strategy and how much money to spend in afghanistan and for what purpose really rests with the person in the white house, whether it was bush, obama, or now president biden. they are the ones to make the final decisions and are the ones that decide who they will listen to most. their generals -- most, their generals or diplomats. host: david on the independent line, your next up. good morning. caller: hi. is it true in the last 20 years, many mistakes and shortcomings and failures have inflicted -- affected our policies in the region. it is the long-haul strategic

vision of controlling and leveraging over russia, china, and to a lesser extent india, as well as making sure natural human resources are being exploited by our side to deter between the shiites and sunnis so the islamic world could decimate and annihilate itself to their unpopular leader seems to be in place. that is really where the line is drawn in sand in that the taliban, al qaeda, isis, has below, and any other shiite groups are fundamentally extremist right-wing part of the islamic ward. they have been giving control all over the region. i would like to hear mr. woodlock's comments on that.

-- which lock -- whitlock's comments on that. guest: it is clear from the documents i obtained from the book that the central objective of the war really lost focus over the last 20 years. at first, everybody understood why we were going to afghanistan. it was a limited objective. the whole point was to destroy al qaeda and prevent al qaeda from launching another terrorist attack on the united states. within the first year, that mission got blurry. then, the objectives became less clear or perhaps they were many more of them. for instance, it was, are we there to impose democracy in afghanistan, are we there to improve human rights particularly for women and girls, are we there to help the old up the afghan state? as you alluded to, are we there for geopolitical reasons in the region? there were some people who thought we needed to be in afghanistan to keep an eye on pakistan next door with its

nuclear weapons. in recent months, we have heard people say we need to keep bases in afghanistan to keep an eye on the chinese and counterbalance to russia in the region. it very quickly becomes easy to get bogged down. it is sort of a strategic swamp over there. why are we there? what are we trying to accomplish? that is the theme you hear over and over again for the book, people saying it never became clear what exactly we need to accomplish before we could leave because there were some any different themes and subjects and areas that people were pushing on afghanistan. i think that helped contribute to the strategic failure of the war. host: one bit of modern-day news, you write about the taliban quite a bit in your book , following the history they had over the course of the war. watch goes through your mind that even as of this morning they are forming an active cabinet in afghanistan? guest: it is pretty striking and

stunning and depressing that the taliban now is probably stronger than they have been at any point in the last 20 years. they are probably stronger militarily than they were when they controlled most of afghanistan in the late 1990's and until 2001 when we invaded. they have more fighters under their command than they did 20 years ago. they have control over pre-much all of afghanistan at this point. in 2001, they controlled most of the country but not all of it. now, they controlled the whole shooting match. it will be interesting to see what their goals and objectives are and how they interact with the united states and other countries in the region. after the last 20 years, the taliban has only gotten stronger. we do not have much of anything to show for the warfare for the last two decades. host: silver spring, maryland, democrats line, alex for our guest. go ahead. caller: hecaller: good morning

-- caller: good morning. thank you for having me. i hope your work becomes part of the history that is taught in u.s. classrooms many decades from now about the war in afghanistan. it seems vitally important that we if not learn the lessons of this war than at least each it has a story of morals going forward. any events, following along the lines you were talking about of current events, one of the things i have not been able to find out a lot of recent information on is what the state of the afghan national assembly, there parliament, is. we talk a lot about the president and the country and government collapsing. as far as i am aware, there are still parliamentarians or nationalist emily members that are in the country and have a building they would attend and

you legislation in. i do not know what their state is now that the taliban is set up there on current government. if you have insight into what the state of that is, i would like to hear it. host: i think that is a good question -- guest: i think that's a good question. the united states and our allies and afghan allies spent two decades trying to build of rule of law and democratic institutions in afghanistan, including the parliament. i do not know what formal action the taliban has taken, but that national assembly is going to be defunct. i cannot imagine that the people elected to it or appointed to it will hold those positions. the taliban have made clear as a form of government that this will be a beaocracy and this is

not a movement that embraces democracy or parliamentary assembly or anything like that. what they do with the building or what happens to the people that had served in those positions, i would not be too optimistic they will be able to keep doing the jobs. the taliban has taken over, they have lost power in afghanistan, and i think it will be a government that is similar to how they ran things in the 1990's. host: about 20 more minutes with our guest. jersey, democrats line, hi. caller: i have to ask one question, how come we did not fix what happened in the 1980's? all we had to do was they fix their infrastructure, why can't the country help back in the 1980's? we created this. the three-day bomb in the parking garage in the twin towers. explain that.

guest: that is right. there's a lot of people that point out the united states was involved in afghanistan in the 1980's when we were dealing with a self proclaimed holy warriors rebelling against the red army, the soviets. we very successfully, meaning the cia and government, bundled a lot of weapons in afghanistan to seize the red army and force them to pull out. the united states stop interacting with afghanistan after that. afghanistan was a wreck economically after all of those years of war and the united states stopped paying attention. what happened then in the 1990's, afghanistan further spiraled downward because they had civil wars internally between various warlords and other factions. that is how the taliban rose up out of that. a lot of people were tired of the fighting. the taliban came in and swept through the country. there's no question the united

states contributed to problems in afghanistan in the 1980's. we walked away, the country got worse, and it became a haven for al qaeda leading up to 2001. you are right to point out the united states does not have clean hands when it comes to afghanistan going back the last 40 years. host: mr. whitlock, you have mentioned an acronym when talking about booking the information you got for your book. this is sherry harden from twitter who asks who are what it is. if you wouldn't mind explaining that. guest: it's an acronym for special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. this is an inspector general, and a arm of the government set up by congress. their whole purpose was to monitor the spending in afghanistan because we were spending summary billions and billions of dollars to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse so they audited programs, right a lot of reports saying this billion-dollar program was a waste because here's what

happened to the money. the difference is they decided to do a side project around 2015 that they called lessons learned. this was not an investigation or audit of money, it was really a program that they were doing to interview people so they could write public reports to learn from mistakes made in afghanistan with the hope we would not repeat those mistakes in the future. the inspector general published a number of the reports but what they did is for all of the people they interviewed, they kept their nose and transcript of what they said confidential -- notes and transcript of what they said confidential. the notes were thorough but watered down, sanitized, and many people did not read them. but they test out these remarkable admissions of failure and accusations of incompetence in those interviews. it took the washington post going to court under the public record laws to make those public

information. host: sigar.org is the website if you want to see some of the interviews they have done over the years. how did they react once releasing the documents? did they give it willingly? guest: not at all. first, when i asked for some of them, they said they would release them but days dragged into weeks and they sat on their hands. finally, we had to get a lawsuit to get some of the documents and we won that. we thought after that point we were to get the rest of them but resisted and saying these were not public record, that the public did not have the right to know this stuff. that their ability to conduct investigations in the future. days of resisting attempts for more information. it is ironic, but the special inspector general, he is often giving interviews, a bit of a press hound.

he likes to boast about the work they do, but in some ways, this was some of the most important work they did, this lessons learned program. it is a shame they felt it necessary to keep the findings of the interviews secret from the american people for so long. host: a follow-up to something you said from albert in chicago saying you had said president obama try to negotiate with the taliban. why was he trying to do that and why did the negotiations not happen? guest: another good question. obama, when he was in the white house, he promised to end the war in afghanistan and pull u.s. troops out by the end of his second term in 2016. that did not happen because they were afraid the afghan stage might collapse. we ended up keeping troops there. by the time of his second term, obama and his administration had come to the conclusion that they could not vanquish the taliban militarily.

they cannot defeat them and have them go away. they were too much of a part of the fabric of afghanistan. the insurgency was too widespread. they knew they would have to come to some political reconciliation between the taliban and afghan government. obama's administration did not want to engage directly with the taliban. they wanted the afghan government that we supported to negotiate with the taliban. that had never happened. the taliban was not eager to negotiate with the afghan government because they saw them as pug mince of the americans. the afghan government did not want to negotiate with the taliban because they knew if they did it would probably result in the loss of their powers. obama's administration efficiently -- officially did not go with the taliban. things sputtered along. the difference when trump became president is the authorized his government to negotiate with the taliban directly. that is what led to the

agreement that his administration signed with the taliban when he was in office. host: let's hear from amy, huntington, pennsylvania, a republican line. caller: good morning. pedro, you are looking well this morning. i have a couple questions and concerns. we all know the iran deal expires next month. i have a problem with putting trust into the people that will be the so-called government over there, some of which have bounties on their heads. how can we negotiate with the very men who took out our twin towers and why didn't we keep control of bagram? we have to have some sort of military force there to prevent another 9/11. we have so many that have come over here in germany and other countries that have not been -- while we have airplanes there that the state department says you cannot fly into the united states that are already vetted

and we find out this morning that the drone strike i could have taken out the suicide bomber was called off by the state department. i would like to know what is going on in the mind of this administration that put us at such risk. we need some type of presence there otherwise we will be dealing with attack after attack after attack. host: that is amy in pennsylvania. guest: amy, i certainly think that is a concern across the board, to what degree the threats emerge from afghanistan now that the taliban is back in power and united states military does not have a presence in afghanistan anymore. i would like to make one correction, that the attack on the twin towers on 9/11, that was not carried out by any afghans. 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudi. i know this was sponsored by al qaeda and opposed bin laden who is also a saudi, and afghanistan

was the base of his refuge but most of the hijackers spent a little time in afghanistan. they spent most of their time in europe or the united states preparing for the attacks. i think this is an important distinction to sort out what threat is posed to the united states by afghans or people who are based on afghanistan and what threat is posed to the united states by other transnational terrorist groups like the islamic state or remnants of al qaeda. this is something there's lots of disagreement about within the government and outside the government. there's also disagreement on whether continuing to keep u.s. military troops in afghanistan helps us monitor those terrorist threats or makes it worse because it creates a backlash for a president there. this is something nobody can answer definitively but is the source of a real debate and will continue to be in the coming years. host: patrick in maryland, democrats line, you are next. caller: thank you for accepting

my call. this is my feeling about the 20-year war. the reason we went to afghanistan was to kill osama bin laden. that should have been the end of the mission. a couple questions, one, do you feel that what osama bin laden was killed -- when osama bin laden was killed we should have left and that would have been it? another question, i almost feel that what the united states is was we emphasized we were going to build up the afghans. so that they can defend themselves. i haven't been there 20 years -- having been there 20 years, i believe what the united states did not expect was the afghans would literally be taking over within the week. i believe that that is the reason why this whole debacle occurred. this is another -- and my only

other important question, what does united states feel? what do you feel that winning, what do you mean by we won the war? thank you. guest: those are several really good questions. certainly those are ones president biden has announced -- expressed publicly. he said we should have left after bin laden was killed in pakistan in 2011. again, ironically, president obama tried to end the war after that. his strategy called for withdraw of u.s. troops -- called for a drawdown of u.s. troops and his land was eventually to pull all u.s. troops out by 2016. he could not pull that off because in the end, he lacked faith in the afghan government to defend itself through the afghan army and police that we were spending so much money to train and equip. looking back, they would have been better off pulling out anyway during obama's term

because at that point, the taliban was weaker than it is today and arguably the afghan army was stronger than it is now. so we stayed because over time we thought we were worried the afghan government would collapse and we needed to build them up. the longer we stayed, the weaker they became and more powerful the taliban grew. looking back, i think people who advocate for withdraw from afghanistan probably think it should have happened several years earlier. host: you tell stories in the book about the training of the national security forces and how the trading went when having to introduce themselves like eating in a kitchen and interacting with a towel rack. can you elaborate some of those training instances the united states in had -- united states had in training soldiers? guest: and a lot of confidential interviews are pretty scathing about the afghan army and police. the afghan police are different from what we have here, this was

a paramilitary police force built to protect territory from the taliban. what you hear again and again from u.s. military trainers and advisers is just what an enormously difficult task this was to build up an enormous afghan army and police force that more than 90% of their crews were literate. they cannot read. many of them could not count. they did not know numbers. some of them did not know their colors. so we are trying to train these people in a few weeks out to be soldiers or police and it just was not going well. you hear drill instructors say the afghans couldn't shoot straight, that they deserted at high rates, that they were infiltrated by tele-band supervisors -- taliban supervisors. in the interview with the people doing the training and equipping, they were predicting the afghan army is not going to last, it would fall apart. but this contrast with what we

heard in public from u.s. generals and u.s. presidents over the last 20 years were they kept expressing full confidence in the afghan army and predicting they would defeat the taliban. so complete opposite of what people really seeing on the ground. host: another question is, for those who did train them, what was their understanding of islam and how did that impact decisions in afghanistan? guest: this is another good point. accordingly, the afghans were prepared to serve in their own army. frankly, the united states did not have a good grasp of afghan society or culture or religion. we would train people and have u.s. trainers go into afghanistan and before they went, their redeployment training and background briefings were geared toward a rock and not afghanistan because the u.s. military lumped them together in the same basket. a lot of times, we had u.s. troops go over to afghanistan and were meaning well, trying to

carry out their mission but were poorly prepared to understand afghanistan. we did not speak the languages or understand the cultures. we spent a lot of time spinning the wheel because we did not understand the country well. host: from edward in ohio, independent line. caller: thank you for giving me a chance here. thank you for taking my call. here's my question. how did 20 saudi arabians get trained in the united states and then turn around a year later and attack united states, attacked the twin towers, ok? those two buildings fall and in less than 10 minutes to the ground. then, we continue an eminent war and go into afghanistan and we make that our base. then we go into iraq. when george senior goes to george junior and asked him why

are you there, we have already taken care of this. george junior says we are there for the oil. host: sorry about that, edward. did not mean to cut you off but to the caller point, go ahead. guest: these are the questions a lot of people are raising. they feel our reaction after september 11 across the board did not make a whole lot of sense. i think the point was the hijackers were from saudi arabia for the most part. that is true. so why did we invade afghanistan? i think the original objective was to try to destroy al qaeda. i think most people agree with that. the problem was we got distracted and went to iraq and decided to keep u.s. troops in afghanistan, even though we knew the country and history of not -- country had a history of not tolerating foreign troops as occupiers. looking back over the years, a lot of the foreign policy decisions made by president bush , president obama, president

trump to not hold up, don't make a lot of fundamental sense. host: one more call, from jerry, a republican line. caller: good morning. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: on the afghanistan withdraw, it was not a mistake, it was completely intentional. ever since january, their goal is to destroy america and make china the superpower of the world. how do we get surprised when they do what they told us they were going to do? chuck schumer said in january they are in the georgia senate runoff and will change america and change the world. host: that is jerry in virginia. as we finish up, we talk about a lot of aspects of your book. was there anything most surprising to you in putting this together? guest: the most surprising part

was these total admissions of failure from people in charge of the war, very bluntly saying there was one general, general douglas, an army general three-star who was a war czar under bush and obama and he said we were fundamentally devoid of any understanding of afghanistan. we did not have the foggiest notion of what we were doing. this is a guy overseeing the war from the white house under two presidents and to hear him say something like that was striking to me. it was very surprising. he said 2400 lives lost, who will say those lives are lost in vain? he's referring to the number of american troops killed in afghanistan over the last 20 years. for a u.s. army general to raise that question, of whether their sacrifices remain in vain, as someone who has cover the military for years, i was shocked by that. according to the military, the

troops and the sacrifices they made, but i think the general was expressing his frustration with the fact we did not have much to show for our involvement in afghanistan in the longest war in our history. and the trillions of dollars spent. where those lives lost in vain? i hope not. i think our soldiers did their mission the best of their ability, but strategically, it is clear our involvement in the war was a failure. host: craig whitlock, who serves as an investigative reporter, has the book "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war." mr. whitlock, think you for your time this money. guest: thank you, pedro. host: for the next half-hour about, we engage in open forum. you can comment on this segment or other things that interest you in the world of politics. here's how you can reach out. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will pick up when "washington

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>> c-spanshop.org is c-span's store. your purchase will support our nonprofit organizations and you have time to order the congressional directory with contact information for members of congress and the biden administration. go to c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: you can also reach out to us via text an open forum. if you want to do that, it is (202) 748-8003. yahoo! news reports president will address the nation this coming thursday. according to the white house laying out a six prong strategy as it is being called to combat the coronavirus pandemic throughout the fall. the speech will likely march -- mark a stark departure on the announcements of last spring as vaccination rates rose.

stick close to our website at c-span.org to follow along with the president's comments. the president visiting new york and new jersey yesterday to tour the damage done by hurricane ida. one of the statements he made while visiting queens, new york was not only disasters but relating that to issues of climate change. here's part of the present's comments from yesterday. pres. biden: sometimes some very bad things happen that have a tendency to bring out the best in people and country. i think what people are seeing across this country from the wildfires in california and far west, which i'm heading to and a couple days, all the way to down in louisiana and the golf where i was a couple days ago to new jersey and pennsylvania to a lesser extent, delaware to a lesser extent, and new york.

people are beginning to realize this is much bigger than anyone was willing to believe. the whole segment of our population denying this thing called climate change. >> right. pres. biden: but i really mean it. sometimes my mother used to say out of everything bad, something good will come if you look hard enough for it. i think we have all seen that even the climate skeptics are saying that this really does matter. it is not just whether or not people who are just trying to get by in these homes and alleys here working their butts off do well. it's people in high towers along the shore that find that as there is rain and this change takes place in the groundwater, the buildings are beginning to tilt. 100 story buildings. this goes so far beyond what anybody is willing to speak to

up to now. host: when it comes to issues of funding for aftereffects of biden and other things, the washington post reports biden administration is calling on congress to address other urgent needs, responding to ongoing natural disasters and commitments to our afghan allies and partners. this comes as the short-term funding request comes as the white house also works on legislation for $3.5 trillion budget deal and other matters. you can see more in the washington post. patty on this open forum starts us off with the democrats line. caller: thank you. there has been an expression around all -- around all the time, old men make wars and young men and women fight them. my family will be leaving to go help out in germany at the hospitals there. my concern is yes, we must remember those that died in the

military and citizens -- private citizens, but we also must remember those that did survive with lost limbs, concussions, and citizens also. so may we try to be peaceful with one another? thank you for this program. thank you. host: that's patty in wisconsin. this is joe on the republican line. caller: hello, pedro. how are you? i'm glad i got through finally because i have a lot to say about what has been said on c-span for the last couple weeks really. since leaving afghanistan and the pullout. number one, i would like to give a small criticism to c-span. you guys -- and it is important like the woman said about the people who served in afghanistan. you always put up a number of people who fought in afghanistan or served in afghanistan. why don't you put up nypd or

people lost in 9/11? really this whole thing comes to them, how they feel, how they will. we wonder how president biden will accept or react when he comes to new york for the 91120 thin avers for you. let's get to the pullout. number one, let's remember what general powell said when he was secretary of state. we seem to forget what was going on with this. this was a generational war. he said his children's children would be fighting this war way long after he was gone. this was a war that could not ever end. we had to beat it or make sure we never get attacked again. mr. whitlock was wrong. this is not a loss. were we attacked in the 20 years we were in afghanistan? was there another 9/11 strike? no there was not. that is victory itself. if you remember the number one

thing either ally set about being over there, they were scared as us. host: that is joe in somerset, new jersey. let's hear from steve in missouri on the independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. thank you for taking my calls. i want to know why we are spending all of this money in all of these other countries and letting all of our stuff crumble, infrastructure, you know, helping people out and all of that. the second point is with texas law, they want to get rid of the mail-in voting. the more people that vote, the more people they lose. host: that is steve in missouri. when it comes to issues of spending, axios reporting senator joe manchin privately warned the white house and congressional leaders that he has a specific policy concern with the president's 3.5 trillion dollars social spending dream and will support as little as $1 trillion of it at most. he is open to supporting $1.5 trillion according to sources

familiar with the discussion. in a 50-50 senate, it says that could mean a ceiling for bidens build back better agenda and many priorities like free community college are in danger of dying with this. you can see that from the axios website. we hear from anthony on the democrats line. caller: good morning. what i would like to say is texas with their restriction on abortions and restriction on voting and no mask wearing or mandates. but now the governor of texas once everyone, all of the united states, to chip in for mortuaries because they have no place to put the dead dying from covid. if they can do everything else on their own and do not want help, they should not ask the federal government to help or

spend money. or the rest of us spend money for texas because people are dying. that is my point. host: anthony in maryland, and we hear next from jane also from maryland -- we hear from walter also from maryland on the republican line. caller: hello. this is so hypercritical. i can't see how we have to, especially down in texas, having to monitor every single president now -- single pregnancy now? if i want to preach a small government, i would preach small government. but it is the biggest game i could ever imagine. i do not understand why at every turn we just want to be hypocritical to everything in bidens budget.

i understand it spends a lot but a lot needs to be spent. if we came to the table with reasonable suggestions, i'm sure he would want to listen. i don't understand what is so complicated about understanding how we should all work. host: that is james in maryland on the flipside of the president's spending initiatives , how to pay for the section that is also the subject of the story in the new york times this morning. they say members of the senate finance committee meet this week to go over more than two dozen tax proposals. lobbyists are expecting the top individual tax rate to return to 39.6% from the 37% rate president trump's tax cuts created in 2017. corporate income tax rate will also rise to 21% of the trump tax cuts, though not to the 35% of the obama years. lawmakers say a 25% rate is more likely. even more significant, the finance committee is looking at taxing the accumulated wealth of billionaires regardless of whether it is sold. extremely wealthy americans like jeff bezos would have a decade

to pay a one-time tax on the value of assets like stocks that had been accruing value for years. they would also pay taxes each year on the annual gain and value of their stocks, bonds, and other assets like many americans pay property taxes on the annually assessed values of their home. more on caller: this is roberto. i think -- first of all, i want to thank all veterans. you should allow them to speak a little bit longer than the others because they have earned the right to speak their mind. the calls lately have been excellent. you guys have allowed them to speak a little longer than usual. they are ready to finish their

comments or their thoughts. my comment overall is this -- i really believe that george w. bush was the worst president we have ever had when it comes to foreign policy. the wars in afghanistan and iraq , unnecessary and poorly planned. host: that is roberto in houston. bakersfield, california. caller: hello. i would like to add to that. i do not want to pound george bush because the way i look at it, the whole nation was shocked when they hit our buildings on 9/11. the problem is, he listened to people in the military complexes and they wanted a war and they

did not care how they got it, and they went to the wrong people. they should have gone after the saudi's and not the afghanistan's. it must assess sized -- metastasized. we were supposed to be there for osama bin laden. they are telling us how to run the nation. when does the stuff and? -- end? host: there is a statement from the former president afghanistan about his leaving the country that is being circulated. part of it saying, il the afghan people an explanation for leaving kabul.

i left at the urging of the palace security. even kabul was the most -- leaving kabul was the most difficult decision of my life. i devoted 20 years of my life to helping the afghan people work toward building a democratic -- democracy. it was never my intent to abandon the people. the wall street journal highlights continuing efforts between the u.s. and the taliban when it comes to americans leaving, saying the u.s. is negotiating with the taliban. mr. blinken said the latest indications from the taliban is they would allow american citizens to leave on charter flights if they have proper documents.

more of that in the wall street journal. ray, you are on the air. caller: in 2016, two weeks after donald trump was inaugurated, democrats went crazy. donald trump was not mentally capable of running the united states. why don't someone have joe biden examined? are they that scared of kamala harris that she is going to take

over? she is a scary woman, but we could get rid of her, too. host: north carolina, democrats line. caller: there we go with the gop. if you notice the republicans, they do not have any policy. if you see the policy they are making, it is totally terrible for we the people. the republicans are doing everything they can to destroy our democracy. they worry about afghanistan and they are scared about the terrorists coming back over here and they are scared about a lot of things, but i do know this -- as a black american man, they don't walk out the door and have to worry about an officer shooting them for no reason at all.

we have our terrorists right here. we do not have to be fighting over there. we have to fight right here. they need to stop it right here. we need to do what we did before, come together. host: that is lewis from north carolina. they are investigating separate complaints against four house lawmakers when it comes to the individual investigations, citing a march report saying he failed to disclose dozens of stock trades early in the pandemic worth $671,000. mr. mooney, he properly reported

-- improperly reported campaign funds. mr. kelly, ethics violations involving stock trades. mr. hagedorn, according to the minnesota reformer, they add that october 21, which is a thursday which is expect to announce next steps. from john in mississippi, independent line. caller: i just want to say to america and the world -- this country was built by black people, not immigrants. everything -- the land -- in

this country, they assassinated our leaders. people like jeff bezos making hundreds of billions of dollars, people do not want to resolve slavery. you have redlining. america does not want an even playing field for their black citizens. $2 trillion goes to financial america. i am sick of this. host: we will go to nebraska, republican line. caller: one of the biggest

things that i see on this bill on the daycare and the community colleges. we should give the current teachers more income and more tools so students can go into other universities. it seems like we keep missing the problem and are willing to throw money everywhere except where it needs to be. host: jason in omaha, republican line. caller: sorry about that. host: i apologize for that. this is an open forum for the next couple of minutes. you can call in on matters of politics, related to segment you have heard here or a lot of other topics people are bringing up.

you can also reach out to us. this is harrisburg, pennsylvania. caller: how are you doing today? i want to ask a question about the infrastructure. most of them are union jobs. it was true -- nine of us in the family were in unions. we made out all right. when you are in union, you get your pension. when you are a nonunion worker, you only get one check. this is what i would like for you to do. put that question out there to see who made it better in life, union workers or nonunion workers. what would a person want -- two checks or one check when they retire?

host: thank you for the suggestion. from richmond, virginia. crews hoisted an enormous statue of robert e. lee. it is one of america's largest monuments to the confederacy. the statute was lowered to the ground -- the statue was lowered to the ground. that is from the associated press out of richmond. st. petersburg, florida. caller: hi. i got the information on who killed the kennedys. lbj was the vice president and he was unhappy with kennedys policy in vietnam. lbj wanted to send combat troops.

he was infuriated with jfk. he designed a plan to assassinate jfk, and he did. i was in providence in 1964 when he came to providence. lbj came to providence in his car. host: how did you come to the a clue -- the conclusion that you assert? caller: how did i come to the conclusion? it is obvious. host: democrats line. caller: i wanted to comment on the problem of insurrection and terrorism in the united states. i am still worried about having violence during the midterm elections and having violence at

the 2024 presidential election. i will just say one example. there was an informal speech and he said something about -- there will be violence. he was suggesting or encouraging violence and if the election is stolen again, i think that was his phrase, and he is in the congress. i do not know if it is an ethical violation or not. host: members of congress law enforcement are bracing for central security on september 18 when eight justice rally -- the capitol police are expected to present their security plan this week.

the metropolitan police department is expected to ramp up its presence. this will be from thomas in west virginia. caller: i am a registered voter in the state, thank god. thank god for joe manchin that he is standing his ground on all of this unnecessary spending. we are at $28 trillion in national debt and we will get to a point where we will be spending so much money on the interest of that, it is not going to be paid off by our great grandchildren. for all of these whining democrats that want free health care, free housing, free college, free everything, you know what? move to europe. how is it working out over there? host: that is thomas in west virginia. finishing off this round of open forum. we are going to finish our program with an interview with seth jones.

we are talking about -- you will be able to ask him questions when "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> ♪ this year marks the 20th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. join us for live coverage from new york, the pentagon, and shanksville, pennsylvania, starting at 7:00 eastern saturday on c-span. watch online at c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. ♪

>> "washington journal" continues. host: this is seth jones, the senior vice president for international security program director for the center for strategic and international study. thank you for giving us your time this morning. part of your bio includes time served in afghanistan. can you remind people what you did there? guest: in terms of u.s. government, i was a civilian in u.s. operations based out of

kabul but spent time across the country with our special operations forces involved in activities from the north to the south and east and west of afghanistan. host: during that time, what did you learn about as far as potential threats that afghanistan could prove and relate that to what you are seeing now concerning afghan operations now? guest: there was a period of time over the decade after 9/11 where there were threats emanating from afghanistan and pakistan soil to the u.s. homeland. there was a plot thwarted based out of denver and new york city. he conducted training on the afghanistan-pakistan border in the plot was to conduct three separate suicide bombings in new york city subways and the fbi arrested him in 2009. there were other plots that were

foiled, 2010 by the times square bomber. also trained along the afghanistan-pakistan border. there were a number of these plots and attacks that came close to ring successful in the u.s. -- two being successful -- to being successful in the u.s. we had gotten to a point where there really weren't many threats emanating from afghanistan or pakistan. as we have heard recently, the taliban has appointed its minister of interior. he is the taliban's closest senior official to al qaeda. there are a number of un security council reports that have him at his briefing and meeting with senior al qaeda leaders, including the al qaeda leader. the challenge with the taliban

governing afghanistan, individuals like that in cabinet positions, and afghanistan may start to deteriorate and become a terrorist sanctuary again. that is the concern. host: in the wall street journal -- with the announcement of the cabinet, the u.s. catastrophic policy has gone from bad to worse. guest: the challenge is at the very least, as problematic as the government was that fell earlier this summer, it was still an ally. security operatives did work with the u.s. as the taliban advanced on kabul, they released thousands of prisoners, including al qaeda islamic state terrorists and the situation is -- we have an enemy

on the ground that is running the government in afghanistan and the u.s. has no more bases in afghanistan or the region. it has no friends or allies to partner with to conduct counterterrorism operations and it has almost no intelligence infrastructure. all of these developments, the u.s. military and intelligence communities -- host: we have heard the president say, touting the u.s. counterterrorism efforts. what do you think of that as an approach? what are the limitations? guest: one of the upsides is it requires very little ground presence for u.s. military

forces. when you look at all of the cases that i am aware of or i am directly involved in, u.s. counterterrorism, including operations in libya, syria, somalia, iraq, the u.s. had a base either in that country or right next door or it could fly an aircraft. the u.s. had an ally on the ground and the u.s. intelligence infrastructure had none of that. the challenge is u.s. officials have to be very honest right now that we have none of the requirements for over the horizon in afghanistan. no allies, no base, no intelligence infrastructure. there needs to be a bit more frankness about the hurdles we will have to overcome.

. host: ask our guests -- democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. absent those things we don't have in afghanistan, what would make -- what should the administration focus on? how do drones fit into this? guest: drones to play an important component. a drone that has the capability to conduct -- the challenge is that the closest u.s.-based is qatar.

it is a 14 hour flight that goes over pakistan territory. that gives it very little ability to loiter over afghan territory and that loitering collects intelligence. it can take high definition camera photography and real-time video of images on the ground. the problem with such a long flight time, there is almost no time really to loiter over afghan territory. that is the challenge without a base. the u.s. needs to find a partner to work with on the ground. there are some opposition groups in afghanistan, including one led by the famous afghan resistance leader. the u.s. has to increase

negotiations in central asia. the u.s. has to rebuild the intelligence architecture in afghanistan. host: we are in a situation where the u.s. government has to coordinate efforts with the taliban in afghanistan at the same time the government expresses caution. what does it mean for policy decisions? guest: it is going to be really difficult. there are some aspects the u.s. will need to coordinate with the taliban and that includes getting u.s. citizens or other westerners out of afghanistan. it may also include getting individuals that served as translators for the u.s. military or worked with u.s. diplomats or with u.s. intelligence officials or development agencies. at the same time, there will be limits to the cooperation. the acting minister of the interior is a u.s. designated terrorist. he was designated under the

obama administration when joe biden was the vice president of the u.s. that is going to make it really tough to share sensitive information when the minister of interior thinks something along -- when the minister of interior is a u.s. designated terrorist. host: seth jones is our guest from the center for strategic and international studies. our first call comes from karen in texas, republican line. caller: i thought we were talking about the voting restrictions. host: that was the previous segment. what are we talking about now? host: let's go to rick. caller: how many years did yourself or the government understand that there really was not us central -- not essential

afghan government capable of uniting the country cooks -- uniting the country? i am very disappointed that the news media, the military government and the government, if everybody knew there was not essential afghan authority capable of uniting the nation that we spent all the time and money and all of the soldiers wounded and stuff if everyone knew it was going to fail. host: that was rick. guest: that is a very, very good point. most knowledgeable individuals in the u.s. with even limited

background of afghanistan knew right off the bat that the central government had never had control over the territory that sits on afghanistan. at the same time, we have had periods from 1929 to the late 1970's where afghanistan had a central government and some rough relationships with actors in rural parts of the country. i had family members who traveled to afghanistan during the time period. there have been some rough equanimity between the central government and rural afghans. that kind of a power-sharing arrangement would have been much

better than trying to establish a strong western-style central government. i think it was a fallacy to think that sending large numbers of american forces would ever solve the problem. you are never going to win this from the outside. afghans would have to fight for their country. this is the same problem the taliban is going to have. it will be very hard for the taliban government to control the territory because there is so much bottom-a power in the country -- bottom-up power under the country. the same challenges will be present with the taliban government the just announces cabinet this week. host: independent line, john. caller: my question is, don't you think it was time to pull out because we have been over

there along period of time? guest: i think that is a question that is at the center of the u.s. policy in afghanistan. there are certainly different people that have different views on this. my own, which i published a big piece on this year ago, argues that the u.s. could get down to a position where it has a small number of military forces and some aircraft, for example, that could conduct intelligence and strike if necessary, some bases and that would be enough to prevent the overthrow of the afghan government and a takeover by the extremist taliban. those numbers would be notably smaller than what the u.s. deployed. talking about maybe a thousand

forces, not really involved in combat but could get involved in extremist situations. the amount of money that was going to cost was very little. the sacrifice -- zero u.s. soldiers had been killed for 18 months before the u.s. marines, the sailor, and one army soldier were killed recently. you could have gotten to a situation where it was a very small u.s. presence that was limited in its cost to the u.s. population. that is what the military suggested -- recommended to the president. host: there was an interview with the bbc with senator lindsey graham. is there a scenario in your mind ? guest: i think the direction the

taliban is going with senior leadership to have direct and long-standing relations with al qaeda and with the islamic state and continues to operate in the country means at the very least, the u.s., like it does in somalia or libya or iraq, is going to have to conduct at least some limited operations with some or very few boots on the ground. it is worth noting that the u.s. has pulled all of its forces out of afghanistan but it still has them in iraq, somalia, syria. afghanistan is ironically one of the few places where the u.s. does not have a presence. host: talk about those country surrounding afghanistan. what are they watching for? guest: i think there are some

countries that are very happy to see u.s. forces go. we have seen some of the most robust embassies, the chinese and the russians, they have been involved in negotiations with the taliban. pakistan intelligence chief was just in kabul. pakistan has an ally in kabul it did not previously have with the afghan government. they were generally both allies of the indians. pakistan, russia, china, even around to some degree now has somebody it can work with in kabul. they are providing some assistance to the taliban government and they are happy to see the u.s. depart. host: from woodbridge illinois, republican line. caller: the reason i'm calling,

as you know, we cannot get the truth from the media. they are constantly lying to us. i want to change the conversation. would you be honest with the american people right now, if you could grade the intelligence services, what grade would you give them? guest: thank you. i will focus on the afghan context. i would say the intelligence services of the u.s. were quite accurate. i would give them a relatively high grade. they had been assessing over the course of 2021 the u.s.

withdrawal, full withdrawal from afghanistan, would likely trigger a collapse of morale and other factors in afghan national security forces and could trigger a collapse of the government. by the spring of 2021, some of those assessments were down to weeks or a month after u.s. withdrawal. they were very close to what ended up occurring. there is never any complete clarity when you are trying to project what is going to happen, but there was significant information available, senior intelligence officials, that the situation we get very -- i would grade them pretty high. host: this is seth jones. mr. jones, from a security standpoint, reflect on the 20 year anniversary of 9/11. guest: i think we are in much

better position today than we were in 9/11 in 2021, at least for a couple of reasons. intelligence sharing is better. we have a national counterterrorism center that includes the cia, the fbi, and other u.s. intelligence agencies. there has been a much greater focus on combating the ideology. the private sector, companies like facebook and twitter, have done a pretty good job, even google has done a good job of getting off the platform. some of the hard-core ideology, particularly ones pushing for the targeting of americans and other types of westerners.

i think we have come a long way. you have to be patient over the long run that it is not just when we want to into this thing, we cannot just declare an end to these wars. sadly, some of these terrorists get a vote. as we have seen in afghanistan, it is not over. they have an opportunity now to reemerge. we have some domestic terrorism challenges in the u.s. we are in a better position in many ways, but we need some strategic patients from the government and the american population. host: baltimore, maryland, independent line. caller: initially, your guest mentioned the difficulty of drone based strikes or surveillance. would he comment on the feasibility of having aircraft

carriers stationed in the sea? thank you. guest: that is a good question. there are options to put drones that could conduct intelligence or strike operations. in maritime platforms. the arabian sea or the indian ocean. the challenge would still be the same. it is a pretty far trip to fly from any of the maritime locations over pakistan territory. if you are going up in northern afghanistan, that is a long flight time. still in the order of 12 to 14 hours round-trip. even the option of stationing on merit timing -- maritime naval

platforming, it is a long time to get there. limited time to loiter over afghan territory. it helps a little bit but not a lot. the bigger solution, if afghanistan comes a problem, is to find basing in the country with a partner on the ground, anti-taliban partner, or in one of the countries that borders afghanistan. host: with nato survey role? -- serve a role? guest: nato countries cannot base these kinds of aircraft. host: robbie, democrats line, minnesota. caller: where does he think -- where does where does -- where

does our president think he is going to get all of the trillions of dollars back? he is not my president. caller: good morning. looking at the way this withdrawal was done by this administration, it seems to me that the worst-case possible withdrawal procedures were drawn up and they followed them. it does not make any sense. if that was known, why did we make any effort -- didn't we make any effort to destroy the equipment or bring it back? now afghanistan is a cosco of arms and weapons and people from

all over the world will buy our stuff and use it against us. guest: it is a very good question. the u.s. did destroy some equipment. the afghan air force flew some of the u.s. provided aircraft into central asia. the u.s. destroyed a range of sensitive intelligence papers. they were burned at the u.s. embassy. the u.s. did bring out some very sensitive intelligence, some weapons. not everything. there were weapons, ammunition that was left. the speed of the collapse of the afghan government -- the u.s. military planning for the withdrawal itself i think was done reasonably well.

with a big caveat that the withdrawal of american citizens from afghanistan or afghans that had worked with the u.s., that was clearly not done well. there were a number of senior u.s. government officials who either did not believe, didn't see, and they thought they had more time. maybe a year or so more than they ended up having. you are right that there are now a lot of weapons and equipment in the hands of the taliban and other militant groups and that will be a problem. host: we have seen an untold amount of money being put into afghanistan by the u.s. guest: the challenge right now is whether the u.s. will or should provide money to

afghanistan. with individuals like the interior -- minister of interior , does really make sense for the u.s. to provide significant monetary assistance to a government with those kinds of individuals in it? does it make sense for the u.s. to provide or support imf? probably not. there will be opportunities to aid afghan refugees. in support nongovernmental organizations operating, but there are countries that will try to fill the vacuum if the u.s. does not and we need to be upfront about it. the chinese, russians, probably the iranians, and certainly pakistan will definitely provide

assistance to the taliban government. the chinese have already said that the belton road initiative runs directly through afghanistan so they will provide some infrastructure support. there are governments that are competitors of the u.s. that will fill that. host: bob is next for maryland, democrats line. caller: i would like to thank you for c-span and thank our guest for talking today. i remember an article in the 2001 july/august issue of atlantic magazine and i remember -- the gist of the article is as long as the u.s. is relying on "spies" in places like afghanistan and pakistan to get their information, we are not

going to have the types of intel you would need to prevent a terrorist attack. if we do not have people who are willing to deal with lumps of diarrhea to get the real scoop, we are basing it on whatever our man in havana heard. all of these americans who are stuck in kabul, how clueless were they? they were in green zone, all the millions of dollars that went into afghanistan, it created a big money sink. guest: thank you for your comments. on the intelligence, the u.s. and its allies do have several

types of intelligence that they have typically used to collect in countries like afghanistan. they have signal intelligence, monitoring cell phones or internet or general smartphone usage. they have human intelligence, which collects information from individuals and they have generally been vetted. there are other kinds of intelligence, including geospatial or satellite imagery, intelligence that may come from the broader digital platforms like social media. the u.s. has typically collected and analyzed lots of different types. the challenge in afghanistan, frankly, is that some of these sources, particularly the human side as well as a chunk of the signal side, the u.s. has lost the ability to collect because

it has pulled so much infrastructure out and because some of these individuals the u.s. has worked with have either been killed or had to flee -- or had to flee. on the americans in kabul, you bring up a pretty good point. even at 2021, the situation already looked like it was deteriorating. if i were there, i would have gotten out. not all afghans -- americans were willing to do that. the few i spoke with were afghan americans who had just gone back for a wedding or to see family. they had gotten caught in bad timing. in general, the signals were there. host: we have been talking a lot about threats to the united

states from outside the u.s. what are your thoughts on domestic terrorism? guest: if you look at the numbers, the most significant threat from terrorism to the u.s. is coming from domestic terrorist. that could change with the collapse of the afghan government and the taliban that is directly associated with al qaeda and islamic state insurgents. as of 2021, we still see a lot of active plotting and some attacks from a range of different types of local networks, white supremacist, antigovernment militias, anarchists, and others in the u.s.. the numbers of attacks have gone up. in 2020, there were more

domestic terrorist attacks plots than in any previous year we have collected data that went back into the early 1990's. the upside is that not a large number of americans are being killed because of domestic terrorism compared to the numbers we saw in 2001, over 3000 americans killed. fewer numbers but a lot of it -- but a lot of plots and attacks. host: are the relevant agencies attuned to this as far as been able to counteract that? guest: there is awareness from the fbi, from a number of state and local law enforcement agencies. i spoke with senior officials in the new york police department and they are well aware of the domestic terrorism threats. part of the challenge is these local extremists are generally not members of groups.

in terms of conducting attacks, they generally do it on their own. you're looking for a needle in a haystack because they are lone extremists. it does make it difficult for organizations like the nypd and the joint terrorism task forces that the fbi runs across the u.s. to identify single individuals. host: the events of january 6, how do you see it now? what are the questions we should be asking? guest: part of the questions we have to ask ourselves is how are we doing in dealing with radicalization and he radicalization? a range of social have been reasonable about taking down contact -- content from islamic state, al qaeda extremists.

but how are we doing in dealing with local communities and domestic extremists? there were a number of programs during the bush administration, the obama administration, and even the trump administration that dealt with federal and state funding that dealt with individual extremists that were supporting islamic state or groups like al qaeda, and trying to help with the radicalization. we do not have a lot of programs like that in our community dealing with violent white supremacist or violent antigovernment militias. what programs, what kind of steps do we need to take on online platforms to minimize the threat from these kinds of

individuals? host: let's hear from chris in illinois. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. since you are the strategic guy, i have a question related to that, which is, what kind of strategies can you talk about that we have that lean more toward the diplomatic side as opposed to the military intervention side? if you look at a place like vietnam, where we were and now we are doing a similar strategy but it is not a military strategy, what do you think the prospects are for something like that in afghanistan? what is available? guest: thank you for bringing up

this issue, diplomatic activity. it is really important, and i think -- on the diplomatic side, the u.s. was engaged under the obama and trump administration of efforts to establish a peace settlement with the taliban in afghanistan. there were some mistakes along the line, but there was a peace process the u.s. walked away from. there may be opportunities moving forward. i think the taliban government will have challenges. i think the u.s. needs to continue to push some kind of diplomatic solution. i do not think the taliban in the near term would be willing to do that because they just achieved a military victory. i think your point is very relevant to a number of other areas where we see terrorism

concerns. yemen, somalia, libya. there need to be active political diplomatic negotiations to enter those wars. -- end those wars. there are currently some active peace negotiations going on. the u.s. needs to ramp up its focus, resources to help end those wars. that is one solution or partial solution to getting out of this constant use of military force to get a government that is relatively effective in stabilizing the country. host: let's hear from cornelia in idaho, republican line. caller: good morning. i have so many points to make. i probably will not have time to make them.

don't you think that our overall philosophy as a nation where we go to war has taken a turn for the drastic downturn since world war ii? have we won a war since world war ii? look at korea. look at vietnam. look at what happened in libya. our diplomats killed in libya because we were trying to be nice to the terrorists. we have not won a clear-cut victory in afghanistan because we let those people go back to pakistan. why didn't we stop them at the border? win the war decisively. it is allowing this creeping violence continue. look at the women and children

in afghanistan that we are abandoning. we have not won a clear-cut war and we need to rethink our role in the world. host: thank you. guest: two quick comments. i would say the u.s. has definitely won a number of wars or conflicts it has been involved in but it has done it in ways that is supporting governments. take a look over the past 15 years at u.s. efforts to combat extremists in colombia and the philippines. the u.s. was successful working with the colombian government and with the filipino government. those wars are not entirely ended. there was a peace process still

continuing. it was a very successful effort. it was a huge u.s. diplomatic effort. same thing with the philippines. i think you are right in highlighting that the u.s., at the very least, does not always have a lot of patience to continue to operate in some of these countries. what the u.s. needs to understand is that a range of these extremists, they think in terms of generations. how long is this going to take to make america safer? at the end of the day, the u.s. has been pretty successful in conducting counterterrorism since 9/11. how many americans have been

killed from directed attacks from overseas from countries like afghanistan? very, very few. the u.s. has been quite successful. the u.s. has stopped a range of different plots. the u.s. successfully stopped because of good intelligence and good law enforcement. i think there has been a lot of success protecting the american population in the homeland and u.s. embassies overseas from terrorist attacks. host: where does cybersecurity fall into that level of concern? guest: the terrorist organizations don't have a pretty sophisticated offensive cyber capabilities.

where we do see threats are from state-based actors -- china, people's liberation army, russians, iran. those are the primary threats. host: this is brian in san diego. go ahead quickly, we are running short on time. caller: i think the number one -- the former president weaponized covid. we have 600,000 people dead. the insurrection was a dry run and it is going to happen again. what is the population going to do? guest: the statements he made --

host: the statements he made about the justice department. guest: there were helpful steps taken by the department of justice and local law enforcement to track down and prosecute those individuals involved in the events like the january 6 attack at the capitol. there have been some successful efforts by the department of justice and the fbi to fort -- thwarts plots. that kind of focus has to continue because you are right, those kinds of attacks and plots in the u.s. are not likely to go away. host: california, short on time. go ahead. caller: tell me about the economics of afghanistan. under normal circumstances, are they able to generate enough food to feed the people?

do they make things for experts? -- exports? is it just destined to be dependent on external charity to survive? guest: afghanistan does have some limits. it is landlocked, it is a very poor country, and it does have fruits, vegetables, wheat that it can export. afghanistan has a huge mineral reserve -- copper, gems that can be extracted from the soil. the problem it's hard to do those extractions when the country is suffering from -- is suffering from war. it's express -- it's expensive

to move those on major roadways of the country is sitting on a huge area of natural resources. the one country that has physically recognize this and owns i think the largest copper mine is neighboring china. host: this may be a hard question to ask but because of our efforts in the last 20 years, what do you think the afghan people think about the united states and how that might change under taliban rule? guest: it's hard to generalize about the afghan people. like in any country, they are different. some of the rural populations are much more conservative. the taliban has a support base and it has fans in rural areas that want to see women in burqas and don't want to see women work. afghanistan and urban areas has become much more westernized. women work in the challenge we

will see in afghanistan moving forward is the taliban is now running a very different country than what existed in the 1990's. there are more progressive afghans who if they don't like what they see art going to try to resist and they maybe killed so we may see a pretty serious humanitarian catastrophe or they may try to flee internally or as refugees into other areas of the world. many of them will have to see where the taliban government goes. host: one or two more questions -- sabrina in new york, go ahead. caller: i just want to ask, going to the security, you said about how the national security is ok but what about the vegas shooting? the insurrection was totally disgusting. i feel like there were so many

outlets online like reddit and twitter that were helping the q people get together and nothing was really prevented from january 6. how are you strong and saying our homeland security is so tight right now? guest: my point is that we have had few attacks from internationally based terrorist s. those that noted, there was a serious threat from domestic individuals in the united states. the data shows that. the number of plots are at the highest levels according to data we have published publicly and we did a joint publication with the washington post shows that 2020 was the highest since the early 1990's in terms of the number of domestic plots and the tax. -- and attacks.

i am not comfortable where we are at domestically from the threat of terrorism. there are serious concerns and plots. the number of americans being killed from domestic terrorism are relatively low compared to peak years in 2001 when it was high. host: thank you for your time today. that's it for our program. we take you now to house speaker nancy pelosi for her weekly press briefing already in process. >> we wish them a happy new year. they take turns and we will be ready to fulfill the president's vision. i am so proud that when the president passed and the senate passed an important infrastructure bill, they recognized that