remember, ronald reagan, bill clinton, george herbert walker bush, they all worked with congress. the reason why they were successful, i include bill clinton in that list, because he was willing to negotiate. no one gets anywhere if you don't negotiate. you're all married here at this taebl. when you're married, you negotiate. you don't -- i celebrated my 35th wedding anniversary. you don't stay in that situation without negotiating. >> there is a reason this is weird. all these other times you're talking about, we were never down graded. this was a part of normal legislation. because of this kind of extortion -- i'll use the term extortion. this is so outside of our normal -- >> van, no other president has had trillion dollar a year deficit. that's extremely important. >> you ran for president. if you were president of the united states -- >> oh, gee, wouldn't that be a dish. >> exactly. if you were president of the united states and you had a democratic congress that came to you and said you got to triple the funding for planned parenthood or we'll shut the congress down, would

we have claimed, presidents have claimed, george herbert walker bush, bill clinton, george w. bush, and now this president have claimed that we possess the capacity to somehow direct or control these processes of change. even though the truth is, we don't have that capacity. the truth is, we are largely irrelevant to what's going on in that part of the world. but if we reach out and, you know, use our military powers to drop some missiles here and there, we can sustain the illusion that we have some kind of relevance. but we don't. >> in your book, your commentary about a loss of the citizen's army is especially germane to what's happening now with syria. it's easier now to go to war is one of the points you make. and as now we think about syria, how do those two come together? >> well, i'd back up from syria a little bit. and i think i'd want to tell a story that begins really back at the end of the vietnam war. a war that divided the country, a war that in many respects shattered the united states military. and part of the response to that war was that the american people de

the first set of debates we did was michael dukakis and george herbert walker bush. he is about 6'3". michael dukakis is about 5'10". every debate was behind a podium. the argument from the dukakis campaign was that if the podiums were the same size there would be governor dukakis looking over. we had to build the pitcher's mound under, behind his podium so when he came out he stepped on the mound and therefore he appeared to be the same size. if you've ever been at one of these debates, it is very cold. it is about 65 degrees because you have the cameras and lights and so forth. i'm not going to mention who it was, but we have one candidate who is a sweater. he sweated all the time. he wanted to reduce the temperature to 58 degrees in the hall. we so we are not going there. we had another candidate who was getting balled back here. we have 7 camera. he wanted to make sure we would not shoot him from behind. there are a million of these. i will tell you one more. we are running out of time. in 1992 we had three candidates. it is the only time because ross perot was i

>> reagan did george herbert walker bush. they all negotiated on the debt limit.ns. they don't want to negotiate on anything. may just be because they control the senate and concede -- keep all this interest device senators together. they know that they are responsible. they know that they do not like it. is going to be even worse. yet they're giving all kinds of incentives. in the latest is to exempt businesses, but not individuals. nine individuals. not only that. tomorrow the exchange's start. individual rights and personal information. it is just going to be open for every scam artists in the world. hard to believe that they are that stupid. >> reporter: the debt ceiling quickly. there is an idea that he would attach a fast track approval process as the top republican on the finance committee.@ do you think that is possible and do you support that? >> it may not be possible. if she has a fast track, that does not necessarily mean you can have a full debate on an issue. to be honest with you, if the democrats every year by doing anything like that, they will sa

the stupidity of this in one thousand nine hundred two when he ran for president against george herbert walker bush and bill clinton era furred of that giant sucking sound from the south and it turns out in retrospect he was absolutely right about twenty percent of americans even voted for him for president on that one single issue. and i think today probably even more would vote for. the giant transnational corporations and the billionaires who run them they want free trade they want the american workforce to be living on the edge of poverty it makes it much easier for them to skim billions off the top and to politically disempower working class americans that make more money and working people make less and the supreme court in citizens united decision and so that these billionaires and their corporations they can buy any politician they want so they basically now own everything from the white house to congress to state houses and state capitals around the country to us corporations like walmart and chevron in alabama and monsanto have been working in secret with the obama white house to produce

when george herbert walker bush, bush 41, ordered our military into action in panama to put an end to dictator noriega, and drug smuggler noriega, that order was issued and our military took to the field and as that operation was folding, then we found out about the order of our commander in chief. this operation that's proposed in syria is an operation that the president of the united states has the authority to order. he has the constitutional authority to do so. and if he had identified a target -- identified targets in syria and determined that was the right course for america, he should have issued the order to engage the military in the fashion that his best judgment said he should. but what has happened instead is, there's been a vacillation that's taken place and he's sought to sell this to the american people while the message and the warning is going out to assad, the red line that was drawn in the sand back during the presidential campaign, it appears the administration thinks that line has been crossed multiple times and if you cross a line, a red line in the sand enough t

it took losing three presidential elections in a row with reagan and george herbert walker bush to givece, you can say it is our candidates or circumstances. three times you got to say you're out of sync with the country as a hole. bill clinton emerges and as a president, brought the democratic party to the center and there was great success. and now, of course, one of the questions is will the republicans lose three times in a row and will that jolt them back. but almost inevitably, once you have some success, you win a few elections in a row, and you get a different backlash against that movement to the center. and we're starting to see that a little bit now. i don't want to push it too far, steve. if it is not hillary clinton, you're going to have some other candidates out there. maybe one of them, andrew cuomo. andrew cuomo is not somebody who has moved to the left. he's been much more of a centrist. you're not going to see jerry brown as a presidential candidate -- >> are you sure about that? >> he's got an enormous amount of energy, but, you know, jerry brown has moved the califor

not even all of those as in panama when president george herbert walker bush decided to invade panamast: sam, princeton, illinois, republican line. caller: i think the biggest kid in washington is president obama. he constantly jumps from conflict to conflict. he pulls out the race card all the time. we got $3 loads of bread, $4 of gas and no jobs. this guy does pitiful jobs. he does not need congress rope to talk us to war. does he not have to have congress' approval to go to war? yes or no. guest: the caller is correct. the constitution doesn't have a dam word about the president's ability to use force without congressional approval. at the same time, going back to the founders, there has been times when president used force without congressional approval. sometimes they write a letter to congress afterwards and say is it okay. sometimes they send a message to congress in advance saying this happens, i might have to use force, which is what jefferson did. this may be the kind of thing that fueled obama's decision to go to congress. there's so much hatred towards obama, if he done a

the first set of debates we did was michael dukakis and george herbert walker bush. ush is about 6'3". michael dukakis is about 5'10". every debate was behind a podium. the argument from the dukakis campaign was that if the podiums were the same size there would be governor dukakis looking we reach an agreement. we had to build the pitcher's mound under, behind his podium so when he came out he stepped on the mound and therefore he appeared to be the same size. if you've ever been at one of these debates, it is very cold. it is about 65 degrees because you have the cameras and lights and so forth. i'm not going to mention who it was, but we have one candidate who is a sweater. he sweated all the time. he wanted to reduce the temperature to 58 degrees in the hall. we said we are not going there. we had another candidate who was getting bald back here. we have 7 cameras. he wanted to make sure we would not shoot him from behind. there are a million of these. i will tell you one more. we are running out of time. in 1992, we had three candidates. it is the only time becau