i have to ask if you know if anyone plans to pull a tom coburn and block the bill at the last minute s will pass easily? >> i think it will be unanimous. to tom's credit we found an answer on the 22 million. we found money within the existing agency budget to pay for the clay hunt bill. tom is happy, veterans are happy. and we are happy we are aedsing one of the single largest by-products of this afghanistan and iraqi war, the tragedy of suicide among our veterans. >> do you think there have been substantive -- i mean senator coburn put a hold on it and as you said you addressed some concerns about paying for it. i find remarkable he didn't convince anyone else to vote against this thing with him. was there any objection in the senate last congress other than his objection? >> well at that time i wasn't chairman of the committee. i'm not sure i was aware of every objection but tom was the most significant objection which is why i took care of it. i have a high regard for him and his commitment. >> you have said that this will be the most bipartisan committee in the u.s. senate. as cha

now tom coburn is retired from the senate and that's what veterans are now getting.% nonpartisan thing. the senate has changed to republican control. you might think that would change the politics about something like this, but on the veteran's committee, this is now new republican control sounds right now this committee. >> certainly when you have 8,000 veterans a year committing suicide, more than that have died in iraq and afghanistan since we have been fighting, this is a serious problem, this is emergency legislation. >> that is the new chairman of the senate veteran committee talking about a bill we thought would pass tonight. now it will pass at noon eastern time tomorrow. this small bill, this will pass tomorrow at noon and it will go to the president's desk, and it will be signed into law without a partisan whisper near it. senator isaacson is as conservative as they come. he sponsored legislation to abolish the irs. he climate change is not man made. he put out a statement saying president obama's budget is reckless and irresponsible. but on veteran's issue

tom coburn, a former colleague from oklahoma who chaired the committee that he and i led. but in three and a half days, three and a half days if congress fails to act responsibly 78 hours i think from right now the department of homeland security may shut down. i have spoken on the floor a number of times in recent weeks about the complex consistent, and very real threats that our country faces. we're familiar with a lot of them maybe not all. but over the past several months we've seen horrific images of beheadings of mass murders brutal executions at the hands of the islamic state. some of our nation's largest companies and federal agencies have been victims of massive cyber attacks. they continue to this day. this weekend another terrorist group, the al qaeda-linked group in somalia called al-shabaab vowed that they would seek revenge against the united states and decided the mall of america in minnesota as a potential target. ans i.t. not just these-- --and it's not just these groups or the lone wolf terrorists that we need to worry about. ebola ravaged several nations

tom coburn said we could go higher through his waste book and the work he has done.so we have already inked in here -- probably ought to put that in green. if it's red it looks more like a deficit. if it's green it looks like we're heading in the right direction. we'll start filling this thermometer by coming here every week. and people say well, that's small change. look $5.7 billion is not small change $100 billion is not small change. in comparison to our debt, does it solve the problem? absolutely not. is it at least a start? can we at least not come together and in sensible things like this at least get started in the right direction? in the meantime, i still think we're going to be pushed into a situation by crisis when no longer the countenance of the investment world in america in terms of the rate of return is acceptable because of the debt that continues to accumulate. so here we are back to 2010, back to where we were. i know it's not talked very much about these days. we have foreign policy issues that we have to engage in and we have domestic issues that

another issue that tom coburn and i have a former colleague from hoek have talked to you and predecessors have talked about ad nauseam is improper payments and it has been the highest and remains there. and dr. coburn and i and the bush and the obama administration focus on this and saw the number being driven down which is good. it is over $100 billion a year as you know government-wide. this is the last round we've seen some reduction in payments but not in medicare. in fact we saw a bump up in medicare and it concerns me. and i know if you could just talk about that. are you concerned about what you can do -- your department to help reverse that and get it heading back down? >> there are a number of things we can do. in medicare with parts a, b, c and d, we see some of it continuing on the right path and some that are not. there are some medicare continuing downward trend on the issues of doing better on the program. i think in our budget we propose funding that is important to continue with the efforts and work through efforts and we've talked a little bit here today about some of the

and we need more smart guys like the congressman here, and also tom coburn. these guys tend to be doctors, but we need more smart and trusting people act that to represent us in washington. thank you. guest: well, thank you caller for those kind comments. with respect to executive amnesty, i think you're asking about -- it is my opinion, and the opinion i think of most americans, that the president's memo simply made 5 million or more people here illegally suddenly here legally. that is unconstitutional and unlawful. the president does have a discretionary ability. but the problem with that is that is a case-by-case situation. having to do with individuals that may have special circumstances. but this is an entire class. the president does not have the authority to do that. he has taken it upon himself and he himself, 22 times, has said publicly that he didn't have the power to do that, yet he did it anyway. so, what are the american -- what do the american people think about that? well, the polls are overwhelmingly against the president having done that. and