Mike Rogers

In short, 'nuclear' still matters, nuclear is in a class of its own, and nuclear cannot be wished away.

The December DSB report says that 'Despite the `peace dividend' at the end of the Cold War, the DSB remains unconvinced that downplaying the nation's nuclear deterrent would lead other nations to do the same.'

The recent uptick in priority for nuclear force modernization in both departments sends a strong message of U.S. commitment to the deterrent, but it comes after 25 years of downplaying (and poorly resourcing) the mission.

The DSB report indicates that U.S. nuclear force planning must do a better job anticipating threats and be ready to respond to them.

Please describe why the DSB thinks it is important to truly flex all of the muscles needed to build nuclear weapons from scratch?

In joint support operations, they have eradicated 13 million marijuana plants. They have seized tons of marijuana, illegal weapons, and so forth, all to the tune of $25 billion.

But the proposed budget for State and foreign operations has rather draconian cuts.

I want to encourage you to talk with the White House people, especially OMB, and see if we can negotiate a number.

My area was ground zero 14 years ago at the outset of an OxyContin rage that raged across the country.

This is their job. It is to go out and collect information on very targeted individuals.

Well, first of all, it was shocking the CIA has engaged in espionage.

I just don't think the administration has done a great job explaining this timeline.

It is not wrong to meet (inaudible) and I think it's really dangerous to try to say that diplomats are somehow all engaged in an intelligence operation.

My advice to them is take Russia as serious a threat as it is and get out in front of this thing and then just start laying out the case of how you're going to be tough on Russia and I think this thing goes away.

The ambassador's job is to meet with senior officials so they met with senior officials in the Obama administration, in the Bush administration, in the Clinton administration before that.

I think that is prudent and appropriate.

That seems to have been lost in all of this conversation.

Well, I think it's -- from what we just heard, I think the Senate is going to do that kind of investigation.

I intend to introduce legislation entitled the Border Funding Act of 2017 that would put a 2 percent tax on those remittances.

I am really interested in specifically how you see that securing of that border coming together, with what technologies, what kind of wall.

And some notion that that whole military command is somehow ceded itself to some politics between Obama and Trump is nuts. And we better get over this in a hurry.

I think this thing is completely and utterly ridiculous, that there's a political debate about a well-thought-out, well-planned -- and listen, if everything was perfect this would be a different world. It's not.

Again, I'm arguing that I agreed with President Obama in 2011, and I agree with the notion that you need a tougher security view.

I just think that it would have been smarter to bring those people in and walk through the process including by the way the attorney general, the acting attorney general to say how would you implement it and how do we do this in a way that…

I would argue probably not. And there were some things to do.