hello, i'm wolf blitzer t.'s 1:00 p.m. here in washington. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. right now you're looking at live pictures of potters field park in london. a vigile is being held there from the terror attack that claimed seven lives. the police look for possible accomplices to the attack. we're get the latest on the investigation in a moment. we're getting live pictures from inside the white house briefing room. sarah huckabee sanders, the

deputy white house press secretary, she will handle the briefing this hour. there surely will be plenty of questions about president trump's reaction to the london attack. and his twitter rant today on the travel ban and on london's mayor, we may also hear more about the possibility of the president's using executive privilege to possibly try to stop the testimony of the former fbi director james comey who was fired by the president. comey is set to testify thursday morning before the senate intelligence committee, his first public comments since being fired by president trump. let's get back to london where hundreds of police officers are trying to track down anyone associated with the deadly terror attack. as the mayor of london calls on the public to help police do their jobs. >> we recognize that terrorist actually want to destroy our way of life and harm us and attack us. we've got to make sure we don't

let them succeed. all of us have to work together to keep our city safe. the police with the right tools, but all of us giving the police information, making sure we stop youngsters from being radicalized and give them the information they need to reject these messages of poison. >> all over london those officers what are doing everything they can within their pow tore find out what was behind this attack but also to continue to keep our public safe. >> our international diplomatic editor nic robertson is joining us from 10 downing street and peter bergen is with me in washington. police say they know the identity of the three attackers, they have not yet scleesrelease details. w why? >> they don't want the names

getting out and perhaps having evidence changed or hidden. the police at the moment say that they are confident that they know who they are. this is a fast paced moving investigation that they have secured and seized significant quantities of evidence in the property raids they've put into place. they also say they've arrested 12 people. one of them has been released. the ages of the people range from 19 to 60. but at the moment the police are indicating that they will release the names of the attackers, but they're not doing so far at this time. when the chief, the metropolitan police was asked earlier in the day was there any evidence that this had been somehow influenced from outside, the claim of course unsubstantiated climb by isis that these attackers were representing isis. she refused to comment precisely on this particular attack. she did say, however, that the threat coming in the uk at the moment from the three recent

attacks, the thwarted attacks, the police look for an international connection, but at the moment she said broadly speaking and perhaps she's giving us a tip here about this attack t doesn attack, it doesn't appear to be directed from overseas. we've get to get more details. >> we know the three terror attackers were shot and killed by police. the police commissioner also says they're looking for possible accomplices. there have been about a dozen arrests as i point out. talk a little bit about the search and the visible security that you're seeing in london. >> increased police presence on the streets here just in routine patrols. increased presence of armed police officers on the streets. perhaps fewer people on the streets of london than we would normally see, although this is a normal workday. all the guidance from politicians has been, you know, don't be alarmed if you see additional police on the streets. they're here to reassure you.

but for the investigation there is a lot going on that the public are not aware of. the police say that we can expect more raids and potentially more arrests. those people that have been arrested appear to fall into the sort of category that we've seen police do in recent -- after recent terror attacks. they go to the premises where the attackers were last known to be living. perhaps relatives. perhaps friends or associates. in this case the age range include three sets of what appear to be adults, three males, three females. we don't know if these are the parents of the attackers, but these are the people that the police have detained so far. the police want to make sure that if there is anyone else, they say this was an isolated group in this attack, but if there are any others that have been influenced by the same people as any sort of indication that there could be a potential quick follow on copy cat is because we see that the momentum of attacks has increased over recent weeks.

they want to make sure they get to anyone who might be associated with these men and thinking of a similar type of attack. the reporting in the british media suggests that these men have been associated with known radicals. again, this is reports in the british media that haven't been substantiated by the police but that would give rise in that context to a police concern that there would be other angry young men out there who might want to have follow on type of attacks. this is what the police want to make sure doesn't happen. >> interesting. they have not yet raised, i don't know if they will, the threat level to the highest level in britain as they did after the manchester terror attack. stand by for a moment. isis as you know has claimed responsibility. so do you believe them? do you think it was isis inspired? isis directed? or some other group? or just a bunch of lone individuals? >> we don't know yet, but from isis's perspective, if they've

inspired an attack, it's a direct attack. the orlando attack was the most lethal was inspired by isis. 49 people were killed in the guy nightclub in orlando last year. so for isis that was a success. whether for them it doesn't really matter if it's directed or inspired. in the case of the london attacks we don't know. my guess is it was certainly isis inspired. the manchester attack seemed to have been directed by isis. >> if you read the british press as you have, nic has been going through it closely has well, it seems as if these three individuals, the terrorists who committed these crimes were themselves shot and killed by police may have been well known to local authorities. >> well that's not surprising. the manchester attacker was known to local authorities. the guy who drove the car into the westminster bridge in march was known to authorities. atino killed the 49 people in

florida and they were known by the fbi. what's atypical and is they're not known at all. >> everyone stand by. we'll have much more on this story. guys, thank you. president trump weighed in on the london terror attacks over the weekend tweeting out support for the victims of the attack but then the president went on the offensive criticizing the london mayor sadiq khan and unleashing a series of tweets about his travel ban just this morning saying among other things, people, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but i am calling it what we need and what it is, a travel ban. the justice department should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down politically correct version they submitted to the supreme court. the justice department should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down travel ban before the supreme court and seek much tougher -- seek much tougher version. in any event we are extreme vetting people coming into the united states in order to help

keep our country safe. the courts are slow and political. white house by the way also has a press briefing scheduled this hour. we'll have live coverage of that. sarah huckabee sanders will be giving the briefing instead of sean spicer, the press secretary. she's expected to face lots of questions about the travel ban at fired fbi director james comey upcoming testimony. i want to bring in our senior white house correspondent jim acosta and justice report laura jarrett. jim, let me start with you. how senior the white house first of all responding to the president's significant number of tweets this morning, several of them so controversial? >> very controversial, wolf. obviously contrary to what white house officials have been saying for months. we've been in briefings. we've talked to officials over the phone who insisted time and again that the president's proposed travel ban was not a travel ban. they called it a travel restrictions. this executive order that would

seek to block people from coming into the country from six muslim majority countries, they insisted up and down that this was not a travel ban and of course the president tweeting this morning that it is a travel ban, that he wants the justice department to seek review at the supreme court and have it reinstated. obviously that is going to cause headaches here at the white house in just about half an hour from now when sarah huckabee sanders briefs reporters. she's obviously going to be asked about those tweets. the president's top officials have been pressed on this all morning long. take a look at sebastian gorka, one of the top national security advisers. he was on cnn new day. here's how that exchange went. >> the policy of the media, chris it's social media. >> it's not social media. it's his words, his thought. >> it's not policy. it's not an executive order. it's social media. please understand the difference. >> so se bas dtrying to make th

this is just social media. kellyanne conway was on the today show accusing the media of being obsessed, she used the word obsessed with the president's tweets. very interesting to point out her husband, george conway, who withdrew his name from consideration for a justice department official at the end of the last week he tweeted criticism of the president's tweets regarding the propose add travel ban. these tweets may make some people feel better but they certainly won't help. five votes at the supreme court which is what actually matters. sad. george conway going to so far as to use some of the president's vernacular. this is a headache for the white house. it seems like whenever the president tweets it's a headache for the white house and it's going to be one yet again in about 20 minutes from now. >> that tweet from george conway pretty surprising given the fact his wife works for the president

and he was under consideration to become the solicitor general over at the justice department. pretty surprising that he goes ahead and criticizes the president like that. the white house has asked the u.s. supreme court to rule on this revised second version of the travel ban. does the president's tweeting about it this morning jeopardize a white house case? well, litigating this case via twitter complicates the president's legal defense on two different fronts, wolf. first is from a substantive standpoint. lawyers at the justice department having working hard, bending over backwards to draw a distinction between trump statements preand post presidency because the pre-presidency statements talk about muslims and that was a problem in court. but these series of tweets arguably show that's a distinction without a difference because the president has no apologies for what he says before and he is essentially throwing his own lawyers under the bus for being, quote, too politically correct. the other issue is timing. he's tweeting about this case

during the exact time that the supreme court is deciding whether to even take it up and the other side is crafting their briefs right now. so by calling it a watered down version, he's now handed the other side arguably another piece of evidence to suggest the changes between these two executive orders were not made in good faith, wolf. >> we're standing by, sarah huckabee sanders is going to have the press briefing coming up shortly. we're getting some breaking news. i want to go back to london. nic robertson is on the scene. i take it we're getting some of the names of those involved, the names of the some of the terrorists. is that right? >> that's right, wolf. the police had said they were going to name them. what we're getting are the names of two of the three attackers. the police said all three were shot dead. let me just read you here what we just had from the police. the two men, kareem and rasheed, both from east of london.

more details here. kareem, 27 years old, born the 20th of april 1990 was a british citizen who was born in pakistan. rasheed, 30 years old, born the 31st of july, 1986. had claimed to be morroccan and libyan. this is a man who's given a different date of birth here as the 31st of july, 1991. so one of the individuals has two aliases. has claimed a different nationality from what the police have here. one of them a british national but pakistani origin. we can also add in what we've learned from irish police that they are helping british counter terrorism police with connections to one of the attackers to time spent in ireland by one of the attackers. it's not clear if it's one of the two named or the third

person yet to be named, wolf. >> we'll wait for that third name to come up. just moments ago we heard from the mayor of london spooking out on this. listen. >> as the mayor of london, i want to send a clear message to the sick and evil extremists who commit these hideous crimes. we will defeat you. you will not win. [ applause ] >> sadiq khan of london. the mayor of london speaking out at a vigil that's under way in london. he has been severely criticized by president trump in a series of tweets. we'll have much more on that coming up as well. once again, we're oem moments away from a must see white house press briefing.

the president's terror attack tweet storm and whether he'll use executive privilege to try to block the fired fib director james comey from testifying thursday in the russia probe. much more coming up right after this. at blue apron, we're building a better food system. where instead of paying for middlemen, we work directly with family farms to deliver higher quality ingredients for less than you pay at the store. get $30 off at blueapron.com/cook

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the white house also facing serious questions on how they're preparing for the fired fbi director james comey's testimony this thursday morning in front of the senate intelligence committee. will the president assert executive privilege? white house counselor kellyanne conway was asked this question this morning. >> does the white house consider it a possibility that they would try to prevent the testimony by asserting executive privilege? is that an open possibility? >> the president will make that final decision. >> joining us now to talk about the limb teits of executive privilege, eric. thanks for joining us. you don't believe he will exert executive privilege because you don't believe there will be of of a case is that right? >> he has no case. it is shield to protect the administration from assaults of congress. here we have a private citizen who wants to talk.

so it will be completely unprecedented. >> so why do you think the white house is not flatly saying of course the president's not going to exert executive privilege. they're leaving that hanging. you just heard kellyanne conway, sean spicer the other day. it's an open question they haven't flatly ruled that out. >> have you ever seen donald trump give something up for nothing? i think he wants to play this out as long as he can and then try to look magnanimous. >> there are other ways he can prevent him from testifying, namely to convince the republican chairman of the senate intelligence committee to call off the hearing because the president doesn't want that testimony to come up. >> he certainly could, wolf. he could try to invoke executive privilege, make a big show of it. and then chairman burr could say i'm shocked that james comey wants to discuss such private matters and then pull the hearing. >> knowing richard burr, i don't think that strategy is going to work. another strategy, he could just

say to james comey don't do it. you were part of the administration, this is executive privilege. and then comey would have to make that decision. >> he could. he certainly could. i think if comey will think about answering questions in a way that is respectful of the presidency, such as in 2007 when he delivered his riveting testimony about his bedside visit to john ashcroft in a hospital, he was very careful not to disclose conversations he had with the president. which wasn't relevant to the matter at hand. here it is the matter at hand. >> let me read to you two tweets. one they should ask for an expedite watered down version of the travel ban. another, the justice department should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down politically correct version they submitted to the supreme court, s.c. have you ever seen a sitting president krit sicriticize his

justice department for going to the supreme court on this what he call ted this watered down politically correct version. >> he signed off on it not just figuratively but literally. he signed the first executive order. thought better of it and then signed the second. he's really criticizing himself. >> have you ever seen that before with a president and his justice department? >> i have not. >> coming up, state to standoff. neighboring nations cut off all ties from cqatar. why at least one country is pointing the president at president trump. we'll have special coverage when we come back. your insurance company

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one again we're waiting for the white house deputy press second to come out and start taking questions from reporters. she's in for sean spicer today. we're going to bring you that briefing live once it starts. but right now i want to get to another major story we're following. accusations of supporting terror now creating a rather deep rift among some powerful gulf states.

saudi arabia, egypt are some of the key nations. now cutting ties with qatar alleging the country has ties to terror groups, specifically isis and al qaeda. iran state news agent claims president trump is fueling the conflict following his trip to saudi arabia two weeks ago. i want to bring in international correspondent ian lee in turkey watching this. what spark ted this fight right now between these gulf states? >> wolf, it's been brewing for quite some time, but you name a number of the reasons why it has come to head. another one is the [inaudible] which is considered a terror organization. >> ian, i'm going to interrupt for a second. we'll try to get back you to. unfortunately your audio is coming in and out. hard to understand. stand by, we'll try to fix that. we're going to stay on top of

this story. the diplomatic dust that's unfolding in the middle east right now. the latest on the terror attack in london. joining us is the former united states ambassador to the united nations. also a former ambassador to both afghanistan and iraq. mr. ambassador, thanks very much for joining us. >> wolf it's good to be with you. >> it's pretty extraordinary that these arab states are cutting ties with qatar. >> there have been differences of view between qatar and several other states. although of all the states of the gcc qatar and south arabia are the closest because their borders is mostly mohave countries, religious kind of extremists. >> but there has been over the years as you well know a lot of strains been saudi arabia and qatar because they have different interpretation. we don't have to get into that right now. but it's important for the

united states what's going on. >> very important. >> because the u.s. regional headquarters of the u.s. military's central canned is in qatar. >> yes indeed. qatar is a platform from which many of our flights attack targets in iraq or syria also take off. we have strengthened our relations recently with saudi arabia after the cooling that took place during the obama administration. now we are in the middle of this big crisis and ca cqatar is see to improve relations with iran. >> that's really what's going on right now. the u.a.e., the united arab emre emirates they are -- that's fueling this rift. >> the terror rate, the more opportunity it will provide to iran to improve relations with

qatar. qatar may have started it by moving toward iran, but the more it's isolated to the rest, the more likely it is to go to iran. >> what about the charge that was leveled against qatar that they're funding isis and al qaeda among other terror groups? >> i've seen some reporting based from saudi arabia and u.e. alleging that. we were concerned during the time that i was in the government about that. knowing exactly where an attack would take place almost beforehand because as soon as an attack took place, they would be there covering the attack by al qaeda. there have been concerns about the relationship between qatar and some of the extremist movement. right now i think the great concern that they really haven't talked a lot about is that qatar supports the muslim brotherhood in egypt and elsewhere. and i think u.a.e. is also very

concerned about muslim brotherhood. so it's a very complicated situation with various factors playing a role. >> is headquartered. talk about what's going on in london right now. you saw the president's tweets. really criticizing the london mayor who himself is muslim. >> well, of course as long as this crisis of islamic civilization, the rise of extremism, the rise of terror, state sponsorship and alleged taking place, you can't really get rid of this problem overall, but you can contain and manage it. i expect it will increase in the coming weeks and months as we press isis and iraq and syria. they were more like an insurgency there taking over territory. now they're becoming a full flight terrorist organization

attacking everywhere that they ca reach out. >> you saw this last tweet, pathetic excuse by lon dan mayor sadiq khan who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. mainstream media is working hard to sell it. it's pretty extraordinary that the u.s. ambassador to the uk, the acting ambassador, he tweets positive things about the london mayor, but the president is going after the mayor of london at a time of crisis in london. >> we are all with london and with the uk at the present time. >> is it appropriate for the president to be slamming the mayor like this who's got a lot on his agenda right now? >> well, he does have a lot on his agenda and we all need to be supportive of the mayor and of the uk government as they confront these very difficult days and difficult circumstances. >> very quickly, the travel ban, the revised version, are you with the president on this or against the president? >> i'm with the president that we ought to be extremely careful

whof of who we let in the country although most of the terror problems here are home grown terrorists. i have no doubt terrorists are trying to get in here from overseas. i think ultimately the president, judiciary and our political process will come to a balance equation. i don't know whether the travel ban is the right approach. >> the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n., iraq, afghanistan among other things. thanks for joining us. >> great to be with you. >> once again we're standing by for the white house press briefing and what's sure to be some rather tough questions on the president's tweet storm slamming the mayor of london after the terror attack and plugging his own -- criticizing his own travel ban, the revised version and he actually signed as an executive order. how will the white house respond? stay tuned. you need one of these. you wouldn't put up with an umbrella that covers you part way, so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? aleve, live whole not part.

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nonprescription ibgard - calms the angry gut. emira . you're looking at live picture it is inside the white house briefing room. the deputy press secretary, sarah huckabee sanders will be taking questions from reporters instead of sean spicer. lots of questions facing the white house today including the president's series of tweets on the london terror attack, the travel ban as well as formary f director james comey coming up thursday. we're monitoring the briefing room. we'll have live coverage of that. i want to bring on our panel, susan page is with us. nia-malika henderson. nia, this could be a lively session.

first of all dor, do we know wh she's doing the briefing as opposed to so sean spicer? >> apparently this is part of the white house strategy and they talked about this. different communication strategy to pull sean spicer back a bit from doing these on camera briefings every day. we've seen him do off dam camer briefings last for instance. i was talking to someone familiar with the white house and they always want to have sort of a number two person who can step in when sean spicer wasn't available, so this is part of, you know, kind of getting sarah huckabee sanders ready to step in. we'll see what she does today. >> do we know if she's going to come out with a guest first, have someone from the administration as they often do to make a statement, then answer a few reporters questions before she does the briefing? >> they sometimes announce, but they haven't announced at this time. it would natural to have somebody outcome talk about the air traffic control proposal the white house has made or something about infrastructure. but you've got to think no matter who is doing the briefing, what a tough job to be

addressing these series of tweets that the president post t ed this morning that seem quite at odds with what the intended message is for today and create all kinds of complications. their appeal to the supreme court on what president trump has insisted this morning is an immigration ban, something his officials, his spokesman has spent a lot of energy denying it was a ban. >> i was curious if elaine chow might come out and explain this decision, the president this executive order. it's not an executive order. a series of proposals he submitted to congress. we'll see pretty soon whether or not that happens. let me just update our viewers right now on the -- those who have been confirmed as two of the three terrorists who committed this terror attack in london. british police have now named two of the attackers. they're identified as british citizen kareem who was born in

pakistan and rasheed who claimed to be of moroccan/libyan nationality. 7 killed, 36 people remain hospitalized. some in serious conditions. all three were shot by police and killed. i take it the u.s. is deeply involved with british law enforcement in trying to understand what happened. >> absolutely. so the fbi in new york, part of the joint terrorism task force oversees london has been assisting london. i know some folks there in new york had to go in to work when this happened on saturday. for sure, the fbi has been monitoring, has been helping, has been offing assistance where they can. and has really been on top of a lot of what's going on there. it's very important -- >> hold on a second. sarah huckabee sanders just walked in. let's listen in. >> good afternoon. hope you guys had a chance to get a little rest this weekend. as i'm sure you can tell, the president as well as the rest of

the administration have a very busy week and agenda moving forward. meeting events both inside and outside of washington. with that i'd like to bring up secretary shulkin to talk wu it you all about the big announcement with a modernization of the v.a.'s system. as always i would encourage you to please be respectful and keep your questions on the topic at hand and i will be happy to answer questions on other topics after. thank you shulkin. >> thank you. thank you, sarah. i'm glad to be here today. as sarah said earlier today, i made the announcement about the department of veteran affairs decision on electronic health record. normally that's not too exciting decision about a product. but i have to tell you i'm very excited about this. i think this is going to make a big difference for veterans everywhere. and it's going to make a big difference for the department of veteran affairs. i want to say from the outset that when the president selected

me to be secretary, he made clear to me that he expected us to act with faster decisions, to act like a business, and to really make sure that we were doing the right thing to change veterans health care and that's exactly what we're trying to do today. i had told you when i was here last week i was going to make a decision by july 1st and i want to let you know that we're coming back early and that i'm honoring that commitment. and so having electronic health record that can follow a veteran during the course of his health and treatment is one of the most important things i believe you can do to ensure the safety and the health and well-being of a veteran. tha that's why this is so important. i had told congress recently that i was committed, that v.a. would get out of the software development business. that i did not see a compelling reason why being in the software development business was good for vet raerans and because of t made a decision to get to an off

the shelf commercial product. as you may know almost all of our veterans get to us from one place and that's the department of defense. when i went back and looked at this issue very carefully since becoming secretary, i was able to trace back at least 17 years of congressional calls and commission reports requesting that the v.a. not only modernize the system but work closer with the department of defense. that went all the way back to 2000. to this date the department of defense and department of veteran affairs have gone separate ways. we each have separate systems and are supporting separate electronic systems. while we've been able to advance at the costs of hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayers, today we still have separate systems that do not allow for the seamless transfer of information. i want to expand on that a little bit being a doctor.

what we're able to do with the department of defense over years and years is we're able to read each others records. that's auld intra operability. but we're not able to do is work together to plan a treatment. to be able to go back and forth between the department of defense and v.a. so we've not been able to obtain that to this point. and so for those reasons i decided that v.a. will adopt the same electronic health record as the department of defense, so we will now have a single system. that system is known as the mhs genesis system. the adoption of the same system between v.a. and d.o.d. is going to allow all patient data to reside in a common system so you will have the seamless link between the departments without the manual or electronic exchange of information. so as secretary, i think i'm not willing to put this decision off any longer. i think 17 years has been too

long. when d.o.d. went through its decision on electronic medical records and its acquisition process in 2014, it took them approximately 26 months to do this. and i will tell you in government terms, that's actually a pretty efficient process. i don't think we can wait that long when it comes to the health of our veterans. and so under my authority as the secretary of v.a., i am acting to essentially do a direct acquisition of the ehr currently being deployed by the department of defense that will across the entire v.a. enterprise that's going to allow seamless health care for veterans and qualified beneficiaries. once again because of the health of our veterans i've decided we're going to go directly into the d.he next generation electronic health record. let me tell you this is the start of the process. v.a. has unique needs that are different than the department of

defense and for that reason, v.a. while it's adopting an identical ehr to d.o.d. needs additional capabilities to maximize with our community providers. one third of our health care goes outside the v.a. into the community. this is critical that we can have the same intra operability with our providers. our clinicians were very involved in how to develop and system and how we implement it. the veteran of affairs is well ahead of the department of defense in i.t. we're not going to discard all the things we've done in the past. that's how we're going to help d.o.d. get better. this is a system that's going to strengthen care for veterans and our active service members. we're going to be embarking upon something that's never been done before. that is an integrated product. using the d.o.d. platform but it's going to require this integration with other vendors to create a system for veterans

so they can get care in the community as well as the department of defense. that's going to take the active cooperation of many companies and thought leaders and it will serve as a model not only for the federal government, of federal agencies working together but for all of health care. once again, i want to thank the president for his incredible commitment to i also want to thank the department of defense, who have been incredibly helpful in this process and the the office of innovation, who has been helpful in helping us think differently about how to solve problems. this mission is too important for us not to get right. i assure you we will. i'd be glad to take any questions. >> how long in the process? and two, how will a veteran know and feel and experience a difference because of this decision? >> great question. so this is the beginning of the

process. we're going to start it essentially entering into the details of how we would implement a contract. we expect that process, again, trying to do this as quickly as possible. we'll be about three to six months at the latest. and the cost of the system to make sure we're doing this right ask that we have the resources available to do it. secondly, to a veteran, they are now going to be able to have a single system from the time they enlist in the military until potentially they die. one single lifetime record. so there will never be a need to go back and forth and say records aren't there for me or my doctor isn't able to have input into what the department of defense is doing and our community partners need that same type of inner operability. as you know, my top clinical priority is to reduce veteran suicide. one of the areas we have

identified is a gap in the transition. when you leave the military, you no longer have the structure that you were used to, and what happens to you before you get enrolled into va health care or community health care. that no longer is going to happen. we're going to have a seamless ability to make sure that information is there. so to a veteran who is experiencing e emotional disorders, when they reach out for help, it's going to be easier to get them help. for other people who have physical problems, that same information is going to be there. >> you're waving competitive bidding through this. do you have a ballpark estimate of how much it's going to cost and is that factored into your current budget? >> we have not it begun the negotiations. the department of defense had a contract. we have not begun the negotiations. part of the reason why i have to wave that process is i ab

sloutly believe and i've spent a lot of time reviewing the materials. it is in the public interest to move quickly. and i also believe we can do this cheaper for the taxpayers by essentially moving forward quickly without a lengthy process. >> secretary, you were part of the last administration. you were deputy va secretary. is there a particular reason why this process which you're announcing today did not take place during the obama administration? did you drop the ball? if you could, explain a little bit about that. >> this is one of those problems that i talked about last week with all of you. and it's been going on for decades. i can count no fewer than seven commissions that have recommended that e we move in a direction like this. the commission on care, which was a a $68 million study came out with this recommendation. i think people felt this was a

direction they should be moving in. so we consider this and e we looked at a number of things. and i think that it really was this administration and the president's mandate to do business differently that allowed us to move forward with this type of speed. >>. >> the same question was with the white house was involved. >> so two questions, one is about the timing. when does a veteran begin to experience this. that's what we're going to be determining the time line during this period when we rolled out. i do believe and everything that i'm doing is trying to act with speed that working with the department of defense and already using their planning

materials and change management tools, we will be able to do this much faster than if we had done it alone. the department of defense has taken a period of time before they have implemented their first system and the air force base which has been successful. but i think we will be able to do ours faster than they did. thanks again to secretary mattis and the department of defense, they have actually detailed over to us some of their key executives who have worked on their project. they now are at va and helping us actually begin this. so we have institutional knowledge that's considerable. the second question with who at the white house is working with us. i will tell you that in this decision, i not only reviewed large numbers of reports, independent management reports that we had consultants come in to help us, but i have consulted with all the stake holders i could. hospital ceos, members of

congress and people at the white house to be able to talk to all the stakeholders to make this decision. we have talked with the president's office, but also working closely with the american office of innovation and all of those stakeholders that contributed to my thinking. >> during the bush years, there was a a problem with the computers when it came to medicaid and medicare. what are the guarantees when you try to bring all integrate all the information from all the services into this one system? what are the guarantees? >> no guarantees, high risk process, particularly when you're doing this in the largest integrated health system in the country. so this is high risk. it's one of the reasons i made this decision. i think by going with the department of defense system, we are lowering our risk because we have a federal partner who has already gone through this process and that's why we're taking their expertise and putting it in the va and again with secretary mattis's

commitment to work closely, we're lowering the risk. but as a private sector ceo, i have done this several times, but never on this scale, so the risks are there. . we're going to make sure we do this the right way. >> what happens to those older veterans who have problems? you're doing this now trying to sbe grit this. what happens to those who have been this the system for a long time. where do they come in and how long will this take to help them get into the system. >> there's a problem that many health care organizations that have to transition to other electronic health rorlds rorlds have found. so you have to have a way of making sure the old information is there transitions into a new system or remains available for clinicians to have so that's a problem that we're going to be pretty good at handling. some of our consultants have

looked at the issue of off the shelf versus staying with maintenance. have helped us lock at the cost benefit decision. that was part of my decision. this is essentially the most cost effective way to go to a commercial off the shelf system. the problem with what va has been doing, we have $4.1 billion budget in i.t. 70% is maintaining our current systems. our systems are getting older. the band-aids are getting harder to hold the system together. each year i believe we'll get more and more expensive to modernize our own system. we aren't able to keep the type of people we want. so i think the best cost benefit decision for taxpayers and veterans is to move to an off the shelf system. >> so you're talking about an off the shelf system, not developing new software. so the security -- the biggest problem is security. >> one of the reasons, again,

why i chose to go this route is because of cyber security. the department of defense has already invested in such high cyber security standards. those are the standards that we need to be able to assure privacy and security for our veterans. that's part of the reason why we're doing this. just to be clear, we are adopting an off the shelf system. but as i mentioned before, we're also embarking upon something nobody has done before. because of the problem the commercial systems don't talk together. we need them to talk together. many of our patients are out in the community and our academic partners, many of them use many system ises. so we're creating something that is taking the best of what's off the shelf, but also creating something that doesn't exist today. >> a couple things. the only thing that congress needs to get involved with is

the appropriations, yes or no? >> yes. >> don't know what you're going to be asking for so it's not built in the budget, but it will be higher than $4 billion? >> i would love to do it for less, but that would be unrealistic. >> you don't have a ballpark? >> yes. >> is that going to hamper the appropriations if you want a three to six-month timeframe to be able to initiate what you're doing? >> we have already begun to engage starting today with the appropriations leadership in both senate and the house. and i will tell you that this is something that congress has been asking for. i believe that they will support this. this has to be a dialogue between us. they have to make sure that we're making the decision at the benefit of the taxpayers as well as veterans and active service members. but i do believe we'll have the leadership and the partnership to get us there. >> just to clarify, if this is an off the shelf system, this is not a low bid process. that's why