. hello, i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. we're following breaking news right now in the ninth circuit court of appeals has just issued a ruling in the legal battle over president trump's travel ban. i want to bring in cnn paul callan and laura coats, our legal analysts. we're going through the ruling right now, paul. i want to set the scene for our viewers. what's at stake in this decision that we're about to get from the ninth circuit? we earlier received a decision prosecute the president's travel ban. set the scene for us.

this is another important decision. >> people have to understand that the ninth circuit really is where the battle began with respect to the travel ban. and the president issued this ban which is now the second travel ban in an attempt to come up with something that was constitutionally sound and that would have a better chance of being upheld ultimately by the u.s. supreme court. so this will now be the ninth circuit's look at the second travel ban and ruling on its constitutionality. the initial problems that they criticize criticized in the first travel ban been resolved and fixed by the changes in the second executive order. >> and so laura, this is an important decision. the assumption a lot of people assume the ninth circuit are more liberal jurisdiction out there, probably a going to do what the fourth circuit did but

we don't know yet. >> we don't know yet . it's already before the court supreme. jeff sessions and the department of justice did not wait for the ruling as is customary before bringing it to see if there was a conflict between two circuits, that and the fourth. even if the nine circuit should say we don't agree with the fourth circuit ruling it's already in the lap of the supreme court. whether they will have an actual hearing, what they will do on the case -- what we do know however is the president's words likely impacted the ninth circuit decision to how to rule. he had a twitter storm about this. he talked bt travabout the trav and his preference for the first one which included language. where we are now is the expectation that they will rule like the fourth but either way, the supreme court will have its day. >> paul, let's remine our viewers, this is the revised version of the president's travel ban. the first version, that went

down because of course the justice department and the president then came up with a revised version. the president wasn't very happy with 2.0 version. he's made that clear on twitter and elsewhere. but that's the decision. the executive order signed by the president that is now before the courts. as laura points out, it is also before the u.s. supreme court. we have no idea when the supreme court might consider this, right? >> no, we don't know. but i would expect a faster track to a supreme court decision than you normally would see. and of course the trump administration tried to solve the problems that existed with the first ban. they reduced the number of countries that the ban applied to and they tried to take out any reference to religion. because as laura just mentioned, the establishment clause was a big problem area for first ban and that has to do with the government discriminating against a reg litigation in this case the muslim faith. all reference to religion is eliminated in the second travel

ban or as you just said travel ban 2.0. >> and the president is not very happy with this revised scale back version. he's made that very, very clear. he really wanted to steak with the original version which also included by the way iraq on that ban of certain muslim majority countries. iraq was removed and now in this revis revise version which is on hold and not being implemented there are six muslim majority countries. >> when after the terror attacks. he did so after an opportunity he would prefer the travel ban. actually address heads on the idea that call it what you want. i want a travel ban. now granted he didn't use the words muslim ban which is what he was accused of having done on the campaign trail. but it signaled the one thing that everyone was waiting for. listen. up until now the court was poised to decide whether or not statements made by a president on a campaign trail would somehow be able to dictate how

the courts interpreted what their view points are and the policy objects of a sitting president's agenda. when you had the president then make comments as a sitting president, it gave insight that we otherwise did not have. so the cost benefit analysis that any court has to go by is the presidential prerogative to do what's best for national security against whether there is ill or bad intent to try to undermine the establishment clause of the constitution. when that twitter storm came into effect, that balancing act, especially in light of the fact that there had been no national security things had been accomplished to try to trust that national security argument it tipped in favor of saying this was not a lawful travel ban. >> and paul, the art that the white house, the president, the justice department under jeff sessions, this is the president of the united states, he's in charge of national security for the united states. he's the commander in chief. and he can determine who should be allowed to enter the country and who should not be allowed to

enter the country. that's the thrust of their argument. >> that's exactly accurate, wolf. they invoked a statute that was enacted back in i believe 1952 which essentially said the president has complete discretion in this area to exclude anybody from the united states whom he believes poses a threat to u.s. security. and the president in the aftermath of course of the most recent london terrorist attack or manchester terrorist attack was invoking references to that 1952 clause and saying this really is my attempt to protect american citizens from terrorist attacks and he was very angry as a matter of fact that his lawyers had talked him into watering down the initial travel ban one because he said he feels so strongly about it. >> assuming -- we're still going through the opinion by the ninth circuit court of appeals. we should get that decision momentarily, laura. but assuming they agree with the

fourth circuit court of appeals. you have two courts of appeal that are against the president's travel ban, what would the impact of that be on the nine court justices who will make the final decision? >> normally the supreme court takes cases that have a conflict between two circuits, essentially they're saying we want to step in and resolve issues that are confusing to the circuits below or that there is an obvious disconnect between two parts of the country. if they rule in favor in the same direction, that conflict is kind of out of the picture. but i would suspect the supreme court would still want to resolve the issue because that balancing act of the national security interest against the establishment clause is a delicate balance and it's presidential per rorerogative. the fourth circuit talked about the campaign rhetoric should have guided the court's hand so the court -- supreme court may say even if there is the same result we may take issue with

the underlying logic and that is a conflict to us in and of itself. they may still grapple with that very issue. >> it is possible, paul, as laura suggests that maybe the supreme court will decide they're not even going to take up this matter? >> they could decide to reject it. of course they haven't seen the new ninth circuit opinion. i think the interesting thing here is the supreme court now has the addition of another conservative justice gorsuch on the supreme court. now, the court was ideologically split. the real thing i'd like to see and i think most lawyers are looking for is will this change how the court decides a case like this? and one of the things that i'm looking at when i see how the supreme court's going to react is will the supreme court be angry about mr. trump's constant attacks on the judiciary? he's made very personal attacks

against individual judges and against the ninth circuit and even though you have a conservative majority on the supreme court, they are defensive of their institution. the institution of the judiciary, which is independent of the executive and the legislature. a lot of times you see the court coming together even though there's an ideological difference to definite the integrity of the court. so it's -- >> hold on a second. we're just getting the headline in from this decision. the ninth circuit court of appeals has ruled the travel ban remains on hold. we're told, but lets the government review vetting procedures. laura, that's the headline. the ninth circuit court of appeals rules the travel ban that the president opposed when he signed that executive order, the revised version, remains on hold means it's not going to be implemented but lets the government review vetting procedures. what does that say to you? >> as we expected. one, they would say the travel ban cannot go into effect. what it tells you is what we're

talking about. the court is saying listen, there is a very big interest in ensuring that the president can take the adequate and appropriate steps to ensure the national security. but that includes what he has talked about in terms of extreme vetting or vetting procedures. remember this case all began by saying that the vetting that we have in place prior to the first ban even being offered as a premise is that it was insufficient to try to tackle the national security interests that are looming over our country. well, the first travel ban hearing showed there was not a big substantiated basis to say that the vetting that was in place was no longer effective and frankly there has not been any update to it pending all the litigation. so the court is saying to donald trump listen, we know you have the prerogative. we know that you have the right to have us engaged in this balancing test. but you haven't given us enough to tip the scale in your favor to say that the vetting is in place is insufficient, that it must be reexamined and looked at and that alone is enough to overhaul our interest in having

no preference for religion or to ignore the campaign rhetoric and your sitting presidency rhetoric with respect to travel bans. >> so basically it's a major setback. another major setback for the president, for his travel ban. first you had the fourth circuit court of appeals based in virginia ruling against the revised version of the travel ban. now the ninth circuit court of appeals based out in california does the same thing. it says the travel ban remains on hold. cannot be implemented. it does say the government can review some vetting procedures. so now it's going to really be up to the united states supreme court to make a final decision. walk us through that process a little bit, paul. >> well, this -- you know, this is a setback for the trump administration because remember, when the court is now saying well, you can review your vetting procedures, the whole problem with the vetting procedures before was that the administration was saying in places like yemen and somalia,

there's no viable government in control of vetting. and hence that's why he wanted to ban everybody coming in from those countries. so now the court is saying you can continue to vet like you used to. we'll not be responsive to what the trump administration says are the new needs. following this down the path, even though there's no conflict between the circuits, i still see a direct road to the supreme court. this is an important national question and those justices are going to want to get involved in it. i think it will be a first real look at how the new ideological split on the supreme court plays out. will they be supporting trump or will they be opposed to trump. >> our cnn politics reporter. walk us through the politics of this decision. does represent another significant setback? the president had made it clear he thinks he's in charge. he can control who comes into the united states, who can't come into the united states. now you have the fourth circuit court of appeals, the ninth

circuit court of appeals saying to the president of the united states not so fast. >> absolutely. there are a few factors at play when you talk about the politics of this. one, of course, yet again, this is an instance where the trump administration is not going to set the news of the day. this has been a recurring problem for them. they want to pivot to certain issues to show that they are dealing with policy and these things keep coming up, you know, the blows from the court, various issues with the russia investigation that keep throwing them off track. we're waiting for the briefing right now. surely this is going to be a major topic. two, yet again, it looks like a blow to the trump agenda. it's another thing that he's unable to claim he is moving forward with. so these are two sources of frustration for the white house and the president right now. >> it certainly is. politically it's another setback for the president. i want to bring in our supreme court reporter. you've had a chance to go through the decision by the ninth circuit court of appeals and the headline is the travel ban remains on hold.

>> that's right. it's another loss for the president. the ninth circuit court of appeals upheld this lower court injunction. that means that this travel ban remains blocked. they did so on statutory reasons. here's what the courted. we conclude that the president in issuing the executive order exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by president. -- by congress. he said the president did not meet the essential precondition to exercising his delegated authority. so what remains block is that part of the ban about travel. however, this court did allow one part of the ban to go into effect and that's the provision that allows the president and the administration to sort of review the vetting procedures. that's something that came up in oral argument. they are going to allow that to go forward. but the rest has been blocked. all this comes of course on the day that the supreme court is

already taking up briefs on this case. so this is just another court ruling against the president. >> significant setback for the president of the united states. now for the second time his initial travel ban rejected by the courts is revised travel ban now once again rejected earlier by the fourth circuit court of appeals. now the ninth circuit court of appeals. setback for the white house and the president. we'll see what the united states supreme court has to say about all of this. guys, thanks very much. take a look at some live pictures coming in from inside the white house briefing room. certainly this issue is going to come up. the press secretary sean spicer will be back at the lectern. he'll be answering reporters questions on this and a whole bunch of other sensitive issues. we'll have special live coverage. that's coming up. dynamic performance, so you can own the road.

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take a look at the live pictures coming in. sean spicer expected to come out any moment now. he'll likely face several serious questions from reporters including on the ninth circuit court of appeals ruling that just came in against the president's travel ban. it remains on hold. he'll also i'm sure be asked about the attorney general of the united states jeff sessions. we're going to have live coverage of the sean spicer briefing. that's coming up. president's relationship by the way with the attorney general will almost certainly be questioned. is sean spicer today finally ready to say flatly that the president has confidence in his attorney general sessions? he was over at the white house

today as part of the president's cabinet meeting sitting in the room with the president for the first time since reporter surfaced that sessions had actually offered to resign. that offer was turned down but since then the white house has repeatedly side stepped several opportunities to pledge the president's support for the attorney general. we now know by the way that sessions will testify tomorrow afternoon in an open hearing before the senate intelligence committee. the attorney general is expected to fill us all in on his side of the story after what we heard from the fired fbi director james comey last week before that same senate intelligence committee. at the cabinet meeting today by the way the president refused to respond to any questions involving comey. listen to this. >> thank you. >> are there tapes of you. [inaudible] >> thank you. thank you very much. >> let's talk a little bit more about the attorney general's standing in the inner circle,

the upcoming white house press briefing. let's go to jim acosta. he's inside the briefing room for us right now. jim, what are we expecting to hear this hour and did anything stick out to you during the open part of that cabinet meeting? >> well, it was interesting to hear the president say during the cabinet meeting that only fdr has accomplished more as president than he has. i think a lot of historians would disagree with that assessment from the president. but the body language between president trump and the attorney general, it was all smiles in that room. you can listen to this sound we picked up a short while ago when the president was meeting with his cabinet. approxima it appeared as if there was no friction whatsoever. here's what happened. >> it's great to be here and celebrate this group. we are receiving as you know, i'm not sure the rest of you fully understand the support, but law enforcement all over

america. >> great success including ms 13, it being thrown out in record numbers and rapidly and they're being depleted. they'll all be gone pretty soon. you're, jeff. thank you very much. >> now the one thing we haven't heard, wolf, and you just mentioned this is sort of a full throated endorsement coming from the president about his attorney general jeff sessions. this went back and forth as you know all last week. does the president have confidence in the attorney general and so. finally sarah sanders said the president has confidence in everyone. speaking of direct answers to important questions, we haven't got know an answer of where are the tapes, are there recording that the president has with his meetings with various officials here at the white house. the former director, james comey the president has you order was asked once again about. this he dodged that question. he said on friday during that press conference in the rose

garden that he's going to answer that question in short order. of course, when you talk to the presidents who reach out to the president's legal team, there is no question. when you reach out to the white house press office there is no answer. this is going to obviously come up once again during the press briefing. where are the tapes, does the president have tapes and does he plan on answering that question? >> do we know if sean spicer is bringing a cabinet member or anyone else to open up the q&a with reporters on different subject? >> we don't know yet, wolf. obviously the attorney general certainly would be welcome if he were to come into the room. the press secretary, you're right, has been bringing in various cabinet members lately. jeff sessions certainly would be a welcome surprise in this briefing room as there are plenty of questions, but my question is we'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear from the attorney general. at the same time, though, wolf, i do think that there are some critical questions for this white house to answer and what

we have seen in recent weeks from time to time is the press secretary will bring in somebody like the veterans affairs secretary who of course is very important. working on very important things. but perhaps may not speak to something that is exactly the hottest news item of the day in the view of people in this room. so you could see something like that. but at this point we haven't been given any sort of heads up that a cabinet is r membmember in the briefing room. >> let's see if he shows up and talks about labor related issues. stand by. we'll get to the briefing shortly. the attorneys general of both maryland and the district of columbia are filing a lawsuit against president trump alleging he's violated the u.s. constitution by accepting foreign money through his business dealings. >> never in the history of this country have we had a president with this kind of extensive

business entanglements or a president who refused to adequately distance themselves from their holdings. >> the suit accuses the president of violating the so called emoluments clause of the institution which prohibits the president from accepting money from foreign governments without permission from congress. joinings us now is brian frosh and karl racine. gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. i know you -- you're arguing, the government is arguing, the president is arguing that the emolument clause was never intended to apply to a president's private business and if it had then just about every president has violated. why do you think president trump is different from his predecessors and attorney general racine, let me start with you. >> sure l., we think the government's argument is factually and legally incorrect. we think the constitution speaks

quite clearly that, number one, the president is a federal officer and that number two, the prescription that the president not receive money from foreign countries absolutely applies to the united states. wolf, i know that you were citing the government's brief in their rely last friday. taken to the logical conclusion what the department of justice is saying is that it's perfectly appropriate for trump businesses to receive unlimited amounts of money from foreign countries. that cannot be the rule. we contest that it's unconstitutional. >> let me get the attorney general of maryland -- go ahead attorney general. go ahead and add to that. >> thank you, wolf. we think they're wrong on the facts, they're wrong on the law. they don't cite actual payments from foreign governments to any

president and the law that they argued for is absurd. what essentially they're saying is that president trump can stand right here and have his business hat on and take payments from china and russia and everybody else in the world, but when he stands 1 foot to the side and has his president hat on, he's prohibited. the point of the emoluments clause is to prohibit, to stop presidential corruption. to put the president in a position where he can't be bought or sold and their argument would just blow cannon ball size hole through the emoluments clause. >> you specifically attorney general racine, you specifically refer to the trump international hotel on pennsylvania avenue right down the street from the white house as a source of what you consider to be a violation of the emolument's clause. explain. >> sure. wolf, i know you're a native

washingtonian. you know and i know exactly what is going on down there at that hotel. l literally countries are swarming the trump hotel and are fawning over themselves to give foreign country money to the trump business so that they can curry favor with the administration. i've never seen anything like it. i would add that i understand that the trump hotel has hired a diplomatic concierge to further fa ti facili facilitate that kind of business. >> what about in the state of maryland? how does this impact a business, for example, in your state? >> so we have businesses that compete with the hotels in the district of columbia and including the trump post office

hotel. the central point, though, is that if the president can be induced to receive payments from one source, a state, a country, he can disfavor another. and that's what we're fighting to stop. the sad fact is that president trump is profiteering from the office of the president. he doubled the fees at mar-a-lago, his resort in florida from $100,000 to $200,000 after he was elected president. after he was elected president he raised the prices of the rooms at the trump hotel in d.c. these acts are clear violations of the emolument's clause when they are applied to foreign governments. it's shameful that he's doing it and receiving payments from private citizens because he's president, but it's flat-out illegal and unconstitutional when he's getting it from foreign governments.

>> brian frosh, as the attorney general of the state of maryland, karl racine as the attorney general of the district of columbia, to both of you, thanks very much. i know this subject is going to come up in the white house press briefing any moment now. appreciate your joining us. we're only minutes away from the start of the white house briefing. the press secretary sean spicer is going to be taking lots of questions from reporters on a whole slew -- on a whole bunch of very sensitive issues. our live coverage will come up on that.

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press secretary sean spicer expected momentarily to walk in to the white house briefing room and start with certainly some announcements or statements. we'll see if he has a guest that will lead off this briefing or if he's going to just start himself. then he'll answer lots of reporters questions and there are many on the agenda including the attorney general of the united states jeff sessions. he's now scheduled to testify in public tomorrow afternoon as part of the russia investigation. he'll be testifying before the senate intelligence committee. let's get some perspective as we await sean spicer from our panel. we have cnn legal analyst former federal prosecutor laura roots with us.

kr cnn politics reporter and our chief political analyst gloria borger. gloria, this could be significant. we're about to hear from sean spicer on sessions o, on a whol bunch of other issues. >> this is the first time we'll hear from sean since the comey testimony. i think the news sessions wants to testify publicly is a smart thing for sessions to do. we don't know if he'll claim any kind of executive privilege about his conversations with the president. we'll have to wait and see. obviously as the president famously said to jim comey there's a cloud about this and now sessions has been drawn into this. and i thang he wants to probably take an opportunity to clarify that his meetings were and when and his involvement or lack of involvement in the comey firing. >> i'm wondering will he finally say yes, the president has

confidence in his attorney general? >> that's certainly the big question. we have asked this, we the press have asked this numerous times. they have dodged in several ways. the most recent being that he has confidence in his entire cabinet. so we still have not heard those magic words confidence in attorney general jeff sessions which they have to know allows this conversation to feed that cloud and feed those questions. they clearly don't want to put this to bed. >> we'll see if he says the president has confidence in his entire cabinet or if he's ready to finally say that would include the attorney general. the breaking news this hour as we've been reporting the ninth circuit court of appeals has now joins the fourth circuit court of appeals in saying the travel ban, the revised version, 2.0, is not going to be implemented. some vetting procedures can go forward. but it's now up to the u.s. supreme court. >> that's right. nothing breeds a lack of confidence in our a.g. than saying i told you so. i told you how they were going to rule which is why i didn't want you to water it down. >> that's what the president

did. >> so this is squarely in the lap of the supreme court. remember, jeff sessions and the department of justice did not wait to find out this ruling which i think was inevitable to everyone looking at this court and how it has ruled in the past on this ban. that combined with they have now complete nine justice panel. they now want this to be in the lap of the supreme court and it is. they are going to have a balancing testify they've always had which is the prerogative of the president and his right to balance national security interests against that good old fashioned establishment clause. and when the president's own words on the campaign trail and his words as an incumbent in his twitter rants as of last week, those are going to combine to weigh that actually against the president's benign and otherwise ne neutral second travel ban. >> this is another legal setback for the president of the united states. he doesn't like to lose and he's lost with the fourth circuit court of appeals.

now he's losing with the ninth circuit court of appeals. >> which he's criticized the ninth circuit. >> he's not happy about this i'm sure. >> no, he's not happy about it and obviously he wants to continue the vetting. he's not happy with his attorney general. not only because of the so-called watered down travel ban, but also because he believes that because jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation that they may have led to the -- >> here he s. here's sean spicer. let's listen in. good afternoon. as you've all by now probably heard the president is placing a big emphasis on work force development. secretary of labor and secretary of education devos along with the president's daughter ivanka and the office of american innovation have been involved in this effort and secretary acosta had the opportunity to address this issue just a few moments ago at the president's first meeting with this fully confirmed cabinet.

so i'd like to kick it off by having secretary acosta come up. talk to a little about this initiative and take a few questions. with that, secretary acosta. >> thank you and good afternoon. i especially want to thank the work that's been done by ivanka trump and the office of american innovation to develop the proposals that we'll be talking about this week. i'll be traveling with her tomorrow to wisconsin where we'll be looking at some excellent programs. her leadership on this issue has been invaluable. as you know by now, the president will be making important announcement regarding apprenticeships this week. he'll be visiting the department of lab or on wednesday. there are currently 6 million job openings on the united states. vacant jobs that can be filled. this is the highest number of job cavacancies ever. 95% of executives reported problems finding qualified

workers. americans want to work. american companies want to hire. the issue is a mismatch between available jobs and prospective employees job skills. this skills gap is aing partic challenge. it also persists in some of the more traditional sectors of the economy. there are currently 360,000 job vacancies in manufacturing. there are 200,000 in construction. and with the upcoming plans for infrastructure, those job vacancies in construction are only going to increase. apprenticeships teach skills needed to bridge this skills gap. and apprenticeship combined a paid work component with an educational component. apprentices earn while they learn. in the process they largely avoid the substantial student debt that you see with higher education today. the most obvious benefit of

apprenticeships is a good job. individuals who complete programs have an average starting sally of about $60,000 a year. nine out of ten are employed upon completion of the programs. both the starting salary and the employment rate are higher than that of traditional college graduates. apprenticeships are also going to increase to labor productivity, apprentices hit the ground running. when they start a job, they're more able, more productive and tend to be more loyal to the employer. despite these benefits, they make only about 3% of the american work force. this administration will expand apprentices across most if not all industries. higher education should assume responsibility for promoting apprenticeships. community colleges and four year colleges have an obligation to work with students to education them in skills they need to

succeed. demand driven is not new. it's used to some extent in the health care sector. it can be improved and be used in a wide variety of sectors to further expand the work force. incorporating apprentice ships in two and four year degree programs would off students traditional learns and skills based learning. this is particularly important for those students who learn better by doing. president trump has seen firsthand the success of apprenticeship programs in the building trades where he's very familiar. the building trades invest nearly $1 billion a year of private money into the apprenticeship program. president trump has made clear his commitment to job opportunities here and in america. it's one important way president trump willful fill that promise and again i'm very excited to work with ivanka trump and and

the office of american ip innovation as this goes forward. questions? >> so how exactly do you plan to expand these apprenticeships? what is the government going to do? i guess it's our understanding that it's not necessarily you're not going to put more money towards these programs so how are these going to expand? >> if you look in the building trades, there's almost $1 billion that's spent every year. that's all private sector money. the building trades have put together labor management organizations that jointly invest in these apprenticeship programs because they know both on the labor side and the management side that a skilled work force is critical to the building trades. and that's how it's worked for a number of years. i've talked to several ceos. ivanka trump has spoke tone several ceos. there's excitement in the business sector. the private partnership where

businesses come together with educational institutions to actually focus on demand driven education, to focus education on the skills that businesses demanding has worked in other sectors and can work throughout the economy. >> my question is where exactly do you see these apprenticeship? because most of the complaints is it is for low paying jobs and not the higher education jobs that you need and it amounts to nothing more than indentured serve tude. >> that's wrong. if you look at the department of data the the average starting salary for an apprentice is $60,000 for a year. that's higher than a college graduate. i was in michigan at the ford facility. i met with some apprentices at the ford facility. they love it. they love it. let me finish. they love t. thit. they are excited about it. they are being paid a good wage. you see apprenticeships in white

collar positions as well. there are a number of firms that we're talking to that are looking at it for areas like bookkeeping, accounting. if you look at law schools, for example, there's been conversations, even in law schools, about the need for more experienced based education. the kacarnegi aerke came out wi report about experience based in law. experienced based education works throughout all sectors of the economy. >> follow-up if i may. >> one follow-up. >> is your program geared towards the white collar jobs or to mostly -- >> our program is geared toward -- will be geared to all industries and all jobs. the point here is to foster private, private partnerships between industry and educational

institutions so that when students go to a community college or when students are looking at apprentice ship programs in the building trades or in four year institutions, when they leave, they have at skills necessary to enter the work force. in the middle. >> thank you. in the president's budget it talks about work requirements. also congress is talking about some new welfare reform for able bodied people. could this sort of integrate into that at all? >> well, certainly the -- one of the important aspects of this is the port ability of credentials. when someone earns a skill, when someone learns a skill, it's important to signal to other employers that this person knows a certain set of skills. and so the -- i should say the fa emphasis is on high sexual assault apprenticeships.

it's important to have skills that are indicative of quality. yes, ma'am? >> the office on work force dwe development, the president's budget contains a cut in all work force skills programs from the last budget. work dweevelopment is a priorit why is the president calling for that? i understand it's has about $90 bill. how is this expanning what the last administration wants to do? >> let me circle back to the point i made about private partnerships and what the building trades do. the building trades invest a billion dollars a year of private money to develop a skilled work force. so i want to challenge the assumption that the only way to move policy is to increase government spending. what we're trying to measure here is outcomes. and so private to private

partnerships, if industry is in the building trades willing to work with labor to foster these programs, that's exactly, isn't that exactly what we want to see? so we should measure success based on out comes and not based simply on spending. >> i'm sorry -- >> i was calling right in front of you and then i'll follow-up with you. >> how do you foster these private relationships? is there some executive action that will be taken? is there a tax policy proposal? how exactly are you proposing that this would happen? i guess organically. >> you've already seen to a large extent as we've had round tables with business leaders, as ivanka trump has conducted several meetings with ceos around the country here at the white house. and the second part to your answer is stay tuned and listen

to the wednesday announcement. yes, ma'am? >> is there sort of a region or group of people you're trying to focus in on with these apprenticeships even as the president is saying that the unemployment rate is doing well under his administration, there's still groups of people, be it region or by race, by jender, thjen gender when it >> you are correct. so the unemployment rate, i believe, is 4.3%. the broader rate that is the rate is at 8.4%. and as we have had discussions with ceos that are looking at these apprenticeship programs. one of the items of discussion is a way to work with communities that you typically don't see going to the stem fields ask other fields. and part of that discussion has been how do you target those

groups? how do you reach out and it's interesting because apprenticeships help here because they bring students together in a cohort model with individuals who are currently working in their field. so it allows the possibility of role modelling. an apprentice can have a role model that can provide support and can introduce them to the field and so i actually think this is going to be a great thing to expand opportunities to women in stem. >> so with that, you're saying women in stem, but the african-american and hispanic unemployment numbers, particularly in stem, is this administration looking to push also apprenticeships for those communities for the private partnership. >> again, we're looking to push

apprenticeships across the board, all people, all industries. this is an opportunity for everyone. >> red tie. >> thank you, sir. you mentioned that you're targeting this towards all sorts of professions, not just blue collar profession ps. how do you get around? there are laws that would prevent this sort of thing such as the profession where most states don't allow them to read for the bar anymore. how do you get around regulations and laws. >> let me clarify. the question was is this just targeted earlier to blue kol lar and i said no. it's across the board. i gave an example where experienced-based education has been advocated. i want to be clear. the vast majority of apprenticeships are not for law. let's start there. so the question about state barriers, i really think is a

nonissue because the vast majority of apprenticeships are going to be in the types of professions where students are starting out. entry professions, professions you see coming out of community college, professions you typically see at most large estate for your institutions and tr those professions, you don't have those types of barriers. right behind you, sir. >> thank you, mr. secretary. given the advantages of the programs, one of the ceos telling you about why they aren't used more often? >> i don't want to speak for the ceos because they haven't told me why they aren't used more often. what i can tell you is every ceo i have spoken with has made a personal commitment to pursuing these -- the ceos are excited. i attended a business roundtable and to a person, the ceos are

looking forward to it because ceos need the skilled workforce. >> you're one of the newcomers. this is the first time we have heard from you on camera. i was wondering if you could give a broad reading of how you see the labor market. i'm wondering if you could give us your read on what some of the bright spots are with the job market and what some of the challenges are. >> the bright spots are obvious. we have had almost 600,000 new jobs so far this calendar year. the 4.3% unemployment rate is the newest it's been in 16 years since 2001. the number of job vacancies in a sense points to the skills gap, but it's really a fe nphenomena number that's quite positive. 6 million job vacancies means

that if if we can fix the skills gap, there are 6 million jobs we can fill right now. you compare that to 6.9 million individuals that are unemployed and wow. i think one of the to fully answer your question, one of the challenges we need to look at is the labor force participation. the number of americans are forgotten that have been ignored and dropped out of the workforce. it's lower than it should be. and our hope and ivanka trump's hope and certainly president trump just this morning referenced these individuals who are forgotten because they are the ones that elected him through this apprenticeship program, we're hoping to bring them back into the labor force because to have growth, we need the labor force growth. >> what else needs to happen?

is is it tax reform? what else needs to happen? >> all of the above. this is a small but very, very significant part. if you start changing the system to demand driven education where educational institutions whether they be two or four-year colleges or experienced base education are providing workforce skills with each passing year for every hundreds of thousands of folks that go through this. those are all new jobs. there's tax reform is part of bringing individuals back into the workforce. >> when would the skills gap close and what types of jobs are we talking about versus professions? >> when i think is a speculative question. i can't provide you an exact

date. and the second question was -- what types of jobs we're looking to apply this broadly across all industries. it's interesting because as some of you know i was at a university. and i knew a student that wanted to be a police officer. so that student majiddle-ageajm criminal justice. but he didn't have a job. so what would things be like if actually a criminal justice degree allowed students that wanted to have the option of also attend a police academy. they can get legal assistance training. there are possibilities all

across that we can look at. >> two things. there is an idea out there for these cities to require students graduating high school to have either going to a college, the military or indeed a trade school would lead to these kinds of jobs. i'm wondering what you think of that. and my second part of that is to really help us understand what the white house is doing with these meetings with the ceos, is anything being reduce ed d to a e moe of understanding or a letter so we actually get the pledge because i want to have more of a sense of what is out there. so you have it written down so you can go back to the ceo and say you're going to do it and you did it. so explain how that works. >> first, what do we think about

requirements that every student have a letter saying what they are going to do. i'll speak just for myself on this one. i worry about a requirement that requires students to do a, b or c. i think our nation is about choosing. i think you need to respect individuals choices. and you can certainly encourage and say what are you going to do with yourself? what do you want to do? but i always worry when i hear the word requirement because i think we're about choice. going to your second point, i'll say in part stay tuned for the wednesday announcement as to what specifically we're going to be doing. after that wednesday announ announcement, you can certainly expect quick and vigorous follow up with the various ceost and industry associations with which the administration has been

speaking because at least for myself, the expectation would be okay, you said you're very interested in this. let's sit down and let's pen something out and see how we can go forward. one last question. >> can we get you to clarify your answer to julie's question about the budget. when you're saying the president is interested in outcomes and you come from an academic environment, is the president saying that the labor department has evaluated all the existing programs for recommending cutting grants for workplace support for young people, seniors, agriculture, adults who have been displaced. are you saying you e evaluated those programs because they are not working or because the president nearly does not want to spend the money? >> as you pointed out, i come from an academic setting. it used t