mr. vitter: i ask to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: and i have 12 unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unan i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these reports be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: madam president, i again suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. peters: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. peters: thank you, madam president.last week i was proud to host sa hasan jabber at the state of the union address. he's the director for economic and social services founded in 1971 in dearborn, michigan. access is the largest arab-american human services nonprofit in the united states providing health and wellness, education, employment and youth services in its local

communities. including support for refugees settling in america. hasan is a community leader and just one example of the many individuals that make up michigan's vibrant arab-american community, including some of the most patriotic people i know, whose contributions to our culture and our economy are invaluable. that is why i'm so concerned about the legislation that we will be debating later today which would impose significant barriers on our efforts to assist refugees fleeing violence and persecution in iraq and syria. i'm a member of the senate homeland security and government affairs committee and last november we held a hearing on refugee resettlement. we heard about the strict security checks involved in the refugee admissions program which can take 18 to 24 months. the refugee admissions program subjects refugees to the highest level of security checks of any

category of any traveler coming into the united states. they are screened by the national counterterrorism center, the f.b.i., the department of homeland security and the department of defense, as well as other agencies. refugees considered for resettlement to the united states are subjected to biometric and biographic checks, as well as a lengthy in-person interview, all of which is conducted while the refugees are overseas, outside of the united states. refugees are even required to repay loans to the international organization for migration to cover the cost of and medical screening. at the same hearing last november, we also heard how the refugee admissions program prioritizes "the" most vulnerable refugees, including widows with children, victims of torture and trauma, persecuted religious minorities, and those who face death threats if they return home.

these cases are our country's top priority for resettlement. i saw this for myself last -- actually earlier -- or last year, at the end of last year when i had an opportunity to travel to the middle east with senator murphy and meet members of this vulnerable population. visiting zatari camp in jordan, i saw the scale of the crisis that the world faces. talking to just some of over 80,000 refugees at that camp who are only a small fraction of the 11.6 million people who have been displaced from their homes over the past 4 1/2 years during the brutal civil war in syria. it is clear that none of those refugees were there by choice and before anything else they just wanted to return home. in the end, however, returning home is not something that's going to happen. they are not going to be able to return to the life that they had before and they want to --

certainly don't want to have a very dangerous journey to escape violence and security by going far away. but unfortunately the possibility of their safe return is unlikely any time in the near future. they struggle to survive every day and they persevere. many have been vetted by the u.n. as people who have -- are qualified to resettle as refugees in countries like ours because they simply can't return home. the refugees i met are struggling to live on 50 cents a day to buy food and have only one propane bottle to provide cooking fuel for an entire month. and unfortunately much of that aid is slated to end in the next couple of months. the people in the camp live on the edge of having nothing and they rely on humanitarian aid to get by on a day-to-day basis. they are thankful but in the end they are living in limbo, waiting and hoping for an interview with a u.s. official.

today at the homeland security committee hearing, we focused on isis's goals and ideology. we heard from experts that the united states should continue to welcome refugees. proposals to block refugees based on their religious beliefs plays into the narrative that the united states and muslims across the globe are in direct conflict. we heard that those who have left isis territory describe it as -- quote -- "a living hell," and if we do not accept refugees, it harms our standing in the world and actually will weaken our national security. the safety and security of the american people is always my top priority, but policies which alienate and divide targeted at vulnerable victims of terror and violence do not support that mission. i'm hopeful that this body will focus our efforts on the very real threat posed by terrorism

and extremism and not by imposing unnecessary barriers that will prevent us from assisting the victims fleeing violence. i hope that we can stay true to the american value that make our country great. madam president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. a senator: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: madam president, i rise today to kick off a series of speeches where i will come to the floor on a regular basis to talk about issues affecting americans and propose ways to solve the challenges we face. these speeches will cover a variety of topics but they will

all link back to the fundamental theme of our "we, the people" democracy. in the summer of 1787, a group came together of patriots, farmers, scholars. they gathered in philadelphia. and after four months of fierce debate and enduring compromise, they agreed to a set of ideas and a system of governance. they signed their names to a document, our constitution, that has guided our nation's progress for over two centuries. they began that constitution, that key document with three simple words on parchment. three simple words, "we, the people." and with that, they launched our experience in democratic governance. the founders wrote this phrase in beautiful script 10 times the size of the rest of the docume

document, as if to say, this is what it is all about, this is what america will be about, governance for we, the people. they did not say at the start of this document, "we, the titans of industry." they did not say, "we, the titans of commerce." they did not say, "we, the rich and powerful." but "we, the people." as president lincoln summarized, the genius of our governance is it is of the people, by the people, and for the people. with this guiding light, america has been a great nation because of our "we, the people" principle, we insisted on a better, fairer and freer nation for all citizens. because "we, the people"

demanded that all americans deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. because "we, the people" never stopped reaching for greater prosperity and growth to the benefit of all. in order to address the challenges of our time, we must recapture this "we, the people" spirit. we must set aside politics in favor of progress. we must reform a broken system that favors the interests of the wealthy and well-connected over the interests of the american people. that is the framework, the theme that my regular floor speeches will be about. here in this senate chamber, our priority should be to build an economy and a governance that works for working people. and that, as hubert humphrey argued, a governance that delivers for those in the dawn of life, in the twilight of life and those in the shadows.

we all know i think that our success is not measured by a soaring stock market. america is succeeding when a mom can earn enough to worry about -- to not worry about where her kids' next meal is coming from. when schools nurture the mind and character and create a spirit of every child. when college is affordable to every family. when each individual in our nation has peace of mind through access to quality and affordable health care. when no american who works full time lives in poverty. and when our economy creates good-paying jobs for american workers here in america rather than shipping those jobs overseas. to achieve these ends, we have a

lot of work to do. we had after world are war two three golden decades from 1945-1975. the middle class gained enormously in size and prosperity. and during that period, the bottom 90% received approximately 70% of all income growth. but from 1975 till now, 2015, we've had four decades in which working americans' experience has been flat or declining. what a difference from the three golden decades where workers fully shared in the prosperity they helped create and the last four decades, when they have not shared. indeed, over those decades, they received close to zero percent of all income growth. or to put it differently,00 100% of income growth went to the top 10% of americans.

we know that our families and our economy will never reach their full potential if growth only benefits those at the very top. if the growth is, at best, trickle down, coming from the top down and not from the middle out. so let's commit to changing the direction we're on, to re-create an economy more similar to those three golden decades after 1945, after the end of world war ii, putting people back to work, rebuilding america's crumbling roads and bridges. raising the minimum wage so that anyone who works hard can make ends meet. and keeping a cop on the beat to block predatory schemes preying on the middle class. we have a lot to do to tackle the greatest challenge facing human civilization, saving our planet from the ravages of climate change. today it was announced, as anticipated, the final results

are in and 2015 is the warmest year on record. and this warmth and the changing weather is having profound consequences on our forestry, on our fajr, on our fishing. all of these manifested in my home state of oregon and virtually every state represented in this chamber. so we have to have a we the people movement to take on the oil and the coal billionaires, cut carbon pollution and pivot rapidly to a clean energy economy. and we certainly have a lot of work to do to make sure that folks who work hard all their lives can achieve a dignified and secure retirement as we watch the pensions in the private workplace melt away, slipping through our hands. we must set our children up for success and expand the promise of education, ensuring that our schools meet the demands of a new age and that all students can attend college without the fear of crushing debt.

now to achieve these things through legislation is certainly possible. we can envision the pathway for each and every one of these objectives. but we can't do it if this chamber is essentially owned by the titans of commerce and industry. and that, unfortunately, is what happened in 1976 when the supreme court, under buckley versus valeo said that individuals can spend unlimited sums in the public marketplace and can do so even if they are drowning out the voices of the rest of america. certainly a situation in which the 1% can drown out the voices of the 99% is not a "we the people" democracy. it is the opposite. it is "wye the titans -- it is we the titans democracy. it is decisions made by and for

the very best off. not decisions by and for the people of the united states of america. this misguided 1976 decision sits right at that pivot point between the three golden decades from 1945 to 1975 and the last four decades of failed economic policy with workers' outcomes being flat or declining. and this decision was doubled down on the supreme court just a few years ago in the citizens united decision which said not only individuals but corporations would be treated the same. they could use their combined assets, even if they have never disclosed to the owners of the corporations, the stockholders, how they intended to spend funds putting billions of dollars in play with a few people sitting in a board room completely shielded from any public witness. so that is why we have to change

campaign finance as a way to reclaim our we the people democracy, to reclaim our constitution, to fend off the titans who are in insisting on grabbing everything for the few and not for the benefit of the public, the 90%. we have to continue to look for ways to restore hope for our working families and ensure opportunity for each, to protect the middle class, empower the middle class from forces that are threatening to overwhelm them. to build an economy where everyone is sharing in economic prosperity they are helping to create. the bottom line is we have to make a choice about the kind of country we want to live in. i don't choose a country in which the rules are made by and for the very few at the top. i choose a country embedded in

the first three words of our constitution where decisions are made by and for the people of our nation. i choose a country that honors these founding principles, that comes together to tackle the big challenges, that works not for the 1% or the 10%, but for 100% of americans. let us reclaim our we the people democracy, our we the people vision and set our nation back on track. thank you, madam president, and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: i would ask we viscerate the quorum call and stand in recess under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. the senate stands in recess until 2:15.

>> it is nice and warm in here. i'm barbara bodine, founded in

1978, mission is to bring together diplomats, practitioners, scholars to explore a wide-range of global challenges and the evolving demands of diplomatic state craft. the purpose is to better understand the nexus between fairy and practice and between scholar and practitioner and the critical role of diplomacy as the national security tool in both as formulation and in implementation. the institute hosts a number of events and lectures throughout the academic year including the very prestigious lecture in. [speaking in native tongue] policy and diplomacy. began in 1976, predates the institute, the lectures

commemorate mr. and mrs. iden. practically one of the first. past speak internal revenue service -- speakers include george h.w. bush, george tenant, the late sandi berger among many others. this year it is the institute's pleasure to partner with the institute of politics and public service at the school of public policy to prevent a moderated conversation with mr. ben rhedoes for speech writing. the topic this afternoon is

national security and mr. rhodes see speech writing and global engagement. in a sense he does complete his eighth state of the union address and his also responsible for many of the president's more memorable domestic and global speeches. previous he served as deputy director of white house speech writing and a senior speech writer for the obama campaign. prior to working for obama for america he worked with hamilton, a previous presenter where he helped the iraq study group in recommendations of the 9/11 commission. his coauthor hamilton without the precedent, the inside story of 9/11 commission. a native of new york city and

mets fan, i was told to mention, ben has a ba from rice university and msa from new york university. he's perhaps best known for channeling president obama's voice and served as one of the longest and closest advisers given the role in the many national security decisions of this administration, we decided this -- this year to present the leakture in an -- lecture in a format as it works at the white house. a moderated conversation is always far more interesting when the participants have an interesting rapport, so two who have worked with mr. rhodes in different capacities will moderate today's discussion.

bernadette meehan, fellow, from the foreign service. she most recently served as special assistant to the president of national security affairs and spokesperson for the national security council where she worked for mr. rhodes, prior to the nfs she served at the state department as secretary hillary clinton. at the u.s. consolate in dubai and the embassy in bogotá. she was selected at the colin powell fellow which recognizes promising leaders of the department of state. prior to foreign service she was vice president of private banking at jpmorgan and asset management at lehman brothers. she's the founding executive director of institute of public

service. before launching the institute he spent nearly two years as one of the top communication strategist in the party. he is a veteran of four presidential campaigns, he's a political strategist for four former united states senators and two former governors and has advise on expenditure campaign, independent campaign, i can't quite do this one, independent expenditure campaign of both the dccc and the dscc which he will translate later upon request. [laughter] >> and he has worked on numerous other states and local races. he's a founding partners in who of washington's political consulting firms and as a frequent commentator on tv. mo has undergraduate degree of

foreign service and ma in political management from the george washington university. we have a great program today, i am very glad you are all able to join us and with that, i am turning this over to bernadette. >> thank you, barbara. i had the privilege of working for ben three years at the white house and really felt that you were one of the best boozes i had ever worked for. when i was thinking about going to the white house, i wasn't sure whether it was going to be the right fit. jay sullivan was the deputy chief of staff, if you have an opportunity to work for ben rhodes. it doesn't matter what the position is, what you will be doing, you are to seize the opportunity. he is one of the best people you have worked for. he was correct and a fantastic experience. i'm happy to be able to share with georgetown students who it

was like. we thought we would start with mix of news of the day, see how it is to channel the president, what your experience has been like. to start off, if you could walk us through what is your typical day at the white house, to the extent there's a typical day at the white house? what happens when you sit in your desk and leave late at night? >> you must have forten in the several months since you left there's no such thing as a typical day at the white house, but i guess the best i could do is, you know, i will get in the morning and i receive the president's daily briefing, so as you know, the president's dilly briefing. those who participate get briefing as soon as we get into work. you start the day with generally -- usually not a lot of good news in that briefing, so it's a

-- it's start of the day. then usually we reserve the 9:00 o'clock slot to coordinate across the government on what the most important messaging and congressional national security issues are, for instance, this morning, we had a session on iran to review the status of all the different pieces of that many events had ruled out over the weekend. you recall those sessions. >> i remember them fondly. >> then we tend to have the president's daily briefing and that will be susan rice and the deputy national security adviser, lisa, myself and the vice president when he's in town. and so that's always fairly normal. but then the rest of the day it tends to be driven by several different things. one is in my role i participate

in the deputies and principle's committee which essentially are the policy-making bodies of the government. so the various deputies from across the state department, the treasury department, intelligence community, they will meet or an issue is for some decision, cabinet levels will meet. i don't go to all of the sessions because if i did, that's all i would do. that's a routine of policy making. that's one thing that could take up my time. the other elements are mainly if there's a mayor presidential engagement. if the president is going on a foreign trip, what is his schedule, what policy are we trying to get across the goal line to announce, what speeches he has to give, thinking through big presidential items, a trip, announcement, a speech, that is something that will consume a

fair amount of my time. if there is a very hot button-pressing issue, there are no doubt going to be decisions that have to be made during the course of the day. so a situation like we had over the last several days, i will cancel my schedule and do nothing but deal with iran. so you're either doing planning for the next big thing that's coming or you are responding to and from the fire-hose events. so overseeing the public diplomacy of the government are exchange programs, are global outreach, that takes up a segment of time and then lastly, i have a series of issues that i've essentially taken some degree of ownership of, cuba and

berma policy. so, you know, occasionally checking in on things like that. but, you know, you always start the day the same way but ends up in a day -- >> what is a typical ending of a day, a good day new york city surprises, what time are you at home? >> it's not good amused to hear your biography at jpmorgan, i'll go in at 8:00 but i will be out of at 8:00, hopefully you can get out at 7:00. i have a young daughter. the problem is it doesn't stop when you go home. the challenge in these jobs is not so much the total kind of hours logged at the office, instead if something happens at

10:00 o'clock at night you are expected to be able to deal with that at 10:00 o'clock at night. if something happens at 2:00 in the morning, you are expected to deal with it at 2:00 in the morning. i long had planned to go to new york last weekend, that obviously didn't happen. so the more difficult challenge i find in terms of time management and, you know, kind of your own knowledge is that you're never off. it's like being a doctor or something, the phone could ring in the middle of the night and that's all -- nobody is going to care that, you know, you had to pick your kid up from day care, so that's where i think the time pressure comes. >> how do you consume information. in the morning you come in and get the president's brief. are you a physical newspaper reader, do you have an ipad, you're searching twitter and how do you maintain that throughout the day? >> it's a good question. i consume information in very

distorting and unhealthy way and i have for ten years and mo can attest to this. the first day i went to work on the obama campaign, i actually was not -- for all the kind of political, i was a think tank person. i was from the wilson center so i expected to come and write policy speeches and be the thoughtful inspiring experience, the first day i got my e-mail i had 400 e-mails and 370 emails are press clips, the latest of "the new york times" t washington post story, the whatever it is. so you consume information, you know, i used to be a physical newspaper reader, magazine reader, et cetera, but when you're in these jobs, information is fed to you from media monitors who are just

sending volumes of information to you. that has evolved in the time in government. it used to be wake up and there's a routine. here are the wall street journal stories, here are the washington journal. it's a very distorting thing because, you know, a newspaper actually is helpful filter because you can see what's on the front page of "the new york times", but, you know, when you get the front page article of "the new york times" e-mailed to you and the next thing it might be e-mail today you is at rocket man 72 says, there are a bunch of idiots in iran. you have to assign relative volleyball to what you're consuming and twitter has

accelerated what was already a new cycle wherein i felt there was a trap where people were too focused on, you know, a cable news flairup and people were responding to that because it's driving the conversation in washington for a few hours. if that was already a problem, twitter has accelerated that. oh, my god, what are we going to do about this. in foreign policy in particular, you can't get, the iran deal would have died a thousand death ifs we -- if we let every negative story happy about it. you have to have information to know what's going on out there both in terms of real-events and washington conversation. you have to be able to shut out a lot of that so that you won't overreact. one thing i like working for this president, he doesn't get knocked off course.

it took seven years to get the iran deal done. and if he had allowed himself to buffed by politics or even certain international events or criticism, you know, you would not have the iranian nuclear program rolled back. >> speaking about iran, one of the topics we sort of felt we had to address. we an dissipate the audience will have questions about the news of the day. having worked in the iran closely with you for seven years, i watched and thought it was fantastic so congratulations, my question is we saw two announcements obviously the fact that there was the implementation of what you said has been sort of a very long process to get to this point with the news that there was the release with four americans plus a fifth person that left under different circumstances. you have said in the past where there's a deal with iran it's more likely to produce evolution

than with no deal. we have heard the president that does not gerald relationships with iran. now that we have the implementation of the iran deal, what is implementation day plus one week, plus two weeks, plus a month, plus a year. what behavior changes would you anticipate out of tihran, if any. does this mean that there's hope for more cooperation in resolving the issues in syria and if so how does that happen, what does the space look like? >> to say a few things, the nuclear side of this is almost hard to overstate. i mean, in the last four months, you have a nuclear program that had been accelerating over many years. in the last four months they

disconnected two-thirds of their centrifuges. they yanked out of reactor and put concrete. that's how badly they wanted to get to implementation day. it's kind of a change of what their nuclear program looks like. the issue that overhung this entire region, the regime, really is resolve for the -- for the foreseeable future provided continued monitoring. it does show -- the important point is they have allowed head of nuclear program to manage that account. because we had no problem -- like when there were issues on the implementation, hey, the concern was addressed. there is this kind of -- it's

hard to say the importance that they really had decide today deal with the nuclear issue in a time being in a constructive matter and the regime is going to have to matter whether there's in slippage in that. the second point i want make is the nuclear associations established diplomacy and diplomatic channels that didn't exist three years ago. and that doesn't mean that there's a change in behavior yet, which i'll get to. four years ago, when we wanted to -- when somebody would happen like the sailer incident or anything for that matter, it was, you know, we would have our un embassador find their embassador, pass a message that their un embassador would have to send to tehran and process it

there and they then will tell our swiss at our interest section what the answer is to that message. i mean, this is not picking up the phone and talking to somebody. >> time consuming. >> and inefficient and you don't know who you're actually talking and you can't learn about decisions made in iran, and what has already been beneficial deal is that we have the ability to communicate. on the american citizens, you know, we were able to essentially roll the negotiations into a channel to resolve that issue, that was difficult and negotiation because everything with the iranians is negotiation but we were able to grind that issue down there and get it done on terms that we were very happy with. the sailers is actually a better example because, you know, i don't know where that incident would have led four years ago. you have -- you know, u.s. navy personnel in iranian waters, you

know, contingent and could easily see how in 2009 or 2011 it could have escalated. they are holding them. it becomes a crisis because it's kind of a public issue in both countries. we have to respond before they're out in ways that escalate whereas here john kerry called and they were released in a few hours. it's kind of a much healthier way of resolving issues and avoiding calculation. so the second point i make is that we have the ability to resolve issues and by the way, they're going to be other issues. there are going to be irritants that come up that will benefit

between diplomatic communication between the united states and iran. the third point is the next major test is syria and i don't know. i mean, there already been -- the syria talks look different than two years because iran was at the able and they weren't two years ago. you have a situation where you have the right counties in the viena process and that you have iran and russia along with the united states, saudi arabia, turkey, qatar and others from the region. so you have the right mix of players and template and timeline for resolving the issue and you have the major sticking point of assad and we will have to see whether iran's position on that evolves in a more constructive fashion or frankly you ought to see whether the decision-making evolves because our sense is not that the foreign minister is the leader.

that's not the only test, like i said, there will be other issue. the next thing is how will iran evolve. that we don't know. we will learn a lot with their modules elections that are coming up next month. they are a very important set of elections. they will be choosing new modules. clearly that will be a test as to whether or not one can even feel the candidates does the election go off in a way that's reasonable fair and, you know, and three, who wins, you will see what that says. no question there will be pushline that don't want there to be with the west in general, forgetting the united states, but you also see within iran just like an enormous, you know,

support for moving in a different direction and how those two things sort themselves out. our judgment in the nuclear deal is ultimately there was such public support for making the deal that even though the hard liners opposed it they could not ignore the public support. >> do you think that there's enough substance there that this change becomes institutionalized or john kerry, depending on what happens with our election, depending on what happens with the elections in iran, this has the potential to backslide? are we still on footing that there's no way to tell whether it is enshrined in a way that it makes progress? >> it goes in both directions. on the iranian side, look, we didn't make this progress. so look at how much the iranian approach to negotiation changed.

that shows you it could go back to the other direction. we don't know who the next president of the united states is going to be either. what we do know, though, is that we have demonstrated to skeptical audiences in both countries that there can be mutually successful outcomes. the nuclear deal was a very good deal for us because it resolves proliferation program for us and good deal from them because we are going to lift sanctions that were crippling the economy. we can find outcomes that are acceptable on both sides. i think the -- so there's the question as to whether or not both systems can sustain that momentum and find other issues to direct that type of effort towards. the second and just briefly is how does iran respond to the

increase engagement to the rest of the world? does that serve as a moderating impulse in iranian society in the sense that students and middle-class iranians who are more included to be less radical to israel and the united states, are they empowered in a way that has revolutionary -- >> that's a wait and see. >> yeah. >> another sort of recent event that makes another atypical day is the state of the union. as barbara mention, you are one of the few people in history who has had a role in eight state of the unions. as the writer of the cairo speech, having a role in the president's football prize winning speech, some of the most famous and most memorable speeches of his presidency, can you walk us what it is like to write a speech and channel the voice of the president of the united states, do you walk in

and sit down and have a beer and discuss an outline, does he give you all of the notes on on pad, he is quite an eloquent writer himself? what is that process like? at least one person. i'm getting older. most home runs by minor league player in history, he doesn't want that out. i kind of feel that. the state of the union, suggest why have you been in the job for eight years? one of the reasons is why i have been in the same job it has been to work with the president on

speeches. he cares about them and cares about what he is saying and he always wants to make an argument. the very short-hand way in which a speech goes is i will sit down with him at the beginning and he will essentially just kind of talk for, you know, up to an hour about what does he want to achieve and sometimes he will be very specific and even kind of give the outline of the argument i want to make. sometimes he will just kind of throw ideas even rhetoric if he wants to put in there and you get this kind of verse of input from him that you then take and go alone in your quiet space. >> are you at starbucks with your ipod? >> it's kind of hard. there's like a library that's in the fifth floor that nobody goes to that's one of the nicest, most quiet places where nobody can find you. aye now -- i've now ruined my --

[laughter] >> there you could spend four days in isolation and work on it. right now i am running back and forth to my other job. but you write something and then you enter this process where you send it around everybody who needs to see it, policy advisers and white house staff and you're in this kind of interesting moment where you're kind of a goalkeeper and one can get pass it had goalie and the main thing there is you have to make changes, but you don't want to make so many that it starts sounding less like the president and more like the summation of legal, the out put of a white paper instead of a speech. it goes back to the president and he will sometimes completely rewrite it himself and come back and say, you know it's a bad try when you walk in and he says,ic we need to make some structural

changes. that's like the curve word for you really didn't make a good job. that means that you have to go back and redo the outline and where he write the speech or line edit it over and over again until he gets it the way he wants. he doesn't get this for tuesday statement for the x announcement. for a big speech he will go to 10-15 rounds of line editing until it's exactly how he wants it. the most high wire version of this was the nobel address which was right after the afghan announcement. he calls me in with the other speech writer and gives us a totally different speech that he has written by hand overnight and when we left to get on the plane, we hadn't even gotten the

draft and we stayed all night on the plane doing the crazy exercise and we finally made him go to sleep for an hour because he had to go over the speech. that's extreme speech writing. the only thing i would say to the state of the union, what's interesting is on the one end it's hard to say things new after eight years, but you have eight years to draw from. when we came in, what was nice everything that you were saying, you were saying the first time and everyone was listening because it was this huge change in america and consequential world of events. and so that was one kind of speech writing. now on the one end it's hard because people heard barack obama for ten years and you don't want to sound like a hit album. you have a record. so what i liked about the state of the union, it's not a hypothetical argument, here is our approach. here is the iran deal, here is

how we dealt with ebola, here is how we dealt with cuba, here is what we think the is right to do with isil. it's a very different kind of speech writing than eight years where eight years ago it was here is what i was trying to do and here is what i did and i think it's a better approach. the state of the union was the summary on foreign policy, hey, there's a lot of people who are saying a lot of different things about what we should do in the world, this is what i've done and this is the way we should things. you know, i never know the answer to that question. i guess the nobel speech was the most interesting to me because it was a weirdly personal, you know, foreign policy is often hard to personalize but that was a very personal window into here

is how barack obama looks at the world and how he approaches these issues and how he makes decisions, so i think that was interesting because you don't usually have to do with foreign policy and in part of that it's because he did so much of it himself that he was leading speech writers to letting us in to his brain and directing us to -- we were writing about policy. he came back with martin luther king and ghandi because he was trying to work some stuff through there. you start working on a speech but i would point to that one. >> so someone going back to the campaign and working on the other side of 2008 have long been an admirer of your work for

two years there, besides the speeches that we talked about and you're so well known for, you've become a national security and foreign adviser to the president from everything to egypt, libya and syria to the reopening of relationships in cuba. so i want to take a step back and wonder how the hell you got there because you don't come from the typical trajectory, neither diplomat. let's walk through your past just a little bit. you grew up in manhattan. what's your first political memory? >> interesting question. >> you know, what's interesting my first political memory was of

personalities and the two were evidence c -- ed cotch. he used to just walk around. i thought it was so cool. the major just walks around by himself. he's larger than life personal. new york politics it's not like anywhere else. i remember being intrigued by that. but in terms of national politics, the surprising thing is my -- my dad was like a reagan devote, he loved ronald reagan. i actually remember him being totally fired up about this 1984

election and presidential election process. the point is they were big figures. i didn't know anything about what they thought about things. they occupied as someone who grew up in the 80's, they occupied a lot of my space because they were just such like larger than life personalities and so my introduction was via personality rather than like, you know, party affiliation. >> you wanted to be a writer, right, a fiction writer? i guess you are a writer, but you were going to go a different path. >> don't be like the right-wing trolls. >> so you still do fictions, right? so you were going to go in a different path but you landed a gig one summer when you came

home from college working for rudy giuliani? >> that was different. the thing there was i loved new york politics. i thought it was interesting and i was a freshmen in college and i -- i needed a summer job and that was his reelection campaign and, you know, back then it seemed almost impossible now i worked for giuliani and now for barack obama. new york sense is pretty liberal . it was a fascinating job because i got to go over new york. >> what did you do for the campaign? >> i worked in the press office so i started doing press clips

and now i sound old. literally i had to cut out, glue sticks and new york news day and the post and the daily news, very different. that's where i started. and then i did a little bit of everything. i ended up working directly to the speaks person who was a character. i would do anything from going to an event to see what she's saying to going down to, you know, video tape some union endorsement of giuliani in staten island or something. i was basically the young kid where the communication's director really liked. i finished my college degree, i go into to get mfa at miu in fiction writing but i stayed

interest in new york politics. i was working in a city council campaign for another larger than life machine boss, veto lopez who ended up having a very down fall for those who follow politics. he was running city council candidate in brooklyn who i was working for, democrat. new york politics. you've worked for the local person and on 9/11 i was working a polling site. >> that was primary day. >> that was primary day. and watched -- i had unmolested view of the whole thing. i saw the second plane hit, i saw the first tower go down and, you know, my fiction master's felt very irrelevant to the

scale of the moment that, you know, i was in as a new yorker, and that was the first kind of -- i've had -- i had interest in politics and in writing, you know, suddenly i was less interested in the fiction writing as soon as that happened and that was kind of everything after that was about, you know, getting involved and whatever was going to happen after 9/11. i didn't know exactly. i never set out to be like in the white house as a speech writer. i only ended up in the white house as a peach writer because i didn't set out to do those things. if you had done all those things to get the job, i never would have gotten the job. i just did things that led me there. >> how did you go from being an inspired fiction writer watching 9/11 in real-time in new york to

washington and putting that new motivation into practice? >> so i finished that degree in the spring. that's the kind of degree where you actually go to school. i didn't have much jobs in the day, but i did need to figure out what am i going to do. it's not like law school where you go to fiction department. i was looking at jobs in new york which, you know, encompass publishing because that's what someone would do with that degree in new york. but i said, you know, what i really want to do is get into journalism and international affairs. that was where my head was. i knew how to write and i'll just, you know, i'll do whatever to get in the door. i interviewed with a whole bunch of different people and one guy

at foreign politics magazine said to me, look, you're telling me you want to write. and i was very honest, i want to write, that's my skill but i want to be connected to international affairs, i want to be connected to these events. he said don't come work for this magazine, you'll end up, fact-check a few and if you want to write, do you ever think about being a speech writer? that's actually not something that anybody thinks about becoming. and he said because i know this guy hamilton, he just told me yesterday that he's looking for a speech writer and let him know if i see anybody. and so he -- he connected me with hamilton who was running the wilson center, and, you know, i clicked with hamilton, going this job, here is this guy who is former congressmen from

indiana. couldn't be more different than me as a new yorker but was -- had a very similar view of the world that i ended up developing and i always tell people that that was a chance to take, i was in new york, i could see where that would lead but i took a move down to washington, went to work for hamilton and set up in a new city where i didn't know anybody and i went to work for him, he got appointed of 9/11 commission. was caught up in these big events and so some of it i was lucky to work for a democrat who was appointed to the 9/11 commission and study group so i got this kind of hands on experience on the two biggest

issues at the time, terrorism and the iraq war, working -- you know, working for hamilton. >> how did you meet barack obama? >> so i -- you know, in 2004 like everybody -- well, not everybody -- like some of us. [laughter] >> i was kind of an early believer, i was following the senate campaign, this guy looked different. i mean, not just looked different but like was different from kind of what i saw in washington and so i had -- i was one of those people who was hoping to have big ambitions, one thing that was frustrating for working for the 9/11 commission, on the one it was great to see them come together

and find common ground but you also get a sense, well, the 9/11 can make government better at intelligence sharing and homeland security, very important things but that's not going to change the fundamental direction of our foreign policy. we let a blueprint of what should happen in iraq, you realize that there's only so far you can get if you're not political. the politicians made the decisions that direct the course of our foreign policy. and so i felt very strongly that i wanted to work on a political campaign and 2008 because all the things i learned about the u.s. government and our foreign policy, the only thing that was really going to redirect that was who was going to win that election. so i kind of started offering

myself up to be a speech writer and i actually wrote speeches for mark warner in 2006. no, i -- mo, i think you were connected with him but that's when barack obama tipped his toe in the water. i just said, i knew enough people around barack obama that i was just like, look, whatever you want me to do i will do it. i wrote -- i remember writing in january of 2007 for the irish times of our irish policy. [laughter] >> i was ready to do anything. they needed -- they needed a speech writer, they need a speech writer that could do foreign policy. foreign policy was going to matter because of difference with hillary clinton was the

iraq vote and things of that nature. and the foreign policy staffer that he had ended up deployed to iraq, i i ended up filling a muh of that space, mark. all of a sudden you're in all different spaces and that was the role that kind of emerged for me over the course of the campaign. >> one more question about the campaign and then toss it over to current events. one thing i remember vividly it was all about iraq, it was all about iraq and this was the change he was calling for when the economy dropped and suddenly

it was all about the economy, it was all about the economy. you're the foreign policy guy, you're the national security guy, what do you do right when suddenly the orientation of the campaign has shifted, the orientation has shifted and you're now playing in different waters. what do you do? >> the week i went to work for barack obama full-time was the week of the youtube debate when he said in response to a question that he would engage the leaders of iran, this guy said all the bad guys in the world, iran, cuba and north korea, would you engage them in preconditions and he said, yes. and he was attacked. like that was a big mistake. and he did something very interesting. i remember it was one of the first times i had met in person.

i think that's wrong. i think that's the kind of thinking that got us in iraq, right. so we constructed this whole argument that took iraq and made it bigger, you know what, the same mentality that says you have to go along with this war in iraq says that you can't even talk to iran. that's going to lead us with another war with iran and that struck a cord, so we were able to take iraq and build this bigger argument about doing things differently and what's been very gratifying about sticking around for so long is to see the opening cuba and the nuclear deal with iran because it's kind of rooted. arguments you develop in political campaign, there's a lead that runs all the way through to implementation day. but that aside, on the economy, there are a couple of things. one thing that's interesting is when you're a speech writer, you

-- if you write the first speech on a topic, like you're the guy on the topic, so i used to write speeches about domestic policy and i wrote a speech in march about going out wall street regulation, you know, approach, so i became kind of the regulation guy. and what i remember was when lehman brothers collapsed, bernadette used to work there. [laughter] >> why am i rewriting the speech. he wrote the speech in march of this stuff. basically take this stuff and get with the guys and figure it out. i remember talk to go bryan and he's like -- this is the moment in which i shifted from being on a political campaign to governing because we were clearly lucky to win.

i remember seeing ben, there's a 50% chance that the global economy collapses overnight. what am i supposed to do with that? he said, well, if things go a certain way in japan like the entire global economy can collapse overnight. there's only like a 50% chance. this wasn't like an open-change exercise anymore. this was like -- like, you know, very consequential events are happening, there's a vacuum of political leadership in the country. he was having to act more so than normal for someone who hasn't won yet. he was going to start acting like someone who was governing. the transitioning is as if he was a president. there was no space. feeling like this isn't just like some notion, we are ready,

what we say matters to like markets, like global markets are going to pay attention even though he's still a candidate. people forget this, nobody want today hear about foreign policy for like the first two years of the administration. like we did the state of the union and i submitted my foreign policy section and they tell me to cut it in half. nobody in the country -- they wanted economy, economy, economy. and actually i remember one of the sources of tension that developed in the interagency was people felt like the white house wasn't letting people, centralizing the discussion of issues on foreign policy. no, the white house is saying, nobody is allowed to talk about foreign policy because all want about the economy. it was hard out of the box to explain what we are doing on some very important foreign

policy issues because the demand was entirely, the political demand and frankly the public demand is what are you doing with the 7,000 jobs lost a month so what are you going to do to stop this. >> i think we will open it up for questions and we will come back for closing to wrap up. if you have questions, step up to the microphone here. and i know there must be questions in a group like this, so feel free to just step up and -- yes, please make it a question. welcome very short comments but should be a question and let us know where you are from. >> hi, my name is rebecca and i'm a federal government employee. my question is do you think you will ever run for office? [laughter] >> no. no. i mean, i -- you know, aye never

thought of that. [laughter] >> but, no. >> this is how it start. >> i will say this, i'm more likely to kind of go in the direction of having my own views but not necessarily running for office. i do think that -- i know a bunch of people my age, a lot of people in the obama campaign, i cannot imagine fundraising so i do worry that like i see a lot of people from the obama campaign and the obama administration who are like

probably 20 years ago would be running for congress by now who are like working in silicon valley or doing something else because, you know, the demands of running for office and being in office are so different than like when hamilton was there and you try to be the best congressmen that you could and maybe you raised a money for a month for campaign which lasted two months. so i don't feel like a personal itch to do it in the first place and i'm more likely to do other things. broader point, i guess, i hope that as people with campaign reforms and other things that there's this kind of thought about what type of people are with discentsivizing to run for office because we

should -- you know, i worry that there are people who are looking at the political demands and are turned off from it. >> my name is laura jakes. i sort of wonder what life would look for us if we would have taken the second job. i know, i wonder. as we talk about the extent that you channel obama, i wonder if you can talk to the extent that the president channels you, what specific examples, if any, that you feel like you have had on shaping policy in the administration and also very quickly, do you think you will work for another administration or another presidency in the future? thank you.

no, i don't plan to. after eight years in the intense environment, i would never say never, of course, well, i won't comment on who i think the next president will be, but, you know, it's not something that i'm like -- i would not -- not what i'm seeking to do. on the first question, you know, i think that in terms of viewpoints on issues, you know, my job has been to essentially try to figure out what is the president going to think about it, how is he going to talk about it, how is he going to approach it, you know, are we kind of doing what he wants us

to do, our views are very similar and i'm comfortable in that space. i rarely find myself in some profound difference from him. so where there are issues that fall in the category that you asked about are, i think, sometimes is getting his attention on an issue and the most obvious one for me is mienmar. i became interested in policy because i saw as opening to do something affirmative. part of the reason of what you can do in the white house can be managing crisis or responding to different circumstances, so when they came to see many in 2011 and described where they were on the policy of berma and described what they were hearing on other people on berma, boy,

the president could get involved in, we think we could really kind of blow through an opening and have an opportunity to fundamentally support change in this country. it was appealing in part because it was affirmative and like not everything you do every day in these jobs is affirmative, and so ever since then, part of my role has been when the president normally comes to work and not necessarily. when i saw that we were going to cambodia, you know, there's a perfect opportunity to go to burma. the visit itself could generate momentum, so over the years, i think, that's an example of here is an issue that a little

presidential attention can make a difference, and part of what i can do is make sure that he doesn't lose the threat on this, that he is checking in regularly. before the election in burma last fall i went out with the letters from him and so that's an example, not so much of having a different view or changing his mind, so much as he very much supports what we are doing, but it's keeping a focus and the attention on something that might not otherwise get the attention. cuba was a bit -- someone had to talk to cuba. a lot of people had a lot of things going on. so, again, for me it's less like changing his mind about something and more like -- actually in cuba it's something that he much wanted to do and i wanted to help him do that. it's more of how can you make sure that something is getting a

sufficient amount of presidential attention and engagement because absent doing that, you know, it's not clear that there be a normal, you know, focus on something like burma. >> i'm very interested in climate change and i want climate change is a globe issue. i want to ask you about barack obama's legacy with climate change, how important you think it is in terms of thinking about his legacy and how much you think is going to carry over into the next four years depending on who is president? do you think climate change is

going to change? >> the things i say in terms of legacy, when we came into office in 2009 and that climate conference just collapsed. there was no framework on how to approach international climate change. the rich countries had to do a lot and china and indicata don't .. ..

the president really did, he made climate a bilateral issue with these countries. it's not just in terms of a wonderful negotiator but part of what unlock some of the status with china climate change became one of our leading bilateral issues. when we showed up to talk to them they knew that was going to be in the top two or three issues we would be dealing with. if that wasn't the case you never would've had the jordan -- joint announcement with china. which they set out targets to reduce their condition that basic grid the space for parents

to happen. one thing that has to continue its which may climate change a bilateral foreign policy issue in all of our major relationships, special with the emerging countries. china, india, south africa, brazil, indonesia. meeting with asean countries this is what we talk about. that change the conversation because they will talk to the clinic not just about terrorism but about climate change. the last thing is the mobilization of the market forces and the private sector. this is the thing that unblocked the invasion associated with terrorist -- paris. not only twice everybody signing up but every five years we will renew those commitments. if you look at what the yazidi on clean energy with the extra pushing funding into inefficiencies, we could all this activity that had nothing do with the private sector that allowed us to hit our targets much faster than we thought. if you apply that theory

globally, if the signal coming out of paris is that there are market forces the driving direction clean energy and there's going to be investments in technology like along the lines of what bill gates announced, venture capital funds into space, five years from now those targets could be much more ambitious. instead of 2.5 decrease we get down to two degrees. that's all been a set in motion. some of this is inevitable. people say a new president comes in office, personal i think carrying out the deal the entire world have signed up to be a strange way to start your time in office. this isn't just the nuclear deal. this is 197 countries. i mean i guess you could do it but it would be a strange way to start your time in office. the second thing is this movement and the private sector is happening anyway. indian is getting into the solar

energy. that's going to happen. if we take our foot off the gas, it's not like all these countries wanted to do. these are hard thing for some of these countries to do. india, brazil. if we take our foot off the gas, instead of five years from now of being the ambition from paris, i think you may see kind of a lagging in the ambition. the united states, the whole goagoal of paris is each five ys we're getting more and more ambitious. that's the only way to mitigate the worst effects. whoever the next president is legitimate to say about whether harris is just another well-meaning effort that can barely crosses the lowest threshold or whether it is this constantly elevating degree of ambition. >> thank you for the q. and a duty. it's been very insightful. my name is mike fox. i'm second year student and a

fellofellow at the institute foe study of diplomacy. i'm curious if you can share an anecdote about what you felt was internationally right was at conflict what might've been domestically, allegedly popular, and what your thought process was during the decision-making involved, especially drawing on your own background and campaign work? thank you. >> interesting question. >> one of my students. [laughter] >> well, one example that is maybe not as black and white is, is iran in the sense that there

is a momentum to politics in which, in january of -- when was -- january 2014 there would've been another sanctions bill, and so we reached the interim deal in november your but every like two years there's sanctions in congress and passes 99 to nothing because one person just happens to be out of town. it was a bill like that i was working its way through committees and everything. and we, you know, we reached the about me met with a bunch of members of congress, a bunch of outside interest groups and all said okay, idea is good but we will have to pass. we said you can't just reach an

interview. well, we'll pass the sanctions with the trigger for after some time period. they kept thinking that we would say yes to something. the president said no, and i will veto. whatever you do i will veto it. there was a kind of the week where that was like, more than a week but there was a period of time nobody knew quite what to do with it. we didn't exactly how that was going to play out. because that was not politically popular thing certainly on the hill here you had the israeli prime minister opposing the deal very publicly. you had arab gulf partners who are pretty influential in washington opposing it. and what was interesting though is that it was the argument and miniature that we had a much bigger after the deal itself. when the president drew a line and said i think this is right and i will use every last power

i have as president to try to get it done. the kind of called a bluff that was, people just assume, well, this is how we do things. we pass these sanctions bills, and he's like no, you are going to have a public argument. you will have to win a public argument with me about whether that's the right thing to do. and it was incredibly motivating. it worked for him because it was like, you know, a little daunting, but the same time, you know, doing something that flies in the face of things are done, you know, makes it much more interesting to come to work. it essentially kind of surface the underlying issue. because the underlying issue is if we always have to pass underlying sanctions bill. the underlying bill as we always have to be in conflict with iran which leads all the way freckly

to confrontation. what was interesting about that respect, i don't know public opinion was kind of split but certainly opinion in the city wasn't. people were very skeptical of the iran negotiations and very pro-sanction. what was interesting is seeing what happens when the president essentially kind of calls about a bluff and suddenly everybody has to show their cards. every time we did that on iran, nobody really was confident he had a winning hand. >> on the flipside, how does it impact the negotiations side, right come in this equation when you've got political leaders on the opposite side here being very loud, very vocal, right? they are coming at you on iran, domestic, little bonus can touch on iran before you finalize the negotiations with the iranians, or cuba or whatever the issue

is. when domestic politics start to flame out how does that impact what you guys are doing on the international side? >> well, you know, i think it cuts both ways. so people could make the argument that there's a bad cop dynamic within a we've got some hardliners just like every country does so, therefore, that puts pressure on them. but also it cuts the other way to which they're thinking like can these people live up to any commitments and can they follow through on what we're trying to negotiate? i see my role sometimes i can do, something funny for some of his views sure, but i am like, if wendy sherman was the rouhani black in the iran -- was the running back endeavor in negotiations, you should never naturally but all the stuff back home, congress, the media, so some of my role in this job is to try to give that diplomats

the space to just do their jobs and not have to worry about it. i actually remember literally been in discussions with all of us and saying, you guys think about, like don't, you know, don't be negotiated with congress at the same time you were negotiating with the p5+1. we will be thinking all that through, and, because the risk is that they don't feel the freedom to actually get the deal done because they have 500 voices in their heads. so part of this is absorbing some of that and that's part of what the white house is supposed to do. >> i am a graduate of the school of foreign service. first of all i just wanted to express my appreciation for the

state of union address. i thought that was a great speech. my question actually is related to a foreign policy issue that didn't come up in his speech, which is the kind of intervention in libya. i was curious if you could situate the overthrow of moammar gadhafi within the larger context of obama's foreign policy? thank you. >> yeah. well, there are many things that converged there. one is, you know, that actually is like the most, the clearest instance of a humanitarian intervention that we've done, in fact the impulse kind intervening really was one of humanitarian concern for civilian populations that we saw at great risk.

coupled with essentially the credibility of the international community which had been enshrined with the joint security council resolution essentially calling on bad behavior to stop it essentially gadhafi ignores that, there's a huge humanitarian consequences for the people who were endangered in places like benghazi, misrata, and other places. and essentially the international community is just seen its word proved to be totally hollow. situated inside, so situate the context of our entire foreign policy, one from a humanitarian intervention standpoint, it achieved a finite objective of stopping at averting a humanitarian catastrophe in the case of gadhafi's forces slaughtering the citizens of libya on the ground. in the context of the wider turmoil in the arab world, it

essentially led to libya being more of a vacuum than it was before because libya had essentially been hollowed out that it was not like a government in waiting or a long-standing civil society or history of institutions that were prepared to take the place of gadhafi once he was gone. so essentially once the intervention resulted in gadhafi's demise, you had a humanitarian benefits of having saved a lot of lives, but then you had an enormous political security vacuum because there was not the governing structure that was ready to take his place. i think we may look back on that, you know, once difficult to wrestle with is what could have we done differently to prevent this situation we have today whereas you had this vacuum in libya, you have these

warring factions, the breakdown in security in many places. i think that, one, i think we presumed the governing structure that we're interacting with was more connected than they were two people on the ground. in other words, u.s. technocrats who were saying and doing the right things as related to setting up the government and pledging to be inclusive, interacting with foreign countries, but they were not able to essentially control the militias that were holding territory in different parts of libya. so you never connected a political structure to the security challenges. and then, never to come in that circumstance, what do we do? we had a program with the opinions that would be focused

on kind of training secure divorces and demobilizing militias, but absent that political point, that never really took off. in washington this is often framed as well, we should have gone in heavier in libya. but the challenges the libyans didn't want us there. the only thing that we don't is they didn't want any foreigners there. we had to fight just to get a u.n. office there. i think it points in the context of obama, the arc of it, demonstrate the united states can bring together the world and accomplish something in very quick period of time were where individuals have been saved a lot of lives and assure the international community can do these things. on the other hand, it's been part of this broader trend across the region where you see that there's an erosion of the authority vested in the establishment by the stuffing ready to take the place of the

establishment. that essentially, we are dealing with that in different iterations in many different countries. as you look at syria, causes you to again question if we went into syria militarily, would not improve the situation or would it not? >> i think we have about 10 minutes, a little bit longer. >> my question will be brief. i am a sophomore in the school of foreign service and my question is a little a spectacle. given your relationship with the president over the last eight years, what is something you post admire about barack obama? >> you know, i think what i most admire is he's willing to take risks. i mean, it's a version of the things i said a couple of times, but i remember i was talking to

him after the first meeting he had with fidel castro in panama. battle thing had gone well because cuba, but the whole hemisphere was so welcoming and you could see that we kind of had broken through this seal that had kind of put the united states in one place in hemisphere for decades comin, ne are having a different conversation. he says something along the lines come he's always very generous to his staff and thanking us for computation should be part of this. i said look, anybody could, you know. did i do the negotiations in cuba? yes. anybody to talk to these guys. it takes the president to stop going to open relations with cuba. like he is willing to again challenge convention and do things. the only reason, no rational

person i think would look at our cuba policy and think that made sense and was worth continuing. but you just don't do that. that's the third rail. you don't touch cuba policy because that's always been that way and there are some people who would be really mad if you do that. time and again he's been willing on, other issues budgets on foreign policy. the things we have done, or many of the things we've done that i am most proud of our things were his family to take the risk that blue in the face of the kind of conventional political approach in washington. you don't do a nuclear deal with iran. you just keep ratcheting up sanctions entail, what? you don't open to cuba. you wait until they castro's die, and then what? you know. you certainly don't come in the course of one weekend, have all this transaction with the iranian government. he's willing to take criticism. i think people, you know, they

are kind of pricing that in but that's a rare. i think when you look back at the totality of all the things that happened, foreign and domestic, a lot of good things that would only happen if you have a president who is willing to be criticized or take risks or do things that are different than the way they have always been done. that's what i most admire. >> thank you. undergraduate student from the school of foreign service. i wanted to ask you about your work with the president as a speechwriter. as we all know, the president can write very well in his own name and his speeches have a certain narrative and a story behind that did not limit the single since within the speech. so how do you strike that balance between telling the story and also getting the policy message across? how do you personalized foreign policy in your own words as you mentioned before?

>> so it's interesting. he's usually more interested in the story than anything else. he knows that when we are giving a speech about africa, right, that's not just a set of development policies. there's a whole story behind that insurance of a history of the country we are in, that place that country in terms of its stage at the velvet. its intersection with a tiny. he is usually more interested in his speech trying to surface the underlying tensions or issues that inform the policy issue than just saying his my nine-point plan for ask. that's how his mind works. so the first challenge like i say is how do you maintain that

thread and speaking about things in a way that tells the story. most speeches have a normal part. here's how we got to where we are, here's what the situation is, and then here's what we should do about it. so by the time he gets to the plan he's already kind of described the circumstances and hopefully created a logic that makes the policy prescription seemed inevitable. because if every certainty of how we got to where we are, a few of done that persuasively enough, our policy prescriptions should make a lot of sense. that's the quick answer i would give. the one issue i would highlight is terrorism. he is resistant. he could go out and beat his chest. he has enough of a record to do it when it comes to

counterterrorism. but i think it also is of the view that presidential rhetoric creates its own logic and momentum towards policy. and so if you are, and we've been in this controversial space and he said in a state of the union that isil is a very serious threat. it's an enormous threat obviously to the people who they are to rising and killing, and it's a threat to our people but is not an existential threat to our nation in the sense that they don't risk the destruction of america the way the soviet union did. that's a controversial statement. but the point is that if we declare this as world war iii, the logic of that is wished of tens of of thousands of troops in syria. -- that we should have -- so

when you're actually president you have to think through if i start describing something in these terms, what is the practical steps that would lead from that? sorry, follow from the. so that i think, that's a balance that he aims to strike any can be challenging at the same time, make sure you are effectively describing what is the biggest threat to the united states of america but not doing so in what that creates a logic that extends beyond what we think the right response is. and again the rhetoric of world war iii and the threat to the existence of the united states. he believes enough in the power of language to think that if we are describing it that way, then we would be doing something differently than we are doing in response.

>> thank you. i'm a collector student here and also a fellow at the institute for the study of diplomacy. the administration has been duly praised for having a diverse administration and also its staff. personally, i see the complete benefits of having racial, ethnic and gender diversity at work and having different backgrounds leading to different perspectives which leads to greater policy intervention. i've wondered if you could give an example of a time when maybe there was a policy, innovation or idea that really was the product directly of diversity? >> a couple of things. first of all, and i'm not saying this to be glib. i have learned a lot from president obama because of his own diversity. i'm going to give it a different example of that because that's

too easy. literally when it comes to the window into africa or southeast asia, places he knows very well, you know, in africa, for instance, in all of his speeches from the moment i went to work for him he is always coming again and again to the issue of corruption and the visceral kind of loathing of corruption that is a part of daily life in africa. you should see the audience responds when using kenya or ghana when he raises these issues. it is like he is tapping into something that people have it up. that's an example of the president kind of leaving me to understand something i would not have otherwise understood because of his own diversity. in the administration itself i think that, i have a number of

muslim-american colleagues, and one of the things that we hear from muslim-american friends or colleagues is when the only context in which we are talking to people is security, you are diminishing the community to just being a security concern. so we raised the security issues, but i think we're always very clear that part of this is, does make any sense to stick to, you are doing isil's work for them if you -- we have a successful resilient the first muslim-american communities that is thriving in different fields, and they need to be not they didn't in the language to the te language in the state of union is informed by our colleagues who are muslim-americans who have told us about how the

community feels stigmatized. so that's one very clear example. by the way i would encourage regionally, ethically. because you're going, just take messaging. you would be much better communicating with the audience if you know what the audience thinks. when i came into office, the u.s. government is -- does a lot of analysis of foreign publics and what do they think the what did you think about terrorist and nuclear weapons. you have the ability to do your own research. what do they want to work with the united states have it on? if you're going to iowa, you wouldn't say i want to talk to these people about these two issues over and over again. he would want to know what do they care about? do they care about the farm bill and they care about ethanol and, but we don't do the same thing with foreign audiences. when you ask a question, will

they care about entrepreneurship in science and technology, education exchange. we develop a whole bunch of programs that is rooted in entrepreneurship and science and technological change because it gives us a place and a weight of a conversation with people and build networks with people that goes beyond just simply talking to them about nuclear proliferation and terrorism which we have talked about because we are the united states of america. some of it is diversity enceladus is thinking through from messaging perspective who am i talking to and how i can look at the united states and what are they interested in doing? that's something i think we can do more up. >> i think we are just about out of time. you bought, barbara, to take one last? maybe we -- [inaudible] first