of the unintended consequences of the unintended consequences is these countries developing capabilities to the point where we are talking about international cooperation on mars of the moon they have something more to bring to the table other than just money. they have also got -- we have seen this both in unmanned space exploration as well as things like the international space station and now with orion. where is that balance between wanting to maintain a robust, if you will, technology export for space, you know, from the us with helping these countries actually develop their own capabilities that they can then have something to really substantially contribute to the international cooperative

efforts when those are needed? .. >> we have a domestic effort going there. we have a requirement for astronaut safety in a deep space environment in which we feel nasa is the expert at. but if you look at the other parts of the system, i was in bremen, germany not too long ago where parts are being built and in italy parts of being built, they're all being integrated in germany and then they will come here. one of the things to recognize is that other people have technology that we should want to get our hands on as well and people can bring more than just money to the equation, we should

be able to sell what we are good at, we want to be able to be free to buy so that we don't have make it ourselves, things that other people are good and and integrate those. we talked yesterday about a lunar village on the moon and expertise with public-private partnerships, so there's a lot of expertise and not only in technology. some of it is in finance, some of it is using and some barriers for true national security concerns, but there should not be erected so high that we can't do work together. >> also to your question, i don't think it's up to the united states to tell other countries what technologies they should be developing, if they

have to think just like we have to think strategically about what our technologies for national security purposes or this is the expertise we want to develop and bring those to the table. other countries need to figure out what technologies they want to develop and bring to the table. for example, canada spoke on robotics, we are going to be the guys that do robotics and they bring the technology to the table and bring as their way to integrate into whatever project we are doing. i think that's every sort of country's right and privilege to figure out how they want to engage and what technologies they feel are important for their population and their national purposes, so that's the other half of that equation. >> i think we have a couple more questioners calling in. marsia smith, please proceed. >> thank you so much.

you mentioned that you had gotten to all campaigns already, can you tell me what reaction you got from them? >> at this point the staff who have received these have expressed gratitude and interest and will be carrying it forward as their campaigns move along. honestly i think where we are in the campaign process these types of -- of serious policy issues are probably only now becoming addressed, so we will keep in touch with them and continue to work with them. we are free to answer questions and hopefully keep it in front of them just enough so that everybody is smart about space policy going forward. >> one more on the phone. we have a question from the line of patrick hosts from the defense daily. please proceed.

>> caller: hey, guys, so i was reading this and it says, restore american access to space. the u.s. must regain the ability to launch its own astronauts into space and bring an end to the practice of buying astronaut seats, makes perfect sense. in the next it says, fully fund and pursue sos. i mean, sos is a joke. there's no legitimate game plan for this. nasa won't even say when em1 is. there's no game plan. it exists to satisfy powerful and intellectual law makers and constituents. it doesn't fully -- sos might not even fly, it might not last into the next administration. doesn't fully funding hamper u.s. leadership in space?

>> thank you for the question. i think that if you go back to what we discontinued -- discussed wherlier -- earlier is the idea that the government needs to expand the bubble, that system, and what we try to do with that. i don't think that we necessarily agree with the assumption that it's not helping the whole program because because you need to continue to push the boundaries and can push us out further and the knowledge rolls out into the general industry and people learn from it. so i'm not sure i will accept your hypothesis but thank you for your question.

>> can you hand him the microphone, please. >> i wonder if you have points to follow through as candidates become elected officials, as they move through their transition both at the federal level and the state level? are you going to work with transition teams to keep those policies in the forefront or at least up there as they formulate their policies for their terms? >> yeah, thanks, frank, the answer is yes and part of doing that has already started in terms of meeting with other people on the hill, in congressional offices and having them take up this torch so that it's not just limited to the presidential candidates and it's something that's become widely circulated and understood on the hill. frankly in terms of the game plan, we have lots of great ideas going forward for how we continue to push this information out there and how we continue to follow up with people.

it's difficult to start executing on a lot of it until we know exactly who the staffers are and in some cases we are having conversations and in some cases it just hasn't become clear yet. we will stay in contact with the campaigns as best we can and -- and, you know, hopefully you'll be hearing about this in the general election as well. >> i'm sorry. we had discussed trying to do at least monthly through the prime election in november some sort of activity that revolves around this whether some individual events hopefully you'll see out there. i think we want to keep the ball rolling and we want to keep this issue continue to be a nonissue as it were and keep the information out there that we think it's important momentum and we don't want to see it fail.

we will work on plans on who can do what each month as we go forward. beyond that, i don't think we have gotten that far but certainly anything to continue the momentum will motivate us to keep on working together. >> i would just say, you know, there's -- you know, we are not just other organizations, we are good colleagues and friends and you well know and the washington circle that names start on who is advising and we certainly want to be in front of those names and faces that many are friends and colleagues as well. you know, we will still continue this discussion deep into november and beyond as the transition begins, the leadership. >> well, i think we are about to end. i just wanted to say that if anyone is interested in becoming a member of the press club or if you're interested in more information on our news makers, we will have several coming up in march and april where our

speakers launches, please visit our website at press.org, with that, i want to thank our speakers for being here and i want to thank our audience and the audience on c-span. thank you very much. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [laughter]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the american conservative union is holding its annual conservative political action conference this week at maryland's national harbor. candidates were to speak at the event but donald trump announced he would be skipping appearance tomorrow for a campaign event in kansas. earlier today tea party patriot general -- jen beth martin spoke

having to say this about donald trump's candidacy. >> one of the candidates i just talked about is not tea party at all. i know donald trump says he loves the tea party, but that's not what it takes to be tea party. [applause] >> if you want to be tea party, you have to love our country and you have to love our constitution and you have to be willing to fight above your own interests and you have to put freedom -- [cheers and applause] >> you have to put freedom above your own interests. and let me ask you a question, have you ever heard donald trump talk about the tea party? i haven't. i've got serious questions about his fidelity to the document the tea partyers revere. for instance, donald trump recently said that if he got to

be president he would, and i quote, open up the liable laws, to make it easier for him to sue newspapers that wrote unkind things about him. the right to speak freely is inshrine in our constitution. [cheers and applause] >> that's what makes america different from any other county in the face of the earth. here we can speak our mind even criticize our government and even criticize our political leaders without fear. we are protected by our constitution to do so and when i hear a candidate say he wants to mess with our right to free speech, i fear for our constitution and our country. [cheers and applause] >> because that's not tea party. in fact, the tea party fought tooth and nails to keep our free speech. that's not the only reason i know donald trump isn't what he

says he is. a look at his history and his background reads -- raises very serious questions. donald trump stole a line from ronald reagan. he says he wants to make america great again. trust but verify. [cheers and applause] >> here is what i verified. many of donald trump's critics says he's inconsistent, he was for universal health care before he was against it, he once supported the biggest tax increase in history and now he says he wants to cut taxes, he was pro-choice before he became pro-life, he donated to democrats before he donated to republicans, he funded the establishment candidates against the tea party before he said he love it had tea party. yes, he's inconsistent if you look at all the issues he

flip-flops on. if you look at the motivation for takes those positions, you'll see that, in fact, there's a remarkable consistency. it's the consistency of serving his own interest. [cheers and applause] >> because you can always count on this, on any given issue at any given time, donald trump will take the position that serves his interest as he perceives it at that time. [cheers and applause] >> are you still not sure, listen up. when a little old lady, a widow refused to sell a property so he can knock down to build a parking garage, donald trump used to government to take property away from her t property right, the right to use and own your property as you see fit is one of the essential elements of limited government, anyone who does not understand

and defend the property right has no business serving the elected office let alone the presidency. [cheers and applause] >> using the government, using the government to force a property owner to give up her property that she doesn't want to sell, that is not tea party. [cheers and applause] >> and in 2013 when so many of us were fighting to stop the gang of eight amnesty bill, trump issued statements that he was for amnesty, for the last eight months he's been saying he's against amnesty and that he wants to build a wall n the last few days, we heard that he may have told "the new york times" something entirely different. we don't know because it's off the record and he won't release the tape. and last night he said he is softening his position. that's not tea party. [applause]

>> a few years back donald trump decided to trade his reputation as a real estate tycoon and make money by marketing a series of real estate seminars. so he opened up what he called a university baring his name and apparently took a lot of people for a lot of money, so much so that he's now defending not one, not two but three separate lawsuits on the matter from -- he has 5,000 plaintiffs scamming people out of their hard-earned money, definitely not tea party. [applause] >> in each of those cases, donald trump was serving his own interest as he perceived them at the time. donald trump is about love of himself. [applause] >> but the tea party is about love of country and the love of our constitution. >> our coverage of cpac

continues later this evening with former presidential candidate carly fiorina, she will speak at 9:00 o'clock eastern, that'll be live on c-span. republican presidential candidate marco rubio attends the conference tomorrow. we will have remarks live at 11:35 a.m. eastern also on c-span. >> this year's competition was the biggest yet. students produced documentaries to road to the white house theme and asking issues they want presidents to discuss. be sure to tune in this wednesday morning at 8:00 eastern during washington journal when we'll announce the grand-prize winner and the fan favorite selected by the public. watch live on c-span and

c-span.org. >> this weekend the c-span city tour hosted by time warner cable partners takes you to anaheim, california. on book tv. >> the idea mexican came from my editor, i wasn't offended by the idea, i didn't think anyone would care. in journalism you don't care if people like you or hate you as long as they're reading. who is going to want to read a column about mexicans, he kept insisting and we need today fill in a space, i will go back. it's only going to be one time, it's a comment and people went nuts for it, some people loved it and some people hated it. the more important people were caring, at the very bottom of

the column, ask me, i'm the mexican, so people called me and they started sending in questions. >> on american history tv john go up to san francisco which is where a lot of the german immigrant are located and actually able to -- i find it very shocking, are able to convince 50 people of whom nobody was a farmer and only one person had any background in wine making to give up their businesses and come to anaheim. so their first action after they form what's known as the los angeles vineyard society was to hire george and his job was to bring irrigation here and lay out the town side and plant hundreds of thousands of

grapevines before the families would actually come down here. >> watch the c-span city tour saturday on noon eastern and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history tv on c-span3. the c-span city's tour working with cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. >> next a look at intelligence priorities for combating terrorism t featured speaker is gregory treverton who share it is national intelligence council. this is an hour and a half. >> i would i would like to welcome everybody on this snowy friday. i think everybody will be cleaned before we get out of here. before we go any further, let me point out the emergency exits, many of you may have come the stairs, main staircase to the

right of the second staircase and out to the back is a third staircase, follow me or my deputy caleb johnson and head out if there happens to be an emergency. my name is tom henderson. we conduct independent field research around the world about terrorism and public, private sectors, media get a better understanding as threat such as al-qaeda and isis. 40,000 fighters from all around the world in syria, iraq, libia and other places. the second project we are conducting is third phase of study where we look at militants and trend and violent extremism

in areas and we completed south asia three years ago and middle middle east and north africa and we are coming to the close of the study in africa. i would also like before i start here point out a few special guests, alexander, thank you very much for making the introduction to grelg, very -- greg, very much appreciate that. bill webster is the chairman of the senior committee and former cia and fbi director. very exciting to welcome dr. greg treverton, chairman of the national intelligence council. dr.treverton became director and noted world-class skills, broad substantive expertise and passion for the intelligence

profession and deep understanding of the unique role and mission at exactly the right time. prior to his election dr. treverton held positions in global risk and security, director of the international security and defense policy center and society dean of the party ran graduate school. dr. treverton has served in government, he also served in the jimmy carter administration, european national security council which he told me included three people and covered vancouver which is really remarkable. [laughter] >> really amazing. vice chair of the national intelligence council from 1993 to 1995 also a pivotal time as we were coming out of a cold war and overseeing writing.

there's other elements of the nic. publications include reorganizing u.s. domestic intelligence, assessing the options, assessing the trade intelligence analysis, next step of reshaping intelligence and two books, intelligence for age of terror and age of information which were published by cambridge university. he graduated summa cum laud. i know there's many in the audience who are interested interested in the role of the nic, role in policy making, role in intelligence and certainly probably quite a few people who are interested in jobs in the intelligence community and want advice on how it is. [laughter]

>> we feel that question constantly. with that, the floor is you. >> thank you, don, i feel like i peeked. it's a great pleasure to be here and i'm overwhelmed by the number of poll whoks -- who turned out on a somewhat snowy morning. everyone should know verse and chapter about the nic. i thought that i would do a preview of a signature nic publication or unclassified global trend which we do every four years which will be out next december, after the elections but i will give you a preview of how we are thinking about the five-year future and the 20-year future. nic is national intelligence council for analysis, you can bet in washington, i'm almost sure you can induce someone to

bet that the nic is a cia organization. it hasn't been a cia organization for 35 years but things go slowly sometimes. we work for the director of national intelligence and before we work for the center intelligence in capacity overseer of the community and not director as cia, we are the armed for intelligence analysis, we are about 100 analysts, strong like the state department, regionally and functionally so there's national intelligence officers for economics, for russia, asia, europe and both functional and regional. there are deputies, almost all come from a wide variety of intelligence agencies. i've got deputy national

intelligence officers from nypd, from the fbi, from the secret service, so it is very much an inner agency operation. the big change as tom said, i was vice chairman many long years ago, it shows how slow i am to rise to vice chairman to chairman. the big change in those days we did almost strategically intelligence, those tepidded to -- tended to be rather exhausting and often trying to go forward in time, trying to set issues in their context, that's still our paramount mission and what i care about. the big change now is we are very much involved in current intelligent support. we provide the intelligent

support for the deputy's committee meeting, the main foreign policy bodies in the u.s. government. if the deputies want to know what the cia thinks about a particular think, they can ask the cia directly, but most of the time they want to know what the community, the intelligence agency considers together where they agree or disagree and then that comes to us, if that comes to the question from, say, susan wright, then they will put together his or her little community of analysts, they will decide who is going to bring the answer and argue about the answer and put it through the process of somewhat known as the coordination, which means arguing about it and either reaching an agreed conclusion or agreeing to disagree or having it decent. everything that we do is on that inner agency basis and to give you some sense with the numbers, we did in the range of 700

pieces of paper last year. habit half of those or maybe more than half were signed memorandums to susan rice, deputy security adviser or another senior nic person. so the challenge for me is to try and help us be strategic, help us not only answer the current mail but to try and help our policy counterparts think a little bit more broadly, see context, maybe see around the corner and the case that everything that comes out of pc's and dc's are purely tactical, we really do get interesting questions as well. so they ask us a question like if we do x, how will putin respond, and that's just the kind of question that i think intelligence and policy should be interacting over, but it is a challenge every hour, every day for me to find space,

opportunity and particularly the manpower to be able to do more strategic work, lift our sights from our current crisis and trying to see things in more context. in that sense the global trends process is very much adjunct at trying to be more strategic. i didn't get -- this is the first global trans volume i will do but i had dreaming up the idea when i was in the nic before. two things about it, one trying to look five years, nothing on your secret computer helped you. you really need to be out there and talking to people and experts, doing research so induces us to be very much engaged with places like this, with academia, with wall street and experts in lots of different realms. by the time we do this version

in global trends in probably 35 countries, we are trying hard this time around to broaden our view from the usual officials and foreign policy thinkers. we've done things like had focus groups with students in méxico city, i met with a bunch of entrepreneurs. we met with women's groups and others trying to get some sense of social underpinning of the development in the world that come to have national security implications. the other insight i had, i realized that it had to be unclassified because if we were going to get -- have any chance of having our senior policy counterparts lead it, the only way they would take a look at it if we got some press. [laughter] >> if we handed them a document, thank you, they would never get to it, but if they see special system and say, what the heck is

the nic up to, what is this, then we can get attention. this administration has been very -- has found previous global trends 2030, this should be global trends 3035 but i think i'm going to take the year off of it, so if anybody has an idea, it should be global trend something. if anybody has any idea of global trend x, i would welcome your thought. [laughter] before but this administration has found it useful as it begins to think about strategy. let me just take two quick bites and give you sort of where i think the five-year look is taking us and then where the 20-year look, some of the major themes that will run through the 20-year look. if you're looking at five years, you know the basic things that's going to determine is already with us, that list is pretty easy. top of that list for me is

china, it seems to be a pretty uncertain very important period for china, on top of the list is china, next on the list would be us the united states which seems pretty uncertain. i can't really say very much about that. i'm not supposed to do analysis of the united states but it's important in looking forward that we do have to recognize that if we care about a longer-term future specially what the united states role is going to be critical in longer-term future. second would be the united states. i won't say more about it here. third would be the tango of russia, europe, migration, that's always going to continue to -- they'll be a continuing string of migrants. backlash and politics of europe against those, against that migration and then there's russia, a kind of wild card, i worry that putin is so isolate

that had the chances that he might miscalculate and do something rash on top of my list. next on the list will be the collapse in commodity prices which has had bad effect. i was in latin america over the summer and brazil and done a wonderful job pulling people out of poverty and many are going to fall back into poverty. a continent like latin america, it means that in one sense the policy seemed to be going in american direction but it won't be much of a partner for us. and finally on this list there is the continuing turmoil instability conflict in the middle east. you look, all of the trend lines are bad from

demographics to economics to weaponry, everything looks bad so we know that conflict is going to continue. i should say i was doing an after-dinner speech about a week after i took this job and i said that what's true, i said i had avoided the middle east my entire career -- [laughter] >> well, that's over. the kids say that's so over. sometimes i feel like i do all isil all of the time. we can come back to that. i have to keep reminding whenever i have the opportunity that for all our concern still the number of americans killed by terrorism in the united states is a very small number. you know the numbers. a lot more people get killed by lighting or falling in their houses, you name it, but we know that terrorism does go to the top of the list politically.

jerry bremer used to say that no issue went from zero to 60 faster in american politics than terrorism. and that's exactly right. so understandably isil terrorism does go to the top of the list politically even in some sense of modern national interest i probably wouldn't put it there in terms of u.s. interest in the world. you notice that the polls after san bernardino people were almost concerned about terrorism or terrorist attacks as they were after 9/11. so as an analyst, that is exaggerated but it's the political reality that our leaders face. even in a five-year time perspective, i have to take into account most of the things that happen we know, isil will be contained, isil won't, the

japanese will be successful in getting through the economic period or they won't, but there are the wild cards even in five years, imagine say attack of the sort we haven't seen before or a nuclear use in anger or the collapse of an important state. so those things can happen even in a five-year time horizon. i always try to remind myself that we think ourself that history moves pretty slowly and in many respects it does, but if you think about the interval between president reagan speech and the fall of speech, one decade, one decade. so a lot can happen in a fairly short period of time. let me close on with just a few words of longer-term trends. let me mention five of house in the 20-year perspective.

first is really the impowerment of individuals in small groups. we pointed in the last global trends to the shift of power towards asia, that continues obviously. europe continues to slide in terms of power but this time we will emphasize on empowerment of groups, individuals, those range from terrorists we know so well to the george solas and bill gates and bankers in between, but we know that individuals or small groups are exerting increasing weight in international affairs. second, the backdrop, the beginning, starting point for the analysis will be the sense when i share that structural changes in the global economy means we are going to face a rather longer period of slow growth, we are there are in that. that seems likely to continue. and that will mean that all sorts of problems get harder to

handle, rich countries and poor, slower, inequality both within countries and across them is greater and means that everything is part, kind of a global competition for middle-class jobs. one of the things that strikes you in many countries, as hard as it was pull people out of poverty, middle class, satisfying their expectations once they are there, it's even harder. and that's going to fail a number of countries around the world. a third on this list would be competition over values, here is one that struck me most recently. we have been doing a lot of things about subconscious and bias, prosperity presumption, runs very deeply particularly in americans. we assume that there's

prosperous, we are happier, less likely that we will go with each other. isil doesn't have any of it, doesn't care a bit about prosperity. in that sense, that's the kind of clash of values but we will also talk about particularly china and its attitudes towards international institutions, wanting to have the strong sense as you know as if international institutions were not made in washington and wants to shape them and shape them in ways it finds more congenial. technology is a driver in specially 20 years. we will focus on two. one will be artificial intelligence. i thought for a long time that artificial intelligence was like the old line about brazil. brazil was was always to be the country of the future that would be. and i used to think that

artificial intelligence was the technology of the future that always would be, but now it seems to me that it's coming true, we have it around us, those are kinds of things. now i think it is real this time around, you've seen the numbers when british studies suggested that half of american jobs could be automated in whole or in part. accounting, lawyering, turns out to be easier to teach a computer to do accounting than to give a good massage, so that -- i think the effect we will see is significant disruption in job markets around the world including in the united states. the other one obviously on this list is bio, biotech, bio is today where it was 25 years ago poise and obviously the

possibilities are both good and bad, lots of things will happen, most of the good things will be unequal in the sense that all those enhancements to life will get consumed first by rich people in rich countries and will make more inequality and there are possibilities out there that are pretty fearsome, if you imagine tailoring weapons to attack only people of one ethic group or even a single individual, the possibilities on the negative side as well. finally, putting all these together, i think we think that another theme will be that handling the organizing clictive action to deal with commons, problems with the global commons will be harder and harder, partly because of the empowerment of the small groups and other sources and stability, we imagine that as we look

forward it'll be possible to collect action on those commons problems like pandemics that are truly shared. you see success on climate change in paris. so i hate to end on a slightly down-beat note but we do worry that the trends we see will make it harder to organize collective action to deal with problems at the global commons at least beyond those that are clearly shared and perhaps those beyond that specially effect the rich countries. >> absolutely. we are not the good news department, so okay -- >> you know the classic line about intelligence analysts, when they smell flowers, they think of coffins. [laughter] >> thank you, greg, that was fantastic. i will start off with questions

and then we will open it up to the ad yen. we have a lot of people and we want to make sure we have sufficient time for questions. since 9/11 we have seen covert operations, you wrote covert actions in the postworld war and your conclusions back in 1978 covert action produces unintended consequences, i think we would all agree with that. how was your thinking changing over time given the significant uptake in special forces? >> it's dangerous to write a book. [laughter] >> my conclusions haven't changed. they're discreet, ready to get

bin laden. there was nothing covert about it. succeeded. success a way of getting known in this town. interesting combinations with special operators and cia folks. the other thing i would say is that we have gotten better and not great at doing things openly, if you think case of campaign to bring down peacefully in serbia 20 years ago, if you read this after-action report of that talking about the german party foundation, our party foundation, democracy, other ngo's, that's exactly what the cia might have done in another area. the presumption to doing things openly is still the right one.

there's obviously times when it's important but the two points i guess i would stress is do it openly as we can and many operations in the paramilitary have been discreet than covert. >> thank you, the nic is unique in its engagement with people outside of the counter. i think maybe states intelligence does outreach as well and the nic is clearly withdrew neek and design today bring in ideas. who have you not been able to meet with that you would like to? >> it's a good question. i think mostly -- nothing really strikes me. we will take the global trends draft to china, we will change -- take it to russia.

i feel good about occasionally difficulties, it's hard to interact with iranians than i would like but in general i feel like we do a pretty good job of getting out. probably in the course of global trends we would probably touch in one way or another, talk to several thousand people from around the world. so we do, i think, a pretty good job of getting around. it's so essential to our work in general and this year trying to do the five-year look in addition to the 20-year look we have done that to pull it back to a time where it would be interest to nio's and counterparts. now, of course, the time is measured in days and not years, but in general trying to pull it back from 20 years to five and then some pull it back further to a time where it'll be a most interesting opponent is part of

the task. >> okay, last question from me. i've had the great pleasure of working with you and many of us engaged in briefings out in virginia as well as downtown and there are fantastic people. do you find that those who make it to the nio position often have more experience outside that they have academic background or maybe they work for ngo or in the private sector that would bring the kind of perspective that you find valuable at the nic? >> i think so. there are a mix. many of them are career intelligence officers but terrific at it and others have come from another agency. they have had in academia. i wish i had somewhat from the outside, i have a few that come from directly the academy or

think tank. they come with a different perspective, io in economics, for example, she's connected in the outside world in ways that are really important particularly in her account where frankly there isn't a lot of gray intelligence in academics, that information is out in the world, wall street, the banks and having that background is really perfect. so a variety is the right answer. >> good. excellent. let me start with ron marks who was the first one who introduced me to your work about 15 years ago. ron. >> that was either good or bad. thank you, greg, for the presentation this morning. in about two weeks i'll be to the islands, what are chinese

intentions there, what's happening there? >> what are you sailing on? >> cruise ship. >> not a highly armed cruise ship. as a nonchina specialist and somebody who follows china as close as i can, i'm surprised what they're doing in the south china sea seems to be not very strategic. too much risk for too little gain but they have decided relative economic failure in their terms to be morenation illist, to be more assertive and decided that they can take slightly tougher tone in relations with the united states. so i am surprised. it seems to me as i said too

little strategic gain for a big risk. it's all the economy and by all means don't do anything to overtake the united states. that's gone. that's changed. this is a different china. how big the change, i think we are still trying to measure and it's going to fend on what happens inside china. i have always been skeptical that countries change when they are looking for legitimacy, the party is looking for another source now that the economy is not doing as well as they would like. >> you may have heard china today that their defense would grow by 7.2 or 7.8% which is a decrease from recent years. the third row here. hold on for a microphone, please. thanks. >> thank you very much, peter,

danish embassy, thank you very much for a good presentation, preview of the global trend, next global trend, one thing or two things you didn't mention, aligns and partnerships, that's an important part of american policy and the u.s. has been very good at developing and maintaining those and russia and russia have not been that good. any predictions on how things will develop in that area and another thing which is also important energy, a couple of years ago we thought the oil price would be $100 per barrell, now it's 30. any change of the future? >> i would be a fool to try to predict the oil price, i think among those -- we are among

those who imagine that this period of oil prices will continue nor the foreseeable future given slow economic growth and what's happening in china and particularly the rise of american production. the five-year look, i feel very confident that we will continue to have fairly oil prices. you can imagine production taking off the market by war or some other things, other surprises, but absent of those surprises, for the foreseeable future i think we are in a pretty low, maybe not $30 but under 60-dollar oil world. on alliances, there's good and bad, i think u that in many respects the europeans are still -- are most important partners but they're increasing preoccupied and less and less capable in many respects. they're militaries are not --

are getting smaller and not bigger. i spent chunks of the last six years in sweden. sweden was more forthcoming and interesting to working with us even with some of traditional nato allies. i think that will continue and they'll be other opportunities for partnerships, mostly in economics, i suppose with some of the rising countries, india, for example, isn't going to be a security ally but will be an important economic partner. >> let me offer a prove -- provocative, show nato would not be able to manage any russian encouragement into europe and so

i think that's something that certainly consider. mary kelly. >> good morning, i wanted to follow as being listed on five-year worry list, you mentioned putin and fear that he's isolated and he may do something rash. you're always trying to anticipate what a regime will do, what it may be planning next whether it's syria or crimea, that's awfully difficult to do when decision making is on the head of one man. >> absolutely. i am fond and my writing on intelligence in distinguishing between puzzles, mysteries, those things that are ify and contingent, how putin is going to behave is a mystery and presumably a mystery to putin. it's going to depend how

circumstances play out, what opportunities he sees and so that does make predicting foreseeing what he is going to do next particularly difficult. i take him to be strategic and therefore risk in some sense but i do worry about the possibility of blundering across in article 5 boundary by accident or miscalculation and would take us into a very different world, that's why i put it on the top of things i would worry about. >> in the fourth row. this gentleman. >> thanks, i'm mike from john hopkins. mandated sanctions. [laughter] >> the question i wanted to ask follows on the swedish policy

question. now i am going to talk about -- ask a question about how far we can be proactive to affect some of the underlying trends. we are not going to change the demography of the world. that's not going to happen. you said that europe's power is going down and that's crucial to american security. is there something we can do, for example, to influence against it because it would be in our interest? is there something if the congress could get act together, are there -- are there small areas at least within the overall trend that you mentioned that american policy might actually have a measurable impact? >> well, i think so. i mean, we are probably better doing positive things like tpp,

those are really important and hopeful to happen because i think they are critical, doing positive things and trying to purr said -- pusuade the british, may not have much effect on china but will have effect on the allies in that region. some of the things we are doing in europe, some of the things we are doing in europe to try try to reassure and those are important and things we can do. >> the lady in the front row here. >> i want to ask beyond war fighting to governance and who in the government that's not if

you get rid of the leader and much like happened when dismissing the army in iraq and there was nobody to take over and we are sort of into winning, i sort of think about what next. >> yeah. i hope we think about what next. .. i thought good things would ensue. if i got to play that over again i would not be so enthusiastic.

stability is a scarce commodity often in the world, and even some pretty bad guys can produce stability that may be useful. that has been a great lesson personally for me. other states have disintegrated or reverted to autocracy, with the single exception of tunisia. so that has been a lesson for me and does imply, as you suggest about iraq, if you're going to break something, you have to ask what is going to come next. that should be essential before you make the decision to break something. >> going to ask you to make a guess, but instead i will ask you to make an estimate. [laughter] you have talked about instability in the middle east.

looking five years and then to 2030, are we going to see any serious reduction in the level of extremist violence, terrorism, or are we talking about something that you think will be a sustained problem throughout that time period? >> i am inclined towards of you that it will be sustained. there will always be ups and downs, but to the extent there is a civil war inside islam, it will not be solved soon, i don't think. i guess i am pessimistic on that. i think that isil has already sown the seeds of its demise. in any case it will morph into something else just as it was the result of something else morphing. i imagine given the trends instability and terrorism

will continue, obviously having ups and downs and i suppose the big question is how contained it will be, how much it will come to not just europe but to us, and then i suppose my worry is the advertise for ten years to al qaeda that they did not need to bomb planes they could have a couple snipers which would do an awful lot of damage. they never got it they were so attached to spectaculars. my worry about isil is, they get it. you can do a lot of trouble with just plain old weapons, as we saw in san bernardino. >> let me point out from our discussion we had last night on this topic the demographics are one of the main contributors to the environment in which violent extremism feeds on other factors, and we have a world of seven .2 billion people.

that is adding china and three united states to the planet and the systemic pressures that contribute to violent extremism are only going to grow. >> jonathan landy with reuters. i want to take you back to your comment about how terrorism escalated to the top of the list because of domestic politics. to what extent does that open trap for the united states to implement policies that will actually aggravate some of these trends you are talking about, particularly in the middle east? and how do you get to a point where you can put terrorism in perspective, that it is not the threat that it is made out to be on the political level?

the existential threat? >> i would not say it is just domestic politics. i take people's fear is real i do not think we have done a good job as a society of trying to put it in perspective. every president and senior official lives in terror of the next terrorist attack. so, that means, it seems to me, we do not have a lot of perspective. we do -- just after september 1111th i had a great bumper sticker for which i lacked the car. take the terror out of terrorism. and it seems to be much of what we do is putting the terror in terrorism, helping the terrorists do their work which is a challenge, trying to have some sense of perspective. i do not think the israeli experience has much to teach us, but the one thing i admire his their insistence

that they will clean up the terrorist attack and get back to normal within hours, not days or years. that is an important lesson that we ought to take a board. >> arms control association. thank you for your remarks. a lot of changes have taken place in the us intelligence community since the deeply flawed iraq wmd that was done in 2002. i think that it is evident that the 2,007 iran in ie as important intelligence that was shared with the american people. even taking note of comments on the unclassified global trends series which is an important innovation, it does seem that in recent years the public is getting less information on

proliferation on military balance from the intelligence community than it did previously. we used to have executive summaries that were only lightly censored a very sensitive main body estimates which does not seem to be happening now. even the once yearly worldwide threat assessment hearings on the congress, they do not have i and are represented at the table anymore. so i wonder if you sense and increasing timidity about sharing valuable information you have with the public in the congress that acts on that information. >> it is a good question. what i have wrestled with my entire career. i ended making the argument that we ought to look for

opportunities to show the american people what is done i was going to drive that all the story. when i sent the book through publication review by the cia before publication, they would not let me tell the story. the irony was not entirely lost on the security of reviewers. we can't talk about that. and obviously wikileaks and snowden have had a somewhat chilling effect in the wrong direction from my perspective, but i am with you, it is important to try to find opportunities to get as much information out as we can which is why relish the global trends series. and you can rest assured that inr was very deeply involved in the preparation of the annual threat assessment testimony. that is something we do as

well, but they were much involved. >> we have another 30 minutes and will get to everyone's questions. >> georgetown university. this country has been, not the whole country because they handle it differently, but the country has been at war for 15 years now under two presidents with -- there seems to be an inclination to look at problems for military solutions. there has been some expectation of a more robust diplomacy. do you see that we can take more back from taking -- from looking for military solutions and having a greater effect by expansion and development and cooperation and diplomacy?

>> this is a personal view, nothing to do with my current work. i tend to share your sense that because we are good at things military and relatively quick often we turn to that instrument. in principle this seems like a world set up for diplomacy , but that has been less developed in our arsenal of things to do. i think that you are right and share your sense that we ought to be looking more toward diplomacy and other measures. the problem is very long term. and so it comes back to time horizon of officials in time rises that they feel they must adhere to and also than increasing the temptation to look for military

instruments. i share your sense purely personally as a citizen thinking about this issue that we have not quite gotten the balance right. just so much better and it is tempting to turn to those instruments. >> in the front row. >> thank you. i was wondering if we have any comments, latin america, especially in those regimes at the brink of collapse. and when everyone is talking about the revival of the cold war, thank you. >> worry about the presence of china. a little bit more about russia.

i think they are expecting china to bail them out, they may be disappointed. in general as i look at chinese actions, everything china does looks to us like it is sinister. much of what they do as a result of them being newly bigger and richer than what they used to be. my judgment will be either good or waste of money and in neither case to my care much about it. russia given history is a little different but there two i do not worry much. russia has less and less wherewithal. looking for china to be a major player, they will be disappointed. >> if your budget could expand, freedom to move in

other directions. what new in's would you establish if any? >> the 1st thing that i would do would be to have a little unit, strategic futures group that is about three people. i would like to have ten people that would be strategic analysts, not do in ie's but have the wherewithal and work with deputies. i would like to have some people free from the crush of daily support to be able to be more strategic. i mostly try and resisted. a strategic reserve that would give us some ability, increased ability to be more strategic. we keep planning and pushing

off to the right. >> second row. >> if there were three tools to improve analytic just generally, even academically what would they be? i have strong feelings about this. >> so many out there. but we are doing in that vein now is, the intelligence community prediction market. the main person on the outside. it has been quite interesting. we are taking all that over.

the version of darpa. i am excited about. the good news is that just like athletics some people are better at predicting than others. even better than that is training helps, even a couple hours. in the training all goes in the direction of trying to help people keep open-minded one 2nd longer than they are likely to. i want to make it an internal set set up the prediction markets is the chance of a major economic decline his ex- in the analysts say no, then we could have the conversation. and then we will try and extend some of the questions

more strategic longer-term. one of the things i am intrigued by, the great intelligence data out there. looking for data sets, not necessarily big data, but data that you can use. now it is good enough to help you 1st see things like disease or famine. collapse on tips and said analysts can't take a look at this connection. look here. >> second row.

>> thank you. i would like to throw at you to softball questions. does the ic have different strategic shoot views, assumptions because we obviously have two different strategies. if you have insight and maybe more critically what can we do to incentivize the sunni arabs to go with us and dump isil? >> more policy that intelligence. as i said, i think, you know, putin is obviously relatively pleased with how ukraine has turned out. he has not gotten what he

wanted and pushed ukraine even further westward through all the things he wanted and not to do. in syria we will see. his desire concerned about the longer-term understanding that it could be a quagmire. all the things he has done has been to reduce the pressure. >> yes, sir. second row here. >> thank you. >> you mentioned the overclassification, the intelligence agencies indulgence, the government and large has been accused of classifying documents to avoid embarrassment,

particularly over mistakes. could you enlighten us as to how to thousand state department documents became classified post factor after politics reared its ugly head? >> you're probably better than i had answering that. you are right. it is not the people trying to protect the guilty by classification. there may be some of that, but the pressure from the system, you never get pinged for over classifying but you can for letting out something that is classified that you did not realize. all the pressure pushes toward overclassification which keeps getting worse and worse. about those documents, you're probably as well informed as i am. >> thank you.

we have seen rushes influencing the southeast europe how do you see these strengths? do you think that these actions are much more tactical? >> taking this seriously. the challenge is almost everything that has been done is hastening the downfall. but that is years away and as the saying has it, in the long run we are all dead.

he seems completely oblivious. i think the kind of assertion, target of opportunity, policies he has pursued will continue. he does not have the wherewithal, but i imagine it will continue to push to get a seat at the table and assert weight with respect to the former soviets fear. those of you talking to the chinese about central asia just laugh and russia. russia has no capacity. we are the game, not the russians. >> in the back row. >> thank you. kevin barron with defense one. talk more about the use of covert ops on the rise, the question of overclassification, a lot of

officials of said the intelligence committee needs to do a better job, want more information, yet we are fighting a covert war extremely in the dark when it comes to isil and terrorism. how can i be reconciled, what conversations are happening and what changes could or should be made to open up any of this? >> i would not say our actions are covert. some of them are discrete and in small units, but butunits, but i would not say there is much secret about them. that is interesting. in general you are right. we do a terrible job at helping the american people understand our work and how we do it. my favorite example is the 215 program on telephone metadata program. if you could have imagined intelligence getting out in

front of that and saying the whole purpose of the program is to limit the number of phone calls we listen to, but once snowden gets it out it is mass surveillance, but if it were possible to imagine intelligence getting far enough out in front to talk about the 215 program, get numbers out, the number of conversations is pretty small. so that is the challenge. unfortunately, it is unfortunately, it is hard for me to imagine that intelligence could be that proactive. if you do that you will tell our adversaries a little bit about how we do our work, and you are, but that seems a cost that you must pay in the world we live in, particularly if you're going to do things that involve citizens or inhabitants.

>> thank you for a fun presentation. i am a former defense person ,, and i used to fund greg's research back in the day. >> will you do it again? >> you have got enough now. >> we have a question. we observed is not an existential threat. yet all of these things plan to domestic politics. and i recall engaging with state over the fact that america needed to take into account domestic politics

among nato allies if we hope to deploy cruise missiles. hence the dual track. do you find that today we have any focus in to the appreciation wouldn't he be spinning in your group? >> we would like to think intelligence was important

in determining policy and recognize it is one factor among many. lots of things will trump intelligence. like you i would be spinning in my grave. >> the lady in the back. >> thank you. your thoughts on north korea and the fact that in the past 24 hours they put nuclear weapons on high alert in the 2nd question on russia where interests

are intersecting in the middle east and europe and so forth. what do you see as the consequences of engagement between russia and the united states and the consequences of confrontation or isolation? >> north korea is a puzzle, and essentially failed state still has nuclear weapons. we don't know. but it is a puzzle. and it is in some ways the only thing may have got, so it is not surprising that they did brandish them from time to time. they reckon that it has the only thing that deters regime change in north korea

probably not a surprising as it may seem. it is there again, obviously the place from whence that might come. the policy preferences. the us if you convince your best friend in europe that you are a liar, that is not helpful. so i see opportunities for us to engage the russians,

the cessation of hostilities it will continue to be a mix of cooperation and competition. it seems to me that the russian hand is pretty weak. >> second row. >> thank you very much. i wonder if you could reflect on how your job has changed in the two decades of your tenure and how you relate to customers in the impact with policymakers. obviously it is an innovative product but you mentioned there are 700 pieces of paper.

what types of analytical changes have you seen the gain traction or what's up a product and presentation gain traction? how has it changed and what have you found to be the most effective changes? >> the two big changes probably don't go to products but more to process. the big change is the involvement in current intelligence support. ..

>> still live in an oral and paper world. none of them have time to be on the computer or rook looking at anything. that is going to change. the president gets a daily briefing on his ipad now. so do i which is nice. it is only a little worse than paper.

it is a reader basically. not an ipad but it is the first step. >> yes? gentlemen there. >> thank you. ryan brown with cmn. i just wanted to piggy -- cnn -- back on the question about the trend for extremist violence in the middle east.

you said it was going to be sustained for the foreseeable future and talked about the empowerment of smaller groups. in terms of capabilities, i know you said isis reaped their own destruction but in terms of their capability advancing and whether or not their ability to attack the united states or europe will advance as well. >> the ones i worry about are the ones we have seen where they are inspired not necessarily responsible or operationally in control. the capacity to do that is growing. i worry most about the lone wolves or small groups or radicalized people inspired by isis but not necessarily controlled or guided by them much. that, i think, will continue to be the most significant terrorist threat. in terms of capability, you

know, so far, isil has not surprised us much with the tools they have used but they are done them effectively. they have used social media for communication and recruiting effectively. no great innovations there but pretty effective use. as we look forward, all of the things that we have from drones to miniaturization, our opponents will acquire as well. maybe slightly later, we hope, than do but among the trends going the wrong direction it seems are greater availability of lethal, dangerous technology to our enemies and even terror groups. >> stanley in the back. >> stanley croaker. i am puzzled by the comment we do the military stuff well.

wars continue politics by other means. what political results have we achieved by our use of military power? we are good at blowing stuff up. but take a look at libya. what has followed? what political results are we achieving by the use of our military force? >> that is absolutely the right question. what i meant is we are good at doing military operations; right? whether they achieve their desired results is another question. you put it very well. that is the big question and i think you are exactly right. we are better at doing the operations than we are at putting them in the context that actually achieve the outcomes we care about. >> natalie?

one minute. microphone. >> natalie from csis. regarding the lack of government counterparts on the ground for isis how do you see that affecting the recruitment for human operations? >> say it again >> regarding the lack of ground control for isis on the ground how do you see that affecting recruitment? >> i am not an expert on this. i was an expert on difficult and dangerous operations. someone asked about getting the sunnis on our side and there is a problem of tipping point. if you are sunni and want to go against isis you have to have enough company to protect you or you will just lose your head. so information gathering is very difficult indeed. i am not sure my analyst agree with me but i think one of the

liabilities of isis is their determination to take territory. governing territory isn't as easy as it looks. i think in some ways they are kind of caught in something that is almost ideology talking about the caliphate on one hand and on the other hand talking about the apocalypse. but i do think that trying to hold and govern territory is a liability for them. >> this gentlemen here, please. >> thank you very much for your comments. i have two questions for you. how do you account for the repeated failures on part of the u.s. intelligence community to anticipate the annexation of

crima or even russia's decision to involve itself in syria. and the second question has to do with central asia. in your five and 20 years outlooks you never mentioned the new silk road initiative which is transforming the region as we speak. i was wondering to hear your thoughts about that. thank you very much. >> i mentioned before sort of in passing that china regards central asia as a place that will be important. right now the silk road is more talk but it will turn into something. i think they are bound to grow assuming their economy stays in decent shape. i take that to be true. on the first question, my boss, jim clapper, says there are only two outcomes in foreign policy.

policy successes and intelligence failures. i think i would resist the proposition that we also fail. i think our record is not bad. if you look at some of the studies of predictions i don't think intelligence is entirely in the predictions. studies looked at our predictions and said our batting average isn't bad. something like arab spring -- they are a challenge. i don't think intelligence did better or worse than the academic community. they are the challenges. we all knew these places were instable. that was on the list of instable countries and policymakers say that is great but what is going to happen? so predicting that spark, the thing that will touch off and

turn latent instability into political turmoil, is very hard. the other thing i would say is lots of aspects of recent russia behavior are mysteries. exactly when putin decided to do this or that -- he is very good at taking advantage of the opportunity. and the second thing is more in line with your question the challenge we face in intelligence was nicely illustrated by the ebola. the medical community had a story about ebola. the story was it would rise in rural areas and extinguish there. the problem was that story was valid so long as there wasn't much rural to urban migration.

the patterns of migration changed. we often have a story about something and then circumstances change to make that story no longer helpful, no longer relevant. in the case of, for instance, the russian move into syria, we anticipated, we knew that russia was going to up the ante in syria. that was no surprise. but our story was that upping of the ante would be the same thing. more training and weapons. not a presence on the ground. >> you had your hand up for a while, sir. please make the questions brief. we just have a few minutes left >> peter sharp. we haven't taken the terror out of terrorism but we seem to have taken the terror out of weapons of mass destruction. to comment a little more on what

you see as the prospects for technological change in the future making it easier and therefore more widespread to develop weapons that can kill a lot of people at once. >> yeah, there i suppose i worry most about biological weapons. so far that is the kind of dog that hasn't much barked. but as all of these things in biology and biotech happening the possibility of killing an a lot of people but also targeting and killing fewer people. some of the interesting things, not hopeful, but interesting about the development of what is badly called wpmd. i wish we never called them weapons of mass destruction because they are so different. but there is the development of making them more usable, less lethal, but more usable.

if you imagine targeted weapons that went after a tribe where a group or there is lots of interesting nuclear weapons. the pakistani's talk openly about using the nuclear weapon on their own territory to stem a conventional attack. the russians have lately been talking about possible nuclear weapons as de-escalation not escalation. the ones that worry me are going in the direction of making these weapons more usable. >> sir? >> stewart guy. two quick questions.

one relates to russia, germany and the issue of energy dependence. we seem to not have any discussion about taking the opportunity to help europe, from our point of view, to achieve more independence with our exporting perhaps, and what is germany doing? they turned their back on nuclear making them more dependent. secondly, north korea. i am struck by the fact of the short term strategic that north korea didn't come up. where does that stand on your short-term/long-term?

>> remind me of the first question? >> energy. >> energy, yeah. yeah, this is mostly a european issue. as a policy matter i would obviously us favor doing exports. i think we should be exporting now. but that is a policy issue not an intelligence one. from an intelligence one, this would be a wonderful time for the european union to get another on union. they have to be dictating prices to russia and this would be a great time. but they continue not to be organized enough and let the russians pick a country off and put pressure on the country. it is primarily for the europeans to do but i am surprised there is not something more to do so they are not price takers but price setters. on north korea, the intelligence

community spends an enormous amount of time on north korea. russia, iran, china and north korea are the big four. we have a separate national intelligence officer for korea. so we spend an awful lot of time worrying about it. it is a worry. as i said, a strange worry this country is a failure in every respect except military. awkward. i confess sometimes i have a hard time taking it entirely seriously but realize i need to. >> megan, you get the last question. >> sir, my question for you is a regional one. it was reported last week a small group of special operation forces were deployed to nigeria against boka haram.

what extent are they concerned for the nic and is the absence of sufficient intelligence data as it per tains to africa concerned this might be the emergence of a blind spot? -- pertains -- >> we are worried a lot about various terror groups in africa. that is something we pay a of attention to. our focus on counter terrorism does have a deforming affect on our analysis more generally. when you look at nigeria there is not much analysis. it is all boka harem. it is mostly about works and targeting and finding people and that is understandable but it does mean in some ways we understand and are able to enough networks and targets better than we are at understanding where are these people coming from, why are they

doing this, where are they going and those kinds of questions i would like us to be better at. yes, we are concerned, though. i think the absence of a lot of intelligence is a problem. but it is one we spend a lot of effort on with respect to the terrorist groups. >> greg, you demonstrated why you are such a fantastic voice for the nic. i am veryy happy and confidant you are at the helm there and i would like everyone to offer you a round of applause. thank you for coming. you can find out about future events by going to our twitter page or our main page. hope you join us for the next event here. thank you very much.

[inaudible conversations] >> the supreme court this week

heard oral argument in a case that questions the constitutionality of a texas law that requires doctors performing abortions in a clinic to have a hospital admitting procedure within 30 minutes of the clinic. you can listen to the oral argument tonight at 8:00 on c-span2. >> there is a longer border here with ukraine than russia.

>> author of two cold wars and a journey through romania and beyond talks about the history and romania's struggle to gain democracy since the fall of c commun communism. it >> it is corrupt because everything is based on bribe and double dealing. this shows this is nothing new. what is happening is the romanian population has grownup and become far more sophisticated and it is demanding clean government. it is its number one demand. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> the bureau of statistics showed 240,000 jobs were added

in february. the jobless rate stayed at 4.9% with growth in the health care sector, retail, and restaurant businesses. the president spoke while meeting with his cabinet at the white house. >> all set? >> i thought it might be useful to take a break from the spectacle of the political simpson and now i gather oj and focus on something that matters to the american people and that is how the economy is doing and how it is affecting their lives. this morning we learned the u.s. economy created 242,000 jobs last month. that is two months in a row the unemployment rate has been below 5%. over the past three months, our workforce has grown by 1.5 million people.

that is progress. overall, america's business has now created new jobs for 72-straight months. six straight years of job creation. 14.3 million new jobs. our businesses have created jobs every single month since i signed that job-killing obamacare bill. think about this; if somebody told us seven years ago we would get to this point at a time when we were loosing 800,000 jobs a month and the unemployment rate hit 10% we would not have believed it. but today america's businesses are creating jobs at the fastest pace since the 1990's and america's workforce is growing at the fastest pace since the jeer 2000. it is showing the strength and durability that make's america's economy the enemy of the world

despite the enormous head winds it is receiving because of weaknesses in other parts of the world. in other words, the numbers, the facts, don't lie. i think it is useful given there seems to be an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that america's down in the dumps. it is not. america is pretty darn great right now. and making strides right now. and small businesses and large businesses alike are hiring right now. and investing right now. and building this country brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, all across the country. i don't expect that these fact and this evidence will convince some of the politicians out there to change their dooms day

rhetoric talking about how terrible america is. but the american people should be proud of what they have achieved because this speaks to their resilience, innovation, creativity, risk-taking, and grit. the fact of the matter is that the plans we have put in place to grow the economy have worked. they would work even faster if we did not have the kind of obstruction we have seen in this town to prevent additional policies that would make a difference. and there is going to be a debate going on around the budget in the coming months. republicans in congress are sadly trying to cut some of the investments that could spur additional growth. they are blocking things like an increase in the minimum wage or more robust investment in jobs, training, infrastructure,

education that can continue to lift up wages and income. an area, by there way, where we are not seeing the same kind of pace we want to see and where if we are working together we could be making a difference. that is what we should be debating. that is the debate that is worthy of the american people. not fantasy, not name calling, not trying to talk down to the american economy, but looking at the facts, understanding that we made extraordinary progress in job growth and how can we continue to advance that and make sure people are successful in climbing the ladder of wage and income growth over the coming years. how do we make sure that we make this economy grow even faster? and the kinds of proposals we

put forward repeatedly are are rebuilding infrastructure, improving the job training system, lifting the minimum wage, dealing with family leave and paid leave, making sure that retirement accounts are more helpful to middle class families and working families, making college more affordable. those things will make an enormous difference. we have got to continue to push that agenda. that is what we should be talking about. that is what i am going to be talking about with my economic team in the coming months. the notion that we would reverse the very policies that helped dig us out of recession reinstitute those that got us into a hole, plans being proposed by the republicans in congress, and the republicans running for president. that is not the conversation we should be having. that is not the direction america should take.

and i am looking forward to very forcefully making clear that what we have done has made a difference. and that there is a huge gap between the rhetoric that is going on out there and the reality of success of what we are seeing in america's economy even as we acknowledge there is more work that could be done to make sure everybody is benefiting from that success. all right? thank you very much, everybody. have a good weekend. >> have a good weekend. >> good to see you. >> on the next washington journal, we will take a closer look at the february job's report with bloomberg reporter. and elanor cliff of the daley beast talks about campaign 16 and what is next for hillary clinton and bernie sanders as the two try to compete for the remaining delegates. and bright bart news editor and

chief discusses the annual political action conference in maryland and the media's role in covering the presidential race. washington journal live every day at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> booktv has 48 hours of non-fiction books and authors every weekend. here is some of the programs this weekend. on saturday night at 10 eastern: >> the first sentence of the book is the history of american conservatism is a story of betrayal. >> discussing the history of republican politics in the book called "why the right went wrong; conservatism from goldwater to the tea party and beyond" he is interviewed by juan williams. and indepth live with jane mayor "dark monemoney" is her lt

book. we will take your questions and comments and tweets till noon eastern. watch booktv every weekend on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> next the supreme court oral argument concerning the texas abortion clinic law. then the cachair of the national intelligence counsel talks about u.s. efforts to combat terrorism. after that, a discussion on the fbi, apple and access to phone encryption data. on wednesday, the supreme court heard oral arguments in whole woman's health versus hellerstedt; an abortion case from texas. the court is considering a texas law requiring doctors to have admitling -- admitting