a fairly smooth transition to prioritization of policy topics and policy issues. i wonder if you could talk about president clinton and his prioritization and what he brought in as a priority and what might have begun to be imposed upon him by events. >> he had a similar saying, that was good government is good politics. ..

reagan before him, reagan is the only other president i know who got this right. they understood that macroeconomic policy is a very broad instrument and it takes a lot time. so you have to do the tough, ugly stuff. in your first year. and so, clinton did that. but the first budget deal embrace reconciliation deal. so did reagan with his first project deal. a 1984, it was morning in america and i remember this well because i was working for walter mondale and that was a pretty depressing campaign to work in. and they made to 96, we had incredibly low unemployment and all sorts of things that incumbent presidents ought to have good so doing the tough things are related is really the most important thing.

and then of course getting used to writing a government. in my book i talk about casey and i went last between al gore and bill clinton and was one of those awkward things where there were a lot of people in the oval office and they all went off into betty curry's office on the side and there is sort of a traffic jam so i was last one and i couldn't get out. obviously, al gore wanted to say something to bill clinton, so i sort of stood there trying to pretend i wasn't there. i got to watch al gore's fate to clinton, you must say this comment based and based. it is not a foreign policy question. what was going on the score was more familiar with foreign policy, listening to clinton who

weighs maybe the best ad lib. speechmaker in american history. this is one place you don't ad lib. because foreign policy statement have consequences the world looks at them and parses them usually the diplomats work them out and precision of language matters is the poster and bill clinton was talking about medicaid or welfare or something like this. there's a lot of learning and i'm time it's counterintuitive. somebody is going to name to say to them. precision in language matters. when you're president there are consequences to what you say and that this freewheeling, you know, campaign that he's ran, which i definitely many electoral advantages of went to be a problem in governing.

they also do this to a certain extent. they all had started some inkling of something. this current translation is unusual. to say the least. >> race, could you tell us about transitioning into policy making, the links to the campaign agenda, which has health care reform at the top for president obama. but coming into office with an ongoing crisis and economic not done in the financial world. >> you know, when we started planning an april 2008, we were focusing on immigration education, health care, the whole range of issues. at a time which took office in two dozen and there's only one issue and that was the economy. i recall the very first job number in february 2000 the country had lost 800,000 jobs. more than the people in charlotte, north carolina.

the number one governing principle had to be getting the economy back up and running. after nitration e-commerce estimate billion dollars stimulus package and the charge from vice president reagan who oversaw the recovery act was to get the money out the door as fast as possible with this little waste, fraud and abuse as possible. at that time when the couple cabinet members confirmed. not many people around them. the ability to get $800 billion at the door was in large measure because of career leadership who understood these are the programs he put money into that had the greatest impact as quickly as possible. so there is often a criticism of career employees and their ability to move quickly and drive change. we learned early on you can't accomplish anything unless you have a career leadership idea. >> that brings me then to josh and president george w. bush.

again, very clear agenda coming into office. talk about that. talk about how he implemented that agenda into both grace and a's point about being able to reach out to the, both in the executive agencies and in congress. >> president bush came into office having published two books of policy campaign. one of them which we published in either july or august 2008 i mentioned was 450 pages long. it is a detailed policy speech. and then, five or six page fact sheet with all the details that went behind the speeches so you could tell the policy, direction and colposcopy in principle from the speech. you've got the numbers. you've got the programmatic details in the fact sheet. so when we came into the white

house in january 2001, we didn't has to have a lot of meaning about what are the policies the president wants to implement immediately. we didn't face a crisis on the way and the door. we did face an economy that was headed into recession. we have policies that were well defined to combat that recession in particular a large tax cut, which president bush has campaigned on being necessary regardless, but had also had advice from his economic advisers to the effect that a recession was likely on the way and that this would be the best. so we were confused about what the policy priorities were.

education is a big one. president bush, by the way, no one will remember this. president bush campaign didn't be the education president did that was his intent when he came in and in fact campaigned against al gore on the notion that the clinton administration had to come to this did by foreign activities in nation building than the bush administration participate in that sort of back dvd. i'm probably anticipating a further question about how events changed. perspective of every president, they always do. but on the way in, that gave us an opportunity to focus. presidenpresiden t bush did one other thing that i think was generally regarded as having been a shortcoming of click

administration on the way in the door and maybe a shortcoming of the trumpet minutes nation on the way you adore and that is focused on the white house. there is a tendency in every trained nation to focus on the big shiny objects which are the big cabinet posts. those are absolute the critically important, but it causes the presidency lacked in their senior teams to neglect the construction of the white house staff which actually is the group that's going to help drive the really critical presidential rarities. the government that he laid described so well in her first set of remarks is pretty darn resilient. and some with fake impervious. but it is very capable of running it though at least on a

steady-state without substantial political leadership. it is only on those issues where the president really wants to take the country in a particular direction, especially a new direction for the presidential leadership council a lot. typically that comes from the white house. they don't have to be big public figures, but the folks with the president brings in the white house and empowers to drive those initiatives are key appointment early on in the presidency. i think especially those who are less familiar with government have a tendency to neglect that aspect of the early part of the transition. >> one of my favorite tories in doing the oral history for bush

43 and we've done every president's oral history from jimmy carter, really starting with the administration of gerald ford in carrying on through and we are coming to the end of the bush 43 project and those are so confidential that this is in the public record. one of my favorite stories and it not the election for president electra getting that he's a media impresario and that is bush 43 invited ted kennedy and his family within the first few weeks of the administration down to watch the film 13 days about the cuban missile crisis. so here's that ted kennedy but president george w. bush, watching a film about ted kennedy's brother a few yards away in the oval office and the cabinet room coming to terms with the cuban missile crisis. the bush library where you just had the pleasure of visiting for the first time last week i noted that they have a hand written thank you note ted kennedy to president bush thanking him for

bringing him in his family down to the white house to see 13 days. he said i hope that i have many opportunities to come down to the white house to the rose garden and watch you send some policies we can agree on including education and health care. and apart from that outreach and bringing together two people from across the aisle, which ted kennedy had done on many occasions and governor bush had done in texas. friend back with the no child left behind policy. there can be issues about whether that is the best for education, but the point is one of reaching out and accepting that outreach and carrying on from there. >> president bush after the tax cuts, the top priority for the both temporal and principled priority was no child left the hind act for which president bush's partners were democrat

george miller and the house said democrat ted kennedy in the senate. many people will recall that when 9/11 have range, laura bush was on the hill. she was a ted kennedy preparing to do a hearing on the no child left behind act. eventually the active get adopted in ted kennedy was there in the rose garden at the countrymen off a different direction. >> in addition the wonderful display with a ted kennedy handwritten note to president bush is also painting. ted kennedy was an amateur artist and a painted daffodils and he gave that painting to first lady laura bush with a very nice inscription. it does show come let us reason together. that takes us of course to the notion that crises, domestic and foreign and defense crises, military crises can intervene

and disrupt the very best laid plans of an incumbent president. josh come since he mentioned 9/11 comments )-right-paren talk about the impact 9/11 had president bush's first year in office. >> total. it can't we overstated what a radical change in the agenda of the bush administration of government, the federal government and of the whole country was the product of the 9/11 attack. the whole focus of the administration chain overnight. interestingly, president rush who was among the first to recognize how profound and complete the change would be when he convened basically his cabinet on the evening of september 11 and he started getting different instructions, including the fbi dirt, saving your admission just changed.

your admission traditionally have been to catch the bad guys after they do the deed. it needs to change. we have to catch them before the bad deeds. that story was written across at least half the government and change the focus, the tenor of the entire government in ways that they just suggested they were completely unexpected in the campaign president bush ran. >> thoughts about president clinton and things like the waco disaster, for example. >> again, waco was probably -- i mean, clinton didn't have anything nearly that president obama for president listed. there was no major attack on the united states. he had a much more normal, shall we say first year. but there were every thing

friend in the military to waco was evident of that opening remarks, which is bad he wasn't very familiar with the government she was running. there were sort of peace and said that he knew quite well. guy trivedi made a mistake leaving him about medicare because he knew everything. but no president comes in knowing the whole shebang. and so, he's clearly, though they are just as dixie made in that first year they really did hurt him and decreased his political popularity, et cetera, et cetera and from that came just 10 minutes cap.emit to two with the federal government was doing. we came in 92-93 after three republican terms.

what that means us to rake in terms and one bush one turn. what that means is the last time you had democrat and then a major role in the federal government was really a blog tenneco. it was jimmy carter and frankly some of them were dead. a lot of them were retired. and so, it is harder. the longer you've been out, the more difficult the transition is because you can't just go to, you know, the last democratic secretary of defense or secretary of something or rather an say okay, help us. the bench is very thin and i think that showed in president clinton's first year. >> .the bat again how this crisis that was ongoing at the cavemen, as are trying to move forward on health care reform and other aspects of the policy

agenda of president obama. >> adventures in because they think what folks have with the governing majority, they think that will last forever. as we learned in 2009 with the recovery act, we were able to get health care pass and we were ready to go in then we lost the majority of the house and senate. really for the last six years we've been relying on executive action to get her policy agenda done. we saw was joking white house legislative affairs in the first term when staffers have believed it printed out a nice piece of paper that showed up the bills we had gotten past during that period of time. i don't know what they give out now. the list is much, much shorter. it was not only the change in policy priorities. it is the change in tactics that came about because of the 2010 election. >> a few more minutes for one last question for me. i want you to think of questions

you can ask in the last five or 10 minutes of our panel. i thought we would go down the row when i wanted to present this question to all three of you. what did you learn in the transition in first year of your respected industry shed that you wish you had known looking back. now you know it. you wish you had known going into it. >> i don't know. there are a lot of things. i think that if we wish we had known was exactly how complicated pieces of the government were, that from the outside you thought you knew and would to god and, there were layers upon layers upon layers. you know, here you had bill clinton had been governor of arkansas for more than a decade. al gore had been member of the senate for a long time. these hurt by with real

experience and there is so much learning that went on in that first year. i think probably making more time to do that would have been later on. >> you know, i think i was surprised over the last eight years have factors goes if you've got that wonderful opportunity in the first year that disappears so quickly. the other thing is the political pendulum swings back the other direction. policy initiative in the second term weather was gun-control, we had a maturity we could've gotten done in those first two years and we decided to sequence other things. i never got the chance to do that again. >> reorganization key. >> chris said what i was going to say, which is going to have a keener sense of the club. we cavemen with conventional wisdom understanding as early on

but at least i didn't understand well enough going in is how small the windows of opportunity for productive action are and therefore the crucial questions to be concerned about if you know what your priorities are, if you know what your policies are is to be aware that he will be knocked off balance by some sort of intervening crisis. number two is get the sequencing right and take the stuff you think is really important and run with it as fast as you can assume is the window opens. the windows are not only in the first year, but they are widest in the first year. and then watch for those windows. pick the right issue, which we did not consistently do later in

the administration and ran as fast as you can because windows does to the law. >> i was a worse to live by for the incoming administration paid thank you so much. let's turn to those of you in the audience if you'll wait for a microphone to come to you. >> hi, my name is richard skinner. we've heard a lot of talk about the importance of the white house staff early on. everybody pays a lot of attention to the cabinet. oftentimes administrations ran into a particularly huge challenge in filling subcabinet positions which are extremely important in this issue areas. oftentimes people can really sink their teeth into the policy detail more so than cabinet secretaries. i wonder what the people on the panel have learned about filling positions for a pretty long time.

>> object in my example at the department of labor. 17,000 employees that we had for his work place safety, work place wage rules. who your osha administrators are critically important to enforcing the very guidelines. who runs the agencies and keeps trains running on time and making sure you are doing the internal changes and watching your budget are all-important. i will echo the point on the white house staff. i have a lot of thought to the trend transitions that i think they are making the classic mistake of focusing on the cabinet that of the people immediately around the president who can help him get his agenda done. will be interesting to see what the sequencing changes are. they have time. >> they do have time. thank you very much. running as fast as you can the first year scares a little bit.

my question is can the first year do irreparable damage to our republic, they do we have enough checks and balances and sanity built into the system to keep us on an even keel somehow? >> on election night, my son-in-law who is an army captain said to me, well now we have to trust the constitution. i've been quoting that all the time because the cons to tuition does build in checks and balances and there are people who are nervous about where president trump might go in this first year. but to sort of answer that specifically goes to the discussion we've been having and i think josh pointed this out. most candidates for president come into office with policy

papers. they come in and a couple of key areas but that deeply thought out policy agenda. we know that president bush really was steeped in education policy, knew it is governor, came in with a vision. they knew where to go. so with yukon and having campaigned on it, given a lot of speeches, you can pretty much do a good job in the first year. and that's generally what tends to happen is that the first year focuses on sun and the president cares about. there's a lot of guidance on. the problem i think we are facing and what making everybody nervous about the upcoming trump administration is that we have an absence of these policy papers. so we don't quite know what he means.

we don't know how much money you want to spend on not, we'll get a money grab, which part of the government leave task of implementing that. what does the edges they should look like? a whole list of things you have to sort of figure out. there doesn't seem to be that cap in the trunk transition or administration and that is brain-dead. that was never the case. very few presidents come in knowing everything, but they generally come in with some expertise in some piece of the government and some idea what they want to know. we are in uncharted territory here. >> i am not as pessimistic as you might imagine. but you know, we spent years in washington with everybody wanted

the gridlock is terrible. washington never gets anything done enough people are saying washington might get something done. i am a believer in our constitutional system. it is a difficult system. it is the system was designed to frustrate governmental initiative to i can't tell you the number of times they saved in the white house. chris, you probably experience to date. elaine, you, too. i had parliament and the period if we just had a parliament, we could just go do this stuff and get all the speed a lot of our way. but you can't in our system. i have been to be among those

who thinks that even though the trump team isn't coming in with that policy papers, i have a big beaver and tax reform which there is wide consensus in this country we actually need and have not had an 34 years. and no significant rewrite of our tax code in 30 years and it is because the internal tensions that we have built into our constitutional system and the growth of ideological and partisan chasms and washington have been too large to bridge. so in areas like tax reform, i am cautiously up to mystic that a successful candidate who is

not part of the deep ideological divide in this country is now part of the deep partisan divide in this country and actually has a chance to help us break gridlock in areas where i think the american people would benefit. so i had discerned, but i am cautiously optimistic about what our system can produce over the next year. >> thank you. obviously this could go on for the entire first year of the next president come of this discussion. i will use my moderatormoderator s prerogative. to this gentleman's point i have several favorite phrases through the federalist papers and their wife and may not always get the. if men were angels, no government would be necessary. ambition must be made to counteract ambition. with that as the three premises of our constitution which has

served us well for over two centuries, i like josh have great faith and we will put our faith in the constitution every time. thank you so much for your attention. [applause] er >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel and for brief pro forma session. this is live coverage on c-span2. the standing rules of the senate i hereby appoint the honorable bill cassidy, a senator from the state of louisiana, to perform the duties of the chair. signed orrin g. hatch, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under the previous order the senate stands previous order the senate stands

>> i do think you can learn from failure. if the next president wants to aspire to be like somebody, they probably want to be washington or lincoln. you can't re-create the country and you can't have a civil war. so you aspire to be james monroe. i don't know. you can aspire not to be james buchanan.

>> i think the differentiation of good president that residents pay blockage and 10, lincoln and fdr at the top of the surveys historians take. they were decisive men. you can't come to the top of the ladder and not be decisive. james polk hated him for being a waffler as secretary of day. they owe us a and forth on decisions. your advisor. summit with to do. >> c-span student can documentary is in full swing and we're asking students to tell us what is the most of horton issue for the new president and new congress to address in 2017. joining me is the former student kim winter 2016 for her documentary, help for homeless heroes.

tell us about your student cam documentary. >> by parker and i produced a documentary where they covered issues of homeless veterans on the streets of orange county, california. we decided that these are the people who have given to their country and the fact that they are now living on the streets not having family, not having anyone care for them or not okay. we decided we are going to talk about this issue within our community and we decided to make a documentary about it. >> i encourage all seniors in high school in juniors and has cooled and middle schoolers to use this platform to raise your voice, to say that your generation deserves to be heard in the government and if there is a better place to speak these issues, this is that you >> i advice for students on the fence is to really look into the

community and the wedges affect the nose around you because they are the ones who you love. they are the ones you see the most good they are the ones who surround every day. so if there is an issue you see happen every day on this great, that is probably where you can dart. be a part of this documentary because you want to be a voice for your community. >> far from a conference on presidential transitions with officials from the break and throw a bomb at demonstration on their experiences trying to achieve policy goals. this is 50 minutes. >> maybe people could come back to their seats, particularly people out side.

as we started to discuss in the last panel, moving an agenda through is the great challenge. presidents often get one thing done, it occasionally to and admire instances get three in their first year or two. we are delighted to have a terrific panel to scout out what that looks like, feels like from the ground up. but that i was handed over to nikki admire from the miller center. >> we are going to go in the order of how a bill becomes a law. we'll start with domestic policies, legislative affairs and communications. i have. dan carp and who worked with the reagan team. she was assistant to the president for domestic policies. dan meyer who was in the white house as assistant in deputy assistant for legislative affairs in general is the white

house communication your radio by the administration. i would like to start us off. if you could talk a little bit about why some of the challenges and opportunities of the first year are for your particular places within the domestic agenda, especially if you could start us off with domestic policies. >> sure. i had the good fortune of watching transitions first-round assignment then the white house and then the congressional budget office did i get to see several transitions from the vantage point of my former employer in the senate used to say, however ,-com,-com ma many things i remember never actually have read. so i want to make sure there's a bit of a caveat here so my colleagues here can correct me. starting with reagan of course, which the bigger the transition in the transition in the past, there is a consistent position

that can gain and it is pretty clear what he was about. not necessarily in the specifics, but certainly the policies. he had a good team around him as the top about the white house staffing from other campaigns. jim baker brought people from california that he knew. the congressman who helped the lot for a while and they have the transition very quickly and worked very hard. by february we had a we had an budget put together. the notebook came to the hills is called the black book for reasons to be understood. so they created very quickly a budget to reflect that the reagan priorities. ultimately it is the first time reconciliation was used with much of the budget and tax cuts. even things like including

grants to states. blocking them is they're talking about. so a lot got accomplished through the legislative budget process. we'll start by by saying our previous panelists talk about virtually everybody has something happened in their first year. sometimes its foreign policy. sometimes the terrorist attacks. in reagan's case it was an assassination count. it did interrupt some of the progress bar while. toward the end of that first year after a few successes were accomplished, the administration sent out october with the package of security changes. they could probably are hopefully replicate that which reagan thought to be reformed.

and the early retirement, for example which many people took it being unfair and so combined with the politics of it. but to go back to the beginning just a bit, we despair sometimes than the partisanship. i think it's defined differently. we think of them even ms days. the budget resolution in the senate gym body the reagan policy with dirty nine straight amendments which baker had to produce 51 republicans because no democrat support. in the house which was then controlled a democrat couldn't speak better than i can. there had to be a coalition formed because the house controlled by democrats and help in the president with a fair amount of effort to get there. bipartisanship is not the rule

of the day. but i think the main lessons here are the consistent message in the campaign to translate the campaign message into legislation quickly to move relatively quickly, but all of it still takes leadership and this case the leadership in the coalition together in the house to pass the budget. then i saw the bush 41 transition from the other end of the fight has been the vice president was literally down the hall, thought everything that had gone on and was in some cases, some aspects ltd. in his ability to have a big domestic agenda. one of the guys who help create the reagan agenda appeared as hard for him to say the last guy did it, but the positions.

he had to make kind of modest changes and suggestions. and while he certainly didn't think this, a lot of voters thought it was another term so he had to be careful about how he positioned himself. there were some things he had to address it that he should address with the same crisis and other things it is original domestic policy was somewhat limited and in transition there is not as much policy exchange as they were further transitions. looking from the congressional budget office that the bush 43 transition, even the clinton transition with the same elements of the reagan process. the legislation relatively quick to take an opportunity first window, but again having events

intervene including the frustration. some about the self-imposed or self-inflicted such as the health care plan, but the same time the budget had passed, had a fairly large stimulus package. again, it was the combination of those things that ms. clinton along as well in the first year. the first bush administration campaign rhetoric wasn't very defined, but the policies of josh and others put together was quite defiant. and so their ability to move quickly was also a prospect that they developed themselves on the way of the campaign. again ,-com,-com ma we talk about some of the things bush 43 accomplished quickly, working substantially on no child left the hide with tax cuts and changes that occurred in the first tier. the first year there was impeded by 9/11 and the domestic policy

after that. back to president clinton, not only did the health care policy not get through, but it did slow them down and impede other things. like reagan and social security, tried to bite off a little too much initially is sometimes a problem in congress can only do so much. resources are only set taken we have limited scope sometimes. >> was this policy agenda is developed, what does that look like and legislative affairs? >> i think the first point i would make it builds on what dan was just thinking, it really depends on the circumstances in which you take office in baghdad i i mean what congress looks like. when reagan won, he had democratic republican senate

with president clinton won, he had democrats controlling both. when bush won he had republican house and a 50/50 senate if you're a member. president obama had his own 60 though senate. much different circumstances for each one and i would suggest that dictates the strategy to some extent as well. i remember when i was in the white house after president obama had one is at the end of the bush administration. i got interviewed for some publication asking if they had paid for my successor who is named as president obama's first affairs. my comment was then it's relevant to this, his job would be much different than mine. the last two years of the bush administration, the democrats with a majority in the congress are you dealing with the divided government for president obama would have unified government. my feeling, what i meant by that

comment was the first responsibility was getting the agenda passed. he had to spend time focused on being united democratic leadership in congress and people after the fact for second-guessing and taking they didn't try hard enough for republicans or whatever. thing is simply don't opportunities very often. if he hadn't gone far, he would have been forever criticized for it. i found no fault in that. i guess that is an illustration of how they have look at it. once you've decided those first-year priorities based on what she read on, whether visiting at the previous folks were president-elect trump wants to repeal it replaced the affordable care or tax reform because you can only do a handful of themes. that people forgot that in

addition to the things you want to do, there's certain things you have today. we don't have any choice, but for instance, they are faced with a resolution that will expire april 28th. they've got it that an at first year. nominations and supreme court nominations. all of a sudden you have these things filling up in the calendar for which he made a strategy and you have to get to pass all those things. and add to that how we approach what we want to do on health care and border security and infrastructure and tax reform package. others said nancy larry don, it's a lot far located. but that has to be considered a front as well to make sure you get all of this done. once you have decided which are trying to do, you develop a

strategy for each item on your data. who are the key players. presidenpresiden t bush was a different approach on tax reform where you are using rusch 43, using reconciliation versus what he was doing with no child left behind. the other example you have where it obviously wasn't under reconciliation in with the 50/50 senate he had to put together a bipartisan coalition. senator kennedy was important. congressman george miller along with john on her and jack greg i can't remember if it was 50 he who is chairman of the committee, but that is -- you have to look at each part of your agenda and figure out how we are getting this done. how much can we or will we do under reconciliation which by nature is a partisan exercise in

the trunk case. to address democrats away by doing reconciliation. but that will be deemed a necessity and again i don't fault that strategy either. but then they had to come back behind that and put together a party send coalition on items you can't do under reconciliation, which as we've all learned includes part of an aca. it will be a first year for everybody and that's the way you need to approach in my mind. the legislative role are really what our job are all about and what communications is all about. i haven't worked in government that campaigns are aspirational and you're held accountable for basically not in.

that was true and there's a consistency in their shared read for what the president talks about when they're running for office and when they come into office. tapestry for president obama including many of the areas are his comments were perceived as very controversial but talking to our enemies. when you come in as a communications professional, probably in and they will garrison at just meant where everything we do matters under a very different microscope. people are going to ask their question like that sounds good. how are you going to pay for that and what are you going to give it to pay for that? that's an adjustment from a communication standpoint. you really come in a number sure. some of the things the new administration will deal with that we did as well as the prioritization. we talked about that a little bit here.

rs, president obama talked a lot on the campaign trail. when he came and obviously we were dealing with the financial crisis feared we were talking about the overlap in the work of the bush administration in an obama administration did together during the transition was essential and if we hadn't worked together, they would've been been a different place. the president came in and that is basically what we had to do first and foremost and pass them on popular pieces of legislation whether or start with a recovery action. of course we only got three republican votes, so maybe it was. what the president really wanted to do early on his hindsight is always 2020 and many of these. you go back and look what we could've done differently. of course there's things we would've done differently. what everybody has said

year-to-date is definitely true in our experience in there in the beginning still now. you're not going to get everything done you want to get time. you make choices and for us there is a big debate internally about how big of a health care package. could we have gotten cap in trade? i don't know, maybe. that's thoroughly prioritization the last thing i will say is while governing is entirely different than the communications link, there's some things that help a president get elected that she some kind can lose the which is winning the hearts and minds of the american people. it's very easy to come to washington in the late talk to people here and think that you're going to convince people to come your way. for what we learned through

making mistakes in the first year is that you really need to use the power of how the president had a lack did to win people over and spend time doing that and sell your policies in a way that you get the public on your side. that seems like there's not enough time to do that when you come in, but certainly a lesson we learned. >> both of my colleagues refer to it when you say priorities, even developing policy, you have to keep in mind the presidential resources. how many trips to the hill, all of those things. and so not just how far you push the policy and how many votes count, who is important with a limited resource that goes into those. >> but in the president which is the most valuable resource. sosa did not hear, you three all

seem very collegial. but i suspect that there are some tensions between your various areas, whether it is domesticate ricers trying to convince legislative affairs they need to do something major priorities might be a little different than what you want to do might be different. how did you navigate relationships with other department in the white house? [inaudible] >> i will let you start. when i went in the white house, my predecessor said one of the roles of one of the ways they describe as the eyes and ears on the hill, which are also the eyes and ears in it industry should. but folks told me is you'll be surprised the number of times to be in meetings inside the white

house when you have people who think they know what's going on say we have to do x, y and z and you are saying that look at three boats on the hill. you get to kill it because you have to say that. >> we began to question your own loyalty. one is to work for the cia. >> is always a tension with communications as well. i went to do with good that i would do communication in the policy. we certainly have to be a columnist and do what the president has said and we are reminded off than about the consistency of the presidency is and how important it was that the policy reflected that would develop speeches, that would push legislation obviously, but there is a tension. we always assume we develop a

communications strategy from whatever the policy is without understanding fully the profession. >> i joke with my staff sometimes on test days i'm going to get a t-shirt that says it's a communications problem. sometimes it is bad policy and sometimes we lose the vote in the house because people think something is going to pass and it doesn't. these are some of the roots of the tensions. i think one of the things that the the communications are the communications or press presented a responsibility to do in any white house is to recognize that not all about what your object it is. if our object it was only on how the eggs with what the american public, we would probably do different policies and push different legislation and sometimes, oftentimes that is far more important. in the early days, the auto bailout which we talked about is

one of our big things we did was so unpopular. it was terrible. everybody hated it. they thought it was the worst thing we could down. we have a responsibility to sell it because the president in economic team thought it was the right start. you have a responsibility in any white house to recognize what term of active if you have a good leader is the president and the have to recognize sometimes the stories will be terrible for a couple months because it's the right policy. one must connect to a shared is the piece that often people don't recognize is there are a lot of limitations to what you can say either because there's national security release and you can't change what you say but even on the economic front when i came in, we as the political and press teams wanted to say things are so terrible and awful you don't understand how bad they are.

simply more articulate than that, but that was the basic message. the economic team with a double crash the markets. that will rile the market. when people look back they say you have a communications problem. there's certain limitations you have when you have the responsibility of the presidency. that is sometimes hard to explain. >> dan, do i throw anything further? >> i took my shot at the policy side. there wasn't much tension between the legislators and communication. one of my observations in washington over my years here is whenever anybody has a failure for one side or the other, usually an election, the republicans in 2006 adjectives made by the end 2010. bananas on the hill in 1998, republicans asked a handful of

seats when they thought they would take up seats. the messaging hours. it's never what you did get arrested because you're pushing impeachment whereby the because what you did the first two years in 2010. if only i messaging could be six. ahtisaari is pretty sympathetic because they always got blamed for it. >> your health care plan was a policy idea. [inaudible] >> exactly. anyway, that's all i have. >> this is the last time. we all think our colleagues we work with all think they can do our job even mention someone pushing policy. everybody has communications strategy the phone that we pursue it in the right policy with the right number of votes

and everybody has policy. >> everybody has always stood us. >> those are the internal relationships. what about extra and relationship to navigate in each of your world whether it is the price, whether it is public, whether it's congress, what were the challenges are the variances you had tried to navigate relationships with the person in the white house who is reaching out to other stakeholders? >> i think on the legislative front, one of things you have to give right the first year is how you manage outreach to the hill. the idea for my first active is the need to present his ahead of legislative heirs to manage that. that doesn't mean it's the only one who could talk to the hill. but they need to know about it. you know, every administration has their horror stories.

i can remember when i was in the bush white house got networked doll, of course my boss, josh woodward talked to the hill, but he was really good. harry reid is calling me, why don't you come down, that sort of thing. but i remember telling salerno, you have a president who's a senator, vice president senator, chief of staff is a member of the leadership and you have a lot of people. every administration goes through that. ..

to be totally honest. but i think in the white house the press always wants more access to the president and would always doubt, we never want to give as much access as people want. they are some traditions, the pool, which exists as most people in this room know because there had been enough assassination attempt on president that there's a public right to know. you can argue t do they need too

to the kids a basketball game or the restaurant? you can argue the point. we've been through over the last eight years a lot of changes in the media. in terms of how people consume information and how we reach the public and watche what challengm somebody in my role and will be challenging for my successors is that there's so many outlets is now and so many ways people consume information that you can't just talk to the white house press room because you won't reach a lot of people. but those people in the press who were also responsible for everything the president is saying and people are saying, and they hold you accountable to. there's a big push which is challenging. one of the things -- making officials and the government available.

that's oftentimes what people in the media want access to. they want to talk to the policy experts pick sometimes they want to talk to legislators, but the policy experts often will and the truth is that's very useful for any president. sometimes to the staffing point you just run out of resources and time and ability to do that. but that's always something that is useful. there's always a push and pull with the press and the white house, and an element of that is healthy but there are certain parts of the tradition that certainly should continue. >> thank god we didn't have twitter. i can't imagine ronald reagan using twitter. [laughter] >> you wouldn't give him his password just like we don't get any officials their passwords. [laughter] >> it's useful for policy folk sometimes, and that's why i had communications folks.

i was always off record all whatever the right term is these days. that wasn't my role and i thought the press -- they are outside groups and a don't know whether, certainly domestic policy in the white house it's your responsibility many ways to keep up with the outside groups, to meet with them, to talk to them, to make sure their policy papers are in the process. otherwise you lose not just your base but constituency or important advocates. part of the white house, whether domestic policy or somewhere else, is kind of the contact point for many outside groups. >> we have spent the last six years or so talking about the problems a divided government when it comes to enacting a domestic agenda. are there any pitfalls to having a united government or just unadulterated goods for your

domestic agenda? >> dan could tell you better than i, sometimes much worse. that you are expected to produce more when you have unified government. but your party colleagues are now also think they have more discretion to not agree or to intervene with the policy and try to get you to do things they want you to do. it's not uniformly a good thing. >> there are lots of pitfalls. going back to what we're talking about before, you come in with a unified government, there's expectations that get raised that are sometimes hard to meet. i think you're going to see this in this coming year. they intend to do major tax reform under reconciliation or repeal and replace the affordable care act under reconciliationreconciliation, ao

it all under reconciliation. you have limits, and so i mean, i thought even with the divided government in recent years where republicans control the house and th the senate, and there wee some members who didn't understand why he couldn't get things done. government was shut down with the sorts of claims, you can force the president to sign something. like where did you go for your class? it doesn't work that way. the challenges people are not realistic. they set their expectations so high and so then you set yourself up to fail if you can't achieve everything. that's the problem. >> i mean, i think we are a two-party system and both of the parties, certainly the democratic party is a big umbrella and unsure of the republican party is is, too. that's the beauty, everybody doesn't have identical thoughts

but there's an expectation that people all march to the syndrome. people of different politics, different views and these all come into play. if you look back at when president obama came in and we have the house and the senate, pretty sizable number come was already referenced in the the senate, getting healthcare done was really hard. it almost didn't happen. that was with majorities in both houses. so even with the incoming administration, you need 51 to repeal. you need 62 replace, right? that's not easy. that's hard. the systems that are in place for a reason but i think sometimes you forget how hard it is to get bills passed. >> would like to think we have a tent, rather than an umbrella. >> sorry. they are sort of cousins. >> i want to get all of your

advice to the incoming demonstration but actually want to start with trantwo jen, a spc question, which is even working very closely on creating new policies and strategies for navigating a very changed media environment. what kind of advice would you give to the incoming team about how to navigate that? what sort of things you learned in your time in communications for the white house that might be useful going in? >> sure. i would say that the way the we view media now is that it's not a social media versus traditional media. there's a big spectrum and most outlets are on that spectrum. i'm not counting platforms that are social media platforms. that's sort of a different beast for a different panel. that's how we view it. i would say the lessons we have learned our that, you know, you

want to think about your prioritization which is driven by your policy game and really force the system, even when every bu buddy doesn't love internally, to focus on those priorities. 1000 flowers cannot bloom in government because you will spend, you are responsible for everything. in terms of the way that you communicate, we found a mixture of what people would view and a really hate the term traditional or mainstream media, but i'm just going to use it because people know what it's a reference to peer and social media is probably the sweet spot. what our objective is to try to commit a kit with the american public and the american people, and you can't be snobbish about this outlet has only been around for five years and then therefore they are not eligible. the fact is a lot of those outlets do really interesting and really good, serious work.

there's an inaccurate and unfair perception that people like to throw out that we only do -- which, frankly, i can pack for two years and that was before i came back. the fact they had and objected to sign people up for the affordable care act, but we do a combination. the are outlet online like mike.com where we did a lot about iran deal, around series policies that do good work. sometimes i think there's an us versus them that is not healthy. the last thing i'll say is that well, it's important to recognize the opportunity with all these new outlets. there's also a lot of risk as we've seen that i don't mean risk for a president. i think we've learned from even reporting over the past couple of weeks that the way people that just and consume information, it's hard for people to differentiate what they see online.

while i think it's important to take advantage of these options, there should be a discussion i think in this country about how to make sure people are getting reputable and accurate information. that's where a lot of the mainstream outlets come in, you know, that are not swayed sometimes, you argue editorial board or whatever, but can provide that information to the public. i think that should be lost. that was a tirade on, really, there's a lot to be said about this issue. the advice i would give his relationships matter. get to know the reporters who cover you and get to know what they care about and what they think about, and often they have the pulse on the public. keep focus on your priorities and your issues. don't be afraid to try new things and recognize sometimes things fail but be humble when things are not working. change it when it's not working. there are people that event and the press corps for a long time who, we were relied on not to

ask up we should say things but to just get a get check on, like is this okay, or should we be doing more or be doing less? because they have a better sense of the duty of the white house that are important and often an incoming staff does. i clearly have a lot of thoughts on that issue. >> i'm here for the tirade. what would your advice be for the incoming team? >> unless your eye any any advice on the communication side. i'm curious to watch, one of the things i've noticed over the last few years is, particularly on the republican side and on the conservative side you have a lot of folks who try to influence the process from the right who see their role in life and try to keep everything pure. i'm a curious considering how president-elect got elected and

his use of social media media, w that's going to play out. for example, he's not going, the republican leadership is not going to agree on everything he wants to do. as john boehner, i'm not sure he was republican before he got -- started running. he's much more independent-minded than your normal republican president and set some point there's going to be tension and does it take to twitter? or even individual members of might, all of a sudden you have some of the groups on the right site know, this infrastructure package, it's bad in this circumstance and try to make it hard for republicans to vote for it. all of a sudden there will be this counter pressure from the president saying, you know, they are wrong. i'll be very curious to see how that all plays out. i think it changes the dynamics significantly and it will be

just curious to see it play out. >> we will go to cuba and eight just after this, but any advice? >> i don't have much advice or incoming administration. the one thing that certainly helped in policy strategy, legislative strategy of involvement is that we have to, there has to be a consistent message. you have to be saying something that is important or at least understandable and attractive. and then have a message, and i'm afraid i don't know what this president elects message might be on various things you don't have a consistent message it's very hard. certainly to try to sell your policy, need to be able to talk about it and consistently talk about it. >> if there are questions, if you will just wait for the microphone.

>> charlie clark with government executive. the office of legislative affairs under obama got criticism for things like not returning phone calls are not answering correspondence. some republicans said they would even willing to cooperate more had that happen. is any of that accurate? in general that the legislation affairs office have a duty to return home calls? >> it's always a good idea. let me defend the obama affairs just because in all of them and have been in small groups. the miller center has brought together records from the bush 41, bush 43, clinton and obama white house. the obama folks, let me give you that they would you chapter and verse. it does take two to tango. but we've also heard those stories on the other side, not just from the republicans that there were not as visible.

you know, it really depends on your approach. i would again make the case that take you at the of the obama administration, their focus needed to be on the democrats. so if the republicans got a little less attention, again i don't find fault with that. but in divided governments, it's a different situation picked if you're going to try to get your legislative agenda passed, you have to be figured out how you put together 218 votes or 60 votes in some cases, so there's a lot of people you need to pay attention to, and that's an important aspect of the job. >> i used to work at the state department. my question relates to the filibuster. my understanding understanding,e

you could correct me if i'm wrong, is that the senate can at the outset change the rules on the filibuster by majority vote. is that the case? and secondly, would you expect it to happen? >> so in theory you're supposed to have two-thirds of the vote. two-thirds vote to change the senate rules. senator reed change the filibuster rules by ruling and president for a number of circumstances -- precedent, nominees, not the supreme court but for some of the judges. could it happen? yes. i they going to do it upfront? i don't think so. but having said that, this goes back to part of the conversation we were having before about have a unified government and manage expectations. the first bill that gets filibuster there will be people

conservatives in the house or conservatives on the outside who are going to say mcconnell, you are blocking it because you will not get rid of the filibuster. that's just something he's going to have to deal with. he's made it pretty clear at least upfront and doesn't want to do that. he didn't want to do it before when it was done under the democrats. >> my question is about general. how would you predict the -- [inaudible] he already saved over 1000 jobs for carrier company, and has elected so many famous name into his cabinet. also he had a telephone conversation with taiwan president which is breaking the diplomacy of 37 years. so how would you predict his way of residency?

thank you spent this sounds like policy communication question. [laughter] >> exactly spirit i've had a number of these conversations since the election with lots of people and folks. i start out the conversations with who knows? then i speculate for 10 or 15 minutes epic includes a conversation with, who knows? i think that's probably the answer. >> i will add, who knows? [laughter] >> is there a way which the way things happen in the transition help foretell what will happen in the first year, or are they just two different means? >> who knows? i mean, the nominations made, made, give you an indication of who any presents ransoms up with and who they want to be providing advice. but even with that ellis somebody has a long legislative history they can be hard to kind

of predict exactly what if i somebody is giving spirit ice in the transition is an indicator because people, whether it's this president-elect or any previous president, they learn when they get into office and things do change. so at least in the beginning of resume the transition is a predictor of how he will operate. >> my point of view on policy and experience, i would say the first budget is also important. i'm a card-carrying member of the green i should society so i still look at those things. you would assume some of the domestic priorities are going to be funded, those that will be unfunded but at least it will give some sense of domestic policy trajectory when they do the first budget. >> the question is for jen. if you could say a little bit more about the discussion that communications team had with the economic stink about which could and couldn't say, and if you

could reconcile that with trump's approach and the outcome of the election? and also with the market is. >> a lot of things. i'm not sure they are related but i'll try. so what i was trying to illustrate is the fact that policy doesn't always make easy communications and you accept that. i will say in the early days, you know, if people remember the election and the presidents first year were more, since only shifted in change starting in augustaugust, september 2008 bee was even elected. there was a recognition that he had a role, once he was elected, and even before when it looked like is going that way that he would have a powerful role to play in helping get some policy like tarp across the finish line. there's the old story of secretary paulson, maybe you were there for this and you can illustrate this or articulate

this better than i can, you know, didn't get us hands and knees and banking him to help pass. i think for us we had it economic team reunion on friday night. don't be jealous you were not there. it was a wild and raucous party but it was great. one of the things they talked about was how their terrible communicators, brilliant, brilliant economist and very smart people, but you recognize early on that if we had our druthers you would have people who were, not professional by trade, but very good at television. but that's not often nor should it be how you pick cabinet secretaries, right? there were many, many conversations, not just one like this where it was always a push and pull between the press and key medication steam and economic steam about what could be said publicly in terms of

articulating to the public how bad things were. but you didn't want to scare people at the same time. one of the biggest mistakes we made early on, was when christy romer make a prediction about the unemployment rate. that was perhaps necessary at the time. i guess people would have argued is going to get people to vote for the recovery act. i don't know was true or not but that and helpless to standard that we could meet. we could never meet that bar on the press site and that was challenging. as it relates to today, i'm not sure. it's a different, the economy is in an entirely different place. there obviously are lots, the economic agenda is always a big part of what any president typically faces or addresses. there's lots of things under that umbrella or can't or whatever you want to say that i don't know that i can make any predictions about

president-elect trump or anyone honestly will handle any of these issues, or if that's what you were asking. [inaudible] >> in terms of you are saying, i thought i heard you say that essentially you proceed to the economy to be a lot worse than you could say. >> i didn't perceive it. it was, yes, it was worse than we articulated from the government. there were lots of other people saying it but there was something about, not just something. the president, the treasury secretary articulating how bad it was. there was a concern of what impact that would have on the markets, on the economy. and that was a real discussion we had on a very regular basis. >> sure. what i mean, i guess the think what i look at typically i hear people talk about how great things are right now. and that is obvious that something that troll did not do and i would probably argue that's part of white made very popular. he said things are pretty bad for the average person.

i guess i'm wondering if you could jump into your time machine, would you do so and then maybe say something a little differently? >> can i take a quick crack at it? it's different from when you are running and when you're governing. so i don't think jen would disagree, when president obama was running for presidency he talked a lot about how bad things were. candidates do that. once you get elected there's an instinct i guess that kicks in to try to talk about how it's going to get better. it didn't get better right away. my recollection is it's not good to hear we're going to put these things in place to try to get better. but there is, i've been in the same type of meetings that jen referenced where it's expressed, you don't want to talk down the economy because -- it discourages people. you are trying to build up confidence.

that's a distinction i would make. >> we will have to stop it there, just because we need to clear the stage for another set of panelist but if you could help me thank all of our great panelists. [applause] >> we will take one more break and come back at a quarter after five for the foreign-policy panel. [inaudible conversations] >> today a conversation with him i secured a secretary j johnson. he speaks to "washington post" columnist david ignatius about cyber security, immigration, terrorism and other topics. that's live at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. follow the transition of government on c-span as president-elect donald trump's selects his cabinet and republicans and democrats

prepare for the next congress. we will take you to keep it as they happen without interruption. watch live on c-span, on-demand at c-span.org or listen on our free c-span radio app. >> i do think you can learn from failure. i think that if the next president wants to aspire to be like somebody, they probably want to aspire to be washington or lincoln you can't retrieve the country and you can't have the civil war. what do you do next? do you aspire to be james munro? i don't know. you can aspire not to be james buchanan spent sunday night on q&a historian robert strauss talks about james began his presidency in his latest book worst president ever. spirit i think the differentiation of good presence and bad presidents, washington, lincoln and fdr are always at

the top of the service and historians take. they were decisive men. you can't come to the top of the ladder and not be decisive. buchanan was a waffler. james located him for being awol for a second estate. he was always back and forth on decisions. you are mighty advisor, you have to tell you what to do. >> sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span skewing day. -- q&a. >> cspan's studentcam contest is in full swing and that you were asking students to tell us what's the most important issue for the new president and the new congress to address in 2017 joining me is actually, a former studentcam former studentcam winter of 2015 for her documentary help for homeless heroes. tell us about your studentcam documentary. >> in 201 2015 my partner and i produced a documentary where we covered issues of homeless veterans on the streets of

orange county, california, we decided that these are the people of thought for our country, have given their all for our country and the fact that they're now living on the streets not having family, not anyone to care for them were not okay. we decided we going to talk about this issue within our community and we decided to make a c-span documentary about it. i encourage all seniors in high school, even juniors in high school, even middle schoolers to use this platform to speak your voice, to raise your voice, to say that your generation deserves to be heard in the government, and is a better place to speak of these issues. this is it. i think my advice for students who are on the fence of starting a documentary is to really look into your community and see what is affecting those who are around you because they are the ones who you love. they are the ones you see the most bigger the ones who are

around almost every day. and so if there is an issue that you see happen every day on the street, that is probably what you can start. the apart of this documentary because you want to be a voice for your community spirit thank you for all of your advice and tips on studentcam. if you want more information on our contest go to our website, studentcam.org. >> live coverage now here on c-span2 as we await comments com the secretary-general of the organization of petroleum exporting countries, or tranfive, as he discusses the world oil market and its effect on the global economy. live at the center for strategic and international studies which is the host of this event. it should start in just a moment.

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the world oil market and its effect on the global economy. live coverage here on c-span2 should start in just a moment. here on c-span two, its media coverage of the 2016 presidential election posted by the brookings institution. susan glass will talk about a political reporting has changed and whether facts still matter. that starts live at 2 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. later today it's postelection analysis and the internet search engine google will host the postelection review of a series of panels and remarks that will focus on what digital advertising strategies worked in the 2016 campaigns. that will be live at 3:10 p.m. eastern here on c-span2.

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[inaudible conversations] >> starting in just a moment a discussion on the world oil market and its effect on the global economy. we will hear from the secretary-general of opec when this gets underway life on c-span2. we told you about some of the program a coming up later today on c-span2. outlook now at what's happening on our companion network c-span. at 11 eastern this morning newt gingrich is the featured speaker at the heritage foundation that will be focusing on the future of various public policies under the trump administration. that will start live at 11 eastern on c-span. later this afternoon also on c-span, 21st century cures act bill signing serotonin that will take place at the white house. president obama will sign that legislation which will fund the presidents cancer moonshot initiative and other health care priorities including opioid

abuse and mental healthcare treatment. that starts at 2:35 p.m. eastern on c-span2. later, secretary-general is and will be talking with "washington post" columnist david ignatius in an interview hosted by the paper and that starts at 6 p.m. eastern on c-span. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> ok, good morning. welcome everybody to the center for strategic and international studies. my name is a sarah ladislaw and i direct the energy and national security programs here.

before i get the program started please allow me to remind you we take security seriously here. we don't expect any kind of incident or accident but in the event of such an event i am your security captain. i will instruct you on how to exit the building safely. so please we don't expect anything to happen but we certainly want to let you know we are prepared. we are very pleased today to such an a large and esteemed audience for the presentation of opec swirled oil outlook. as many of you know the csis energy and ashes get a program host most of the worlds publicly and privately developed energy outlook and we do this to be able to foster an open exchange of views on the changing energy landscape. we are very pleased to be hosting for the first time all packs world oil outlook was is in its 10th year of production. quite frankly it couldn't come at a better time with oil markets entering a precarious year and opec concluding to meetings and signaling its intent to support a production

cut from both opec and non-opec members in support of that rebalancing. there's a lot to talk about today. our program will have two parts. the first is a presentation about the outlook and the second is a moderated discussion between his excellency mohammad barkindo and second regiment of opec, and tranten, ceo of hess corporation and csis trustee. it's a great pleasure to introduce to you all mohammad barkindo, the second region of the organization of petroleum. he has controls that opec concluding as acting secretary-general and oil and gas industry in nigeria as group managing director, and is also been an active shaper of global climate change negotiations and assert unhewn commission on sustainable development. he is accompanied by jorge leon arellano, who is the energy demand specialist of the opec research division.

laughing at me how i butchered his name, is going to present the world oil outlook. so mr. secretary-general, you will introduce the outlook. welcome to csis. it is a pleasure to have you. [applause] >> good morning, distinguished colleagues and friends from the industry, from the academia. i was just talking with my partner, john hess, that there's no better place to be at this time after all what we went

through from this summer, joe just a couple of days ago. then to csis. i'm so glad to be here with my colleagues from the opec secretariat. allow me to begin by thanking the csis chairman, john hammer, csis president and ceo as well as my partner john hess, who is also a member of the board of trustees. not to talk of an old friend, sarah, for facilitating this visit. as sarah mentioned, after my opening remarks, i intend to invite my colleague jorge leon

arellano from our energy strategy department to take us through some of the key findings from our 10th world oil outlook which was just released last month at the abu dhabi international petroleum expedition conference. let me say that we are really honored, sarah, to be here, and thank you for fulfilling your pledge when we last met. i think before the vienna meetings you did promise that you would give us this opportunity to come and share, compared notes with colleagues here. before coming here i had to look at your event schedule of the last month, and was pleased to see that you recently hosted two very prominent members of the opec family. so it made me feel much more at

home here. ali, the former minister of petroleum and minerals sources and the king of saudi arabia, was here in april of this year to share his views on the dynamic changes in the global energy markets. he undoubtedly also spoke about his compelling life story and his illustrious career at the top end of the economic board within his country, and globally. although he is now retired, but he's not tired, as you've seen him still reactive, still walking every morning, taking some jogs jobs, he is still remembered and appreciated at opec for his countless contributions, steadfastly guiding his country and the organization through several very challenging energy cycles.

he has tireless devoted his efforts to promote stability and growth in the international oil and gas industry. i first met him in 1985 when he was ceo of saudi encore, and followed, and worked with him closely in between 21 years he served as the minister of the kingdom of saudi arabia. i also was very glad, he was very able, professor, was also here recently, as recently as of june to discuss the saudi u.s. relationship as well as the vision 2013 -- 2030 of the kingdom. he is a very able successor, despite his size, he was a very large size of shoes, but we are

very pleased at opec who, coming on board. in 2008 when we first met at a retreat outside london, he came to represent abdullah jamal, his previous boss, ceo, who was unable to make it. and he decided to send to lead it was vice president to represent it. atkinson him he also sent a note to the organizers of the retreat, although he was not able to attend, but he was sending somebody he would describe as the best they've ever produced to represent him. this was in 2008 add abdullah jamal was very prophetic.

fully represents that picture. so we are very glad to have him. our representation here today at csis is part of a weeklong us-visit which encouraged us to do last time i came, sarah. yesterday we had a very engaging discussions with one of the leading icons of the industry, daniel yergin and his colleagu colleagues, as well as at the international monetary fund, where we discussed at length our world oil outlook. it is a distinct honor to be here, and we intend to meet. i have met also for the first time a partner here, for the eia, and we look forward to meeting with him and his team in

order to continue this dialogue that sarah, you encouraged us to embark upon. we are really grateful for that support. during the week we will be also meeting with i select leading hedge funds in wall street, in new york. those marketmakers who just coming out of my motel checking with colleagues was the total volume of paper barons being traded both in new york and in london. for the month of november i was told by my able colleagues that in total if you put both new york and london, you are talking about 48 million contracts, totaling about 48 billion paper barons being traded. and for us, marginal players,

who in the physical market would be about 94, 95 million, including -- very important. i think it's important for us, we thought we should exploit -- export coming here to meet with this very important segment of industry, to even comprehend how do they operate. our representations here today is therefore going to focus as i said earlier on our outlook. we estimate the united states import about three point 6 million barrels a day of liquid from opec member countries. this is out of the total euros e consumption of about 20 million barrels a day. this makes the u.s. of vital customer to all our member countries. a very important global leader

in this industry, therefore, you can understand why -- after i meetings in vienna is to come to this great country. thus it is my hope that our meetings this week will open up a new cycle of ongoing dialogue between our organization and the united states. both parties have nothing to lose, and everything to gain with this type of cooperation and dialogue. over the previous years i have had the opportunity to spend quite a lot of time here in washington, mainly in higher education as judge mission, my professor, who promised he would honor sitters invitation. i hope you will join us shortly. today though i return here for a different reason, and in a

different capacity. this time i come as a representative of opec, this organization, which has recently gone through a very severe cycle, oil cycle. in the last few years there has been talks that perhaps this organization was no longer relevant and that it had possibly lost a key role it has played in the world of energy since it's founding in septembe. well, colleagues, i'm here to report that we are still alive and well. and we hope that together we can move forward to continue to play a very constructive and stabilizing role in this industry of hours. in the naysayers that may have doubt about all packs attachment

was proven wrong. a historic decision made by us recently in november and subsequent meetings. i'm referring to what we now call the vienna agreement, which was the opec conference decision to implement a new production target of 32 point 5,000,000 barrels per day. this is a reduction of around one point 2,000,000 barrels a day. the goal of this agreement is to accelerate the ongoing throw down of this and it's to exit but ike the rebalancing of this market that is been out of balance for quite too long. this is the first production adjustment opec has made sense 2008 at the outset of the global financial crisis.

in nigeria. it is also the first time since 1998 that iraq is part of the production management process. it has been exempted by opec from this role due to the geopolitical challenges that iraq had faced over the past several years or decades. and finally this agreement must for the first time, are not opec friends and colleagues have joined opec in a concerted effort to help bring stability back to this very fragile and battered market in this cycle, probably the longest and the worst that we have seen in the last five or six cycles. john hess reminded me when we met in london at the oil and money conference, if you recall with those encouraging words

that we must move and work together to restore stability, that the industry needs stability on a sustainable basis, and no one group of countries or institutions can do this alone. hence, the very importance of this gathering. and finally the achievement of this important agreement is the culmination of months of intensive consultations of opec member countries and also opec on non-opec member countries. i personally personally have traveled and visited several of our capitals for opec and not opec in order to help build support, to build consensus that was urgently required required,y within our organization, but between us and the non-opec, taking into account the geopolitical challenges taking

place in some of our regions. many miles of travel and countless hours spent in meeting rooms all i believe paid off when we reach our initial recording which was adopted at the 100 17th meeting of the conference held in this city on the 28th of september. this then became known as -- which has been approved for implantation as part of the vienna agreement that was agreed upon on the 30th of november in vienna. so why you may ask is this also relevant? to enter that let me -- when this current down cycle began. although ali must have shared his views on what transpired in

2014 at the outset of this cycle, i would like to also for the record say that in the midst of an oversupplied market we saw oil prices plummet, dropping to a low of $40 a barrel for some crudes in 2016. ..