separately i believe we missed the mark in tracking and responding on the social media platforms to wreak havoc to spread misinformation facebook and twitter and other platforms that we have a governmental level in the company level were unprepared to address the tax even to this day and year and a half later i have significant concerns that we are still behind the eight ball to combat these efforts. perhaps being too slow to see the threat initially as administrations stood by to do nothing steps were taken public and classified to better understand and defend against russian activities and objectives when there a direct

warning issued to the counterpart to engage the cyberhotline for the first time ever to warn against furtherev action dhs had a series of engagements with election officials and president obama himself took the warning directly to president putin atpr the september g20 in china what should've been a much more significant event they had a fairly unprecedented public statement attributing recent hacks but as we all know it was quickly overshadowed to the "access hollywood" video of the e-mails that it remains unclear if that time was joined with thee joint

statement it is impossible to know if these steps however with the benefit of hindsight it is evident we could have done more to push back that the administration was not solely responsible and to factorss made it already difficult policy challenge much more problematic. the white house is concerned engaging publicly is seen to put it on the scale of the election. no one did more to fan the flame of a written election then candidate trump a painted any attempt to callout russia as a political effort.

those that reinforce the danger to speak publicly of the obama administration and in addition any scrutiny policy decision needs to address congressional in action. and in particular with a bipartisan congressional warning in the weeks that it took even to get a letter out now looks like a failure to put democracy ahead of politics i appreciate the witnesses to come forward and as the chairman mentioned 2018 is already upon us and there is no excuses for the threat.

they are attacking us and allies on a regular basis if we allow this to happen again and don't do all we can with united friend to protect the democracy i hope to hear where we can go from here. the time to act is urgent thank you and are welcome to hear from her witnesses. >> let me say that they are not here because they are not interested but interfering with the election so i apologize to you if the

delayed start causes a conflict in your schedule anybody let me know i can give you expedited recognition. >> thank you chairman and vice chairman warner and members of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss policy response to russian influence of u.s. politics. as a citizen and 32 year veteran of the regular target we want to commend the leadership of this committee and all members for your integrity to pursue the investigation into russia's involvement of the 2016 election i especially command the bipartisan spirit that sets a powerful example in this country.

so to put a number of recommendations to organize itself rather than going backwards to focus on what we can do since then what has been advocated publicly by others with the german marshall fund or at harvard or in the minority report with the senate foreign relations committee we mild that hasn't stopped the efforts to use the system against us spread a false narrative we have every reason to believe the kremlin will target the election this fall and in 2020. the platforms exploited but not enough in other countries can adopt and improve russia's

methodology and china has influenced operation campaigns and is working to acquire data set across asia europe and united states while the trump administration has taken some sanctions strength of cybercommand with the infrastructure it has not launched the whole government effort needed to protect democracy and security from matters who are intent on what the '90s in on the internet to put the policies and funding in place to look at malicious activity to take countermeasures to sharpen the tool book so adversaries know

they will face crippling consequences to those legal standards and to lead a global campaign to expose and defeat the threat together i put forward five steps to protect our democracy and improve deterrence with the new weapon in the hands of any adversaries. first on the presidents direction and congressional support, the trump administration could immediately establish a multi agency fusion center model on the counterterrorism center to pull together all of the information classified and open source to identify and expose and respond to state-sponsored efforts to undermine american democracy all of the relevant national security agency should be represented the justice

department and other agencies who have knowledge how dirty money and criminality fueled these activities with the tool of deterrence much of the problem in responding strongly and quickly in 2016 stems from insufficientuf integration among government agencies that led to the response time and about the tools to apply and second toto establish a standing public-private commission inviting participation by all major u.s. technology companies the academic community, the commission would be charged with developing technical regulatory legal

recommendations to protect the integrity of the experience and of the state actors and done right it could have a protective space to share information with to share with each other the governmentt collaborate to build campaign -- campaigns of common action. third, the u.s. government has to better advise and advocate and protect u.s. companies to take bold action to stand up to state spencer's -- sponsors of prod it at home these companies often face the threat of retaliation against and their platforms or even closure of operation in countries that practice art of cyberabuse. they need a place to seek

advice and rapid support from the u.s. government to resist foreign government pressure when they expose anti- democratic tactics. the president could appoint an international coordinator to launch a campaign to multilateral lies the effort with the closest allies and partners in line with the national security strategy which highlights the dangers from allies from this threat. finally the administration support ard into significant budget increase to strengthen u.s. capabilities in this area the funding should be targeted to appropriate agencies and strengthen the forensic capability shorten attribution timeline and improve the ability tome expose truly fake news in real time and outreach

about these threats to strengthen those experts in theg field center for a new americanns security plans to join the community of think tanks. with a special emphasis to pull together industry and academia to craft full term deterrence strategies in the cyberrealm we hope this will inform wise choices and thank you for appearing before you today. >> thank you mr. vice chairman and other distinguished committee members on russian interferenceon at the election cycle.

although retrospective to understand what happened in 2016 is critical to better protecting ourselves and future activities and given that the committee has sensibly reported on this topic of findings very strongly support i keep my opening remarks at a very high level this morning. we fully expected russian and cyberbaseded espionage and we assume it would happen again in 2016 but by late june or early july and then as states began reporting suspicious activity against the infrastructure we began to realize the russians were doing something more than collecting intelligence r and to influence the election to disrupt that.

and the breath of this activity to develop over time and has contributed to what was going on. but within the u.s. government we develop to line the effort in order to respond to this activity. one was very public and the second was to be behind the scenes the actions to deter future escalation and future actions so the first line of effort is focused on the state but the first step is what we are trying to protect that both of us at the federal level didn't have a lot of experience how elections thing as a mechanical

we all got a crash course how they operate down at the state and local level. very quickly we realize we are not the most likely vector for any russian activity or changing the outcome the most likely goal achieving that is not feasible. instead undermining confidence were the most likely. and that is the point that the electoral infrastructure touched and media are reporting on election night and state and local governments run the election process byy necessity our effortsur became focused they

spearheaded t those efforts by the department of justice and the fbi. and then we began to shift the focus to prepare for election day and any disruption that might have occurred by the time we get around to election day none of what we feared materialized. so from that perspective it turns out to be a good thing. so this line of effort was focused on developing effort for the decision-makers to respond to ongoing activity for future activity and escalation. we use the normal lead interagency process to respond toes this activity while looking on the cyberresponse group representatives that the

specific options we developed remain classified now became public by nissen's mom -- necessity. and then to expand the full gamut with law enforcement and cyberactivity. with those range of low risk and low impact high risk impact options and that those with a full range of options to consider due to those significant concerns of escalation that geopolitical tension and the presidential election and the race that was

happening and undermining of the electoral process they proceeded judiciously and we settled on a set of options that was reported in the press. that is not a surprise those decision-makers never take all the possible action developed. and looking forward to the future that key aspect of what the committee is working on that we should expect them to follow o their lead and other non- nation state actors to do other activities so in response i think we should do several options we need to

continue to invest in the cybersecurity in its entirety across the board how to enable the federal government to better support state and local government to maintain that state and local control is incredibly important it is where we need to sustain that but also not realistic stew go up against the nation state actors and how to enable the federal government to assist those entities to protect themselves to maintain control of the electoral process. as the ambassador highlighted that is related to but separate from the cybersecurity issues internationally to promote the idea and is not asked to double to be in another nationsh electoral process we should continue to work toward

identifyingg and expose and embed that with actions and we also need to maintain a whole of government campaign across the board so those are my thoughts where we need to head in the future dealing with this issue for all future election cycles and we need to learn how to do encounter as a nation going forward thank you very much. >> thank you fornd that testimony ambassadorai the chair will say i know that two votes are scheduled at 1230 so it is my intention to finish this open session no later than 12:45 p.m. then immediately after completing the second vote come back for the close

section one -- session then you can do the choke and run on some lunch. but let me just say looking back r what seemed at the time to declare the election system was critical infrastructure what they could have said to state officials. the need to be sensitive in theav future. all potential to russia's acts and at the end of the day with the only big thing that was

done after contacted personallyon was that the accurate depiction by people we have interviewed and what should we have done to change where we are today? >> in thisnk open session with regard to the adversary rather than what mr. daniels has talked about. it is accurate to say that in september the president made a stern and personal morning to president putin that there were follow-up conversations and other government channels includingg with use of pre-existing channels there is

a lot of work going on to those measures that we could take it you like twhirl. and in december with the variety of reasons some that you highlighted yourself and to launch the full investigation and response after the election. it is fair to say what was done in december january with the incoming administration would build on? there is still plenty of work to be done.

>> what did russia think they could treat the united states just like the other countries that they really considered to be part of the soviet union? but they increasingly understood the vulnerabilities the way they communicated so powerful and the way we connect with each other to turbocharge those techniques since the soviet. to protect us against each other and they got better and better. this is highly opportunistic. whether ukraine or europe and

lots of opportunities to probe there is a great quote to lennon thrust the van at if you hit a bone if you hit to mush push. >> what about the social media platforms in the future with the belief that they can self police that actors? >> as with all of that technology, it is a double edged sword to get messages out very rapidly that is clear and accurate to provide a great opportunityitat for misinformation. and without assistance it is

hard for the social media platforms to combine all malicious actors. it is incumbent upon all western democratic governments to figure out how to work with the social media platform to malign the information on those platforms. >> there needs to be a new type of collaboration between us and those companies and we are working on that. ambassador i will come back to you with a couple of quick things and then we will get into specifics on closed session at when did you become aware of mr. steele's efforts? s >> with regard to the dossier? >> i was first shown excerpts

from the dossier i believe mid july 2016. it was not complete which i did not see until it was published in the u.s. press. >> i know you have talked extensively with staff relative to mr. steele that based upon our review of visitor logs at the state department he visited the state department briefing officials october 2016. did you have any role in that briefing? >> i did not i actively chose not to be a part of that briefing. >> what you were aware of it? >> i was not aware of it until after words. >> similar question with a different approach.

i don't think enough was done but there was a series of actions taken addressing putin, mr. brennan talking to his counterpart the cyberhotline october 7 dhs warning. do you think any of those actions resulted in a diminution of russian activity? did it slow down anything or still full steam ahead or if we had not donedo that they may have even been morning various? >> i think certainly it is the case it was very important to tell the russians at every levelre including the top level we were watching what they were doing. whether they slowed them or did less particularly after

the president spoke directly to putin in early september, i don't know if you look at the record of their activity generally they were a little bit less active than they later were in october or in particular the end of october were they were quite active when they saw the election may turn out differently thanth previously thought. >> i would generally agree with the ambassador. but i would say i would draw the distinction between the saw the diminution of cyberactivity aimed at the electoral infrastructure and now we see an increase on social media. so my conclusion would be to shift the focus away from here cyberoperations as a result of

what they were communicating. >> the cyberhotline dhs zero dni public warning really didn't seem to have that much effect in terms of the diminution of their more in the various activities may be selected -- selective information on social media. >> in my experience the russians in particular watch what we do more than what we say so active deterrence measures perhaps were more effective it seems that we were caught left footed in terms of how they use social media and companies were caught flat-footed due to the fact they exploited where foreign agents impersonating americans generating content

in russia that went between the cracks then maybe we would have seen activities from eastern europe or in social media. do you have an explanation with the money more -- monday morning quarterback why we were caught so flat-footed? >> think there are number of explanations that we can talk about in the follow-up session but the russians over time were perfecting their ability to target social media specific political objectives in their own country in the ukraine and then across europe well before 2016. i think some companies were aware of some abuse of their platforms but because they

were not talking to each other they were not integrating what they were seeing to develop a pattern in the private companies e for each taking a piece of the elephant and not seeing all of it and there was a tendency only to have classified information and that necessary integration of open source and classified information was not happening the way it needed h to so the government was not as aware of what was happening. >> building on top of that my position was cybersecurity coordinator focused on the protection of information systems. we weren't set up then and really are not now to have a focus to counter information operations many were not carried out through stealing

credentials or malware like the russian agents that you talk about signed up for facebook accounts that is information operations. for now the russians are very good at their cybercapabilities with information operations those are separate things and in many ways require a separate discipline to counter. >> you say certain companies were aware russians were interfering but what i think is remarkable is none of those companies acknowledge that ahead of time now in the immediate aftermath they raised the concern that facebook and others could have been used actually the leadershipus dismissed the notion wholeheartedlyy and literally it took months and months before the social media

companies acknowledged their issues. >> thank you. first of all ambassador thank you for your well thought out recommendations those are serious and deserve serious consideration. so to summarize you have both indicated and it is well documented this whole thing started spring of 16 and gradually grew through the year to the point where in september at the g20 summit president obama confronted mr. putin and disclosed to him that we knew what they were doing that was classified information but that is his job to do that and bassett are with your description with the fed consultation to slow them down briefly and then they continued in their direction is thatut j fair?

>> that appears to be fair based on what we know obviously we don't have full knowledge of the kremlin's thinking. >> one of the things that puzzlesli me but dni went public that people need to pay attention to some degree but this is the question that i have for you mr. daniels. there is a quotation i want to read you from an article that appearedau in late august 2016. at his mornings after reading his team they had to stop working on options to counter the attack we haven't told too stand down that is a quote from you. one of the top deputies recalled i was incredulous and in disbelief it took me a moment to process in my head i

was thinking did i hear that correctly? "then asked why the hell are we standing down? can you help us understand? "? is an accurate description ofvi what happened? >> that is an accurate rendering of the conversation at that meeting but the larger context is something we can discuss in the classified session but i can say that there were many concerns how many people were involved in the development of the options so the decision at that point was to take down the number of people involved to develop the ongoing response options it is not accurate to say all activity ceased at that point. >> what about your area of

supervision? did that cease? >> no. we shifted the focus during that timeframe to focus heavily on better protecting and assisting states to better protect the electoral infrastructure to ensure we have the greater disability as possible and what the russians werere doing essentially the infinite response plan. >> and you describe that? >> as far as your cyberresponse you were told to stand down? . those were were put on the back burner. yes that was not the focus of our activity during that time. >> what cyberoptions did you recommend which were taken or rejected? >> again this is something we will have to discuss in the classified session and i am

more than happy to describe those there but it was a full range of potential actions to use our cybercapabilities to impose costs on the russians openly to demonstrate that we could do it as a deterrent and also clandestinely to disrupt their operations as well. >> were any of those accepted? >> i cannot go into that right now. >> what did you recommend white today take or what did they trash? >> again i think it is more appropriate to get into those specific recommendations in the closed sessions that i will say we were aware and i was aware as early as december 2015 that the dnc hadc been hacked.

we didn't know by who at that point but there was a lot of signatures of other activities we have seen her russians and other parts of the world and as we saw more activity in the spring those of us on the russia account push very hard internally to put more intelligence resources on this to better understand what is going on we didn't understand at that point this would take the form of intelligence gathering during the election. or be used to influence before or after the election. we became more alarmed throughout the spring and in june my tea was authorized by secretary kerry to begin workingd internally on what kinds of deterrence opportunities there may be whether in the cyberrealm or other tools so we developed a

full suite of options in july and then we understood this issue would be taken up again after the election but we are authorized to continue the work on what might be effective in august and september and we didin that we were ready for the formal conversations when obama authorized them after thens election. >> thank you both. the chairman has called an important hearing talking about policy responses to the russian attack on our democracy. and i have felt for a long time one of the best ways to push back to the russian attacks on our democracy is to have a lot of allies close to us who will stand with us and if you are going to focus on that it is certainly relevant tocu discuss president tromso

brushes behavior but i will do this for you this is newman at the g7 not only did the president criticize our allies individually and collectively he was unhappy that flat and we are putin had not been invited and this week apparently he tries to undermine the german government by making false claims about migration and crime so every step of the way with climate changeat or trade or iran or basic issues of human rights it seems the net effect is the president has isolated us from allies that we very much need to help us stand up to russia and the attacks on our democracy. so given your background how important in your review are these alliances to push back against the russians?

and how would you evaluate the president's recent actions that i describe? >> senator come in my professional experience and study of history, the u.s. alliance system has served our nation superbly in terms of security and prosperity in defense of the values and our constitution and declaration of independence for more than 70 years. we always don't think our allies are doing enough sometimes we have friction in every decade whether oversea wass or vietnam or iraq but it is important that we work together to get through those as a family and fundamentally the system we have in place is a collective security system where we jointly pay for that and jointly execute against common enemies and a shared prosperity system where we push for maximum openness so we can all benefit and all

prosper obviously adjustments are always needed we need those after september 11 to go to afghanistan and iraq reminds the allies more than half of the combat burden for most of those mission. >> what is your take on the president's reach -- recent actions? >> i am concerned when america's adversaries appear to get better public and private treatment than our friends certainly we should not be in the business of interfering of internal politics followed by my concern on the trade side that if we are not careful we could set a off a session in europe or the united states. >> i'm glad you pointed>> out this double standard that cuts against america's security

interest in my view when those people get better treatment now one last question so your position was a laminated added time when it seems to me you have more and more cyberthreats of a wide variety reports with hacks from north korea. so tell me in your review whatat capabilities they come off with him -- are lost? assessments they don't have that current situational awareness that is

a technical term but tell me what capabilities are lost with the elimination of your. positions. >> thank you sen .'s not so much the capabilities but the ability to integrate those capabilities and employ them those departments and agencies develop and maintain the capability. but given the relative newness of the law and interagency cooperation on cyberrelated issues with cybercapabilities, it is very important to have senior officials at the white house to drive policy and drive operational collaboration in that area. >> the administration took a few steps to warn rush you on -- rush against additional

activity. did they have any deterrenter effect? >> it is where the effect will be it may have been a slowing of russian activity and then to star in full force. then to shift the focus away to penetrate state-level and it is a very difficult question to answer.

. . . . they may well have changed their minds about the outcome of the election and accelerated theirrd separation accordingly. >> in a context thathi happened after the present warning. a later release of a podesta e-mails. to use describe dead moving in a different direction particularly towards the influence came that mr. daniel referred to as opposed to the state systems and the like? >> i wasn't involved in working with the states. obviously i worked on a piece of

it but i think what we saw was a move from their release of the e-mails into our political conversation among ourselves moving later in the campaign to the acceleration using the botnet and using the internet accounts that they had established to push false narratives that were popular on the fringes of u.s. politics to try to mainstream does. >> i have forgotten the exact quote but you said earlier you push something and he stopped and kept pushing. text why did vladimir putin think he could get away with treating the united states the way he treated countries and i ran that they think should be under russia's control? why did he feel in your opinion

that he could get away with that treating us in the same way? >> in my experience with this particular leader if you don't make these aggressive moves directly for him and his circle in his own context that he will keep pushing. >> i don't really have anything to add on top of what the ambassador said. >> ultimately to rephrase it he is a cost-benefit analysis. here's the benefit of doing it and i believe the benefit outweighs the cost and therefore i'm going to do it. >> i think it's probably the case that thehe russians didn't see them so they kept pushing. not context it's kind of a hindsight 2020 situation. ambassador newland if he could go and do it over again and go

back to 2016 and 2017 and tried to deterred the sect to evade what language do you believe he would have understood and what could we have done differently? he areed trying to learn about what our policy c should be movg forward and an additional to the rhetorical one they actions we would take a walk would have worked in your opinion looking back now?in >> again we can talk more about this unclassified session that part of thecl problem we had was as i said in my opening we didn't have sufficient integration of information to understandrs fully how their campaign was structured. we didn't have sufficient agreement in the interagency as to what the deterrence tools were and what the effect would be if the russians chose to escalate because we didn't study it hard enough on reward unified net. we were working closely enough to know what might be possible ase well and we were beginningo

work with our allies but we hadn't done enough. if you look at the more successful counter operations that french president macron did in the following year for some of which builds on the experience we shared what he was able to do was to much more quickly than we were identified russian influence operations to call them out and to put a legal structure in place to counter that. he essentially neutered the influence by telling his people that this was russia. it was not part of the debate in france so one concrete example there was a poll after the french elections that showed le pen the far right candidate in the lead. it was a russian operation. it was not a true poll and the french were able to prove that both in terms of the order and the information heading back to russian in terms of their own

data and within the same cycle virtually or within a c week thy were able to debunk it publicly. we have got to be in the same situation if not in terms of countermeasures inside russia and other adversaries sola that they know this is going to cripple them as well. we can talk about those later. >> ambassador let me just say the vice chairman and by many times the wondered what we would done if we had the same ability that the french do. to some degree it shows you the vulnerabilities but we are challenged to live with those under the first amendment and clearly they had tools that we inhabit. >> chairman obvious i'm not recommending that but i do think you know information, sunshine is the best disinfectant. >> it's obviously changed the campaign for rush is itd related to france. senator king.

>> i'd like to follow up on that point. talking to people in eastern europe who have been living this for years i've asked them what is the best defense would you do if you can't cut off television and take down the internet. they said the best defense is for the public to understand what's happening and then they can discount it and say it's just the russians. that's why think what we are doing here is so important to inform the american people that this is real and it's going to continue because then they are better prepared. would you agree with that? >> i would completely agree with that. no population, no citizen wants you to think that a foreign entity is controlling their election. it should be a national and sovereign right of every citizen to elect their leader. when you explain exactly how these campaigns worked andnd tht the information they were getting is manipulated by somebody outside t of our county

not only does it have, does it change their processing of the information it radically turn them off that information. they feel appropriately that they've been manipulatedin. >> windy due to first meet in person? >> i don't remember. we certainly were part of meeting in the summer and fall of 2016. >> that was the point of myfa question. you were at similar meetings but i want to go to your first recommendation which is a fusion center. seems to me one of our response to cyber generally is their lack of a central focus. i believe it should be a person not just a fusion center but someone who has overall responsibility. i just solicited nine agencies that have a piecete of this and write now i'm getting frustrated. here the term whole of government into meer that means

none of government because there is no one in charge. you believe there should be some central authority, somebody in government whose responsibility is to think about cyber in protecting thiso country? >> senator there obviously has to be somebody who looks at cyber. the cyber is obviously bigger than the issue of malign stayed at there's affecting policy. presumably there would be a director and a national counterterrorism center who would be the single leaders. >> as mr. daniel pointed out someone to integrate thene data. that was onene of the problems early on in our response was it not that we have data coming into the fbi and the say in various places. we didn't really have a full picture of the magnitude of this until fairly late in the summer or early fall. is that correct?

>> i would actually argue we didn't have a full appreciation for the scope of all was going on until well into 2017. in fact in the fall of 2016 the full extent of the russian information operation everything that they were doing on social media and the vast number of trolls and activities they had going on i don't think we fully understood that even in the fall of 2016. it really is a picture that is continuing to evolve overr time as committees like thise, have done their work. i think that was as the ambassador pointed out part of the problem. we didn't actually have a complete understanding of the campaign that was being carried out against us. >> ambassador nuland a different tact. the president, president obama has been criticized for not acting soon enough, strong enough. what was the thinking without

revealing classified conversations but what was the presence presence thinking insofar as you know in terms of how to respond to this and what were theirir risks and what were the benefits? why didn't he take -- for example why wasn't there a strong classified sanction or some act to. as opposed to a stern admonition at the g20 summit? >> senator we can talk more about this and classified session as we did last year. some of the reasons have been -- there was incomplete information at the right moment which i think is the fault of the systems we have in place including the ability to integrate between the government and the private sector moving classified and unclassified. there was all ready by late and early august accusations by candidate trump that the

election would be rigged. i think there was a concern that this wasn't handled properly any move publicly would be seen as president obama playing into those accusations. there were concerns about how this might escalate and countermeasures could be escalatory measures because one of russia's school was to undercut the integrity and not wanting to play into that. i think there was a perception that this could be dealt with after the election and more fulsome way and whomever was elected will continue the work that the administration started to get to the bottom of the more fully. >> thank you. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. daniel, how did the administration view wikileaks?

for example did you feel it as a news organization, as a social platformn, like facebook and in that sense a hostile intelligence service? >> senator i would actually say in many ways it was sort of all up to us and at various points certainly as someone who had spent a large amount of time working with the intelligence community over my career certainly would did not feel n a lot of it as favorable. our view was always lit as to exactly how witting a lot of the people that were involved were with what wash going on. weg couldn't -- we can explore more detailed in a classified session. clearly the russians use them to great advantage.

>> do you think that realization existed in 2016 or is that only a realization that we have looking back? >> i don't think we fully appreciated the scope and scale of the r russian influence operation and at the time we were certainly that was part of what prompted our initial work with this information into wikileaks with the persona that was called guccifer 2.0 but in many ways we are certainly on the cyber security site we were very focused on the tv aimed at the state and local electoral systems. it wasn't until i think later in the year and actually after the change of administration that we became fully cognizant of the scope and scale of the influence operations. >> you mentioned the state and

local electoral system. we have the bound the number of states whosese systems were scammed by the russians. how likely do you think it is that russian cyber actors scanned all 50 states? >> i think it's highly likely. it was always my judgment that given the number thatt we reachd where we had pretty good evidence of that lead me to believe there was no reason why there wouldn't the attempted rackauckas again -- recognizance >> i really appreciate your being forthright about that because i believe if they

understood that they would be more receptive to the help that i know secretary johnson offered and the helpp they are being offered now and certainly that continues. ambassador nuland, in 2016 the fbi was complaining to this committee that russian diplomats in the united states were not following the established rules about travel and they were not notified at the state department. seemed like they were traveling to odd locations on short notice. were you aware at the state department of the fbi's concerns? >> yes senator but as i testified in classified session or you're going to think we should review again in closed session we have significant conversations with the fbi and

took some actions in prepared others as early as july and august the 2016 with regard to their concerns. they also and i'm sure told you had a severe understaffing problem in terms of their ability to do their job and identifying when the russians didn't obey the rules and made it painful in those encounters. >> do you think that travel was related to the russians active measures against the electoral system? >> i do. >> thank you. say i h thank you mr. chairman d thank you both for being here. i don't think there's any question that the russians were attempting to be involved at a higher level than they have ever done before. i would ask do you think that we have the assurances that we know

exactlyth how they try to do it and are they still moving in that direction? go ahead. >> mr. daniels will speak from this experience. among the reasons i apply the recommendations that i did is i did not think that wee are yet working on funded structures. >> basically st. petersburg and mr. daniels. >> we know quite a bit about that one with the help of the companies. whatat we don't know is how many more of those there are whether in russia or other parts of the world. >> i would just say i have too much appreciation for thehe capabilities of the russians. they are an incredibly sophisticated actor both on the cyber side and the information operations side. i have interests that two that i believe we detected all the

tivoli that either did do or are continuing to do. >> that being said do you believe we should have a policy proven toyb be sponsored by the director of a foreign government whether it be rush or anybody elsend that would retaliate in cyberspace. >> as with any issue in the fiscal rom i think what we have long argued is the same ideas and concepts of proportionality and the laws of war apply in cyberspace as they do in the physical round and if you had a cyber incident that rose to the same level of use of force that you should be able to respond using all the tools of national power the same way we would to an incident the physical world. >> we have midterm elections that we are all concerned about because they are very critical. i would like to know in west

virginia that ourur systems are safe. if there is any indication there might be an infiltration by a foreign actor to support the outcome can they prevent that? >> senator and mr. daniels in west virginia would say it's a matter of u.s.-russia policy. this would be a moment for the president to first be working with its policy team to decide what the cost for russia should the if there is proven interference. >> do you think it should be the alert for the nuclear attack? >> i would repeat what mr. daniels said we want to make sure and it president can have full response options and in

some cases it may be the economic -- >> do believe there was anything the obama administration could have done tohi c make people tae that threat seriously? it got to the point that everything was after-the-fact and you all knew something before that. >> in my experience it always takes an extended period of engagement whether it's the financial sector the electoral sector the health care sector. all of them follow a similar pattern to what we saw with eola tauro sector in terms of that takes time for people to grasp and understand that the threat is real, that is present and it can affect them directly and there things you can do to address it. i would say that time span has been shortened in the electoral

infrastructure t and people goto that point a lot more quickly than some of the other areas. >> i believe that there were deterrence measures that we could have taken and should have taken earlier. >> did we make the public aware of? >> obviouslyre the public should be aware but for a lot of reasons some of which we'll discuss in the next session we were not sufficiently aware ourselves at the right moment but more importantly going forward we know that they very may well do this again. now we may be planning what the retaliation is going b-to-b signaling so that cost is the evident. >> i'm just saying you don't see the russians are other foreign actors backing off at all and involvement at the same level if not greater? mr. daniels? >> not having access to classified information right now

you look at just the most recent back two goodies with mel blair -- malware is mostt assuredly with routers it's a type of malware that we haven't seen before in a cybersecurity community. that shows quite clearly the intent of the russians to continue using cyberer capabilities. >> thank you senator. before a move to senator langford let me ask those of you what point do the cyber indicators match matchup with the knowledge about russia to form a complete picture of what exactly this threat was. >> chairman as you know if i were sitting at the center of government's work on russia i'm

a consumer of all of the different intelligence information that there was. >> this is more of a stovepipe question. at what point did technical cyber indicators that you were looking at on a constant basis match with the knowledge to put this togethert and see the complete picture? >> my feeling about this is it was until the president ordered all of us to sit together and map what we knew that the full elephant came into view for all of us together. evenne so that was an element tt representative government information as mr. daniels has said. he learned much later about the coal holdings of the -- >> roughly the the president brought the team together. >> 2016. >> the president had not asked

for disinformation. there there was no process in place that would have given this information on a more operational basis. >> there should have been but there wasn't and that's why advocate the fusion center in the second recommendation to also have a continuing conversationco with country. i would add to the extent and i would separate the information on the i influence operations in the information side and the targeting of the electoral infrastructure the integration of that and the cyber threat within the office of the dni and that was to try to combine the cyber technical intelligence with the geopolitical intelligence we can actually understand one without the other >> senator langford. >> tell me about the second recommendation you have to work

with the public and private entities. how do you think that should be formed to? >> i think this should be a presidentially elected part -- at the leader level monthly or thereafter. after i had an opportunity to talk to a a lot of the big actos and u.s. private space it becomes clear that for reasons company privacy etc. proprietary business e information they are not comfortable. they worry but yet they are facing some the t same problems and they are also having conversations with the government about what they are seeing but is limited to cyber experts and it's not integrated with policy and often it wasn't giving to a high enough level. i think the companies knew some of what was going on their platforms in russia ukraine ins europe as early as 14 and 15.

they were not necessarily the leaders of the company. ideally companies could speak to each other and they can speak to government and common campaigns of action whether regulatory, a legal, policy can be formed and where companies can see what kind of protection they need from government. >> certainly from this perspective how should they meet in who should be the primary actors? >> how often they should meet a think of something we want to talk to government and industry about. there should be an ongoing conversationon and a virtual conversation at the working level. there should be mid-to upper-level meetings and probably senior cabinet level meetings quarterly to apprise us >> who do you think should be at that table?

>> again i would want to do more work with the companies on this and more workth with governmento gethe a better sense of it from the company said it would want to see cybersecurity experts and policy experts to make sure they are integrating on the government side. >> it is her great frustration as you know well that we have worked with several social media platforms and a soft things and were taking ads that were election related. they were aware of it and trying to figure out what to do if it basically and now there are's rarely significant changes in the policy. obviously they saw it during the election as well. why i'm pressing on this is that is one aspect. there will be others. they are trying to respond to it and there will be others that could take us into places where they will go next. what do you anticipate is the goal of this meeting time? is a maintaining what we are to have in implementing what could be coming.

in the private sector there's not a lot of corporation and sharing. they typically see this threat and trying to figure it out the same as government. >> obviously is to do past four and six to inform future forensics in future policy. as i said in my opening russia has done pretty well with its tool but other actors are starting to get even better notably including china. >> let me back up a little bit on this for both of you. use your imagination. ambassador new land you know the russians k and you know that region extremely well. as you talked about other actors weighing in whether it beat nation-states or those of a political beef and they want to affect this for you in particular with the russians mr. daniel in a broader setting what do you think the russians next move is? where do you think they are going next based on what you

have seen? .. >> so you know i think they will accelerate that. i don't know, you know, whether they will have a view about the 2020 election, but having been more successful than they anticipated the last time, i think you could see them be quite aggressive on both sides, both at primary time and at general election time in trying to influence how americans choose their next leaders. >> right. mr. daniel, any overview for other actors? >> i would certainly say that both the russians and other actors including china, iran,

north korea, criminal organizations, terrorist organizations, activists all of them are discovering that cyberspace is a great place to try to advance their agenda. and we are seeing a proliferation of capabilities across the globe. and we should expect that to continue. our adversaries are also going to get better at integrating their cyber capabilities with other aspects of their national power. the russians are already quite far along in that. but the chinese and others are not far behind. >> senator, if i may just highlight one, there's also the risk that you will have american on american violence in this space, that, you know, if we don't put the right laws and regulatory policy in place, that it will be -- it will create a jungle in our own politics against each other. >> thank you. >> thanks, senator. if no members are seeking any additional questions, i think we have come to the end of the open

session. i do have one final question, if i could, ambassador. can you provide us any insight as to why inr was not included in the team that comprised the ica, the intelligence community assessment? >> i thought chairman that they were included, mr. daniel would know better because he was closer, but i thought that they were included. they were certainly included in the work we did on potential deterrent steps. >> to the best of my knowledge, they should have been included because by definition those ica should be coordinated across the community. >> we'll check -- >> i have a vague memory of their coming to us on the policy side thinking that things could be more rigorous at a certain point in december, so i think

they might have been -- they were involved in some way. >> to the best of you are understanding, the participants were fbi nsa and cia and again it gets back to our ability to look forward and to figure out how we create a pathway that has no stovepipes where these things are instinctively created correctly. closing? let me say thank you to both of you for your insight, for everything on this important issue. while we would all like to look exclusively forward, our mission for this investigation was to fully review russia's involvement and intentions in the 2016 election. you both played a pivotal role, and i hope both of you will continue to stay engaged with the committee as we finish the investigation on areas that you

might be able to provide some clarity on. what i hope also you will stay involved with the committee as it relates to future policies that ambassador i assure you will be on the table. nobody would like to concentrate solely -- well, nobody would like to concentrate solely on oversight more than the russia investigative team, i can assure you. so it's my hope and it's my belief that this hearing has helped us get closer to the end than to the beginning, and you have helped us today better understand some of the issues that we've dealt with for the last 16 months now. we are grateful to you. with that, i will adjourn this hearing with the intent to start closed hearing at approximately 1:15 and would encourage you to seek nourishment during that period. this hearing is adjourned.

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coming up friday morning, two members of congress will discuss congressional efforts to reform u.s. immigration policy, new jersey republican congressman and vermont democratic congressman will share their views. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern friday morning. join the discussion. president trump hosted a working lunch with a group of republican governors. each governor spoke about different initiatives in their states, from the white house roosevelt room, this is 30 minutes. >> and as you know, this is a great group of governors, very distinguished governors, and we're having a meeting. we had a victory just a few moments ago on the internet sales tax. a lot of states and cities now are going to be benefitting from what's going on. that's a big, big victory for

the governors in this room. i know they wanted to see that happen, and i don't think it was a surprising victory. it was the right thing to do. it was a 5-4 decision, the supreme court, just came down, so i have a very -- a lot of happy faces in front of me. that's good. going to be a very good meal. i want to thank you all for being here. i thought i would go down while the press is here i thought maybe we'll go around the room and mike congratulations. >> thank you, mr. president. >> you really deserve and congratulations. might want to say a few words? >> it is an honor to be here today for the president of the united states to take time out for governors across this country especially my home state of missouri we're so proud of the leadership in washington right now and the things you are doing. we're proud of that. you know, for us, it is infrastructure and jobs in missouri, like many of the other governors, that's what's important to me. i appreciate having an

opportunity to be here with the president of the united states and be able to discuss those issues. >> thank you very much. i hear josh is doing pretty well out there. >> josh is doing well. we will be working hard for him. >> i hear he's doing really great. >> he is. >> matt, you have set records in what you are doing in your great state that i love very much, kentucky, special place, you have really done a job. say a few words. >> i will say this, what has brought us to town, the u.s. chamber of commerce has recognized in a world of geopolitical instability there is nowhere that is as likely to have upside potential for investors is the united states period. we as states we compete with one another. we are all on the same team at the end of the day which is to bring investors to the united states. when someone comes to any one state all of us benefit to some degree given the supply chain. i'm excited to be here talking to a whole lot of investors from around the world. i'm grateful as was just noted to have a president and administration and vice president who have been ceos and

leaders of states and businesses who understand how business gets done and who listen to governors and who delegate responsibility to states because this is the greatness of america. and so i just again i appreciate your willingness to hear us and your willingness to support us as we work to make each of our respective states stronger economically. >> and matt, i might add, has a record number of new businesses going into kentucky. and i want to take full credit for that, but i have to give him at least some. [laughter] >> you have done a really fantastic job. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> it is a great honor to see so many of you here. we spent a lot of time with many people around the table, particularly on workforce development, as the economy is growing so rapidly, so robust for the first time in history, there are more vacant jobs than there are people to fill them. so i've worked with so many of you on different programs within your state that ensure that people have the skills,

training, the vocational education they need to fill those jobs. and we have a lot more great work that's going to be coming out of this white house, in collaboration with each of you. so it is an honor to be here today to discuss that and discuss the skills that are needed in your states and how we can help you. thank you for being here. >> thank you very much. thanks, ivanka. governor? >> mr. president, thank you for hosting this. honor to be here. thanks for what you are doing. i will add to the conversation by saying this, you've done a lot of good things to help improve america's outcome, make america great is a slogan that's becoming a reality. what i really appreciate, though, is that you have in fact reached out to the states. vice president mike pence has said to me that is this something the state should be involved in and get away from washington, d.c.? i think the trap we find ourselves in too much in

washington is this one size fits all mentality. not respecting the differences the states have in their different regions, different demographics, different cultures, different politics, but your administration much better than the previous administration, has reached out to states and said we want to know what you think, what you can do, and maybe put more responsibility back to the states. that's i think a secret for continued success for this country. >> great, great job. how is the million square miles that we just gave over to you? how is that doing? everything good? >> you know, again, the public land stays public land. always been public land and continue to be public land. it is going to be better for the local people there as far as they can manage and help the federal government manage it particularly when it comes to the native americans. this is really a win win. we thank you very much for what you have done to help us.

>> people in utah are so happy about what took place. they never thought it was going to happen. >> finally somebody in washington is paying attention to the public land states. we're not many. we are a few. if you are east of the rocky mountains public lands, what's that? it is a big deal for us for endangered species, access energy development, tourism and travel, i mean all those things need to be put together in a balanced approach with common sense. and you've helped bring common sense -- >> two great senators pushed me very hard on that. when i looked at it, i said that's a natural. it's good. say hello to everybody. >> i will do that. i think you will have another that will support you too. >> good. i think he will be excellent. >> he's mentioned that. >> good. say hello to him. thank you, governor. >> mr. president, let me join with the rest of my colleagues in thanking you very much for this opportunity. a little bit about idaho, first off, i've had more cabinet

members in idaho -- i'm in my 11 1/2 year as governor, six years in congress, 14 years as lieutenant governor, this is the first time in all of that time that i've had more cabinet members in idaho than ever before. like gary, like utah, idaho is 65% federal government, either forest service or interior. and your folks have been fantastic. in fact, they govern more of idaho than i do as far as the land mass goes. but it really has been on a big upswing for us. we're now 2.9% unemployment. fastest growing state in the nation, in terms of numbers. >> wow >> the fastest growth in personal income in the nation, again, for another year. and right now our economy is rocking around 8.6%. >> wow, that's fantastic. >> and i've got 500 million in the bank. >> not bad; right? little different than a lot of

places. >> and i've got a 97% funding on my retirement fund. >> well, that's good. boy, you are doing well. keep it up. you have done a fantastic job. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> that's a great place. i like it. i guess they like me based on the numbers, but i tell you what, we have had great experience there. what makes it so good? what's doing so well because you are just about at the top of the heap in terms of -- what is making it so good? >> one of the things we did in 2009, i created the first community college in idaho for workforce development because i had a bunch of jobs i couldn't fill, even though i was like 2.9 -- pardon, i was at 9.2% unemployment at the time, but we had the jobs, but we just didn't have the skills. so i created this community college called the college of western idaho. about 8 miles from where i was born. and we started off with 1500 students. today we've got 33,000 students.

so i created another community college. so every portal of education, every portal of skill development, the needs of our workforce, we're creating and right now my workforce is over 850,000. it was less than 700,000 when i became governor. >> fantastic job. mike? >> mr. president, i just join you in saying it's a privilege to welcome some of america's most outstanding governors back to the white house. governor, welcome in your first time in this capacity as well. i think it has been said well, we have a president that believes in state-based innovation and reform, and these governors represent some of the best and most dynamic leadership we've seen your states not only prosper as you advance policies

at the state level and taken the new freedom and flexibility this administration has given you in so many ways to improve the lives of people in your state, but also i want to express appreciation for the way in good time and in challenging times, the governors sitting around this table have worked closely with this administration on behalf of the american people. i extend the warm welcome of the president, our whole administration, each one of you and thanks for your great leadership. >> thank you, mike. scott walker has done an incredible job as governor. i went to scott and i said scott, i think we have the company that makes the laptops and the iphones for apple and it is one of the great companies of the world, one of the biggest companies in the world, and i said a long time ago to tim cook, of apple, i said i will not be satisfied until you start building your plants and others start building and you are

really -- as usual, the first, building the biggest plant you have ever seen in wisconsin. when i gave them over to you, i said i don't have to make another call because it was like a vice; right? [laughter] >> and you pulled it off, so i want to congratulate scott walker. that is going to be 15,000 jobs i think in that one place. from what i'm hearing they are already talking about expansion. we flew over a site and it was very interesting together i said what's that? that was a car company that had left. it's this big site, good location. i said that would be good. and you said that's the site. but when i handed them over to scott walker, it was over. i didn't have to waste any more time; right? you took it over. they are building -- how far advanced are they? >> well, the great thing is they have already started moving around preparing the site. wilbur ross is great to have, we brought one of the individuals in from the company today and highlighted that. it is the largest economic development project in the state's history, one of largest in american history and the

largest foreign direct investment in america. would not have happened without you. you brought it to america. we just grabbed the ball and ran from there. we're absolutely thrilled about that. it will be the ripple effect; right? all the others -- good example oshkosh corporation also based in wisconsin they make most of the armored vehicles for the military, they do business every year with about 700 companies in our state and 140 different communities about 300 million dollars a year with the business, when this company is fully operational, four times that. so just the massive effect all across the state and really across the midwest. so the two quick things to say, thank you for having us here today, one ivanka you talked about and you joined us at one of our technical colleges with you mr. president, in advance of that, we have 2.8% unemployment, the lowest we have ever had in the history of the state, one of the lowest in america. workforce for us is critically important. we have more than doubled the amount of youth apprenticeships

in our state. our next stage is to take that in 7th and 8th grade. start academic and career plans in 6th grade, get young people to look at career opportunities and get them into apprenticeships. i know that's something you and the administration have been pushing. the other thing is i want to tell you personally on behalf of the people of our state thank you because the tax cut in our state, the typical family, not what you hear in washington, but what our department of revenue shows, a family of four, two parents working on average about $45,000, two middle class jobs, two parents working, two kids at home saved $2,508 each year because of your tax cut. that's not crumbs. those are real dollars that helped working class families in our state. we appreciate it. >> i appreciate it. i have to say about scott walker he was the first one to tell me having a hard time getting into canada with the dairy products, right? scott brought it to my attention better than anybody else could have. we will get that situation

straightened out. it is not a pleasant thing, but they have gotten away with it for a long time. and it's not fair, where they send their product to us, but we can't send our product to them. scott walker did not like it. i don't like it. and we're going to get it fixed. so let in particular your farmers know that i'm with them, may be a little bit of pain initially, but ultimately we're opening up markets that they never even thought possible. you know, canada charges a 275% tariff on dairy products. you do a lot of dairy products. >> absolutely. >> that's not fair. that's like putting a barrier up. that's like saying don't even bother. that's the same thing as a barrier. you know, we're working on it. >> i told secretary ross here today the best thing you said at the g-7, the ultimate goal is get rid of all tariffs. you were brilliant to point that out. >> i said i have an idea folks get rid of all tariffs and all subsidies, get rid of

everything. they weren't very fast to take that, i wasn't surprised but they weren't. a lot of people liked that. thank you very much, great job, scott. governor? the governor. you are doing a great job. that's a tough job. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you for this opportunity and for allowing us to have constant communication with your staff. i think it's been critical so we can voice our concerns, been very helpful. you know, there's been some very challenging times in puerto rico. i think everybody knows this. and we're now at a path where we're starting to reach normalcy, and now it's really the big opportunity to rebuild. first of all, i want to thank you for signing the supplemental bill that gives puerto rico the resources to rebuild. we have had a phenomenal

relationship. now i would like to take a few seconds to voice what my vision for puerto rico is in the coming years. i see puerto rico open for business. take away the obstacles, eliminate the bureaucracy. i see puerto rico becomes a connector of the americas. we are part of the united states. but we can expand in south and central america as well. it could be a very great opportunity. i see puerto rico as the center for the cloud, jobs are becoming geographically independent. folks will want to live in puerto rico with all we have to offer and a platform for innovation. the last thing mr. president is i see puerto rico as a place for equal treatment. i wanted to state that, you know, everybody that's sitting on this table mostly all of the governors are governors of state except for me. i'm the governor of a territory.

it is important, mr. president, for you to know that our people, the people of puerto rico have chosen twice in the past five years that we don't want to be a territory anymore. we want to be a state. we want to be treated equal treatment. we want american citizenship. i think this is a great legacy that your administration could pursue, that give a path forward to the people of puerto rico so that we can finally have that equality and end what we call the unfinished business of american democracy and using your words, sir, you want to make america great again, i think we can make it greater and expanding it to include puerto rico as the 51st state. >> thank you, ricardo, very much. he's going to guarantee us two republican senators. is that correct? [laughter]

>> puerto rico will be a battleground state. >> you have really worked very hard. >> thank you. >> ricardo inherited a power plant that was virtually useless. and it was in bankruptcy. it's been in bankruptcy for a long period of time. and many of the other places were in bankruptcy and tremendous amounts of money owed and you got in and you have been working really hard. he was very brilliant. he blamed the hurricane for destroying the power plant, and he's doing very well. i tell you what, the people of puerto rico are being well represented by this man because we like him and we respect him. and we're working on that power plant, and, you know, it's very big numbers. it was bad before the hurricane. it was bad after the hurricane. but, you know, we have some great talent over there. say hello to the people there. great people. they have endured a lot.

that was bad a situation as i have ever seen. >> thank you. >> it is getting done. >> thank you for your commitment. again, you have always answered our calls. the vice president as well and your staff and right now i can announce that yesterday i signed a bill to empower the transformation and privatization of the energy grid so that we can start not only making it a little bit better but actually make it into a model of the america. so again, puerto rico is the place to be, and we want to be full partners with the united states. that next step would be to become a state. >> great job. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mr. president, a group of governors here today who want to work in partnership with you on opioids and combatting the opioid epidemic, on workforce, apprenticeships, vocational training, really good partners and want to help make their states better in partnership with you and your administration. >> thank you very much. you know, while we have alex

here, and we did it a little while ago, but if you could just give a brief summary of what we have done on healthcare because it is so exciting. it is association healthcare. it's millions and millions of people. it's never been done on this scale. it is getting larger. it is going to take a tremendous group out of the disaster known as obama care. secretary of labor? >> we were chatting about it briefly before you walked in. this is so important. the current healthcare system is just really hard on the employees of small businesses. the regulatory burden that obama care imposes on small businesses is so much greater than large companies. if you think about it, why aren't we putting the regulatory burden on the small businesses instead of spreading it equally or reducing it equally? and so association health plans allows all the small businesses around the nation by industry or

by geography to band together and to access healthcare as if they are a large company. same protections, same rules. the regulatory burden drops, and it drops substantially. again, the same protections as employees of the large companies, but less regulation, more scale. you can spread the administrative costs. you can spread the actuarial risk. this is a big deal. est the mats are between -- the estimates are between 1900 and 2900 dollars in savings per employee. and just this morning already chambers of commerce in states around the nation have stepped up and said we used to have these. we want to have these again. and so, you know, i will be in tennessee tomorrow meeting with local small businesses and the chambers and talking about this, and we have already talked about this in the context of kentucky and missouri, you know, we are, you know, as i look around the table, we've been partners on so

many issues, opioid issues, you know, our approach, the president's approach has been to work with each of you. the issues in indiana and idaho are different. puerto rico and oklahoma are different. it is not a one size fits all. we will work with your states to make sure that these associations health plans can flourish. it is going to save thousands of dollars per employee. >> it's going to be millions of people signing up, associations, and you can have an association of one also, the way we have it. but it will be millions of people. we're actually now expanding the groups, and we other going to start -- we are going to start. in a few months you will get even an expanded group. it will be tremendously competitive. it will cost the government nothing. and people will get a much better price than they ever dreamt possible. and it's a very very exciting thing. it's as big you will ever see.

and when the expansion goes into effect in a couple of months, that's really going to show something. i want to congratulate you. you have worked so hard on this. this will be millions of people who will use this as an alternative to the really failed obama care and step by step that's being dismantled. essentially it is dismantled. once we get rid of the individual mandate, which was such a disaster for all of you, people had the privilege of paying a fortune so that they didn't have to buy insurance. okay? they got nothing. they just paid. and that's gone. and that's something we never think of, but we should -- mike, we should add that when we talk about the tax cuts, there's part of the tax cut. -- that's part of the tax cut. nobody ever talks about adding that, where people were paying for the individual mandate, a lot of money so they don't have to go in and pay for healthcare. so they were paying not to have healthcare. if you add that to the tax benefit, which frankly nobody ever thought of, but i think you

could put that because it is in the same tax cut bill. so i think we should maybe put that down. alex it is so exciting. people will save thousands and thousands of dollars and have much better healthcare than they had with obama care. thank you very much. kellyanne? >> thank you, mr. president, mr. vice president. all the governors around the table represent different populations, different geography, politics, they all share this crisis, the crisis next door. bills are being passed overwhelmingly bipartisan, allocate 6 billion dollars for opioid funding. there's on top of the grants, that's on top of the act, they are giving the resources that we need, but also giving the respect also that is necessary also to help those in need

destigmatize. many americans tell us mr. president that we're not punishing the drug traffickers enough and we're punishing the addicts too much. through our leadership, we are reversing that. the new ads are being broadcast in everybody's states and territories right now. the first adds we have partnered with the -- the first ads we have partnered with the ad council, 75 year history and truth initiative also the bipartisan bills will get much needed relief. -- will give much needed relief. your three prong approach to this, prevention education including 30% reduction in prescriptions over the next three years will bend the curve in the right direction. in addition, increasing access to treatment, addiction i think overdose reversing drugs, the governors in this room are by in large getting a handle on that, to make sure people have what they need, and then of course increasing law enforcement. most americans don't know what fentanyl is, responsible for 20,000 deaths in 2016 alone.

just three weeks ago out of nebraska, there was a seizure of enough fentanyl to kill 26 million americans, 26 million. if we don't get the message out there enough, really as a society, the first lady's platform also includes this as a very big piece and i'm happy to say that the centers for medicare and medicaid recently provided guidance to the states on best to use medicaid dollars to help babies. we have 100 newborns every day born in this country struggling for their first breaths. i think the elevation that you and the first lady and the entire cabinet legislatures and of course your executives out in the states, the governors is making a big difference. finally, since we're talking about workforce development, these go hand in hand. 6.7 million unfilled available jobs right now. many people are failing the drug tests. we are trying to treat the whole person. in addition to dhs doj, va and

hhs, hud and department of labor, so we are treating the whole person, connecting them with the skills, training, the education, the opportunities they need if they are fortunate enough to go through drug programs or treatment and recovery programs. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you very much. you know, the first lady now is at the border because she doesn't like what she was seeing and i don't like what we were seeing, and we have to get together and do something on immigration and as you folks know better than anybody, that has to take place very quickly. but she's there and you've worked very closely with her. i will say something about kellyanne, she's a warrior. we can send her into the most unfriendly territory of media, and it is like -- don't worry about it, oh i would love to do it. whereas other people we say would you do so and so, could you please pick kellyanne? you are a warrior, and you have been for a long time. >> i love the country. thank you. >> eric, you have very big shoes

to fill from mike. eric is the governor of indiana and took mike's place. how is he doing, mike? good job? >> excellent job. >> very strong. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you for having us back. i have to be somewhat diplomatic about talking about all the records we're breaking in indiana. [laughter] >> i'm proud to be at this table, proud to stand with you and proud to be in the room with another hoosier as vice president. we are on a roll. we're rocking and rolling. we just had another record year of new job creation, 3,000 new jobs coming to indiana, you spoke to this, the vice president celebrated with us on that announcement. we've got a record-breaking roads and bridges program, all paid for. but the key is, workforce development, workforce development is economic

development in today's world. we're so thankful that you -- it's been said here multiple times -- really trusting states. the federal state partnership i don't think has ever been stronger. in my experience, i wanted to say thank you to your whole administration, secretary has been to our state multiple times, and we just received a waiver that allows us to start driving the ship, among workforce development programs. we have streamlined, aligned, integrated according to what our state's needs are. we have 3.2% unemployment rate. that's about 105,000 hoosiers. we've got about 105,000 unfilled jobs that we can connect people to the skills to get to those jobs. they are there waiting on them. this will allow us to do that faster. we didn't have a day to waste. you made it possible for not wasting any time whatsoever. thank you. >> thank you. you're doing fantastic. i appreciate it. and mary fallon has been my friend, governor of oklahoma and been my friend right from the

beginning. i remember the speech one of my earliest speeches i called mary i said how many people are showing up? she said at least 35,000. i said what? 35,000. in the park. remember the park. what a scene that was. people were surrounding. you couldn't see on the other side. but mary's been so incredible and done a great job as governor of oklahoma. and what would you like to say? >> well, thank you mr. president, and vice president, always great to see you two. i have to say i'm finishing up my last year as governor of the state of oklahoma. i have had the opportunity to work with presidents before. but the amount of time that you, the vice president, and your cabinet give to the governors is truly remarkable. and i was just sitting here thinking about how many times i have seen in the past 30 days or have had an invitation to come to white house in the last 30 days, been about four or five times in 30 days. that's pretty remarkable for a governor. >> that's because you keep rejecting us.

[laughter] >> keep inviting me back. [laughter] >> but in all seriousness, to be able to sit down like this, with the governors one and one and to hear from you about your vision, youring policies -- your poll s -- your policies, where you are going and have an opportunity to talk to you one-on-one about the issues of individual states and how we can work together as a team has really made a difference. that's why we're seeing strong gdp. why we're seeing the engagement that your agencies are having on regulatory reform to create a better business climate so that we can attract the jobs and have low unemployment rates that we have been experiencing. and then just your voice, your advocacy, your leadership on important issues like opioid, substance abuse and to hear the focus that you are putting on trying to get americans back healthy so they can hold their families together, get back into the workforce and certainly stay out of our criminal justice systems. i know a month ago we had a

criminal justice reform summit that you hosted. and what a difference you're making in the transformation of being smart on crime, be it also keeping dangerous people off the streets. it is really making a difference. of course the workforce issue is incredibly important. your leadership and your vision your emphasis on apprenticeships and workforce training and really reaching down to the younger folks, to show them all the different career opportunities is helping us fill those empty jobs and being able to meet the needs of the employers so we can grow our jobs in america. so a lot of great things happening. the energy sector is coming back strong in the state of oklahoma. we appreciate that. thank you for a lot of the policies that are making that possible in our state. so we just appreciate the opportunity to be able to come and visit with you today and look forward to having further discussions. >> thank you. such a great job you've done. these are terrific people, terrific and successful governors. thank you all very much. appreciate it. thank you.

>> [inaudible]. >> we are looking at that possibility. >> can you clarify if you are going to continue prosecuting families that come across the border -- [inaudible]. >> we have to have a tough policy otherwise you have millions and millions of people pouring into the country. we can't have that. we have no choice. we have to have a very strong border. if you don't, you will have millions and millions of people. at what's happening today will look like child's play. it will be a terrible thing if we ever did that. we have to be strong on the border. if we don't do it, you will be inundated with people. you really won't have a country anymore. without borders, you don't have a country. i have said it for a long time. you would effectively not have a country. okay. >> thank you very much. >> thank you all! thank you all! >> thank you very much! >> c-span's washington journal live every day with news and

policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, two members of congress will discuss congressional efforts to reform u.s. immigration policy, new jersey republican congressman and vermont democratic congressman will share their views. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern friday morning. join the discussion. >> ohio senator rob portman came to the senate floor to talk about legislation he plans to introduce to deal with migrant children in u.s. detention centers. his remarks are 20 minutes. >> this present day i want to talk about an issue that has gotten a lot of attention here in washington and around the country over the past week or so, and that's the issue of children who cross our border. both those who cross the border illegally with their parents and those who come alone. those who come alone are known

as unaccompanied children or uac's. first i want to reiterate something that i have said a number of times over the past few weeks, and that is i oppose the policy of separating children from their parents. i think it's counter to our american values. as we will talk about this afternoon, though, it's also inconsistent with the infrastructure we have in place to be able to deal with it. i was pleased to see the administration agree that we could keep families apprehended at the border together, and i was pleased to see the executive order the president issued to that effect yesterday. i have cosponsored legislation on this issue that's now been cosponsored by 32 of my senate colleagues i'm told. so it has the support of almost 1/3 of this chamber which would in effect take the executive order and put that into law, but also make some other changes that are necessary to ensure that we can have a sustainable policy with regard to children coming across the

border. i believe we can have strong border security without separating families at the border. i believe we can enforce our nation's laws, and we should, while remaining true to our values. children should be kept in a safe, caring environment with their parents while immigration officials quickly assess each family's individual immigration case. that's the best solution. beyond the moral argument for holding this policy, by the way, logistics of separating families is just not practical. let me talk about what currently happens with unaccompanied children. we talked earlier about two categories, one is children who come with their parents, which has been the issue really we've been discussing the last week, but there's a bigger issue, with regard to those children in the sense of the number of children who are in the system, and that's those children who come on their own. as chairman of the permanent senate subcommittee on

investigations, psi, i've been investigating over the past couple of years the handling of uac's. again these kids who come unaccompanied. i've done this therefore both during the obama administration and during the trump administration. and from the work we have done over the past two years, i can tell you that the department of health and human services and the department of homeland security are not prepared to effectively deal with even more children unaccompanied minors or those who come in with their parents. there are two key issues we need to address with unaccompanied children who enter the united states, first we need to ensure if our government takes chargeover these children -- charge of these children, they are not traffic or abused. these are children, they need to be treated as such. second we need to uphold a rule of law and make sure our immigration system actually works. to do that, we need to make sure these children appear for their immigration court proceedings. i'm afraid we're failing on both

counts right now and that's unacceptable. let me explain what i mean. i first got involved in this issue very deeply involved back in 2015 a few years ago when reports came out that there were eight unaccompanied minors from guatemala who had come up to our southern border, crossed over, a ring of human traffickers lured them to the united states, by the way. the traffickers had actually gone to guatemala, talked to these kids' parents told them they would provide these kids with an education in america, actually got the mortgages from some of the homes as payment to pay for the trafficking and the smuggling debt, they also -- the traffickers retained not just the mortgages for these homes, but they said when they got the kids in their control, they weren't going to let the kids go until these debts were totally

paid off. so they weren't interested in giving them an education. it turns out they were just interested in trafficking these kids. anyway, when the kids crossed the border, they were apprehended. their status as defined federal immigration law was unaccompanied child or uac. this means the department of homeland security, picks them up, customs and border protection, following protocol, then transferred to the department of human services, health and human services, hhs. one federal department picks them up, they take them to another federal department called the department of health and human services and hhs is supposed to then keep these kids for a short period of time until they can be placed with sponsors. that's how the system works. the sponsors then are supposed to ensure these kids stay safe and get them to their appropriate immigration legal proceeding. unfortunately, based on our investigation, often that does not happen. and it certainly didn't happen in this case.

what happened in this case is our investigation was able to reveal is that these kids brought up from gamma -- guatemala by these traffickers, taken into custody, gone to hhs, short-term facility, then they were sent out to sponsors. guess who the sponsors who these kids were given to? the traffickers. they were given to traffickers, not to family members or friends or someone who could be trusted, you think of a surrogate family or a foster family, they were put into custody into the human traffickers. they didn't vet these people. and as a result, the traffickers took these kids north, took them to my state of ohio, which is again how i got engaged and involved this. they took them to an egg farm in ohio where they lived squalid conditions. they were required to work 12 hours a day, 6, 7 days a week. their paychecks were often confiscated by the traffickers

so they were basically getting room and board. the traffickers threatened these kids and their families with physical harm if the kids didn't perform these long hours, work under these terrible conditions. fortunately, this trafficking ring was discovered. these kids were rescued. and they have now been prosecuted. but what our investigation found out when we tried to figure out how could this possibly have happened? is that hhs didn't do the background checks on those sponsors. they didn't also respond to a bunch of red flags that should have alerted them to problems with these kids and with the sponsors. for example, hhs mised that a group of sponsors were collecting multiple kids. that should have been a red flag right there. not just one child, but multiple children. they missed a major red flag when a social worker working with hhs showed up to help one of these kids or tried to, and the sponsor turned the social worker away. this was somebody on contract with hhs, that didn't raise a red flag.

we held a hearing in january of 2016, hhs committed at that hearing they were going to do better. they were going to take care of these kids. this is a federal agency. and, you know, a federal agency give kids to traffickers and have this tragic situation unfold, it is just unacceptable. that was during the obama administration, by the way. so remember, this is not a partisan issue. during previous administrations and during this administration, this system has not worked. after that hearing, hhs and dhs, the department of homeland security, under which we have the border patrol, border protection service, they committed to clarifying their respective responsibilities for protecting these kids because one thing we found out is, you know, nobody was really accountable. so people were pointing fingers at each other, and the kids were falling within the cracks. hhs and dhs entered into a three page memorandum of agreement which said the agencies recognized they should ensure that these kids aren't abused or trafficked, the memorandum also

said the agencies would enter into a joint concept of operations spelling out their specific responsibilities within a year's time. that that would be done by february of 2017. that's of course what i was looking for and what our committee was looking for. how are you going to handle these kids? who is responsible for them? what's the hand off? who is accountable? that was supposed to be due again in february of 2017. today is june 2018. that operations agreement between the agencies is still not completed. they missed their own deadline by about a year and a half. they have promised by the way based on a hearing we recently had with hhs to complete this agreement and to get it to us this joint concept of operations by july 30. so we are expecting it, you know, within four or five weeks,

and we're very much looking forward to that. this was based on a hearing we had in april of this year. we called dhs and hhs back again to explain what's going on, why we hadn't seen an agreement virtually them telling us every couple of weeks it was coming we wanted to hear how they would work better together to ensure these kids were placed in safe environments and be sure they were following up with these children. to ensure that the kids actually went to their immigration court proceedings. so it's not just about ensuring that they aren't abused and trafficked. everyone of course agrees with that. everyone should also agree that they ought to go to their court hearing. we've got to be sure the system works. we've made some progress since that 2016 hearing. for example, under the trump administration, hhs started making telephone calls to follow up. which i think is a good idea. these were 30-day wellness check telephone calls after they placed an unaccompanied minor with a sponsor. hhs testified at our april

hearing that from october to december of last year, they had the data now on the calls that they had made. these are the 30-day calls they are making after these kids go out with their sponsors. those calls revealed that about 1500 children were unaccounted for. in other words, they placed the call, talked to the sponsor and said, you know, how is this child doing? and the sponsor wasn't responsive, either said we don't know how the child is doing. they couldn't find the sponsor. they couldn't find the child. in some cases the children had actually run away. so 1500 kids unaccounted for. doesn't mean they are not with a family somewhere. it doesn't mean they're not even going to their court case, but they couldn't find these kids, 1500 kids. that's unacceptable. and i'm now working on a bipartisan basis, republicans and democrats alike, with new legislation that will be informed by this concept of

operations. we hope to have in the next several weeks here. but that will lay out how we ought to treat unaccompanied minors and hold someone accountable, particularly hhs that has these children in their custody and prior to that dhs, the department of homeland security, to ensure that these sorts of incidences will not happen again and ensure that we can know where these kids are. by the way there are a lot of experience in this area, think about your home state and the foster care system which is probably overburdened right now because of the opioid crisis, but you have a foster care system where foster parents are actually screened. part of our legislation by the way is to tell the states where the kids are so the states can play a role in this as well. what this all highlights is the fact that the federal government is not doing nearly enough to protect unaccompanied minors from trafficking and other forms of abuse and not doing enough to ensure that they get to their court date. right? so we've got a system. we've got these kids in the system.

i don't care what your views are on immigration policy. it doesn't matter whether you believe that we should have a much more secure border and a wall or whether you believe there ought to be more of an open border, catch and release system, nobody should want to have these kids treated like this. everybody should want to ensure that these kids are cared for properly and they get to their court date. ensure that we don't have the kinds of tragic incidences we had in my home state of ohio. but i also think it's important not to conflate these two issues together, the unaccompanied kids and the 1500 who were unaccounted for and what's happened over the last several weeks down in the border with separating families from children. we're talking about, again, kids that come unaccompanied. unfortunately, a lot of people have conflated the two. there was a new york times story about the fact that 1500 kids have gone missing and some folks on-line and even here in this

chamber with this notion is about the separation policy and zero-tolerance policy, it is not, it is something different, but what it says to me let's not add more children to a system that's not working. in other words, as i said earlier at the start, we don't have the infrastructure in place to deal with it. it's one reason i felt strongly that separating kids from their families was not only the wrong thing to do in terms of a moral policy, but also in terms of our government's ability to handle it. even if there was a situation where it was important to get this kid away from a family, where maybe there is a sign of abuse, or maybe the kid was being trafficked, we've got to have a better system in place to deal with these children who are unaccompanied or others who end up in the system. so what was happening under the zero-tolerance policy, so called zero-tolerance policy over the last six weeks was that adults

illegally crossing the border were arrested and put into detention facilities. and under what is called the flores settlement agreement from a 97 court decision, if the adults were traveling with children, those children had to be placed in what the court says is the least restrictive setting, possible. not allowing them often to stay with their mom or dad in detention. that's been one of the arguments the trump administration has been making that that's one reason with the zero-tolerance policy and the parents going into the criminal justice system and going into that kind of detention, the kids couldn't go with them because of this court decision. it's an issue. there's no question about it. it's the primary reason why they are saying they put about 2,000 children into the care of hhs and dhs essentially turning them into unaccompanied minors, again putting them in a system that in my view is not working. what we've seen over the past two years is that dhs and hhs are just not adequately prepared to keep track of these kids and

ensure they are placed in safe environments and ensure they get to their court hearings. so again, as soon as i understood what was going on with separating families, i spoke out and said this is bad, we cannot allow this to happen, for both reasons, not the moral thing to do but also we don't have the infrastructure. and on tuesday, i signed a letter to attorney general jeff sessions calling on him to stop this practice of separating kids from their families, giving it a pause. so that we can have the opportunity to look at this issue, develop the right legislation that we've now introduced. this letter by the way was led by my colleague senator hatch and was signed by 11 of our colleagues. again, i commend the administration for the executive order yesterday that keeps families apprehended at the border together. that's a positive first step. but we've got to go even further because of this flores decision which is again a settlement that was made back in 1997.

congress is going to have to step in as well. i think it's likely that the executive order will be in litigation immediately because of the flores decision. the legislative solution that congress enacts needs to address the flores settlement agreement, as it applies to children who arrive with their parents, in those cases the settlement agreement currently requires again these children be separated from their families and kept in the least restrictive setting possible instead of staying with their families, if their families are in detention. this legislation we introduced yesterday called keep families together and enforce the law act again has almost a third of the senate signing on. it will provide that long-term solution to keep families together and expedite these immigration cases. unlike other proposals, which would incentivize more illegal immigration in my view, by essentially -- past practice where people were apprehended

but then released into the community, this legislation actually solving the problem by keeping families together while ensuring the integrity of our immigration laws. and again, it among other things overrides the flores settlement agreement ensuring that families are kept together during their immigration enforcement proceedings. but importantly to me, it also expedites these proceedings. this is one of the problems that i've seen in the immigration system. we have so many cases through such a backlog and so much time required to get to a decision that it creates a lot more problems in terms of what do you do with folks who have come across the border. so this would expedite and prioritize these cases of families, provide lots more immigration judges, more money frankly is going to be needed, increased resources to be sure the infrastructure is in place to deal with this issue as quickly as possible, to get a

decision and appropriate decision as to whether the person stays or leaves. i hope what my colleagues will sign on to this legislation, i hope they will do it on a bipartisan basis. i think the keep families together and enforce the law act is the right position that finds that common ground between all of us here on the floor who believe we ought to uphold our immigration law, but also think that families need to stay together. we need to have a compassionate approach to this. there's a consensus now in not separating families. that's good. but there's also a consensus we need an immigration system that works. so let's come together in both chambers. let's do the hard work. let's get this done. of course we need to do broader immigration reform as well. but this issue is staring us in the face. let's keep families together. let's provide for an immigration system that works over the long-term, that provides compassionate care for those kids that's in line with our country's values and enforces the laws of our country. thank you, mr. president.

yield back my time. :: >> later, the house budget committee looks at the 2019 budget resolution. assistant secretary of state for south and central asian affairs testified before the house foreign affairs committee about u.s. policy in afghanistan. topics included how u.s. resources were being spent, and how much longer she thought u.s. aid it and forces would be needed in the region. this is 90 minutes.

>> this hearing will come to order. afghanistan has been at war since 1979. the human suffering has been horrendous. real threats to u.s. national security have followed, as a result the u.s. has had no choice but to engage in afghanistan. first, we helped counter the brutal soviet invasion, then we helped dislodge the taliban and combat al qaeda after the september 11 attacks. afghanistan has been called america's longest war. thousands of americans have lost their lives. we have spent hundreds of billions. this investment aims to achieve a stable afghanistan that does

not harbor international terrorists. should the afghan government fail, the vacuum would be filled. isis and the ayatollah would be among those who would benefit. today, we will ask where should we go from here. we currently have 14000 u.s. troops in afghanistan, this is dramatically down from a high of 100,000 in 2011. the current focus is training afghan security focus and counterterrorism. fortunately, many allies are still with us, but afghans need the ability and the will to fight for their own country. last week, there is a brief cease-fire. there is renewed outreach to the taliban which the administration endorsed.

yet, the taliban continues the fight and has rejected offers to enter into negotiations with the internationally recognized and backed afghan government. this conflict does not need a sustainable political resolution of some sort. that could fall apart. what it needs is a well thought, sustainable situation that will hold for the people of afghanistan and that leads to a credible, confident afghan governments. with the administration moving in the right direction by scrapping restrictive rules of engagement that had hamstrung u.s. forces. it dropped a politically driven timeline for engagement established by the previous the ministration. is putting more pressure on

pakistan which aids in abets the taliban and other jihadist groups. taliban finances are being targeted. these are good steps but it's unclear if they will change the fundamentals that have frustrated unacceptable resolution for so long. after all of these years, what we know about the taliban? how fragmented is it? can it ever be brought into a durable political state. would pakistan, russia, or iran both increasingly engaged with the taliban sabotage any settlement? we should be proud of our accomplishments including dramatically expanding education and the cause of women. this, despite rampant corruption. i have met with some of the women, the girls can now go to schools that were prohibited under the taliban.

i talked to teacher whose have had the soles of the feet slashed when they were taught teaching girls. the stories of the girls are incredibly inspiring. the stories of women who are not part of the government in afghanistan. it is inspiring. frankly, another ways we have been treading water. while leaving today would do more harm than good, our substantial military commitment cannot be open-ended. we need to see more progress. with that, if we have a ranking member is not with us yet. but he will make his statement after your opening statement. this morning, i am pleased to welcome alice wells, principal deputy assistant of state for south and central agent affairs.

he has been serving as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for south and central asia affairs since jun june 2017. she is a career foreign service officer and previously served as the united states ambassador to the kingdom of jordan. she has held numerous positions within the department of state and has extensive experience in south and central asia. we appreciate her being here today. without objection, the full prepared statement will be made part of the record. members will have five calendar days to submit statements or questions or extraneous material for the record. i last ambassador wells to summarize her remarks. then we will go to questions. thank you. >> chairman and ranking member thank you for inviting me to appear to discuss the administration strategy. this is a timely hearing.

last week a cease-fire, the person 17 years brought peace to afghanistan. like many americans, i was struck by the images of afghan soldiers and taliban praying together side-by-side. with afghan troops and what soldiers can pray together, then the afghan people have every reason to believe their leaders can come together and negotiate an end to the war, helping to jumpstart a peace process is among secretary pompeo's highest priority. it has been my focus since assuming responsibility for th this. the south asia strategy announced last august is making a difference. it's conditions -based approach has signaled they cannot win on the battlefield and has provided president connie with renewed president to pursue a negotiated settlement. his february invitation to the

taliban to enter without preconditions was unprecedented. equally was president connie's announcement of the temporary cease-fire for the week surrounding the holiday. the national outpouring of relief and joy was unlike anything afghanistan missing. taliban fighters wandered the streets of the cities, they took selfie's, they sampled and worshiped alongside those they had been exchanging fire with a few days earlier. for many afghans taliban a pro-government it was the first taste of what peace could look like. the united states is make clear that that we are are ready for direct negotiations. we will support all afghan stakeholders as they work to reach a mutually agreeable settlement that ends the conflict and insurers afghanistan is never used as a safe haven for terrorist groups.

our desired outcomes are clear and have not changed. the taliban must renounce violence, break ties and except the constitution including its protection for women and minorities. although there are potent enemies the strategy is having an impact on the battlefield with tactical level support the afghan security forces has slowed the tele- bands momentum and had a doubling of special forces creating conditions for political process to achieve lasting peace. alongside the military campaign were working with their partners in the gulf to help strangle the illicit revenue of four sources. were supporting the governments outreach to the global muslim community to delegitimize and we

are called on afghanistan's neighbors, especially pakistan to take additional steps in support of peace despite indicators we have not yet seen pakistan take this step we believe it should pursue including expelling taliban elements will not come to the negotiating table. right encouraging the reform and to stop the insurgency. upcoming elections it must be timely, transparent incredible. we are providing targeted assistance to assist with the voter registration more than 6 million afghans have registered to vote for more than 5000 candidates will be standing for public office. president connie is an economic performer but they still rank toward the bottom.

there has been some progress but it has been slow. there have been bright spots. the government has improved its performance and funding a greater share of its budget. the u.s. share dropped about 50% to 25% today. the afghan people who face this every day understand the need for peace and so do the personnel working to implement the strategies. the key question, will they join the peace process they're prepared to test this. thank you for the opportunity to prepare before your committee. support is crucial to our progress and i look forward to

addressing questions. >> we now go to mr. elliott. >> thank you for calling the hearing and for your time in service. our policy is critical, 15 american troops remain in we provide assistance every year. back in september 11 our troops and allies have performed heroically. there has been progress once estimated as many as 5000 there now thought to be in the low hundreds unfortunately those gains are what most experts consider a stalemate.

they trimmed the new strategy for afghanistan in south asia. it is meant to be a conditions -based approach and includes a stronger lining a larger role for india expands authorities commits to sending additional troops. in some the administration look set forcing the taliban to the negotiating table. what happens if that is not broken the u.s. special director has what we called from the shared districts in afghanistan controller influences 56%. we need to be honest even with the best military in the world.

it's not possible to kill every member of the taliban. even members of the administration agree that if it's not going to win on the battlefield they need a strategy based on facts. i think all of the countries who committed troops to the fight in afghanistan. i worry with attacks on nato and our allies coming from the president we are undermining the coalition fighting for the future. rather than putting more americans in harm's way, the administration should focus on achieving a resolution to the conflict. many great americans have parish is a fact we need to deal with in the old adage is true we don't make peace with your friends.

the taliban has maintained an interest in talking with the united states even after the president told the secretary that the u.s. was not par prepad to talked right now. that was a mistake. by negotiating directly we should stop kicking the can down the road. the taliban claims that they will separate themselves and reese respect the rights of women and minorities, it's time to see if they're serious. this could give us an opening. the recent cease-fire a potential convergence of interest against the growing threat, so far we have squandered the opportunity and have heard nothing about how will we will look at the cease-fire. that's no real surprise.

as i been fighting for many months, the administration doesn't prioritize diplomacy. they found that the bureau south and central asian affairs laws both staff and expertise. that was as a result of the reckless falling out of the state department. among that was peace talks and reconciliation. so now that the hiring freezes over were interested in hearing how they plan to reconstitute their expertise. we can't miss the next opportunity. diplomacy will be at the center of solving the challenge. after many years of wars it's clear there's no military solution to in the fighting in afghanistan. that doesn't foreclose the past to peace. now is the time to make peace and security our number one goal and implement a strategy that will help us achieve it.

the women and men who serve our country in uniform and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice fighting this war and those who pierced september 11, 2001 and my home city of new york. i look for it your testimony. happy to have you here. thank you and i yield back. >> the key question in terms of factions in the taliban or those to reach a settlement goes to their intentions. there have been cease-fire but yesterday 30 afghans were killed would they lifted that cease-fire. in your judgment, is the taliban

at the end of the day interested in a political settlement? what to circumstances tell you and how would you we get there? we saw president connie offer a series of moves and prisoner releases a medical aid for the wounded soldiers. the latest cease-fire that presumably might bring down intentions. yet here was the attack yesterday. give me your view on this. >> the taliban long says they support political or negotiations, but only with united states, not with a sovereign government of afghanistan. what we have learned is how much the foot soldiers and commanders do desire peace. their celebration was spontaneous and it was countrywide. where we are now is the taliban

leadership, many who enjoy sanctuary don't feel the pressures of day-to-day war have not yet been convinced to come to the table despite what has been a forward leaning offered peace before by president connie in february. that piece office offer was unconditional. it included the author of considering constitutional amendment to ensure that the taliban's views were better reflected in the institutional and structure. that offer has been endorsed by the international community. the strategy has to be focused on increasing the pressure the taliban's field to take up that offer. >> one of the difficulties in this coming getting an organization like that to the table is the financing for that

organization that makes cash ready at hands every time there moving narcotics. one of the great frustrations for the last 15 years is the u.s. government has spent a billion dollars focused on trying to shut that down. today, it is still the biggest cash crop in afghanistan. in theory, what could be done to try to diminish the narcotics trade in the legality that drives as well as support from the taliban from a financial standpoint? >> the narcotics account for about 60% of the budget. they fuel a criminal network and it eat away at the institution of state. what we have done is partly it's a problem of security.

many are controlled or contested by the taliban. the key element is continuing to improve on the battlefield which are starting to see. we are also building the institutional capacity of the afghan government to prosecute and go after narco criminals. that is working with the national investigation units, working with president connie in support of a national drug action plan. there has been some successes. rather than going after individual farmers faster we had 84 joint rates. we interdicted about $360 million worth of drugs. there's a counter not caught x

justice center which is prosecuting the narcotics cases with 99% conviction record. security is key, as is the facet over the last 16 years we have built up a cadre of afghans of the responsibilities to undertake the responsibility reside in their institutions. >> another thing that needs to be a pre-requisite is within the government of afghanistan, that government has two credibly combat corruption. that has been a long-standing problem. we have our special investigator with reconstruction where we spent 55 million per year just to make sure funds are not misused. my time is expired. but i would suggest tripling down in terms of the pressure we

apply on the government there to have transparency into and the practices. that is the only sure way to rally confidence on the part of the afghan population. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you besser. i have that you support negotiation with the taliban. as far as i'm concerned your support ads to the mixed signals were hearing from the administration. when you and secretary pompeo say that we should negotiate, not sure if you're speaking for yourself for the administration. the white house has not been clear. the way i see it, if we can go up to kim jong-un, certainly we can talk to the taliban. we know the taliban is interested so i want the administration except the offer, if only as a bridge to broaden

talks that would eventually include the afghan government? >> the south aged strategy is premised on achieving a pathway to dignify political settlement. that is victory into the south asia strategy. we have worked diplomatically in support of that campaign to build an international consensus behind a peace proposal before by president connie. we've undertaken various lines of effort to bring them to the table. the tele- venice had a defect office for many years. there has been no lack of talking of the taliban hearing from the international community and from the afghan government. the sincere desire to begin to negotiate the political process. the offers on the table.

we been clear about how we see ourselves playing the role in the negotiation as participants in supporting the process. but, the leadership has to understand the very nature of a peace settlement when you talk about forms of governments and rights of individuals, prison releases, these are sovereign issues, these are issues that need to be negotiated with afghans not over the heads of afghans. if we recognize the taliban as part of the legitimate fabric, they have to recognize the afghan government and the many communities are part of that legitimate fabric of afghanist afghanistan. >> in your testimony you state we have a condition space strategy but those conditions have never been spelled out.

what are you referring to specifically? >> the conditions are cessation of violence a rejection of terrorism and respect for the constitution. this is under the umbrella of not allowing afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorists who are planning to attack the united states or allies. what significant as they are not preconditions. we have not sought to impose any obstacles to the beginning of the political negotiation between the taliban and afghan government. we want to see what comes out of that process. >> we have 40 countries contributing troops to the nato support mission in afghanistan. it remains one of the most enduring examples of how we can work with our allies, germany's the second largest contributor

after the united states. the president seems to indicate that he does not agree with the multilateral partnerships such as how the nato mission continues to serve the mission of the united states. i am concerned about the repeated remarks denigrating the alliance. when ask a simple question, do agree the u.s. is besser by continuing the work of the allies? the answer would be us but i'd like to hear that. as the president continues to attack those fighting on our side how that string cooperation makes it harder to implement our south asia strategy. >> having a united international force and diplomatic effort is essential to the campaign to

stabilize and were deeply grateful for the support of our nato allies and partners in the resolute mission. what we have been able to do is look at the burden and the key goal of the administration in order to ensure that we are all playing a part in the contribution to afghanistan stability. it is a telling statistic that since 2012 our contribution to civilian assistance went from 50 up to 25%. we want to make sure that we and our partners are pulling in the same direction with the same intensity. >> thank you. >> we now go to florida. >> thank you mr. chairman and it is a pleasure to see you again. when the president first announced our strategy the administration told congress it

would seek a coordinated effort to get the taliban to the table as we have been discussing easy layers of diplomatic efforts. this was with the possibility of russia and iran. but x that would you say russia and iran are supporting the taliban. how does that impact our layer diplomatic approach? i know the administration suspended military aid to pakistan as part of our strategy to get pakistan to change how does business when it comes to the taliban in providing safe harbors. you said that there on notice that we expect unequivocal cooperation endings sanctions. but, we haven't seen pakistan do the sustained are decisive steps

we would expect when the new strategy was announced. to have any evidence they have taken steps to cut off the flow of arms were support for the taliban? have we allowed for any waivers are made exceptions to military systems to pakistan since the suspension of the aid was announced? >> we are concerned when we see reports of countries that typically by viewing the taliban as a legitimate force and fighting isis. our strong views the only way to defeat terrorism and to bring peace is to strengthen the afghan government and the government's ability to fight terrorists. that said, both countries like russia and iran to have an important role to play in the future stabilization of

afghanistan. afghanistan's neighbor will have to support any peace process that emerges. that's why we work hard in many ways to ensure that they are formed by the process and the principles that have been put forward. next week i'll go to a meeting with over 30 countries gathering including russia and iran to reinforce our supports for peace in the region. continue those diplomatic numbers. pakistan has a crucial role to play. as testified, without their active support it will be more challenging to achieve our objectives. we like to see pakistan bring to the negotiation table taliban

leadership. today, while we have seen some positive steps, our assessment has been that we have not seen the sustained and decisive actions required to show that they take that peace process seriously. >> one other thing the cobble compacts and what president connie said will take a lot of steps and there's a hundred initiatives and i hope in the q&a you can give us an update. i haven't heard much about the reforms. we have a minute. maybe you could tell us what benchmarks the president has and how do we tend to use those as commitments to preconditions? >> the afghan government established the afghanistan complex which has to measure the

performance and anticorruption in governments, economic performance and reconciliation efforts. we meet quarterly with president connie to review progress under those metrics. this is an afghan government initiative and not something we put forward as part of our a conditionality. >> are you making progress? >> we do. there are areas we make progress faster and when there's less progress we have the kinds of top-level political conversations to keep the momentum behind the reform. >> we go now to mr. brad of california. >> it is to see you. it raises the question, one is the administration going to appoint a permanent assistant secretary for south and central

asia? have they indicated that? >> it when secretary pompeo testify he indicated he would be moving to make appointments. >> did he criticize or apologize for the fact that throughout his tenure was nominated for the position as important as the one you're acting in. >> am very grateful that those undersecretary tillerson and pompeo. >> still, the word acting in front of your title undercuts what you do, the uncertainty of whether you will keep doing it if the administration had the wisdom to simply give you the position. i would not have be asking this question. the some 30 personnel positions were cut between the south-central asia office and the special representative for

afghanistan. is there any chance those cuts will be restored? >> and are they needed? >> some of the cuts were the results of two bureaus been emerged. when you overlap some of the staff we are able to take advantage of the efficiencies. we have decided to expand the staff of focus on reconciliation. that team is being built up here and in the state department as well as our embassy. we benefit from what is the whole of government approach. there's experts we have all or part of this one team as we look for ways to move the peace process were. >> does the united states, india and pakistan recognize the line between afghanistan and

pakistan? >> afghanistan has not recognized. >> what about pakistan in the united states? >> the line serves as the international boundary recognizes sensitivities associated with it. >> is that the international boundary? >> that is how we approach the line. >> so says much a international border. >> we believe the border management will be besser when you have countries working together. >> does india recognize that? >> i don't know. >> i hope you respond to that. india is a poor country. it does provide foreign aid. to a limited degree. there are needs in its own namely myanmar, burma bhutan,

sri lanka, but india is providing substantial aid and involvement in afghanistan. is there -- what degree of harm does that cause by making the pakistanis nervous and causing them to support the wrong elements in afghanistan or at least not help us go after the wrong elements. to what extent is the generosity causing a problem with pakistan? >> at first we see the support is very important. they are responsible aid provider the afghan government welcomes that assistance in the afghan government welcomes and seeks the strategic partner with partnership with india. when it comes to the tensions

and concerns. >> afghanistan wants a strategic partnership with india. >> yes. >> afghanistan claim to huge chunk of their territory and were surprised is working against our interest for a strong united afghanistan which asked to be an effective partnership. >> we welcome the discussions to deal with the issues you raise including management of the border. there's been an agreement to establish liaison officers and collaborate more effectively. >> there's also substantial support for pakistan to bad elements and pakistan. you have a very tough job, the only tougher job would be to come toward districts and explain why we haven't destroyed

the poppy fields. afghanistan is a battlefield but so are the towns and cities of our neighborhoods. i yield back. >> thank you. we go to chris smith of new jersey. >> thank you for convening this hearing. thank you for your leadership and your cautiously optimistic take. it's encouraging but of course the way forward is through the obstacles. thank you for giving us that insight exhilarating first taste of what peace could look like. that offers encouragement that this could happen. i would like to ask concerning the intent of the taliban leadership, as you know within the last few hours they attacked a base in big d's and killed 30 afghan soldiers.

perhaps later more were wounded. there is always the concern that a hostile power will use the prospects of peace or the cover of peace it is cover to accelerate their violence. how has that but factored into the thinking. secondly on aid which you have mentioned a moment ago, particularly the afghan local police you're on the front lines of the taliban they've known to recruit children to service combatants for service as sex slaves. in fact a 10-year-old boy was assassinated in february 2016 after he had been publicly honored by the local police officers against the taliban. did you know that child soldiers prevented act requires subject to the labor they seek military

aid where the allowing children to be trafficked as child soldiers. could you convey how seriously we are raising that issue with the afghan government? what steps if any did they take 2017 and 18 using child soldiers in their forces. >> i think when it comes to the taliban resuming violence after the cease-fire this will be a critical time to -underscore the dispute within the muslim world over the reason why they are fighting the war. we have seen some important developments. they had over a thousand members condemning suicide bombing in the tactics of the taliban.

indonesians gathered and reiterated this condemnation call for peace and reconciliation. it affects over 2700 against peace and favor peace negotiation. the lic is gathering in the next few weeks. i think it's a real moment of changing opinions about what is going on in afghanistan and taking greater ownership that this is the time to negotiate with an islamic government of afghanistan. will continue to encourage these and put pressure on the taliban throughout the efforts that now is the moment to seize the opportunity. at the same time, you are right that the reforms the government take are critical.

when it comes for instance children sex slaves. we worked with the government over many years. that practice is now criminalized in the penal cold. we do extensive vetting for military assistance and who we work with to ensure we are not supporting afghan officers engaged in that behavior. we have extensive human rights training. through usaid we've done rehabilitation of 6000 victims of this sex slave practice. but child soldiers, the same commitment by the afghan government has been criminalized. there are active measures to ensure that children are not recruited including 22 centers across the country that interdict when they see. this is very much on our agenda. >> thank you very much.

>> investor wells, thank you for coming. we appreciate you being here. i have an observation. i'm very hopeful that we have a prospect for peace in afghanistan. i look at the columbia peace pact and i see what it has done to the drug growth in that country. i just want to make sure that when we talk about peace we take into consideration this is a very lucrative business in afghanistan. i don't know if we want to continue basically saying it's okay for them to keep growing in the opm growth. we see the growth and i hope we do have a piece of afghanistan i would focus on that.

you need to have such a growth. my question is that we have a growing concern that afghan politics and society has been increasingly frightening. alongside ethnic and ideological line. what impact is that going to have for political stability in that country? >> thank you. on the issue of narcotics, i agree that this is not just an issue that involves the taliban. it's an issue that's a perversion throughout all of afghan society. the criminal networks and their ability to corrupt the institutions of the state and society. it is something we take seriously. we are limited right now because of the security situation.

to go to an earlier point, rather than undertake eradication which is not supported by the afghan government, we want to go a step up to the drug less and truck networks to get to that level of individuals who are benefiting more and a greater part of the drug trade. so it continues to respond to the narcotics in the criminal networks behind them. is very much an investment that we have made and will continue to make. we learn from the example of the columbia peace process and how difficult it is. >> on the shiv afghan society being fragmented, you can look at it to ace. last weekend that showed the unity that still exist in

afghanistan. the fact that combatants and pro-government supporters gather together tens of thousands of people praying together in places that was the heartland of the taliban in the conflict. that gives hope to those that are there. but we have seen greater ethnic polarization over the last couple of years. the government of national unity is had to deal with issues of inclusivity and to ensure that all facets are represented in government. there's going to be a great deal of the porton's attached to the credibility in the conduct of the elections coming up. they have are ready been a sensitive event in afghanistan. it is one that we are supporting very carefully in supporting the independent election commission

to ensure that is much can be done to reduce corruption and increase the chances that voters across afghanistan and voters, both female and male will be able to participate. >> i read an article were -- with the taliban. >> the russians have been very unhelpful in both accusing the united states and undertaking propaganda campaign to suggest that somehow we have introduced isis to afghanistan and seek to artificially keep the terrace battles going. we believe that russia has an important role to play in being a supporter of peace. they benefit from it. >> are they funneling arms to the taliban? >> russia denies that that we see them adopt a posture that

the taliban could be legitimate against isis. >> i'm sorry don't training your optimism and washing people pray together, the next step would be sitting around the campfire singing together, as if that had anything with creating peace in this war-torn country. there are a society based on tribalism and ethnicity. our greatest in what has been reconfirmed today is that we continue down the road of trying to remake afghanistan into a democratic system. that is why we are failing.

it's totally inconsistent with their national character. we did this from the very beginning over my objection many times. we created the most centralized constitution of almost any country in the world and of people of who are the most decentralized people in the world. then were surprised when it doesn't work and people are upset enjoy military units. are the -- still the major element if not the dominant element of the taliban? >> yes. >> now we have these and they understand that half of them are in afghanistan and have her in pakistan. let me just say, we have to understand that and deal with

that or we will never have peace. we made a mistake in the beginning trying to re-create the centralized government in kabul, and the way permitted critics and criminals to take over the government and lose the country of billions of dollars and we expect the afghans to say now will have a democratic process. let me note also that the major opium production areas in that country is in the push to an areas, is it not? >> it is dominated in those areas. >> and we have done nothing. we have gone through a lot of pr things that make it look like were doing something. if you want to eliminate the poppy production in afghanistan

we could do it within a week. we have technological capabilities and we have not done that. and thus we've allowed the taliban to have a major source of billions of dollars of input, which permits them to have the bullets, and the guns necessary for the terrace organization and the radical islamic type of regime they're trying to build. do you know what the status for those of you watching or reading this, we realize that what really worked in afghanistan after 9/11 was when we allied ourselves with the anti- taliban forces that were also made up of others. the leader of that group was a general, if you seen 12 strong he organized our efforts to drive the taliban out of power

in the first place. where is that general today? >> turkey. >> and he is a turkey because? there is major assassination attempts against a. are the assassination attempts motivated by taliban or by people in the afghan government we are supporting? >> my understanding is he's in turkey for health reasons. when he does return to afghanistan their legal processes brought against him and some of his security officials for the sodomy of a political figure. >> you can bet that the people hate us and hate the man who helped us drive the tele- been out are willing to state anything about him. he is outside for health reasons because they tried to murder him

and 50 of his bodyguards were killed by the time he and ten others escape from an ambush that was not a taliban ambush. we are in a murky situation here. the pakistanis who we have been treated with kid gloves clearly are pro- terrorist element in this whole flight. until we start realizing this, all these things about praying together and reforms in the democratic centralized process in afghanistan will mean nothing more americans will die. we have to get real or we will lose for good. thank you very much. >> tom of new york. >> think ambassador for being here today. a frustrated in the process of trying to discover what the civilian strategy of the united states of america in afghanistan

is. only been here for a short time but i've asked secretary to listen pompeo about it. vest usaid, what is our civilian strategy? we hear about the government approach but i can't get the details of what it is we are actually doing. you referenced about the 25% contribution of the civilian efforts by the u.s. government. i want to determine first, are you referring to the $3.7 billion per year that was agreed to at the brussels conference at which america's putting up a million dollars of? >> yes. >> that was done under previous negotiations. >> some are lower than that 1 billion-dollar figure. but in general, guiding the

approach. >> but is the number 3.7 billion or is it lower? >> i would have to get a breakdown of what has come through question. >> that i would like that breakdown. what is the international commitment for civilian effort is, specifically with the numbers. i had to get this from outside of u.s. government to determine the summer. i'd also like to know what are we spending our money on and what is the international community's bending it's not money on. what are the specific programs it's been spent on? we've heard about poppy ratification i want to know specifically how much money is being spent on each of the efforts by the department of state, usaid, the doj, the dea,

specifically. i've been asking about this for quite some time. what are we spending our money on it what effort. i don't feel like we have a comprehensive strategy. i feel like we have a list but i don't see it being a strategy. i think the military strategy is clear and we are clearing and holding property in our efforts to transition and redevelop the area. i don't know what the effort is. a very frustrated because i've asked this many times. i would like specifics about how much money we're spending and what programs are spending the money on. could you come off the top of your head give me a rough idea of the billion dollars. , what percentages are being spent on things like

infrastructure and how much is being spent on the poppy ratification and on schools are schools were in teaching prosecutors to be prosecutors. how is that money being spent. >> i'm happy to provide and talk to my colleagues to provide a more detailed letter to with a breakdown of assistance. i'm sure you've heard from usaid the overall principles that drive the strategy and to increase the private sector lead and export led growth and consolidate gains. outside of usaid we have equal funds which is providing the training for the counter not contacts. we have the bureau of counterterrorism providing assistance programs including to enhance the security of kabul and other urban areas. it's a complicated topic.

the numbers are confusing. we can provide a detailed letter for you. >> be helpful. even what you told me now how much is being spent on the poppy eradication? >> it is not $1 billion. when we talk about this for 2017 the monies were about $160 million. >> if it's not a billion dollars can give me a rough number. >> the 2019 request was $632 million. >> the afghanistan numbers are $632.8 million request for 2019. >> and what about 2018? >> it was 782.8 alien.

>> we made a billion-dollar commitment in 2016. you and happen to have the 2016 number? >> 847.6. >> were spending $45 billion year of military aid to reduce our commitment from 1 billion to 632 million per year on civilian aid. >> yes. >> we go to mr. ted of texas. >> thank you mr. chairman. lieutenant general said yesterday the biggest problem in afghanistan are the sanctuaries in pakistan that shelter terrorist. would you agree with that assessment? >> i agree with the assessment that without pakistan support it

be very challenging to achieve our goals and they continue to exist in pakistan. >> so, over the years we've had our troops in pakistan, i've been on the border as other members of congress have. they're doing the best job they can, but during the day the taliban's come across the border commit mischief and hide. pakistan government has hidden terrorist leaders in the past. they are sanctuary towards terrorist leaders. somehow we still give them money. with the promise that they will do better. they sweettalk us and say give us more american a, we will go after the terrorists. we do it every year, we continue to do it and have done it for many years.

yet, nothing changes. they harbor terrorist, they fight terrorists in their country but they pay for terrorist to go across the border that kills americans and afghan. i think it is nonsense that we continue to send money to pakistan with the promise that we will do better. that's my opinion. how much money have we spent, taxpayer money over the last 17 years in afghanistan? >> on the civilian side we've had about 29 trillion. >> do you have any estimate will now be a military side so this

will be in afghanistan indefinitely. no end in sight, we have been there 17 years with no end in sight. history says the war of the the hundred year war lasted hundred 16 years between france and england, indefinitely, i find that very alarming that there is no end in sight that were prepared to stay there continuing the united states to send money someone said where empires go to die nobody would ever be there in afghanistan.

in our image. >> president trump has been very clear that we are not in this business. rather than they thought to counter was on the departure to give the the luxury to know when they plan to leave when we are sure afghanistan is a safe haven for terrorists plotting against

them as the situation changed we have pakistan still supporting terrorists we say that we will be there indefinitely of may be to make sure that we obtain victory. >> the situation changed because the security third sources are there and they change because we put unprecedented pressure with 1.6 billion is being much more proactive in trying to put pressure. >> there should cut off all aid

until there's proof that they're not harboring terrorists in their own country and sending them across the border. >> thank you. >> it has been more than a decade and a half since we were in afghanistan and -- is becoming more more likely. we haven't heard enough about the administration's long-term plans outside of the additional more troops. many push for more dialogue the taliban entering this is absolutely an appealing image. dialogue with them is also incredibly dangerous endeavor. after 17 years with casualties and destruction the taliban continues to engage in terror

tactics of our civilians, the afghan government and forces in the introduction of isis line groups that further complicates this. these that are not committed with evil ideology and putting them in a responsible a safeway is an important step if we can do it. the recent truce ads to the problem. now they have resumed attack. further ethnic and tribal religious groups have vested themselves couples government with the promise of a better future. the afghan government hasn't been hardened to a point where its institutions, its reach and stability are firm enough to support positions of power. given for example that taliban's efforts decades past when they went house to house their

thousands being killed, what reaction do we expect from religious, ethnic, or tribal groups in the government who have suffered so much at the hands of the taliban if negotiations are entered into? >> again, we are letting the afghan government take the lead in setting and putting forward a peace proposal which by everyone's account is both visionary and forward leaning. president connie has said the afghan people continue to seek peace. that is supported by the polling data we see. you have only mentioned one horrible chapter of violence, but regardless there's horrible but that afghans have seen, they remain committed to peace. the celebrations that took place

are manifestation of what our broad nationwide desire for peace. the higher peace council is a multiethnic body. peace cannot be made, it has to include all of the ethnic and social groups of afghanistan. i would argue it has to include the women of afghanistan. any peace process that process will have to be broad-based. >> i understand what we have seen or need. are you confident, is our government confident that the government in afghanistan is strong enough to be able to do this? strong enough specifically with respect but the taliban to include them with negotiations? >> because were not trying to put up hurdles to peace negotiations, where the united

states interest law is what comes out of the negotiation process. we can live with negotiations that produce the end to violence the respect for constitution, the constitution that can be amended. so rather than prejudge whether it can happen or not, were ready to support and facilitate the process. we want there to be negotiated in dignified solution. at the taliban are unprepared to make peace we've made it clear that we would deny them a military victory. >> as it relates to providing that support, what are the range of diplomatic set we have and are we utilizing all of them? >> utilizing many different levers to support these diplomatic process. of course the military pressure

is one part of it. the pressure were bringing to bear against taliban financing, overseeing the government of afghanistan do to mobilize messaging against the justification of the taliban actions, the international consistence we've built in that has multilateral engagements in a course willing to see if there's other groups who will be prepared to create separate peace. these are all designed to take up but we think is both a fair offer to produce the taliban that plays a part in the political life. >> i appreciate you being here i'm sincerely grateful.

>> and wagner missouri. >> thank you mr. truman for organizing the hearing. think ambassador wells for your service. i appreciate the opportunity to evaluate the new direction this administration has taken in the resolving america's longest war. pakistan has a clear interest in preventing the cessation of hostilities in afghanistan, but has made itself central to american operation. in the past, pakistan has wagered correctly that the united states would rather accept pakistan incomplete support then lose it entirely. ambassador wells, i believe this president was correct to demand full cooperation from pakistan last august.

how well his administration communicating its resolve to hold pakistan accountable for its support of terrorism? >> there have been very direct talks with the senior leadership and action under president trumps administration. we have taken the precedent it steps of -- support funds as a result that pakistan had not been undertaking the decisive steps necessary. i think we agree that pakistan has a lot to gain by peace in afghanistan. the challenge is, how do you secure pakistan support for the political process rather than the proxies. we for positive statements from the chief of army staff from pakistan he says there can be no room for nonstate actors that

pakistan cannot be a normal state as long as there's extremist groups on the soil but we need to see action. we do not to live that pakistan has fought its own heroic bottles against terrorism. large part it defeated the pakistani taliban and reintegrated the tribal areas into the governing system of pakistan. we treat all terrorists as our terrorists. we expect that pakistan should do the same. >> i hope they continue to withhold that funding until we see measurable action. how is the administration building relationships with central asia countries to reduce our dependence on pakistan? >> we've had excellent relations. a long-standing efforts to create a network that helps support our military efforts.

we had a visit of the kazakhstan president last year. both leaders are important not only in providing the kind of support for the northern distribution network but i'm putting afghanistan back into the region. when president connie went there was in december. he said afghanistan is a central asian network. says we engage we very much are supporting their efforts to proactively increase trade and give afghanistan options as it builds up the economy. >> how to u.s. and russia relations affect the feasibility of the northern supply line? >> the northern distribution

network has operated successfully continues to operate successfully. i argue more generally that russia has important interesting concerns in afghanistan and said important role to play to help stabilize afghanistan. we would like to see russia do more to provide the assistance to the government so those militarily and diplomatically it can bring the taliban to the negotiating table. >> although india declined to put boots on the ground, it has shown a keen interest in strengthening the afghan government's capacity. how is the administration encouraging deeper indian involvement? >> we did joint training programs. some of the training programs are conducted in india. we have a trilateral with indian officials to court nader efforts

to make sure we are good in the development and diplomatic approach. india has played an important role in hosting business conferences so private sector companies interested in investing can use india as a launching pad. >> thank you. i yield back. >> we are expecting votes momentarily. members do not need to use all of their time. we will go to robin of illinois. >> thank you mr. chair. i will not use all of my time. >> how will the october elections influence possible peace talks? if they don't take place will the u.s. position negotiating directly with the afghan government and not with u.s. change? >> we think it's important the election take place in a timely incredible way. there's a strong signal about the inclusivity about democratic

institutions. our efforts are focused on helping to empower the independent election commission and make sure they have the resources and capacity to undertake a critical reform this electoral season by having voting be based on phone centers so that you can stop the industrial level stuffing the ballot boxes. i think the afghan people we have seen and registered are vested in this democratic process. >> i'll stop; can get his question. >> we go now to florida. >> thank you for being here. this is one of those things where everybody wants it to come to an end. i don't see a clear strategy of how we'll do that. answering the question about the cost of u.s. military since

2001, we spent 750 about -- were well over a trillion dollars trying to bring peace to afghanistan. it's a very tribal and separated culture. these things that happen at major open areas. if i understand my notes correctly there's no more opium being grown in afghanistan today than there was before we started our war on drugs, as there is more cocaine in columbia after we started the war on drugs. now mexico has 72000 acres of opium. it seems like were going backwards with the time, resources and tragic loss of life on both our side in the afghan, we need a new game plan to do this. is any peace process you brought

up must include the women and things like that. i agree. i think those would all be good. does the system in afghanistan allow for that with the amount of corruption in the government? what are your thoughts? >> i think the government has been organizing itself in preparation for possibility of peace. you have the establishment and reenter reentered tracy -- it has brought together youth and religious leaders and part of a national conversation about what peace might look like. you have seen gathering of religious leaders. >> i think that's great that they all came together. let me ask you, do the people in afghanistan, do they believe in a governments with a democratic

process? or are they so ingrained in a tribal government, even see the possibility? are we talking generations to change that situation. >> afghanistan has had success. we are not trying to deny the importance of the tribal structure. but they have demonstrated by stepping forward and saying they have embraced these democratic experience. >> to the understand, believe and support the constitution in their country? do they understand that because one of french philosopher came through the americas in the 1800s he was astounded by the level of understanding people had on our constitution. that was from the bottom up to they have that same comprehension? >> i'm probably not capable of

answering that question. tried within the afghan constitution is the ability to change it. and the ability to have a gathering of leaders. i think the constitution does not deny their traditional forms. >> it doesn't tonight but it doesn't empower the people, i will cut it off here but i appreciate your time i would love to talk to more. >> joe wilson of south carolina. >> thank you for your service. it's very personal to me the significance of afghanistan. that is the attacks of 9/11 at kurt from a cave. osama bin laden operating out of a cave to attack the people of the united states. to me, the success of what you're trying to do is important. i am grateful my former national

guard unit led by a -- serve there for a year. and developed extraordinary appreciation of the people in the talents of the people of afghanistan. am grateful my youngest son the second lieutenant hunter wilson served as an engineer. i have seen it from the ground up to see the potential that we had. it is so important. it does relate to the global war on terror's. the focus on the isis campaign has been in syria and iraq but isis has a foothold in afghanistan continues to launch attacks. to what extent is the islamic state province a threat to stability and security of afghanistan? >> estimates are broad but perhaps 2000 up to 5000 exist.

they have some other terrorist groups whether it's the tele- banner others. but i think we have to be concerned we have targeted this heavily where there has been an outpost. it is a reminder to us there's something worse. then an insurgency that is nationalist in nature. it is a threat we take seriously and have devoted significant aspects to eradicating. >> indeed, a safe haven for isis for islamic terrorists there has direct consequence here. has the changes in the isis relationships in the area or activity in operational abilities, to what extent is the group a target of u.s.

operations are strategic planning? >> isis is a reminder of why we are still in afghanistan and need to have this commitment to afghanistan. they pay us in the insecurities they have created has allowed this petri dish for other groups to take advantage. we are in afghanistan because they pose a threat to our homeland and to our allies. we take it very seriously. i would refer to my military colleagues that are underway. but we have intensifies those operations and taken out the leader of isis pay i think we have conducted over 1400 operations directed against is isis. >> your comments are refreshing to the real world. the ultimate result of protecting american families. last august we announced a new

initiatives. what are the conditional base objectives are we using and utilizing to measure success? >> that will be the cessation of ties to terrorism, the cessation of violence and. >> finally, afghanistan is a critical point of democracy. what democratic institutions are most reliable and effective promoting their rights and are they capable of producing credible elections this fall? >> this will be the first afghan led conducted in the election. that's the reflection of increased -- they have an important role to play in

encouraging them to play. it is a work in progress. there's various countries who are younger than modern afghanistan. we have to look at how the improvement will occur over time. >> mr. tom garrett. >> thank you. i want to thank my colleague. i heard something that was insightful. there are threats greater than the islamic -- we recognize that while the taliban is bad that isis with a global orientation is probably worse which doesn't eradicate our responsibility sort of like if you break it you buy it. good on that role. i think we fail when we overlap in american paradigm on the

foreign affairs arena. americas presumed that when we do with other nations there's a strong, preeminent federal government. in afghanistan, there is not that. they aspire to have a strong government but the fact that you can try from the airfield to the compound without enhanced security measures would indicate that the control is not what they would like it to be. we need understand the reality on the ground and it doesn't near that which we are familiar with at home. we talk about the taliban. i would look at and argue that there is no taliban. there are taliban. there is no centralized control of these elements as there was under -- but there's no overlap and to act autonomously thus creating harder circumstance for folks like yourself and any nato

coalition force to deal with. we see things like atrocities committed against civilian contractors driving supplies that are documented on the internet. obviously be useful to that to intimidate and to perpetrate the taliban. they said you cannot make peace with your friends. i thought that was insightful. yet, there are taliban elements that express differing degrees of willingness to sit down and talk. there there those who for lack of a better term, dead anders. . .

. >> this administered to afghanistan, its allies, the coalition does flow through the government, correct? >> it flows through a -- a portion of it flows through a trust fund that's administered by the world bank. >> right. >> and then the remaining money with just a little bit of an exception is administered separately on off budget programs administered by usaid. >> so what i'm driving at is perhaps have we considered a paradigm where in we tied aid and development to afghanistan to ee rad indication efforts. >> reporter: in other words, the government benefits and hopefully strengthens itself as creating sustainable afghanistan where there is as broad a spectrum of hope moving forward more directly from the revenues from the international community than the narcotics developing community, correct? >> the vote is produced and

taliban controlled or contested areas. and so, you know, again, this is a security issue. i think as a first cut. >> but you said earlier today that the government of afghanistan as indicated an interest in not undergoing ee rad indication programs at this juncture, is that an accurate assessment? >> yes, the government would assess it would decrease the appeal. >> so it's something to talk about. i'm not dictating that this is what i think the policy should be. but if you look at what the actual functioning federal government to the extent that it sticks afghanistan derives benefit from, i would submit if they were given an either or or, they would fall on the side we wanted them on. going really quickly, there is a man cap tax on contractors in afghanistan that we've become aware of that stems from the regime which is arbitrary and probably not consistent with existing agreements. has anything been done to

address that? what it does is attack the american citizens as we develop infrastructure security. has anybody done anything with this man cap tax? >> i'm not but we can follow up. >> thank you so much. i've ran out of time. thank you, chairman. >> thank you, mr. garrett. thank you very much. and i thank you also, master wells. we've heard creating the circumstances for a peaceful and stable afghanistan is a very complex but very critical mission. the administration has taken several good steps towards that end. but we need to see more progress. and at this point, we have one minute left to a vote on the floor. so this hearing is adjourned. thank you. [ inaudible conversations ]

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