[laughing] >> you can ask anything. i'm going to start because you mentioned a few things, particularly the idea that companies, companies number one, company leaders no more obligation is to shareholder at least structurally the way the markets are now. how do you fix that? who should they be obligated to? how do you change it? >> let's talk about why it is that we can talk about how to change it. it wasn't always this way. corporations are charted by the states and when you think about it, that shareholders in a public company are not owners like you and i would own the house. they have no legal liability. their names are not on the door. they've almost complete liquidity, can get in and out. they have relatively diminished relationship with it, and in many ways the structure --

>> take you for joining us for the hills newsmaker series that will be joined in a moment by secretary of state michael pompeo's purchased on friday celebrated first anniversary in this job so this is a key moment, the first business day of this next year so we'll see how we does. in just a few months we will have a very timely conversation on a wide range of foreign policy topics. first like thank our sponsor partnership for underwriting today's conversation. as the public face of public diplomacy secretary of state mike pompeo is passed with advancing our nations geopolitical and economic interest across the world. look for to hearing from the secretary and administration foreign policy agenda and use of american position on the global stage. before it began, a few quick housekeeping notes. in addition to all of you being here this morning we are live now on c-span2, so hello to her c-span viewers. were also streaming on thehill.com. please keep your phones on

silent for the duration of the program but don't keep them an active. we encourage you to share our conversation, what you enjoy, what you want to challenge on social media if you can do this on facebook, twitter, instagram and linked in your query at the hill events, at daily events, and join the conversation by using the hashtag that he'll use the pompeo. on my way to under 80 characters with that. you will receive an electronic survey following the conclusion of today's event. we will always be eager to hear how you can make our events or dynamic, prove the croissants, et cetera and i encourage you to take a few moments to provide your feedback on today's program. i would like to network fight my friend scott reed, managing partner for the partnership for open and fair skies to the podium to offer brief remarks. scott, the floor is yours. [applause] >> good morning, everybody.

thank you, steve for that nice introduction. i'd like to thank the hill and bob cusack for organizing today's event, congratulate the hill on britney on steve clemons as editor at large but also to thank the men and women that are here, our pilots and flight attendants for joining us this morning. we appreciate secretary pompeo for taking the time in his busy schedule to join us for what i know will be an informative, faceting conversation. i would also like to congratulate secretary pompeo on his recent one-year anniversary when he was sworn in at the state department. over the last year he's been a strong advocate for america's interest abroad and an important advisor to president trump. as bob said on the managing partner of the partnership for open and fair skies, a coalition that represents the three major u.s. airlines, delta, american, and united as one owe seven labor unions representing airline employees. you might wonder what could

possibly bring these three airlines together, considering they are such fears competitors. and while yes, these airlines compete for our business every day of the year, there also united in their common belief that every airline should operate and compete on a level playing field. for two and half decades that playing field has been governed by bilateral aviation trade agreements, known as open skies. these agreements allow carriers to fly between two countries with no restrictions, and when enforced properly, no government interference. but over the last decade the governments of qatar and united arab emirates have funneled more than $50 billion into three state owned carriers. those subsidies violated the sanctity of qatar and uae is respective open skies agreement with the united states. unfortunately, the obama

administration did nothing to address this issue in a meaningful way. but the election of president trump brought renewed hope that his administration would hold of these trade cheaters accountable and stand up for american workers. president trump and secretary pompeo have done precisely that. last year the administration reached historic agreements with the governments of the uae and qatar that will increase transparency and accountability moving forward. but we know this isn't the end of the dispute. the government of qatar is massively subsidizing a tiny regional carrier called air italy which it owns a sizable stake in. the stakes of this fight are real. continued open skies violation puts 1.2 million american jobs at risk. it affects everyone from pilots to flight attendants to the ground crew, to the employees at the airport. and as secretary pompeo has

said, we cannot allow our so-called allies to take advantage of american businesses and american workers. we are proud to call secretary pompeo our friend in this fight, and we look forward to the state department and entire administration continuing to stand up for u.s. airline workers and the airline industry and enforcing our agreements. i'm this topic will come up more but with that i'd like to turn back over to her our host, ste. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much, scott. i love all the airlines equally. and now i'd like to introduce without further ado, it's my great pleasure to welcome jimmy finkelstein, chairman and owner of the hill. jimmy, please. [applause] >> so it is my honor now to

introduce the secretary of state, secretary pompeo most of you know that the secretary ses number one at west point. he was, served with distinction in the army. he graduated from harvard law school and served on the "harvard law review." he worked for williams and caudally, one of the great law firms in america, and most of you in the press here probably are represented by bob barnett who is also hillary's sparring partner. he was a successful businessman. he ran for, he was a congressperson for three terms head of the cia, and the state department. anyone of us would be proud up one of those jobs. he had them all, so he's quite amazing. perhaps no one in history has been more prepared for the dangers and opportunities that our country faces.

again, we're honored to have senator pompeo today, and a going to hand him over to bob cusack, our esteemed editor. rob and mr. secretary, welcome. [applause] >> thank you, jimmy. and thank you, mr. secretary, for joining us. esty mentioned before, friday was your one-year anniversary at the state department. what has changed? what if you brought to the state department. >> was first of all thanks having me this way. thanks for the find -- kind introduction. when they came to the state department i had the expense i don't been in administration director of the cia so i i was crippled on issues that as well as the operations of how a national screw to counsel was

operating, so had some advantages instead come in as a culture group i want to do is make sure to put the palms at the front of what president trump was doing. want to make sure our team would do that, capable of doing that, had the commanders intent that it is to what president trump wanted. so spent an awful lot of time into furniture making sure that was the case. we talked about being prepared, and by being prepared at the confidence that american diplomats know that you were present the greatest nation in history of civilization, that you both the benefit of that and a responsibility that comes alongside them. we spent a lot of time think about that. we have great people there. want to make sure we nibbled and are also told no secretary could deliver that unless he had the capability to joke with value. when you show up to brief the president or to work as part of the national security game, you don't get the benefit of the doubt because of who you are. you get the benefit of that because you're showing up with information that is fallible, option sets that are relevant, and you're capable of demonstrating the value of what it is you are proffering wing of

the conversation. part of what the team did during the first year. >> your predecessor did not have a special relationship with the president. how often to talk to the president? >> it's a lot. >> almost everyday? >> certainly. certainly almost everyday. >> do you feel that now it's more in sync, because of the controversial time during rex tillerson tenure. >> i'll leave the analysis of that to others. once value is, look, the secretary of state has no he understands what the president wants. i talked to every living former secretary of state before i was confirmed, and they said do dot ask a child as you travel the world is the knowledge of your counterparts that your speaking on behalf of the president. you're in sync with the president to the extent to get out of sync with that later, then you're just out shooting the breeze rather than actually delivering what america's foreign policy government objectives are. i work hard. i work hard to try and deliver

president trump option. >> that's good policy from by which to analyze these very difficult situations, and then once he's provided his intent what it is he wants to do to make sure i'm delivering that in a way our allies and partners can understand it and help us achieve this objective. >> you said in recent interviews you are not going to be running for senate in 2020 but the question is, has mitch mcconnell stopped calling to run for the senate? >> on behalf of my ethics advisor, look, i'm going to stay as long as president trump will allow me to continue, an enormous privilege to serve as america's chief diplomat and to try to live on behalf of the 90,000 state department ploys come all the great work that they do. >> it was reported that north korea built the united states $2 million for hospitalization of otto warmbier. is that true and was a paid? >> president trump made clear at no time in this administration have we paid for any hostage to

be released. we have no intention of doing so we been very successful at this approach. the previous administration took a different approach and we think this is the right policy. we think threat possibly not state long-term. we think a great disincentives for terrorists and criminals and others to take innocent americans and hold them. and it's proven also not to be a robot to speak successful. i am a team led by ambassador robert o'brien who working so diligently to work against every one of these problems and i can at least once a week on the status of every american that is wrongfully detained. the progress we've made and what is where going to forward today get the. i get to meet with families and many of them out to three weeks back. a chance to meet with those deputy came back and ideas are not in our embassy in tehran. many of them because merck will see the consistency of what is now 40 odd years about we get

american policy right, how we can reduce the risk of americans traveling abroad to be wrongfully held. >> north korea, they said they want you out of the talk. any chance? >> the president gets to decide that. we don't do decide to my counterpart is an president trump gets to represent america. i still have the car. >> you said there will likely be a third summit with north korea. will that happen by the summer? >> don't know. i don't know. we want to make sure we create the conditions where it we deliver that, if the leaders get together that we can make substantial progress. i think we made progress in hanoi. i know the rest of the world thanks to both. i can see what happens both and run to the, conversation and discussion supper had. nearly all the conversations that took place between the two leaders in hanoi and we came to a deeper understanding of the range of freedom both sides com, things they can do, what hath not used to unlock going

forward. it's a difficult challenge, there's reason it hasn't been resolved. we're confident as a continue to lead economic pressure to north korea that will get another opportunity to unlock and get north korea -- my teen travel to moscow come to beijing to work with our allies and japan and south korea to build out a coalition to support the global coalition which is what these things is on to try to unlock this. >> the mueller report one of its conclusions was that russia tried too seriously influence the 2016 election. should the obama administration have done more? >> yeah, sure. of course if the russians interfered. it happened in the run-up to the election of 2016. of course, checked in everything they could to prevent it. i do want to go back and revisit and critique. we have the mission of to make sure this doesn't happen in 2020.

2020. we've been working diligently. i worked with the cia director on efforts to prevent not only russian influence, because a nature of this city, this gets reduced to this little tiny notion that it's just russia and us just election in france that proves the challenge. the threats are much broader, not just our election system. to infrastructure. it's to our telecommunications networks, our financial systems. we have a duty to protect them but not just from the russians either. chinese are active. the iranians are active. we have nonstate actors are also acted trying to undermine the very sense of western democracy not just in the united states but all around the world. we worked hard to protect election all across europe. they have taken place in 2017 and 18. we'll keep doing that as we move for. so this problem which often comes to sound but for headline tenure newspaper, is a much deeper challenge and one that president trump has directed us

all to be incredibly focused. >> as if it is a rush is still a threat to american election? >> sure, of course. but, but it goes without saying. they were a threat for elections in 1974. the interfered in her election in 80s. the fact this dancing shocked by the fact the russian don't care for us, in that case the soviet union, i find stunning. >> i -- >> it's in books. you can see the russian effort over an extended period of time and we should expect in 2015, 2050 the russians will be at it. >> how you communicate are we to communicate to all the presidential campaigns of what they should do if there are contacted by foreign entity? >> not my job. the fbi would have responsibility for that. the fbi will take the truck should mitchard we we perform our counterintelligence function properly and properly. >> rudy giuliani said there's nothing wrong with taking foreign information in presidential campaign. do you agree?

>> i don't have anything to say about that. out at the white house and giuliani speak for himself. we shouldn't have said that we should all be cognizant of the sources of information we received. we should be cognizant when we receive dossiers to make sure that they are right, that we validate information before you we were on their we should always have one of us has responded to make sure it information we provide, information we receive is truthful, accurate and create real value for work wherever classified or so whether it's a sticky from our the work i did as a record of the central intelligence agency. we chev a duty to do that. to think the media and election entity should not use stolen or hacked mitchell? >> i leave that to others. i've got lots of challenges. >> open skies agreement, this is an agreement that the big lobbying battle in town on this, and the trump administration is credited for striking an agreement last year, but the u.s.-based airline saying it's networking and they had decided

the economy and possibly jobs loss needs to be revisited, some in congress have pressed you understood is the conversation going to revisit this agreement in any way? >> we're constantly, i know this issue whether i've worked on post lavera spoken to think that all of the as carriers. i had my counterpart in town last week if remember the timing right, spoke about that issue with him. the commitments that were made were a result of a deep complex process. everyone worked in good faith, best i can tell the some of it was before my time but is this like to have you worked in good faith. need to make sure the commitments continue to be honored. the trump msh will endeavor to make sure every commitment made by every part of that agreement will continue to be honored and enforced. >> the audience submitted some questions. one question was on this issue, what we say to the airline workers here to let them know you support u.s. jobs in the industry? >> i think when you see the work the state department did to get the commitments that we did from all of the relevant parties, you

can see president trump state department is absolutely focus on making sure we protect american jobs wherever we possibly can. and will continue to do that. >> venezuela, you said on "fox and friends" earlier this month that russia must stop influencing the situation there. they must leave. later in the month. have you seen any progress in that area? >> non-i can share with you this morning. i can say this. using the efforts we've made to try and convince the cubans who have hundreds of intelligence officers, thousands of people working with the maduro wishing to convince them that's not the right foreign policy, that maduro is going to leave and when of these will be in a far better place if they chose a different path. we are making the same case to all the parties that are supporting maduro. certainly the people inside his own military, , his own army, te cubans, the russians, but if you

do in watching the news, the iranians are providing support in venice was today as well. the chinese, too. could do more. they could record a national assembly and the chosen route of venezuela juan guaidó, many efforts of the state department to restore democracy for the venezuelan people. it is imperative. it's in our space, it's you in the western hemisphere, the opportunity and south america are enormous. we seen this shift to for your economies, more democratic, more democratic elected leaders. if we can get venezuela, once a wealthy nation and they can be so again, that we can make sure south america, , central america has a next 20 or 30 years as democratic led with free markets, in hopes economic growth will not only benefit the people in this country but the united states as well. >> do you believe he will be ousted this year? are using progress? >> i don't do timelines. >> okay. >> i don't do timelines because

you will not give me any credit when we beat it. >> that's fair what about on the ground looks as if in made in that direction? >> yes, i absolutely think there is. i think we see leaders inside of the inner circle now configure what the golden ticket looks like. what does it look like if i leaked? what a questions, surely someone of them will decide the are better times ahead, not supporting that thug. >> are you satisfied with the saudi arabia's hanley of the death of jamal khashoggi? you said in february you were still investigating the death. is that probe still ongoing? >> it is. >> do you think the body will ever be recovered? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> did the saudi government ordered his death? >> i said all along with continuing to find every single fact we can about this. we are determined to every single person who we find, who

was material responsible for the, told them accountable. the state department and treasury department has done that. will continue to work at. things we know for sure if, we will enkindled everyone responsible for that. the president has been very clear about that as well. >> the trump administration announced sanctions iran can no more waivers, and turkey, and china has said it will be undeterred. what now and what will the effect be on gas price at which of them going up riso? >> they actually fell 3% unfunny. haven't seen with the giblin the market -- haven't seen what they did when the market open this morning. they would blow at the price that they this initiation chose to pull out of the jcpa. we will continue to work that. we parked with alternative supplies including alternative suppliers to the country we

didn't grant waivers to. we have produced as much crude oil is anybody out there. we're convinced we can make sure the markets are adequately supplied. we are continuing to work that. with respect to the absence of the granting of waivers and what others may do, sovereign nations make their own choices, individual businesses inside of that will make their own choices. what we can do is prepare a sanctions regime that makes it incredibly costly, and so companies that choose to violate the sanction we have in place connected to the purchase of crude oil on the islamic republic of iran, we will pursue and we will ensure that there held accountable for the violations that they engage in. it's pretty straightforward. >> do you think this will have a negative impact on trade talks with china? >> no, i don't believe so. i talked to secretary mnuchin the last week. he's in china today. not today, tomorrow, to continue negotiations. we that talks with china but

this issue. i'm confident the trade talks will continue and run the natural course. >> the trump administration has make significant progress in the fight against isis especially comes to lender is isis to a major threat? >> the threat from radical islamic terrorism remains. there's no doubt about that. we have made significant progress. i give our coalition partners, we build a coalition of over 80 countries, called defeat isis coalition an enormous global coalition to take on the caliphate, the coalition remains. the effort remains to continue to defeat of isis and where we find it. whether it's in afghanistan or in southeast asia, the threat from radical islam and terrorism remains and will stay at it. president trump is made clear it is a priority for him and we are devoting the appropriate resources to it. >> to mention iran a lot this morning. does it administration support regime change? >> we are hoping that the regime

makes a set of decisions that are very different from the one they are making today. it's interesting. i laid out almost a year ago back in may of last year 12 things that we had as our expectation for the islamic republic of iran would do. i felt others. i have had professionals in the salvage of foreign policy save those are outrageous episode as you did a look at each one of them, each of the 12 things we ask for, and tummy which one think is outrageous. we are simply asking iran to behave like a normal country. there are simple things like don't kill people in europe. it's outrageous. is it outrageous to say you shouldn't support shia militias and iraq to try to destabilize the iraqi government for the iraqi people can't have an independent sovereign nation of their own? is it outrageous to ask the iranians not to continue to so the strife in lebanon but by and run has below? if you stir each of them they are not much different than what

we ask of the dutch, right? these are simple things about how nations ought to be able, and if iran and its leadership can find its way there, we're happy to engage with them and have it bring them back in the nation. >> out of the 12 how many are they complying with this purpose i had to look but my guess is zero. >> afghanistan which is been called the longest war. what is the goal? are we winning in afghanistan. >> with president trump has laid out a very clear goal with respect or south central asia strategy. working with partners and allies in the region in working with people that we've networked with an awfully long time. i was talking with the taliban and we're working to achieve a reconciliation so that this conflict now coming on two decades can be resolved. we can take down the file and get a political outcome. from our perspective we have two goals.

that's a necessary condition. the second necessary condition is we continue to build to perform are counterterror operations, the ones we're speaking about before. percolation isis in particular but there in afghanistan but we still have al-qaeda and other sunni terror operations in afghanistan as well. make sure we can continue to prevent an attack on the homeland from afghanistan. we are working to achieve them and were hoping within the coming months will have real progress. >> do you -- >> it will only depend on the afghan people, ultimately. the ambassador was in kabul most of last week there are ambassador is working on it. we need a broad coalition, we need president connie to be successful so that we can open get that lyrical -- -- president ghani. >> you serve in congress. do you think congress will pass usmca this year? >> i'm out of that business.

i will say this. it has a national security component to it that i care about deeply so i will be working members a conga to convince them this is the right path forward, for canada, the united states and from mexico to get this right and to support this. it's right thing to do for national security relationship with those two countries as well and so while i won't predict how members of congress will i will work to see the support these ministrations objective of getting this agreement across the finish line. >> cuba and the major league association -- baseball association, join professional ranks. why did you do that and don't you think some players will come anyway which they did before this agreement was there and possibly risk their lives? >> i won't predict what players will choose to do or not do. we made this decision because we had money going to bad actors in

cuba, and that's not good for the cuban people. it's that simple. >> congress recently passed the human resolution. the president vetoed it. layout kind of what the situation is there and what is the future of u.s. military forces. >> so complicated, longer answer but but i will try and do it in just a minute or minute and a half. you should know that often not discuss is the trend has an enormous effort to take a al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula. so we often hear about the conflict of the support taking place in yemen but folks don't focus on the very real risk of external plotting that come from yemen, al-qaeda. nation one is to protect america from the terrorist inside of yemen. with respect to the civil war, this is iranian led. we should just all be very clear about it. the houthis who continue to refuse to comply with the

agreements that they sign up for in stockholm, sweden, have refused to move back to the poor. they refuse to do all of the elements of the united nations have laid out, is because the islamic republic of iran has chosen to direct them to do that. you can sit with a missile systems, hardware, the capabilities, now uavs. these are not houthi indigenous weapon systems. these are system that even smuggled into yemen from iran. and so they that missiles fly that could it hit you, either folks here when he aviation community, airplanes flying through the international airport in riyadh are at risk and the united states has an obligation to protect our system. system. the support with providing to the saudis as a temp to engage these dangerous missile systems is in america's best interest. i know there may senators who disagree with me but the people

who were the happiest when the resolution passed were casa soleimani and the ayatollah. no doubt about that. when you see the united states shrank away from this challenge that puts united states citizens at risk, they think they've achieved a a victory. >> we have run out of time. thank you, mr. secretary. and please join the secretary for joining us this morning. >> thank you very much. [applause] .. you know what happened, but another time. if you missed any portion today, the full effect video will be available online.

thank you for making today happen. we encourage everybody to keep the conversation going on social media using has to take newsmaker pompeo. please be sure to fill out the electronic survey and we will send you back. enjoy the rest of your week. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> three giant networks in the government supported network. 1979, a solid network with an unusual name for a big idea. let viewers decide all on their own was important to them c-span opened the doors to washington policymaking. bring you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. this was true people power.

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numbers. wednesday 10:00 a.m. eastern, attorney general william barr will testify before the senate judiciary committee. thursday, 9:00 a.m. eastern, testify before the house committee. live on c-span three. c-span.org and listen on the free c-span radio app. >> more interviews from the state of the conference annual washington d.c. privacy, cyber security and artificial intelligence. on the computer get is, want to introduce you to daniel weitzner, mit professor before you massachusetts institution, where were you? >> i've been i'm a thief for over 20 years, sce