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background sounds >> good afternoon and welcome today's council on foreign relations meetings in democratic governance and i am i'll sealer senior fellow cancel relations i will be providing today's discussionson and today we are going to see if our members attending in person in dc and virtually. although your invitation to this many described it as the discussion, i'm a counsel special report published in october funny 24, we will also devote today's meeting with updating special report light oe visits as a nation 2024 campaign and elections the changes undertaken by the new administration. and especially please down three expert panelists for conversation of the published work it along with that many of others and reflect in the special report, you will find their completed present biographies in your programs use

them, jessica frank, former director influence center and the office of the director of national intelligence, norm eisen he was cofounder and executive chart estate democracy defenders fun, and audrey wong, patrick senior chief — fellow at the american enterprise institute an assistant professor international relations at the university southern company are welcome to the panelists prayed to begin conversation with jessica, and 2024 was described as the year of elections many of the world democracies including the united states what is your assessment of the role played by foreign governments and other actors in their efforts to his work as her life evers during the campaign and election is up. >> first of all thank you for having me enabling me to participate in the conversations that up to the report pretty maybe i just started by highlighting predict trends that

we sort of cheap the landscape heading into the election printedd the first grader number of more diverse capable actors were interested in conducting any kind of influence operations state and nonstate braided second is arriving commercial firms, providing inputs for hire services which of course you don't the effective increasing number of actors who are capable of them and connecting these kind of operations making the more sophisticated also making it much harder for us to track the initial instinct gatorst attributed kind of offering rations and 30 think is the most obvious and relevant emerging technologies a.i. big data analytics and again lower cost you know make it impossible to connect targeted campaigns and further complicate attributions of this is the landscape the receipt heading into the election cycle more complex than everer before we actually see, u

know we said that russian is the most prolific i find that it has four goals no one was to shape the outcome of the presidential election in favor president. the other tworm congressional st of supporting for policy and candidates. it was to confidence in the election process to amplify social conflict and then a lot of information public record the tools used. the doj release and affidavit and indictment and full of security updates and the messaging about the kind that we saw and then there was iran which had three goals to take the presidential outcome then it was you know to steered away from now more likely to increase tensions braided and also diminish confidence in the

electoral to get sufficient amplify social conflict all familiar the hacking weeks operation. that reported and then of course china and subnational level in seeking to influence congressional races where there were candidates regarding some party and they viewed as important for their sort of a poor interest for tingly with respect to taiwan and of course our democracy chaotic effective so that is where the landscaping includes landscape and interferes they define interference as defining best efforts to degrade our ability to actually conduct elections. annual they said that it was not observe foreign actors attempting to seek interfere in the collective the election. >> and so going back to your point about artificial intelligence, is it was nothing

transformative influence on foreign. >> i think what we said is that it was a malign influence accelerates that it was not this transformed russia again most prolific after cross audio text, images video produce use a.i. to produce content pretty sorry run this creating like an authentic articlee sort of fake websites for example in china did you say i are the includes conveyance of are sort of rock campaigns to shape and about the vision and globally and amplify sort of ths social issue. >> you mentioned that interference was not detected the election infrastructure was secured because the foreign powers that are adversaries arrival see that is the redline they should not cross always thought was with the idea we do see people try toe do it in why

sort of anybody's guess but i think that sort of feasible to seee that they may view that has a redline. >> me ask you about the interaction of government agencies which is mandated to detect a wind foreign influence their interaction with other actors such as social mediar platforms that the same governments which is subject to certain scrutiny in front of her see you describe that is russian. >> first i see the host society problem as a whole society effort and for technology company's versus state and local governments predict journalistic andov etc. in terms of while engaging a wide range of technology companies on an ongoing basis really focused strategic level and talking about the kinds of evolving adversary tools and tactics. and were not talking at the level of the account conversation that happens fbi connect the kind of a

conversation according to the fbi authority freighted in terms of our engagement state and local officials, robust and regular, the official run the country and deepening on where they work we help regular briefings of every timed that e lease one of the routine elections days we provided and offered to the state officials so that they werend no surprise. i think they are incredibly important factors really on the frontlines every day conducting the elections we need to do our role as a federal government to support you know that in their and their work. >> me ask you then how to the u.s. government not just this administration bit any future administration assess the threat of malign influence to the institutions impact on their threat. >> yes well i guess that i would say like i saw the view this as a persistent asymmetric

conversation between united states and the calendars happening in the information building itself prescription seven nature of the competition this persistentur asymmetric adversaries tools they believe suit their interestsbe and democracy depends upon how the information environment in order to thrive through different upon the idea that truth is noble and citizens can earn it we get uses it govern themselves and out of healthy information environment so that's why they revert to these tools right i think that overol information tremendous advantages over the long run this returned to do create certain vulnerabilities in other former adversaries experience of the taxer rest like the temptatn to respond that that tit for tat for away because ultimately prevent 20 the conflict and territory that is more advantageous to the adversary rather audit of our own strikes in this competition and so i

think that will require an envelope of information in the domain supporting the environment is the right thing to do but also because it's autocrats on the back foot for example is a handful of things we can use within the information diverted that we should be willing to think to use cyber capabilities for example in a course like in accordance with authorities etc., we have advantages you know we should use them and you know the totality of america's financial leverage etc. to go on offense and more conducive to our success. >> and thank you. >> it so the return to your going to technological frontier foreign influence get a question of foreign influence which is corruption been several high-profile cases recently through corruption conviction and sentencing of the former sentence of bob menendez and indictment presented henry cuellar trials now set for september and of course

investigation a document new york city mayor eric adams. there's a pattern here that's one thing is there all them because with those accused of bribing officials were not associated with countries usually regarded as our and turkey.egypt and near the pattern is that in each case, there was an appeal intervention by president trump of the trump administration former senator minute his appeal hopes to clean up the cesspool southern district of new york prosecutors prosecutions southern district of new york properly on suggested that he was being punished for susan barsky by the biden and ministration have on the front department of justice multiple resignation by prosecutors charges across eric adamsha shod be dismissed without prejudice something to be considered by the judge as we meet itself how serious is this avenue morning

for an influencer me just case they come out from time to time we should expect this is part of the political landscape and was a future of enforcement such cases. >> miles thank you for your report for inviting me to be with you here today to consider these grave issues. it is a pleasure to be here with jessica and audrey. and i will start with the eric adams case. where we have been quite active estate democracy defenders. my nonpartisan, nonprofit, that works to shore up the foundations of our democracy is backsliding i think that with a

pattern that you point out, they adams case what may be to come in menendez and cuellar, is significant degree backsliding nic wonderful friends in the audience from the legal community and all address the adams case in the context when really large number of other move is, by the new administration including with respect to — enforcement that i think oh band and avenue to form considerable influence that was the widening gaps that already exists and for those who have not followed the incident out the adams case, he is accused of

a series of inducements the nature of quid pro quo, the culminated in the legend quid pro quo involving the trump administration prayed and in this case, it is various forms benefits that he received from turkish interests and in turn, the government has alleged that he provided favors real estate another favors delayed opening under turkishsh government offie and he allegedly spent the long. and i know this as a former ambassador, every country in the world including allies and

turkey is a nato ally and there also an example of a backsliding democracy that was never able to reverse course the example is the poor role model in my view for president trump not as quite as bad over and hungry as a principal example or. and we know that in hungry, also nato member, and part of the e.u. and very complex set of relationships there. we know that countries like turkey, ellice and ellice in fact turkey has been a good la in some ways nato particularly directly. and as well as countries that

have a more tense or even hostile relationship with the united states and even from the countries, as investor i was born and even, every foreign national that you deal with is an intelligent rest, the all launched nations they all want something from the united states. so in that environment, to have an enforcement action, were trying to cut off in the adams prosecution, and establishpr accountability for an american official in my judgment ander judgment the evidences quite strong, to see this kind of unraveling we have book editing propose, religion, natalie knowingly favors for turkey in the accountability then as the

front in the basis of the prosecution, then we flip around to the backend where an extremely conservative interim united states attorney, as a law clerk former law clerk of the pillar one of the pillars the idols of the conservative movement in the united states the republican party, that the current president to represent. and scalia was interim u.s. attorney — the mentor in her boss she clerk for him she felt liquid "the trump administration the trump justice department training the termination of this prosecution anything for eric as

cooperating gratian issues in the city of new york, she felt that mirror image quid pro quo was so odious, that she was compelled to resign in her resignation letter if you have not looked at it is really a and six other senior prosecutors her also quite a number of them conservative and her resignation letter is really part of a response to your question because she said that this was a strong case when the case that there is no grounds to drop it inn order to doing quid pro quo exchange for immigration policy and i think that this message, to the world is and all the trump administration, we are open for business when it comes

the foreign influence and it is not just the message, it is the donald trump himself as the point in any foreign government that wants to influence donald trump had just by his point by his printed currency and digital currency needs continuing to do business we have a delegation and saudia arabia now simply selling ukraine down the river. but i never thought that he really out did crowded the chamberlain who however misguided, charming chamberlain was negotiated and foolish good faith munich rubio they never thought that i would see former senator rubio parody the well is like ribbon — part two. and what donald trump has businesss interests of the saudi

well and constitution business today foreign monuments that is business as anything of value and i litigated cases the prior administration ministration his businesses are sucking those in all of the planet. he's eliminated, doj enforcement memo that is inviting and lower the standards my friend tom is here and he's authority he knows all about this he was working on these issues in moscow when i was ambassador. an appointment force the cpa violations as historically been the case. another loophole. ... >> let me ask you briefly one other issue, which has loomed very large. the foreign agents registration act.

there have been many calls for reform, some say there are too many loopholes, it is too broad. i cited in the report the apa proposal in 2021, which made sensible suggestions for reforming it. but enforcement has swung from very lax to more rigorous. now from what we can tell from and what we can tell it will be much more relaxed than it has been. what is your assessment is an effective instrument for regulating foreign influence? or should it be reformed? one minute. [laughter] as a perm criminal prosecution. there been notable failures with

defendants on both sides of the political aisle. but, as a civil mechanism and a regulatory mechanism that can be effective. that'ss why things like how we are handling existing prosecutions, what our posture will be, what the exceptions of emoluments are not, the general posture of the administration on lawlessness it can be an effective l tool if there is a toolkit. the first rule of compliance and i will stop here, his tone at the top. and the tone at the top on foreign malign influence is the exact opposite of what we needed to be. perhaps it should not come as ao surprise from a president that has 34 felonies himself.

for election interference and cover up 2016 election interference and cover up. that's a new york prosecution is not surprise and makes analysis andys action all that more important. >> okay let me turn to you. we already mention state and local levels of government l hae received a lot less attention than the federal level and doing dealing with malign foreign influence. i did note one recent case of chinese influence is to was invited to work at the chinese agent. would you tell us a little bit about the chinese government and the chinese commerce parties influence of the state and local level head and how they're organized? >> yes thank you for including me on this panel. it's a pleasure to be here. let me outline two ways they've been trying to exert influence at the levels. a lot of these activities are conducted through for those it's

a governmental but is sort of comprised more official, closet official and grassroots civil society. in china and abroad trying to promote china's interest co-op friends and silence critics. to influences i have seen in my ongoing work. one is mobilization and second is political mobilization. the first inms terms that means grassroots and organizing. really trying to shape societal discourse. getting people on the streets especially with communities. that is trying to cultivate patriotism with china it's reallyst a more sophisticated

relatively new strategy of exploding social division of gettingex involved in local isss and actively playing on group identityty politics as a way to shape the overseas chinese communities and extended chinese influence. you see the united front on chinese immigrant actors really trying to activate a threat toto every chance communities. really creating us versus them mindset. the groupss with names that clam to protect asian-american rights, advocate for theset issues these groups are organizing protests and sometimes up to thousands of people over issues such as affirmative action.

and more recently, bringing a proposed homeless shelter and chinese majority neighborhood. there waving american flags. that equal justice for communities. really good at broader societal rhetoric. the ongoing contentious issues that we are seeing in american society today as opposed to the traditional of taiwan. this is really key in laying the groundwork to promote china's interest in foreign policy work. the mobilization is to present as the protector of trans communities trying to cultivate a sense of loyalty toward the chinese government, right? and breaking into my second point is the mobilization really creates a foundation for a political mobilization.

getting people into power, have protesters and public leaders endorsing for certain politicians. and people in attendance. and so we start seceding on a front operating like a political machine. and for example in your city politics or building can mobilize in fields of power base efforts to fight look for in influence directly to the goals of placing friends in high places. i think the reports of foreign agents new york governor by being accused of being accused of foreign agents that goes beyond that. it's getting people into power down to the local level of government. we are going to want to talk

about new yorkew city evidence f the chinese government links them helped at least as politicians in south brooklyn in the last three years. republican state senator, city councilwoman recently elected state representative. so crossing party lines and changing the political landscape and influencing the political leanings on key portions of the electorate. this can have a powerful aggravating triple shot effect. to see state and city politicians to hold on to these actors are increasingly aligned with the interests on the policy positions.

that is when to change the discourse of a populous and influential state. where this is not just about national security threat. this is a a threat to civil liberties that central to multicultural democracy. ccp's claim to represent communities in disproportionally elevating repressed point of view point the chinese-american community nature and political conciliation. whatat is him ask you one last question for you reaching a point saying the chinese repress certain attitudes. certain leanings, politically. that leaves the question of transnational aggression by the government intervene in other countries to suppress, harass

their political opponents in those countries for this to have been cases ofop that with regard to china. freedom path is really statistics which suggest transnational repression has beenug engaged by 23 governance including backsliding democracies and had taco his china it was a there are police stations in new york and the chinese c government. what should be done about transnational repression and not just in regards to china but other countries as well? what could be done better perhaps to counter transnational oppression? >> it's a tough question. think about the police station tries been setting up some of thesena issues the legitimacy or of government but also providing

community services as an outreach to the communities. some of his work can be legitimate. i think what we really want to do getting more information, getting more transparency. really trying to build a robust civil society and engaging in the grassroots organization to represent the interest of a range of chinese-americans, and that is china's ability in and uses organizing networks to surveilled, to monitor and repress and engage. it does not eliminate but reduces the ability to engage in transnational if you have a robust network of information and groups you encounter. works great, thank you. at this time i wanted with the

questions, this meeting is on the o record. we will begin with those in the audience here. yes, could you please identify yourself? i had a question for mr. brandt about one of the elements at the beginning of your remarks that s the growth of an industry of i gather companies offering foreign influence services. i wonder if you could say a little bit more about that industry? where the countries are based, where they get their personal and so on. >> what we were talking about is the rise of the commercial actors.. that many of them use. some of the tools that i described artificial intelligence, big data analytics to proper influence as a service to a wide array of actors,

nationstates but also their proxies and nonstate actors and fracturing other media companies do a wide variety of actors. and so, as if it complicates the landscape because it makes it much more difficult to contribute these activities are back to the person or the entity that is sort of the original instigator. our work starts and ends with this attribution back to for an actor. it is really sort of complicated.pe >> the question, yes? harvest egbert allen role practicing lawyer at harvard law school permit clusters about tiktok. the supreme court recent decision avoided the issue of

the propaganda risk and the risk of all they avoided it because of o the greater personal constitutionalal concerns. but the evidence that congress considered in passing the law to ban if tiktok if it divested the chinese ownership raise the propaganda insh the algorithmic risk how do you assess that risk and whereha you think that will end up? thank you. >> allen is somewhat like many in the room. i will leave it to others to offer their views of those risks.

i will only say that it should be a matter of profound concern, alarm, and even scandal that the united states congress has made a risk assessment and set out a set of criteria necessary, given that level of, risk for either tiktok to be shut down, or to continue. that included, it had to have a relatively advanced business negotiations for the sale of tiktok. no such conditions existed. in the supreme court said yes, we are not going to give you legal relief. none of the conditions for risk mitigation that authorize the trump administration to continue tiktok.

personally i haven't told it should continue tiktok to jonathan who is also a friend, to jonathan's question much of the information the chinese were worriedhe about, that from tiktk is commercially available. that and more. they can bite what they need. it is ridiculous to take it away for my daughter. be that as it may, congress has spoken. they have established criteria for risk mitigation including these advanced business negotiations for american purchase.ch the supreme court has said yes, that is how it must be. no such conditions exist and the administration is flaunting, flaunting the law by allowing this to continue. that's another part of the pattern of impunity that we were speaking of lacey in the adams case, the fair enforcement and

just the bad role modeling. that suggests to the world that america is open for malign influenceli. and of course want a very big tiktok investor was reported to be cozy with trump any shape changed his position after a meeting with that individual and that is my answer. it's not strictly on point. don't add to that all? >> i don't have time to add congress did have access to a wide array of evidence wouldn't woulddecide is decision when it legislated. >> i think the question is as in so many issues of foreign influence what is the additional effect of foreign influence through that medium as compared to x where there is no longer any flagging as far as i know a foreign government?

twitter has a different audience. these all have different audiences. you could argue the audience is more vulnerable in this case. unless the social media platform in general behaves differently as compared to tiktok, then it is not clear to me at the delta tiktok is the chinese propaganda. i am not sure how you would assess that. >> this question but measuring the impact of a particular vector. i understand the appeal of that question. all counterfactual very difficult to determine what shape many, many conflicts shape so, for example efforts to shape the views about the conflict in your brain. even if we had, basically we can measure performance but we can measure clicks, we can measure

likes, look at surveys of american attitudes about a particular topic. but the clear causal link is really challenging. it's really hard to do. not sure it's the right question herequ. there is also tiktok assessment and then generally there's a question about what are we seeing here and now and where the risks we can anticipate? this is an important policy they have to wait and determine steps forward. the trade-off between here and noww and the future. >> okay, let's take a question from online if we could. looks no one has any questions at this time. hugs hi, good afternoon simone williams former department

official.r my question follows very nicely after the tiktok to part in the sense of assessing a foreign influence in democratic governance from the lens of national security imperatives and implications we have there. how do we better tell the story to people who are not looking at from the national security imperative?cu has its implications and civil liberties for that means it up impacts everybody but we do not do a good job of telling that story. so tot your point, why should e take it out of tiktok away? she is not going understand that but how are we going to better make that argument? the second part my question is, we clearly identify with the problem is we have identified symptomsms but, and how to tacke some the symptoms' office and the better foundational ways of actually tackling the problem to better combat? >> thank you. two very large very good

questions. anyone want tos. talk about the first one which is how to impress upon those who are not convinced about foreign influence and its threats to democracy? >> i can talk about how we approach communicating the cycle. we were sort of communicating proactively with an emphasis on transparency. we did it in a routine way. he tied election committee updates to calendars with like 100 days, 45, 30, 15. in order to ensure we were providing regular and transparent but were not responding to particular events. but rather opened up to potentially concerns about solicitation. we said ahead of time you are

going to hear from us will give an understanding about what we know at these points in the calendar. that was an effort to set the landscape for that encase we did, we did have to come in overtop to standalone public notifications. so we set the landscape or weigd the table. hey, there's a storm and i think those things kind of worked together. >> doing to add to that? he worked on how you would deal with community groups and how would you convince them this is a threat or problem that should be dealing with? is there a strategy one could deploy? >> yes it goes back to my earlier point about working from the grant not coming in fromfr e top down and think this is a threat it'shr acknowledging some

of the grievances are issues going on in the community are acknowledging that and finding ways to engage successfully but not just during election cycle but over time and that is a fundamental way of improving the resilience of these communities to potential malign, malign influence or interference that resources our grassroots organization. we've seen as a friend as opposed to just make the gives individuals in theha community, more freedom, more flexibility on your own, you don't have anywhere else. the deeper issue not just just foreigninfluence but are tr

speak to both of those questions. in terms of the first one for much larger problem of the fragmented communications and information and cultural landscape where everybody in this room, almost everybody watching online probably has a common frame of reference makes it possible to talk about these issues when i arrived today at my friend likes to talk about the blob.

even brookings is not give you a carafe to go with your water. i spent my whole life clawing my way from the hamburger stand in los angeles how do we penetrate out of that information bubble? that may be the most single policy confronting as a nation. because of some of the features of our on this question of malign foreign influence. much more probably we aren't quite perilous a place for we are in the crossroads of the democracy devastating knock on

effects of the inability those who are after advocating for policy to convince our country men and women of ideas like those about malign foreign influence. i think the first question on the second question hinges on it and i'll let others weigh in. how do we escape? i do not believe it's possible to reach all americans anymore. the days of the monoculture of the three networks being the principal source of newspaper, radio's been the principal sources of information. that is over. it's never coming back. i'm actually doing a little experiment with the post because of other reasons for i quit cnn in part for this reason to do our own adventure and that

fragmented cultural landscape. contrary and and a month we have accumulated half a million prescribers and we haveed some days 2 million views a day. it's a stille small fraction of joe rogan but we are trying to be part of this landscape. eric adams case and we have a two cooking columns of pets every friday our first hire was andy that humor columnist who does the weekly humor column. when we tried very prominent writers going to take over culture pages. talk about the commonalities between spring training we are now in spring training for democracy as we embark on this for your fight. gave away the lien of my sunday

story. which i'm cowriting with this fourth columnist not reach everybody if we cannot persuade of the government people of these issues in a pretty short order breakthrough in the next four years or i fear we are in a long winter indeed. we cannot solve that problem i think we can solve the problem. >> 23 things on the communication front. one is to focus on the behavior foreign actors with the foreign actors are doing. the second is a bipartisan problem that affects candles, parties institutions on both sides of the aisle.

that election are flashpoint on the starterer and point it with the wide away of targets academic institutions, american businesseses. it's much whiter. in terms of what you can do i think were the broad approach. in a symmetric competition. we need to shore up the sources of our strength. local journalism the strength of our information environments. our responsiveness is a broad competition we have seen government begin to do this at the creation of a handful of

institutions to address the aproblem that there is more to e done. and then go on offense and the places that are most conducive. >> the pessimistic note to these services. lessened or eliminated and the democracy. campaign finance wouldn't even talk about that the possibility foreign influence can be exerted through campaign-finance. if there were not so much a dark money in the campaigns which is a big problem a big issue for many people. my different reef at the end of the special report. they've been on the agenda for very long time we have not been able to solve them. there fundamental problems for democracy overall.

the issues of foreignat influene get immediately very often. they highlight some research which is quite depressing. people would rally around the flag decided to surf the foreign influence of got to do something about this. in fact researchers experimental and all kinds of research has been done it's pretty clear it depends on who it is benefiting from the foreignde influence. would benefit from the foreign influence very often you don't say anything negative about it you are quite happy to get it. you can see that in many other countries, smaller countries look at romania for example if beneficiary, i doubt the afd in germany is upset about the intervention by vice president vance in german politics. that's a problem as well. everyone should be concerned about foreign influence empirically depends on who was simply from foreign influence. you want to do an online question of cap a question from

the online audience. >> we will take our next question. >> low, thank you so much. i really appreciate the discussions today as many of you emphasize we find ourselves in a vastly different landscape where the new administration does not seem to have influence of foreignn influence in congress seems to gloss over the issue. some preachers working on the topic are retreating due to harassment journalists are also discouraged of the information bubbles online and harassment directed at them. which leads me too ask what role do you see for civil society actors such as nonprofit organizations including international ones to ensure a more honest and truthful and fact-based evidence-based information environment? thank you. >> this goes back to your whole of society issue, jessica. >> yes academic researchers provide incredibly important public service they highlight

these campaigns i think also we talk about in terms of communicating about these issues we think it's very important government will go out and speak from itsnd experience and from what it is seeing. it's helpful when there are independent journals, academics, companies, looking at the landscape from their unique advantages. andt saying what it is that thy see. when the things are sort of online that sort of increases trust broadly. and in the kinds of messaging that folks are getting. also, i would just say sitting on the internet like watching. i would oftenno hear from folks like how outcome, why are we hearing fromin microsoft first about foreign influence campaign. the answer is like it has a

unique advantage but it certainly not the only advantage for all kinds of reasons later privacy and civil liberties we should not want our intelligence community to be sitting on the internet, watching first amendment protected speech. so there are things that companies have unique advantage and places where researchers are uniquely positioned to provide insights into the broader qualities. >> i think jessica covered and i would just add a significant note separate civil society it's all of this operating with a shift in policy. it's not just the create a threat of foreign influence but it's undermining u.s. it's giving china and even better opportunity to step in, fill in that gap to push the narrative and say look, they're here to help you.

we can achieve a win-win cooperation. >> i do. it is such a vast question i am not sure of the proper vector of attack. it seems to me at your set u.s. democracy is at a crossroads. and with that, global democracy. i wrote a long report in which i in the grappled in the postelection period grappled with some international dimensions who will step up given this level of threat to democracy, and the torch be passed and so forth? i think the lesson, we looked at poland, brazil, the czech republic were i was ambassador. all in recent years have halted

democratic backsliding. and ejected at the polls autocratic regimes through initiatives. also hungary and turkey were that failed. all among the lessons why does it work in some places and not in others? what are the lessons for the united states and the global implications? it seemed to us there were a set of priorities 1001 things you can do. but there is a set of seven priorities that require a whole of society investment. that as why at the state democracy defenders fun have lunch more than a dozen pieces of litigation. we haven't lost yet we've been very selective. maybe that means i'm not litigating enough to defend the rule of law. that is number one. you must protect the rule of law

autocratic forces take a hole of courts, prosecutors, judges they will use them as a weapon and you are not able to use them as a break. you must focus on elections in. we have talked about that because that is the injectionta button. you've got to deal they hold a whole ofsociety basis think tank thinking, democracy defenders litigating, actingra communicators, communicating business that make up for religion. you must speak out against the corruption that was the topic of my initial question. every tyrant, every autocratic hasn't oligarchs. often many. civic and media space must be rigorously protected including the ability tohe have conversations like this one. we have to defend our media outlets speak to many of whom are bowing down, kissing the ring, bending the knee and then

you have to fight for pluralisticc governance yet to combat this information. every tyrant has a state coach that was to defend birthright citizenship.p. it is unconstitutional targeting that trump is doing and finally you have to explain, you have to demonstrate democracy delivers dictatorship doesn't. 990 for other things you can do, those seven things with the whole of society approach including civil society formulating the strategies that's for others to litigate. that is what is required. we do not know if america domestically and in our global leadership role is up to it. we are about to find out. i am not pessimistic. the press does not always cover it. we covered on the contrary.

we've seen a lot of green issues these first 30 days but nobody knows what it will be. >> will be close with another pessimistic note. what the united states current administration is done att usaid at the national endowment for democracy has had a tremendous impact already on ngos around the world. including ngos that scrutinize policy in china valuable source of information. all kinds it cannot be an obtained elsewhere think of civil society out there floating in thiss transnational cyber cye of some kind. dependent often on government fundingen they are certainly dependent on access that can only be granted by governments. around the world backsliding democracies have been cracking down on ngos and the access of ngos in their society. that's definitely a risk going

forward i'm less optimistic than normal on this point we have time maybe for one question. i'm getting the nod that we don't. thank you so much for your welcome to come and speak with the panelists. those here in the audience following the session print thank you so much for joining us at today's meeting is very frigid afternoon in washington. thank youte jessica, norm, audry for joining me on the panel. please at the video and transcript of today's meeting will be posted on the website. thank you all very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] ♪ c-span's love life form inviting you to discuss lease issues in government, politics and public policy.

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