the problem. you get to 400 feet. >> trying to solve the whole problem is very complicated. >> we will keep it moving. 400 feet is something -- >> okay, that would be your vote. we'll keep it moving. mr. hanson, your thought, quick thought, most simple remedy would be what? >> i believe the community based approach has proven for decades to be an effective way of handling at least the small aircraft/hobby environment, and i would look to that to continue keeping this going. >> community based model. >> so outside of the community based, those who are operating outside of that, if there was a way to restrict the enabling of the vehicle when you purchase it until a code is put in. you node to get that code. you have to go online and pass a

test. and now, that's right, i can't go to the airport because i couldn't get my code without pacing the test. >> code. mr. hubbard? >> until technology catches up public awareness. >> i would say the most efficient is an industry based standard so we don't have to go down a regulatory path. >> i very much like that idea of industry standard versus government edict. one quick question because i see i'm down to 52 seconds and i guess this would be directed to you, mr. hanson, going back to that idea of industry standard, how would you describe the way in which ama develops and educates members and the general public about modeling guidelines and safety at-large? you talk about community standard. you talk about sort of industry standards. how do you all do that presently? >> well, currently within our membership a lot of our

education is done at the local club level with the local people coming together and gathering a club and sharing information. in terms of the broader membership, we do that through our mainstay magazine, through our online presence, and then in terms of the uneducated consumer, we're doing that through the know before you fly campaign. >> i see i have one second left, mr. chairman. well, i'm down to zero. >> thank you for yielding back that second, mr. sanford. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington, mr. larson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. chief hubbard, in your testimony you said the forest service and the department of interior are developing a summary of the '015 field season and will make recommendations. when can we expect to see that summary? >> the summary of the incursions? >> yes. >> we have that available now. >> okay. that's available now.

and are you making recommendations from that summary? >> no, that's just capturing what we've encountered and we turned to faa and others for recommendations. >> so one of the instances in california you reported that five aircraft were delayed for 20 minutes. is that right? >> yes. >> what impact can a 20-minute delay have on your ability to suppress a fire? what can happen in 20 minutes? >> in back country fire, not a lot. it gets bigger. in interface fires where you have life and property at risk it of course depends on the situation but it could be dramatic. >> define dramatic? loss of property for sure. and sometimes putting lives at risk. >> so after we get a chance to

review the summary, may do some follow-up with you on just understanding better what steps we might take. so then faa and you all worked on it. do you have an mou, is that right, or an moa? >> moa. >> and what's in that moa? >> how we want to proceed together to try to resolve these kinds of issues because we know we're an outlier in terms of our statistics and our operating altitudes. and it's going to be a little more complicated. so we need some help. >> how many acres are on fire in the west? >> we've burned 9 million acres. >> what was the other number you had, how many individual fires were there? >> 47,000 fires. >> is that an outlier? >> no of. >> so how do you figure an outlier? i don't think so. mr. whitaker, how do you confirm

that there have been situations where drones have come inappropriately close to aircraft? there's been some questions about confirming these, whether they are or they aren't. how does the faa confirm these? >> well, i think as others have discussed, they are difficult to confirm. we don't have end numbers on these things that we can see. we don't have an ability to locate them the way we would with a laser, for example. and that's just the nature of the data. so it's very raw data. i think what we can say is that the trend in the data is pretty obvious. so the number of reports on a monthly basis now is over 100 and that's a five-fold increase from a year ago. you can argue around the margins but there's a significant trend. >> how do you confirm these numbers? >> the numbers we get is on an

anecdotal method and we point to a website that helps them refresh their memory for a near air collision report and if, in their mind, the determining factor in this instance, they believe they had one, we point them to the various links at the faa to fill the form out and submit the report. that's beyond the report that happens real time where the pilot says here is one of those x-wing drones and pushes on his transponder and calls the tower and says i just observed this and then the controller can say that's a data point for us and warn the aircraft behind them. >> dr. kay, you're the technology guy. how would you suggest we clean that up? how to confirm these? >> it's really tough if you just rely on pilot reports. i don't want to diminish theis. there have been, well, at least

one case where the pilot thought they hit a drone and it turned out later to be a bird. so it's very tricky. so what you would have to rely upon is some kind of surveillance something, something near an airport that could actually capture these things. >> can you talk as well -- and this will be my final question -- i want to understand the difference between an engine taking in a bird and either a composite material drone or a drone that's metal based. >> so i should clarify that engine ingestion is not my area of expertise but i've talked with some people and we don't really know. i was happy to hear the faa is pursuing that.

it probably has to do with the size of the drone, the components it's made out of, and so forth. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois. >> talking about engine digestion or indigestion. great question, mr. larson. thank you for being here. i apologize, multiple hearings today, so if i'm redundant, please forgive me. i have a concern, i represent central illinois, home to some of the manufacturers of our hobby type aircraft and uva technology and also home to many possible users of this technology for commercial use. a lot of discussion was on the

program being implemented and run through the faa and part of my concerns have to do with some previous hearings like this where we talked about the exemption process moving slowly to offer exemption to those who have applied. now that they've sped up, we've seen the older requests being limited versus some of the newer requests in what can be done with the technology that they've applied for the exemption for and, mr. whitaker, i appreciate that your process has evolved at the faa but i think there might be a concern where older applicants and older exemptions issued may have to have some of the

older applications to see if they need that same type of f x flexibili flexibility, and, if so, are you going to do that unilaterally or is that something that the previous applicants have to do? >> so, this is not a concern that i've heard expressed before but it sounds like a concern the newer exemptions have more flexibility that would be triggered by the current holders coming back for some adjustment to their 333 application. >> so they would have to come back personally to change the operational conditions? >> as opposed to us changing the conditions for them. i'll look at that and respond to your office. >> it is a concern to those in my district who have been possibly granted exemptions that may now be outdated. and i do believe and i hope you take this back that we need to have some flexibility in that

process because the technology has changed even over the time that this program was implemented, and the technology is being produced in my district will continue to evolve unless we stop it to evolve and allow it to grow into what i believe should be commercial usage and a much more flexible commercial usage for technology and to do it in a safe way. i think that can happen. while i have time left, i will not butcher your name like my colleague mr. larson didn't either since i wasn't here to get the correct pronunciation. i'll call you dr. k. again, too. >> that's just fine. >> can you give me an idea of how maybe transponder technology can be helpful in avoiding some of the collisions, the issues that i think the faa is facing and we are, too, as policy

makers? >> if unmanned aircraft are going to be flying at the level of transport aircraft or even up with general aviation aircraft, in order to be seen they need to have some kind of transponder. >> wouldn't it work at lower level flights like life flights? >> it could work as well. i'm not sure how many life flight helicopters have t-cast involved. but it's a possibility. the problem is that the cost of these transponders are pretty expensive. and they consume power and they're heavy. for a lot of these larger aircraft it makes sense, and should be absolutely required. but for smaller drones, maybe a couple pounds -- >> so the technology for lightweight transponder --

okay. and how do you pronounce your last name. >> it's kokandorfer. >> thank you. i yield back. >> i'll recognize myself for just a few moments. mr. whitaker, you talked about the difference between going after folks with serious penalties when they did not learn their lesson versus trying to train folks up. i'm thinking about the number of incursions on restricted airspace by licensed pilots, by pilots flying planes with transponders. i see those incursions into restricted airspace listed in the thousands. do you happen to know how many of those folks have faced serious penalties versus just trying to be trained up. >> you're talking about incursion between manned

aircraft? >> that's right. >> i don't have statistics on that. our compliance philosophy would largely be the same that we'd be focused on remediating the problem and making sure there's compliance as a first step before moving to enforcement. >> i'm told the maximum financial penalty for one of those restricted airspace incursions is $1,100. i think mr. micah from florida has legislation to increase that to $100,000. but i just want to contrast that for a moment with what we're talking about with unmanned vehicles today, captain. you're one of my bosses, so i take you at your word when you tell me how to solve problems. but i have heard a lot about d adding technology to these $55 drones to keep them out of restricted airspace, yet no one is makinging that same suggestion for $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 manned aircraft.

is the importance of keeping folks out of restricted airspace such that before we start talking about adding technology to 55 gallon drones we should be adding it to aircraft? >> it's a multilayer problem. it's not only the financial penalty, flying into restricted airspace will ultimately result in you losing your license to operate the aircraft, and tracking who is the operator of the unmanned aerial system is difficult. so that's where part of the conflict is. we have to look at it both. i don't know the numbers either, but i do know we have programs in the manned aircraft community such as asap where if you make a mistake in an aircraft, we're human, and we do make mistakes. you have a way of reporting it. that is gathered in a large database and we can do analysis on it. that, to my knowledge, doesn't

exist for the commercial operation of unmanned systems yet. i think it would be a good idea to look at it. >> having that reporting database might be more powerful than having some of the technical restrictions across the board? >> i think they're both important. to have the database of someone who can report i lost command of my vehicle for this amount of time and i think it was because of this, then we can look to mitigation for the problems that they experience in the future. >> dock are to, you suggested that one of the easy answers would be an altitude restriction. my guess is we're either going to have to change the strength or put an altimeter in every unmanned aircraft to make that effective. is that what you had in mind, a technology solution to create an altitude restriction not just a rule that then would be left up to individuals about whether they abided by it or not? >> i think something should be enabled by default. like i said, when you pull it

out from underneath the christmas tree a lot of people just try to see how high they can go. we really want to prevent things like that. it should be allowed to be overridden because the consumer drones are brought by legitimate operators like law enforcement and so forth. >> well, that was in fact the very first line of the captain's written testimony, this is an industry that has great benefit potential for americans for equality of life, for the safety of pilots and how to come together on that. i'll close with this and then i'll ask each one of you in the context of terrorism there are an unlimited number of ways to do us harm but a limited number of folks who wanted to do it in this area we're talking about today. unlimited number of ways that accidents can happen. a limited number of folks who are out there day in and day out

to violate the rules as the faa has indicated just this week. is that the challenge, doctor, not to find a one size fits all aircraft solution but to go after those folks who would intentionally violate the industry or regulatory standards? >> in my written statement i categorized the different kinds of users, so i worry a lot about the naive users and reckless users. i think that is a separate category. i would have to say there's relatively little we can do about that right now. >> mr. hanson, should we be focused on the naive users or the bad actors? >> i think intentional acts need to be dealt with and there are existing laws and sanctions that can be put in place to do that. the naive or uneducated community is one we need to focus on because we firmly believe the users are good

natured and conscientious individuals that just need the proper information. >> i thank you. if there are no further questions, then i thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and their indulgence today, and the committee stands adjourned. every weekend the c-span networks feature programs on politics, nonfiction books, and american history. saturday morning at 10:00 eastern on c-span marking the 20th anniversary of the million man march, live coverage of the justice or else gathering at the national mall with keynote speaker minister louis farrakhan. at 6:30 at the national press club retired neurosurgeon and gop presidential candidate ben carson discusses his book "a more perfect union" he wrote with his wife candy. we're live from new hampshire for our all-day coverage of the no labels problem solver convention in manchester including eight republican and democratic presidential candidates.

on c-span 2's book tv saturday at 1:00 p.m. eastern coverage of the 10th annual brooklyn book festival featuring msnbc's joanne reid, the history of corruption in america, and mona on why the middle east needs a sexual revolution. sunday night at 9:00 on book tv's afterwards, rm toer "meet the press" host and white house correspondent david gregory on his current book "how's your faith?" about faith and religion, interviewed by sally quinn. on american history tv on c-span 3 saturday night at 8:00 on lectures in history, san diego state university professor elizabeth cohn on alexander hamilton and his role in the creation of the federal government and belief to mediate between the states. and sunday afternoon at 4:00 on real america the 1982 u.s. information agency film on the first three years of the soviet union's war inbjh%ç afghanistan

alleged war crimes including the bombing of hospitals. get our complete weekend schedule at c-span.org. c-span has your coverage of the road to the white house 2016. where you'll find the candidates, the speeches, the debates, and, most importantly, your questions. this year we're taking our road to the white house coverage into classrooms across the country with giving students the opportunity to discuss what important issues they want to hear the most from the candidates. follow c-span student cam contest and road to the white house coverage 2016. online at c-span.org. next, baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings-blake talk ing about the riots in baltimore earlier this year and how city government handles community relations. she also discussed her work as

president of the u.s. conference of mayors. this is an hour. welcome to the national press club. my name is john hughes, i'm an editor for bloomberg first word, breaking news desk here in washington, and i am the president of the national press club. our speaker today is baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings-blake as the president of the u.s. conference of mayors she will discuss that group's agenda for the 2016 presidential candidates. but first, i want to introduce our distinguished head table. this includes club members as well as guests of the speaker. from the audience's right, jerrod rizzy, white house correspondent for sirius xm, wesley lowry for "the washington post," erica sutherland,

assistant professor at the school of communications at howard university. j.p. grant, president of grant capital management. skipping over our next guest for just a moment, kevin johnson, mayor of sacramento and former member of the nba phoenix suns. donna laje, breaking news editor for "usa today." she's a past president of the national press club and is the vice chair of the club's speaker's committee. skipping over our speaker for a moment, jonathan solante, the washington correspondent for nj advanced media, the star ledger. he's a former national press club president and he's the member of the national press club speaker's committee who organized today's event. thank you, jonathan. caliope, chief of staff for the mayor of baltimore.

bruce johnson, anchor reporter at wusa-tv. chris chambers, photographer of media studies at georgetown university. and a reporter at wnew-fm and the coach of the national press club softball team. [ laughter ] [ applause ] i also want to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow the action on twitter, use the #npclive. that's #npclive. 35 years ago today a telephone call was made from yankton, south dakota, to the national press club, and history was made. in a small room upstairs here at

the club c-span created the first regularly scheduled national tv call-in show, a tradition that continues today with the "washington journal" program. the press club today is placing that call, that historic call, on the wall outside of that small room upstairs. where the call was made so everyone will know the history of that press club. the man who took the phone call that day, well, he's brian lam, the founder of c-span. brian is a broadcast legend. he is a journalist, he's the past recipient of our highest honor, the fourth estate award and he's a personal hero of mine and i know so many others here.

we simply love brian. brian, could you stand and be recognized? [ applause ] our speaker, mayor stephanie rawlings-blake was thrust into the news earlier this year in a way that she wished would have never happened. in april an unarmed black man, freddie gray, died in police custody. this set off a series of urban disturbances in baltimore. at least 34 people arrested, six police officers were injured, and maryland's larry hogan called out the national guard. the small business administration estimated about 285 businesses were damaged at a

cost of $9 million. mayor rawlings-blake was forced to cope not only with the riots and their aftermath but the underlying problems that led to the disruption. elected at age 25 to the baltimore city council, she was the youngest person ever to ascend to that position. she later was council president before being sworn in as baltimore's 49th mayor in 2010. she announced in september she will not run for re-election. she said, quote, it was a very difficult decision but i knew i needed to spend time focused on the city's future not my own. mayor rawlings-blake is here today in her other capacity as president of the u.s. conference of mayors.

she will talk about the mayor's urban agenda, the issues they want the 2016 presidential candidates to discuss. let's give a warm national press club welcome to mayor stephanie rawlings-blake. [ applause ] good afternoon, everyone. thank you very much for the kind introduction and while you've given a very thorough and thoughtful introduction of the head table, i think the thing i would like you to know about k.g. is he's a former president of the u.s. conference of mayors, and i'm very grateful that you are here. now i can be mayor srb since he was mayor kj. i figure this i say it enough it

will stick like kj's sticks. either that or i'll have to learn to dunk. one of those things. i want to thank the national press club for giving me an opportunity to join you today to talk about a few things. both my role as mayor of the city of baltimore as well as my role president of the u.s. conference of mayors. i will do my best to cover both areas as well as give us some time for questions at the end and depending on what i see coming in as questions that will determine how long i go. as i was listening to the introduction, it reminded me so much of the country's current view of baltimore have been shaped by a few things. we know we have the challenge of

being shaped by excellent writing and acting in the hbo series "the wire," but we've also been shaped by the two weeks in april following the death of freddie guy and the unrest. and the tragic death of freddie gray -- uh-oh. do we have a phone that's on? the challenges of that tragedy are complex. we know it is a tragedy, the loss of any life anywhere to violence is distressing and it is distressing for baltimore on many levels. it was traumatic for residents, for police officers, for business owners. it is traumatic for the industries in baltimore that depend on the image of our city

because baltimore's much more than what was shown on some of the endless loops by our national media. truth be told, while in my introduction it was suggested that i was forced to confront these issues, that emerged subsequent to freddie gray's death, none of those issues were new to me nor was my work on those issues. i've been working on the issue of police community relations since i've been mayor and well before. as a city council person all of those years ago, i introduced legislation to address the issue of racial profiling. in baltimore city. i knew it was front and center as a part of the work i had to do as mayor. i was very, very pleased. in 2011 to reduce homicide to

the lowest in generations, more than 40 years. however, that same year when i was traveling from community association to community association to talk about the progress that we've made getting under 200 when i was growing up would have been to talk about it would have been laughable, the thought baltimore could get under 200 homicides so when we achieved that goal, i was very, very proud. but when i talked to residents during that time, what i learned through those conversations was as pleased as people were with the progress of whhomicides, th were equally frustrated with the treatment they were receiving by the police, by the activity that they were seeing from police. when i was mayor i dismantled the unit responsible for the misuse and treatment of baltimore city residents. i held public safety forums across the city throughout my time as mayor, particularly in the summer of 2014 to hear from

residents about these issues as we worked to reform the police department and that's why i launched the body armor task force. we need more accountability on the ground as well as more accountability in the policies surrounding the police department and that's why i went to annapolis to fight for changes in the state law on the law enforcement officers bill of rights. it was a lonely fight in january as i tried to convince legislators that we were living in a powder keg, that we had to deal with the issues that many people in our community felt that there was an uneven playing field, that police officers in our city and our state were held to a different standard after they'd been found guilty of a crime and that we had to start the process of reforming our police department across the board.

many have come to realize the wisdom of that argument and a willing to be a part of that solution. i wonder if those reforms could have started in january when during the session i was fighting for those reforms. and i knew that the reforms needed to happen within the department and the way we connected with communities and that's why i invited the department of justice cops program into baltimore for a collaborative review. i heard very loud and clear they wanted to be viewed as partners and not perpetrators and we needed help to get there. i asked for the department of justice cops office to help evaluate our community policing efforts to help us guide, create a pathway forward to stronger relationships. yes, we were seeing progress in reducing crime but we had a long way to go when it comes to

bettering the relationship between community and police. so despite the progress that we made it was clear the community was still on edge with respect to police relations. and in retrospect, what happened around the tragic death of freddie gray serves as a reminder to cities across the country about what can happen in their cities. when i've spoken to mayors across the country, virtually all of them have the sobering accepts that what happened in baltimore could have happened in their city as well. it serves as a reminder of so many things and it was clear to us as well as we believe we proepd for those things that the unrest and response was a stark reminder baltimore was not as prepared as we should have been and certainly could have been for those -- for the unrest. we're making significant

improvements when it comes to communication, when it comes to training and equipment. i don't think anyone would have expected the unrest to unfold in the way that it did, but what it did give us was an opportunity to strengthen response, training, and to be better prepared and i'm pleased we're seeing a lot of improvement in the way we've handled the potential unrest that has happened since. i'm grateful for the independent evaluations of the incident. before making changes, we're making changes as soon as we saw those problems come up. we made sure that -- i made sure the police department was led by someone that eliminated distractions away from our crime fighting. our police commissioner has

taken steps to make sure we are better prepared for what could be six challenging and separate criminal trials coming forward. i think i'm the only mayor in the country that's actually asked the attorney general to come in to do a patterns and practice investigation which will likely result in recommendations for even broader reforms. we've improved communications training and equipment already. so the unrest in baltimore created in baltimore and the aftermath points to deeper underlying issues, issues of lack of jobs. challenges with housing, education and disparities in opportunity. the crime surge in baltimore and cities across our country right now this spring and summer illustrates that as well. and if we are to succeed in

preventing future unrest we must attack these underlying issues. none of this was created overnight and it won't be solved overnight whether it's the breach in the relationship between the community and the police, whether it is abandoned housing, when you have years of neglect, years of abandonment, we know the fix will take years as well. to make progress we need all of the support of our partners to participate in the not for profit partners, the private sector, the state and federal government. i know it wants to step up for others as well and speaks to all of us, the mayors are hoping we will see from the 2016 presidential campaign, a conversation that speaks to real

solutions. this past week more than two dozen mayors of cities big and small gathered to discuss both our priorities as well as our strategies, fully understand that cities are the engines of our national economy and are at the center of every major issue. there are so many great economic and cultural things happening in our city of all sizes all over our country. we know the strength help to bring the national economy back from the recession and we also know that if we are going to continue to grow and be more successful as a country cities have to be at the center of the solution. we know too many people have been left out of the recovery since the great recession.

they lack opportunity. far too many americans in cities large and small continue to fear for her safety. they feel disconnected from the broader community. this is something that i'm especially aware of but it affects and concerns mayors, all of the mayors that convened last weekend. and as we confront challenges like these, our partnership with the federal government is threatened by the dysfunction in washington that no serious candidate for president and congress can or should allow to continue. gridlock strangles washington and the consequences of that gridlock are passed on to cities that's passed on to mayors. that gridlock is strangling the future of our country. major campaign posts like this come along once every four years and mayors are uniquely positioned to influence the national dialogue.

and as mayors, we have a very large bully pulpit and we can get our message out. we know that people are frustrated. this campaign has not been holy f ho wholy focused. we have to have a campaign focused on substance and things that can move our cities and our country forward. so we came together this past wek weekend. we will publish these priorities in a new document the mayor's compact for a better america, a 2016 call to action. and while the wording of the document is still being finalized based on intense conversation, that's code for -- what is that code for? intense conversation, i won't say argument.

intense or robust conversations that we had this past weekend, but we are reaching consensus on many of the critical areas that we want to see a part of the national campaign, a part of the national conversation, investing in our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our rail. investing in our water and sewer systems. focusing on educating and training a competitive workforce, strengthening the partner shship on homeland secuy and reforming our broken immigration system. we're going to focus on expanding clean energy use to grow our economy and to protect our climate and our environment. we're going to focus on investing in community development and affordable housing, encouraging pathways for access to entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation in our cities. improving access to health care particularly mental health care.

promote investment, advancing middle-class growth and reducing income equality. increasing the economic strength of metro economies through promotion of trades and exports and the attraction of international tourism. i realize that these are broad ideas, but underneath each one of these ideas lie the future of our country. and as we work through the final wording on all of these issues, i know that there won't be total consensus while we have a great track record of working across the aisle in the u.s. conference of mayors, even all the democrats don't agree on everything and the republicans don't agree on everything, so we know that there won't be total consensus, but what you will see is mayors speaking in a unified voice about what's important to our country.

i know we can find democratic mayors who will take these for president and that republican mayors will be willing to address these issues with the republican candidates and there will be issues we'll work on together regardless of who gets elected as president or whatever the makeup of the next congress will be because there's one thing that we have a track record of and that's working together. we are a bipartisan group of mayors who know how to put ideology aside to focus on things that matter most to american families because our jobs demand results. we can't have ideological conversations about how we're going to fix potholes or collect trash. people just want it done. mayors have to get things done. we believe washington could learn something from us.

and as we define our federal priorities we know mayors have never been the type to wait for others to help. mayors have best practices on each of these issues that we're putting forth in our compact. we're not asking any of the candidates to do anything we're not willing to do ourselves. we must continue to share innovations with each other and with our broader community. so that we can maximize our impact with or without federal support. i want to thank you again for joining you today. i want to thank my baltimore contingency we wanted to make sure i had a nice, friendly audience down here in d.c. i'm pleased to have so many friends from baltimore who have traveled with me. i look forward to answering what i've already seen will be thoughtful and interesting questions, whether they're about

baltimore, the u.s. conference of mayors, or even as my role as secretary of the dmc i look forward to your questions. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you so much, mayor. as you suggest, many great questions have come in. in an era when congressional republicans won't even fund crumbling road in their home towns, how do you expect any support for an urban democratic agenda? >> i think it's a mistake to read urban and democratic as synonymous. we have many mayors across this country, republican mayors, that are fighting for those same infrastructure dollars. republican roads are crumbling just like democratic roads, and

we need a solution. i think when -- and, again, this is why this election is so important. when we let the debate be around what somebody's face looks like or, you know, whether somebody has low energy or whatever -- i don't want to use a bad word but that kind of stuff misses the mark. we have families that are hurting. and when you talk about wanting to push our economy forward and create jobs, when you're fixing a bridge in baltimore, you can't export those to china. that happens in baltimore. when you're fixing roads, when you're fixing rails in philadelphia, that work has to stay there. so we need our republican congress to understand that they're not being patriotic when they're holding up these projects for moving forward. when they refuse to fund and

refusing to support america and the people that they've pledged to serve. >> you mentioned hope for a substantive debate on poverty and crime issues from the 2016 presidential campaign. what have you heard so far that heartens you? what have you heard so far that's disappointed you most? >> so i'll take off my nonpartisan conference of mayors hat and put on my very partisan secretary of the dnc hat. the one thing i can say about the debates i've seen from the democratic candidates or the conversations, it's been about real things that matter to families whether it's the fight to improve, increase minimum wage, or whether our efforts to make sure that more americans have access to quality health care, these are the things that matter to people at home. these are the things that connect. these are the things that will

hopefully re-engage a population that i think is getting growing in their frustration around what they're seeing at the national level when it comes to politics. i would be very, very embarrassed if someone who had no concept of our country and what we stand for and politics had only one opportunity to get a sense of what we stand for when it comes to campaigning and that was the republican debates on tv. if that was someone's only -- that they only had that experience to judge our country, i would be embarrassed. i think we're better than that. and we should hold all of our national leaders to be better than that. there are too many things that are important to families that aren't getting addressed and, you know, we're having

personality conflicts at a time where our country can afford to have that the least. >> this questioner notes that mayors off focus on local solutions to big problems, but what issues require national solutions? can gun control and police reform be responsibly conducted in a national patchwork? >> so just in the question, when you talk about gun control and a patchwork approach, the question answered itself. you can't have a patchwork approach to gun control. right now, not too far from here, mayors from across the country are meeting with the department of justice. police chiefs are meeting to talk about the surge in violence that we have seen across the country this summer. and the mayors are speaking with one voice about what's needed. and that's better support from our federal -- our criminal justice partners.

we need to do whatever we can to get guns out of the hands of people who have no respect for their lives or the lives of other members of the community. we need to do more to strengthen the laws and the enforcement when it comes to people suffering from mental illness having access to guns. those are the conversations that we're having, because in our cities, we -- people are dieing every single day while the nra and congress has debates. people are dieing. and we know that we can't wait on the lobbyists to miss a meeting or to not make a phone call. we have to get stuff done. and we're looking for the department of justice and our federal law enforcement partners to step up and to fill that gap until we can get some common sense gun reform in our country.

>> what can mayors do to combat the rising homicide rate that's happening in so many cities across the country, and including baltimore, and here in washington, d.c. as well? what can be done to stem it? >> so in baltimore, we've -- we had a very, very rough july. august was better than july. september was better than august. but we're still suffering from very high rates of violent crime. one of the things that we have seen and why i keep talking about the partnership with federal law enforcement is our work embedding federal agents in the police department, increasing the partnership between the u.s. attorney's office, our state's attorney's office as well as the baltimore city police department. we're talking right now, the conversation is happening about what happens when atf agents are

embedded in crime labs and have the ability to give almost in real time data around guns that are used on the streets. this used to take upwards of six months to get the information back. and if you are a mayor, that's useless. you might as well never tell me where the gun is coming from if you are going to tell me six months from now. anything we can do to better share data and information, it will help us to be more nimble and to be more responsive to crime. and i think that that partnership has been responsible for the improvements that we have seen over the summer. but there's still a long way to go. >> what are the one or two things you would put at the top of the list in terms of what other mayors in the nation should learn from your experience following freddie gray's death? in other words, what are the one or two things you would cite to them as things to do to prepare,

to be ready? >> to prepare to be ready? i would say that what mayors are learning, not just looking at what happened in baltimore but the unrest, the riots we have seen in other places, is that the protests and the riots of today are substantially different than what happened in the '60s. and in those ways that they are different, we need to prepare differently. and i've been pleased that we have had the lessons learned. helped prepare not just baltimore's police department but police departments throughout the country that understand that the tactics are different and the strategies for how we deal with them are different. our after action work i think will be helpful as we move forward, as i mentioned, with the six trials of the officers that are coming up. but also they're helpful in other cities.

i mean, the mayors across the country have watched the work i have done pushing for reform in the police department. mayors across the country have watched me fight for a level -- a more level playing field, holding officers that have been accused or found guilty of wrongdoing accountable. they have watched the work that we have done trying to repair the breach between the community and the police. and they have also seen in spite of all of those efforts, we still had riots. we still had the unrest and the protests. so they're taking what happened in baltimore very seriously. so the lessons would be, you know, to take a look at what we have done subsequent to the unrest with the improved training, the better communication protocols as well as equipment and to understand that it's never enough. the work to build relationship,

it's never over. it's not something that you can say, okay, i had a forum that i went to a community meeting, you are done. it's constant relationship building work. i say all the time in community association meetings that the police and the community are married. it can be a healthy marriage or it can be a bad marriage. but we're in this together. there's no way that the community can do it alone. and there's certainly no way that the police can do it alone. we for better or worse, we're -- we are stuck together. and it's up to us to decide if we're going to have a healthy relationship or we are going to allow us to have an unhealthy relationship. i know plenty of people married for 30 years, haven't spoken in 20. you know? it can happen. right? and it happens day after day of just not talking. it happens day after day of not attending to the relationship.

so when we have these -- when i have public safety forums, it's me working to attend to that relationship. one of my colleagues in government says you don't ask the doctor if the medicine is working, you ask the patient. we have to stay in communication. sometimes it's stuff you want to hear. sometimes it's not. but you have to deal with all of it. because we cannot think that the relationship is going to get better on its own. it's going to get better because we -- the police make the decision to be in this relationship, repairing work, and the community. and that's why the partnership with the department of justice is so powerful for me because they get it. they have done it before. they have worked communities through these types of problems. and i'm encouraged by what i'm seeing. and i'm encouraged that over these next i think 13, 14 months of my term that we are going to get some significant progress.

>> the department of justice announced that it will begin keeping more statistics on those killed by police. how important is transparency regarding police killings to developing positive relationships that you are talking about between the police and the communities? >> i think it's important to have the transparency around police killing but police interaction, which is why i've been working hard in baltimore to make sure that we implement a police body camera -- body worn camera program that works and something that the community can have faith in. i want us to attend to those issues around privacy. what happens when a police officer goes into the house of someone who is called because of domestic violence issues? do you turn the camera off? do you not turn the camera off? what happened to that woman if she's victimized again because once it's filmed, it's part of the public report? those types of issues we have to grapple with in order to get it right. how do we maintain the -- not

the film but the video? who has access to it and all of those things? i think by making sure that we get this right, we will have the transparency -- yes, around -- in custody deaths or police involved shootings but around the day to day interaction of the police with theíx#g communi which i think will be helpful. >> this questioner says the police commissioner said he was stunned by the level of poverty in baltimore and in part attributed that to crime. why hasn't more been done to address poverty in baltimore? what can be done at the city level? >> you know, poverty is a problem that exists in baltimore and cities around this country. it is not just -- not even an american problem, it's a global problem. i don't know of a city that solved the issue of poverty.

while many work to eradicate the disparities in income, raise your hand if you know the city that's fixed this problem. it is it an intractable problem that i think if you are looking -- if a cure to it is success, we're never going to be successful. but i think the work that we're doing every single day to improve our schools -- i'm standing here next to one of the biggest advocates in the country for excellence in education. when we provide excellence in education, we're creating pathways out of poverty. my dad grew up in the projects. and he made it very, very clear to us growing up that education was his key out of poverty. and he wanted us to understand that education would be our key to whatever we wanted to do in life. you know, my dad was an elected official. my mom was a pediatrician.

we had access to a lot. but i said if jordache had encyclopedias, we would have had them. there was no designer jeans. there was no -- unless our grandparents got them. they wanted us focused on our education. we had the same black and white tv. you know what i'm talking about. old-school, turn it with the pliers. their resources were going to making sure that their children were educated. right? so education is a key. focus on creating jobs. that's why it frustrates me so when we have -- we have made the infrastructure investment a partisan issue. those are jobs that could help bring people out of poverty today if those resources were put there. so i think that the work to

eradicate poverty is ongoing work. it's work that i think will continue to the end of our time. i think that there's a way to continue to make progress. and i'm pleased to say that there are many mayors that are doing a lot of good work making progress on this very, very challenging issue. is it perfect? no. but we have mayors, including the work that i have done in baltimore, that are fighting for progress every day. >> mentioned in the introduction that you have said you are not running for re-election. you have a full -- more than a full year in office yet. how has your announcement affected your ability to work in the city? has it helped or hindered? sometimes a lame duck is limiting. but other times, as john boehner is showing, he seems to feel freed up. so how is your announcement

affecting your work going forward? >> i will say that i'm very focused on the work at hand. you know, fighting for progress every single day. while i've made it clear i'm not seeking re-election, i've also made it clear to everyone that works with me and for me that that doesn't mean we're on vacation. that means that there's a lot of serious work that needs to be done. and i think boehner, obama, you can go down the history of people who have been where i am and see that they are great examples of leaders running up to the end of their term who have been unfiltered, unchained, unrestricted. for me, i have the benefit of every single thing i do not being viewed through the lens of campaigning or politics. and i have the freedom of being able to be more, i think,

intentional when i'm talking about those things as well. when i see that politics is standing in the way of progress. so i am determined that these -- this more than a year that i have left on my term will be made in every single day pushing for progress for baltimore's families. i have no doubt that we're going to continue to make progress. >> this questioner wants you to put on your dnc hat. they wonder, should there be more sanctioned debates? why or why not? >> it's interesting for me what things kind of get traction and what don't. this notion of more debates or not, you know, i'm -- i won't really weigh in on that except to say that we have the same number of debates this time as we did the last time we had a contested democratic primary.

so then it leads me to the question -- it was not -- there wasn't an issue the last time, the number of debates seemed to be fully satisfactory. there wasn't this push to have more. then comes, what's different this time? is it that we have some candidates that have -- that have a lot of resources and that are highly ranked in the polls and some that aren't? what are those issues that created this debate controversy? so i know that the -- our chair is working with the leadership of the dnc to look at that issue. and i'm sure that if there's a consensus that we need more debates, i'm sure that that will happen. i'm just -- i still have this question of, you know, why when

you have a contested primary and a contested primary, why this time the number of debates that we have is seen as insufficient. >> can you tell us who you are supporting in your dnc do you have to wait until there's a nominee? how does that work? >> the office of the dnc have -- we have this neutrality provision that we can't participate in the presidential primary. so i get to ignore that question. >> here is a question at the intersection of presidential politics and local issues. are you concerned that any of the presidential candidates may try to limit or eliminate the municipal bond tax exemption? what case are you making to the candidates or to congress to preserve the exemption? >> yeah. that's one of the things when i talk about infrastructure investment, i try not to get too

upset about it. it frustrates me. that issue frustrates me as well. i don't know who is telling anybody that we should be balancing the budget on the backs of american cities. who is telling anybody that it makes sense to restrict the capacity of cities to make significant investments? it doesn't make sense. so we have a group of mayors that have taken on this campaign. and we will continue to be aggressive in making sure that the m municipal bonds are protected. >> this is a little early, iage knowledg acknowledge, with a full year left. what would you say is your biggest regret and what is your biggest accomplishment? >> biggest regret, i don't know. i always feel like there's always going to be opportunity.

i have a bigger regret than any i have had to date. i will say -- i can say the thing that -- one of the things that i felt the most proud about is the work that we have done when it comes to school construction and fighting for more than a billion dollars to come to baltimore. baltimore has the oldest schools -- school facilities in the state. and when i toured our schools, it was embarrassing and it was -- you know, to see some of the classrooms with the ceiling tiles coming down, the windows were fogged. you know that kids are cold when they should be hot and hot when they should be cold. you can't drink from the water fountains. i always would joke that the boys bathrooms you wouldn't send your mother-in-law into except somebody told my mother-in-law. it was deplorable.

deplorable. so when we were able to bring that level of investment -- i don't know of another city in the country that has that level of investment going on in capital improvements, building new schools. when the governor signed that piece of legislation, there was a sense of calm that i had that i didn't -- i wasn't expecting. and that calm came from the fact that i knew that if god -- it was god's will that i died that day that i was a part of something that would transform my city in positive ways for generations to come. so i said, as far as biggest accomplishments, i'm really, really grateful to have been mayor at a time that we could do something huge like that, that i know that far after i'm gone will still have changed the trajectory of baltimore's future.

>> of course, this is a question along the same lines. you have a year left. how do you see yourself being involved publically after you are done being mayor of baltimore? what kind of work do you see yourself getting involved in? >> you know, i guess i should be thinking about that more, because i get that question every single day. but i have so much that we're doing in the city. i'm sitting here looking at my team from housing. you know, we're rocking when it comes to our blight elimination. this is an issue that many cities don't even attempt because the problem of blight and vacant housing has piled up for so long. many have given up because the challenge is so big. local foundation just took a look at our blight elimination plan, which is called have a

kan vacants to value which is having our five-year anniversary. you are welcome to come to baltimore for a summit november 18 and 19. they said it's the most comprehensive blight elimination plan that the city has seen in more than 40 years. that's big stuff. to be able to continue that work every day to transform neighborhoods -- when i -- i noticed since the death of freddie gray and the nation'size have been fixed on baltimore and some of baltimore's neighborhoods and the challenges. you hear from people, my god, there's so much abandoned property and there's so much neglect. absolutely. and it didn't get that way overnight. we have been -- the frustrations that we have seen in the communities because we have been living with this for decades. the difference is now there's hope that something better is coming. because we have had fits and

starts of blight elimination plans that didn't give hope that there was real change coming. but with vacants to value we have seen our efforts, our market driven efforts transform neighborhoods. when you can do that, when you can look in the face of someone who has -- is looking at green space instead of trees coming up through vacant properties and see the fact that they -- it's like they say that we know that you see us. and that better is possible and better is coming. that's the kind of stuff that is going to -- that i'm going to focus on for these -- i'm glad i got a head nod from my housing team, that i'm going to focus on. it is important work to bring hope to our communities. and we do that when we focus on making sure that government does what it is supposed to do for the citizens that we serve. >> this is a question in many

respects that pulls together everything we have been talking about for the last hour. this questioner says, some would argue that without the unrest and protests experienced in places like ferguson and baltimore, none of these issues that you mention would be even on the table for discussion. how would you suggest that citizens who feel their interests are ignored get their concerns on the national agenda? >> i think that might be true at a national level. but those issues, the issues of police brutality, they weren't new to me. we have been able to drive down the number of excessive force complaints. we have been able to drive down discourtesy complaints. and lawsuits that have been brought against the city, because we have been focused on improving the culture at the police department and confronting that culture in the police department. so locally, while i think the

nation's eye has been turned to baltimore in the wake of the freddie gray -- the death of freddie gray, this is something that is not new to me. i think people are acting brand new about it now that -- some people feel that they are jumping on the bandwagon now. like i said when i was in annapolis fighting for reform for the law enforcement officers bill of rights, i think it's great that they want to have committee hearings and task force. would have been lovely if they would have done that in january when we could have been shown the public that we were un -- that we were willing to confront the police lobby, the police union and fight for progress and reform. >> we are leaving this program for the start of a hearing on deep space exploration. two former nasa scientists will talk about a planned mission to mars and other distant destinations. this is live coverage on c-span3.

subcommittee on space will come to order, please. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recesses at any time. welcome to today's hearing entitled deep space exploration, examining the impact of the president's budget. i recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. last week was an amazing time for the space community. a major hollywood film about the exploration of mars debuted within days of nasa announcing a significant scientific discovery, liquid water on mars. the coincidence of these two events garnered the public's attention and rightly so. rarely does popular culture and science align in such a fashion. the attention also prompted obvious questions from the public such as, how will discovering water on mars impact

future exploration? are we really going to mars? and how and when are we going to get there? these are all questions that the general public may not have the answers to, but thankfully, nasa does. because of bipartisan direction and investments made by congress, we are well on our way to mars. we're building the most powerful rocket built to launch large payloads with decreased risk to overall misses. we're building the orion capsule so our astronauts can travel into deep space. we're upgrading ground system is. nasa has tested the engines and five segment boosters. they have launched an uncrewed version of orion. the kennedy space center is

undergoing upgrades. there's more that needs to be done if the united states plans on launching a mission to mars. we need to build a habitat module, advanced in space p propulsi propulsion. we don't have to develop all of this at once. we can develop them incrementally over time. there are potential opportunities for international and commercial partnerships. the first step on the journey to mars, however, begins with the development of sls, orion and the related ground systems. unfortunately, congress' support has not been matched by the administration. in 2010, the president signed the nasa authorization act of 2010 into law, directing nasa to develop the sls and orion systems. this piece of legislation was the product of a democratically

controlled house and senate that passed with 185 democrats and 119 republicans. demonstrating overwhelming bipartisanship. these programs are critical for the journey to mars. and yet since 2010, the administration has attempted to cut their funding each and every year. this year alone, the president's budget request contains a cut of $343.5 million for sls and a cut of $104 million for orion. all told, the president's budget has requested nearly half a billion dollars in cuts to these programs this fiscal year. this committee's nasa authorization act for 2016 and 2017 fully rejects these proposed cuts. and both the house and senate appropriations committees have approved bills to do the same. even though congress consistently rejects the

administration's proposed cuts year after year, the proposed cuts still have a negative affect on the programs. the annual budget uncertainty that the administration perpetuates impairs nasa's ability to manage the program efficiently on behalf of the taxpayer. at the same time that the administration has been strangling these programs, the n nasa work force has been trying to deep the programs moving by setting up alternative cost and schedule commitments called management agreements. the agreements are separate from the official commitments. while it is promising that nasa is trying to make the best out of a poor situation, having multiple plans could potentially lead to confusion and inefficiencies. fortunately, sls and orion have been successful in spite of the external challenges placed on the programs. this is largely thanks to the

supremely professional work force at nasa and the contrac r contractors. to all the hard working men and women who are advancing the development of these programs, please know that your hard work is very much appreciated. your work on these programs will inspire the next generation of explorers, maintain u.s. leadership globally and chart new courses for humanity. thank you for all that you do. you are the best that this nation has to offer. my hope is that folks across the administration will reverse course and begin to support the sls and orion programs and the work force that makes them possible with the funding necessary to continue their success. sls and orion are crucial for deep space exploration. the first steps to mars. we have two missile men before us today who are directly involved in the management of the human exploration program while they were at nasa.

i look forward to hearing about how we can all ensure the success of our nation's human exploration program. i now recognize the ranking member, the woman from maryland, for an opening statement. >> good morning and thank you, mr. chairman. i want to welcome back our two witnesses today. i say back because both of you have appeared before a subcommittee previously as former leader of nasa's human exploration programs. i appreciate your past public service as well as your willingness to testify here today. mr. chairman, last december millions of people in america and around the world tasted the feature when nasa conducted the exploration flight test in which the orion vehicle traveled farther into space than any vehicle since the apollo era. that future is an exciting one that includes sending humans to the surface of mars. mars is the goal that we

established in our bipartisan house past overwhelmingly passed act of 2015. we sent it over to the senate. it is the consensus goal for human space exploration of a distinguished national academies panel that recently examined u.s. human space exploration. so it's quite fitting, mr. chairman, that we follow up on our subcommittee's review of the space launch system and orion crew vehicle programs held last december, just after the ft-1 flight test, and see where the programs stand now. by any measure, the progress on sls and orion is visible and tangible. nasa and its contractors deserve credit for the many accomplishments achieved to today. tests of the solid rocket booster engines and the rs-25 main engine are reviving and modernizing the propulsion activities that brought us through the successful shuttle era.

elements of the crew vehicle that return astronauts to space are being fabricated. just a few weeks ago, the orion program was approved to transition from formulation into development. a major milestone known as key decision point c or kdpc. this hearing should provide an opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the orion review and clarify any questions, including the perception by some of a two-year "slip" to the first crude flight test known as exploration mission two or em-2. however, i would note that the members of the panel were actually not involved in the recent review. only nasa can address questions regarding the kdbc -- i can't even say that. kdpc milestone discuss the achievements to today.

that's why, mr. chairman, i'm quite puzzled that nasa was not initially invited to testify and why i extended an invitation to the administrator of nasa's human exploration and operations missions director to serve as a witness. unfortunately, the association -- associated administrators international travel schedule precluded his ability to appear this morning. so i hope, mr. chairman, that we will give nasa the opportunity in another hearing to provide the details on the sls and orion programs that this subcommittee needs to hear. the fact is that ensuring that sls and orion make maximum progress in this environment of budgetary uncertainty is a job for both the administration and for congress. just as a side note, i would say the budget caps known as the sequester give rise to the inability for us to get a multi-year bipartisan

authorization and appropriation to the president's desk as the evidence of our support for sls and orion and for the journey to mars. we have to lift those budget caps to accomplish the goals that we have set out for the agency and for its contractors. ensuring that sls and orion make maximum progress is for the administration and for congress. achieving the goals for sending humans to deep space requires a joint commitment on the part of congress and on the part of the administration. mars is truly a worthy -- a goal that's worthy of this great nation. i look forward to working with you, mr. chairman, to enable nasa's continued progress toward that goal. and before i yield i want to welcome an intern for a month in my office who is at the madera school. we share interns with them every

year. two of them here today are very interested in space. so we welcome them. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. i now recognize the chairman of the full committee, the gentlemen from texas, mr. smith. >> thank you, mr. chairman. at a fundamental level, space exploration, the mission of nasa, is about inspiration. 24 inspir rags fuels our desire to push the boundaries of what is possible and to reach beyond our own planet. the american people are fascinated with space exploration. last week the discovery that water sometimes flows on mars' surface made headlines. the latest space film sparked questions about when nasa will send astronauts to mars. today's hearing seeks to answer those questions and examine the effect of the president's budget on our exploration programs. in fiscal year 2016 budget proposal, the obama

administration proposed a cut of over $440 million from the programs that will take us to mars. the space launch system and orion crew vehicle. the president has tried to cut it every year since he took office. but there should be no misunderstanding, there is bipartisan support within congress for sls and the orion crew vehicle. this committee restored the proposed cuts in our authorization bill. the house and senate appropriations committees restored these funds and supported sls and orion at the levels necessary to keep their development on track. yet the administration continues to try to strangle these programs. nasa recently announced that the first crewed mission for sls and orion was delayed by two years because the administration would not allow nasa to budget for the programs. the administration regularly cuts sls and orion and congress

continues to restore its cuts. the budget instability caused by the administration makes it hard for nasa to plan and execute these critical programs. the fact that nasa can still maintain these earlier dates in the face of administration opposition is a testament to the engenuity, resolve and professionalism. nasa work force. the obama administration cannot continue to claim that it prioritizes mars exploration if it refuses to prioritize and support the programs that will get us there. the sls and orion programs represent what is most impressive about the american spirit, our desire to explore. the technologies that are developed for these programs exemplify our greatest breakthroughs and demonstrate american engenuity. the apollo program demonstrated we could reach the moon. orion and sls will rekindle the american spirit of discovery and

advanced humanity farther in space than ever before. congress will continue to ensure that these national priorities receive the funding that they need to stay on schedule and on budget. great nations do great things. and fortune favors the bold. the next several years will dern whether american astronauts will be the first to plant a flag on mars. we want them to have arrived there on board an orion crew vehicle propelled by the space laun launch. i want to comment on the handout called nasa's journey to mars by the administration. regrettably, however, this proposal contains no budget. it contains no schedule, no deadlines. it's just some real pretty photographs and some nice words. that is not going to do it. that is not going to get us to

mars. this sounds good, but it's actually a journey to nowhere until we have that budget and we have the schedule and we have the deadlines. and i hope the administration will change its posture and decide in the future that it is actually going to support sls and orion and keep them on schedule. because their proposals to cut every single year is not helping us achieve the great goals that most americans want to achieve in space. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i now recognize a -- the ranking member of the full committee, the gentle woman from texas. >> thank you, very much, mr. chairman. good morning. let me welcome our witnesses. i look forward to your testimony. in view of the uncertainties in today's schedule, i will be brief in my remarks so that we can have enough time to have a

good discussion. this committee has long supported a strong human space flight exploration program for the nation. i'm excited about the prospect of america leading an international team to the surface of mars. not too many years from now. and i hope that our two witnesses who have significant previous experience in nasa's human exploration program will help us better understand the challenges nasa faces in realizing the goal. nasa has just released its updated journey to mars report. and i hope that we will invite nasa to come before this committee to discuss it. as ms. edwards notes, nasa should be at the table today for this hearing. getting to mars will be very challenging. we all know that. and we know that it will take adequate funding if we are to get there efficiently and safely. i have made no secret of my

willingness to invest in nasa. and this committee has that authority. all we have to do is authorize it. in its human exploration, aeronautics, science and technology programs, because it is an investment, not just spending, an investment that will pay long lasting dividends to this nation as it has in the past. but it's not just a question of more money. it's giving nasa more predictability as to when the money will show up. if this congress is looking for republican reasons why it faces potential delays, we need to look no further than ourselves on this committee. too many times in recent years nasa has had no idea when it would actually get an appropriation, when it would actually be reauthorized, whether that appropriation would be for more than a few months or whether it may even have to

suspend their work due to government shutdown. that is no way that a government should treat a premiere program and a premiere r and d enterprise to operate. if we are going to ask nasa and its contractors to carry out the extremely challenging job of getting america to mars, this congress is going to have to do its job as well. so i thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. i wait to hear what you are going to authorize for this mission. thank you. >> thank you, ms. johnson. let me introduce our witnesses now. first we have mr. douglas cook will be testifying. the owner of cook concepts and solutions. a former associate administration of exploration systems at nasa. this division is responsible for

building orion and sls, the vehicles that will take humans to deep spags destinations, including mars. mr. cook is the recipient of several awards including the presidential distinguished rank award and presidential marry tore us rank award. he has over 40 years of experience in human space flight. he received his bachelor's in aerospace engineering from texas a & m university and we're very happy to have him here today. thank you, mr. cook. our second witness is mr. daniel dunbacher. he is a professor at purdue. he served as deputy associate administrator in the exploration systems development division at nasa. he has receive the presidential rank award for marry tore us service and the national -- nasa exceptional achievement medal. prior to his 35-year career with nasa, he earned his bachelor's

degree in mechanical engineering from purdue university and a master's in business administration from the university of alabama. he is also a graduate of the senior managers and government study program at harvard university. i now recognize mr. cooke for five minutes to present his testimony. if you could start over and turn on your mike. >> i apologize. i want to thank chairman babin, ranking member edwards and from the full committee chairman smith and ranking member johnson and members of this committee for this opportunity. my interest in human exploration of space has been a primary focus of my life and career since the flights of the mercury

astronauts. the success is of important to me and i believe to everyone. i applaud your bipartisan support and the people at nasa and an industry who work every day to make these and other nasa programs successful. the important questions you are asking specifically address deep space exploration. so that's the part of the budget i will address. the most challenging aspect of managing these programs is due to constrained budgets and unplanned changes to operating budgets. the technical challenges and disparity between the president's budget request and budgets passed by congress for exploration vehicles to space launch system orion and ground systems causes problems in managing and executing the programs. it causes issues in perception of program health. to advance the programs, congress has consistently passed budgets each year that are significantly greater than the pbr. it has been clear congress

intends to follow through with this funding. yet the administration asks for less. nasa managers are required to plan the complex development schedules to the pbr over the five-year runout. nasa's fixed costs are included and a higher percentage of a lower pbr budget. this leaves less money for progress. constrained budgets limit what work can be accomplished more efficiently in parallel it moves stated flight dates later than if they planned a congressional budget run out. contracts are negotiated with companies for content and schedule. flight dates and expectations are set. when there are major policy or priority shifts, disruptions to the project funding, these plans have to be changed. schedules are renegotiated. as an example, the 2016 president's request for sls, orion and ground systems is

$2.86 billion. under current spending under the resolution, nasa should be spendic

reliable. i believe this disparity in policy priorities has remained since the cancellation of constellation program. i was asked to comment on the use of the joint confident level, used in the milestone for sls last year and the same milestone for orion this year. the milestones led to nasa announcement of delays for sls of one year and two years in the first group flight. the jcl is a good analysis for evaluation of the uncertainties in the programs that affect budget and schedule. an accurate jcl collection require requires resources. it provides a valuable function rigorous inspection program. from my experience in implementing it, i believe it has little utility for predicting schedule milestones in this budget environment when planning to the president's budget request rather than actual congressional appropriated budgets. jcl outcomes become a

self-fulfilling prophecy. because actual budget are higher year to year, nasa tries to maintain earlier planning dates and is trying to mitigate the confusion. but could be more efficient if the source of confusion were not there. there are significant differences in budget and oversight practices between the commercial cargo and crew and the traditional exploration programs. with the experience gained, best practices should be established for both while preserving safety and accountability. sls and orion are first critical developments in our human exemployer rags of the solar system. they are making great progress in spite of the burdens. i want to thank the committee and your staff again for your continued support of nasa and human space flight. i have submitted further detail in my written testimony and welcome your questions. >> we appreciate it. i now recognize mr. dumbacher for five minutes to present his testimony. >> chairman babin and members of the commune, thaity, thanks for

ability to speak to you. on this day in 1984, the first u.s. woman saw the earth from that unique vantage point. it is an honor for me to represent purdue, a public land grant university educating next generation of explorers. i find the students of today to be part of a curious, passionate and debt indicated generation. these young voters are ready to build and create a better future for all of us. and as a former nasa team member, i want to express my utmost respect for the nasa industry team's accomplishments in the current environment. this team is working on a scale larger than apollo with a constrained budget. like today's student, their enthusiasm and dedication to the mission is evident every day and sets the leadership example. the nasa 2015 authorization act and the 2014 pathways to exploration report from the national research council

provide a sound, ilusive basis for space exploration goals and objectives that should be funded. i believe we are at a critical juncture in our efforts. as we continue missions to extend our preps into the solar system, we must build the foundational capabilities for humans to go onward. the space launch system and orion. we must use technological achievement, the international space station, as a test bid and valuable research facility. we had you smust see the initiaf space travel. given the continuous policy debates, the nasa industry team is making great progress. the team is dedicated to building all systems as safely as possible as soon as possible and as cost efficiently as possible. the space launch system has success it wifully passed revie. the orion capsule completed its

first test last december and is proceeding to systems testing. the european service module is on track for the first flight and launch infrastructure is on schedule. keeping the critical programs on schedule is essential for two reasons. one, the u.s. needs to continue to maintain our global leadership in space. we must leave this legacy of leadership for the next generation. two, schedule equals cost. maintaining funding stability and therefore schedule is essential to minimizing the cost of the programs. nasa's leadership, plans and management implementation reflects the need for cost efficiency with reduced incite and management overhead all while maintaining and improving crew safety over previous systems. budget stability is the best major issue in executing these programs. all players in the appropriations process have a stake in maintaining the stability. it has two components. first, the annual debate between

the executive branch request and congressional appropriations is an important factor that drives inefficiency. the second aspect of budget stability is the recent history at the national budget level of continuing resolutions and government shutdowns. both components lead to cost and schedule impacts to the programs via continuous replanning, confusion across the entire team and loss of team focus. nasa manages risk, cost and schedule through contractor interaction, periodic almost program reviews with details discussed of technical progress, issues and risks. the joint confidence level is a model risk based approach to assess potential technology -- technical uncertainties and their possible sensitivities. this is proven to be successful in robotic mission programs but is more difficult for the large, longer-term programs such as the space launch system and orion. in summary, the biggest challenge in developing the

space launch system, orion, the launch sport infrastructure and commercial crew is budget stability, not the technical issues. managing the programs efficiently and effectively is the result of the dedicated nasa industry team across this country and the international partners. the government funded lewis and clark expedition helped open rail transportation and other opportunities to the west coast. today, nasa is opening the frontier of space and helping to build the space economy. thank you for your time and attention. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. we appreciate your testimony. i now recognize myself for five minutes. i presume these will be for both of you guys, if that's okay. when the administration slipped

the recent orion launch schedule, nasa was quick to point out they were still planning the original launch day. if nasa program managers believe the earlier launch readiness date could be kept on track with historical congressional appropriations, then why doesn't the agency commit to those earlier dates to begin with? mr. cooke, how about you first? >> i understand what you are asking. within the agency and within the administration, nasa plans to the president's budget request, which is the administration policy. and that's where the confusion comes in when the congressional budgets are higher. naturally, people in these programs are wanting to progress. they are wanting to plan as much

work into the funding they get. and so the appropriated budgets are utilized. and they make as much progress as they can. however, however, if planning in out years to the president's budget request, if they're doing that, then at some point it becomes self-fulfilling as the long-lead can't be planned on, bought, or paid down. so gradually the advanced planning overtakes what the schedule they might have held. >> okay. and how about, you mr. dunnbacher. >> i agree with everything that mr. cooke just said. i think it's clear from an implementation perspective that when we try to put the bust plan

together that we can and we are continuously working in my tenure we are continuously dealing with a budget request as necessary by policy in the administration and also having to recognize that the appropriations process was probably going to change that number and increase it, that we also had to develop another set of plans to be prepared for the appropriations process. that was standard operating procedure. we did it annually because of the policy debates that were ongoing. and we did the best we could with the planning and the execution given that uncertainty that we were working with each year. >> okay, sir. thank you. my second question would be if

nasa reverted to the manner in which it applied termination liability to contractors under the constellation program, as well as how it treats the iss program and jpl, how much more money would that allow the scientists and engineers to devote to development work and how would that impact the schedule? >> in terms of past, for instance, for the international space station is, there were actually words in legislation that helped that situation so that termination liability was less of a burden to the programs. currently, or early in actually to post determination of the constellation program, each program had to set aside and each project had to set aside funding to protect for

termination liability. as i understand it, the number for sos and orion is is on the order of $420 million. if that is held back, then that's money that is not going to execution. i think there may be some relaxing of the of how that is done currently. the contractors are, as i understand it, responsible for maintaining this termination liability. so in any event, any help that they could have in not having to hold back funding would be beneficial in my view. >> thank you. mr. dumbacher. >> i agree with what mr. cooke just said. in sls and orion until i left the agency, termination liability, having to withhold that work, or having to hold that money back each year meant

that it was that amount of work we were not making progress with across sls and orion. it was an impact to the program, an impact to our schedule. and it was an annual issue that we had to deal with both from a government policy implementation perspective and corporate risk management strategy perspective. >> thank you. now i recognize the gentlewoman from maryland. >> mr. dumpacher, in your statement you referred to the pathways to exploration report and note its recommendations should serve as a basis for overall plan and strategy for human exploration. this subcommittee and the house call for a human exploration road map in the house past 2015 nasa authorization bill. i just wonder what your views

are on the key thrusts made by the pathways report and whether nasa's strategy of earth reliant proving ground and earth independence satisfy the national academy's recommendation. and if not, why not? what should congress expect to see in a solid strategy? what are the key elements that we should be looking at that have a little more precision? >> congresswoman edwards, i think the 2014 nrc report that -- and i will be honest, i am speaking of my own. the chairman of that community is is now president of my university. >> that's not a conflict. >> that's the way the faculty looked at it. that report lays out a very sound approach. it lays out an approach and should be, in my opinion, used as a touchstone, along with the

2010 authorization act, to put a strategy together. i think your question about the earth reliant proving ground, earth independent, that's the first level of it. it's not -- it needs to be flushed out in greater deal with more strategy along the way. i think the keep elements of that strategy need to recognize that this is exploration. we will be learning each step of the way. and sit has to be flexible. and we have to have the ability to modify the strategy based on what we learn. because in essence, we are expanding our neighborhood from lower orbit out to lunar space, and then eventually to mars, and i hope beyond that. so i think those elements are essential to build upon the plan. and i think the nrc report gives

us a good methodology by which to think about it, a good starting point. and also some good indication, frankly, from a funding perspective in terms of what kind of funding would be reasonable, along with an inflation growth to be able to implement such a strategy. >> let me just ask you, mr. cooke, about funding. because we heard talk already on this committee about the debates and the push and pull that have gone back and forth between congress and the administration. but do you have some thoughts about the constraints that this uncertain environment with the sequester caps in place and basically living out level funding in what mr. dumpacher described as an exploration environment, what constraints that puts on our ability to fully develop and explore this program. a lastly, i thought it might make more sense for congress to simply put a date certain.

you know, an end point. nasa is is saying maybe in the 2030s. what if congress came back and said, with well, how about 2020. and then we develop a budget and a program around something that's more certain than just continue to go expand it into the future. i will leave you with the balance of my time. >> i believe the flat budget is one -- well, it's a fact that with inflation the flat budget has less buying power over time. so to explore and move beyond where we are to the next steps after sls and orion, it will require increased funding. there was at some level -- not terribly high, i think. but funding does need to be

restored over time to exploration in order to make these goals. and i think it is a good question to ask if we are to get, say to the moon, to mars by some day, what does it take to do that? and i think that's your question. i think that's a great question. it's one that deserves an answer. that's really the way it should be done. and of course you can decide -- and it gets into the debate of deciding whether or not it can be afforded. but certainly that's the way a program should be laid out. in a way that has development funding that is more efficient than what's being done currently under the caps and flat line budgets. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> thank you. now we recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. brooks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is a question for both of you. how should nasa pick a human exploration mission and timeline? >> i believe -- and i have been able to briefly read the report that was put out yesterday by nasa. i think there are a lot of good good elements in it. i think in laying out a program, one thing that is missing from it and one thing i stated before -- in fact, i testified on it in may of 2013 in this committee. i believe that we need to start with a discussion in the community, whether science or the exploration committee, including our international partners those who are interested in developing resources on the phaop. we need to have a conversation to lay out objectives for what

we will achieve on these missions. it's not just a matter of we will build this rocket to get to this place. it's important to understand what we want to achieve. and i think that helps guide is the steps involved. it includes going to the moons of mars and the moon itself. >> a couple of points i want to add to mr. cooke is that as it is necessary to bring the stakeholders along, i think we need to be careful recognizing the funding constraints we operate within. that we need to make sure that the elements that we build for exploration don't just become one-offs or just be able to be used once, that they have a continuous applicability through the rest of the exploration strategy. i think that's a key element that we need to do.

and we also frankly need to be very careful about making sure we live within the funding constraints that are in the appropriations levels that are provided by the congress. so those are the two key elements i would asked to what mr. cook had. >> this is a question for both of you. mr. cook, i already heard your comments about going to the moon, and perhaps mars's moons. what would you recommend is nasa's sls and orion's missions? >> i believe that the sls and orion represent the first steps in exploration beyond the earth orbit. you need the volume of its pay load. >> i understand that. but what do you want our missions to be? >> i think personally there's

discussion about lunar space. that is definitely a possibility. it could be a very good intermediate point in mars and a place to send mars missions from. but i do believe in going to the moon the moon thato;6$ñ we know based on on spacecraft that have gone there since apollo opened up a different moon than we have seen before. it is much more dramatic in landscapes. we have mapped resources. i think there's a lot to learn if we sent people there. so i think that the moon is still an important place to go on the way to mars eventually. >> mr. dumbacher, do you have anything to hadd? >> yes is, i do. everything needs to be buildable towards mars, take us to mars. we need to do the testing necessary to make sure we learn to operate in environments where we are further away from home

than we've ever been. in the retrograde area, we will be nine days away from home as compared to three days away from home during apollo. another aspect i would add is is an increase in mission frequency. i think it's important that we shorten up the time between missions. that means additional funding. but it is -- i believe it's important that we increase the mission frequency to provide benefits back as quickly as possible. >> i'm almost out of time but this is a short question. since orion is is running behind, why can't it be flown in place from a test standpoint? >> congressman, that's a -- i'll take that first. that's a good question. i think the two programs have been integrally linked from the

beginning. em-1 needed to have an up crewed version of orion. and i believe they are on schedule for that flight. and with nasa continuing to work to the management agreement of 2021, assuming the congressional appropriations levels, they are still working to the existing plan. what other cargo missions there might be would remain to be seen. but i think we would have to have -- nasa would need to take a look at possible cargo missions, other possible pay loads and other possible science missions. >> i would agree there are possibilities. i agree with what mr. dumbacher said. the plan is for on an orion fly. in the future, sls will provide a unique capability for larger telescopes with larger apertures potentially. there has been discussion on a europa mission. there are potentially uses in

defense space as well. it has unique capabilities that could provide very good opportunities. >> the gentleman's time has expired. thank you. now i call on the gentleman from virginia, mr. byer. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. dumbacher, you talked about stability. you mentioned in your testimony that the report and the 2010 authorization act should be followed to ensure adequate funding for sls and orion. could you please explain what you mean by that. especially in light of the fact that the last time humans left lower earth orbit was 1972 with apollo 17. what would this do to increase our confidence that the ml-2 launch will be carried out in 2021? >> i think, congressman, first of all, at the congressional appropriations level in nasa continuing to work towards the 2021 date for the orion first

crewed flight i think the appropriations level and accounting for inflation over this time period, recognizing the loss of purchasing power that infuses into the system can maintain the 2021 date. and i think that's important. for the overall exploration, i think the thoughts put together as part of the nrc report that talk about a level of funding that basically starts out similar to the congressional appropriations level, grows at about two 2% to 3%, plus inflation on top of that, provides a good, sound basis. and importantly, if we -- if nasa knows that that's going to be the plan over the long term, they can plan to that. and that's the important part. if you know what you are working to over a longer horizon and you

can plan to that, that is a key part. one of the things we struggled with in my time at nasa was the budget requests that came out as a one-year budget request. and the budget horizon from then on was labeled as notional. as a program manager i struggle with how do i plan to a notional budget? so the key point is knowing what the numbers are, have some feel for what those numbers are going to be over a 5, 10-year budget horizon. then you can put a reasonable program together stkphrfplt thank you very much. mr. cooke, chairman babin talked about the administration strangling nasa with the budget cuts. i, along with many of our colleagues on both sides, offered amendments in committee to increase the nasa authorizations only to be told our committee hands were tied by the budget control and bi

downtown cameral budget. how much are controlled by sequester? >> i honestly can't answer that specifically on the budget control acts. my experience has been primarily between congressionally passed budgets and the president's budget. and i had say as an example right now of what i think could be done, if nasa were to be able to count on congressionally approved levels is make a decision to go to a larger upper stage than the first -- than the one flown on the first test flight. we are flying an interim upper stage based on a delta upper stage for this test flight. and if nasa could count on the congressional levels, they could probably make a decision to go to the upper stage it needs for exploration. that would keep nasa from having to rate this interim upper stage

for the first crew flight, which would save a significant amount of of money. so just the efficiencies gained in a higher budget in terms of development and developing the right answer instead of the interim steps would be of great pft. >> thank you, mr. kraobg. mr. dumbacher, we are looking at hitting the debt ceilings in the next couple of weeks. we postponed the government shutdown debate until december 11th. what was the impact on orion and sls when we shut down for 16 days in 2013. what would be the impact if we shut it down for 10 days this year? >> i cannot speak to the exact details of what potential impact would be for 10 days down the road from here. but back two years ago when we did have that 16-day shutdown, there was a is significant

impact to the program particularly because at that point we were -- particularly orion was coming up on the hardware and the integration a year away from the exploration flight test.n the hardware and integration a year away from the exploration flight test. so having to stand down the team for 16 days and then restart it, when you consider the level we have here and the burn rate we had at that time, which i recall if i do my math correctly on the order of $16 million a week. it's not just the 16 days. it's the training that the team had to go to prepare for that, it's the facing down to get to that shutdown, and then it's the restart to come up after the shutdown. so that was a significant impact to orion and sls as well as

ground systems across the board for a 16-day impact. >> i would like to add to that just briefly. nasa is is in a unique situation on something like a shutdown. it is not like most agencies. it is developing something. it's developing hardware. there are programs that are under way. so it's a lot of people with a lot of interrelated tasks and jobs that most agencies don't deal with. so a shutdown does have an impact in development. >> thank you. i want to remind the gentleman from virginia that in our budgeting and authorization that issues of exploration we have fully funded this committee. we have always fully funded that. and what you were referring to is not exploration on some of

those issues. i now would like to recognize mr. rohrbacher, the gentleman from california. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. good to see you fellow again and again over the years. how much is the mars initiative going to cost when it's complete said? when we get the person on mars and back, how much will we have spent? >> i don't think at this point since we don't have a specific emissions laid out, we don't really know the costs. i will say that if you take any program, if you take the shuttle program, space station program, and if you put the full cost at the front end of it and said this is what it was going to cost, it would be a big number. >> okay. well, let me ask you this then.

you mean there's no document that you've read that nasa, and we have all signed on to, that says this is how much is going to be spent to achieve this goal? what have we agreed to? congress hasn't -- we don't even have a budget. we don't know how much it is going to cost for the biggest project in nasa to to achieve its goal? this is insane. how much have we already spent on the mars project?goal? this is insane. how much have we already spent on the mars project? >> congressman, let me -- first of all, this has been a long-term investment for someplace exploration days and going into the constellation program. i cannot give you off the top of my head specific numbers. but i can tell you -- >> is hold on. do you think nasa knows?

so what i'm getting here is is that we don't even know how much -- there is no figure as to how much howe is going to be spent. we don't know how much has already been spent, which means we don't know how much more will be necessary to be spent from now to achieve the goal. we're talking about of billions of dollars here. the nasa budget altogether is $17 billion. when we started off down this some of us suggested that we were going to have to drain money from every other nasa program or it wasn't going to work. and it's not working. it's because we don't have the money. right now i confirm just from the testimony you're saying, they're not being responsible at this level. they're not being responsible at nasa either. we have a huge asteroid that is going to come by the earth, not

right by the earth but closer to the earth than usual in the next few days. and we have no plan that if something happened that we recognized something was coming and that five years from now it was going to hit the earth and destroy it, we don't even have in place a plan to actually deflect an asteroid yet. we've got -- and let me just note, people are complaining about the budget. we're not giving nasa the money it needs for the development of this huge rocket that is necessary for mars. well, if we were going to pri prioritize. a man on the man with a flag as opposed to just having robots is worth all of these billions, well, they have to put their money where their mouth is. but nobody does that. nobody is is willing to prioritize. nasa spends a billion dollars a

year proving global warming. just to prove it. well, maybe if someone on that side of the aisle might be willing to put that money, if they believe in going to mars, put it into the big rocket to take us to mars, maybe i would have some hope that we can be successful in something. but nobody is that responsible here. we are borrowing 20% of our children who will pay, repay the chinese or the japanese or whoever is buying up our debt. and yet people are complaining. that is why we have the sequester in place. nobody was willing to make a choice. what i'm seeing here -- and, again, my father was a pilot.

my dad -- and we have this great aviation technology that we put to use for humankind now. that happened because people were actually responsible. they made responsible decisions about development, of technology. and, chairman, i will end my little tirade by saying we are not being sppbl. i think ilan musk will be on mars before nasa. >> the gentleman yields back. i recognize mr. pearlmother for five months. >> gentlemen is, thank you for being here. thank you for your service to the country. thank you for your service to the mutual, because that's what this is about. i feel fortunate that he got a mays to talk to this. had an astronaut in my office a

while ago, terry wurts. he said this is not rocket science. this is political science. and the part we're dealing with is political science. mr. rohrabacher and i may have some differences. but generally this committee, and i have on a lot of committees. this committee gets along and agrees more than almost all the other ones. so is looking at this, we're the authorizing committee. so you have the budget committee, the authorizing committee, and the appropriations committee. i on this committee would like to be able to give you something that says you are authorized to get us to mars as quickly as possible. i like to be able to say something in an authorizing language 10 years from now we will our astronauts on mars for the future, for science, for discovery, for whatever.

so for us, if there's a goal for something like that, we have to find a way to do it so you can provide a 10-year plan. for me i just suggest to my friends on this committee, and i will say this is a national interest, a huge investment. either we raise taxes to make that investment, which you know will give some people heartache. or we say we're going to prioritize this against a whole other budget, all the other appropriations. or we could do public/private partnership and get some additional investment. or we could do a joint venture with some other countries as we

have done with the space station. and i'm a "star trek" guy. i look at the bridge of the enterprise and i see every nationality possible. people from other planets too. but, you know, we can do those kinds of things or maybe fee based. that's our problem. that's the political science piece of this. now, the two of you have had to deal with congress, you have had to deal with the white house. what would you suggest that we do to give you a 10-year plan? mr. cooke? >> i can tell you from experience that the authorization acts have been very beneficial to laying out our future. and the 2010 act was very important to us. i encourage development of plans. because they represent in the end they're obviously a

compromise in the end when they all get passed. and having a consensus on a direction is very important. the 2005 act was important to us. the 2010 act was. so those are -- those do have an impact. and we -- they -- the 2010 act actually set the motion forward to announce in 2011 the orion and sls programs. >> mr. dumbacher. >> congressman, as i stated in my testimony, i think that, as doug has said, that the 2010 authorization act provides the good starting point. it gave us -- it laid out three years worth of funding levels. recognizing the constitutional appropriations process, nasa can do a better job of planning when it has some idea of what budget

level to plan to. recognizing that that cannot be passed in an appropriations perspective because of the constitution but having some concept of a plan so that if, for example, someone -- this body were to come back and say use something like the 2014 nrc report as a planning basis, then nasa could go forward and use that. >> sir, last question. if we said we want to be on mars in 2025 in an authorizing bill, could you give us a budget for that? >> the question would go to nasa to put a budget requirement to meet that plan they would need to come back and show that to this body for funding purposes. >> thank you very much. >> the gentleman yields back. i have taken the gavel here. i'm going to recognize myself for five minutes before we go to

mr. posey here for the next question. what i'd like to share -- i heard mr. byer earlier talk about the cr and shutdowns and want to know the impact on nasa exploration. and all that's critically important. i would like to highlight the fact that under a continuing resolution, nasa exploration actually gets more funding than if we went forward with the president's budget request, which -- and i'm not saying that because i am advocating for continuing resolution. i want to make sure people understand the president's funding priorities. now, my friend mr. rohrabacher earlier was talk building sls and orion and how much money it will cost. i don't share his sentiment that the programs are ill-advised. what i do believe if you're going to have those programs, like what mr. perlmutter was talking about, if we have the programs, we need to fund them.

it's pretty simple. we have seen the administration repeatedly underfund the program in its fiscal requests every year. the in adequate funding requests, coupled with delays and program announcements, arguments over destinations and accounting tools such as termination liability have called for further delays in sls and orion. since the president is not committed to this, or at least it wouldn't appear that he has been, is this political? are we setting ourselves up for political failure? and if i could get maybe because he wasn't committed to it from the beginning, could i get your opinion on that both of you. >> i don't think we're going toward failure. the programs, sls and orion, are moving forward and making great progress. it's definitely true that under

these circumstances where the budgets are different and the president's budget request is less than what's appropriated, it does cause problems in programs. decisions have to be made that are not optimum. so it ends up being in efficient and costs more in the end. however, even so, you have dedicated people at nasa that make them work. and they are making great progress. >> mr. dumbacher? >> i totally agree with everything that mr. cooke just said. i have nothing fundamentally to add to that. i would like to reiterate that i do not believe we are working towards failure either. i think you see success out there. it's going to be hard at times because we are doing technical things that no one has done before in terms on of manufacturing technology, manufacturing requirements, bringing in new technologies and taking humans further than we've

ever gone before. it will be hard, but it's not failure. this dedicated team across nasa and industry is making it happen in spite of the political budget debate. and i think they should be commended for the progress they are making to date. >> and just so everybody here understands, i just want to make sure that we are going forward and actually accomplishing what we are setting out to do. i think people on both sides of the aisle want to make sure what we are funding is not in v ain. if we go beyond the president's budget request and we still have delay after delay and don't have the launch frequencies necessary maybe to maintain the safety that is perfectly appropriate for this kind of on program, the question is are we adequately funding this program? and how do we go forward in a

way that is appropriate given that this is very serious business and lives ultimately will be at stake? last question for you guys. as we move forward for deeper and deeper space exploration, do you see an environment where commercial habitats would be used maybe as something to orbiting the moon for the long term, for example? if you guys could answer that. >> i think that's a potential. i encourage commercial development. we actually in the director i managed when i was at nasa, we had the commercial cargo and crew. and those are being developed and are needed at this point. and i certainly think that's a possibility. if the business case is there to spater, i think that is certainly in the realm of what could happen.

>> congressman, if i may, i would like to add to what mr. cooke just said. in my view, it's critical that we continue to perform this exploration initiative and help build commercial opportunities. because that is the future for the next general is raeugz. generation. and it's going to be hard. we have the real life things we have to work through in terms of business plans, technical issues and all of that. but this country has a long history of pushing forward and working to solve those kinds of problems. and i think we need to continue doing that, not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of the next generations coming behind us. >> thank you, gentlemen. mr. johnson from ohio is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thank you, gentlemen, for being here. two reasons that i appreciate this hearing. i'm a big fan of space exploration. i grew up in the age of the

apollo moon race. i remember vividly sitting in front of my television so many times with walter cronkite who called the play-by-play. and everybody in our country was captivated by everything that was going on. each mission we were learning something newer and newer and newer about the tasks that lay before us. off the sands of kitty hawk, neil armstrong stepped out on the surface of the moon. that's what we are capable of in america. and so much technology and marvels that we enjoy today came out of that effort. and so i applaud it. i'm also a program manager by trade having spent 30 plus years

in information technology. i've managed large programs. from the perspective of a nasa program manager, gentlemen, what is the difference between a target gate and a commitment date? and why might it be useful to have a target date that is earlier than the commitment date? >> the commitment date is the agency is legislatively held to reported requirements on programs's progress. when i was in the agency, we purposely had to work through the commitments, recognizing we had to put a commitment there. if we were 15% over schedule or cost, then it was schedule to a cancellation conversation.

so the agency has to worry about that commitment, not just from a legislative perspective but from an integrity trust perspective to demonstrate it can do what it says it's going to do. the target date is the date that i use, my team used to try to keep the appropriate amount of schedule pressure on getting the work done as cost efficiently as possible, as technically correct as we could and maintaining the safety. it is the art of project management in a sense that says i use the schedule to help make sure i keep driving the work forward, recognizing that i don't want to do that at the expense of poor technical decisions, poor safety decisions. but i keep enough work going on. that way iowa get it done as quickly as i can.

>> i liken to in high school. you handle the tough subjects first. get those things early in the semester. that way you're not sitting there with two weeks to go before grade reports come out and you're behind. you don't want to get to that commitment date and find out that you've got that 15% overage in budget or schedule and have to face a congressional mandate to come back and worry about cancellations. i get it. i just wanted you to explain. you don't want to miss the commitment date. >> is right. and the difference between the target date and the commitment date is the program manager's schedule margin. >> got it. got it. >> let's talk budget for a second. how might additional funding during the period fy 2012 and 2013. how might additional funding during that period have changed

the planning and management of the sls and the orion programs in ways other than schedule? am i clear? does that make any sense? how might additional funding during that period, other than schedule, how would it have affected those programs? >> the additional funding at that time as well as now, i believe, helps you to get work done in parallel. so you can plan things in a normal sense, things that are better integrated because you're developing them in parallel. you know the interfaces, how to pull them together. if you're con trained, then you fuse things out. you start this task, stop that one. in some cases we have had a test on orion back in 2010.

we ended up laying off people critical to the success of the test. because the next priorities were somewhere else. >> right. >> we achieved that. we still need it. those don't necessarily have to happen. >> this is a great example how only a programqé= manager to k how critical important the certainty around funding to keeping a project on schedule and not winding up in that conflict with a commitment date and ultimately see everything wasted if it's canceled, very, very important. gentlemen, thanks for sharing your perspective this morning. i yield back. >> yes, sir. thank you. now i recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. posey. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman.

and let's go back for just a second. everywhere nasa's request for orion are lower than what's needed. do you both agree with that statement? >> i would agree with that statement. there is a part of that statement, congressman, that i'm trying to figure out how to answer you better in that the request is really the president's budget request. >> yeah. president's request and nasa's request. congress always comes back and pays more. the question is why doesn't nasa, the administration request the amount of money they think they need? >> well, i think that would be a

question directly to the office of management and budget. because it is in that budget process that the agency goes through as we build the budget from the bottom up, from the programs. then they get submitted and they work within the agency priorities and then they go over to the higher national level priorities, it's in that last step where at least from my perspective i saw where the numbers change. >> well, the fact is that they request less year after year than they know they need to keep the project on schedule. it's a fact. it's not a political statement. it's not a scientific statement. it's a fact. and congress does, in fact, always pay more. several members were a little bit concerned about a budget, how much it will cost to go to

mars, what the total cost will be. that's a laughable question because they don't even have a plan yet. you know, the last several nasa authorizations congress has mandated that nasa come up with a detailed road map for mars, a steppingstone approach for exploration, if you will. i believe many on this committee. i feel we have never seen a detailed plan. and i'd like both of you to comment on what you see as central steps in getting humans to mars and your thoughts on why they have submitted as requested. >> i've got testimony from 2013 that addresses that specifically. i believe the front end of it is laying out your objectives for what you want to achieve. by destination. what is it we want to learn. how is it we want to prepare for

one step to the next and have a rational approach to -- >> i agree with you. i agree with you. that's what should be done. the question is, why haven't they done it? >> i can't say why since i have left it hasn't been done. >> why wasn't it done when you were there? >> when i was i there -- i left at the end of september 2011. we had just gotten through the period after the 2010 authorization act where we worked very diligently within exploration to answer that -- what was asked for in the authorization act. and we announced sls design and program the same month i retired.

that was the first step. our immediate concern was getting the front end of this started. we actually had a plan that we talked about that after we get the first steps on the way we're going to come back and develop the plan. >> all right. i got that. i got it. would you care to respond? >> congressman, i think -- i agree with what doug said. i think part of what needs to happen is a more public discussion about some of the planning and some of the strategies that need to be implemented to go to mars and making sure we are all clear, that the stakeholders are all clear on what the goals and objectives are. and then allow nasa to go put a claim together. >> you know, every member on this committee, bar none, both sides of the aisle want nasa is to be successful. i think there are just so many instances, though, where at

least from this perspective, they are their own worst enemy. if they can't come up with a plan, they want somebody else to do it. if they take more funding for a plan. you have to have a plan before you do a budget. you can see, i hope, the negative effects of building a schedule around a budget rather than letting the most logical schedule dictate the financial needs. it appears that is what's happening. mr. chairman, i don't know how we reel this thing in. but it's just not something that i'm proud of the way it's being done. and i see i'm out of time. thank you. >> thank you, mr. posey. you know, i would also add that -- you were asking the question, what is the cost of going to mars? and i would ask what is the cost of not going to mars? we had a meeting of some

industry specialists in space the other day. and i was told that there was a chinese program planning a permanently crude space station for 2020. and i think everybody in this room is aware of who holds the high ground, has the great advantage. so i would say that we can't afford not to try to get organized and get this planned and funnelded adequately. i want to thank the witnesses for being here today and thank the members for your questions. the record will remain open for two weeks for additional written comments and written questions from members. so this meeting is adjourned. thank you.

house republicans seen here gathering met to discuss the way forward to nominate a speaker following majority leader kevin mccarthy's announcement yesterday that he'll not be a candidate. house speaker boehner also announced he is postponing a floor vote for the next speaker. also ahead, comments about the majority leader mccarthy, walter jones, and trey dowdy.

>> when do you think you might be making an announcement if you're going to make an announcement?

can i ask when do you think you would make an announcement if you have an announcement to make? >> are you actually considering a run? >> when are you going to make your decision? >> i don't know. >> are you still committed to making this happen at the end of the month? i think we'll have additional candidates. i'm not afraid of competition.

i've always argued there should be more, not less. it is the most important position in the house of representatives. so i look forward to that discussion. >> (inaudible). >> i welcome all the challengers. i put myself out there. if they think they can do it, step forward and do it. >> (inaudible). >> i think the speaker made the right decision. it caught everybody by shock and surprise. under the rules, the speaker can postpone an election. >> are there plans to have a retreat?ji >> he is somebody i would support. i would love it if he did it? >> would you drop out? >> he has been a drum beat in

consistency saying he's not going to do it. >> would you drop off? >> if paul ryan got in the race, of course i would support is him. part of the reason i got in the race is because they weren't weo do it. we need to have some solution. i offer myself as part of that solution. >> but would you drop out? >> i would support the nominee. so i have may name against -- no, i would not run against paul ryan. i'll tribe as clear as i can. if paul ryan gets in the race, i'm a huge fan of paul ryan, i would support paul ryan, i would hope that he would do it. but he has consistently said that he won't. we have to get somebody who actually wants to do it and will fight for it. maybe his approach changes. but he is certainly in my mind the most qualified person to do it. and i would hope he would do it. >> have you talked to him today about it? >> no, i haven't seen him. >> did it sound like he's going to step down at the end of the

month? >> the speaker was clear he was going to step down at the end of the month. >> outside in the hall, guys. >> right side, please. >> thank you. >> are there plans for a retreat? did you talk about that? you guys will all go off somewhere and talk about this? >> i didn't hear about that today. maybe that's what they're going to do, but i didn't hear about it today. >> there you go, guys. >> mr. murphy, can you stop for one sec? can you tell me what you were saying? come back to the mike, please, sir. >> i'll make it quick. we had a very good conference, working together, trying to work together. i know a lot of speculation about who should run, and others. paul is looking at it. but it's his decision. if he decides to do it, he would be an amazing speaker.

but he's got to decide on his own. >> mr. leader, you said that the party needs to hit rock bottom. what did you mean by that? >> you heard it here first. >> you can follow me. >> has mr. ryan addressed the conference yet? >> we're going to take this at a slow pace. people have to go home during the break, try to figure out what we need to do to get this country moving again. >> do you think you had an impact? >> i would hope not. how can words asking for integrity create trouble? i don't think so. >> has ryan spoken? >> people are talking about an affair with kevin mccarthy because of your letter. >> that's their decision to interpret that way. this is something that i think is important to the american

people. anybody in leadership, male or female, should be a man or woman of integrity. that is nothing personally about anybody. >> mr. johnson, that's kind of an assumption, when you reference livingston, it has an active effect, what's he talking about? >> i was here then. it was chaos. i don't want that to happen again. >> were people urging ryan to run? >> there was nothing about the next speaker or anything. it's about taking this in a slow way and seeing if he can find common ground. that will be what we need to work on. changes of the rules and things like that. >> what did boehner tell the conference? >> he's just going to be there until we elect a new speaker. >> is that okay with the caucus members? >> i would think so. i think right now we need to.

>> have you spoken to mccarthy since the letter? >> give me a call. >> thank you, congressman. >> what was in the note you left for paul ryan today? >> if i had wanted you to read that note, i would have given it to you. >> what was in the note? >> he's good friend and i respect him a lot. >> do you support him for speaker? >> he's not a candidate, is he? >> if he were to get in, would you support him? >> 100%. >> how is the pressure on you right now? >> the pressure on me is that i'm going to be late with a meeting for elijah cummings. i don't want to be late for a meeting with elijah. i'm scared of him. >> is it just about his wife and family at this point? >> when you say "just about,"

come on, man, that's pretty important, isn't it? just about family? that's the most important thing. >> was it only about? >> i will let the chairman speak. >> what's next? >> the speaker holds a new election day. >> any idea when that might be? >> couldn't say. >> what would it take to get you to run? >> the voice of god. >> do you want the job? >> no. >> does anybody? >> we'll find out. >> could paul ryan get the freedom caucus? >> i think paul could get anybody. >> darryl issa said he could potentially be a candidate. >> you'll have to ask chairman issa that. >> would people actually support him in a conference? >> who? >> darryl issa. >> you would have to ask them. >> is speaker boehner going to stay on then? >> yes. >> any idea -- i know he wants

to get out. >> i don't know. we'll just set the new date. see you all. >> what kind of rules are you discussing changing? >> probably all kinds of discussions of rules. i don't pretend to be an expert on the rules. i mean, issues like you need two-thirds vote to vacate the chair, all sorts of issues like that. if the members are obligated to vote for the nominee of the conference on the floor. i'm not suggesting that's necessarily a good rule, but those are the kinds of ideas being discussed right now. >> among the candidates, mr. chaffetz said he would pull out if mr. ryan got in. is there anybody else who could either recruit mr. ryan or step up themselves? >> i don't want topeak for other members. paul ryan i know is thinking very hard about this. the bigger challenge is not who we put in the speaker's chair. the issue is how do we change

the underlying political dynamic place. whoever we put in the chair will have to figure out how we change the political dynamic. anyone who thinks about becoming speaker understands that instinctive instinctively. paul is highly respected by all members of the congress. he's a very smart guy. he understands this. >> how could a speaker strategize about how to deal with this? the boehner method, to contain everything, you could throw over the right wing, work with democrats. how do you see the challenges ahead? >> on the debt ceiling, on the budget agreement, on the omnibus, put together a bipartisan coalition, go on the floor, pass it. that's how we did the cr. that's how we did the debt

ceiling. i saw it on the fiscal cliff, hurricane sandy, violence against women act, opening the government. on a homeland security appropriations bill last year. these always been the formula. the question is how much intervening drama do we have to deal with until we reach the final resolution. i would rather just get to that final step a lot sooner. >> how can the new speaker get nominated? >> that's the conundrum. the new speaker could do just what i suggested, assemble a bipartisan coalition, or we can continue as we've been, on the course we've been on, making the speaker look weaker and ineffective. >> do you know we'll have a new speaker by the end of the month? >> i hope so he. >> what makes you say paul ryan is now thinking about it? >> a lot of people are talking to him about it. you would have to ask paul ryan. >> last time we did, we'll have

to wait until his kids to get grown. >> did he speak? >> i don't think so. >> did anyone stand up and say, look him in the eye or say, hey, paul? >> again, i didn't hear anything like that. >> will there be a week's worth or two weeks' worth of internal discussion? or can a person just emerge? >> there are a number of people thinking about becoming the next speaker. >> everybody clear the hall, please, folks need to get through. >> mr. webster, if paul ryan were to run, would you endorse him or continue to challenge him? >> i'm not challenging him. i'm challenging the process here. i'm going to make that point until hopefully we see some change. >> so you will run all the way to the floor no matter if paul ryan runs or not?

>> i'll run in this conference that we have until we get to that date. >> so you will be a candidate on the floor no matter? >> no, i said i'm running in the conference. there will be a date set for election in the conference. and i'm running. >> if you don't get the nomination in the conference, will you step aside? >> well, i'm just running for the conference. >> will you back the conference's eventual nominee? >> will you have a speaker by the end of the month? >> we have one now. >> have you spoken to mr. ryan about running? >> i have not. i just said i was focused on one thing, and that is winning the conference. >> what makes you the right choice for speaker? >> am i the right choice? >> why are you the right choice? >> we have a power-based system where a few people at the top of

the pyramid make all the decisions. i want to push down that pyramid of power and spread it around so everybo every member can have some. i want a principle-based, member-driven congress. >> let him go. >> did you think it was appropriate to delay the election like they did yesterday? >> it was probably necessary. >> did you think it was necessary? >> i do. >> did you think they would have delayed the election if you had dropped out? >> no. >> how long do you think this delay will go on? >> i think it will be done before the end of the month.

>> do you think if one of the speaker candidates had done something morally repugnant? >> i don't know what you're talking about. you said if one of the candidates had -- >> morally repugnant. >> i'm talking about candidates or permits. i have one thing in mind. that's a principle-based, member-driven congress, period. that's what i want. i think the members do -- >> do you think you could win this race? >> i'm going to walk up. >> will you play golf this weekend? >> i know you said to folks you want them to decide.

>> clear a path. >> are you ready to be speaker? road to the white house coverage continues today as republican presidential candidate dr. ben carson will be speaking at the national press club. he's co-authored a new book with his wife candy titled "a more perfect union." live coverage starts 1:00 p.m. eastern time. saturday, live coverage of the 20th anniversary of the million man march taking place on the national mall.

the theme for the rally is "justice or else." minister louis farrakhan is scheduled to speak at 1:00 p.m. live coverage of the rally gets underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span. road to the white house coverage continues now with remarks from democratic presidential candidate, former maryland governor martin o'malley. he spoke earlier this week at the congressional hispanic caucus. palau [ applause ] >> thank you very, very much. good afternoon. it is wonderful to be here with all of you. and i want to thank your chair, congresswoman linda sanchez. i want to thank all of you for the important work that you do, and the important work of chci. and i want to talk with you in

our short time together about the american dream, about its importance, about its truth, about the responsibility we have to reinvigorate it and make it real around the kitchen tables of every family in america. my name is martin o'malley. i am a lifelong democrat. i am running for president. i intend to win. and i need your help to rebuild that american dream. [ applause ] >> now, i know that one of the big issues that challenges us today as a people, one of the very issues that has allowed us to become the land of opportunity, to build up a strong economy, is the issue of immigration. for me, i believe that that issue comes down to human dignity. that unshakeable belief that we have maintained as a people for 240 years and the human dignity

of every person. and in our country, our hope, our strength derives from the truth that we understand that in our nation there is no such thing as a spare american. each of us is needed. if we have to help each other if we're going to succeed. today i want to share with you my vision for that new and better future. submitted to share with you also the important, critically important role that our new american neighbors play in making it real. before i do, i want to touch on something that i think all of us must acknowledge,é n which als cuts to the value that we put on every human life. and that is this very painful truth. because as a nation, we have failed to respond to the continued deadly reality of the proliferations of guns and illegal guns in our society, as a people. and i can't be in front of a gathering of this many americans

without touching on this at the outset, especially given the tragedy we saw in oregon last week. i am challenging every democrat who is running for our party's nomination and seeking the highest office in this land as president of the united states to join me in forging a new consensus for common sense gun safety legislation that has four specific, meaningful gun safety provisions. number 1, we should ban the sale of combat assault weapons in our country. [ applause ] secondly, we should require everyone who buys a gun to go through universal background checks with fingerprints and be licensed in order to do so. third, we should use the purchase power of our federal

government, the largest purchaser of guns in this country, to insist that gun manufacturers implement the h h highest and best safety technology in all of their firearms in order for us to do business and purchase them. and fourth, we should make illegal gun trafficking a federal crime in the united states of america. [ applause ] one men life is worth more than all of the guns and all of the gun sales and all of the money from them that can be generated in this country. it's time that we govern that way, that we make choices in keeping with our principles as a people. it's easy to follow polls. it's more difficult to forge a new consensus. but every election is an opportunity for deeper understanding. and that deeper understanding can lead to better actions.

we're the only advanced nation on this planet that has this sickness withun violence and buries as many of its sons and daughters. it's time to change that. we can do that in our democratic primaries and democratic debate. let me talk to you about a few other issues. in particular i would like to focus on the american dream. i laid out 15 strategic goals for restoring the truth of that american dream about three weeks ago. and yes, one of them was gun safety, and cutting crimes of violence in half. but another one was pushing for comprehensive and accomplishing comprehensive immigration reform. i have a tremendous amount of respect for the leadership of the congressional hispanic caucus. and this invaluable institute. and i want to acknowledge extraordinary young people in chci whose stories are exactly what it means to be an american. and it's what this battle for

immigration and citizenship are really all about. elias flamenco from my home state of maryland -- where is he? [ applause ] [ cheers and applause ] >> elias is a chci public fellow. he was born and raised in el salvador. he moved to silver spring as a teenager to reunite with his parents. he learned english, became the first in his family to attend college, then put his degree to work in the cause of justice. and that's truly the american dream. [ cheers and applause ] l.c. perez herrera is from las vegas. [ cheers and applause ]

>> born in mexico, l.c. grew up in the las vegas area, hearing disparaging comments about immigrants from her kids at school, fearful that other people might hear her story. today she is a campus leader, a chci intern, and a proud fighter for citizenship rights for herself and millions of americans like her. l.c. relies on daca. she's exactly why we need daca and exactly why we need to do so much more. l.c., thank you for your leadership. they are the voices in our politics today. [ applause ] >> i know that there are voices in our politics today who are saying some pretty hateful things about new american immigrants, saying things that run contrary to the common humanity that we share as a people. elias and l.c. represent more

powerful voices, and more numerous. i have news for people like donald trump and those in the republican party who say these hateful things. in our country there is no such thing as an illegal person. babies do not come shaped like anchors. [ cheers and applause ] >> and almost all of us had to make our way here at some point. over land, over sea, we came here or our parents did or our parents before or great grandparents. in other words, we are a good, compassionate and generous people. and we are a nation of immigrants. e pleur epluribus unum. our diversity is our strength and our better days are ahead of us because of our diversity and

the arrival of new americans in every single generation. [ applause ] there is nothing more american in my mind than to come here to live the american dream. that's what my great-grandfather did. his name was also martin o'malley. many of you might know that with the irish, a whole race of people with only seven first names. he came here back in the late 1800s without any money. his first language was not english. it was irish. he was a stranger in a strange land. the hopes and dreams he had for his children were purely american. starting from zero, like so many other new americans today, he worked beside a lot of other new americans who risked their lives in the mines of southwest arizona to feed their families, to give their children and grandchildren a better future.

and new americans today have very similar experiences. the same drive, the same spirit, the same love of family and country that billion our nation up, one person and one family at a time. it's a spirit that has always made us the land of opportunity. think about it. there's not another nation on the planet that has earned that brand, of the land of opportunity. for many years, i have very intentionally and repeatedly used the term as an executive, mayor of a big city, and governor, i have used the term "new americans." because the genius of our country is not so much about where you came from. it's where you're going and where we are all going together. there was a time when my great-grandfather arrived here, and when he was greeting with signs that said, help wanted, no irish need apply. i always kept a sign like that

on my desk as mayor and as governor as a reminder that we are all once strangers in a strange land. but i suppose the truth of that, and the larger truth, is that we find ways to help each other. and that's why i have always seen in the eyes of our new american immigrant neighbors the eyes of great grandparents that i have never met. the cause we share is the same. the beliefs we share are the same. a belief in the dignity of every person. a belief in our own responsibility to advance and strengthen our common good. that's the dream made real by the elias flamenco's family, the dream made real by l.c. perez herrera's family, the dream made real by my own family, and by everyone family that loves their children and is willing to work hard in our country to give them a better future. it is, in short, the american

dream made real that lifts all of us. as governor of maryland i fought to make that dream real every day. we didn't wait for the polls. we did it by including more people more fully in the economic, social, and political life of our state, of our city, of our country. that's our formula for greatness as a country. in maryland, we didn't wait for the federal government to act. we pursued our own dream act to ensure that 36 how dreamers would have access to affordable higher education. [ applause ] >> and after i signed it into lawyer as some of you may -- after i signed it into law, as some of you may remember, we made our case of human dignity and the common good we shared with the people of maryland. we turned around the polls and succeeded in passing the dream act in the ballot, the first

state ever to do so, and we did it with 59% of the vote of the people of maryland. [ applause ] >> and this was not merely a victory for the dreamers' future. it was a victory for maryland's future. the more all of our people learn, the more they will earn. the better our economy does. in maryland, we expanded driver's licenses to new american immigrants because people need to get to and from work safely and obey the rules of the road. and the very start of my administration in 2008, i established the new americans commission, to highlight and welcome the skills that were being brought to our state by new american immigrants from numerous countries. and that effort was helped by our first labor commissioner, tom perez, a name that might be familiar to you now. i regret i had but one cabinet to give to my country. during my two terms as governor, we increased government contracts to latino-owned businesses by 154%.

we became the first state in the nation to pass a living wage. we expanded the earned income tax credit not once, but twice. we raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour so that by 2016, hundreds of thousands of marylanders have finally gotten a raise. we froze college tuition for four years in a row and we did a better job at every state but one at keeping down the cost of college tuition which of course helped hispanic students as well. they earn twice as many associates degrees and bachelors degrees during my service as governor as they had in the eight years before. [ applause ] >> we also worked to keep maryland's unemployment rates down to the lowest in the nation. anyone can talk about these things and can make promises. but -- [ speaking spanish ]

>> i have actually done it. [ applause ] >> i have actually done it. that's what you learn to do as an executive. we created real opportunity in maryland. we invested in our people. we did it by including more of our people more fully in the economic, social, and political life of our country. we didn't make it harder for people to vote. we made it easier. together we made the dream real for more and more families. and here is what i believe we must do in order to break the impasse and actually pass comprehensive immigration reform. first, we are and always have been a nation of immigrants, e pluribus unum, out of many, one. it is in the best interests of the united states for us to reform a system that is callous, irrational, inhuman, unjust, and

holds down wages for all americans. we must pass comprehensive immigration reform. and i intend to begin as president by providing immediate relief to the millions of new americans whose hopes have been dashed time and again because congress has failed to do its job. in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, immigrant detention must end and it must end forever. [ applause ] >> those inhumane centers, detention centers, must be shuttered. government contracts with for-profit prisons are bad policy and must be ended. [ applause ] >> i will overhaul the u.s. immigration system by creating an independent agency to set policy instead of continuing this perpetual fight. this is about our values as americans. it's also about creating an economy that works for all of us, bringing our neighbors out

of the shadow economy and into the light of an open and inclusive american economy. it's about making wages go up for all americans. our country has come a long way. we're creating jobs again. 67 months in a row. but we need to get wages going up and not down. and one of the ways that we do that and rebuild the american dream is by passing comprehensive immigration reform. and i intend to campaign on it. [ applause ] >> now, i know that many leaders within the republican partiviy e vil vilify and scapegoat new americans and have fought tooth and nail against immigration reform. i know many of us have been offended at the hateful things that donald trump has said about new americans. i don't find it funny or entertaining. i find it harmful to the spirit of america.

as you well know, trump calls all new americans from mexico, quote, rapists and drug dealers and murderers. his hate is exceeded only by his paranoia. give him a few more weeks and we'll say we need to bring back the dunking tanks and start looking for witches. the problem is he has infected the entire republican field of candidates and they want to be like him. trump uses the epithet anchor baby and jeb bush uses it as well. say what you will about george w., he never proposed administering citizenship tests to newborn infants. trump says he'll build a really terrific wall on the border with mexico. then another republican candidate says we should build one on the canadian border as well, apparently to keep out of the the metric system. [ laughter ]

>> it is long past time we remember who we are and what we stand for as a people. we are a compassionate and generous people. the enduring symbol of our nation is not the barbed wire fence. it is the statue of liberty. [ applause ] >> and as a leader of nations, must improve our ri relationships with like minded people here in our own hemisphere. maybe it's an irish sensitivity, but i have a soft spot for island people who are getting a raw deal and being treated poorly. i want to speak to you therefore about your fellow americans in puerto rico. [ applause ] >> and our neighbors in this hemisphere on the island of hispaniola. they have been our fellow citizens for almost a hundred years. they have contributed greatly to our economy, fought and decide

to defend our country. but today they are suffering through what may be the worst economic and fiscal crisis on that island's history. we must not let their economy collapse. i led the field of candidates in our party in calling for congress to approve legislation giving puerto rico the same ability to negotiate with its creditors that states have under the u.s. bankruptcy code. i led the field in calling on the department of health and human services to end the inequitable treatment of puerto rico, where they pay the same taxes but get back pennies on the same dollar for medicaid and medicare. we all need to stand up for puerto rico and demand action. [ applause ] >> and on the island of hispaniola, where mass deportations of haitians and dominicans of haitian descent have already begun, i was the first and so far the only presidential candidate to call on the united states to work

with our allies in the united nations to use the full force of our diplomatic might to stop this atrocious affront to human rights here in our own hemisphere. we wouldn't tolerate the expulsion of citizens with that due process based on skin color or ethnic background. we shouldn't remain silent when such injustice is perpetrated in our own hemisphere. speaking up is the right thing to do and we must all demand action. [ applause ] >> the people of our world care a lot more about what we do than about what we say. and that is why i pledge to you that i will always act in accordance with my principles and guided by the better angels of our country. that's who i am. and that's how i led. and that's how i will continue to lead. i want to leave you with this last american story. many of you will remember the scene last year when refugee

children were fleeing death gangs and traveling at great risk to their lives over the desert, north from guatemala and honduras and salvador, fleeing these murderous gangs. when children arrive at our doorstep fleeing starvation and gangs, we must not turn our backs. we must not turn them away or, worse, pen them up behind chain link and barbed wire fencing in conditions that looked a lot more like those you might see at your local humane society than you would see in a humane country. no. we must act like the compassionate and generous people we have always been. i said at the time that we should care for these children decently and with respect for the dignity of every child. caring for them in fost aer hom,

not in detention camps. people spoke of these children sometimes as if they were a swarm of invading jackrabbits. in maryland i took a different tack. ive spoke -- i spoke to the goo in people. one of my advisors warned me at the time. he himself is the son of new american immigrants. he said, i love what you said about the central refugee kids, but being a pollster, i have to tell you, i'm not sure how this one is going to turn out. well, i did. i spoke truthfully to the goodness in every american heart. and people rallied. faith leaders from every faith in our state came together to accommodate through foster care more children per capita in maryland from central america than any other state in the united states. it was the right thing to do. and the people of my state supported it. [ applause ]

>> and here is the other part of that story. a few months later, when we held our traditional annual public open house at government house, my wife and i stood in front of the christmas tree, greeting a whole stream of citizens that came through and a long line to shake hands and say hello, one gentleman came up to me. and there was a 13-year-old boy with him. and he said, mr. governor, i want to introduce you to emanuel. he is 13. and he is one of those refugee children who just came here from guatemala that you helped. and the little boy, who had braved the desert and deprivation and death and worse, he came up to me and he shook my hand, and then very quickly grabbed me around the waist in an embrace that i will never,

ever forget. emanuel. god is with us. that little boy's dream is our dream. it is the dream of everything that's ever been possible in this beautiful and generous and compassionate country. do you know who believes very firmly in the american dream and does not submit to the pessimism and the cynicism that many other americans do? it is new american immigrants. everyone who has ever risked their life to get here and make a better way believes in the american dream, will do anything to defend it and make it real, and defend and protect our country. i believe it. you believe it. our better days are ahead of us. so now together, let us fight to make it true. thank u very, very much. [ applause ] >> thank you guys. thanks a lot. [ cheers and applause ]

more coverage from the congressional hispanic caucus and remarks from democratic presidential candidate senator bernie sanders of vermont. [ cheers and applause ]

>> thank you. let me thank congresswoman grisham for that warm introduction. and i also want to thank congresswoman linda sanchez and esther aguillera and the chci staff for hosting me today, and thank all of you very much for being here. the reason i am running for president is that this country faces some enormously serious problems. one can argue that if you include the crisis regarding climate change, there are more serious problems today than at any time since the great depression. and i know that much of the media things of politics as how

much money you raise, what your standing is in the polls, or what kind of dumb thing you said last night. but all of you understand that politics is in fact about the future of our country, what happens to tens and tens and tens of millions of people, many of whom are hurting today. and what i hope all of you understand, and i know you do or you would not be here tonight, you would not be participating in the political process, is that if we do not bring people together, if we do not engage people in serious discussion, if we do not significantly increase the voter turnout, not good things will happen to our country. so what i ask of all of you is to engage in that debate.

make sure we have one of the highest voter turnouts in the world, not one of the lowest voter turnouts, and that we in fact start addressing some of the real problems facing our country. what i want to do today is touch on a few of those issues. and the first one i want to touch on is the need for real immigration reform. i also want to talk about the stain of racism which has existed in this country and in the world for god knows how many years. and i want to talk about the economic reality which faces our country. and that is, we have a middle class which for the last 40 years has been disappearing. and we have massive levels of income and wealth inequality that we have got to address. now, as everybody here knows, throughout history, for whatever

reason, and i'm not a psychiatrist, we have lived with a stain of racism on all of human existence. now, in my own case, i know a little bit about racism and what it means. my father lost much of his family in europe as a result of the holocaust. and he came to this country at the age of 17, not speaking a word of english. so i think the first point that we have to make is a commitment to end institutional racism in this country. [ cheers and applause ] >> let me just say this for a moment, is there can be disagreements among honest people about emigration reform.

i'm going to tell you in a moment what my view is. but what is not acceptable is demagoguery. what is not acceptable is attempting to define what group of people, quote unquote, as rapists and criminals. that is not the kind of debate and discussion we need in america today. that is racism. that is unacceptable. and that has got to be rejected. [ cheers and applause ] >> one of the great strengths of america, people around the world don't realize it, is in fact we are a nation of many, many people, of many colors, of many backgrounds, of many languages. and in my view, that makes us a stronger nation, not a weaker

nation. this is something we should be proud of. my dad came from poland. many of your parents came from other countries. but when we stand together as a people and we bring our different cultures together, we create a nation of extraordinary capabilities which become stronger because of our diversity, something we should be proud of. [ applause ] >> as he mentioned, my father came from poland without a nickel in his pocket, couldn't speak english. and he never made a whole lot of money. i grew up in a rent-controlled

apartment in brooklyn, new york. my mother's dream was that someday she would be able to own her own house. she died young, never achieved that dream. but my dad was the proudest american that you could ever see, because he understood the extraordinary opportunities that this great country gave him and his family. and the fact that a very poor young man from poland could see his two kids go to college was something of enormous consequence for our family. today, as all of you know, we have 11 million people in this country who are undocumented. 99% of whom came to this country to improve their lives, to escape oppression, to flee

desperate poverty and violence. and let us be frank about an issue we don't talk about enough, and that is that today's undocumented workers play an extraordinarily important role in our economy. without these workers, it is likely that much of our agricultural system would collapse. a simple reality. [ applause ] >> today undocumented workers are doing the extremely difficult work of harvesting our crops, building our homes, cooking our meals, and caring for our children. in fact, they are part of the fabric of america. [ applause ]

and let me just take a brief moment to tell you a little story about my experience with -- one of my experiences with undocumented workers. back in 2007, i learned about the mohorrendous exploitation i emocli, florida. anybody here from florida? have you heard of emocli? it's near naples. it turns out that in emocli, florida, that is a town where a lot of the tomatoes are grown, low grade tomatoes that are used in mcdonald's and in burger king, and the people who harvest those crops are by and large undocumented. on the day that i arrived, the day that i came to emocli, florida, just coincidentally

enough, the u.s. attorney was announcing an indictment of some contractors there who employed people who worked in the fields on the grounds of slavery. this is the year 2007. people were being held in involuntary servitude by some contractors there on the tomato fields. in emocli, i saw the conditions and exploitation that undocumented workers lived under. they worked very long and irregular hours for very low wages. their housing was abysmal. and the reality of their lives and why they were able to be exploited was they could not stand up for their rights because they had no legal

status. and that's the simple fact of it. now, this story has a somewhat happy ending in that we were able to hold a hearing on this issue, and that was when the late ted kennedy was chairman of the committee, and he and i worked together. we had a hearing, we brought some people up there. the end of it all was with a lot of great people doing great work, we ended up improving wages and working conditions. but today, 11 million people who are in this country, they remain undocumented and are having and struggling to adequately feed their families. they came to this country to escape gang violence and desperate economic conditions. let me also be clear on raising

an issue that is not talked about very much, and that is, when people come across the border, they know full well that there are employers who will hire them. and if anyone things that employers throughout this country do not know that the workers that they are hiring, and in many cases exploiting, are undocumented, then you don't know the history of america for the last 50 years. [ applause ] >> so where do we go from here? well, i supported the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the u.s. senate. while it is a complicated piece

of legislation, and it is a piece of legislation that can and must be improved, i believe that it provided a responsible path to citizenship so individuals could in fact come out of the shadows and people can walk the streets with safety. people can hold their heads high. people can have the protection of the law and participate fully and without fear in american society. to tell you a story, i was in phoenix a couple of months ago, and after i spoke at a rally, a number of young latino kids came up, we chatted for a while. there were tears coming down their cheeks as they talked about their fear of being deported or of having their

parents being deported. that is not the kind of existence, the kind of fear that we want millions of americans, people living in this country, to experience. and that is why we must pass comprehensive immigration reform. [ applause ] >> now, as many of you know, the senate bill attempted to accomplish this important goal. and in my view, the time is long overdue for many of my republican colleagues to end the demagoguery and in fact take up serious immigration reform. [ applause ] >> the senate bill contained the

provisions of the dream act, which i strongly support. it is my belief that we should recognize the young men and women who comprise the dreamers for what they are. they are american kids who deserve the right to be in the country they know as home. [ applause ] >> now, that is not to say that i do not have significant criticisms of this long and very complicated piece of legislation. i believe the pathway to citizenship was unnecessarily linked to border security triggers, measures that many believe were put in place so that the path to citizenship would be delayed or even denied for the millions of undocumented

individuals here. and i want to change those provisions. i also believe that the penalties and fines in the bill would be a bar, an impediment essentially preventing them from accessing the path to legal residency and eventual citizenship. to be meaningful, a pathway to citizenship needs to be achievable for the millions of workers at the lower end of the economic ladder. [ applause ] >> these and other barriers in the bill, including the time it takes, often more than a decade, makes it a flawed piece of legislation which needs significant improvement.

but in fairness, in a bipartisan way, at least the senate did something. the time is very long overdue for the house to act. [ applause ] >> now, until we can pass comprehensive immigration reform, and i hope that is sooner than later, we must be aggressive in pursuing policies that are humane and sensible, and that keep families together. this includes taking measures that are currently available, including using the presidential power of executive order when it is appropriate. while the senate passed the dream act in its immigration bill, and while the house has not acted, i think president

obama did exactly the right thing through his executive order for deferred action for childhood arrivals, daca. [ applause ] daca and deferred action for parents of americans and lawful permanent residents were good first steps but should be, in my view, expanded. deferred action should include the parents of dreamers. we should be pursuing policies that unite families, not tear them apart. [ applause ] obviously the latino community is deeply concerned about the immigration issue, deeply concerned about issues of

racism. but like every other group in america, the latino community maybe more than most is deeply concerned about the state of the american economic and political system. and let me take a few moments to touch upon that. the economic reality of america today is that, yes, we are doing better than we did seven years ago when president bush left office, and when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, when the financial system was on the verge of collapse, and we were running up the largest deficit in american history. we are better off today than we were then. but, and here is the big "but,"

what we should also recognize is that for the last 40 years, 40 years, the great middle class of this country, once the envy of the entire world, has been disa. and that has accelerated since the wall street crash of 2008. and while millions of americans today are working longer hours for lower wages, and while youth unemployment is outrageously high, and while young people cannot afford to go to college, and while we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth, there is another economic reality that is taking place which needs a lot of discussion, and that the that the wealthiest people in this country and the largest

corporations are doing phenomenally well and almost all of the new income and welt be g wealth being created are going to the top 1%. now, that's a fact. and i know that people get uneasy and uncomfortable about talking about it. but it is an issue that has to be put on the table. because we need to create an economy that works for all of us, works for seniors, works for the children, works for working families and not just an economy that works for the top 1%. [ applause ] at a final when millions of m s

americans are working two or three jobs to bring in enough money for their family, it's not acceptable that latinos make up more than 16% of our population but have only 2.2% of the nation's wealth. it's not acceptable that youth unemployment this fl thcountry reached tragic proportions and i want to say a few words on that bays this is an issue that is too rarely discussed. a couple of months ago i asked economists to do a study for me. and the study was tell me what the real rate of youth unemployment and underemployment in america is and this is what they reported back. if you are a high school graduate -- not a dropout, a high school graduate -- between the ages of 17 and 20, if you are white, real unemployment is 33%. if you are hispanic real

unemployment is 36%. if you are african-american, real unemployment is 51%. now, what this means is that we have millions of young people in this country, people who want to leave their home, starts a career, make some money, become independent, become adults and yet they have no jobs and they have no education. and if anybody in this room thinks that it is a coincidence that when we have 5.5 million young people who are not in school and are not working while at the same time we have more people in jail than any other country on earth, if you think that's a coincidence, you would be sorely mistaken.

in my view, it makes a lot more sense to invest in edgication, invest in jobs rather than in jails and incarceration. [ cheers and applause ] this is a huge issue and by the way, i want to applaud the president for just yesterday announcing that thousands of people in jail for non-violent crime will be released, and that is exactly the right thing to do. [ applause ] together we must end this dubious distinction of the united states having more people in jail than any other country

and we must move to the distinction of having the best educated population on earth. [ applause ] and as part of that whole issue of criminal justice reform, a huge issue, i have introduced legislation to eliminate privately run jails and immigration detention centers. [ cheers and applause ] and, by the way, when you do that, you're ending the quota for detaining undocumented immigrants. [ applause ] corporations should not be making profits on the incarceration of people in this

country. [ applause ] but when we talk about our economy and where it is today, it is first of all the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality. today in america the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. got that? top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. today in america with people working incredibly long hours, people working 50, 60 hours a week, 58% of all new income is going to the top 1%. in the last two years in america, the 14 wealthiest people in this country saw their wealth increase -- wealth

increase -- by $156 billion. that wealth increase in two years is more wealth than is owned by the bottom 130 million americans. "wow" is the right response. [ laughter ] but it's more than wow. it is immoral, it is unsustainable and we have got to change that. [ cheers and applause ] essentially, what we have now is a rigged economy which says heads they win, tails you lose. and we need an economy and we can build an economy which works for the middle-class and that is exactly what together we have got to do.

but when we talk about the economy, it is not just the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that has to change. it is also the reality that if you have millions of people working two or three jobs -- and let me tell you a story here. i was in des moines, iowa, a few months ago and i talked to a guy who works for a church group at a farmer's market and what he was doing is collecting the food that was not sold and taking it to an emergency food shelter. and i asked him, you know, what percentage of the folks that go to that emergency food shelter are working? and you know what his answer was? 90%. in other words, in des moines and all over this country you've got millions of people working really, really hard but they're not earning enough money to adequately feed their kids.

at the root cause of that problem is that we have a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. now, you could do the arithmetic as well as i can. multiply 7.25 by 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and what you will find is that wage is totally inadequate for anybody to survive with a shred of dignity. in my view, when you have a minimum wage which is is a starvation wage, we have got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage that is $15 over the next few years. [ applause [ applause ] senator bernie sanders remarks to the institute can be seen on our web site cspan.org.

we lead this for more road to the white house coverage as republican presidential candidate dr. ben carson is speaking at the national press club. he o authored a new book with his wife candy titled "a more perfect union." he is expected to talk about the book and his campaign. live coverage here on c-span 3. good afternoon and welcome. my name is john hugh, i'm an editor for bloomberg news's first woo first word and i am president of the national press club. [ applause ] thank you! our guest today is republican presidential candidate and neurosurgeon dr. ben carson. he'll discuss his newest book, one he wrote with his wife candy titled "a more perfect union: what we the people can do to

reclaim our constitutional liberties." but first i would like to introduce our distinguished head table. this head table includes club members and also guests of the speaker. from the audience's right, joseph morton. he's a washington correspondent for the omaha world herald and he is the membership secretary of the national press club. ferdos al farouk. he is a reporter for the gray sheet. jennifer lazlow mizrahi, president of respectability usa. benjy sarlin, -d0ihe's politica reporter for msnbc. candy carson, she's the wife of our speaker. [ applause ] thomas burr, he's the washington correspondent for the salt lake tribune and the vice president of the national press club.

micron bellkind, a george washington university professor and former president of the national press club. kevin merita, the managing editor of the "washington post." gabriel debenedettii, the national correspondent for politi politico. jasmine el sabawi, correspondent for the kuwait news agency and dakari arons, director of communications for the data quality campaign. [ applause ] i also want to welcome our other guests in the room today and our c-span and public radio audiences. i want to welcome our audiences watching the live stream on our web site press.org and you can also follow the action on

twitter. use the hashtag "npc live." that's #npclive. well, our speaker today has never served in congress or as the gauche of a state or in any elected office of any kind. he did tell me he was elected -- [ applause ] and that gets aclause. he did tell me that he was elected to the yale board so there's an elected office but that's as close as it comes to being elected to any kind of public office. and this is one of the reasons dr. ben carson's supporters say they want him to be the next president. he's not part of the washington establishment that so many fault for gridlock and in effectiveness. so far on the campaign trail he's separated himself from better-funded candidates with the political experience that he lacks. recent polling has dr. carson

running second nationally for the gop nomination behind donald trump and ahead of carly fiorina. in campaign, he has shown his sharp opposition to obamacare his concern about the federal debt and his goal to stop abortion. he also says all options must be on the table when confronting russia's vladimir putin. his life story has become familiar to many. he grew up noor detroit with a single mother and excelled in school, he rose to become the director of pediatric neurosurgery at johns hopkins for 29 years. he became the first person to successfullylzez separate siam twins joined at the back of the head. he won the presidential medal of people the

freedom in 2008 and he has published several books included his autobiography ""gifted hands." during various media appearances he has made a lot of headlines on issues such as the mass shooting in oregon, the debt limit and whether he could vote for a muslim for president. but we all know the best place to make news is in this room and at this podium so let's be about it. ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm national press club welcome to dr. ben carson. [ applause ] >> thank you. well, thank you very much. candy and i are delighted to be here and i'll just get right into it because i don't have a whole lot of time and we want to leave time to answer questions. you know, why did i write this book?

and america is such a great place and i am so glad that i was born here. i have traveled to 57 different countries, got on the know lots of people in a lot of otherwise of life but this remains the place that is the land of dreams and i know a lot of people like to criticize our nation and demonize it and say it's responsible for a lot of horrible things and yet i see a lot of people trying to get in here and not a lot of people trying to get out so i'm not sure that that's really all that legitimate, to be honest with you. but growing up in poverty with a lot of disadvantages, the thing that was really great is i was still able to focus on my dream of becoming a doctor. it was only thing i ever wanted to do. i skipped right by policeman and fireman and went straight to

doctor. [ laughter ] and i loved anything that had to do with medicine. i even liked going to the doctor's office. [ laughter ] and i would gladly sacrifice a shot just to be able to smell those alcohol swabs. [ laughter ] it was so cool. and on through the whole process, there are a lot of hurdles along the way? absolutely. tremendous hurdles along the way. but nevertheless it was still possible to realize that dream. and i want to make sure that that continues to be the case. and one of the reasons that it was possible is because we have a system that did everything possible to create fairness. even when there were people in the system who did not want to be fair. and that's why it's so important that we must preserve our constitution. virtually all americans know

that we have a constitution, but how many people actually know what's in it? and how many people actually know what's behind it? and, of course, it is the mechanism that guarantees our liberties and that provides the guidelines for the restraint of government because our founders recognized that it was the natural tendency of government to grow and invade every aspect of your life and to try to control your life. that's what people do. and that's what they wanted to avoid by doing this and that's why it's so important that we understand it. you know in 1831 when alexis detoqueville came to america to study our great country, because the europeans were just so

flabbergasted that this fledgling nation barely 50 years old was already competing with them on virtually every level, he was going to really dissect it and see what was going on but one of the things that really impressed him was how educate it had people were. anybody finishing the second grade was completely literate. he could find a mountain man on the outskirts of society and the guy could read the newspaper and could tell him how our government worked. and nowadays we don't seem to emphasize civics and things like that in school anymore and i'm sure some of you have seen some of those man on the street interviews situations where they go out and ask basic questions and people have no clue what you're talking about. you say "who's the first president?" and they say "reagan?" i mean, they just --

[ laughter ] they have no idea. and it's funny but it's so sad. because our founders and particularly franklin and jefferson emphasize education and they emphasize being informed and they said our system of government and our freedoms are dependent on a well-informed and educated populous because they recognize that if the people were not well informed that they would be easily to manipulate and all it could take was dishonest politicians and a complicit news media and off you would go into another direction very, very quickly. now i'll tell you right off the bat before i go any further, i'm not politically correct. i will not be politically correct and that's one of the

reasons a lot of the people in the press don't like me. but it's okay because, you know what i really love is this country. i don't necessarily care whether the press likes me or not and therefore i'm not going to conform to all their little requirements. people ask me all the time well, why don't you just do this and do this and then they won't say bad things about you? because this is america. that's why i'm not going to do that and i never will do that. but i want to touch on some of the aspects of america that i touched on in the book. like the balance of powers. the check and balance system, the separation of power, i believe this is this is so vitally important and it was a touch of genius by our founders because they recognized that each branch -- executive, judicial and legislative -- would want to maintain their

power. and therefore they would push back against excesses in the other branches and that works extraordinarily well in a government like we have when they all are exercising their power appropriately. unfortunately, we have a peanut gallery. you know, that i sort of sit there and watch what the others do, sometimes complain about it but really don't offer any resistance because they're afraid somebody might blame them. news flash -- they're going to get blamed anyway. so what they really ought to be thinking about is how do they get involved and be more proactive? . case in point. i think about the recent decision by the supreme court on

gay marriage. now, first of all, let me just say i have nothing against gay people whatsoever. i know a lot of people don't believe that because we live a society now where if you don't accept their entire agenda then you're a homophobe. but i personally believe that any two people regardless of sexual orientation or anything else have the right to associate together. if they want to have a legal contract drawn up which allows them to share property, have hospital visitation rights, do whatever they want, absolutely. i don't have any problem with that. that's the kind of country that this was designed to be. live and let live, not impose your values on everybody else. and that's a problem. but with the supreme court ruling that changes essentially

the definition of marriage, it doesn't take into consideration the implications of that. if you change it for one group, why don't you change it for the next? what defense do you have against the next group. are you going to say we can only change it this one time? we're never going to change it again? well, that wouldn't be very fair. so why change in the the first place? it's been working very well for thousands of years and that's what happens when people go in and start tinkering with things without thinking about the implications of it. and the legislative branch, however, i would have thought, would have been already prepared with legislation in case the court came down with that decision to make sure we preserve the rights -- the religious rightsover everybody. not everybody agrees with their

new definition of marriage and it's a conviction and a religious conviction. and they need to make sure that they protect people's religious rights. they've been johnny come lately, but i call upon congress to do that now. because there are people who are losing their jobs, their livelihood and that's not fair. that's not what america was supposed to be. but unless all the branches of government are functioning the right way, these are the kinds of things that happen because there will be overreach by any of the branches because they're composed of people and people are not perfect. but that's why we have the counterbalanced for the to be able to rectify the situation because one group may not take into consideration the ramifications of what they are

doing. also, you know, the constitution indicates that civil issues really should be dealt with at the local level. at the state level. there's a reason for that. it was because the legislators and the judiciary at the local level are subject to the will of the people. the people vote them in, the people vote them out and our founders felt that the people should be the ones who determined mow things worked and the standards by which they lived when you take those issues and you bump them up to a level where the people making the decisions somewhere v -- whatsoever have no obligations to the people, then you wind up with an oligarchy type

government. that was not what the founders intended for america. so we are somehow going to have to look into ways to rebalance that because if we continue down that pathway you can see how virtually everything that they intended will be upset. we don't want that to happen. the preamble to the constitution talks about the role of the government in terms of promoting the general welfare. that doesn't mean we want to put everybody on welfare. that's not what the general welfare is. it means that when we do things we want to do them in a way that they benefit the entire society. and it is very important that we take care -- that we make sure that everybody is taken care of in an appropriate way. but when i say "we" that does not necessarily mean the federal government. i get criticized sometimes --

inappropriately, by the way -- by people who say carson grew up very poor, he must have benefited from some government programs and now he wants to withdraw all the safety nets. well, this issing in but a blatant lie by people who need to characterize me as heartless. they love to do that. they love to say carson's insensitive and heartless and he hates people because they need that narrative. that's the only way that it can be acceptable because i don't fit into their general description -- a black person who is a conservative? they can't quite deal with that. who talks about self-reliance and that you're not dependent on them? how could you possibly say such heresy? so it's knows demonize individuals like that and i

understand that and i'm actually willing to fight with them. i will continue to fight where them but i'm fighting for something even greater and that is i'm fighting for the people of the united states because you see we have very very smart and very, very capable people in our nation who would be extremely good leaders but they say why would i get into that cesspool and be attacked and have my family attack and have people going through every aspect of my life and trying to demonize me? and people don't want to do that. well, i'm going to fight that fight for them. and if i'm successful, i expect that maybe lot more of the people in our country who are not professional politicians will say you know what?

he did it, i'm going do it, too. and i think we'll be much better off as a country when we once again understand that there country is for everybody and not for a specific political class. [ applause ] but as far as the whole safety net workment is concerned, you know, my mother worked extraordinarily hard, three jobs at a time, leaving the house before 5:00 in the morning, getting back after midnight because she didn't want to be dependent. and she occasionally accepted some aid, but for the most part was able to stay off of it. and she refused to be a victim. and she refused to let us be victims and it wasn't that she didn't recognize that there were

problems out there, she chose to focus on other things and she would say to us "if you walk into an auditorium full of bigoted racist people" she said "you don't have a problem, they have a problem." she said "because when you walk in there they're going to cringe and wonder if you're going to sit next to them. whereas you can sit anywhere you want." [ laughter ] that's kind of the way i have that chose on the lead my life. have there been obstacles? of course? have there been racist people around? of course there have. but i said that's their problem. i've got some very important things that i need to do so i can get wrapped up in their problem or i can do the important things. not everybody chooses to lead their life that way, and that's fine but that's the way that i chose to lead mine and it works pretty well, if i do say so

myself. : having said that, i am very concerned about the downtrodden people in our society. and i do believe we have a responsibility to take care of them. but when i say "we" i'm talking about we the people. i'm talking about the private sector. i'm not talking about the government. the government has been taking this on really since woodrow wilson but it kept increasing. by the time we got to lyndon johnson and the war on poverty, it was, hey, we're the savior, we're going to take care of you guys, we're going to solve all these problems. well, here we are all these years later, $19 trillion later, did we solve the problem? we have ten times more people on food stamps. more people innerty, welfare, broken homes, out-of-wed locke

births, crime, incarceration, everything that was supposed to be better is not only worse, it's much worse. so i'm not going to sit here and demonize the government for doing that but i'm saying isn't it time to wake up and start thinking about another way to do things rather than driving ourselves into debt without solving the problem? and that is a tremendous responsibility of the government is well -- to remain sol vent because you are the guardian of the people's future i mean, how can we enjoy the liberties and have our posterity, enjoy the liberties if they are overloaded with debt?

$18.5 trillion? the national debt, think about that. to pay that back at $10 million a day it would take you over 5,000 years. that's absurd. and we're putting that on the backs of our young people and now here we are sitting here saying let's increase the debt some more. let's raise the debt ceiling some more. did it ever maybe occur to us that there's another way? i mean, there are 4.1 million federal employees. i would offer that that's too many. and there are 645 federal agencies and subagencies. all of whom have budgets. this is absurd. and we have people saying if you

cut the budget by one penny it will be a disaster. nancy pelosi. [ laughter ] this is absolutely absurd! and -- but we must think about the children and that really is the main reason that i've gotten into the fray here as a pete i can't tell rick neurosurgeon. my whole professional career centered on the children. and on the future for the children. what we have to do to improve quality of life for them. how can we in good conscience continue this charade of responsibility knowing what we are doing to their future? if i had time, i would really get into, you know, the fiscal gap and all the implications of that and what the implications of the debt is on the fed and how they're irresponsibly

printing money and how the low interest rates are hurting the poor and the middle-class because, you know, putting money into a savings account or buying bonds doesn't help them. the only people who can make money are people who can are a risk tolerance which allows them to go into the stock market and i would talk about regulations and how every single regulation costs money in terms of goods and services and how those are the things that are really impacting the middle-class and poor people. it doesn't matter for wealthy people if a bar of soap goes up 10 cents but it matters a lot for the middle-class and poor people. think about that regulatory burden and who it is really hurting. it goes on and on and on. when we're promoting the general welfare, those are the kinds of things we have to be thinking about and we have to think about mechanisms for allowing the downtrodden in society to escape

from dependency and move up into the fabric of success in our country and we have to understand that we only have 330 million people. sounds like a lot but china has over a billion. india has over a billion. we need to get the bang for the buck out of all of our people. we need to be thinking about policies that allow all of our people to rise and stop all the silly class warfare stuff. and we can get immediate stimulus by thinking about the over $2 trillion that exists overseas right now. we need to bring that money back. you know i can remember many an afternoon sitting around the board table at kellogg or costco talking about the money overseas and what we were going to do with it and how we would love to bring it back in order to build another factory or do something else but the corporate tax rates

were too high. well, what if we had a six-month hiatus on those corporate taxes overseas? let that money be repatriated. i've been talking about this for several months. it couldn't cost them anything to repatriate it, we would only request or require that 10% of it be used in enterprise zones set up in our major cities or to provide employment for people who are unemployed or on welfare. you want to talk about an incredible stimulus that didn't cost the taxpayers one penny? that would be the biggest stimulus probably since fdr's new deal. [ applause ] that's low-hanging fruit. that's low-hanging fruit. and that's what we've got to do, deal with this low-hanging fruit. the other thing is it gets business and industry once again thinking about how do we invest

in the people around us? this is what we used to do before the government started taking over everything because americans are very generous people. you think about early america and you had these communities all over the place, in many cases separated by hundreds of miles. how did they survive and how did they thrive? because at harvest time if a farmer was up in the apple tree picking apples and fell out and broke his leg everybody else pitched in and harvested his crops. if somebody got killed, everybody else pitched in and took care of their family. that's who we are. when there's disaster in the world, who's always on the front line? it's us. so let's utilize that and recognize that we are our brother's keeper and it's our duty to take care of the indigent and not the duty of the government. [ applause ] we learn that. and then, you know, another

important aspect of our government to provide for the common defense. now i can talk about this for a long time. but simply to allow our military to deteriorate the way it has? to fail to take care of our veterans to the point where we have 22, 23 suicides everyday? it makes absolutely no sense. to leave our electric grid unprotected. it needs to be hardened. we need to have several layers of alternative energy. you know, this is criminal what we're doing because we are so vulnerable and we need to really belief up our cyber capabilities. and i'll tell you, under a carson administration if another country attacks us with a cyber attack, they're going to get hit so hard it will take them a long time to recovery. we can't sit around and let people do stuff and just say

"you're bad, i don't like you." [ laughter ] we can't do that. and we have to understand -- [ applause ] -- we also need to reinvigorate our space program. i think it's a crime that we have moved away from that. think about all the inventions, the innovation that came out of that, your cell phone, so many things and the important thing is in the future he who controls space controls the earth. we can not be tardy to that when there are others who are working very hard in order to conquer that area. [ applause ] and the last area i just want to mention briefly, and i could really go on for quite a while on this one but there is only one business in america that is protected by the constitution

and that is the press. and there was a reason for that. it was because the press was supposed to be an ally of the people and they were supposed to expose and inform the people in a non-partisan way. when they become partisan -- which they are -- they distort the system as it was supposed to work and they allow the side that they pick to get away with all kinds of things. and i think there's still hope for the press. i think it's possible that some of them will recognize that it's almost a sacred obligation that they have to the people to be honest. [ applause ]

now, you know, just in the last week my own case they take something that i say about the shootings and oregon and don't put the part in where i was answering a question, don't put the question in, just give the response and say "see? he's being critical of the people." i mean, the good something that a lot of the people in america are on to them. and understand what they're trying to do and that's run of the reasons we're doing well and it seems like the more they attack me the better we do because people expect that. [ applause ] last week i'm leaving a press conference getting ready to get on a bus and the reporter says "can you tell me what you're going to do about the hurricanes?" i said "good-bye, i don't know." the next day "carson wants to be

president, has no idea what to do about hurricanes." [ laughter ] i mean, this is the level of insincerity that we see. and it's kind of embarrassing to see that. and it happens on the other side, too. it's not just on one side, you know? i was doing an interview with wolf blitzer yesterday and he was asking about renewal of the voting rights act and of course i want renewal of the voting rights act or at least an aspect of it that protects all americans' rights to vote. but it's a much longer conversation about what needs to be done to it before it is renewed. it was something based on conditions 50 or 60 years ago. a lot of things have changed since that time. we certainly don't want to empower the department of

justice to do some of the things that the holder justice department did based on that bill. so everything needs to be looked at in its context and when news media pick one word or one phrase and one with with it and try to characterize people like that, i've got to tell you guys, that's why people don't trust you him. i mean, you're down there with used car salesmen. [ applause ] so what is it going to take to save our country? courage. it's going to take courage by all of us, including the press. and we have to begin to think about those who come behind us. because what would have happened to us if those who preceded us were little chicken livers? what if they weren't willing to

take risk? what if on d-day our soldiers invading the beaches of normandy had seen their colleagues being cut down, 100 bodies laying in the sand, a thousand bodies laying in the sand, what if they had been frightened and turned back? well, i guarantee you, they were friegtsenned. but they didn't turn back. they stepped over the bodies of their colleagues, knowing in many cases that they would never see their homeland or their loved ones again and they stormed those axis troops and they took that beach and they died. why did they do that? they didn't do it for

themselves, they did it for you and they did it for me. and now it's our turn. and what are we willing to do for our children? and for our grandchildren? are we willing to stand up? are we afraid that somebody is going to call us a nasty name? or they we're going to get an irs audit or that somebody is going to mess with our job. we have a lot less to lose than they did and the people who are always telling me "hang in there, don't let them get to you," believe me, do not worry about it. the stakes are much too high. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you, dr. carson. i have many questions, include manager questions about foreign policy. we have president putin intervening in syria supporting the assad regime and this morning we learned that the president of the united states is ending the program for training the anti-assad rebels. how would you as president approach the syrian situation? what actions would you take? >> well, i think it's a very serious situation and i think we can not simply be passive in a situation like this. when the russian generals tell us "we don't want you guys

flying in this area" my response to him would be "go take a flying leap, we'll fly anywhere we want to." but i think we ought to be establishing our own no-fly zone in conjunction with turkey. and i think we need to recognize that why is he really there? he said he was coming there to fight isis. has he really been fighting isis? or al nusra? and alal-jilani and everybody opposing assad. and you'll see assad is getting help from the supreme leader of iran. what's going on there? because you know these relationships are complex, some people were a little surprised when i indicated that putin and ali have a long-term

relationship as mahmoud abbas. abbas and khamenei were in the same class and patrice la mumba university in moscow, graduating class of '68 and they were already quite familiar with a young vladimir putin at that time. and i believe that putin is very desperate right now because oil prices are very low. that's what's great deally been precluding his expansionist activities, not us, believe me. it's the economic situation. now, he can get a foothold in syria and then begin to spread his influence throughout that region and if he can gain control of significant energy reserves he might then be able to have a much more -- much more

control on energy prices throughout the world. and that will then embolden him because he will be strengthened to do what he needs to do but we need to fight him every what where. we need to be reestablishing the missile defense system, i think, in eastern europe. we need to be supplying arms to the ukraine. we said we were going to protect them if they gave up their nuclear weapons. they gave them up. did we protect them? of course not. we turned our back on israel. i don't think the rest of the world is idly sitting by and noticing we renege on our responsibility. so we need to oppose him at every step. we also needs to take advantage of his economic weakness by using our economic strength in very wise ways. >> the house is looking for a new speaker and there's a report that mitt romney called paul ryan and urged him to run for

speaker. is paul ryan the guy? should he run for speaker? as president, how would you work with congress to tend gridlock that's defined washington so often. >> paul ryan is a fine person. i like him. i like a lot of people in congress. i hope the process plays out. i hope that a number of people will present their philosophy for leadership and that there's an opportunity for the members of congress to see who they want to work with as their leader and what i would do is i would have a policy of talking. the current administration doesn't talk a lot to the people in congress, not even to their own party. how can you come to resolutions without talking? i mean, what happens before people get divorced? they stop talking. the next thing you know their spouse is the devil incarnate.

that's what we're seeing and we all basically want the united states to succeed. we have different philosophies about how that's going to be done. but i think if we're willing to sit down and talk about it then we find we're not nearly as far apart as we think we are. we do have to keep the instigators out and the people who try to irritate and agitate. good example of that is a few weeks ago when i was on "meet the press" and i said i think anybody from any religion or any background who is willing to embrace our values and is willing to put our constitution above their belief system is acceptable to me. i don't know why that is a difficult subject for people to understand. but anyone whose belief system does not conform to our

constitution and who is not, why would that person be the leader of this country? that doesn't make any sense. in your first three months in office what would be different and how will the people know it? >> well, first of all i would call a joint session of congress and i would want them to know that under the carson administration we recognize that the people are at the pinnacle and that we work for them and they don't work for us. and we have to begin to also understand that we are americans first and democrats and republicans second. or maybe even third. we have to stop fighting each other because one of the things

that i think threatens to destroy our nation is the extreme divisiveness and we've got on the the point where we believe that if somebody disagrees with you then you need to try to destroy them. destroy their family and their livelihood. where did that come from? i guarantee you, it did not come from our judeo-christian values and roots. [ applause ] >> as president, who would you want as chairman of the federal reserve and/or what kind of qualities do you want in that person? >> honesty and common sense one a good start. and that's not to say that we haven't had such good people. i like janet yellen. i served on a board with her. she's a very decent person. i think she's trying very hard but you have to realize we've put the fed in a very difficult

position right now because of the amount of debt we've accumulated. it's very hard for the fed to allow interest rates to rise to a reasonable level with an 18 plus trillion dollar national debt. the debt service on a -- with an interest rate suppressed almost to zero is still $250 billion a year. can you imagine what it would be if we allowed interest rates to rise to their normal levels is? so we need to be working on driving that debt down and i have some ideas about how that can be done and that have been a very ameliorating effect and some freedom for the fed but the other thing is i would like to see somebody who understands that we can't print money based on the good name and faith and credit of the united states of america. bedecoupled in 1933 and 1971

from the gold standard. it doesn't have to be gold. there are other things that it can be coupled to. but we need of tto have some responsible underlying to what we do and i think it would make a big difference. >> you mentioned in your comments on "meet the press" and i've gotten several questions from the audience about -- related to that. one questioner says "muslims serving in the u.s. -- there are muslims serving in our united states military, our police forces, our courts, our school boards, our city councils, so on and so forth, so how is it okay for a muslim to serve and die in the military to defend our values or for a judge to uphold the constitution even though the faith of those individuals are incompatible with the constitution they are sworn to protect and uphold." long question, but you get what they're going to. >> well, again, a good

understanding of the constitution answers that question for you. because when you look at the article 2, and we're talking about requirements for the president and they have to be a natural born citizen, now why is that the case. i'm sure if you had gone to the founders and said but what about this person? they may not be a natural born citizen but they've been in america for most of their lives and they're fine upstanding citizen. they've served in the military. they came back, they were on the police force, can't they be the? and they would have said no. they say we don't even want to take the slight chance that we would put someone in that position who had different

loyalties. that's the answer to your question. [ applause ] >> questioner about your opposition to obamacare and the question along the lines of you're a doctor and obviously all the parts of medical care are important to you, preventive the care, many of the things that obamacare provides so the questioner is wondering how your values and a doctor and the importance of people getting health care squares with your opposition to this program that has given so many access to health care. >> chomping at the bit for that one. first of all, the reason that i don't like the so-called affordable care act is not because it doesn't work and not because it's not affordable but the real reason is because it flies in the face of the very

principles of the establishment of this country. this country was supposed to be of, for, and by the people with the government there to facilitate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. with that act, the government comes comes along and says i don't care what you people think. this is what we're doing. we're cramming it down your throat and if you don't like it, too bad. that is antithetical to the whole concept. it basically flips the relationship and puts the government in the driver's seat with us at its we can and call. and if they can do that with the most important heck you have, your health and your health care, it's not long before will th they can do it with every aspect of your life and it begins the fundamental changing of america. and that's doctor i wawhy i want around.your life and it begins fundamental changing of america. and that's why i want to turn it around.

we have to restore the people to the pinnacle. having said that, i do want everybody to have good care. it is consistent with who i am. and i've talked about a health care system. but let me just talk about the part for the indigent. how do we take care of the indigent now? we have medicaid $400 billion to $500 billion a year. how many participate? about a quarter of the population which is way too many by the way and we can address that by how do we get the economy rolling again. but if 80 million into $400 billion goes 5,000 times. $5,000 women every man, woman and child on medicaid. we'll get you by with that. most con see arch practices cost $2,000 a year. so that is much cheaper.see arc

$2,000 a year. so that is much cheaper. i'm not saying th that we do tht i'm saying we have enough money do that. now when mr. jones has the same they will say, mr. jones, let's get your diabetes under control so you're not back here this three weeks with another problem. a whole other level of savings. and we're teaching him personal responsibility rather than depend ebs citsensenc dependency. that will cost a lot less money an everybody will be of equal value. you won't have anybody saying i don't want to see them, they have to go to the emergency room and it will cost us i jews had been able to protect themselves much of it could have been prevented. i'll let you clarify that. and also the whole approach to these mass shootings. is having more people armed the

kind of thing that can stop more of these mass shootings, do you think? >> well, you know, the holocaust issue, that's just the left wing press again trying to stir up a controversy. which i expect of them. that's what they do. but basically what i said is that when tyranny occurs traditionally around the world, they try to disarm the people first. and that's exactly what happened in germany. in the mid to late '30s, they started a program of disarming the people. and by the mid-40s, look at what had happened. and it's happened in a number of other countries, as well. daniel webster said tyranny would never occur in america because the people are armed. so there is a reason that we have the second amendment. and it doesn't mean that i'm not happy to look at ways to keep these tragedies from occurring as long as they don't interfere with the second amendment. that's what we have to keep in

mind. and what was the other part of that question? oh, by having -- well, with the mass shootings, one of the things that many people have noticed is that they tend to go to places that are gun-free zones. so even though they may be mentally disturbed, they're not so mentalliey disturbed so not realize if you go someplace where people can shoot you, you'll probably get shot. so i'm saying it's probably a good idea to make sure that there are people in the areas where we have vulnerable people who can oppose these people. not with just words, but who are trained, you know, they can be retired policemen, retired military, some teachers might have the ability to do that. but i would feel much safer if my kid or grandchild was in a school where i knew that there were people who could protect them if somebody like that came in. to me what i'm talking about is

common sense. to some of the people out there, there is no such thing as common sense. >> we are almost out of time. before i ask the final question, i have some housekeeping. the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. to learn more about the club, visit press.org. and to donate to our nonprofit joush journalism institute, press.org/institute. i want to remind you thursday october 15, the club will hold its annual fourth estate award gala. this year we will honor gwenn eiffel, "washington week" and pbs news hour. on wednesday october 21, we will reprise a press club event from

100 years ago when senator tim kaine and other members of congress faceoff against members of the news media in the politicians versus the press spelling pbee. and friday october 23, director and actor kevin costner will be here to discuss his new book. i would how like to present our speaker with the honorary national press club mug. you have been here before, so you're developing a collection. >> thank you. >> so a couple of final questions. if the situation was right down the campaign trail, circumstances change, would you consider being donald trump's running mate? >> the press will have a field day with this one.

and by the way before i answer that question, i just want to mention many in the press will say that i'm sensitive and, you know, that i should not be thinking about running for office because i get offended by what they did. of course they will say that. but the roeason that i expose te prez is because i want the people of america to understand what they're doing. so it's not because i'm sensitive. i will continue to expose them every time they do something. because as more people understand who they are and what they're doing, it will negate their effect and until they have the kind of transformation that is necessary for them to become allies of the people, we have to know what they're doing. now, in terms of -- >> trump. >> trump? how could i fforget.

okay. you know, i believe that donald trump has been very useful because he's brought in a lot of people, brought in a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm. and whoever the eventual nominee is will benefit from that even if it's him. that's a good thing. so that's one of the reasons i don't talk about him, i don't talk about anybody else. but in terms of a vice president, i would obviously want somebody who is compatible with me. i would not necessarily be looking for somebody who can bring in shall demographic or that demographic. because the things that have to be done are very, very serious things quite frankly. this will can't be tampering around the edges. we have to go to the heart of the matter. and i don't think we have a whole lot of time do that. so it would have to be somebody who is very compatible who understands the urgency of what

we're doing. who is willing to suffer the slings and arrows to get it done. that's what it will take. >> ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause to our speaker. i would also like to thank staff members of the national press club and journalism institute for their work in preparing for today's event. for a copy of today's program, or to learn more about the national press club, go to that website press.org. thank you. we are adjourned.