is a patch work quilt of state laws. in every state where i think they do have one, i think it really creates an unlevel playing field for workers. >> what do you think for the trend for workers to ask employees about to lose their jobs to sign an agreement not to sue? as job losses usually accompanied by a one time payment. >> you know, when you are about to lose your job, you're not exactly in a position of advantage. when you add insult to injury saying you can't sue me, that borders on unfairness as a matter of law. so i have real issues with that and sometimes there will be a settlement that is an arm's length settlement and both parties agree to it and nonsuit is part of that settlement. and so that may be useful in some context but i've just in the work that i've done over the

course of the last 20 years seen too many examples of somebody who had no choice and the inequality of bargaining power at that point really tilts the playing field against workers. >> let's talk about something in the news today, the house is expected to vote to override the veto to kill the fiduciary rule. democrats support it and republicans oppose it. why has this issue become partisan? >> you'll have to ask paul ryan and others. i speak to folks -- by the way, they'll have another vote and the president's veto will be sustained. and every single democrat voted the right way. we're not going to have a vote today on flint. we're not going to have a vote today on the minimum wage. we're not going to have a vote

today on so many other issues pressing in america but we'll have another vote on this -- i don't know if they'll schedule another aca vote number 65. i mean, we have a controlled experiment going on across america for decades, which is that there are some financial advisers like the one my wife and i use who already hold themselves out asfy do you remember fiduciariries. if they put your first interest first dry up the industry, if that's correct it should have happened. but the financial planners and others have been able to move forward and to thrive because you know what, when you do put your customers' best interest first, it's great for customers and great for business. go look at the marketing materials that the businesses put out. we put your interest first.

and our rule simply says it's no longer a marketing slogan. it's the law. and i don't think that's too much to ask. there's five lawsuits now and one of them, my favorite claim infringes on their first amendment freedoms. i have four siblings and they are all doctors, i called them up, if you ever get sued for malpractice, assert a first amendment right to give crappy advice to your patient and see how far that gets you. >> you just referenced the five lawsuits, you said before it's going to withstand legal and legislative scrutiny. you remain confident none of the points in all five are going to stand up? >> i'm very confident for two reasons. number one, the process, we had a very, very inclusive and deliberate process. and one of the most frequent things we heard after our final rule from industry was thank you for listening. and number two, we got the outcome right. with no longer live in the leave it to beaver, ozzie and harriet

world where you work 30 years in the same place and have a pen and party and defined benefit plan. 401(k) was a rural highway in missouri and uncle ira was your very nice 75-year-old uncle and now today world of iras and 401(k)'s workers have to make those choices. we need a 21st century regulatory landscape to reflect 21st century reality. >> question from the audience, how do you reconcile the fact that the frule will have a different impact -- >> i heard that time and time again. i got so many calls from people who are already fiduciariries, small and mid size and larger who said when people say i won't be able to stay in the business as a result of this rule, could you do me a favor, tom, could you give them my e-mail and my

phone number because i'm going gang busters. technology is a remarkable advantage in this world. go on the website of wells front, they are going gang busters because they've been able to help people of all means move forward. as one person in the industry said, you know, the market rewards those who are innovative and put their customers first and that's why jack bogle who's been in space for 60 plus years, van guard is a pretty large company, why they've been able to succeed. >> one more. wondering about for millennials who often change jobs, will this hurt or help them rolling 401 ) 401(k)s into iras. >> it's particularly important. they look at the rule and think this applies to me when i aretire. every time you leave a job, if

you have a 401(k) or ira, this rule is very relevant. a big part of the leakage is when the 24-year-old been at the company for three years, they leave and it's entirely per missible and sometimes the best idea just to keep your money parked where you just were. what happens right now is people come at you because they see you've left, give your money to me, roll it over and i'll take care of you. you've just paid a huge fee. by the way, do me one favor, go to john oliver, watch his show from about ten days ago if you want to learn why this matters because i thought he had a pretty good summary of what was going on. 20 minutes of his show was about this rule. you kind of know where it leans. >> any thoughts on the coming retirement of a huge number of

baby boomers and how that will achkt the labor market? >> sure, our skills opportunities right now are in no small measure of function of the grain of the marketplace, i was at -- i visited boeing a couple of years ago, their plant in washington. and 30% of the workforce is within five years of retirement. so that's a tremendous opportunity. and one of the few bipartisan bills that have been passed in congress, 18 months or so ago was the workforce innovation and opportunity act. it is incumbent on us to build the skills highway of the 21st century and the good news is, this is one of those areas where there's bipartisan consensus. we've invested a lot of money and energy in apprenticeship. more money than ever before. we're building that 21st century skill super highway because the grain of the population, tom, presents tremendous opportunities, the most

important -- the most frequent thing i hear from employers is this, tom, i'm bullish about the future, the thing that keeps me up as much as anything at night, i have to make sure i have the skilled workforce to compete. that's why we invest so much in the skill space in partnership with business and partnership with state and local governments and in partnership with labor unions and other key stake holders. >> thanks. let's turn to politics for a few moments. >> i know nothing about plekz. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> do you know if you're being vetted by the hillary clinton campaign and how do you feel about being vetted --? >> you'll have to ask the campaign if i'm being vetted. what i know is that i love my work and i have 212 days left of that work and i'll make sure i do everything i do to leave the department of labor better than i found it and help more people get asked the opportunity. >> leave yourself out for a

second. who do you think would be the strongest vice presidential candidate? >> i'll also leave that for the campaign to decide. >> i'm not stopping on this. >> i figured that. if you're not selected as secretary clinton's running mate, what will you do next? >> i have no idea. one of the things that i don't like about washington is when people have the priflth of doing jobs like this, they immediately pivot to how do i leverage this for my next job. if i went out and had a two-hour lunch to talk about my future, that's two hours i can't get back and i can't help alicia in detroit who slept with her kids when i met her in her car. and i have a deep faith that whatever will happen will happen. my mother always taught me if you work hard and have deep faith, things will work out. and that advice has proven to be pretty good.

i'll think about that when the time comes but i don't want to think about it while i'm on the clock because then i'm doing a disservice to the taxpayers of the country. >> off the clock, have you met with anyone from the clinton campaign? >> again, i am continuing to do my best on the clock and off the clock to make sure i build america that works for everyone. >> do you practice that in the mirror often? >> no, i'm -- we're making a ton of progress. remember for those of us a little bit longer in the tooth that reagan mondale debate, are you better than four years ago? i think that's appropriate, is the nation better off than we were in the end of 2008? i think the answer is absolutely. are we where we need to be? the answer is absolutely not. and we have a lot of unfinished business but the journey of american history has been about

the journey to build a more perfect union. it's a timeless journey. and there's never been a president that did not -- came in office that had no unfinished business and there's a lot of it and i want to make sure that we -- to use a phrase of a former speaker that we clear out the barn as much as we can so that there's more and more opportunity. >> pivoting back to politics again, what would you recommend hillary clinton do to address the most aggrieved and angry segment of the electorate right now, which is white working class men without college degrees? >> well, i'm here in my official capacity so i don't want to pretend and especially my official capacity to give her advice. what i can tell you is that something i said at the outset, zip code should never determine destiny. i know this president has an every zip code strategy, one of the most impactful trips i took when i went down to eastern kentucky. i spent some time later that day

with harold rogers, the republican chair of the appropriations committee, a fundamentally decent person of incredible integrity and accomplishment. i grew up in buffalo, new york. i saw what happened when the steel mills shut down and i understand the steel work wasn't simply a way to get your paycheck, it was part of your identity just as coal has been generational. i often refer to myself as buffalo min can because i'm proud of my dominican roots and roots growing up in buffalo. what i learned in buffalo, every person has got talent. and moving forward, this president has continued to emphasize through his rural counsel, for instance, that we have to expand opportunity to every single zip code. we have to expand broadband into

eastern kentucky because if we want to build the jobs of tomorrow, we have to have the broadband infrastructure, things of that nature. >> let's talk about the other presidential candidate for a second. what impact do you think a donald trump presidency would have on latino citizens? >> well, again, i can't -- because i'm here in my official capacity, i won't comment on any particular candidate what i will simply say, america is at its best when we marshall the collective power of we. i remember vividly going down to selma, year and a half ago or so to celebrate the 50th anniversary of bloody sunday. that's where the president said the most important word in a democracy is we. and when we come together as a nation, we do great things. when we come together business and labor working together, we

do great things. those who wish to divide us, they understand the flip side as well, to divide us is to defeat us. the reason why the know nothing movement fizzled because opportunity, optimism and the reason we survived a great depression is the same, and the reason we gave the right to vote for women with the 19th amendment was the same, we marshalled that collective power of we. that's when america is at its best. >> in your official capacity, what advice would you give the presidential candidates when it comes to workers rights on minimum wage, et cetera? >> i don't want to pretend to give advice in my official capacity. what i can say here to candidates, what i can say here is what i have said many times, which is that henry ford got it

right, doubled the wages of people on the assembly line. why did he do it? because he had attrition over 300% and because he understood that consumption is two-thirds of gdp. he did it because he understood that the folks who are making his product ought to be able to afford to buy his product. when we pay people a decent wage, we create a virt uous cycle and that is what we need to do as a nation. nobody who works a full-time job should have to live in poverty. right now a 7 at the ti$7.25 is liveable wage, it's a poverty wage. why we subsidize the low age business models of so much large companies is something i don't understand. say to my conservative friends about the minimum wage, we can save billions of dollars and

remove people from the rolls of food stamps by doing something simple that won't cost you -- won't raise your taxes, just raise the minimum wage. and so this henry ford economics is why minimum wage has been bipartisan for since the passage of the fair labor standards act. >> before i ask the last question, a few announcements, a quick reminder, the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for free press worldwide. for more information about the club, please visit press.org, www.press.org. on june 30 national transportation safety board chairman christopher hart will address the club. on july 7, libertarian party presidential nominee gary johnson and his running mate will speak. on july 14, admiral mike rogers

of the national security agency will speak at the press club luncheon. i would ask you respectfully stay in our seats until our speaker has lefltd the room. he has an appointment immediately. i would like to give our speaker the traditional national press club mug. >> all right. thank you. [ applause ] for my last question, i should have i guess asked you before if you're a pop culture person. do you watch the show veep and have you learned any lessons from it? >> well, you know, when i said at the outset of my remarks, the story it's uncool to be an optimist and pop culture is not my strength. one ramification of that fact is that i have actually watched "veep" once and the

correspondent's dinner when they had the five minute video of joe biden and veep, the real veep and myth cal veep riding together. and that was a lot of fun, he is sfeshlly when the first lady caught them eating very unhealthy food in the white house mess. >> thank you mr. secretary, thank you, everyone. [ applause ] thank you to the national press club staff as well as the staff of our journalist institute. i ask you remain seated until the secretary has left the room. we are adjourned.

>> a kbun proposal is possible on the house this week. 11 democrats delivered speeches calling for more string ent measures to stop suspected terrorists from buying guns. a provision in the house gop's legislative package would allow the justice department to prevent a gun sale to a terror suspect if it obtained a court order within three days. tomorrow democrats will hold a news conference about the gun proposal. that's live at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. >> c-span's washington journal

live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, texas republican congressman louis gomer will react to the investigation that no charges be brought against hillary clinton and the gun legislation in the house. michigan democratic congressman brenda lawrence will talk about the latest on flint michigan water crisis and congressional response to the orlando mass shootings and 2016 presidential campaign. be sure to watch at 7:00 a.m. eastern on sunday. >> secretary state john kerry released the 2016 human trafficking report which evaluates the efforts of countries around the world to kbatd human trafficking. the event includes a ceremony honoring nine people who the state department is recognizing for their contributions in the fight against human trafficking. this is 40 minutes.

[ applause ]

[ applause ] >> thank you everyone for being here today. that was quite a reception, thank you for that. brief notes on our program, the secretary is going to make some remarks. we're going to honor our wonderful heroes this year. we have nine heroes from eight countries, one of them will make brief remarks and then i will do the closing. after that, you'll be able to pick up your much anticipated copies of the 2016 trafficking and persons report. thank you for coming. mr. secretary, thank you for raising issues pertaining to human trafficking year round and for supporting the trafficking and persons office here at the

state department. it's a real honor to work with you and real honor this issue has such a strong champion who raises it in his diplomatic efforts around the world. with that, the secretary of state john kerry. >> welcome, everybody, to this annual event. it will be my last one but not the least important i think in many ways because it represents a continuum and awful lot of work done by a lot of people. susan, i'm particular ly proud f the work she's done in leading this initiative. she's all in. she was a prosecutor before she came to the state department and

i asked her to take on this task with my own prosecutorial experience in my head. early in my career started a rape counseling initiative and priority prosecution unit and particularly focused on personal crimes against people which we prioritized in a very significant way. so i remember how difficult the job can be. how tough it is for people to come forward and talk about very personal things in a very public way. the pressure can be intense but it was clear susan came with a particular level of commitment and understanding and i think we've all benefited from that. her very first human trafficking trial led to the conviction of more than a dozen criminals forcing teenagers into

prostitution. all told, she successfully prosecuted nearly 50 human traffickers helping more than 90 victims obtain justice. that's a remarkable record and we're grateful to have somebody so committed and ten ashs in leading our efforts on human trafficking because that is exactly what we need and i know you'll join me in saying thank you to susan and entire team that has produced this document. [ applause ] very happy to welcome all of you to the ben franklin room. i'm particularly grateful and happy to welcome the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee bob corker and ranking ben cardin, two of whom are unbelievably strong committed leaders on this subject. this is a truly bipartisan

effort and i hope both of you then -- thank you. [ applause ] they both understand that there's just no partisan lines on this one and they've been particularly committed to helping ee rad cat human trafficking and i'm grateful to them for being here and also grateful to all of your excellencies and members of the diplomatic core who are here and many ambassadors which underscores the importance of this issue. i want to welcome those of you from the private sector and from civil society. you are indispensable partners in this effort. finally a very special thank you to our team at state. it's a great document and i was presented with an embossed copy, i have one each of the years i've been here in my office

proudly displayed and i'm very greatful for having gotten my recent copy today. this is a heck of a piece of work. there's a lot of information in here, a lot of stud yous works goes into think teenaging it th. in the end it comes down to element of discretion but not much because we have a fixed set of rules that congress has created and we follow those rules. and therefore, there are some folks in here who will obviously be concerned about the conclusions but the conclusions are based on facts and based on a lot of analysis over a year. i'm very grateful to our team that doesn't just put this together in the last weeks. the work on next year's report has already begun because it's a period from april 1st to march 31st so we're already beginning to collect and build on the information we gained in the

prior year and work with countries. i want to say that to any country that evaluates this and says why am i here? we work with these countries. i've made plenty of phone calls to my counterpart foreign ministers and prime ministers and presidents and said look, you're not cruising in the right direction here. we need to start to move. we send people to work with those countries and our embassies are deeply engaged in helping to promote transformation. so it is thanks to everybody and all hands on deck full team effort that this document comes out. it's not an insignificant document. the tier rankings that i have designated reflect our department's best assessment of a government's efforts to eliminate human trafficking. they don't take into account political and other factors. they are based on a criteria. in addition to the rankings, the

report outlines our specific concerns. as well as the ways we can improve our efforts. this is not meant to be a duning report, it's meant to be a process of evaluation and work towards changing rankings and this is now the 16th report of the state department. and one of the things that i've found is that we can always become more effective in fighting trafficking by working with the true experts. those experts sitting here. those experts are also all of the survivors. last december president obama appointed an advisory council on human trafficking giving survivors a direct line to offer recommendations and guidance on our strategy and i've had the chance to meet with members of

this council. some of whom are here today. and i know that every aspect of what we do, including in this report is stronger because of the engagement of these folks. make no mistake my friends, as we gather here but fll day, couple of days before our national celebration of july 4th, when we talk about human trafficking, we're talking about slavery. modern day slavery that still today claims more than 20 million victims on any given time. all 20 million are people just like everybody here. they have names and they have or had families in many cases and they are enforced to endure a living hell in modern times that no human being should have to

experience. some places particularly where violent extremists are able to find a contemporary safe haven and i might add a temporary safe haven, the atrocities are both ram pant and o vert. a 34-year-old survivor recalls approaching one of her captors in syria and pleaded with him to halt the insesant rape of a 12-year-old girl. telling the terrorist she's just a little girl. he replied, no she's not a little girl, she's a slave. modern slavery doesn't happen only in war zones. it exists in areas of both darkness and plain sight of people all over the world. even at sea, you may be familiar with the story of lan long who left on the promise of a

construction job in thailand. it was supposed to help him and his family and had dreams of being the provider for his family. but on arriving in thailand, he was forced to work on a fishing vessel and he was beaten regularly with a metal pole, compelled to drink water from fish barrels and allowed little rest. when he wasn't working he was chained by a rusty metal collar around his work to an anchor post so he couldn't escape. it wasn't until a cambodian fisherman saw him and paid $750 to secure his release that the shackles were undone. his story was brought to the wider world by the new york times, a reporter here with us today and i thank him for providing us with in gut wrenching insight into what is happening in terms of slavery. but this story i regret to tell

you is far from unique. the fact is there are many, many stories similar to this where unxrup you lous fisherman use the isolation of the sea to hide their crimes and enslaved crew members, most of whom under 17 years of age, are forced to work 18 to 20 hour days and denied medical care and force fed amphetamines to help them work through the pain. the reasons aren't hard to figure out. when criminals are able to turn a profit in an illegal fishing market, they'll go after as many fish as possible. so they also not only destroy lives of human kz, but they destroy an eco system. and the more labor they have on board, the larger their catches will be. the economic incentives are there which is precisely why illegal unregulated and unreported fishing practices have grown into a $20 billion a

year industry. and that's why stopping those practices is going to be a major focus of the ocean's conference that i'll be hosting here at the state department on september 15th. a global coordinated effort is desperately needed and long overdue. let me tell you something, with the help of the senate bob corker and ben cardin and others, that's exactly what we intend to do. it's clear that there are a lot of challenges in terms of exposing labor abuses that take place off our coasts but these crimes can be just as hard to detect when they are happening behind closed doors. the closed doors of an exploiter's home. consider the case of paul who was 14 when he left nigeria to move in with a british nigerian couple living in the uk. they promised his family they would look after him and enroll him in school and pay him to

help him with housework. guess what? they just lied. they didn't send him to school. they didn't pay him a penny. instead they took away his passport, monitored his movements with security cameras and forced him to work 17 hour days as a servant. he tried to escape but it wasn't until he had been living with the couple in this state of fear and intimidation and deprivation of inability to move that he finally was able to work his way out of it 24 years later he heard on a report on the radio about an ngo that was fighting to eradicate modern day slavery, that's the difference these efforts make. he bravely reached out to the organization and they helped get his life back and see that his tormenters were prosecuted.

often they enter into these situations willingly, lured of a better life and there are lots of places in the world today where a better life looks very enticing and you're willing to take a risk. so they remain enslaved in part because they are convinced by their capt toxt rs that they have no way out and nowhere to go and absolutely no one to help them. that's one of the reasons that the state department and law firm have gotten together to increase the avaltability of pro bono legal services and other tools to combat trafficking. and today we're pleased to announce the release of two documen documents. the first is a model contract and memorandum of understanding between countries sending and mcing my grant domestic workers setting forth clear standards

for those workers' protection. both are based on international law and designed to prevent the abuses in domestic work. my friends, this is the 21st century. we know human civilization had thousands of years to develop and make progress. and establish rules and discern the difference between right and wrong. and we are part of the community of nations proudly particularly that lives by and advocates for and believes in a universal declaration of human rights. frankly, it's stunning, it's outrageous that even today the magnitude of the human trafficking challenge cannot be overstated. we know the sat litany, girls compelled into sex slavery,

women sleeping in closets let out only to cook and wash clothes and scrub floors. men and boys forced to forego sleep and sustenance to work around the clock often in blistering here or otherwise appalling conditions. the good news is we have the ability to fight back. and believe me, we are determined to do so. this is reflected in the 2030 sustainable development goals which include an unprecedented commitment to halt human trafficking. it is reflected in the palermo protocol ratified by 170 nations and aimed at preventing suppressing and punishing these despicable crimes. and it is reflected in the steady increasing efforts to cooperate and share information among law enforcement authorities on every continent. it is reflected in efforts by the media to cast a spotlight on

shadowy areas where traffickers exist and thrive and growing network of ngos and advocacy groups that work hard every single day to bring modern day slavery to a permanent end. assisting all of these efforts is what our annual report is all about. it is not as i said earlier, just a catalog of abuses. it is a detailed analysis of the challenges that we face. it's a targeted road map to measure how we can better overcome the challenges and it is a clarion call to each of us to everybody in the world to do all we can to eradicate these horrors and hold countries accountable to a higher and better standard of behavior. as has become our custom in recent years, we're priflthed to highlight the work of the men

and women who committed their lives, not one day but their lives, to combatting human trafficking and these are our 2016 tip report heroes. so it is with great pride that we honor them today and i ask ambassador to join me up here as we pay a tribute and hopefully inspire people around the world to understand why this is so important. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you second, kerry, you're truly an inspiration to us from your days as prosecutor to days championing anti-trafficking efforts here at the state department. we really appreciate and are honored to have you here today.

i would now like to ask each tip report hero to stand up when his or her country is called out. the bahamas. [ applause ] in recognition of her role as the driving force behind the trafficking and persons interministry commission of the bahamas, her leadership in implementing the country's national action plan on human trafficking and her commitment to training those likely to come in contact with victims of human trafficking, karen rig by. [ applause ] >> senator corker and senator cardin, i want you to come up

and join us up here. from botswana. [ applause ] in recognition of her vital contribution to the implementation of anti-trafficking legislation in botswana, her sted fast commitment to enhancing law enforcement and judicial awareness understanding of human trafficking and bringing prosecutions in botswana. her dedication to a victim centered approach in those prosecutions. priscilla israel. [ applause ] >> from the republic of cyprus.

[ applause ] in recognition of her dynamic leadership as the head of the police anti-trafficking unit and the republic of cypress, her passion for and commitment to the protection of victims throughout the prosecution process and her devotion to the fight against human trafficking, rita supervan. [ applause ] we have two heroes from artania. [ applause ] in recognition of their sted fast resolve and confronting her i had tri and modern forms of slavery and dynamic partnership

to effect positive change and their courage to insist on justice for most vulnerable in their country, we recognize these two heroes. [ applause ] and seconds, brahim, ramdan. [ applause ] >> thank you, from nepal. [ applause [ applause ] in recognition of her outstanding leadership and investing cases of human trafficking in nepal and education to devoting groups to human trafficking and ten asti in enabling the prosecution of

members of organized crime networks perpetrating this crime, kiran bucharia. [ applause ] i told her the state department should give out medals too. she looks really wonderful. from pakistan -- >> we do actually. >> in recognition of her unwaving advocacy on behalf of victims of bonded labor in pakistan, her courage in providing aid and protection to those she has helped to free and her commitment to helping them rebuild their lives. sayeda fatima.

. [ applause [ applause [ applause ] >> from russia. [ applause ] in recognition of his sted fast commitment to assist nigerian and other african victims of sex trafficking in russia. his dedication to their comprehensive care and his persistent engagement with members of the anti-trafficking community to further protect and repatriate victims of human trafficking. [ applause ] and from senegal.

[ applause ] in recognition of his self-less dedication to protecting young boys in senegal, his commitment to providing them comprehensive care and his vital role in building support among local officials to prevent human trafficking, isa kuyate. [ applause ] i'm pleased to introduce rita, head of the police anti-trafficking unit and she'll make remarks on behalf of all of the heroes.

[ applause ] >> thank you, secretary kerry, on behalf of all of the 2016 trafficking and persons report heroes, i want to thank you, secretary kerry for this honor. [ applause ] i really strive to find the words to express the deep gratitude and the appreciation that i and the rest of the heroes feel for this great honor. this day truly marks a defining moment in our lives, which we have devoted to combatting human trafficking and protecting its victims. some years ago, i could not have imagined that one day i would be receiving the title of hero. i realize that trafficking is like an ocean, peaceful and

inviting, only to trap you in a storm where its victims are sucked down into the dark ocean floor, lost forever and hopelessly waiting for a miracle to surface. soon after starting the police and trafficking unit, i realized the huge responsibility i put on my shoulders to free victims and work towards achieving the maximum punishment for the perpetrators. i cannot even imagine where they would be had we not freed her from the criminal network that forced her into prostitution a few years back. she was only 20 years old and come to cypress believing she earned a scholarship and instead

forced into sex trafficking. they were looking for her. we changed her name and she went to university. when the trial start, she was threatened that she would she w sent back to her country in a coffin. unfortunately, the defendants were acquitted. this did not make irina any less of a victim. today she has completed her studies and works for an international company. [ applause ] also i cannot imagine the state of mind of cherry dean from the dominican republic if she had not been freed. what would happen if she continued to be coerce to continue in prostitution day in and day out so she would not miss any client. i cannot imagine what would

happen to pham from vietnam whose arm was amputated due to the very poor working conditions in the industry, and who spent a whole year in the hospital because of this injury. he was then arrested as an illegal immigrant, and only at that time came the recognition that he was a victim. pham was a classic victim of labor trafficking. my fellow heroes and i could tell you hundreds of stories like this, sorries that have left a mark not only on our careers, but also on our lives. stories of human pain. from these stories and also from the cruelty and greed of the traffickers, i learn not only to place myself in the shoes of the victims, but also to walk in them. we cannot do more to make sure that we truly understand the

experience of victims so that we can protect them. in a recent trial where i was a witness, the lawyer of the defendants ask me this girl went to mcdonald's every day for food. she could have sat down in the middle of the street and start a screaming for help. couldn't she have done this, mrs. superman? i replied, in your logic, she could. in hers, she couldn't. so we need to stop judging the victims by our own logic. we need to rid ourselveses of our prestigiouses. let's try instead to understand them and place ourselves in their situation. only then we can truly help. thank you. [ applause ]

. >> thank you, rita superman. you have a truly fitting name for a trafficking hero. these brave men and women are rays of light. and thank you for shining on us today. they are a source of hope for countless trafficking victims, and a source of inspiration for all who strive to make the world a more humane place. that is why i'm honored to share the stage with these individuals. just as our heroes come from diverse regions and professions, the world needs anti-trafficking solutions that cross borders and industry sectors. none of us can end human trafficking alone.

we need each other. partnerships between ngos, international institutions, and religious organizations, all of which are here today, galvanize the fight to end human trafficking. in my time as ambassador, i have witnessed the power of collaboration in these actions. i recently participated in the vatican's a summit on human trafficking, which focused on improving our legal systems by emphasizing humanitarian values and eradicating corruption. the summit explored the need for victims supported services instead of punishments for crimes committed under duress. while pope francis has a unique ability to rally and gather diverse groups, leaders across communities, businesses, governments, and ngos can likewise demonstrate the power of collaboration in fighting the scourge of modern slavery.

the united nations is also coordinating approaches to combat trafficking. in a historic session on human trafficking, in situations of armed conflict, the u.n. security council called upon member states to bring justice to those who exploit others. proactively identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, and comprehensively address victims' needs. the security council meeting was bolstered by the brave and harrowing testimony of nadia murad who escaped from slavery after isil attacked her village. although nadia's testimony and those of others like her exposes the human capacity for cruelty, i remain optimistic about the future. optimistic that the world is more interconnected and proactive in fighting human trafficking than ever before. optimistic that with help survivors can move beyond this

heinous crime. and optimistic that so many individuals here in the united states and around the world are united in combatting modern slavery. while the challenges are daunting, we cannot forget that optimism is a job requirement for all of us who work in this arena. we join you in encouraging continued progress across prosecution, protection and prevention of this crime, and look towards increased international cooperation and a new generation of heros to keep our faith and humanity alive. thank you all for coming today. [ applause ] thank you.

>> underneath, out on the tables you'll find copies of this year's 2016 trafficking and persons report.

our road to the white house coverage continues with the democratic national committee platform committee taking place live in orlando friday, july 8th starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern, and continuing saturday, july 9th at 9:00 a.m. eastern. committee members will debate and vote on the democratic party's platform for this year's elections. live coverage on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up wednesday morning, texas republican congressman louie gohmert will react to today's recommendation that no charges be brought against hillary clinton as well as gun legislation in the house. and brenda lawrence will talk about the latest on the flint,

michigan water crisis. the congressional response to the orlando mass shootings and the 2016 presidential campaign. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, beginning live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. in less than two weeks, c-span will have live coverage of every minute of the 2016 republican national convention, followed by the democratic national convention. and every saturday night at 8:00 eastern, we'll take a look at past conventions and the presidential candidates who went on to win their party's nomination. this saturday, we'll focus on incumbent presidents who ran for reelection. dwight eisenhower at the 1956 republican convention in san francisco. the 1964 democratic convention in atlantic city with lyndon johnson. richard nixon at the 1972 republican convention in miami beach. 1980 democratic convention with jimmy carter in new york city. the 1984 republican convention in dallas with ronald reagan.

george h.w. bush at the 1992 republican convention in houston. bill clinton in chicago for the 1996 democratic convention, and the 2004 republican convention in new york city with george w. bush. past republican and democratic national conventions, saturday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. panel of journalists covering the 2016 presidential elections discuss how new technologies changed how they cover the campaigns. this is from the second annual ideas los angeles conference in santa monica. after that, a discussion with fusion tv editor and chief alex madrigal on the influence of facebook in the news. together they're just under an hour. >> it is all women. i set it up that way.

hi, guys. >> hi. >> thank you, everybody, for coming this afternoon. when -- so as nando mentioned, i was recently the executive editor of fusion on the digital side, and worked on the election strategy for fusion. i just started with my husband and ed williams, the co-founder of twitter and founder of medium, a new company called matter studios where content, creative shop working, working closely with creators with distinctive voices on awesome storytelling across platforms, podcast, et cetera. we're here today to talk about politics, which is not so much my daily life at this point. though i'm following avidly -- >> lucky me. >> sorry. i should say my work life. but it's still very much part of my daily life. and when fusion asked me to put together this panel, i thought it was an awesome opportunity to bring together some of my favorite people who work in political coverage and do it

really differently, each one of them. so i will introduce them. you guys aren't sitting in my card order. so let me just -- >> sorry. >> let me rearrange quickly, just to make sure i don't miss any key points here. so liz plank, thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> liz is an amazing voice, especially in the video space. she is at fox.com where she is a correspondent and has a series called 2016ish, following this election. she was previously at mike.com where she created flip the script, which is an award winning weekly video series covering social issues. she has been part of just explosive digital properties online. and like a big voice that has helped drive i think those mike and vox brands to be very prominent during the season election coverage. so thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> caitlin thompson is the director of content at acast,

the swedish podcasting company that does basically everything for podcasts soup to nuts, from editorial oversight to cms to ad serving to everything else, right? >> global domination, yeah. >> world domination in the podcast space. she also ran political coverage in 2012 at wnyc and covered for "the washington post" and time. you were an early adopter of podcasts. i'm testing my own knowledge base on our many conversations. so both brings to this conversation like a great depth of knowledge about political coverage and this new space of podcasting, which we know everybody is super excited to get into. katherine lehr is the chief

operating officer of matter studios, because i just hired her a few weeks ago. >> woo! >> we know each other, though, from politico, where she was previously starting an editorial, but then moving into operations for politico, and then working on the politico state's expansion where she was vp of operations for politico states, and took politico into six new markets, six different states around the country, and especially in new york worked on the integration of capital new york with politico, which was a big deal in our new york bubble world. and alicia menendez, fusion's superstar anchor and correspondent, and just amazing political brain. we work together a lot at fusion, especially on the iowa brown and black forum where she just brought her like super depth of knowledge about the issues and the candidates and

everything that they have said for the last 12 years, just encyclopediaic knowledge of issues to that event and to everything that she does today. i also wanted to mention that i think alicia -- >> don't do it. don't do it. >> i can't call you broadcast journalism's new gladiator? >> no. >> whoa. >> so i didn't say that. "elle" magazine did. i had actually embarrassing tidbits for everybody. >> i'm glad everyone else was spared! >> we're friends. it's okay. >> so let's start talking. this is obviously a crazy election year. i think it's been really different than we thought it would be a year ago when we were working at fusion, trying to figure out how we were going to do 2016. i don't think any of us foresaw the trump force coming our way

and thought it would be something to deal with early on in the election and then probably less so and we get down into the issues and sort of drive the conversation more ourselves than having it driven for us in many ways. and, you know, so i think there has been some adjusting that we have had to do. because one thing that i think we've all been working on is how you differentiate yourself in this space. and especially you think political coverage, and it's just like this rash of headlines of the day in, the day out, the campaign trail. and we all want to be more creative, help drive the conversations we want to have. but it's hard when you're faced with this just onslaught of headlines and news breaks coming at you driven by this very singular campaign. so i think, you know, at the same time, though, and this panel was arranged sort of helped address there are these new technologies, new opportunities that we're seeing, innovation and video, innovation

in the digital space and changes in the way that broadcast is doing things too. so just sort of want to get at those questions with you guys in your sort of respective areas of where you've been and talk about what you've seen this year in 2016 that has been different than four years ago, and maybe a little farther in the past. caitlin, i wanted to start with you because you're? a super new space this year, working in podcasts. and what from your perspective has been -- have you seen happening in podcasting that is really felt different than what you see in sort of day to day political coverage? >> it's a good question, and i think it gets to first of all, how many people here listen to podcasts? oh, good there is a lot of podcast enthusiasts. so i'm going to go deep and nerdy, if that's okay with you guys. and also feel freed to friend

me. i love get giving recommendations and hear what people are listening to too. the way i would very succinctly describe what has happened in podcasts that i'm so enthused about is essentially there has been a real nonsuccess of punditry. it just hasn't -- not to say people haven't tried to do it. but punditry has sort of failed in the podcast space. and there is a reasons why we could talk about why there is tech reasons there is discovery reasons. there is the fact that most people don't listen in the same day that something is produced, like a lot of other mediums. but what has thrived in its place is so heartening to me. it's context. it's explanation. it's narrative. and a lot of it has gotten us far past the sort binaries of who is winning the horse race today, whose got the cycle down. not to denigrate that because there is part that is really interesting to me. "the washington post" is doing with their series presidential, where they go through and talk about each and every one of the

presidents and their challenges and their story. mike and the economist are doing a show called special relationship, which is really fantastic, which has a political reporter from the uk talking to one here in the u.s. and if anybody has traveled overseas recently and tried to have a political conversation with somebody who is not american, you will know exactly how interesting that can be. and the show really gets at that. and i would just say, coy talk about this for hours. but i would say in my mind, one of the best political exchanges that happened in this entire year happened on the podcast "another round." you guys ever heard of the podcast "another round"? it's a chat show hosted by buzzfeed hosted by two women of color. and they got secretary hillary clinton to come and be on the show. it was the only podcast she participated in this election cycle. and they pushed her farther than anybody else i had seen in any other medium. they got her to talk about her husband's mandatory minimum sentencing law in a way that nobody else had even been able to come close, because they didn't couch it in politics.

they bluntly asked her a question and they got to this incredibly real, heartening place. to me that was incredibly encouraging. because these things are catching on like wildfire. the audience is younger, browner and really engaged. and what they're choosing to engage with is conversation, not punditry. to me that's a great first start. >> i think pick up on that, i want to go to liz. in one of the early conversations, we had about what we wanted to talk about today. we talk about some of the opportunities that covering trump presents. and sort of how that is even with some of the really tough statements he has made about immigrants and other groups, that that presents an opportunity to discuss these issues too. so can you talk a little bit about how you have been getting into that? >> yeah, i think it's been a really hard election to cover, for all of the reasons that

we've laid out. and try and keep myself motivated, maybe it's just my glass half full approach they have to the world. but try and see him not -- and him being trump, not as a problem, but as an opportunity, to have conversations about the things that he is talking about. because trump is not -- we were talking about this earlier, is not just like -- i don't think even think trump is the problem. he is a symptom of the problem. he is saying things that a lot of people are feeling and are thinking. and he is saying them out loud. so i think it's offered a really good opportunity to talk about how we feel about immigration, how we feel about women, how we feel about all of these things. how we feel about muslims, and why some of those assumptions and some of those stereotypes are wrong. and are actually bigotry. what try and do with 2016 which is a show i host on vox is take

the camera off the candidates and turn it on the people and turn tonight issues. the perfect example was actually last night. the senate democrats did this amazing filibuster, this 13 or 14-hour filibuster until 2:00 a.m. around gun violence and just wanting to push very common sense gun security reform. and so they did this amazing filibuster, and i turn on cnn, and they are -- they have four people talking about what trump said. and i'm trying to find this filibuster. why can't i find this filibuster? so we use this program called slack at vox, like many other companies, it's a chat system. it's nine p.m. or 10:00 p.m. on the east coast. we need to get this up. so we put it on facebook live. we created there facebook live of the filibuster. and we reached 3.7 million people. it was our biggest facebook live ever. and so many people were like

thank you for showing this. thank you for -- and people were tuning in and commenting. and we kept it going because there were so many people watching. and i actually think it broke, like it broke down because there were too many people watching. anyway, all of this to say that, yeah, i think digital media generally is offering a different conversation and position on all of these issues and conversations that we really need to be having. >> well, and alicia, i'm sure obviously fusion has been experimenting a lot with facebook live. and it's sort of taking broadcasts into a new form. it feels different, but we're wrestling with a lot of the same desires to show, right? and to sort of get inside there and tell stories visually, right, not just in terms of text and other things. so this year, what are you seeing that is different with broadcasts?

how is it -- how does it -- when you think about producing broadcast journalism, what are you thinking about, especially we're going into the conversations. like i'm sure you're having a lot of conversations about how you do that in this space. >> i'm in a unique slice of the broadcast world because we're trying to broadcast to millennials, the youngest most diverse generation in american history, the generation we all know is cord-cutting. what a challenge there. and going into this election, i think there was a lot of concern that following the two elections of president obama that there was going to be a drop-off in the interest of young people. well, that could not have been less true. in as much as i don't think we were prepared for donald trump, i don't think people were prepared for bernie sanders and for the extent to which this generation was going to feel the burn. so there was a lot of attention, a lot of enthusiasm, and candidates do many more press avails than we ever could have anticipated, right? normally you get a handful of debates or town halls every cycle.

it feels like it's a wall. every night there is a new debate, new town hall. i think that allowed a lot of networks to experiment with different formats for us. we had the opportunity to have hillary clinton, bernie sanders and martin o'malley when he was still in the race one-on-one in iowa talking about issues specific to the hispanic community and the african american community. and we got to topics that ordinarily you never get to get to because you're assuming there will only be five of these opportunities and you need to cover all of the, quote/unquote baseline issues. at the same time that there is this wonderful opportunity on the tv side because there is so much interest both from the candidates and from constituencies, there is this reality that now people are consuming so much more of their news online. and so that means it's not just enough to report about the news or to do this form of punditry. you really have to be doing deep dives on issues, on stories, and they have to be character-driven. which is wonderful if someone is

a storyteller. but you to be aware always that you're producing both for television to take up the time that you have promised the cable networkious will deliver them. but also to think as you're telling that story how you're going to tell it online. i think one of the mistakes that people made in the early days of that was assuming coy do a seven-minute television package and just cut that down two minutes and put it on facebook. that's never going to work. it has to be uniquely composed for the platform you're going to deliver it to. and so i think that there is a lot of learning going on in realtime. there is certainly exceptions to that. like i'm sure you all saw anderson cooper on cnn had this exchange with pam biondi in florida that has gone viral. that's an example of a television clip just being cut down butch that's an amazing moment of unscripted, unprompted live television. if you're actually producing something that is storytelling, it has to be told different on every medium. and i think the final thing i would say is already you see innovation in part because of,

you know, donald trump's habit of calling out the press and refuting statements that he has made. you now see msnbc and cnn which have to do 24/7 coverage doing fact checks in real-time as they interview donald trump because it's the only way that they can keep up with the interview and keep their viewers informed. that's something you have never seen before. >> right. it used to be like fact checking was like a nonprofit enterprise which happen lead days after a debate or something. maybe if you get around to it, you'll see what was true and what was. no it's like part of our daily diet of understanding now. katherine, you're at politico for seven years during the explosion of that brand and its domination, and i think like really setting the bar for what doing realtime news in the political space looked like. i also worked there and learned a lot about that kind of pace,

which is very challenging to keep up with. inextricably linked to the brand. so much they really changed the way i think news became disseminated around politics. and i think of it like no scoop was too small. >> right. >> and then you started seeing as other platforms and companies emerged like mike, like fusion, and we're all trying to get in that space a little bit, and you saw "the new york times" start to get faster and faster, everybody is trying to be fast all the time. and i think politico really started that, especially in politics. so what has the company done to go beyond that? >> sure. >> because obviously that's not -- you can't just sustain -- you hit scale, right? and you can't just sustain on that. so what are some of the things this year that politico has been reaching in to continue to grow and innovate around the political space? >> yeah, no. i think you're right.

so politico started in 2007, which was a unique opportunity because that's when people could start the 24-hour news cycle you. could be reached on your devices. and then pretty quickly other news organizations caught up. so one of the best lessons that the founder, jim and jim harris who were initially with "the washington post" and saw this shift in the industry coming is that they taught us that your worst enemy is complacency, both as an organization, as an individual, and so that they knew even though politico still does generate revenue from its daily print edition that it basically serves capitol hill and that congressional audience, as well as a magazine, they set into place pretty early on things that have been helpful for this current election. and i just want to talk about a few of the platforms because they have been successful, and

were really smart about always innovating, always experimenting. some of them -- some of the experiments i wouldn't say failed, but there are a lot of lessons learned from that. so the first one was in 2011. again, it was primarily online advertising and print advertising. and we started politico pro, which is our policy arm. it's behind a pay wall, a subscription based, and it's really a must-use tool for policy professionals, not just in washington now, but through our states expansion of people who need intel in realtime about these niche policy areas. and even from health to energy to financial services, name it. and so that helped offer another

revenue stream. another thing that we have seen that i think a lot of other media companies have started to utilize as well is live events. and in 2012, we created an events team that is now 15 people. they are able to produce 150 events a year, which is pretty impressive. most of them are sponsored. and we are very proud that we did not adopt the pay to play, meaning the sponsor does not have a seat on the panel. and they can't do opening remarks. and then so those are just some examples. now in the current day, we've been talking about caitlin in terms of podcasting. i think politico's biggest asset sets people. and the personalities, the

brands going back to that events is that it's a live extension of our journalism. glen plush who is a respected white house correspondent launched message off podcasts which has been hugely successful not only in terms of audience and downloads, but also the type of guests he has been able to secure, one of which was president obama in the oval office. and then part of 2016 coverage, they launched the politico caucus, which is kind of a weekly insider survey of more than 300 people around the united states who are really plugged in, whether they're politicians themselves or consultants or activists. and so with all these different platforms in terms of experimenting, the one mission that they all have is to break news. and another one we were talking

about in terms of realtime, we also have an addition to these local bureaus. we started politico europe a year ago. and they have a big vote coming up on the 23rd about the eu referendum. and just today they launched an app that has live results, polling, and feedback. so it goes back to that founding principle about not being complacent. i think that it's going to be interesting past this election. politico has famously been banned from several trump events. >> welcome to the club. >> anybody else? has anybody here been banned interest trump? >> my colleague ramos is on the list, yeah. >> anyway, it's been great obviously, as hillary mentioned, i have just recently moved on to work with matter studios. but i'm still rooting for politico. and i'm really excited to see

what they're going to create next just because it's been such a variety of experiments that i'm very proud of. >> sticking with like the -- you're talking about glenn thrush and his voice. i want to talk a little bit about people in this election who are covering and how it's -- how we've seen the pool of reporters and voices expand this year i think. i also ran the 2012 coverage for yahoo news four years ago. so i've done that like people on charters and all of that. and we made a decision not to do that at fusion. and sort of look for new voices, diverse voices to elevate as part of our coverage. and caitlin, you mentioned the podcasting space being a space that is really receptive to people of color and other -- i

mean maybe other voices we haven't heard of before. i would just like to sort of see what you guys think about like what you've seen in terms of new voices, and has 2016 created opportunity for more voices we haven't heard before? because i still think of politics as being like a pretty white man dominated space. but i assembled this panel. so obviously there is hope for the future. so i mean, caitlin do, you want to talk about that for a second? >> yeah. i think i would answer that question two ways. the first way is digital media by definition is much more inclusive. and i think all of us have at least at one point in our career either intern order set foot in or put in blood, sweat and tears in legacy media organizations. and legacy media organizations don't do the greatest job traditionally of being representative. and that's something that the digital world does instantly. because everyone is on the internet. and the barrier to access has dropped significantly.

so in my space, when you talk about the kinds of values and the kinds of success stories that i was enumerating, storytelling, liz, you were talking about getting involved in people's personal narratives, trying to find the people to focus on instead of just covering in a lot of cases like oh blif yating kind of politician. those are stories that women in particular i dare say are better at telling. and i think the barrier to entry at least in my podcast landscape has dropped so significantly, people can get involved in the conversation in a way that, you know, they couldn't have in the last election cycle. and i think because the internet represents america much more than legacy media organizations represent america, diversity and inclusion and most importantly the two things together representation equal audience. if you show somebody enterprising that they can get an audience, they'll do whatever it takes to get that audience. i think some of the smarter organizations that i'm here on

stage with are realizing that. and as a result are elevating people who are good at telling those kinds of stwhoerks are recognize opportunities, and who are part of the push towards being more representative of the kind of stories and the kind of people who should be more involved in the political conversation. so i think that's every part of us. >> and more representative of the electorate. >> completely that. >> is now going to be making decisions about who are president. even as we stand here, this is an all female panel. i am hispanic. but we're still missing voices here, right? even as we do better, we know we have to do better. and one of the things i notice working in a diverse newsroom, i think sometimes you think diversity in terms of what you can see. but there are a lot of conversations that happen behind the scenes that i think are really important about which issues are important to cover, how you tell certain stories. not just reporters, but opinionaters, right, whose opinion gets to be out there. what cutes the news. in as much as i think it's whose name is in the by line and who

gets to show up on screen, it's also about the production team that is making really core decisions. how many rounds did you and i go over whether or not we should ask a question about reparations during our brown and black forum because it seemed radical there was a question of how much space. how in a hierarchy of issues do you place an issue that often does not get spoken about? and so the fact that you have a more diverse group of people making those decisions is really just good business. >> can you also talk a little about the focus groups you've worked on this season? because i think that was also i mean, a big effort to hear voices that you often don't get to hear in this space. >> i've been traveling across the country, talking with my generation. so 18 to 34-year-olds about the election. we did a focus group in new hampshire. we did a focus group in iowa of young republicans that absolutely called that caucus, which was crazy, because it was week out and they were telling

me who was going to be number one two, and three. we've done them with young latinos in vegas. we've done them all over. i think when you talk about the most diverse generation in american history, we want to paint it as a monolith, right? oh, millennials, they're all this. no. it's really like every other generation, where you live, your ethnic group, your socio-economic status, your level of education really fine-tunes the issues that you are interested in. you see incredible political fluidity within this generation. i just did a focus group that is going come out this week with never hillary democrats with never trump republicans. have i young republicans that are going to vote for hillary clinton. have i young democrats that will never vote for hillary clinton. this is so wild and yet predictable in the sense that this is a generation that has a skewed political party, does not want to be identified with labels, and has a very complex set of beliefs about policy and the direction america should be

going in that's not about which candidate is cool, which is sometimes the way the media reports on it, but rather the realities of living in a generation where student debt becomes intertwined with your ideas about home ownership, about marriage, about employment and about retirement and security. i mean, this is just -- what happens to this generation is what is going to happen to america. and the sooner we can come to terms with that, the sooner we can begin building policy in politics that really supports that generation. >> well, liz, what are you hearing when you're out talking to people? what do people want to talk about the most? >> i think they want to talk about issues, just like everyone else. i think they're sick of hearing what they're hearing on television. and not to bash cable news. i go on cable news all the time. and i talk about my opinion. and i'm very sorry you have to listen to me talk about it for that long. but unfortunately, that's what

drives still i think a lot of mainstream coverage. and i think the fact that we have so many more women now working in the media and being reporters. i think nbc has an all female campaign trail -- they call them gladiators, i believe. and you know a thing or two about being called a gladiator. i think that's amazing. and i think that really changes the narrative. i mean, i went to my first trump press conference a couple of months -- weeks ago. and he just won five primaries. ted cruz had dropped out. and all these people were asking questions about that, right. who is going to be your vp, what do you think about ted cruz. and i was like we have to talk about the fact that he said that hillary was using the women card. that morning he had gone on fox and he just sort of said that. and no one, because he says so many things in one day, was covering that. and i was like wait a minute. we need to talk about this. so i ended up asking -- being

able to ask him that question. and that -- his response was very intense. like i actually was just speechless by the pure amount of vitriol against her saying that she has it easier because she is a woman. anyway, that led to a few weeks of that dominating the news cycle and that being a conversation, and us talking about the fact that the way that donald trump talks about women. so, yeah, it absolutely changes the way that we tell stories. and it's important to remind that a women aren't this niche part of the population. we're the majority of the population. we're a majority of the electorate. we cast most votes. and so new stories like can we have an all female ticket around hillary clinton, perhaps picking elizabeth warren as her vp. it's just a weird news story. like it's just weird. most voters are female.

so we don't -- most women don't have a problem with women. in leadership positions because a lot of us are in leadership positions. so i think it's -- and that in part is powered by social media, powered by the digital road. >> i think to link what you guys both just said, and i should have said this earlier, because from covering these past three elections, who has -- it sounds simple, but who has the power to say this is the a story. this is not a story has radically shifted. and therefore the stories that we're telling are radically shifting. and maybe not everyone has caught up to that because they're not consuming in the same place that all of russ making them. that is the biggest shift. it sounds so simple, but it's so powerful when you've been in a newsroom and you've been told by usually a male editor or somebody who comes from a totally different perspective than you do that that's not a story. do you let it die? do you fight for it? now we have people that say oh, that is a story. go. >> and people on twitter or facebook. if something is trending on

facebook or twitter, mainstream cable news has to cover it. speaking of filibusters, this was a couple years ago. but the wendy davis filibuster was a perfect example of that. wendy davis did a 12-hour filibuster about this abortion bill that was being passed in texas. nobody -- again, cable news i believe was talking about blueberry muffins there was an actual screen shot of cnn talking about the calorie count of blueberry muffins while all of twitter was watching this filibuster, livestream was available. and the next day wendy davis who before then was a nobody in terms of mainstream coverage became this -- it was the front page of every newspaper. so there is a lot of power on social media. >> ferguson happened the night that the white house was having a correspondents dinner. and i couldn't find it on tv. >> right. >> on the social media front, we only have a couple of minutes left. but i was curious. we obviously it's been a huge change to see how the campaigns

are using social too. and sort of watching, i mean, we know how trump is using it. it's like his statements are coming out on twitter constantly. but we also had this great moment last week with hillary clinton responding to donald trump with her now infamous delete your account tweet. so i would -- i guess i'm curious from you guys what -- have there been other moments this cycle that have felt like just these epic social moments coming from the campaigns? it really feels like to me they've empowered some people on the staffs to well, at least on hillary's staff, you know, i feel like trump is -- >> doing it all. >> it feels like he is actually doing it. but seeing the campaigns try to sort of catch up with vernacular on these platforms. like do you think it's going well? we've also seen some miss --

some pretty bad moments too. right? what was the worst moment this campaign on social? >> i think it was hillary. and that's the worst part. it was like a snap -- >> you remember chilling with chillary? does anybody know what i'm talk about? i'm in cedar rapids. and it was the worst snapshot. she looked like -- she looked like what my mom would look like if she tried to use snapchat for the first time. i love my mother, but she is definitely not familiar with the platform. so it was just so bad. and then she also had the best moment, right, that tweet. she told trump to delete his account, which is an inside joke for twitter when someone says something horrendous, but also not that horrendous. people say delete your account. and that was the most retweeted tweet that she's ever had. and one note is to say that social media is actually the only department in media where there are more women than men right now. and it's the fastest growing portion of media. so i think there is -- i don't

know who is on hillary's social media or on trump's. but the fact that it is a female-dominated space not just in users but on staffs is significant too. >> there is also a lot of funky stuff going on. i don't know how many of you follow all of the candidates on facebook. but like the number of times i'll see and name someone hillary clinton or ted cruz be like tax plan called amazing. and then the link is to tedcruz.com or to hillaryclinton.com. and it really is a way of feeding supporters. but i do think that as voters and as consumers we need to keep a more skeptical eye on the source that we're getting our information from since a lot of it is now self-generated by the campaigns. >> we have like two minutes left. oh, there are questions. okay. >> yay! >> cool. we'll take them. >> i'm puerto rican and i just recently founded diversity

matters that is a political site. i'm so glad to have four fairy god mothers on stage. and i'm from philadelphia to cover the convention. i would like to talk to you after the event. but my first question is when you get started, because i just got started in march, what was the most difficult obstacle to really get your voice across in a meaningful way? >> for me -- >> do you want me to repeat the question? >> i think you need to be mic'd. >> okay. my question is when they started their careers, what was the biggest obstacle to get their voice heard in a meaningful way and get a political voice that is worthy and powerful? >> my first campaign was in 2004. i had just gotten hired as 24-year-old to work at "the

washington post." and i got to go to a lot of the debates and the spin rooms and stuff. so i had access. it sounds like you're going to the convention in philadelphia which is wonderful, because fwlg is a lot of it. for me, i remember being really intimidate and feeling i'm not quite shy. but i remember feeling like oh, i need to prove my chops. and i did. so i did hard work and all that stuff. but i also -- that is actually when i got into podcasting, creating multimedia, working on our desk of continuous news coverage. i gravitated towards the stuff personally that people weren't necessarily doing because they all a wanted to be in the print edition of the newspaper on a-1. and i thought to myself, this is a crowded field. everyone in this entire "washington post" building that's existed for well beyond my life span is fighting for the same thing. i'm going try to work over here and ask a bunch of people questions about this other stuff over here whether it's video or podcast or headlines to update the website. that's my particular experience

is zig when other people are zagging. because you can find some space for yourself to do experimentation and innovation, especially in the campaign space. those moments are rare. so look for them and seize them, i guess. >> and the other ones? >> i have to agree. i think i was my biggest problem when i started. and i still am my biggest problem. i think i, especially with political coverage, my first time covering the election, i looked at what other people were doing, and i was trying to be as good as other people, instead of thinking about what different thing i could offer or bring to the table. and maybe the way that we've been doing and reporting politics all this time is maybe could be improved by difference and a different perspective. so valuing that i think is important. >> do we -- oh, i'm sorry. we're all done.

i'm getting the signal. thank you so much for your time. and thank you, panelists. thank you. [ applause ] >> yes, backstage. [ applause ] >> thinking about using that podium. it's kind of tucked away. i'll come right out here in front of you all. so i'm supposed to talk about technology, the election, and what's changed over the last 20 years. and there is a lot of ways that you could get into this topic. i've been in digital media for about ten years. i worked for wired. i worked for atlantic, getting up to be deputy editor there, working on all the different digital efforts, and then i came over to fusion and became editor-in-chief. i've gotten to see over the last ten years the way that the media

landscape has changed. what i want to do is give you one complete thought about this and hopefully you'll be able to just have this very clear vision of both how our industry has changed and how that's impacted the way that this election in 2016 is playing out. so first, the baseline bit of knowledge is that facebook has changed everything in terms of the way that media is consumed. it's the most powerful information gatekeeper that the world has ever known. that includes the googles of the world. if you look now for most websites that you know, including even "the new york times," the "washington post," and certainly all the magazines that you know, facebook is the dominant way that people read and see their work. and facebook obviously for a lot of people has become the dominant way that they also access news. even people who don't necessarily think they are, they go on looking for pictures of their grandchildren, and they

end up seeing all these articles. so that creates this enormous scale for facebook, right? it's over a billion people. most people in the united states not only use it like every month, they use it every day. and so it's become this enormous battleground for ideas. and that is really a difficult thing. because unlike the traditional media sources that we've known that we can kind of understand their institutions and the way that they work, facebook is a totally different beast, right? it's a combination not just of the software of facebook, which organizes and ranks what you see, but it's also all of the people both, you know, just individuals as well as the media organizations that are working to use facebook as well as advertisers. and all these things kind of come together in really complicated ways. and so when facebook, which they do a lot, tweaks one thing, like one little tiny thing, for all the media producers, it's incredibly discombobulating.

it changes the way that we produce information. everything from the way headlines work. perhaps you've noticed that headlines look a lot different than they did five years ago. that's mostly due to facebook. to the kind of images people use on stories there is all kinds of testing infrastructure. sometimes you see that using one person's face versus another person's face might tempt ten times more people to click on that version of the post. all of these things are going into the way that you're seeing the news. so the dominant thing that has really happened to constitutions at an institutional level is they've been pulled apart. so before if you read something, an article in a magazine, you said oh, yeah, i read this in rolling stone. now people say oh, yeah, i saw it on facebook. so the brand equity of a lot of media publications is really hard to keep ahold of because people just think oh, i saw it on facebook or i saw it on twitter, i saw it wherever it was. and instead of people reading in a bundle like in little packages that you can add context around

one big story, people instead are reading in a stream, usually on an app on a device like this or on a phone. and i think that that has made a lot of publications very different from what they would be before. they also reach many more people than they used to. like the biggest magazines reach a million or two people in a month. but many, many, many websites reach 10 or even 20 or 30 million people. and that just leads to a very different kind and very different kind of publication. for most publications, what they are now is what works on their facebook page. it's that dominant of a driver of traffic to the media ecosystem broadly. and what that means in a lot of cases, you end up targeting narrow and narrower slices of your audience that you know exactly want to read one particular kind of thing. and i think that that is a new phenomenon in the world. meanwhile, at the same time that's happening for the

publications, on the sources of journalism side, you know, the powerful, the famous, the celebrities, they don't need us as much as they need to, right? they've got facebook. they've got twitter. they've got snapchat. they go direct to their audiences. and the deal that has been struck in journalism since as long as there have been publishers and distributors of media is just simply that you need our audiences, and we need your information that you have. and what you've seen is that really, really, really start to break down. there is actually a fascinating article by a guy named john herman who is now at the "new york times" writing about media. he is working for another site called the all, if you want to find this story. and he called the reaction inside media companies to what's happening, he called it access panic. because previously if you wanted to get photos of a celebrity and

put them into -- and show them to an audience, that was a really valuable thing for a celebrity magazine to do. now they just put it on instagram, and everyone is seeing it on instagram. and their audiences, the celebrities themselves or in some case powerful politicians, their audiences are already much larger than most of the publications that might actually run those same photos or run information about that person. and so the balance of power has really, really shifted between publications and politicians. and between news networks and between politicians and celebrities and other people too. but specific to this, politicians. which brings me to someone everybody likes to talk about, donald trump. right? we all know that donald trump goes direct to people through his twitter feed. some people have asked just rhetorically whether donald trump would be the republican nominee if twitter didn't exist. and it's just like an a

interesting thing to contemplate, right? because it has been his primary means of outreaching communication with his audiences. and the people that want know what he has to say as well as the people who don't want to know what hazy to say. he's -- he's interesting because he's kind of to me almost like a tracer of what might happen for the future of the media ecosystem, right? he is showing us what these dynamics can look like when you have someone who is really, really good at playing within this new media ecosystem. and of course this is the first election that we've experienced the conditions that we have now. but it's certainly not going to be the last. and though things will change, i think things are a lot more likely to look like this than they looked like 20th century, a few broadcast networks and big newspaper. so one of the things i've been thinking about this and thinking about donald trump, but other people too that i'll mention in

a second is that, you know, everyone recognizes that being telegenic is a thing. some people are really good on screen. you just put them in front of a camera, and suddenly everyone wants to watch that thing. we need like that same kind of word, but for what happens on social media. and i'm going to -- don't write this down as i'm suggesting this word. it's a terrible word. but just so you understand, it's like socialgenic. it's like a quality you create lots of engagement, that means comments, likes shares, on facebook and other social networks. when people write about you, when you say things. and there are some people who just have this quality, absolutely independent of everything else that they're doing. lena dunham is like that. but maybe the most fascinating example is ayesha curry. i'm from the bay area. i'm a warrior fan and all these things. when ayesha curry does almost

anything -- this is steph curry's wife -- there are huge social blowup all over the media. i can't really define character in person is. there is this that really exists. on the democratic side to take it to the election, many publications learned that bernie sanders was socialgenic. there was a lot of him particularly relative to what you saw on television networks. i think this concept, it is very important for understanding what has happened with donald trump. i'll borrow a little bit from the 20th century field that people don't talk a lot about called cybernetics. it predated what a lot of people think about the internet. the study information flow and networks. and one of the things that they

talked about, that networks had certain kinds of properties and one property of certain types of networks is it would get too much. it would get run away positive feed back and i don't mean positive feed back as in good job. they meant it as a technical math ma mathemetical things. think of it as a herd of cows. if one starts running, the others start runs. that is mathamatical feed back. that is exactly what is happening with donald trump in the current media eco system. so when you write something about donald trump, it generates engagement which drives traffic to different websites which then also means that individuals who are posting those articles and they see that people comment on all of the donald trump

articles, post more donald trump articles and those get fed back into facebook itself which software looks at it and says oh, donald trump articles gets lots of engagement so you get these mutually reenforcing systems that just say show more donald trump and there is no, there is no breaks built into our current media ecosystem. it is people looking at numbers and saying we have to do more donald trump, we need to post more donald trump. i don't mean just social media companies, i mean people at large out there engaged in discussion on social media sites. and so the next thing you know, what we've had happen with donald trump is not only did he get incredible amount of coverage on television news and a large part for some of the dynamics we're talking about here, but enormous coverage within the digital world. and regardless of what you think about donald trump, i think it is actually kind of a dangerous thing to have certain figures that can essentially create run

away feed back within the system without the checks and balances that the media system used to have in the past. so i think for us, thinking about you know, fusion and thinking about, you know, journalists of many stripes, particularly thinking about my own team. we sort of an audience of young, diverse millennial people. many of whom feel directly or indirectly targeted by donald trump. and i think one of the things that we've tried to think about is how do we, not that we want to stop donald trump, but how do we stop playing into that run away feed back that you see in the media ecosystem right now. for us, what that means isn't that we're going to stop writing about donald trump or only write about hillary clinton or start writing tons of things about the libertarian or green party candidates, but it just means that we want to take the trump

attention bubble and start trying to redirect it into issues that we think are important to the audiences that we serve. so instead of necessarily following the immigration line that donald trump may be talking about, we may talk about other types of policies and things that could happen around immigration, for example. i think the other really important thing is remember i was saying earlier that because publications are so dependant on facebook that they take to their facebook page and start microtart gettinmicr microtargeting certain portions of their audience. this is for the black member of the audience, the jewish members of the audience, the mexican audience and they tend to get narrower and narrower into the niches and it takes away from the idea of a common people who are all trying to make decisions together about the way of the world should work. instead the stories go into a

narrow slice to activate those people very narrowly. so i think what we're really trying to do and what i think we're going to need more of in the future of journalism is trying to rebuild these sort of atomized and micro targeted audiences into a larger group of people who actually care about each other's issues. and i think that is really the only way that we can build a polody that can stand up this strange new media ecosystem that we've somehow magically created. that's it. thank you very much. c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. and coming up wednesday morning, texas republican congress louie

gohmert will discussion about the decision on hillary clinton. michigan democratic congresswoman will talk about the flint water crisis, the congressional response to the orlando mass shootings and the presidential campaign. watch washington journal beginning live at 7 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. our road to the white house coverage continues with the democratic national committee platform committee taking place live in orlando friday, july 8th starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern and continuing saturday, july 9th at 9:00 a.m. eastern. committee members will debate and vote on the democratic party's platform for this year's elections. live coverage on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. now, a panel of former government officials and journalists look into the causes of political polarization in america. we'll hear from former rnc

chairman haley barbour, former clinton white house press secretary mike mccurry and brett stephens from the wall street journal. this is just over an hour. well it is great to see you all here this afternoon. thank you for joining us and thank you so much to the "dallas morning news" for hosting such a remarkable event. it is true, it came up earlier today, questions of diversity in the newsroom, diversity on the panels and it is not always easy to embrace all sorts of diversity in any event but i want to celebrate this event for doing a remarkable job for embracing ideological diversity. it is terrific to be building at an event co-hosted, co-sponsored by the george bush library, the lbj foundation. it is remarkable. i want to put you out of your spence. can democracy survive?

yes. okay? so, the question i think we're probably all going to be talking about today is how? i mean, first of all, how bad is it actually? do we really think there is an issue here and if we do, what do we do about it? we all know a couple of basic facts, for example, there is the shift in how much members of each party view each other unfavorably. in 1994, 16% of democrats viewed republicans unfavorably, in 2013 it was 38%. on the other side of the aisle it was 17% of republicans viewed democrats unfavorably in 1994, now it is 43%. perhaps the more interesting data point is the one that suggests the issues are no longer idealogical but a matter of life style and identity. the fact that in 1960, 4% of democrats and 5% of republicans would have disapproved of their

child marrying someone from the other party, okay? but what are those numbers now? 33% of democrats would disapprove of their child marrying a republican and 49% of republicans would disapprove of their child marrying a democrat. so, i pulled out some of the fun facts but nolan, you studied this for a living. is polarization real? >> i think it is true that polarization is real. one of the ways that political scientists studied this over a much longer history than the one that danielle describes is to look at patterns of voting in congress. a best measure on how partisan or bipartisan or national institutions have been overtime. the headline fact is that the levels of bipartisan ship in congress now are at the lowest levels since reconstruction. so to put that into perspective, a party system based on the

regional cleavages of a just resolve civil war had more bipartisanship than the current congress. now, polarization has not been a congress in the history. through much of the 20th century it wasn't that way at all. there were large blocks of conservative democrats that were republicans. they compromised on the important -- land mark pieces of legislation in the 20th century. we have seen over the past of the 40 years, roughly from the late 1970s through the current, a large deterioration in the level of partisan -- bipartisan cooperation and i think it has serious consequences for the governing of our society. >> and what do you think happened, nolan? how do you explain this? >> that is one of the kind of core academic mysteries at this point as to why a very, you know, bipartisan, unpolar aislesed system began to take a

different trajectory. there are lots of arguments out there related to kind of individual historical events such as the election of ronald reagan, the defeat of ronald borg's nomination. the impeachment in 1998, 2000 election. i don't think there is much behind those arguments, there were specific events. there has been a lot of focus on the way in which we conduct our elections, whether it be partisan primaries or congressional districts or uncontrolled campaign finance. i think there is very little evidence that it really has much at all to do with jerry congressional districts or the way we conduct primaries. there was a lot less polarization in the 1950s and 1960s with a lot more partisan loads of selecting candidates -- modes of selecting candidates. there is some evidence that the campaign finance system is

contributed to a system that had already polarized and i think it is probably making it worse at this point. i'm inclined to believe that our politics became more polarized because the united states has become a much more diverse society over the past 45 years. whether that be through a changing pattern of immigration, the racial ethnic of society or the economic differences like economic inequality. i think we've become a much more divided society on many of the important political cleavages and that will be reflected in the way that congress represents the type of society that we live in today. >> so you pointed to some of the historical touch points and said you weren't so sure any event matter. we hear reagan and o' neal as part of the bars and the bourque nomination.

i want to turn to us who lived here. i'll start with you governor barbour. you were the chair of the national committee during the contract with america and the government shut down. from the point of your lived experience, did you feel a change in how members of the different parties interacted with each other? >> the first time i went to washington in 1968, i'm from mississippi. some of you might have thought this is a south new jersey accent. i've seen the united states senate, jim easlen, an old segregationist. my granddaddy was his daddy's lawyer. i went by, they told me to come back at 5:30. i came back, senator easlen was having a drink with teddy kennedy. and two conservative republicans from nebraska and a democrat

senator from georgia. he was the chairman -- the democratic chairman of the judiciary committee. they knew each other. they were friends. they socialized, having a drink together was not unusual. it is incredibly unusual today. most of the members don't live there. it used to be their kids went to school together. they played ball together. their wives knew each other or husbands but that is one of the reasons, i think. i think another reason, and i have a different view than nolan. i think it has made a difference. particularly in the house. we have a census that made the legislators reapportion the state legislators. four years ago, both parties figured out hey, we can change the judiciary around a little bit and we'll have a lot better

deal. today there are probably 350 of 435 house seats that are not competitive between the two parties. that means those 350 members of the house, they're not worried about the general election. they're worried about the primary and if you're in a safe democrat district in the northeast or the west coast or wherever, they won't let anybody get to the left of them. if they're in a safe republican district, they won't let anybody get to the right of them. and that has hallowed oollowed center. it hasn't directly affected the u.s. senate but it indirectly does because of the legislation, the arguments that the senator constituents are hearing. i don't think there is any question this has happened. i do think there is more than one reason. >> i'm sure redistricting is important. we'll come back to that. i want to get more to nolan's views on that side. we'll push more to the party strategy in the 90s as you were

moving into the majority republican congress. that was a huge accomplishes as chairman of the rnc to pull those off in elections and to give your party that sort of power. how did you -- your party strat guise around questions of bipartisan in the early 90s. >> i will say to you, that was a big advantage that we had a contract with america. we hadn't had a majority in 40 years. the last time republicans was in 1952. we lost it in 1954 and that was 1994. it gave someone to vote for. most people who voted republican for congress that year were regular republicans or were mad at clinton over xy or x. having something to vote for made it easier for them but it also meant when we got the majority, we had an agenda. mike will remember, we spent the first 100 days, lord, it felt like 400 days. we spent the first 100 days

bringing up all of the 10 points of contract with america and very interestingly, at the democratic national convention in 1996 when president clinton made his acceptance speech, he mentioned six things that had been done that were in contract with america that he took credit for, including welfare reform and very shortly there after, the first balanced budget in a generation. >> and let's get your memories, mike, what did you think of bipartisan at this time and i want to add in another detail of course, this was the period in 19 1995 where the white house did a study of the internet and political communication and that is the first indication of being on attack against the clintons and that is the theme of the clinton administration picks up. how did you guys see this question of bipartisanship. >> at the beginning of 1995, this is after the speaker ginwich took office. we started in 1995 in the

contentious environment. remember in the early part of that year, there were routine stories in the press about is the president relevant anymore? because all of the energy was with the new speaker and the new majority and the congress. but then the building wag blown up in oklahoma city and president found his voice and shape the counter argument to the contract on america as we used to call it. >> there we go, polarization. >> and we hit over and over again the fact that we needed to invest in the future of the country. we needed to balance the budget. we needed to protect the environment and we had to make sure that we kept social security and medicare strong and that discipline around this message carried us all the way through the year to the point in 1995 where we had the showdown with the republicans over whether or not the government

would be shut down and leo leon pinetta ran the staff meetings in the morning and we did not know and we're not confident that we would come out ahead of the republicans over the question who is going to be blamed for shutting down the government. i think balls of our discipline, because i think the president, we actually ended up, i think, and haley, you probably agree with this. we came out on the upper end of that and it moved us into the 1996 reelectioneer with a strong headwind but i would go back to one thing that haley said. when mrs. clinton was in the u.s. senate. we had her down for a breakfast event in our office one day and i asked her, what is the source of this disfunction and gridlock and polarization in the united states senate, the world's greatest -- >> that is the pulitzer prize

board, sorry. side joke. >> and she made exactly that point. she said we don't trust each other. we don't spend enough time with each other, get to know each other well. if i feel like i go out halfway and put something politically at risk sborks have any confidence that someone will meet me halfway coming in the other direction and i think there are a lot -- i would add to that, in that time, now, yes, there was a study of the internet in 1995, but frankly there, was one all news cable station at the time because fox hadn't come along. nobody was using social media because it didn't exist. the internet site for the website for the white house had transcripts of my press briefings which were not, i guess, mildly entertaining, sometimes given the subject matters that we dealt with occasionally, but you know it was not an era it was an era in which the major mainstream media

shaped the contours of the national discussion and you still had, you know, i think at that .75 to 80% of the country reporting that they got most of the news from broadcast reports from daily newspapers, from the traditional sources of information that we used to be coherent as a country. and that of course has desegregated and newspaper circulations have declined. audiences share for the major network broadcasts have been in decline. we don't gather around a common campfire. now, to share our stories and develop a narrative and that is one of the things i think that doesn't bring us together as a country so we have a common good conversation. >> so you're making an argument a bit like nolan that it is fragmentation instead of poleair observation that we should -- polarization that we should be

worried about. there is a list of things that people often invoke as possible causes. redistricting, pain finance, general fragmentation of the country. but sometimes people also point to the fact that since roughly 1980, elections have been much more contested than they were in the decades prior to that and in that regard, we should recognize we live in a period of contested politics and maybe that is a great thing. make that is what democracy is about. we should get in the thick itself and fight with each other over the direction that we are heading, but so you know, bret, you're in the thick itself arguing with people in the election. this is a very contested election season right now. how has this issue of polarization affected your effort to be a voice, adding thoughtfulness and deliberateness to the public? >> well, in many respects it is more difficult just because if you're in the opinion business as i'm in and offer a view that

is not perfectly in line with what your audience anticipates, you're going to be treated not as someone who disagrees on one issue or a few issues, but as a traitor and you'll hear it almost immediately from 4,000 people on twitter denouncing you on one way or another. it takes fortitude not to try to mollify that side of your argument to think there may be an audience beyond simply the angry people who have time on your hands to fire off a tweet or a nasty e-mail but that is a real, look, that is a real issue in journalism. i mean, one thing that i fear about modern journalism is that editors increasingly have lost control of the narrative. why? because we're looking newspapers

at large, are looking at stories that are going to be popular with audiences. did you get on the most viewed, most popular, most e-mailed list this week? and how does that, what does that say about the quality of what you're writing? there is nothing more depressing than when the wall street journal sends me a huge expense to deeply report a story from burma and four people read it. forget it, i can write another piece about donald trump and i know it would have a huge audience. so there is a shallowing of journalism and i think therefore, a shallowing of public -- of public rhetoric, public discourse, and very naturally, i think both politically, people want to play to those shallower narratives it becomes difficult to see complexity in issues. it becomes so much easy dwroer simply say you're on one side, you're on the other, there is no

gray zone, there is no in between and there is no room for judgment or views that are some what shaded or colored by some complexity. i think that is a real issue. one thing i want to point out, since i do write about foreign policy, what is happening in the united states in this season is happening all over the world. the philippines just elected as president, a man who is described as the donald trump of the philippines, we have a populist right wing party in many years illliberal party in poland. the movement on the left is gaining traction in spain. the kind of centrist politics that define the post war era are

fragmenting, fracturing, falling apart, not just in the united states, and so i think it is worst asking why this is a global phenomenal. i mean, they say all unhappy families are unhappy in its own way but it all seems to be happening at the same time. i think that is a question that ought to trouble us. i'm not worried about whether democracy can survive. i'm pretty sure democracy can survive. i'm worried about whether liberalism can survive. not liberal as in left wing. i mean liberal as in that set of values that inform tolerant pluralistic, rule based, law based societies. >> let me just follow up with bret balls what he makes about journalism and the pressure of this purity is felt by political operatives and elected officials. i mean, there is a group in the country that wants purity.

look, in a two party system, purity is the enemy of victory. let's just get straight about that. i used to work for ronald reagan. i ran a political office, fred and i worked there together. ronald reagan compromised on everything because the democrats had the majority in the house the whole time and he compromised. he used to say, a fellow agrees with you 80% of the time is your friend and ally, not your traitor. as bret said and think, if you think it is hard up at the wall street journal, think about if you're in the campaign headquarters in south carolina or kansas or montana. that pressure of if you're not pure, i'm going to be against you and where am i going to be against you? at your party's primary. >> where do you think that came from? when is the moment that you first registered this was a dynamic. >> let me tell you where it didn't come from. i think a lot of people attribute this to divided government. you know, republican, congress,

democrat house, i mean, democrat white house. i don't accept that and i'll tell you why. ronald reagan was enormously successful in divided government. we passed reagan economic plan, immigration reform, social security reform, and tax reform with huge, hundred seat majorities democrat majority in the house. now, i mention those four because they're complex and controversial, but bill clinton was the same way. all republican congress, we passed welfare reform, first balanced budget in a generation, it is not divided government. it is, the president has to lead and this president has not chosen to try to lead the congress but in fact, he is polarizing. it is not the only reason, but that is a fact. >> one of my previous bosses was daniel patrick monohan. he wrote a wonderful essay.

that is partly what has happened here. there has been a slow motion erosion of those things that bring together a common good in a sense of common purpose which even when clinton and gingrich were battling back and forth. they were on the phone every night yakking with each other. it would annoy with everyone because they would get it caught in their space. at the end of the day, they were working in a system that was designed to produce an outcome in the end which was some sort of compromise or mutual agreement that you're going ahead. that has what has gone now. our fundamental functions of government, the things that madson wrote about in the papers were not working. >> the question is whether the break down of social relations, capacity to compromise, either call orientation to the common good, so forth, is symptom or

cause. i want to pull you back in, nolan and get you to share more. >> well, i mean, i do think that all of these things are tightly related to one other. it is hard to get the symptom versus cause. you mentioned earlier the rise in party competition, that everything is very competitive, every election is about control the white house or control one or both branches of congress, that is obviously a factor, follow up on bret's point about you know orthodoxy, one of the things that has gone hand in hand with polarization is just the amount of heterodoxy within correlations. being a republican is a set of policy positions that all somehow go together. they may not be logically c cohere coherent. they understand it just as they understand the democratic policy issue on each question.

and so this kind of extreme orthodoxy within both parties and the willingness to kind of punish the heterodox has gone along with it in many ways and i think a lot of the opposition or compromises comes from the fact that these coalitions, as we're seeing today, are kind of fragile aisle in a way. you have to enforce this, this orthodoxy because it is not particularly coherent. if you look at donald trump, the silver lining is he is the first person that is willing to challenge this orthodoxy and say well, the republican set of positions are not coherent. it doesn't appeal to voters and so i'm the one that will go out there and break it. and so it will be interesting to see what happens in the future now that we have you know, a candidate that is willing to say the republican positions on trade and the kind of orthodox position on immigration are not ones that appeal to the

electorate and so we'll see what will happen, but getting back to your original question why do all of these things go together and why do they start to change at the same time is still very hard to explain. >> so, bret, back to your question. why do you think that the global, centuis it collapsing globally. >> lots of reasons, one large point i would think is that since 1978, to give you one data point, france has not had a single year of more than 2% growth, so 38 years, not once more than what, in the united states has considered really mediocre growth. 10.5% unemployment rate. 25% youth unemployment. same story throughout much of europe. for the last decade in the united states, we've hf about 2% growth. stagnant economies tend to lead to radicalized politics. the second thing is, at least

for the last ten years. i don't mean to be sort of marxist and materialist. >> it is the chicago training in you coming out. >> but you know, historically, in economies where investors do very well and savers do poorly or speculators do very well and savers do very well, it tends to be a breeding ground for political radicalism and listen, if you were an invest glor the dow jones industrial average in the last eight years, you've done great. if you had a savings account at td bank, maybe you've made 100 bucks. and that is, by the way, that is a phenomenon that is true from japan to europe to the united states. i think there is an economic explanation. there is also, look, there is a historical fact which is that in the 19920s, in the 1930s for a broad set of reasons, the west became disenchanted with liberal

democratic applicable aepolitic institutions that weren't perfect but were broadly fair and inconclusive and there was this -- inclusive and there was this sudden thirst for men of action, for guys that would cut through the bull and make things work. you know, the businessman's ethic that will get through all of the regulatory nonsense and get rank, famous story in new york that donald trump is ridden to the republican nomination and make it happen. and i think part of the story here is that a failure of ordinary politics to deliver on the expectations that noddern western societies have in terms of their economic well being, their anxieties, their prospects, has typically, and is, again, turning people, turning people to say, well,

let's look at these more radical nonmainstream alternatives. what the hell, let's give it a shot. there is a lot of that in the politics right now with the strength of bernie sanders, donald trump is the presumptive nominee, but throughout the entire world, if you're a middle class person or lower middle class person with money in the bank, you have not done well and you've seen the speculating classes as it is or as it were, done fabulously well and i think that is one of the contributing factors. there are all kinds kf other things but those are two that come to mind. >> let me just, again, i'm not trying try punctuate what bret said but look at it. in three years in a row, they look at the average that they publish every day, more than 60% of americans have said that america is going in the wrong direction. since only about 37% of

americans are republicans, that means there are a whole lot of people that are not republicans or independents or democrats that have now for three years felt we were going in the wrong direction and why wouldn't they? if you're in the heart land, if you're in the middle class or working class or small business person, you can't tell the difference between the recovery and the recession. it still feels like the recession. they published a report that based odd four simple economic indicators like growth of gdp, income, tax, only 7% of our 3,000 plus counties are out of the recession. 93% are still in the recession based on those measurements. that, you see why people are mad, and they're scared. >> yeah. >> and the other point i think that is interesting and the hardest thing to understand, we have polarity with a central

parity. the the two parties are very close in numbers. i mean, they've got the white house, we have the house and senate. we have 31 governors, most of the legislatures, but they've got, it looks like an edge in the electoral college. usually in our counties, when we've been at parity, we've been bunched up in the middle. today there is no middle. >> so although this election season is an interesting one as a couple of you have pointed out because on both sides of the spectrum, we've got dissenters inside of party. heterodoxy. trump and sanders, immigration, and trump's case debt and sanders case so forth. and then the question, you've made the point, bret there are serious economic and political problems that generate moving politics towards extremes. empty out the center, if we're

thinking about the how to fix it system, how much do we, in fact, need to address these basic issues of interaction, forms of civility, risk tolerance for alternative views and so forth as a part of preparing to actually engage the policy questions, that is, do we have to fix polarization in order to do the work on the policy questions or can we just muddle forward, not worry about polarization, just focus on policy. what do you think about that? >> well, i think we need campaigns that are more aspiration. hearing this discussion, the one thing i'm struck by are the numbers that say many americans in fact, the majority of americans no longer believe that if they work hard, play by the rules, their children will have a better quality of life than they have. that is the fundamental american dream that has been at the kind of in the dna of what we think we are as americans, and unless we restore some sense of hope

for the future and hope things are getting better, by the way, there are different measures, i can't let haley get totally away with this. some measures that obama has been able to accomplish and do, that indicate that we're, maybe it is not a strong recovery but we've had 77 straight months of job growth. if anyone from the white house were here, they would tick off a list of things and say obama has accomplished a great deal as president. i'm a communications guy. i don't think they have told that story very well. and i don't think the country feels it and that is the important thing. we have got to restore that sense that we are a country that moves forward, that does provide a better future for our kids and we need candidates and politician that's speak at that kind of lofty level to really make us feel better about our future and you know, we're not getting a lot of that in this

campaign. >> and do we need to be also in addition to seeking those aspirational and common purpose narratives. do we need to do deep institutional work. let me bring it back to restricting and we'll have a debate on whether or not we need to be working on that. do we need to restructure the electoral process as part of building incentive aemz that work in the opposite direction. >> there are limits to restoring the electoral process can do. i think, to respond to haley's point. i think one of the reasons there are 350 safe members of the house has more to do with regional realignments in the south and the northeast. people tend to find themselves now in states and regions of the country which were heterodox in the 1960s or 70 oos that are strongly partisan. i think campaign finance has to be looked at. i don't think it is the primary initial cause but i think is a

major contributor. if you go back to 1980, the top .01% of the donors contributed 8% of the money for national campaigns. so the top you know, say, 10,000 people contributed about 8%. now they contribute about 40%. so we now have a campaign finance system that is basically fairly unaccountable and very wealthy people can put their policy views, put their policy agendas before the people without the same type of accountability, the parties, candidates, and so forth have. i think that has been a fuel for exaserbating campaign financing. i think where we have to look at in terms of institution reform is about governments. i think ultimately polarization is not necessarily a bad thing. in of the 1950s, political

scientists worried there wasn't enough differentiation between the parties. you know, the eisenhower republicans with the heck of a lot like true man democrats and that is a real problem because votier don't have choices it is hard to hold parties accountable. you know, you wish for someone, you might get too much of it. we're not a situation where we have the differentiation but we haven't figured out how to govern with that level of differentiation. some of it is changing norms. it is a normal of dissent. i understand where you're coming from if i understand where i'm coming from. we'll have the debates, we won't paper them over. we just have to figure out ways to solve them. some of congress can do, come up with procedures that are less partisan and more able to simply to have the debates and resolve them. let me give you unexample of an institution that i think should be reformed. in almost every other parliamentary democracy in the world, the speaker of the lower

chamber is in an administrative bureaucratic position. they're elected to recognize speakers. kind of uniquely in the united states, speaker is a partisan institution and we saw last year what can happen when you have the speaker of the lower house be a partisan institution where a small fraction of the majority party can hold that position hostage. so i think there are things like that that we can do. i don't like ideas of saying let's erradicate poleair observation. i don't think that is consistent with the under lying values. can i throw out one modest proposal and it connects to the campaign finance reform because many of these members of congress, part of the reason they've got their head down when they're in washington going to fundraiser after fundraiser, they spend all of their time doing that, so i was thinking the other day, what if every

wednesday that congress is sitting in session we declare from 8:00 in the morning until 10:00 in the morning to be a fund raising free zone and we instruct the party committees, the dnc and the d triple c and all of the people raising money, there will be sanctions against you if you host events for your candidates during that period of time because they would call someone from the other side of the aisle. there is a faith in politics institution that gets people together for bible study and that has actually been very important to the members that participate. i think they're a third of the senate participates in that but we create some spaces for these people to actually get to know each other and create relationships that can then translate to more trust when it comes to legislating and doing the work of the country.

>> bret? >> my own modest proposal is ma marry a liberal. >> or a conservative. >> advice i took and it does me some good in the sense that, look, the essence of a good citizen and a liberal democracy is a person who can say i might be wrong. i'm only in possession of, say, 80% of the truth and i don't know which fifth is wrong. and that is an important personal characteristic to have and i guess the question i come to are what are the institutions in our society that are cultivating qualities of self doubt. i mean that. you know, this is something we think about often in our editorial meetings and, which might shock some of you to hear. >> say more. tell us more about self-doubt at the wall street journal. >> well, we try to resolve them

before we put words to paper, but also in terms of our institutio institutions, i would turn around on you and say what are universities doing. one of things that astounds me when i get mail in connection to the current political season is this line, you know, we gave up on this do nothing republican congress, we gave the republicans these big majorities and what do they do with it and you're at this timed to write bag, do you realize that the government can't be run out of the congress? that you need the cooperation of the president? that that is the way the system works? so this nonstop assault from certain radio show hosts, i won't mention here about you know, the losers in congress that did nothing and they didn't over turn obama care and im bea peach the president and xyz, they don't know how the checks and balances work and i wonder why that is. and i wonder what failures have

taken place from grade school to college to what people are listening to on the morning commutes or what they're reading and their papers if they still read papers that they don't understand these things. i really mean, all of these institutional fixes are terrific, but they're not going to work unless you have human beings who might say to themselves, you know, i might disagree with the president. i might disagree with him but that doesn't mean i think he is a bad man. right? can we do that as a country? i guess that the question i keep returning to and one last point, you know? the republican party was born, emerged from a president who summoned the better angels of our nature. that is the great line from the 2nd inaugal and i wonder kwlowh summoning those angels in this political season where one guy is saying put all of wall street in jail.

another is asking for mass deportations of one ethic groups or the other. who are the summoners of the better angels. >> i want to pick up your question on education there for a second and talk about civic education, because, in fact, i think it is one of the victims, you said list the victims of polarization, i think civic education is one of them. governor barbour i will ask you about that. i believe you were in office when they were working on the common core curriculum which was, in the beginnings a bipartisan effort on the part of governors on the state level and as we all know now it is a very controversial issue fully embedded in the polarized conversation. one feature of the development of the core curriculum as they were working with educators around the country, the goal was to establish standards and math and science education and engli english, language arts education and the third piece fell out.

it was unachievable because polarized views about how we should engage with american history and in some sense, the battle of or whether or not the narrative should be fund mentally trimumant and the failure to over come and we have a quite deep problem, i think, actually, with regard to this issue of education in our inability to share a common historical narrative. so i don't know if -- were you in office? >> i was in office and in fact, some of you may know that my stay was a little conservative and there were a lot of people against common core. i publicly supported the development of a common core curriculum. supported put taking into place but here is what never gets said and i'm going to come back to this point in a second.

common core only affects english and math. that is the whole curriculum was english and math. and all of the complaining of taking religion out of the schools and teach god knows what in terms of history and social studies and everything. that is bunk. i mean, the mississippi state department of education ultimately decides what the curriculum is and they have common core standards for english and math that they decide are we going to use those teaching -- the state totally controls it at the end of the day. but that goes back to something that i think was the one point i was going to make here if i didn't any other, i became chairman of the republican national committee about the time of the rise of rush limbaugh. i loved it! i grew up in the same america as y' all when i graduated from

high school, any week night. 6:00, 90% of the tv stakss on b nbc, cbs, abc, we thought they were liberal. we thought we were getting conservatives telling our side. it worked that way for awhile but in the last three or four years, the most bitter, the most harsh, the most negative critics of republicans have been the conservative media elite. the shawn hannity, some of these people are friends of mine but the fact of the matter is, and it may just because of ratings, but they are the leaders. they are the agitators for the purity caucus, for the people who say if you don't agree with me 100 % of the time, you're a i bad person. that is just exactly the opposite of how you win in our system. the american two party system is about a bigger party.

it is about addition and multiplication. not about division and subtraction, like i said, mitt romney got 60 million votes last time. if you think we're going to have a party where 60 million people agree on anything, you need your head examined. my wife and i don't agree on everything. she says i have the right to be wrong sometimes. but in our party, democratic party, republican party, we cannot get to where you have to agree on everything to be a good republican. one of the biggest victories i ever had in 1994, one of the things i was most proud of is in state after state. you see pro-choice republican voters vote for pro-life republican candidates. pro-life republican candidates vote for pro-choice republican candidates. he decided he agrees with me on ten issues out of 12 and i'm not

going to vote. that is how parties are supposed to think and until we get back to that, we're going to have a hard time. >> thank you. >> what do we do? >> we're on their prior point, there was or is a national commission on civics education that really looks at the curriculum k through 12 that would leave us with more fully functioning citizens going out into the world as they move into college and become voting age, and i think there has to be a very intentional commitment to that kind of work in schools. now, you're asking a largely public school system to do things that are risky and i knowledge that because social studies teachers when dabling in things like how does government work, how do parties work and how do they function, you know you're on shaky ground sometimes and you'll get some parent group coming in to complain but i think that is where you know,

collect ravely, voices will -- collectively voices will stand up to say we can't cheat these kids out what it means to be a basic decision and the liberal tradition that we have. so i think that a lot of work has to be done on that but i'll tell a very short story. when i first went to work in the u.s. senate as a senate press secretary it was in the 1979, there was a big piece of labor legislation that was going to reform labor law and i worked for the chairman of the senate labor committee, very pro union democrat and as i wrote a press release one day, i was, it was actually aimed at oren hatch leading the filibuster. haley and i are old enough to remember this but i wrote a quote in a draft press release that said any senator that would suggest that this legislation leads to mandatory union observation stretches truth to the breaking point. that was the exact quote.

and the guy who was my boss and my mentor, we call him the administrative assistant. he said come with me and he took me in the wall and he said you better be damn glad that press release hadn't gone out. because if it went out, i would fire you. that puts into the mouth of our boss a statement that calls one of our colleagues on the senate a liar. now, stretches truth to the breaking point? that is toxic language compared to what we have now, but my question is who are the people taking the young hotshot press secretaries out and washing their mouth out with soap? who are the people trying to enforce some sense of civility in our discussions? the media is gone. the media used to be something like a referee like this but for reasons haley said, they're more part of the problem than part of the solution and i think collectively, you know, it sounds polyanish and school

marmish saying there are statesman that want to stand up and say to the party committees and people throwing out the toxic quotes, that is not what we do here in the world of politics. we don't have enough people doing that. >> let me ask one last question to bret before we turn it over to everyone else for questions. your points about setting standards are very well taken and thank you for that. i want to ask this question about, you know, bret from your point of view, what can news organizations do to set standards in this regard? can they do anything to set standard snas standards? is that a lost cause? what do you think? >> that is a great question and a long, more than a 2 minute and 25 second answer. look. there has been a shallowing of the news and it turns out that not only i think does it make

for bad journalism, i think it makes for bored readers. it is not an accident that the newspapers that are still i think doing reasonably well, magazines, are the ones that take the deeper dives because in a country of 300 million, if you have even one % of the country, that is a lot of readers. that is -- the journal has 2.4 million. we would like to get to 1%. and that means sort of bucking the almost ir resistible trend of catering to the audience, to audience preferences, and to what seems to be popular now. it means, you know, essentially following steve job's admonition that you don't know what you want until i give it to you. you had no idea you wanted an iphone until you got one and then you can't live without it or whatever, whatever kind of phone that you happen to have. i think the news business could

do something similar which is to try to rest back control of who actually gets to set the agenda. there is a wonderful line in scoop in which the lord, whatever his name is, the evil press barron insists that all questions be answered with either yes, sir or up to a point, sir. and so the question is yokohama is the capital of japan. the answer has to be up to a point, sir. a lot of what we do in the news business should be considered up to a point way. of course we want the readers to be in synch with us, like what we do, admire what we want. but up to a point. we also want to have grown ups in charge of the newspapers. not be the slaves to audience preference and i think that is true in academia.

the professors have lost the agenda setting prerogatives. maybe in government as well where senators, you know, as haley mentioned are always terrified of being primaried. how do you get get the grown ups to be in charge is a great question but i don't think that liberalism survives, we'll talk about democracy another day. i don't think liberalism survives unless they reassert the prerogatives. >> we have these mikes. we would love to hear from you. start over here. >> i understand that george washington in the early days of our country worried that the beginning of the two party system would be the death of the republic. so this year, in the primaries, what i'm seeing and i understand that in primaries there is always going to be a disagreement and people saying mean things about each other, but in this particular year,

candidate after candidate has said that one of of the candidates is a con artist, a a pathological liar and dangerous and all sort of scary things. now, suddenly that he's presumably going to be the nominee, suddenly, that's okay. and, i have a problem with the idea that party politics is just some kind of game. i think that the preservation of our country as we know it should be more important than that. so, i am wondering how you use those things. >> brett and then governor. >> well, yeah -- >> [ laughs ] >> that wonderful prophase of

pat to find deviency down. we have a new normal where presidential candidates getting to say things. that's not all right at all. we are going to run you out of our political system for saying these things. this is what really worries me about this political season. bear in mind, i will say something overtly partisan. one day growth is going to be minus 2%. where are we going get that and what's going to be considered all right then. you mentioned george washington and i was rereading the other day, george washington spent some time as a young man writing out rules and conduct, it is

wonderful and worth reading about. not spitting in public. this was how the republicans have founded. republicans going on the character issue, rightfully so should care about the character of the candidate they put high in office. >> let me go into the two party systems, one of the 19th century of the philosopher said, it acted like a teeter totter that if one party got too far this way, the public would run to the middle and getting it straighten out. it certainly has not happened in either party this time. one of my old friends from the white house today, i saw him the other day said can you understand anything of this. no, nobody can. they have create add new term to

describe the nominating process after sanders and trump and clinton. it is called electile electile-dysfunction. [ laughs ] >> well, i think we all needed that. thank you. [ laughs ] >> first, i fully agree with. i am too would be very concerned of becoming the 92% growth rate. my question now goes to the opening remarks whether there is some presentations of

consistency about the negativity that's felt towards our potential candidates. over the past 30 or 40 years, we have seen a diminishing percentage of our citizens voting. are we going to continue to see that? if so, is that a real threat to the democracy? >> noah. >> actually, we have not seen it deminu diminishing dropping. once you factor that in, the real change has been increasing -- and residents who cannot participate. since 2008, turn outs have been higher than it has ever been and looks like it is going to stay there.

yet, it has not resulted in this conflict. one of the things that concerns me is that you look at public opinion polls and you see murders ha voters having more views than not voters. once they become voters, they become just like voters. [ laughs ] >> i have just the extreme view. i hate to be negative on this, but turn out is probably not the problem. the problem is the people. >> thanks. >> um -- this has to do with the income gap and i have a question for the governor. if you were the committee national chairman, what do you

have for trump? >> it is a choice. hillary clinton or donald trump. the next time the real choice that i got. and, having been through, a third party candidate is voting for clinton. thank you for -- i don't know if you were born then. [ laughs ] thank you. it is not my party.

not mine, not one of those. but, he has won and i am not going to put my opinions and views above these people. they got the right nominee and i got the obligation to compare the choices. i voted for whomever in my life. don't get me wrong. >> noah. >> so we do know that periods of american politics, divisions have been the largest. so earlier politician is quite high during the guiilded age through about the 1920s, obviously, it goes with the high

economic and equality. and then the upper trend again in 1975 was like -- there is still a lot of debates of the ultimate causes. i do think there is some pausable relationship that's different groups of americans and suffered different economic success. i think economic and low growth have also correlate with one another. and, low growth does lead to political extremism as we have seen in the united states and increasingly throughout the rest of the world. >> yes, please. >> thank you. thank you brett for sharing your

thoughts. very appreciative. my question is more on the line of difference between governance and ideology. we have seen ideology playing out for several decades as far as what is being kcalled as tru demon. we play so much in our political campaign process. i am starting to see it more and more breathe into our government where we have state legislatures here in texas. that proposed solution to non-existence problems. instead of sending huge amount

of taxpayers' dollars, existing in people's minds or politics. again, where it is not based on facts but based on solely on opinions or politics. what do we do about when it creeps in the way we govern? >> well, i want to say, i was a republican governor in my state. i had democratic majority in the state everyday. i had a democratic majority seven years out of eight. i want party line vote. >> so what we did, we made sure that democrats are not condemned. we as a problem, we had to deal with and big problems we had to

deal with. the facts and focus on solving problems. brett, you won't be surprised, he's a third year law student and i was a freshman. anyway, the difference between governors and senators is senators talk about doing things and governors do things. [ laughs ] >> that's the attitude that i have. brett and mike were both talking about that this week as we went through this, learning to work together and learning to get the job done and it does not have to be 100% my way every time. it is not going to be 100% my way everyday. that's the attitude you got to have. i have an ideology but my job is to get the job done. >> thank you. >> i wanted to defend the press since we are here, a surprising

thing for a guy that -- [ laughs ] >> you know the ability to really make facts come alive and make a difference in people engaging regularly, that's the hallmark of brilliant journalists. it is not sufficient and back to something you said earlier for journalists, say look, we got to run our numbers up and we got to get more likes or tweets or do circulations. that's never been the task of the journalists. the task is to take the important information and make it interesting enough that people will pay attention. we didn't know in chicag chicago -- that's what we got to get more of. i tell editors that i meet all

the time that we understand communication of politics, you don't have to say things over and over again for them to penetrate. you all in the news business, we tell once and we have given you the news and so there is no longer news so we don't have to report it over again. it is day after day and interesting angles and different tapes and new perspectives. we need more of that if we are actually going get people to focus on that, which is truly important. [ applause ] >> if well can thank our panel for the conversation, thanks so much. [ applause ] i. on american history tv on c

span 3, saturday afternoon, members you have to be we memo memoirs you have to be aware of. most of these people do not want to disclose too much and some case to dissemble and trying to mislead people. >> historians talk about teak techniqu techniques used by nra and now it is changed since the attack of 9/11. >> many whites thought this is it. it is finally happening and it is really happening of a full scale black uprising and they panic. white men are not with pistols, formed spontaneously downtown and marched to the scene of a shoot out and begin to shoot and

beating every black person they could find. >> the 1866, dozens of americans of the assault of women. just before 9:00, an argument on benjamin franklin of an example of what he calls "america national character." >> if you had a small business to start out, would be the backbone of the new economy. indeed one of the things that his group did was he made a set of rules and maxims on how to be a good start up entrepreneur and innovator. >> sunday morning at 10:00, a road to the white house rewind. [ applause ] >> in the music of our children, we are told you everything that there is a season and a time to

every purpose under heaven and for america, the time has come at last. >> you do know that every politician's promise has a price. the taxpayers pay the bills. the american people are not going to be taken in by any schemes where government gives money with one end and takes it away with another. [ applause ] >> the 1972, republican and democratic national convention with richard nixon accepting the gop nomination. and south georgia governor excepting the nomination. for a complete schedule go to c span.org. >> federal reserve governor daniel tarullo will talk about the financial regulation and monetary policy. that'll be live at 9:00 a.m. eastern on cspan 2.

now, a look at nuclear challenges where the next president may face. this panel discussion is about an hour and a half. all right, thank you everyone for coming back. i want to thank so much for those moving and important remarks that remind us all why we are here and why we do the work that we do. for the spread and the use of nuclear weapons. and it is a reminder that we

have all been at this past for a long, long time. more than seven decades of the united states under a republican and democratic administrations alike have actively discouraged allies and folks seeking nuclearnuclear weapons. this effort have been says full a successful. >> some 73% of republicans and 63% of democrats preventing the spread of weapons as a top u.s. foreign policy. it is something that i hope the presidential candidates can keep in the forefront of their mind that this is something that all americans sternly read about. today, there are nine states on nuclear weapons and five recognized under the treaty and four others are not with nuclear

weapons outside. that's far too many. but, with the conclusion of the 2015, plan of action otherwise known as the iran nuclear deal which verifies that a lot of irans half way to the bombs for well over a decade, i would say a low probability. the dangerous post and nuclear build ups are still very much with us. a lot of work yet to be done and to discuss some of the top challenges that we face today that'll test the leadership of the next occupant of the white house. we have four excellent speakers. we are going to share their perspectives. different but interrelated nuclear weapons. first, we'll hear from colby dalton who's a codirector here.

he's going to talk about the issues involving nuclear armed rivals in pakistan which continue to expand their own nuclear arsenals. we'll keep in mind that another cross board attack involving these two states, if they could trigger the nuclear conflict. next, we'll hear from doctor zim. he's also codepartment chair of the national panel. he looks at the challenges posed by weapons used. he's also a member of our board director of the association. he will address this of nuclear weapon usage of materials. it is a challenge that continues after the very important series

of nuclear summit that included earlier this year. as we all know, north korea, posted an enormous nuclear challenge. the former senior u.s. negotiator with north korea is the founder of the useful and important and lively 38 north websites. he's going to provide us with his perspective on what candidate must be done with respect on curving the north korean nuclear and missile threat. last but not least, we have with us, susan burke. we'll share her perspective on what must be done to maintain the health and the credibility of the corner stone. >> and, we just heard in the previous session, a little

discussion about one of the more dynamics base that's going on and surrounding the treaty and the open ended working on further measures to read more about those developments. susan of 2009 and 2012 of meeting of a successful effort. with those introductions, i am going to turn it over to colby dalton. each of them is going to speak for several minutes and we'll take your questions for the panelists. colby, the floor is yours. >> thanks very much daryl. >> it is a real pleasure for me

to be here. i didn't haves to travel very far. about one floor down. it is a long time admirer of this association. it is great to have a chance to be with you today. i should also say that, i feel like what i am going to say after the remarks to be heard a few minutes ago seems like a real distraction. it is interesting and important to think about these things of the abstract. these are incredibly dangerous things and spaces. we need to continue to think about and work on these issues so that nuclear weapons are not used again. a i want to focus my remarks on what's happening in south asia over the last 20 years and what it means for the next administration. >> and it is remarkable that we just passed the 18th anniversary of the 1998 nuclear tests by

india and pakistan. it is gone quickly and yet a lot of it has changed. you think of the priorities you have had since those tests and first you are trying to make sure that you are immediately following the test and conflicts and prices and concerns. we had network and serial preparations. more recently, we had issues of nuclear security and concerns of nuclear terrorism and in the meantime, the success of government is not here and the success of administration trying to mainstream india into an operation regime. still, we have these periodic crisis between the states. it seems like that issue is the one that can always bring us back to real concerns. i would argue that as we look at the arms competition that's

shaping up in the region, it argues for focusing our priorities a little bit more narrowing. as we look at the region, there are periodic observables of the competition. there are major aassumptissumptt we have to make. you can see a diverse and vehicles willing to changes and alert levels and then resulting

in command of control challenges. we see that certainly in pakistan with development now of short range and a lot of fuel and shifts and strategies to associate with those capabilities. you see it in india with longer range and missiles and now development of weapons and submarines at sea. china is apart of this region too, relationship between china and india. the u.s. is somehow part of chi china's -- authorities that we have been developing over the last few years. how much of this is a competition verses a series of parallel development or te technological enertia, i think

you see some action or reactions that's happening continued to embrace or tolerance of groups in pakistan that attack india periodically which could be a flash point of crisis. the most recent attack is in january on an indian territory base. that's between two governments trying to untangle that. that's a pattern. india has start to develop more rapid agile conventional military capables trying to punish pakistan continuing to tolerate these groups. that's provided to push justifications for pakistan. similarly of pakistan and the

u.s u.s./nuclear deal and spill over effects of development of triads and missiles. these are long standing and they don't seem to have an impact on china just yet. it remains unclear and in the meantime, you have active chinese assistance of pakistan and energy program. but, history also assistance of clear weapons. indications, first, the security competition exacerbates the existing problems primarily of pakistan relationship. india has a debate sometimes active and sometimes less so about how it should evolve its way of thinking to address the change of environment. focus on shipping from

retaliation to repunitive retaliation. pakistan seems to be moving towards a riskier posture and certainly a point of view that includes weapons out on the field and raises significant concerns as well as crisis and instabilities and pressures to use or lose on local commanders. the next administration will inherit problems that previous administration has not. the primary chanllenges are goig to be continued on security. i would argue on a crisi crisis -- given there is significant chances of nuclear weapons. certainly a lot of administrations involved and several occasions that pakistan

has taken in that regard. i think there are more questions than less focus. if you look at how security competition may affect nuclear security of more weapons and greater number of materials and more transportation of these things, those exacerbate the weak links. prices escalation is very difficult problems that you get in front of. most of the u.s. efforts have been reactive. again, technology added materials and capabilities will make future crisis likely to speed up and making it harder. i take that is part of the reason why we deserve higher priority. there is a tension between these two challenges of security focusing on prices and

installations. if you are criticizing countries of what they are feeling. they're less likely to give you the kind of cooperations or opening facilities or building the kind of relationships that would fill state better nuclear practices. how do you stop tendency in terms of the build up that we are seeing capabilities. it is hard to do that in a cooperative way and measures seem to have greater likelihood. >> figuring out how to resolve tensions between those priorities are significant. >> with that said, i have to say our policy structure has not really allowed the government of the administration to address the security competition -- this

is a long standing problem. so as i think of recommendations, the first one i would say is not sexy but necessarily you have to fix poli policy structure that allowing us thinking of this problem in a coherent way. you have a disaggregation of india and pakistan and responsibilities. there is no process allows for coherence to come to this issue. secondly, i think as the strategic and economic dialogue is happening with china this week. it is important to think about how china's interest in this region are evolving as well. what rule does china seek? it has a major investment in pakistan right now of

$40 billion plus investments. that exposes china to risk in ways that it has not been exposed recently in south asia. it may be able to assert more active roles in the future or weighs more heavily in the pakistan side. should there be other crisis. it is important to press that issue for our understanding with china. >> i think india has had a free pass on nuclear security for quite a long time. i think it is time for it to end. fourth, on prices escalation, there needs to be focus on

clarity. i think with the sequence of events that have unfolded after the january attack of militants in india, you have seen steps trying to share intelligence to cooperate in the investigation to try to build confidence. that's something that should be encouraged and making it possible of facilitated that would allow the process to stop the crisis or at least arrest the momentum. lastly, an issue that near and dear to my heart. there is been an assumption that seems like over the last 20 years that is taking hold that somehow what's happening in india's nuclear program is more benigh than pakistan. it is taboo and manifesting to the news conference that's given

to every nuclear test. this is a little bit of a dangerous tendency. it allows this evolution to take place in ways that don't force us to think about the consequences. we need to find other ways to encourage strengths in the region and not just by india force but also by pakistan. on a few point that we have now of the interests of this state and signing up to suppliers. i got an issue that the obama administration in terms of indian membership of phone calls, high level officials and other states, but i think it will be better to build al consensus and raises the bar and that we can use the interest of both to encourage the strength.

so, with those five suggestions, i hope i will pass it. >> great, thank you very much, toby. we'll turn now. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you, i was asked to talk about the defense materials as part of the challenges for the next president but as i am sure all of you know at least one of the candidates does not think this proliferation is a problem. so it is harder to think about how to phrase the remarks in a way that captures meaningful set of accomplishments for who ever that take charge next. let me start by making one observation about one lesson that we can learn from the last eight years.

that's the last 16 years of nuclear proliferation, policies in the united states. that's if the next president who ever it is, is going to be serious about the material part and challenge in terms of proliferation. we have to get past what is being -- by this, i mean these some what is a grandiose statement that charactered the bush's administration and the obama administration. >> the most obvious of this is the suggestion that goes back to the bush administration. what they said was the goal to securing all vulnerablevulnerab. many, many years and no mess of political attention, not into

this and especially of the obama administration of the nuclear summit that we have seen being in washington. and, what has to be candid in terms of the materials problem in the world. we are talking about not only the tip of the iceberg. we are talking about a snow flake that sits on top of the tip of the iceberg. you know to think that starting in 2010, we have 50 plus world leaders gathering every two years to talk about this. a lot of prs and all that is coming out is in actual material attempts. not the pr terms but promis promises -- actual material terms and dealing materials. it was such a profound threat. president obama told us what is being achieved. he said in 2010 or 2016, he

said, i quote, "we removed all the high security and ukrai ukraine -- more than 3.8 tons which is more than enough to create 150 nuclear weapons." >> wow, the best estimate including the one that president obama mentioned in his speech. this is 0.2%. 50 president and prime ministers and we have addressed .2% of the problem. >> that's only if you are looking at what's being secured or eliminated. the country we are still producing physical materials and weapons in 2010 are still doing it. that's israel and pakistan and

india and north korea. all the other nuclear weapons have struck along before us. oh, with secured .2%, we'll stop -- they continue to do it. what comes from that is that overwhelming policy choices that have been made especially by the united states have actually pushed things in exactly the opposite direction. securing mostly materials and civilian facilities. it is the stuff that's most accounted for and most wanted already. it is stuff is that should have been the focus. the large share of materials

that is held by nuclear weapons. it is unaccounted for and undeclared. i hope that physical materials in the world is -- of the cold war and there is been an amazing reluctant to begin to address this problem. so the first thing for the next president is of fiscal materials is to decide never mind chasing small amounts of kilograms quantities that by themselves cannot -- but, actually dealing with a ton and hundreds of tons of quantities that are directly under the u.s. are on its control of its direct and close allies. then we can worry about other materials.

let me give you two things. first is that -- united states now has enough materials set aside for weapons that's twice as large as the total amount needed for all operational war heads of the united states. all thousand plus operational war heads. united states has materials set aside for 10,000. that's not including the stuff that's already declaring access and everything else. the first question is why is there such a large over hang of materials that's not going to be used in reference if somebody has a plan some where to double the size of the arsenal ones. in the past, the united states declared it to the military. a long time ago. the last time the united states

declared excessed -- i was five. at that time, united states had 8,000 operational work. now, it has 4,000. >> it still has all that it did back in 2005. the first thing is why not reduce the stockpile and set aside weapons and reflect the reduction in the operational research. it is the fact that when the united states did declare missile materials, okay, we are going to dilute this stuff and turn it into outlets. it is been in a rate of a couple of tons for the year. there is 40 tons left. according to the department of

public energy until 2030 to finish down lending itself. the russians were down lending of a rate of 10 times of the united states when they were down. oh, why cannot the united states just hurry up and down letting the stuff that's already there rather deciding it is going to take them another 15 years. that's the question of priorities. priority is one kilogram of of hydro -- in jamaica and not the 40 tons. material terms when you follow materials and account for materials and taking responsibility for the materials, the focus is really -- in the wrong place. perhaps, nowhere more so than with it. everybody in this room is familiar with if it was so tragic -- multi billion dollar

plant that's never going to be built or consumed in no amount of political efforts and energy and count less studies to dispose the 34 tons. we are supposed to have, have to have a grip with this. now, it looks like it is not going to go anywhere and the russians are about to begin getting rid of their share of their 54 tons. if we are going to deal with this, declaring access, the question is, this term process to continue.

all we can think about what can you do concretely now to show good faith and actually moving this process forward. there is been concrete suggestions of how to deal with this. it will be good to see the next administration prioritize urgencies. it is not enough to just say we are going to do this one day or o some day but to say that this is the highest that we have been dealing with and disposing them as quickly. the easiest thing is it is there if you are interested in the red team report of positions of 2015. look, we can either -- it is going to be too expensive and takes too long so lets stop. what we can do is the strategy of diluting exposing it and

repositor repositor repository. there is even faster way d sterilizing it and this will be done in institutes -- prepare them for disposalable. and so one quick way and beginning to show this will never go back to weapons is spee speedy way. you should think about it if the united states willing to show its dealing with material legacies more seriously, i have geneva talks -- and, are dealing with the materials of stockpiles

and other countries. the largest problem in terms of materials is not the small stockpile in india or north korea or even china. real stockpile problems that we face and the cold war held in the united states and russia, the fastest stockpiles that's related to britain and france and japan. japan has ten tons of plutonium in japan. >> ten tons of polamalutonium - you decided we'll go after it regardless of where we are, we begin to have a different geography of what the problem

is. the question is how do we then work with britain and france and japan. we are all close to its allies so say given between us, we have hundreds of tons, what are we going to do to get rid of it? it is dispose as quickly as possible and proliferation. so i think that the next administration is going to take materials perspective to think about this rather than the old school perspective way. regardless of the fact that they may have materials and are so small is insignificant in terms of what we have to deal with, just to give you one positive and i will stop. when the united states declared its stockpile of highly enriched

polamalu condomini plutonium, it was materials we did not account for, or if they made it in the first place because nobody was responsible to the accurate count from the beginning. there is something like three tons of plutonium. >> in terms of nuclear weapons, there are several tons -- these multiple ton quantities that the united states counts for are in comparison of what the russians count for. yet, no one is taking it seriously of this question and going to the russians and say why don't we try to account for our materials together and you help us figure out where else and we'll help you figure out where your stuff went and at the end, it does not necessarily expose security but it will

start to get a better understanding of the world in the last 70 years. but, these amounts that are unclear and unaccounted for is largely than the stockpiles held by in india and north korea and significantly. you have to ask the question that if you move away from worry ing about countries that you don't like and dealing the materials which are the real problems and worrying about materials falling in the wrong hand then follow the materials and the politics will follow. >> thank you, of course, there is a course he teaches at the university. um, next, we'll have joel whit talks to us about one country that has gotten the attention of our two leading candidates,

joel, thank you for being with us. >> thank you for inviting me here today. i have a long association with the controller. i came to washington in 1980s. it is a great honor to be here to talk to you. given the limited of time that i have, i am going to make three points. first, north korea's nuclear program are not fake. while you are looking at me like duh, in fact, i have been told recently, there is been a number of experts, and rather people saying that the danger has been grossly exaggerated and there is some people claim that it is an elaborate roots from the north koreans to get our attention.

you think that maybe it, it is it was not true before and it is not true now. in fact, it was part of the u.s. and south korea policy to down play the threat. that was part of the policy in strategic patients that was based on the idea. we did not want to see the north koreans craving for attention, therefore, of what we are doing. in the last problem, of course, has been the media. i read the media everyday and i am sure most of you don't on north korean. a lot of it is focuses on hair style and whether these girls are over weight or all of these important issues. in fact, how many of you know that as we are sitting here today, north korea is going to start another campaign of

plutonium. it is obvious. all you need to do is look at commercial satellite. of course, i am not saying that we should jump to the other extreme where the worse case analysis, given what's been going on particularly the last six months has been very visible, at least we could put to rest the idea that this is just -- last year, our institute did a yearlong study on north korea's future. we came up with three different projections going to 2020. i should mention that david albrite, our findings of north korea is findings of 10 or 16 weapons and it may grow by 2020.

100 weapons which is the worst for us. the current trajectory of 50 weapons. that'll be qualitative improvements in that defense. >> the missile front you see the same movement or what we know is much more difficult to build on the long range. pistols, we have three scenarios there. the worse case for us is they're moving down the road and which we have seen in grades and we have seen tests of it rocking moe mo motors. putting it aside that the one thing we need to keep in mind even if korea never conducted another missile or nuclear test,

it could continue to produce nuclear weapons. it is not a problem. it has the facility to do it. it already has hundreds of missiles. these missiles cannot reach the united states. it is certainly a problem for sou south korea and china. the bottom line here is this is a serious program and it is steadily advancing for the past several years. quite frankly, it seems to me that north koreans don't have much incentives as us. second, where are the implications that this develop into and there is as litany of danger that most of you are familiar with but i will just repeat them here. first, danger to our allies and

troops and the united states yourself. there is every indication there. there is the danger to our ability to maintain strong alliances, that's the bedrock of administration pivoting to asia. >> at bedrock, it depends on its turns and the credibility of our security now. quite likely, it will be under mi mind. to that, of course, is a danger that south korea and japan will fear they have no choice but to agree their own. the one argument of why that'll never happen but we cannot be sure, particularly, we cannot be

sure of what it may do. and, candidates now, we have the trump factor. maybe it would be a good thing for south korea and japan. there is a danger of growing threat in the region and crisis ability. i guess there are some parallels here. with we know that the korean peninsula is not a stable place and periodic clashes and quite possible that they'll continue to the future. on top of that, well, once again not a lot of attention, there is already a race in peninsula. we all know what north korea is doing but do we know what south korea -- the missile programs

and focusing on preemptive use of those weapons. and, may follows. finally, there is the danger and we all know that north korea will export nuclear and missile technology. they say a number of times we are responsible for weapons in the state. i am not sure how much that'll be worth. particularly, if the sanction continues to grow the impact of north koreans, therefore, it forces to find our currents. third point, i have been asked to lay out what policy options are available to the president, mitigating this threat. well, quite frankly, someone who has worked on this issue, here

is now and i would say our option would narrow significantly in the past eight years. it is clear to me from talking to meetings. it's clear to me in talking to them, since at least 2012, they've got a bounce in their step. they've been building these weapons, no one has been able to stop them. impose sanctions on them. they have done very well even with the limited sanctions we imposed on them. and so if i was a north korean, i would be feeling pretty confident. having said all that, let me just weigh out five very quick suggestions for guidelines for the next administration policy. first, make dealing with this challenge a priority. it may sound strange, but it

hasn't been a priority. it's not a priority, even though we talked about rebalancing to asia and the importance of our alliances, nuclear security, and i know there are many meetings between u.s. and chinese officials. senior level meetings where north korea barely comes up. if it doesn't come up in those meetings it's not a priority. second point, stop the magical thinking about how to deal with north korea. it's amazing that i still maintain my sanity, quite frankly, because i hear all sorts of ideas about how we should deal with north korea. and there isn't enough time in the meeting to talk about all of them, so i'm not going to do that. but there are a lot of ideas floating around from the administration policy of strategic patience to the idea of korea, a regime change in

korean unification. in my mind, they all qualify as magical thinking. they are unrealistic. third, a related recommendation, think strategically, not tactically. we are constantly reacting to what north korea does. and when they don't do anything, we don't do anything. so what we need to do is return to basics. what are our objectives here? how do we achieve them? what tools should we use? this may sound very strange, but we aren't doing this basic thing. fourth, be willing to think out of the box. everyone is so quick to dismiss any north korean proposal that we're never going to get this process going, if we are indeed interested in trying to have negotiations.

once again, i don't have time to relate all of those, but i'll be happy to talk about them. fifth, we need to be willing, whoever the president is, should be willing to take the domestic political risk to secure our national interest. as long as there are no security downsides. once again, that may make -- that may have some resonance, but the fact is that we haven't been willing to take those domestic political risks. so maybe the fact that donald trump has now said he would meet with kim jong-un, i'm not sure if that will give any domestic political coverage, but at least a new wrinkle in that area. so as far as i'm concerned, domestic political risks are the only downside to an approach that combines diplomacy with -- i'll stop there. thank you.

>> thank you, joel. we're glad you maintained your sanity to this point. very sobering presentation. next, former ambassador susan burk is going to talk about the broader set of challenges that face the next u.s. president relating to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty as a whole, where these issues and others are discussed every five years in a cycle, and in between, and so thank you very much for being here, susan. >> thank you very much for inviting me. i wanted to thanked the arms control association for all of the work they're doing to advocate for and advance a responsible arms control nonproliferation agenda. from what we heard so far this morning, i feel like i should say my name is susan, and i'm a nonproliferator. the quality of a support group, and i appreciate the arms control association for providing those of us who suffer this affliction, having an opportunity to be with other true believers and kind of share

our burdens. this morning, i wanted to focus on the disarmament or the divide between the haves and have nots. i was asked to address the impact of these challenges on the health of the treaty, and so i'll talk a bit about the impact of the divide and some options to address this divide. and i really tried not to be political, but i may not be able to help myself. in any case, you know, over the years, the parties to the ntp generally have agreed fairly consistently on the support and central role that the treaty has played in grounding and upholding the global nonproliferation regime. at the same time, frustration over the pace and process of nuclear disarmament and increasingly disagreement over the role of nuclear weapons and npt's nuclear weapons security state strategies has been a feature.

i was involved in the 2010 review conference, and that benefitted tremendously from the good will that had been generated by the nuclear agenda laid out by president obama in prague. and it was also helped by a substantive decision on the middle east which paved the way for agreements on the action plan. there were a number of pieces of that action plan, and two things in particular i mentioned. one was that action plan launched an unprecedented process of p-5 engagement, no laughing, and provided for increased accountability by reporting. but perhaps expectations were unrealistically high on all sides. we thought that was possible. or this modest progress was seen as an opening for more ambitious opening of the flood gates,

because as soon as the npt party reconvened in 2012 to prepare 2015, what has been known as the humanitarian consequences movement began its surge and the first of three international conferences on the subject was rolled out. the nuclear -- the nuclear weapon states declined to participate in the first two meetings. of the u.s. and uk participated in the third, and by doing so, in my view, they forfeited the opportunity to contribute to the developing narrative, and they strengthened the hand of the group who were seeking outside of the npt framework, disarmament. as support for this movement was growing, the prospects of further u.s.-russian arms reduction was fading. russian nuclear saber rattling was increasing. north korea, as joel mentioned, was continuing to conduct nuclear explosive tests and engage in provocative behavior,

and the conference remained -- against this backdrop, the 2015 conference last year again made a run at a consensus final document, but stumbled in the final hours over the middle east. there's no direct evidence that consensus would have been broken over the disarmament report alone, and i did my best to try to get people to tell me if that was the case, but the lack of enthusiasm has been widely reported, and so i have even heard from some that there was relief in some quarters among non-alliance states that there was no document because they were not -- but that draft, which was not finalized did include some initiative that including the u.n. working group that was mentioned as well as calls again for regular detailed

reporting, and the open ended working group which i'll talk about a bit was something that the nuclear weapons state appeared to support in the document. so not withstanding the fact there was no agreement on the document, soon after the conference, the u.s. signaled its willingness to engage in the oewg on the basis of the terms agreed by the npt party. that is the decision -- i represent only myself. i think that the decision to establish the oeg ultimately under different terms than had been agreed upon, that was to go to u.n., which was, made for a missed opportunity. you had a proposal that the npt nuclear weapon states engage as long as it was consensus. at least the process calling the discussion in this oewg with the weapons possession.

those who pushed for a vote, i think, i question their motives. i have heard from some who attended the oewg. no one in the room, i have to say. who were told that they didn't want the weapon states to participate. that was one of the motivations. if that's the case, i think there's a problem here, and it may not be the usual suspects. engagement is a two-way street. it requires flexibility on both sides. if one side is setting up a situation that they know the other side is not going to be able to live with -- in any case, the fourth humanitarian conference has not been scheduled for various regions. it has become the focal point for debate on disarmament but

without the input of the weapon states. because no states possess nuclear weapons. the oewg is also discussing the so-called legal gap in the npt. this is what some states argue is the lack of a clear definition of the effective measures to be negotiated relating to nuclear disarmament, the effective measures mentioned in article six of the npt. and there is no con census on whether there is or is not a legal gap. the oewg has gotten some press because several states --

a handful of states to convene a conference next year to negotiate an agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons, but there are a number of papers that have been tabled to lay out the proposals we have all come to know and understand. building blocks which are step by step. a convention, nuclear weapons convention. a framework agreement. these are all proposals that have been tabled in the npt review context. i would say for many of the participants in these meetings, regional and global insecurity is very real. they believe their concerns are legitimate. and their frustration with the nuclear weapon states has led them to this venue. this u.s. has aligned themselves with the prague speech with the concerned expressed about the humanitarian -- they believe -- they're real in

the sense that frustration over disarmament and fear of nuclear use has contributed to the growth of this humanitarian movement, and it's led some extremely well informed and well placed observers to conclude that the two sides are more polarized than they have ever been. now, this movement provides an opportunity not only for states to show concern about and dissatisfaction with the status quo, but to take matters in their own hands outside of the npt and without the nuclear weapon states if necessary. this is not going to strengthen that treaty. it will not fill the void that many believe has emerged in the absence of further progress. now, bridging the divide is

going to require we make common cause with our partners to address the concerns that fuel the humanitarian movement. i was asked to provide a best case and a worst case, and i won't get into the issue of politics, but you know, who gets elected in november, i think, will very much influence the best whether or not there's the best you can make or the best you imagine case because the conference, the 50th anniversary of entering the force, and shortly after 2015, folks already began to look ahead to that as a dramatic milestone moment and a very symbolic conference. so no matter what happens, i think it's going to be something to watch. even under the best circumstances, it's going to be a challenge. so how do you mitigate that challenge. how do you make the best of a

bad situation? i think the next u.s. president early on has to reaffirm strong and unequivocal support for the nonproliferation regime, including the npt in all aspects, disarmament, nonproliferation, no spread of nuclear weapons to any countries, and removal. i think that has to be clear. a prague-like speech that reflected continuity in the nuclear agenda i think would do a lot to reassure international partners about continued leadership, partnership, and shared objectives. i know there's a lot of criticism about the prague agenda not being fully realized, but i think it's a heck of a good place to start, and something like that that builds and moves forward. such an agenda could also include commitments to sustain the work of the international partnership of nuclear disarmament verification. i would suggest seeking to expand its membership to include more partners, explore involving other nongovernmental

organizations able to make contributions and make the partnership work as transparent as possible. these are a way to use the time available now to prepare for advances later when the process is linked to understanding and education of a wide variety of states on the verification challenges of the nuclear numbers. the next president should announce. and this would be a way to re-engage russia on nonproliferation arms control issues and i do not in any way underestimate the difficulty. they -- he or she should persevere with the p-5 process and promote p-5 transparency and accountability. last year's annual meeting,

lewis dunn outlined several possible p-5 initiatives to be pursued through this process, including p-5 action to minimize the risk of nuclear weapon use by anyone as well as a p-5 code of nuclear conduct, and i would urge people to take another look at those ideas, and if i were advising the next president, i would urge that. i think pressure should be kept on getting the negotiations going into geneva. i understand this may be a fool's errand, but it is important for a number of reasons. and if the u.s. has flexibility on stocks as has been reported, that would be an important development. the next president should uphold the 24 plus year testing moratorium. continued support for the international monitoring system, and a way to make sure that that system is made a permanent part of the international nonproliferation architecture. the ratification is a tough issue, as we all know, and it

depends what happens in other races. i think more effort should be made to make the case to the american people and to congress on why -- and i think this is something both the u.s. government and ngos can do more on. i know aca is doing a tremendous amount of work. don't underestimate the importance of getting out the word to the american public. and then i would say reaffirm the u.s. negative security assurance contained in the 2010 review, and recommit to the ratification and don't forget the other zones once the protocol is completed, and in another step, i would suggest that the next president signal willingness and an appropriate venue to discuss the conditions under which a global negative security assurance agreement, under what condition.

and then finally, we should not shy away from joining the ongoing multilateral discussion on disarmament. if we believe that our mission is a sound one, we should be prepared to partner and defend our mission. maybe they'll learn something. maybe we'll learn something. i think this would signal a clear commitment and to work with and through multilateral institutions, better or for worse. this should be part of the president's agenda. while this would not discourage certain states from pursuing solutions outside of the npt to force disarmament process, this is going to strengthen the hand of allies closely aligned with ours. you can't fight something with nothing, and this is the way to get a real discussion going. now, even under such a scenario, a successful review in 2020 is a

50/50 proposition. that's probably generous. nuclear disarmament is not the only issue that can derail agreements, but if the goal is to re-enforce the centrality, the indefensibility and the irreplaceability, then strong, responsibility, and creative u.s. leadership and engagement, and a respectful sensitive to a large number of nonnuclear weapon states, now, i'm not even going to talk about -- i'm already stressed about what i have heard so far, but i'll be happy to talk over coffee or answer questions, but in conclusion, a proactive and positive u.s. nonproliferation and arms control agenda is essential for a best case outcome. and i use best case. but it's not a guarantee of such. as i have noted, bridging the divide is a two-way street, and the nonweapon states and even the ngos must be willing to

engage on common ground. i would also note on arms control, it takes two to tango. right now, i would say this government doesn't have a partner. so it should not be held -- to be blamed for not moving forward without a partner. but maybe work can be done to try -- humanitarian consequence movement has provided a vehicle for nonnuclear weapon states to articulate their concern and their fears about nuclear weapons, which are legitimate. i think as we have heard today, and prevent their frustrations with programs and policies they believe rightly or wrongly put them at greater risk. the challenges facing the npt regime will require steady, informed united states leadership to build on the decades of work that has been done. >> thank you. >> as i said this morning at the outset of the meeting, we have a very substantive and high-level program, and i appreciate all the ideas and the problems with

the issues from our four speakers on four important areas. and because we have put forward a presentation on four different areas, when you ask your question, please be specific as to whom you're directing your question, and try to keep it tight. we have about 25 minutes before we're going to take our lunch break, and then move to our keynote speaker at the noon hour. so with that, the floor is open for your questions. i see a number of hands going up. i will try to get to as many of you as possible. why don't you try to head over here to the right side with mr. wolf by the wall. >> thank you. i would like to ask questions of each. i'll confine myself.

i have always thought strategic patience is not the right term. it should have been strategic indifference. but toby made an interesting point for me, and he said that one of the first things he would recommend in dealing with south asia is fix the policy structure. i wonder if you think the problem with the structure, that's the recommendation you would make in the area of dealing with north korea. >> before you take that, joel, why don't we take one more and do a couple at a time, since we have several right behind you. >> i'm from italy. also with a question. the presentation is rather pessimistic. but i agree with you.

but there's one element of hope and it's an evolution. both russia and china are becoming concerned. and you said that their missile capacity could even reach china and i guess also russia. so maybe also they are fed up with the situation, and they can exercise pressure. and also, what is wrong with the suggestion for negotiation, for negotiating a peace treaty? after all, 60 years have passed from the korean war, and maybe this time at least to establish the border, the most dangerous

one is the northern limit line, which is not defined at all. thank you. >> thank you. joel. >> policy structure. this is obviously a very difficult issue to deal with. so the question is, can the regular bureaucracy opt out, so i and norm also have been part of an experience where you had one guy in charge who actually grows to a conclusion, a framework. i think today that's what you need. otherwise, leaving this to the state department, to other bureaucracies, nothing is ever going to happen. you're just going to have more

patients. secondly, on your point, first, yes, every time i give a presentation, people, there's always someone who rightly points out, you're being pessimistic. yes. you're absolutely right. but i would say maybe it's a psychological defense. i'm being realistic. that's what's important here. yes, we would all like to find elements of hope, but i would suggest that relying on russia and china and some sort of change in particularly china's approach, isn't going to work. been doing that for 20 years. how many times have i had a discussion with people where they're saying it looks like china is changing its approach? it happens over and over and over again. there may be changes, but they're tactical. you probably follow the newspapers.

you saw president xi with the former north korean foreign minister who is now a member of the -- a lot of people are interpreting that as china accepting north korea as a nuclear weapon state. so i don't see that as an element of hope. third, on the north korean suggestion, let's negotiate a peace treaty, i agree. i don't see anything wrong with that as long as we get our issues on the table. the problem is that's really very difficult for americans and people in northeast asia to visualize because a peace treaty in theory could lead up to a very different northeast asia. a very different korean peninsula. i don't know what the impact would be on our alliances in northeast asia, if there were forward progress. so it's very hard for people to make that leap.

but i would argue, as i said in my presentation, think out of the box. the only way we're going to deal with this problem is by addressing core security concerns on both sides. and i have been in meetings where people say, the north koreans, they don't have anything to fear from the united states. why do they think we're a security threat? well, you know. i mean, you don't have to meet with north koreans regularly to see what's wrong with that statement. so that's what has to be done. and it's very hard. >> before we move onto some questions for the other panelists and other issues, if you could quickly remind us no matter how difficult this is, what are the stakes? and your institute has done some careful research on future scenarios in terms of what the north koreans may have in their arsenal down the road. >> you mean the implications?

>> i mean by 2020, by the end of this next president's first term. how many nuclear weapons might the north koreans have at their disposal? what might their missile capabilities be based upon? >> the technical part? >> yeah. just to remind people what's at stake here. >> we did three different scenarios. david albright did. the range in weapons was 20 to 100. that doesn't sound like a lot to us in the united states, but it sure sounds like a lot to the south koreans and the japanese. and of course the qualitative improvements are almost as important. it's unclear. i think and david thinks and now the u.s. government thinks and the south koreans are admitting the north koreans can put a war

head on top of at least a regional range missile. they've made qualitative improvements. and depending on the pace of nuclear testing, they could make a lot more, including the possibility of developing a very simple single stage hydrogen bomb by 2020. the big development out there, the elephant sitting in the room is whether they can build an icbm. we've seen it. we've seen mockups of it in parade. we've seen tests of the rocket engine motors. these are all things that shouldn't be taking people by

surprise and are coming down the pike. >> we've got some other questions here. marissa, why don't you come here to the front table and take this lady's question? thanks. >> my name is angela beach. my understanding is that pakistan wouldn't participate in negotiations because of its strategic concerns -- [ no audio ] my question was a little bit of a technical one. i was hoping you could talk about the estimates on the size of stockpiles and at current rates of production how long it would take pakistan to catch up with india under the scenario that that would be the critical juncture at which they could join up in ct negotiations. thank you.

>> why don't we take one more question here in the middle? then we can thumb wrestle over your question. >> pierce gordon. i've probably been in the business maybe too long, but there's something called the united nations disarmament commission, which meets annually. its primary objective of -- [ no audio ] by definition all u.n. members are there, which means all of the states both in and out of the npt and the united states participates but i don't say it gives very much attention to that. what are the prospects that the u.n. could become a more central point of dealing with nuclear disarmament involving all of the

possessing states and all of the other states and perhaps the oewg efforts could sort of morph over into that forum which is ready to continue working indefinitely perhaps as a beginning point. bearing in mind that russia has made it clear that they're not prepared to do more bilateral negotiations. >> thank you. >> yeah. thank you for that. our international panel on fissile materials does these estimates on a regular basis. you can find the most recent global fissile material report. but i think the interesting thing is actually not the current balance of materials. the question is the presumption behind your question and the claim that pakistan makes that it is delaying and blocking the

beginning of talks at the conference on disarmament on a fissile material cutoff treaty. it's true, pakistan has made an enormous investment in building up the production capacity for -- especially for plutonium, weapons plutonium in the last 15 years. as of 2000-2001 it had one plutonium production. now it has four that are operating. but the thing you have to understand is that there is actually not that much difference in the stockpiles of material produced for weapons purposes between the two countries. what pakistan points to is india's live stockpile of unsafeguarded plutonium which is from indian nuclear power

reactors. in other words putting on the table indian stockpiles which is outside safeguards but india claims is not for weapon purposes. there is a concern behind this. and that is that india's fast breeder reactor will use plutonium as fuel, but it can produce weapon grade plutonium as a byproduct of its operation. it will take reactor grade plutonium for fuel and produce weapons grade plutonium. if it operates at any reasonable rate, which is uncertain, because most people who have tried breeder reactors have realized they're very hard and

very unsafe and have lots of problems and can't get them to operate well. but that breeder reactor, if it works, could increase india's weapon plutonium production rate almost tenfold. the sad part, of course, is that the united states has had 15 years to deal with the pakistan concerns and the indian breeder reactor program and has refused to take either aspect seriously because of other interests. since 9/11 the united states has been more interested in chasing al qaeda and killing taliban than dealing with pakistan building up its weapons program. and it has been more interested in recruiting india to its side in an emerging cold war with china and having access to the indian market and all these other things. so we won't talk too much about what indian is doing with its nuclear program. so the real reason, i think, that pakistan is blocking is the fact that it can. and it's using that time to build up its arsenal to whatever size it thinks is appropriate, really regardless of how big

india's stockpile is or isn't. and it's largely, you know, our fault. >> all right. why don't we go to the question with the undc. >> pierce, i don't know the answer to that question. i mean, i see randy. he might know better. i'm not aware of the undc producing anything in recent memory. and i remember years ago, probably when i was at the pentagon, you know where it was a more -- doing stuff. but i'm not aware that it's being used by any state to do anything meaningful. if it's under u.n. rules where you can vote things in or out, well, if it's consensus, i just don't know. my impression of it is that it has not been particularly active or you know in the front lines or even in the middle lines, maybe not even the rear lines for a long time. so it would require a retooling, yeah.

well, i just don't know the answer to that question. >> before we go to the next question, let me just ask a followup of toby on the fissile material cutoff treaty issue. at the end of your response you said that pakistan was blocking the start of negotiations because they could. because the conference on disarmament operates according to the consensus rules so one country can block. just this january as we reported in arms control today, the u.s. put forward a proposal that would meet one of pakistan's concerns, which is to discuss the stockpiles as part of -- pakistan is still opposed. then when prime minister drew trudeau came to washington and met with president obama, there was a small notice that they issued in their statement that perhaps other approaches to

pursuing this material cutoff treaty other than the conference on disarmament might need to be explored. quickly, if you could just address this question. i mean, is there another option for the u.s. president -- the next u.s. president to get negotiations going maybe outside of the conference on disarmament where consensus based rules are not necessarily in effect and work with the other nuclear arms states with fissile stockpiles? is there another way, yes or no? >> it's possible to go outside the conference on disarmament. there's no reason why not. the issue, of course s that just in the way that susan mentioned, the nuclear weapon states, when they want to protect their interests, insist on a consensus based approach. like when we talk about nuclear disarmament, the other nuclear weapon states that we would want to be involved in a fissile material cutoff treaty, the russians, the chinese, the others may say, well, look, the u.s. may be fine because it has all these allies who will vote

for whatever it wants, but we don't. so therefore we want consensus in any process. you can get a process, but other weapon states to protect their own interests in negotiations will want consensus also. whether it helps the process grow that much faster is unclear given the differences they have in their negotiating positions. i think the real issue is not to go outside the fissile material cutoff treaty negotiation in geneva. we could have them in geneva. the question you have to ask is whether a country as dependent on the international system as pakistan is able to withstand the entire international community. the only reason it doesn't is because no one cares enough to call them on it. and they're getting away with it precisely for that reason. everyone else has more important interests with pakistan than fissile materials.

the day that changes -- the pakistanis said sure we can have negotiations. they saw that the world was really concerned about the nuclear tests and wanted something done. it's going to be that kind of determination that will force pakistan to say we'll let the process go forward. doesn't mean they'll agree to a treaty when it's done. they've got enough fissile material to suit themselves. this really is a question of how badly the international community want this is treaty. >> i wouldn't add much to that other than to reinforce what he suggested, which is that within the p-5 certainly there is a range of views on the desirability of an fmct, let alone an fmt. so the risk in shifting outside the cd is that we might find the

five quickly becomes a much smaller number of states that are actually interested. >> all right. i see a couple more hands. there's one way in the back. i want to respect the people in the rear of the room. if you could get to her, yes. then we'll take one more up front and then we're about at our lunch break. >> from voice of america, persian tv network. i know it's focused on northeast asia. perhaps i can ask the panel about china's investment in pakistan and recent trade cooperation between india and iran, do you see any possibility of nuclear cooperation between india and iran? and how can the future united states president strike a balance with regards to china's president there and india --

>> let's take 100 more question. >> israel seems to be opening up on the program. how do you see this moving ahead in the next few years? there was mention of nuclear weapon free zones. thank you. >> thank you. i'm going to ask toby to try the first question and then we'll turn to the second. >> the question was how should china and india and iran, how does that all look in asia,

particularly as nuclear trade is concerned going forward and whether there's potential for some stablizing role there. i think the questions about iran have focussed more on the closing down of the weapons infrastructure. what we see still is interest in nuclear energy there and russia has been the primary recipient of that interest and i imagine would continue to be the primary recipient of that interest. india has been conducting reactors on its own territory but has not been participating in that and is quite a ways away from being able to do that but the question mark is china becoming a supplier and what that means in the international market and the rules associated with that. until now it's primarily been building reactors in pakistan

but has participated in a number of bids to build reactors outside pakistan. in the future it could play a much larger role in the nuclear power programs of other states. that kind of then leads to the questions about whether china has the same priorities in terms of safety, security, responsible practices. i think that's not something we should take for granted. there's not a lot of evidence that they don't. >> you want to try to take the question about israel's interests or its role in

reducing risks in the middle east. >> the middle east issue as i mentioned has been a substantive issue at mpt review conferences since '95 although proish ior tt there was some dustup that would keep people in the conference room until 3:00 in the morning. i'm not going to comment on whether or not they're opening up or not, but there were efforts made after the 2010 conference to try to convenience a conference of regional states to discuss establishing a weapons of mass destruction free zone. that's the proposal, not just nuclear but all weapons of mass destruction but in the end the israelis were participating in these meetings but the arabs

ended up not participating and iran was not participating. the conditions don't seem right there but it's not israel that is the problem as best i can tell in terms of getting together with regional part iners to scope out the parameters of a conference. i think it's safe to say the obstacle has been the larger group of states and i won't go any further than that. >> i would add that as we look at the middle east region which we've not covered too much in this session, we have been talking about and we will continue to discuss ways in which we can build upon the gcp way and the iran deal to head off possible interests in nuclear weapons beyond the terms of that agreement as well as looking for ways that other countries can join in some of the measures like the conference of nuclear test ban treaty which was signed but not ratified. there are ways in which other

countries can help reduce nuclear risks and create conditions in the region beginning with a nuclear free zone. that will be a subject of focus for the arms control association at future events but we are out of scheduled time for this session. i hope this you found this conversation rich. it may be unsatisfying. it may be a little difficult to take sometimes. these issues keep coming at us but that is why we do our work. i want to note before we thank our panelists that we are now going to be breaking for about 20 minutes for lunch. i would encourage all of you to step outside to get your plate of food. there will be two lines. we're going to resume the program as close to 12:00 as possible for our key note

speaker ben rhodes. join me in thanking our panelists. [ applause ] the washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning the texas rek congressman will react to today's investigation by the fbi that no charges be brought against hillary clinton and this week's vote on gun legislation in the house and then the michigan democratic congresswoman will talk about the latest on the flint, michigan water crisis and the congressional response to the orlando shootings and the 2016

presidential campaign. be sure to watch it live at 7:00 a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. democratic leader nancy pelosi will be joined by victims of gun violence wednesday morning at a press conference on the capitol steps. members are calling for votes to prevent gun violence. watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern. in the afternoon the house rules committee will begin to establish debate rules for a 2017 funding bill for defense programs and may take up gun legislation. that's live 3:00 p.m. eastern. the state department special envoy for libya on the security and economic situation in the country. this is about an hour.

the committee will come to order. thank you for being here. i want to thank our witness for testifying today five years after the u.s. decision to intervene in libya which i think most of us would agree was a textbook case and not what not do in foreign policy if you look at where we are today. i'm still wondering what our libya policy is. i read through the briefings and i know the senator and others did the same. yet we spend most of our time on foreign policy issues and i have to tell you looking at the memo that was put in place by crs the forces on the ground in libya are really many and very very

tough complex situation that has developed there. i think our hearing today is an attempt to understand what is an achievable outcome in libya that is in line with u.s. interests and at what cost. obviously if we can call people to come together through the efforts we really will be getting back to where we were in 2013. there's been a lot of time lost and lives lost, a lot of backward momentum. as different factions continue to compete across libya and isis continues to use the chaos to establish an operating base outside syria it appears that we are again contemplating providing arms and training to some type of libyan national security force. i hope it can be explained to us what lessons the administration has learned from the failure of the last time we tried to develop libyan security forces and what political progress

needs to occur in order for us to try again. to determine the way forward we need an accurate assessment of the ability to goven and what we are doing to help them and what can bring the rival administration on board with the new government. we have sanctioned libyan individuals who are hindering the formation of a government in the past but are we prepared to do so in the future. for a county with vast oil wealth and thankfully void of widespread sectarian intentions libya should become a success story. i think we all are disheartened that in many ways the u.s. policy has hindered libya's progress. i want to thank our special envoy for being here who i know has concerns about the future of libya. we look forward to your testimony. we thank you for being here today to help us understand the

way forward and with that i'll turn to our ranking member senator ben guarder. >> thank you. i think this hearing is particularly important as to how we proceed in libya and it's complicated and i thank our witness for being here and your service to our country but in order to counter sooisil in lib the united states has stepped up diplomatic efforts to achieve libyan unity. this is the right approach although i'm pleased to learn that isil is now on the run i'm distressed that they continue to make inroads by inspiring people online to commit atrasties as we've seen in our own country in orlando. oftentimes in the rush to beat back the latest terrorists threats, the counter terrorism actions outpeaces and exceeds our political strategy and that's a matter of major concern. we want to take action but we

need to know we can follow up that action with a workable strategy. i fear if we are not careful, if we do not devote the same amount of time and resources to good governance then we will be worsening the country's division and repeating past mistakes that we've made elsewhere. if we arm one malitia to counter isil today, even if it's acting under the new government, who knows will take up arms against us tomorrow. now let me be clear. if the administration has information about a threat against the united states, then we have to act. we have to act and do what's safe for the people of our country. i know this administration is trying its best to support the government of national gna. three months ago before this committee i convoyed the urgency for libyan national unity and

enhancing the legitimacy to help libya take its place among the nations. control over libya is critical to combatting isil and resolving a migrant crisis that has witnessed the deaths of thousands. we've lost thousands of people that have been trafficked through libya. that's one of the casualties of instability in that country. while they're doing they're best to restore order but the country continues to block a vote of approval. as long as libya remains fractured terrorist groups will thrive. the gna itself has not requested foreign intervention and while we can provide training to gna controlled units we cannot fight this fight for them. i think that's a very important

point. if and when the u.s. decides to give military equipment and training to libyan forces it must be with the confidence of who we're giving the support toened a the potential for that support to be turned against the united states. we need to have a clear strategy in libya. i've said before this committee i'm concerned about the open ended nature of this every ending war on terror that is is pursued without congressional authorization. what began as a small mission to build partners could grow into something much larger and all this is based on the authorization of u.s. force predating the upheavily in the arab world. predating the u.s. invasion in iraq more than 13 years ago. our libya policy must strike a balance. the core problem is that it's fractured along many lines

between the old order and the new. we in the international community must continue our best to try and bridge these gaps. libbans are tired of having multiple competing governments. they deserve better. i want to compliment the u.s. leadership and security council in working with our british colleagues in getting the security action to deal with the arms embargo. the united states and international community can and should help a country like libya. it's my hope that we pursue a balanced policy and not just an exped yant one. thank you. >> thank you very much for those comments. we really appreciate you being here as people know you're the special envoy for libya. the bureau of middle eastern affairs at the u.s. state department.

you can summarize your comments without objection. all your written testimony will be entered in the record. thank you for being here and if you would please proceed. >> thank you mr. chairman. i thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss u.s. foreign policy on libya. i've just returned from consultations with regional and european partners to discuss our mutual support for the transitional government of national accord in libya whose challenges include ending civil conflict, promoting stability and addressing the ongoing terrorist threat. our interest in libya is to support a unified government that meets the needs of the people. we also seek a government with whom we can partner on bilateral and regional objectives which threaten security and stability across both north africa and europe. at the center of our on policy

has been support for the creation of the gna as a unifying bridge to help libyans move beyond the damaging period of political competition referred to by the chairman and the ranking member and fragment tash until the country adopts a new constitution and a long term government. to do that we engaged last year with a wide range of libyan international partners to support the negotiation of the libyan political agreement which was signed on december 17th, terrorist to bring about gna. since march 30th, 75 days ago roughly, the gna has been to able to demonstrate his effectiveness and has begun the critical work of rebuilding the libyan state. rather than fighting one another through the gna backed by the political dialogue libyans have

begun therd ha work of addressing common challenges. our collective international support for the gna has already had practical impact on the ground. in recent days we've seen libyan forces aligned with the gna engaged in sustained fighting against daesh and entering into the city. they've made impressive gains against a ruthless enemy. there have been plans to form a presidential guard. it has established command centers to combat daesh. the prime minister has stated he will seek international assistance to train and equip gna forces for this fight which will not be a fight that will be over in merely days or weeks. the libyans will look to the united states for our help no fighting daesh and we are prepared to provide it. the united states counter terrorism policy is devoted to eliminating daesh and reducing

the threat they pose to our national security. in libya the president has made clear his willingness to take action wherever our interests is in danger. the united states has conducted direct action against several targets in libya including a february 19th strike that took out a daesh training camp. we've also been working to disrupt connections between the daesh branch and libya and the core group to shut off daesh finances there and to counter and defeat its destructive messages. as with our other policy priorities achieving our counter terrorism objectives depends on helping the libyans repbuild a state. with our partners in europe and within the rental we continue to urge all libyans to put aside

their personal interests in the name of uniting libya. we end courage to them the institutions in particular the central bank whose unity is vital to the country's recovery and stability. u.s. assistance has played an important part and we look to congress for continued support. the administration has requested $20.5 million for assistance to libya in 2017. these funds would enable us to respond to their needs and help the gna and support increasing libya security and counter terrorism capabilities. the administration is planning to provide $30 million to help libya's political transition and produce an effective government. as part of this assistance we intend to commit up to

$4 million for the stablization facility for libya. mr. chairman and members of this committee, as i described at the outset today the united states supports the aspirations of libyan people for a responsive national government capable of overcoming the country's significant political challenges and divisions. we remain deeply engaged with libya because it's vital for our national security for of that libya and north africa and europe. i look forward to taking your questions. thank you. >> thank you very much. i assume you believe it's reasonable that libya can be put back together as a unify fd state that can secure its boarder and maintain mon oppositely over the use of force. is that something you believe can occur. >> i believe it can occur. several things in your statement need to all be taken into consideration. a un tarn state for libya is

essential. boarder control is something that's going to require work by libya's neighbors as well as by libya. >> based on the way things are progressing at present, how long into the future do you think that is? >> well, the government of national accord has made more progress over the last 75 days than most people ever expected it would be able to make in that period of time. the advances they've made against daesh are impressive and involve a tremendous amount of sacrifice by soldiers. >> is daesh the unifying force right now that's causing them to come together. >> samuel johnson said the process of a hanging kons traits the mind and that's an element that has helped them come together is a concern about their security. >> after isis is dealt with effectively is there any sense

that because this is a unifying force that's bringing people together citing historians is there a concern after that is dealt with the civil war can again break out. >> i think that the approach of having a government of national accord for a transition is designed to produce mechanical yichs for getting services provided and political support in the east, west and south. for the government to succeed it has to be able to provide services at the local level. there has to be buy in and municipalities throughout the country with attention given to underserved areas from the past. >> are they capable of doing that? we don't have sectarian issues here but we have divisions within the country. so is it reasonable to believe in a period of time that matters thatter going to be able to do that. >> i don't think it's easy for them to do it.

i think they're working on it. the council consists of nine people representing three major regions and i've seen them begin to work together and grow together into a working unit. i think they're committed to that. the constitution that the libyans still need to buildout and elections they still need to carry out for a permanent government are going to have to be designed by libyans to address these core issues so they have a nation they can build for the future but given their potential oil wealth past and future they have the tools and in theory they should be able to do it. >> this was a case of -- i know that most of the committee were in a different place than i was on this but i didn't understand what our national interests were in going in in the first place. i certainly didn't understand going in, decapitating the government and leaving as we have. you laid out a series of numbers which certainly to most

americans is a lot of money and but on the other hand as we know as it relates to dealing with these kind of issues very very light amount of resources. i'm wondering what role you see the u.s. playing right now? are we one of 30 countries, are we the lead country? it does not appear if you look at the resources being allocated if we're the major force in helping this all come together, this much effort that's happening on the ground. can you share with us your thoughts in that regard. >> yes. the assistance money we're asking for are small amounts by comparison to what we're doing in iraq for example or in many other places. there we're part of an international coalition to try to help libya through this -- >> who is leading libya through that. >> the u.n. is essentially in the lead. the europe union is committing

substantial amounts. >> are they taking more of a leading role in libya than the united states is? >> no, sir. but in the assistance area, our requests are what they are. our core work over this past year has been political in the first instance to get alignment amongst all libya's neighbors, important regional players beyond libya's neighbors to work with the libyans to try to bring them together and get them aligned instead of fighting one another. it played a substantial role in the creation of the government of national accord. >> i think all of us on the committee have traveled through northern africa and seen the hav yok that the fall of libya has created, the amount of arms that have traveled through those countries, the support thus given for transnationalist terrorists groups. that's water under the bridge.

i still am having difficulties seeing the progress. i'm glad we have someone like yourself there but do understand that if we end up in a situation years from now where a country cannot maintain its boarders, cannot --