new technologies coming out there that might change these questions. how is the patent office considering things like 3d printing? how could that sort of infringe on these things that other people have created? >> so, we held an event a few months ago. we call it additive manufacturing, because i guess we're kind of nerdy. but yes, it's 3d printing. and one of the five manufacturing plants i toured only did 3d printing, and they've been around since '96. so i found that fascinating. this has actually been out in the marketplace for a while now. there are certainly implications in terms of copyrights and patents and trademarks, the ability to, you know, download something that may have a trademark from somebody else and manufacture it yourself. i think the consensus, though, is that this is truly a revolutionary technology that is really going to improve our lives. at that manufacturing plant, they were designing these parts that were going to be used actually in machines to make other things. and they were able to create

passages and drill-throughs, for example like fluids, oils for advice costity, that you literally physically cannot do with the drill. there is no way to drill through metal and get these things, right? and so, we're going to have to work it out, just like with any disruption. we're going to have to figure out the nuances of ip, and some of them will make headlines. but more broadly, we're going to see great economic growth and opportunity from this. >> yeah. and you know, i think one of the most exciting things about 3d -- you know, there are a lot of really exciting things about 3 , printing, but one of the really exciting things is it takes manufacturing that used to be in the hands of people who knew how the supply chain worked, they knew a fabrication plant and they knew the designers and they knew the specification for how to do drawings. it takes all of that and it puts it into like the hands of you and me, right? you know, i don't know any fabrication plants that can cast metal for me, but i know how to

type things, right? and so, if i call in a design, and you know, i can design it using any one of the computer programs for 3d modeling. i can send that off to shapeways, and a week later, they give me the thing that i asked them to print. and you know, i think, number one, it's just really great. i'm really excited about the potential of 3d printing for replacing kids' toys, because i have a 3-year-old and he loses his favorite lego every week. so i'm very excited about that. but more importantly, what i'm excited about is the idea of fast prototyping, the idea that, you know, right now if i want to try out a new idea, it's going to take -- you know, i've got to send it out to the factory, it's going to take like a month for them to manufacture and it turns out there's a problem with it, so i have to redo the design, send it out to the manufacturer, it will take another month to come back. with 3d printing, i can say i want to tweak that design here and print it, it will take an hour. >> you think about the auto

industry because we talked about cars here, and traditionally, you'd get the new model every four or five years, right? well, the car i own, they completely changed the interior from the '15 to the '16 model. i suspect that 3d printing was involved in that, in part, because they can make these fast prototypes cheap and on the fly. they can test them, run through. and so, i think we're going to -- we may not even ten years from now, since we're talking future tense, we may not even have model years of cars, right? they may just kind of keep iterating them in realtime and you just keep getting the latest one. it changes the way we think about things. >> definitely. i'm curious whether or not you both think that types of 3d printing will butt heads with these big manufacturers, howe r however. like we talk about apple and the iphone. i think i know probably hundreds of people that have broken their iphones. i'm not one of them yet. knock on wood. i probably will tomorrow, break my screen. but we were just discussing

earlier in the green room about how it's incredibly challenging to replace that screen without spending a lot of money going to the genius bar, things like that. do you think that things like 3d printing, things like other solutions will be good for that but also butt heads with the big companies? >> yeah. so, i was talking about my experience a couple weeks ago of replacing an ipad screen. the process of replacing an ipad screen, in case any of you want to try this out, involves prying open the glass with a pry tool in one hand while blow-drying the glue that holds the glass together with the other hand. and because the glass is so thin, it breaks off into small pieces. so you're sitting there, blow dryer in one hand, prying with the other hand and tiny pieces of glass flying into your face. it's an experience. i did manage to do it. but what i think it says is something about the way that some of these manufacturers are

treating these devices. i also have a keyboard that i purchased about six years ago. that thing is entirely held together with phillips screws. i can take a screwdriver and open it up, replace the logic boards, clean off the keys, do everything i want, screw it back together and it works fine, and that process takes me maybe about half an hour. when companies moved from things like standard hardware to these pentalope screws that they use on laptops to gluing things together and to parts that can't be replaced or parts that are custom fit so you can't replace them with other parts, it makes it a lot harder for people, you know, just to engage in ordinary repairs of their stuff. and that means that, you know, if my iphone breaks, a lot of times, unless you've got a lot of skills or time or are willing to go to some specialized repair

shop, you probably just have to throw it away, and that i think is kind of unfortunate for a number of reasons. first of all, it's unfortunate because i have to throw a whole device away because a small part may be broken, but second, it's a recycling problem because it contains a lithium battery and glass and metal, and if you can't separate them all out, there's no way you can send that to a recycling plant. so, i think the sort of trend is a little concerning. and 3d printing does make it a little better, because it does offer the option of recreating very customized parts that you might not be able to find. so, if there is a particular curved bezel on an iphone that is broken and you can't find the replacement for it, you could 3d print it and then you could have it yourself. that i think is kind of cool, right? but a lot of companies, you know, they're not terribly happy with the idea. they want to be the only ones selling repair parts, so i think there will be something of a conflict there. >> absolutely. as a journalist who works with a

very kind of small segment -- i work with people who are really interested in things like security -- i know that there are a lot of users out there who have different priorities. maybe the standard iphone -- iphone isn't necessarily a good example, they have pretty good example -- but the standard android user. most people have androids in the country, but they don't have great security. and when they kind of push out this software and there's a flaw in it and they choose not to update it and all these users are vulnerable either to criminal hackers, sometimes even state actors, depending on who it is -- i've known certain people who were certainly at risk to that -- how do we properly incentivize companies to be able to develop those things when they don't even give us the choice to do that? >> so, this is something that commerce secretary pritsger has focused on a lot, cybersecurity. and she works with nta with commerce and other subagencies that are included in the u.s. patent and trademark office.

it's a real challenge. we work a lot with start-ups at the uspta. and generally what you see, especially with a tech start-up, is you see the engineer, the wozniak, let's call it, you see the evangelist, the jobs, and maybe they get in somebody who actually understands the money part, which is good. and then they just plow forward and they get those customers and they get those services. and so, you know, secretary pritsger and undersecretary lee like to remind people, you probably should early on be thinking of intellectual property and cybersecurity. both of them are really hard to backload once you start getting down the chain, right? now, in terms of creating incentives, we're doing it through public presentation. we're going around, doing roundtables, talking to schools. we at the uspto have a program where we work with first through sixth graders, and basically, it's like a maker camp.

you bring in old ibm electrics and we modify them and we help them understand some of these principles. but it's a serious problem. >> yeah, and you know, security is kind of an interesting issue when it comes to, like, iot devices. we all know about the recent internet outage which was apparently caused by like iot cameras that were very easily hacked because they had a fixed username and password that nobody could change, not even the users. and, you know, the thing is that there are kind of two approaches to dealing with security vulnerabilities. the first one, which i think is the sort of, like, you know, this is what you would seem to want to do, is lock the devices down as much as possible, don't let anybody be able to access them, make it really, really hard for anybody to figure out what's going on. and you know, that sounds very attractive, but the issue is that most of the security vulnerabilities that are discovered are not discovered by the company, right? they're discovered by third parties who, you know, do research on it, they do the

fuzzing, they do the penetration testing and they realize there's something the company overlooked. a lot of times, especially these internet of things companies, they're design companies or they're manufacturing companies and software's kind of second or third down the list for them. so, software security may not be at the top of the priority chain for them, whereas it would be for, you know, users and security researchers. so you know, that kind of leads it a different approach, which is open the devices up as much as possible. let people figure out what's going on. maybe even make the software open source, and that way, take advantage of the crowd. they can figure out, you know, what are all the issues. they can report on them. and then you know, you can incrementally improve the device at a much more rapid pace. so i think there is that aspect of, you know, just owning and understanding devices that is fairly significantly helpful to cybersecurity concerns. >> right. and you talk about security researchers. there's also, obviously, some areas of the law where we could fear penalties with kind of

messing with those devices, interfering with patents or the computer fraud and abuse act is something i refer to sometimes. people are persecuted because they may be just doing security research to try to help the company, but they're penalized because they've accessed that system without authorization. what other sort of ways could people run into issues with doing that kind of tinkering? >> yeah, so you know, the most often cited legal concern for this sort of activity is in section 1201 of the digital millennia copyright act. that section was originally designed as a way of enforcing drm technologies on, like, you know, music or dvds or e-books. the idea was that if they put on some sort of encryption or some sort of technological protection measure, they call it, that protects the internal copyrighted content, then

efforts to circumvent that technological protection measure would be punishable as a crime in civil lawsuits and any number of different ways. companies have, you know, sought to use that as a way of protecting not just copyrighted content, not just like movies and e-books, but also tractors and medical devices and, you know, all sorts of like internet of things products. because they all have software on them, so the software's copyrighted, so therefore the theory is that any technological protection measures on the device are protecting the software inside it. and i think the assertion of that law in an apparently fairly strange way, that i think is somewhat concerning. and you know, there are similar other issues with like cfa, of course. >> yeah. so, digital millennium copyright act is an interesting thing to bring up, and there have been some isolated cases that involved some kind of questionable interpretations of that.

you may know that the u.s. copyright office actually has a procedure, and i think you guys have probably participated in that, where you can actually go and articulate ways in which you think it's not being used and they can create exceptions and they have created exceptions. we're not a law enforcement agency at the uspto, but we did several years ago start a conversation broadly on copyright and innovation in the digital economy, and we did a green paper in 2013 and a white paper in 2015. what does that mean? green paper is like here are the problems. white paper, potential solutions. i didn't know that before i joined the government. but we did it through the department of commerce. and we received so many comments. i know public knowledge participated in those as well. we had roundtables around the country. and one thing that we kept hearing over and over again is that there are these issues, but they're actually, the marketplace is working some of them out. and so, that was encouraging. and that's not surprising, right, because we've been talking all day here about what do consumers want, what do we as

end users want? well, if you're going to have a bunch of consumers that are unhappy, then there's probably going to be somebody who's going to try to target that. so, not saying everything's solved or that there won't be future problems, but it is interesting to see based on what we heard, that things are working themselves out in some ways. >> okay. well, i will stop monopolizing the two of you and open it up to the audience. remember our previous instructions to please wait for the mike, and when you're asking a question, make sure it is a question and not just a statement. anyone? want to kick things off? >> i feel bad because i already asked one. that's why i was giving it some time. i'm curious about changing attitudes in this space towards patent law and ownership. are there partisan trends there? are there trends or fault lines opening up between younger people who have different ideas about ownership and the role that patent should play in that? i'm curious mostly because i

don't think about patents at all because i don't create anything, but i wonder if i'm representative of a millennial who would be involved in creating something who would approach this without any of those questions about ip. quest. so going forward, are you seeing trends or resetting there? >> it's an excellent question. we seem to live in partisan times, right? i will say you don't think about patents that much, totally fine, i mentioned my kids earlier, they've been forced to think about it too often. they're both in college now, they're free from that. i will say that for the most part skbi lech which you will property policy has been a bipartisan issue. in 2011 congress passed overwhelmingly bipartisan in both the house and senate the american invents act which we've implemented and has provided by some tools, pat tent quality,

stable funding, provided by a post-grant court so anybody can challenge a patent if they think it's illegitimate and bring it before the court. it's faster and cheaper than a u.s. court. but i this i what you're seeing here the that to the extent that there are divisions and debates in the patent community, it has to do with your business model. are patents essential to your business nmodel or peripheral. in some cases, trademarks are important to everybody. lift with a little flowy writing in the pink, that's important to their portfolio. patents vary from industry to industry and that's where the friction lies. >> i think addressing a different part of that question which i think is a great question, one of the interesting trends i see, particularly among younger people, is that we talk a lot about the economy of cars and music and things. there's something of a sharing economy of ideas, too, i think,

it started with the -- you know i think it started with the idea of open source software. the idea that instead of i created this software and so therefore i am going to try to make money on it by selling it, i created the software so i'll share it with people and other people can improve it and we'll have a big community of people helping to put together this cool linux operating system or open office word processing system. and to get to different models of innovation even for other things. i think one of my favorite examples of this is kickstarter. the idea that somebody could have a really cool idea and a lot of times they obtain patents or trademarks on it. but sometimes they don't. but the ideas that the way they profit off their idea is by saying lesay ing let's get a crowd of people who would be willing to kroibt enough money to make it worth my time to put together this piece of art work or do any number of things and i think that's in a sense really turns on its head the traditional way we viewed

monetizing ideas which is i have an idea i have the right to it and i can make money. so we're starting to see new business models and norms on how innovation can happen among -- as technology develops and as we have generational change. that's exciting to me, i think. >> question? >> so a question on tinkering. as we especially as you talk about ipads, et cetera move towards more software that's touch enabled or voice enabled. i remember i used to work at apple and i could tinker and make siri read things for my blind customers but then they started locking audible down or kindle down where i couldn't make siri read for the customers

and they had to find a different app. so what's the solution in patenting and tinkering when it comes to disabilities and making sure we are innovating for all groups? >> so let me start by saying i have now learned that if i need to replace a glass -- if i have to i'm calling charles so we've got a tinkerer right here. there are lots of challenges in terms of this and we were talking about this beforehand. it's not always patents. you mentioned the end user license agreements, a lot of these are business transactions and most of us we want that app so we're allowing it to get all this personal information so when you read it you're like why do you need this stuff? so maybe that's where consumers can step in and sometimes it hits on intellectual property but a lot of times it's a pure business model issue. >> i agree. so brit is putting herself down

a little bit. she is the macro pair expert. >> i'm going to go to you, actually. >> she's fixed all of the computers for a while. she's great. i think that it's right a lot of these are businesses. this is an agreement or dispute between apple and amazon on the issue of whether or not you're going to be allowed to play voice things over certain systems. and i think at least the first answer is that the people who are using these things just need to express that this is bad. back when apple was thinking of, i think, moving all of their itunes music to drm formats that you wouldn't be able to move on different devices, there was a huge public outcry over that and they walked that back and reintroduced the non-drm format for a dollar more per song so

these companies have to be responsive to consumer concerns and if people say, look, this is not what we want, we want to be able to tunger, we want to put our music on difference devices and things like that, i think they as a business matter have to listen. >> i think we can fit one more question. if not i will ask one of my own. anyone? no? okay, great. so we've talked a lot, obviously, about specifics in terms of ownership and what we are losing, what we are gaining but i feel like broadly the average american might not know what things they're losing. they may not realize the privacy implications or realize that they can not alter or tinker or have someone else do it for them. how do we communicate those issues to the public? >> that's something we think about a lot at the u.s. patent and trademark office. i mentioned our camp invention program. we have our inventors coming on

the third and fourth of november. so they're out there talking to schools and talking to educators. it really has a lot to do with consumer awareness, i think. events like this are useful and it's online and we'll be ableable to share that. i do think, too, and charles can share this, there are times when consumers can rise up and be heard because ultimately that's what t matters. the power of the consumer. >> very briefly. i think that's right. these issues affect consumers all the time whether or not they realize it or not. it's just a matter of realizing that all of those contracts they design mean something and you might want to actually consider what the policy issues are behind that and people are starting to realize that. >> read the fine print. thank you so much, everyone, great to have you.

[ applause ] . [ indistinct audio ] this weekend on american history tv on c-span 3, saturday evening at 7:00 eastern from president lincoln's cottage in washington, d.c. we'll have a conversation with candace shy hooper about her book "lincoln's general's wives" four women who influenced the civil war for better or for worse. >> so you can see, two, that

women have a means of reinforcing either the best in their husbands or the worst and that's what this study is. >> at 10:00 on reel america, the 1953 film "american frontier." >> they flashed the word from the field to the production office at williston and from there to the central office in oklahoma. day and night our little telephone board was lit up like a christmas tree, calls from new york, california, houston, bit by bit we began to realize how big a thing this was. >> the film promote it had financial benefits for farmers for leasing land for oil exploration and was funded by the american petroleum institute. sunday morning at 11:00, panelists discover the life and legacy of novelist, journalist, photographer and social activist jack london and how his novel "the call of the wild" influenced generations of

western novelists and writers. >> he always looked back to the natural land, to his ranch, to the beautiful scenery in california and elsewhere in the south pacific too center himself and to find release and relief from the rigors and the cities. >> and then we visit the military aviation museum in virginia beach. >> this airplane among a couple other types basically taught all military aviators, army air corps and navy how to fly. many guys never saw an airplane coming from the farms or anywhere you can think of and the first airplane they saw was the bowing steerman. for our complete schedule, go to cspan.org. we have more now from this conference with national security and terrific experts on how news and social media shape

public reaction to terrorism, including how city officials, social media and journalists responded to the orlando pulse nightclub terror attack. [ indistinct conversation ] welcome, i'm pleased to introduce this event on terrorism in america in the digital age. my name is tom glazier, i'm a program director at democracy fund voice and democracy fund, two officer organizations founded by the ebay founder to ensure the public comes first in

our democracy. democracy fund voice is a new non-partisan organization dedicated to helping america build a stronger democracy. like our sister organization, we are working to ensure our political system is responsive to the public and able to meet the challenges facing our nation. basically we seek to do things that make democracy work better. i focus on work around strengthening media with priorities on reducing misinformation, sustaining local news and exploring innovative engagement practices. however as the political fear-mongering and demagoguery in this election cycle heated up this past winter, we found ourselves asking not what role we could play to respond to make things better but also what dangerous scenarios could take place that could make mings worse, we were concerned that the unprecedented tension in the current election cycle could speed the erosion of democratic

institutions and while emergency managers spend significant time thinking about public responses to major disasters, little attention is focused on how major shocks and disruptions can damage our political institutions and processes. the paper launched today and the event provide a tremendous opportunity to explore strategies for developing greater civic resiliency in the face of such events. it's our hope expert reports like this one on this topic will prompt conversations among journalists, technology companies and others about the practices that are employed to respond to the unthinkable and how these responses can strengthen rather than threaten the health of our democracy. i'm very much looking forward to the discussion this is afternoon and without further comment on behalf of my colleagues at democracy fund voice, i would like to pass the mike to sharon. thank you. >> great, thank you very much, tom, and welcome to everyone joining us. i'm sharon burke, a senior

adviser at new america where i run a program on resource security and i'm an adviser to the international security program and the future of war and a co-author of this report which is war and tweets, terrorism in the -- in america in the digital age. i'm going to introduce my colleague peter singer in just a moment but i want to thank tom glazier and democracy fund voice. when we started this project some time ago i thought their bhags was great, it was about revitalizing democracy and strength thenning civil society, what he talked about in terms of erosion and those long-term concerns and i was with him on that but i didn't think it was an urgent immediate problem and now, of course, i -- mea culpa, you were right, this is for right now. no a concern about what happens next or ten years from now. so i'm glad to be a part, to beporting their mission and supported by them. i want to thank the people who worked on this project, lisa sims was the project

coordinator, david stuhrman was a co-author and peter burgin and his team. peter is in iraq and can't be with us today. all of the communications teams at new america that puts on these events. so i'll start by summarizing our report briefly and get into a conversation with dr. singer because he came out with a new article tin the "the atlantic" that i commend everyone here about war going viral and war in the age of social media and we'll talk about our report and his work and the similarities and differences there. then we'll have a wonderful panel come up and i will introduce you at that time and we will have a discussion and have audience q&a and i want to preset with you, with the audience and the audience we have online, including the university of central florida is joining us online today, i just want to warn you that i may look

nice and friendly but please keep your questions to a question or, as peter says, something with a question mark at the end. if you monologue i will probably cut you off so i'm not that friendly. so first, peter singer is here at new america, he's a strategist and senior fellow and i'm looking at his bio to make sure i get the key points but i don't need it. he's one of the top national security experts in this country and he has an interesting focus on technologists. he's a trend spotter, he's always ahead of the game and he's operating in just about every sector you can. he's advising governments, hollywood, technologists. so i'm delighted you could join me to open this up and have a conversation. first, our report. when we started this report, we wanted to look at terrorism in america and how people react to terrorism. of course, in the middle of our study the attack in orlando at pulse nightclub happened and that changed what we were looking at a little bit but to

put in the a broader context, peter burgin and his team have done work on what happened in america since nib and there have been 147 americans killed in terrorist attacks, 94 at the hand of jihadists. so more recently the places that will ring a bell are san bernardino, orlando, of course, which is a case study in this report, minnesota, the stabbing in minnesota, new york city, new jersey, and maybe even north carolina recently, too soon to tell what the details of that attack were but it's possible that was also a terrorist attack. political violence in this country, we had a history of it for a long time, it's not all jihadi violence, of course. this is everything from the weather underground to possibly this new attack in north carolina as i said, hard to say at this time. it's not possible to stop all attacks for all time no matter how good our intelligence operations are, no matter how

good our military is and they're very good, we know that. we've had a couple army officers here which is terrific. so what do terrorists want? more than 30 years ago prime minister margaret thatcher said that publicity is the oxygen of terrorism. what they want is to affect how you feel, how you act, howe your government acts and they have their own goals and that is the definition of terrorism is a group that uses violence for a political or ideological cause. so that's what they want. so in other words, how you act is part of their strategy. and resilience to such an attack should be and is part of any nation's counterterrorism strategy and it's certainly part of this nation's counterterrorism strategy. so when you look back at the recent attacks that have happened in places like san bernardino, i think when you

look at polling, a lot of americans feel like they're at personal risk of a terrorist attack. now the risk of any individual american being attacked isn't that high. but, you know, why was san bernardino a target? because the perpetrators lived there so in other words even though any given individual is not at high risk of an attack, any city could get attacked any time. so every city in this country needs to be prepared for this kind of crisis and what they would do, this is what our report is looking at. so dhs, the department of homeland security defines resilience as "the ability to resist, absorb, recover from or successfully adapt to a change in condition and adversity." we looked at what determines resilience, what shapes resilience. and a a big part of resilience is who tells the story and what kind of story they tell. how did they choose to shape the narrative? this is something that's changing dramatically in the air of social media, so that's what

we looked at is how is the way the story is told changing? we have a historical section in our report that starts with the world trade center bombing in 1993. that's when you start to see live television coverage coming into play. it's also when cell phones started making an appearance. they're so ubiquitous today that it's hard to believe there was a time so recently when they weren't but that's the first time you started to have people with cell phones calling news organizations, calling government and first responders with information. so we started and tracked how media and this personal ability to communicate from eyewitnesses, victims and perpetrators starts to shape the story. we went from there and we looked at also the oklahoma city bombing and you know pretty much every attack that's happened since then. starting in '93 and, of course, before that, news media was

largely the gatekeeper. they were the narrator and the ones that told you what the story was but how they covered it, what images they showed you and what they told you. that starts to change in the 2000s when camera phones arrive, which happens in the early 2000s, again, i know it's hard to believe. probably everyone in here has a camera phone on them right now, but that was just starting in the 2000s and you saw that particularly in the 2005 london metro bombing that phones, pictures people took from their phones were making it on the lightly news and making it into newspapers for the first time. 2009, ft. hood, that was one of the first jihadist attacks in the united states that was really using social media, where social media picked up the story and began to shape it. the boston bombing -- and we will hear from one of our panelists later firsthand about what that felt like. we also saw big changes with social media coverage and in two ways -- officials were using it, sometimes to really good effect and sometimes to spread

misinformation such as there was a story that there had been a bomb at the jfk library and the boston police repeated the story. and then it becomes an article of faith. also a social media platform red it, the users ran away with the story and started speculating on who the perpetrators might be and when law enforcement tried to get ahead of the story by putting out early photos and the reddit users tried to guess who they might be, they guessed wrong and they identified a picture and matched it with a student who was missing, is he was not the perpetrator but the pain and suffering it caused his family was awful so this is when we first saw social media playing that kind of role for better and worse. in 2013 the west gate mall shooting in kenya, you had for the first time terrorist group al shabab live tweeting their own attack. again, this is a big change, right, from when news media decides what the story is is to

the perpetrator decides, directly communicating with the public what the story is and all the way to today where not only do you have that you have live streaming. as i said, we spent a lot of time on orlando in our study because it was the case study we looked at, it happened in the middle of our research. i won't go into too much detail right now about what we saw and found because we're fortunate enough to have the mayor of orlando here today and he can tell you what that looked like when we're firmly in this area where news media is not the official gatekeeper and public officials don't necessarily control the story, what did we learn from orlando when eyewitnesses and perpetrators and observers thousands of miles away are going to shape the story and decide how the public reacts, what did we find?

we found leadership matters. even though you have so many people telling the story, first responders and public officials still have an authoritative voice in telling the story. so how they shape it, what they say, when they say it, to whom they say it really matters. and what you'll hear from dier dyer is that he thought very carefully about that and what he wanted his city to feel and think and that matters, also a part of that is that leadership matters, you also have to be prepared. not only prepared exercised for a crisis but prepared for the communications aspect and the pace of it. in the case of orlando, this happened at 2:00 in the morning and the city had time to think about how it was going to respond. if it happened in 2:00 in the afternoon, they would have had to know right away and the fact that they were prepared and knew how to use social media for this crisis would have made a huge

difference. it did even though they had time to craft their response so social media and the pace of information has to be built into exercises. second, i think we found it's important to give the public a constructive role. to give them agency. so one of the things we found that was very interesting is after the paris attacks, the recent paris attacks, there was a police operation? brussels where they were hunding for suspects and the brussels police communicated to the city "please do not post pictures or tweet where we're conducting operations. you'll tip off the people we'll looking for." and the city and the wider twitter community responded and began tweeting cat pictures. i don't know if people remember this, to the hashtag brussels lockdown so it buried anything people were posting that might have helped find where they were doing these operations and the

brussels police posted after that a picture of cat food and said thank you, help yourself. so, again, i think not just by being sophisticated with social media but by also giving the victims a way to not feel like victims, it helps with resilience. include communications in social media use and exercises in planning and real life. you do as public officials and first responders need to know, need to have practiced and incorporated social media into your operations even for a small city. finally, what we found is it's important to empower your local press. of all the press that tells the story, they're part of your community so they have a vested interest in the community being resilient because they live there, their families live there but they also have the most local knowledge so local press, even though they're around lot of pressure from all kinds of competition still has an important role to play and as they change and become a

different kind of press that will continue to be true and finally social media companies, we think, need to embrace their responsibility. they are the mass media of choice for many, many people now, whether whether they see themselves in that light or not, it's the truth and some companies such as facebook have been forward leaning trying to understand what that means. they have community rules, they're experimenting with how to improve them, they're experimenting with how transparent to be and collaboration with government but facebook is by far the most used media -- social media company and they've tried to embrace this rule, they have people who look at counterterrorism on their staff so that's a good thing but there's a lot of companies that will say things -- like twitter has in its community rules "we speak truth to power." that's great, but that tension between dangerous speech and free speech is very real and it's not something you can easily dismiss, a place like reddit where they can say we

don't get into that but that really rings hollow when something like what happened with the boston bombing happens where you ruin somebody's life. so social media companies, we think, need to embrace their role and the fact that they are mass media companies at this point. so with that i'd like to turn to peter. peter's gnarl the "atlantic" is called "war goes viral." and he focused on another side of the same equation which is partly how this is a weapon and how isis and others use it. i have my notes about the things i want to talk to you about but the first thing i want to ask you is can you define hom molly for us? >> dig down into the details. homofily is one of the things we're seeing play out on the internet, it's the definition of love of self-. and what's -- what's happening is the idea there's a seeming

contradiction where this technology is supposed to be bringing us together hom of manically. but we're searching out and finding validation in people who think like us already so -- and you can see this in everything from sports. you connect to people who like the same team or hate the same team. you can continue watching this program in the c-span video library at cspan.org. now to the white house and a briefing with press secretary josh earnest. >> welcome back. hopefully you've caught up on sleep. maybe a little? i don't have any announcements at the top so i'll gol to your question. josh? >> reporter: has the president spoken to the president-elect since their meeting in the oval office after the election? >> josh, i know this has come up in some reporting about an off-the-record meeting that the

president-elect reportedly held with media executives in new york yesterday. what i can tell you is that those of you who covered the president-elect's visit to the oval office a couple of weeks ago, you took note of the fact that the president-elect indicated his desire to continue to consult with president obama over the course of the transition. and you've also heard president obama indicate the high priority he has placed on facilitating this movement. so reports the two have talked after their white house meeting i think are not particularly surprising but in the same way that i protected the ability of president obama to consult confidentially with other senior officials, including some former presidents, i'm not going to read out or confirm every reported meeting or phone call or conversation. but i can tell you that the

president has had a conversation with the president-elect since the oval office. >> reporter: but josh when the president speaks to other important world leaders, members of congress or congressional leadership, they're able to have private discussions where they keep it under things and the white house is able to confirm when they spoke and give us a general readout of what they discussed. is there a reason that can't take place? >> that hadn't been true when president obama has consulted with other presidents and i think that's the president-to-president prerogative we're trying to protect. but again as president-elect trump indicated in the oval office, he was hoping to have the opportunity to consult with p president obama over the course of this transition. president obama has committed to a smooth transition and as a result they've spoken at least once. >> is the white house hoping trump and his team will be similarly coy in not releasing a lot of details about what the two presidents discuss?

>> the president-elect can discuss whatever he chooses to about his conversations with president obama, presumably there will be an opportunity to do that beyond off-the-record meetings. >> reporter: you may have seen the president-elect, his team, at least, is now saying that he won't go ahead and try to prosecute hillary clinton if elected -- once he takes office. is the white house relieved to hear that that seems to be off the table or are you concerned that the independence between the white house and the justice department that you've worked so dutifully over the last eight years to maintain now seems to be going out the window? >> josh, i think the end of your question is where i would begin which is that we have gone to great lengths in the context of the obama administration to uphold a fore foundational principle of our democracy, which is preventing politics from influencing independent

criminal investigations. that is a basic principle of our democracy because we don't want to leave anybody with even the impression that there's the potential that somebody could be treated differently by our criminal justice system because of their political affiliation. this is the principle of every american being subject to the rule of lau and every american being equal under the law? so we have gone to great lengths not just to uphold that principle but to even avoid the appearance of that principle being called into question. and for better or worse in the context of the two and a half years that i've been doing this job, i've been asked repeatedly, even before secretary clinton had announced her campaign i was asked about her e-mail system. eight days before an election i came out and stood before all of you answering questions about a

letter from the fbi director that he had sent to congress saying that the investigation had been reopened. and at each of those terms i've made clear that those kinds of investigative decisions and investigative conclusions should be conducted free of any sort of political interference and should be conducted independent of any white house interference. and that's the principle that we have protected. that's the principle that previous presidents protected and we certainly believe that's a principle future presidents should protect. but, again, i can't speak for the president-elect's team or any decisions or pronouncements he'd make to make. you have to talk to him about that. >> reporter: i want to ask you about the president-elect publicly lobbying for britain to nominate nigel farage as the uk

al ambassador to the u.s. is the white house concerned by that apparently pretty significant breach of protocol given his status as political opposition to the current leadership? the uk? >> as somebody who has covered the president closely for the last several year years can you know the president has been contentious about not waiting too deeply in another country's politics. there's plenty of politics in this country to keep everybody busy. so there have been occasions where the president has taken a position on a particular issue or spoken publicly about a particular issue, the brexit question comes to mind. a lot of people made note of the president's public statements about the brexit vote when he visited the uk earlier this year but he was quite direct in

laying out his view that this was a decision for the british people to make but he offered his opinion for a couple of reasons -- first of all that we saw some of the opponents of brexit suggest that somehow the united states would benefit or have a favorable view of a brexit vote. that was of courbviously not tr the president wanted to set the record straight. the president also felt it was important for people to understand the true feelings of the uk's closest ally as they weighed this decision that was before them. and so the president made the argument accordingly but at each turn in making that argument he went to great lengths to make clear that he respects the sovereignty of the british people and certainly respects the responsibility that the british people and the british

government have to make decisions that are consistent with their own countries and their own citizens' self-interest and that's a principle that we've sought to uphold during the president's eight years in office. you have to talk to the president-elect or the people of the uk about whether or not they are concerned that that tweet may have violated that principle. it's not something i'll weigh in on from here. >> reporter: i wanted to ed teu about president-elect trump's recent comments on immigration. yesterday in a youtube video outlining executive actions he hopes to take as soon as he gets into office he said he was going to call on the department of labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut american workers. does the president have a response to this? does he think that visa abuse by american companies is on the rise? and does he support an approach that would investigate a piece-by-piece each abuse? >> well, listen, over the course

of the election i think we made and the president made very clear, even to people who are only sort of paying attention, that the president-elect's vision for the domestic and foreign policy he chose to -- he hoped to pursue is quite different than the priorities and agenda that president obama set over his last eight years in office so it shouldn't be surprising a number of the priorities that the president-elect has discussed are not the same priorities we've been discussing. but for me to weigh in on and react to or even criticize those well-known differences would undermine the president's priority of ensuring a smooth and effective transition. it's certainly a responsibility of the president-elect to communicate with the american public about what priorities he'll pursue when he takes office.

he has that right and ability because he won the election. and the election is over. the debate about the consequences of the election have been resolved and the president is following the will of the american people and fulfilling his institutional responsibility to give the incoming team the best prospects for success when it comes to uniting the country and moving us forward. >> an area where there may be overlap and you might be able to comment is president-elect trump's plans to unravel the daca, the dreamers act that allowed children brought to the u.s. by their parents work authorizations. obviously it was a big push of this administration to get those people to give their information

to the government to come forward. that information will now be put in the hands of an administration who could use that for enforcement. things liked a dresses. what does the presidency now to reassure or to try to provide some comfort to people who felt -- who he convinced to trust the government enough to come forward and share that information? >> i know the president has had an opportunity to talk about this a little bit already. i think what i would say in general is that this does underscore the need for congress to act on the clear bipartisan agreement that exists about some of the benefits of comprehensive immigration reform. the obstruction by house republicans prevented the realization of that goal and ultimately house republicans who continue to retain the responsibility for governing the country with their majorities in congress will have to evaluate

whether or not they want this country to enjoy the significant economic benefits of common sense comprehensive immigration reform. the second thing i would note is that the president-elect since the election has given voice to the same kind of prior tease and criteria that this administration has long pursued. the president-elect has indicated his emphasis when it comes to deportation should be on criminals, that's actually the policy that this administration has been pursuing for quite some time. that's the policy that we turbo charged in the context of the president's executive actions that were announced a little over two years ago now. so that -- you know, ultimately it will be the responsibility of the president-elect to determine what sort of priorities his administration will pursue, the

kind of enforcement priorities that are laid out in the context of the dreamers' executive action taken by the administration was something that largely rested at the department of homeland security so certainly the president-elect's choice for secretary of homeland security will be a consequential one but ultimately the president has made clear that those individuals who qualified for daca, the dream act executive actions that this administration pursued are individuals who are in the united states through no fault of their own. these are individuals who are american in every way but their papers. and these are individuals who attend the same church, attend the same school, shop at the same stores, live in the same communities as americans across the country and our country benefits from making an investment in those young people because those young people made

an investment in us and many of them have gone to college and demonstrated the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that benefitted our economy. many enlisted in our military and fought and died protecting the united states of america and the people who live here so there's a strong case to make about the valuable contribution these individuals have already made to the united states and a strong case has been made about how unraveling them and dividing families in the way that some suggest would be bad for our economy and entirely inconsistent with the kinds of values that have long been severed by american policymakers for generations. >> reporter: one last question. will the president withdraw merrick garland's nomination to the supreme court? >> well, listen, the president believes strongly that chief judge garland is the best person

in america to fill a vacant seat on the supreme court, that's why the president nominated him. presumably there are some republicans who agree. they agree for a variety of reasons, they agree in part because chief judge garland is the most experienced supreme court nominee in american history. he spent 19 years on the federal judiciary and no one can call into question his qualifications, certainly the non-partisan american bar association didn't call into question his qualifications, they rated him unanimously well qualified for the job. you had republicans who h in the past who described chief judge garland as a consensus nominee, as somebody who is going to set aside his own political leanings and focus on a judge's responsibility to interpret the law. merrick garland led the investigation into the bombing in oklahoma city and played a key role in bringing to justice those who killed more than 100 americans in yoerks more than 20

years ago now so chief judge garland is somebody who is qualified, he's a man of impeccable character and a man who served his country and it's disgraceful the way that the republican in united states senate have treated him. even setting aside their failure to fulfill their basic responsibility as elected officials, as elected representatives of the american people in the united states, so this is a -- his treatment and the way this situation is likely to end is a scar on the institution of the united states senate and it is a scar that i do not anticipate will go away quickly and that is rather unfortunate. but you can certainly be sure that president obama will continue to have chief judge garland's back until the end of this congressional session. >> reporter: i wanted to ask -- you talked about ensuring a

smooth transition and helping the president-elect. in his video yesterday he said on day one he would signal his tension to withdraw from tpp. i'm wondering for you guys, do you still plan to submit a final statement and the draft of the implementing bill for congress or is your support for teppp at this pointing a dem wick the realization that there's no interest on capitol hill and certainly not for the president-elect. >> we certain ly were well awar of the public statements of the president-elect and this is true of both candidates. neither of them was supportive of the transpacific partnership. i don't have any future steps to preview but i would acknowledge the prospects of tpp being ratified by this congress oar before president obama leaves are not very good and that's unfortunate. >> reporter: are you going to try? >> i don't have any steps to preview at this point. i think the argument that would

make is simply that this is -- if congress does not move forward with ratifying the transpacific partnership, it is a significant missed opportunity for the american people, in part because there were some pretty clear signals from other tpp countries that they actually intend to move forward even if the united states does not and that will put u.s. businesses and workers at a disadvantage. you have other countries with significant economies and growing economies where the united states already does business but u.s. businesses and workers will be put at a disadvantage because we don't benefit from the opportunities create bid the tpp. you will see other countries part of tpp move in and capitalize on the market share u.s. companies have lost. in the asia-pacific. and this's a real shame because

so much of the anxiety that was -- according to many analysts -- expressed in the context of the election -- was rooted in the idea that the forces of globalization have had a negative impact on too many american workers. and those workers were frustrated that their government hadn't done more a help them and their companies counter those forces of globalization. that's exactly the strategy we have laid out and it's tragic so see that be rolled back, to see that that policy that could address some of the concerns be rolled back by the person who claims they share those concerns so that's deeply disappointing, this is also concerning when you consider our broader relationship with china because we know right now even as we speak china is seeking to advance their own trade agreement with countries in this region that we know is going to

further disadvantage with u.s. workers and businesses. so it's not a situation where congress refusing to advance the tpp that the status quo is maintained and we'll find a different solution. the fact is the u.s. will be consequentially negatively affected by the refusal of the congress to ratify the tpp in terms of lost opportunities and lost market share but also in terms of lower standards being implemented by china. the last thing i will say is there was discussion about the campaign about nafta and the need to improve nafta. that's what the tpp would have done. it would have included some environmental and labor standards that would have been increased and made enforceable that the context of tpp that was not true in nafta and that potential improvement is on the verge of being cast to the curb, if you will. and that's rather unfortunate, too. so there are significant lost

opportunities and it will be difficult, i think, for, frankly, democrats and republicans in congress who oppose the tpp moving forward to justify this action or inaction as the case may be and to lay out some sort of coherent strategy for addressing these concerns. this administration pursued a coherent strategy. we worked for years to negotiate the kind of agreement that would advantage u.s. workers and our broader economy but it looks like that responsibility may fall to someone else. ill think they will have a hard time putting together the kind of coherent strategy with as much promise as the one this administration put forward. >> reporter: i know the president was asked about the director down in peru but the president's answer was broad and so i wanted to ask a couple

tighter questions about -- i thought you did a good job. >> be specific. [ laughter ] >> would you like to sit up here and handle this one? i can take a break for a minute. >> reporter: did the president receive a recommendation from secretary carter to remove director rogers and has the president made a determination about whether there should be severed changes of command between the nsa and military cyber operations? i say all this acknowledging i'm probably not going to get more than gardner did. >> fair enough. you wouldn't be job if you didn't ask and i wouldn't be doing my job if i gave up a whole lot more, particularly when it comes to something as critical to our national security as cyber security. something something i think was evidence in the president's answer, something the president has been thinking about a lot, about what we can do to enhance

and further fortify the kinds of cyber protections that the american people and the u.s. government rely upon to ensure the protection of our national security. if the president was unwilling to describe the advice and recommendations he's getting from his secretary of defense, it would be out of line for me to do so so i won't talk about the kinds of advice or recommendation the president has received from the dni or chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or the secretary of defense. but i can tell you that this is a question more generally about how to structure our national security apparatus, that the president has been talking about this with his team, as it relates to admiral rogers you heard directly from the president in pretty unambiguous terms how the president views admiral rogers as a patriot and somebody who devoted a significant portion of his life to protecting our country and i think all of us can be and should be grateful for his service thus far.

if the president were to make a decision about changing the organization of this structure by dividing the responsibilities of the nsa director and 2 commander of cyber command into two different jobs, that's an announcement i would let the commander in chief make. >> reporter: last one. all four major stock indices yesterday closed at record highs. i know you don't comment on day to day fluctuation bus there have been a decided uptick since president-elect trump was elected so i'm wondering if you can reflect on why investors may seem encouraged by the prospect of transitioning from an obama economy to a trump economy. >> i typically am quite reluctant to talk about individual market movements and i suspect there are plenty of analysts out there who have their own theories about market movements over the last couple weeks and -- so i'll let those highly-paid analysts do that

work. the market movement that i would comment on is the one we've seen over the last eight years. most stock indexes have more than doubled under president obama's leadership and i do think that that speaks well of the kind of economic strategy that president obama has implemented and it certainly will be a very high bar for a future president to live up to but hopefully they'll give it a good shot. mark? >> reporter: josh, in your answer on merrick garland, does that mean that president obama will resubmit the nomination in january during those days when the new congress overlaps at the end of his presidency? >> i don't think anything to preview at this point about whether or not the president would resubmit his nomination but obviously the president i think shares my -- i'm confident shares my view that the senate's treatment of chief judge garland is deplorable.

>> reporter: speaker ryan today is urging president obama not to put forward any steps that would bolster iran's economy, he's worried there might be new concessions in the pipeline. does he have reason to worry? >> well, i have anything to preview at this point. what i can tell you is this administration through january 20 whether fulfill our on ligations around the iran deal that have prevented iran from advancing their nuclear weapons capability. in fact, that capability has been substantially rolled back because of this international agreement the united states brokered with our closest allies. and the results of the deal meant that iran had to ship out 98% of its enriched uranium, had to dismantle two-thirds of their centrifuges, thousands of centre finals were dismantled. that they had to render harmless their plutonium reactor and they have adopted and complied with the most intrusive set of

inspections ever imposed by a country's nuclear program. so the steps that have been taken thus far have enhanced the national security of the united states significantly. they've also enhanced the national security of our closest ally in the middle east, israel, and our other european alleys in particular feel very good about the progress this agreement has yielded. in fact, it has exceeded not just the expectations of those of us who believe the attorney deal was the right approach but it has refuted every criticism that we heard from opponents of the deal. there was a suggestion at the very beginning that iran would never sit down and negotiate this kind of an arrangement in good faith. once those negotiations started there was a sense that was put forward by opponents of the deal that iran wasn't interested in negotiating an agreement, that they were just negotiating for time. they were wrong about that, too.

once the agreement was reached critics said iran would never comply with the deal. never live up to the terms included on the paper. they were wrong about that. even the israeli intelligence community that had significant doubts about the deal have confirmed what we've seen from other places which is that iran has lived up to the terms of the deal so while iran lives up to the terms of the deal the united states is going to make sure we're fulfilling our commitments to make sure the deal doesn't fall apart and we know that our allies -- the president had the opportunity to talk about this with countries that were part of the international agreement to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and they shared that sentiment. the next administration will have to decide what they want to do moving forward but the risks of pulling out of that agreement or doing something in violation are grave. >> reporter: the speaker is also asking president obama to sign a ten-year extension of the iran

sanctions act. is that something he'd be willing to do? >> we know there's been a robust debate in congress about the wisdom of this approach. if there's a bill passed by the congress we'll obviously take a close look at it. i know much of the rhetoric on capitol hill is them -- is advocates of bill saying they want to give the president tools to impose sanctions against iran where necessary. the truth is, the obama administration has significant authority to impose those kind of financial penalties and we have not been timid about using them. this administration has repeatedly through the treasury department imposed sanctions against iran for a ballistic missile program that extends beyond the accepted guidelines of the international community. we've imposed sanctions against

iran because of their support for terrorism in the region. we have imposed sanctions against iran because of their repeated and flagrant violation of universal human rights. so these are tools that the administration already has and we have certainly shown a willingness to use them. but, you know, if congress wants to put more on the table, then we'll take a look at what they propose. we certainly are not going to, however, sign a piece of legislation that would undermine the ability of the international community to continue to successfully implement the international agreement to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons. >> reporter: and one last question on today's event. can you tell us or remind us how president obama selects the recipients of this medal of freedom? >> well, i know this is a process that was created by -- an awart created by president kennedy. and the president every year looks forward to this opportunity that he has to

acknowledge the contributions of people, mostly americans, to the world and to people, mostly americans, to the world and to the united states. it's a rather distinguished group of individuals who are assembling in the white house this afternoon to be recognized by the president with the highest civilian award the president can of offer. these were individuals personally considered by the president. the president and his staff will spend some time considering a variety of candidates. ultimately the president is the one who decides who is deserving of the award. i think there's no arguing the individuals who will be recognized today are richly deserving. okay? and drew.

>> i want to go back to the question about donald trump's prosecution of hillary clinton. you spoke about upholding principle of democracy, do you think president-elect and staff risk eroding the core principle of democracy? >> listen, there's amp opportunity to weigh in on this debate. many people, democrats and republicans, avail themselves of that opportunity in the two weeks leading up to the debate. i suspect the comments today will give people more reason to weigh in but i'm not going to wae in from here. i think the one thing i mentioned in my previous answer that is relevant here, that there was an investigation. the investigation was led by

independent officials of the department of justice, including director of fbi. this is an individual who is a registered republican. this is something who served as high-ranking official in the bush administration as a political appointee. he's somebody confirmed in the united states senate by majority of democrats and majority of republicans when president obama appointed him to the job. president obama selected him for the job because of his demonstrated ability and long-standing track record of putting aside political considerations to focus on the law. and his conclusion after the evidence was presented to him was that no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with the case. he made that recommendation public. that was approved by senior officials of the department of justice including attorney general, herself, somebody with decades of experience conducting criminal prosecutions. so i guess the point, andrew, is

that we don't need staffers in the next white house to resolve the question about whether or not a prosecution should move forward. this decision was already reached by senior officials at the department of justice in a way that should resolve everybody's concerns about the potential for political interference. and it's important this long-standing tradition and principle that is the foundation, or at least one critical part of the foundation of the criminal justice system is one that is not just upheld but one that is carefully protected. it is erosion as the potential to raise questions about whether or not everyone in the country is going to be treated fairly and under the law. cheryl. i'm sorry. i didn't mean to cut you off there. >> the president has spoken quite a few times about the negative impact of partisanship

and the need for reaching across the aisle. i was wondering if you think the outreach to the trump campaign offers an example for democrats in that regard? >> i'm not going to comment an congressman gabbert's conversations. what i can tell you is president obama invited president-elect to come to the oval office and meet with him. so at this point i don't think i have the standing for criticizing anybody to have a meeting with the president-elect. i think the president was pretty blunt over the cower of the last week when he was traveling in europe and latin america where he encouraged people in the united states and around the world to wait and see. when it comes to assessing the purr suits of the next administration. obviously i think that's what we'll all be doing.

>> is the administration granted a license to sell over 1xplanes to iran? >> i saw some of this reporting before i came out here. i encourage you to check with my colleagues at the treasury department. that's the agency that handles those licenses and makes those decisions. okay? cheryl. >> i need to know if the president would sign short-term continuing resolution through march or how do you see the budget issue being resolved this year. >> the approach that we have taken since the beginning is that the american people, the american government and the american economy benefit from certainty. one piece of certainty that the federal government owes the american people, and the american economy, is budget certainty. there's no reason that congress shouldn't be able to fulfill their basic responsibility to provide an annual budget for the u.s. government and to do that on time and to put forward a budget that is consistent with a

set of principles about the best way to govern the country. we're going to continue to advocate for the longest possible budget agreement we can get. but ultimately congress is going to have to do a lot of negotiating here to figure out how they are going to uphold basic responsibility to keep the government open. >> republican leaders have said they want to wait until the next administration comes in. will you allow this to happen? >> we'll have to see what they put forward. this is one of those situations where, cheryl, if you and i were negotiating this out, we would probably get results in 90 minutes. that's not the way our system of democracy works. there are a much larger number of people involved. some of them are, to be blunt about it, making decisions based on politics and not national interest. that's unfortunate. that makes the process imperfect, longer than

necessary, and sometimes yields outcomes that are not in the best interest of the company even if they are in the best interest of some individual members of congress. we'll see to what extent politics affects this particular process, but that's something i can't judge in advance. okay? dave. >> thanks, josh. on that video announcement that president-elect trump made last night, he also mentioned regulation. he planned to undo two regulations he said for every new regulation that comes forward. did the white house view that as a warning not to go forward with unfinished business? >> no, not at all. in fact, this administration is actually pioneered a rather successful effort to do a review of pre-existing regulations that are already on the books when president obama took office. and we can follow up with you with some data that indicate

the -- or illustrate the economic impact, the positive economic impact of regulatory lookback proposal. there are a substantial null of regulations taken off the book by the obama administration in a way that had a material benefit for the u.s. economy. so if the trump administration is prepared to pursue the same kind of strategy, my guess is -- i'm confident they will have -- they will reach different conclusions than we did. but that certainly is an entirely expected pursuit of theirs. >> the view about his mathematical equation, looking for a two-fer basically to undo just on the basis of math. >> again, the president spent a lot of time over the last week

talking about how so much of governing may seem very simple on the surface, particularly when you're running for the job. ends up being a lot more complicated once you get into the job and evaluate the consequences for the actions you are promising to take. i suspect that may be true in the context of the incoming administration's consideration of appealing a range of regulatory actions. michelle. >> sorry. i'm used to michelle sitting there. nice to see you today. >> nice to see you as well. can we go back to iran? >> absolutely. >> is the administration considering any new measures to bolster the nuclear deal with iran namely through sanctions or additional licensing with american businesses in order to make it more difficult for a trump administration to undo. >> i don't have any action toss

preview from here. one thing i can confirm for you is that the kinds of actions that we have taken implementing the deal are the kinds of actions that had to go through a rather extended process. so i can confirm for you that i do not anticipate any actions being taken that were initiated after the election solely in response to mr. trump's victory. so any actions that are taken, if there are any, are the kinds of actions that have been in the pipeline for quite sometime and entirely consistent with the united states upholding our end of an agreement that has prevented iran from developing nuclear weapon capability. in fact, succeeding in rolling back iran's nuclear weapon capability in a way that has exceeded the expectation of the deal's harshest critics and enhanced national security of our allies. >> confident that the trump team understands the role of russia and china in terms of whether or

not this is going to be dismantled or renegotiated. >> again, i think you'd have to ask them what their understandings are. obviously, i think -- obviously we know that the kind of an agreement that was reached would not have been successful without effective and constructive contributions of both the russians and chinese. i feel confident in telling you if you ask them, their governments will confirm for you that they are pleased with the benefits enjoyed by international community as a result of successful implementation of this agreement. >> on another matter, a group called national policy institute, a white supremacist group held a meeting at the reagan building in which we heard chants, neo-nazi chance, heil trump. what is the administration's feeling or response, reaction to just blocks away from the white house this is in the open. and i have a follow.

>> for over a year you've heard me express some profound concern about the extreme rhetoric that has succeeded in infiltrating its way into our political process. that rhetoric is divisive, that rhetoric has been contrary to our values as americans and deeply concerning. not just the people in the administration but to democrats and republicans all around the country. i saw some of the reporting about this meeting that took place while we were out of the country. i think what i would say is that the president's view is that it's not just the responsibility of people in elected office to speak out against that kind of divisive, hateful rhetoric. it's the responsibility of everybody who is blessed with

american citizenship. we all have a responsibility to speak out and to stand up for our values and to stand up for our fellow americans. that has been the -- at the core of president obama's career in public life. as he said himself many times on the campaign trail, the slogans of his campaigns was not gentlemen, i can, it's yes, we can. that's a nod to the collective responsibility we all have as americans to advance the interest of the country together, that change doesn't start from the top down, it comes from the bottom up and that all americans have the responsibility to remain engaged in our democracy and to be viblg lent in defending the kinds of values that served our country so well for 240 years. the president is optimistic that

people of good faith and good will across the country, even if they are in different parties standing up against this kind of extremism and hate. it is, after all, critical to the success of our country that we remember just how much we have in common. it's not everything. it doesn't mean we should paper over the differences we have with people in the political sphere. but at our core we share a commitment to our set of values endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights and we are all equal before the law. we're not going to be judged by the color of our skin or the way we worship god. we're going to be judged by our character. we're going to be judged by our patriotism. we're going to be judged by our contributions to this country. those are principles worth defending. the responsibility to defend those principles isn't just

vested with people who are in positions of authority. it's vested with every single person who lives in the united states of america. >> president-elect donald trump denounced racism in general but he did not specifically denounce these neo-nazi chants. what is his responsibility? >> i'll let the president-elect speak to this in the way he believes is most appropriate. again, it's not -- i don't think it's breaking news that people who serve in this administration have some significant differences with the style and tactics that were used by president-elect trump in the context of the campaign. and those concerns have been well documented. but the election is over. what we are focused on is prioritizing the smooth and effective transition.

it doesn't mean those differences have gone away. it doesn't mean our passion for those arguments has diminished. but it does mean at some point it's the responsibility of people who work in the white house to prioritize a smooth transition to the next administration that institutional responsibility supersedes any strong concerns that i and others in the white house have about divisive rhetoric and what responsibility the president has for commenting on it. >> just asking, transition aside, do you believe the president-elect has the responsibility to denounce those kinds of neo-nazi comments. >> smooth and effective transition is our top priority right now, so i can't put it aside to comment on this issue even though the feelings in this

building about those kinds of issues are intense. karen. >> josh, does the president of the white house have a reaction to the bus accident in tennessee that killed several school children? >> listen, our heart goes out to the families of those who lost children in that terrible accident. in some ways, this is every parent's worst nightmare. i know first responders and emts and police officers responded quickly to the scene and performed heroically to try to save lives and ease suffering from those who are injured and deal respectfully with the families who sustained this tragic loss just three days before thanksgiving. so it's obviously a terrible situation there. the families of those children who were killed and injured are on our minds today. >> the head of mensa said there should be a federal maybe date or seat belts on buses. is there a white house position?

>> i'm not aware we've taken a position on this issue. i certainly would expect that that is a question that experts at the department of transportation should carefully consider. obviously the experts who are able to evaluate those kinds of questions are the ones whose advice we should follow. okay. all right. mike. nice to see you back. >> thank you, josh. nice to see you. i'm wondering in a post 9/11 world, heading into this all american of holidays, how concerned the president and his team might be about po' ontension terror threats. >> mike, as you know, the department of homeland security earlier today issued an updated test chronicling the kinds of protections people should take and the kind of vigilence that is still in place in our national security infrastructure. the truth is 365 days a year, whether there's a holiday coming up or not, the men and women of

our national security apparatus and homeland security apparatus are going to great lengths to keep the american people safe. sometimes that vigilence is heightened around the holidays because we know that in the past, some extremist and terrorist organizations have sought to use those holidays as a platform to carry out an absent of violence. so i'd refer you to department of homeland security for update on their analysis of the current situation. as usual, the president will get a briefing from his national security team before the holiday about current threats and about all the the steps taken to mitigate and counter those threats. that response in some cases is something that is evident to the public in the form of additional deployment of police officers or other security personnel. in other cases there are steps taken unseen to the public yet critical to adapting to the current threat environment. the president's expectation is that all those necessary steps are being taken but he'll be

updated on that before the holiday. >> as democrats do their postmortem after the election, people are looking at different names to perhaps lead the party going forward. former governor ed rendell threw out the name of vice president joe biden. any thoughts on the vice president, perhaps, having a role after his role here. >> listen, vice president biden is somebody revered by democrats in all 50 states, in large part because of his remarkable service to this country. it's not at all surprising to me that as senior officials in our party look for leadership moving forward, they would consider somebody as accomplished and as effective as vice president biden. i haven't spoken to the vice president about his interest in assuming this responsibility. i know that he already has some plans on the books for his post

administration life. i don't know if there would be an opportunity for him to do something like this or if he's interested in doing that. it's not surprising to me his name is mock those mentioned. >> i wonder how active you expect the president will be when he leaves office in terms of moving the party forward and if there are any concerns about his personality and name being associated whether it keeps younger talent from emerging? >> well, the president had a chance to talk a little about this at the press conference in peru he did over the weekend. one of the president's priorities for his post white house life after he takes a break and fulfills his promise to take his wife on vacation will be to think about what the democratic party can do to more effectively cultivate young talent. what can we do to make sure young people have the skills and passion for these issues. i think in the president's mind that in large part that passion

is already there. i think that we've seen this passion panfested in a lot of different ways. the question is what can we do to challenge that energy in a way that yields positive outcomes for this country, outcomes consistent. make sure they have the skills and knowledge to engage in this public debate in a constructive way is something the president expects to spend quite a bit of time on post presidency. i think the president is mindful of the unique status he has for this generation of americans, which is the president is somebody who inspired a young generation of americans to be engaged in the governing of this country. the president wants to facilitate that inspiration. that means there's an important role for him to play. but you make an important point, mike, which is there also is

responsibility for that next generation to step up and to assume more responsibility and not just rely on being impressed or inspired by an extraordinary political talent like president barack obama but at some point they are going to have to assume the mantel on their own. we need to spend some time as a party, and the president ses certainly going to spend time as party leader. the most effective way to inspire young people across the country, at some point this does stop being about party politics. there are plenty of young republicans who feel passionately about a range of issues, not all of which are in alignment with the agenda that president obama moved forward but some of them are. there are plenty of young republicans out there who are strongly supportive of the idea that we need immigration reform. plenty of republicans out there who understand putting for a

strategy like trans-pacific partnership is good for the economy, create business for young entrepreneurs to do business in southeast asia. those are a couple of examples where having more passionate voices of young people on the republican side, even if they are not voting for democratic candidates for political office, they are contributing to the national conversation in a way that makes our country a better place. so the president approaches this as somebody who is a proud democrat and somebody who is interested in seeing the democratic party succeed. but he's most of all interested in the success of the country. so there's an opportunity for him to engage and inspire and motivate even young people on the other side of the aisle. he would relish that opportunity, too. >> all right. juliette. >> josh, the president has awarded more medals of freedom than any other president in history and obviously just held a ceremony a couple mobs ago.

can you explain why he felt like he wanted to award 21 more medals today? >> well, it's simple, juliette. the president was aware of some more deserving award he's. i think anybody who has had an opportunity to look through the list of recipients today would acknowledge these are extraordinary people, people who made extraordinary contributions not just to the umbrellas but to people of different nationalities around the world. take, for example, bill and linda gates. they dedicated their fortune to curing disease and improving educational prospects of people not just in the united states but people all around the world. that makes them worthy of the highest civilian honor any president has to give. chris. >> josh, donald trump object "60 minutes" said he signed the supreme court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, called it settled and done. given he has pledged to appoint

justices to the supreme court, late justice anton scalia, do those words have any value? >> i guess that's a question you'll have to ask him. ultimately he'll have to decide what kind of person he wants to fill vacancies on the supreme court should they arise or persist in his presidency. ultimately that will -- i'll let him speak to whatever criteria he intends to use to appoint people to those -- to that position. i can tell you president obama is quite proud of the service of the people he appointed to the supreme court. that's true of justice sotomayer and justice kagan. the president believes judge garland would be an excellent chief justice on the supreme court. there's some republicans that think that, too, even it they can't say so. ultimately that responsibility will rest with the next president of the united states in terms of filling vacancies on

the supreme court. >> saying that the issue is resolved when defer -- deterrence -- due process undo the decision. >> how he reconciles his public statements and his personal choices is something you can either ask him about now or presumably get an off the record meeting with him. you can ask him that question. if not you'll have to take the kind of wait and see approach the president is advocating, which is there are a lot of questions about what kind of agenda the next administration will pursue. what sort of priorities he'll set particularly when making important decisions like this. i think ultimately the world will have to wait and see. >> one question. in north carolina, governor pat mccrory still has not consided

the gubernatorial work even though a deficit of 9,000 votes. any reaction to the situation there? >> not really. this is something i'll let the vote counters decide. i think the one thing i can say is that the way that secretary clinton and senator kaine have handled their election loss should serve as an example to both sides of the aisle. they have handle their loss with grace and dignity. they have not backed down from the arguments they made which resulted in them getting more votes than their opponent in the election. but they knew the rules in advance. they have set a very high standard. that other candidates should strive to live up to. >> thanks, josh. >> i want to ask you about another aspect of president obama's post presidency he

talked about sunday there's a possibility he might speak out after he leaves office if he sees that american values are under attack. wondering if there was anything he saw or witnessed from president-elect trump in the last week, any announcements, statements or appointments that triggered him to say that. >> jordan, i guess what i would say, if he had, he certainly had ample opportunity to do so over the course of the last week of the president over the course of last week was on four different news conferences in four different countries. he made himself available to all of you to take questions. i guess if that had popped into his mind, again, i don't think he'd schedule an off the record meeting with television executives in order to share that opinion, he just would have said it publicly. so what i think i would do, though, in terms of evaluating the president's answer, i think it's notable that he has talked frequently in the past about how

much he appreciates the way that his predecessor president george w. bush handled a similar situation. again, in this situation you had president obama, who had been quite critical of the bush administration and some of the decisions president bush had made while in office and president obama had assumed office promising to change the direction of the country. and it must have been difficult for president bush and his team to maintain some respectful distance from the ongoing political debate. i think that's an indication of the character and leadership abilities of president bush. it certainly won him a lot of respect and admiration not just president obama but others who served in the white house. president obama is certainly interested in living up to that standard. that will be easy to do in the first couple of months, again,

because he tends to take his wife on vacation and not follow the news closely. after that, i think the president will continue to look for ways that he can pursue the same approach that we've seen from president george w. bush. >> the second part of his comments, he seemed to indicate he wouldn't be taking the same approach as george w. bush if something so severe, something was to happen that was so off the rails, in his opinion, that he just had to speak out, or is that a misreading of his statement? >> i think the best way to understand exactly what he said is to understand what his preference would be. his preference would be to be able to pursue the same approach that president george w. bush has pursued. he believes the country is well served by a smooth transition of

power and by an incoming president committed to basic ten either and principles of american democracy, and an outgoing president who is not weighing in on every policy proposal put forward by the new president. the new president deserves the opportunity to make a public case about what his priorities are and to form his own impression without somebody as influential as the outgoing president trying to undermine or criticizes him at every turn. the country is not served well by that, the institution of the presidency is not well served by that. and that's the way that the president is thinking about this. that's his hope about how this

will play out. okay? jean, i'll give you the last one. >> thanks. josh, the trump team -- president obama -- >> you'll have to ask his team what policy he sbebds intends te with north korea. obama administration will work closely with the national security team president-elect. they will understand what strategies we have pursued that allow to make progress. we'll certainly talk about all of the military steps that we have taken to enhance our ability to protect the american people and protect our allies in asia. they will certainly brief on success we have organizing professional community to impose pressure on north korean regime. brief them on the steps we have

taken with the u.s. treasury department to try to increase that pressure through financial penalties. but we'll also update them with the latest intelligence assessment about where things stand. but ultimately when it comes to making decisions and the future of that policy, that will be the responsibility of the president-elect beginning on january 20th. >> so president obama will continue about the north korean issues? >> i can't speak to any additional conversations that may occur between the president and the president-elect, but i can tell you that as the president-elect's team gets up to speed on a range of national security issues, we certainly will spend quite a bit of time at a variety of agencies talking to them about the policy that we've pursued with north korea, what steps we have taken to marshall international opinion and action on north korea, what steps we've taken militarily to

secure american people and allies and certainly update them on the latest intelligence assessment where things stand in north korea. thanks, everybody. we will not do a briefing here tomorrow. so i wish you all a very happy thanksgiving. i hope you'll spend time giving thanks for our many blessings with your family. this weekend on american history tv on c-span tv, saturday evening at 7:00 eastern from president lincoln's cottage in washington, d.c., we'll have a conversation with candace hooper about her book about lincoln's general's lives about four women who influenced the

civil war for better for worse. >> you can see, too, that women have a means of reinforcing either the best in their husbands or the worst. and that's what this study is. >> then at 10:00 on reel america, the 1953 film, "american frontier." >> flashed the world from the field to the production office and from there to the central office in oklahoma. day and night our little telephone board was lit up like a christmas tree. calls from new york, california, houston. bit by bit we began to realize how big a thing this was. >> the film promoted the financial benefits for farmers of leasing land for oil exploration and was funded by the american petroleum institute. sunday morning at 11:00, panelists discuss life and legacy of novelist, journal i, photographer and social activist jack london and how his novel,

"the call of the wild" influenced generations of western novelists and writers. >> he always looked back to the natural land to his ranch, to the beautiful scenery in california and elsewhere in the south pacific to center himself and to find release and relief from the rigors and the degradations of the cities. >> at 6:00 eastern on american artifacts we visit military aviation museum in virginia beach. >> this airplane among a couple other types basically taught military aviators, army air corps and navy how to fly. many never even saw an airplane coming from the farms and anywhere you can think of. the first airplane they saw was the bogey stearman. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to c-span.org. now law professors and

former house and senate staffers talk about congressional oversight of the executive branch and overcoming the tension between the two branches when trying to access information. the investigation into the september 11th, 2012, benghazi attack and federal operation fast and furious were cited. >> good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us today at this beautiful facility, the pew center. i'm linda, one of the co-directors at wayne state university law school. i currently -- we are one of the sponsors of today's event along with the constitution project. and senator carl levin -- i'm being joined today by jenny sloan, who is the president of the constitution project and senator carl levin, who is the

chair of the levin center and distinguished legislator in residents at the law school of the person whose supposed to be presenting remarks jocelyn benson, our executive director, but she's flying in from new york this morning and has not made it yet. so i will assume her position here. we're here today to examine the struggle between the congress and executive branch over access to information. we titled this conference, a right to know, k-n-o-w, on the part of congress, and that is a right to documents and witnesses in the executive branch as part avijit inquiry by congress into what the executive branch is doing or has done versus a right to no -- n-o -- on the part of the administration, fully respond to congressional request for information or access to a witness in order to protect its

deliberative process and the president's right to confidentiality. we're joined by two panels of experienced practitioners and distinguished scholars who will help us grapple with this issue today. our pharmaceutical will be as follows. first we'll have additional welcoming remarks from jenny sloan and opening comments from senator levin. 9:15 to 10:30 hear from a panel of individuals who were personally involved in the case of house committee of government oversight versus holder/lynch, now the lynch case, which involved the fast and furious program and the case involving harriet meyers. we'll break at 10:30 for 15 minutes and hear from a panel of individuals who have from both experience and scholarship given serious thought to how congress and the executive branch can work through some of these challenging demands and relationships. we'll have a brief wrap up at

noon and adjourn at 12:15. so now i'd like to invite jenny sloan on behalf of the constitution project to come up and give her welcoming remarks. >> thanks, linda, and good morning. i want to welcome you all here today on behalf of the constitution project and thank so much the levin center for co-sponsoring this event with us today and also thank senator levin and my longtime friend linda. thank you also to mort rosenberg, who has written both the original "when congress comes calling" for the constitution project and now updated or in the process. we're almost done. we're grateful and delighted the update is one of the basis for today's discussion. we ran out of the original long ago because it was so popular and such a useful tool for how our government works.

we're pleased that the update will be available in just a few weeks. if you're interested in the update, please go back downstairs and pick up one of these forms and we'll make sure that you get it. the other day i watched a pbs show on the making of "hamilton," which i had the pleasure to see a few months ago on broadway. it was an amazing piece of theater but also a great lesson in history. that's really what today's event is about. it's about the history of our government and balance of powers that has been will follow chrome of our democratic system. "hamilton" was about the executive branch and the differences of philosophies and personalities that ended up creating our system of government. it applies just as well to our current system and debates. who controls the government and in what way. what powers does congress have and how are they balanced by the executive branch.

ultimately what role do the courts have resolving any disputes that cannot be resolved by the political system itself. with credit to one of the best songs in "hamilton," everyone wants to be in the room where it happens. our program today is about who gets to be in that room, who makes that decision, and how policy is created once the decision is made. "hamilton" made clear our democracy is not an easy or flawless system. our experts today will discuss what happens when congress comes calling. the tug-of-war between executive and congressional branches has always existed and always will. while "hamilton" didn't turn out all that well, at least for "hamilton" himself, the founders created a brilliant system that seems today to some to be on the verge of breaking apart. there's no right or wrong in this tug-of-war, but there must be conscientious people of goodwill to exercise their

powers. our democracy depends on it. when congress comes calling giches them the knowledge and tool to do their jobs responsible and constitutional powers created during the time hamilton portrayed and developed in the years since then. now i'm pleased to be able to introduce former senator carl levin. senator levin served for 36 years in the u.s. senate representing the state of michigan. he is, in fact, the longest serving senator from that state. in the senate he served as both chair and ranking member on armed services committee and chair and ranking member of several oversight subcommittees on governmental affairs committee, including some 15 years on the permanent subcommittee on investigations. senator levin was known for his in-depth investigations into complicated issues, his bipartisan approach to oversight

and his commitment to uncovering the facts. these strengths played out significantly in his oversight of the financial sector, in particular the 2008 mortgage bank crisis, offshore tax shelters of wealthy individuals and multinational organizations and money laundering. he brings a wealth of experience and accomplishments to any discussion of oversight and we're so pleased to have him join us this morning. senator levin. [ applause ] >> jenny, thank you so much for the introduction. according to the program here, i guess you're part of the welcome and i'm sort of the overview part of that line. so mine is going to be a little bit longer than a welcome, not quite as long as the papers which i've stuffed into my pocket but a little longer than the other remarks.