policy program director for brookings institution and author of the book "the art of war in an age of peace." michael, let's begin with president biden's decision to execute those air strikes in syria. what was the goal of them and your reaction to that decision? >> i think president biden wanted to show that he, like his predecessors, would not tolerate attacks on american forces in iraq and he needed some way to show that there was not going to be a belabored process that got tied up in american bureaucracy or american-iraqi agreement about how to respond and that's why he found a target in syria where he didn't need to ask the permission of the iraqi government. when president trump authorized the attack against qassem soleimani, the iranian terrorist mastermind, he retaliated for

attacks on american bases in iraq by striking within iraq. and he did so without the permission of the iraqi government, without even any kind of advance warning. and that led to a crisis in u.s.-iraq relations. biden still made it clear that he would respond. it doesn't solve any fundamental problem, but it may single that biden is not to be trifled with and iran can't take advantage of this president who has said he has other priorities to drive us out of the middle east because we're not being to stand up for our own people. >> what is the situation in syria? >> the situation in syria, to start with, is that president assad has largely won the war. the expected downfall of his regime that was forecast about a decade ago when the arab spring began has not occurred. he's received a lot of help from hezbollah, from iran and from

russia to consolidate his position and defeat a divided opposition that was mostly sunni. assad is a variance of sheeism and that's a minority group in syria. but he had a support of christians who were afraid of the sunni. so he's largely consolidated control of the country, but it's a shell of its former self. there's still some ongoing conflict in the northwest. there's terrorist groups associated with the opposition there. turkey has moved in to help secure part of the northwest and turkey is very upset for having troops in the northeast working with the kurdish groups there. turkey considers them to be affiliated with its own kurdish

opposition or secessionist movement, the pkk. we've been working with the kurds to try to defeat isis. even when isis was pushed out and the caliphate was destroyed, we stayed in order to try to consolidate that situation in the northeast and help the kurds protect themselves. in other words, isis is gone. assad is in control, most of the time, most of the country. but the united states and turkey still have some degree of foreign military presence as does russia, as does iran and it's sort of a simmering conflict not yet resolved. the good news, if there is good news, the rate of killing is much less. the bad news it was probably the worst civil war in the world this century and a lot of people were killed, probably about a half million. and a lot of people still live in a destitute state as the country has not been repaired and there's a very weak system of, you know, providing food and relief. a lot of admiral ngos, organizations that have been

there to try to help, to mitigate the damage. but the country itself is not rebuilt and only partially functioning. >> where is isis now and what threat do they pose? >> isis does not really control any territory in iraq or syria. they have affiliates in a few places like northeastern nigeria and some affiliates in the broader theater and a lot of people who still associate, swear loyalty, but the momentum that isis had a half dozen years ago is completely gone. the notion that they're on the assent and will establish an area that they control and governor, that idea is gone which means their charisma, appeal, magtism for a lot of would be supporters around the would has declined. if you look at terrorist attacks

from movements, the twisted, perverted view of jihad within some sunni communities, that movement is still pretty strong in terms of number of violent attacks and acknowledged membership. it's probably about half as strong as it was at the peak of 2014. but it's still stronger than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks, in terms of the race of violence around the world. for americans, we're lucky. most of this violence is happening a long ways away. it's happening muslims against muslims tragically, but it's not happening in the united states for the most part. the terrorism tole here has been very, very modest in recent years. isis doesn't control territory in a meaningful sense anywhere in the world. it just has the ability to still call on followers to carry out isolated acts of violence at a pace that's disturbing but not

really controlling any territory or government. >> as we approach the 20th anniversary of the september 11th, 2001, attacks, what challenges does the president face in afghanistan? >> the president has a big decision to make. there was a peace deal a year ago that the trump administration announced with the taliban, the afghan government wasn't even involved in that february 29th, 2020, deal. and it said that if the taliban would not attack american and nato forces, and not affiliate with al qaeda, we would think about leaving by may of 2021. but that deal also required the taliban to enter into syria's peace talks with the afghan government. i would argue that hasn't yet happened. also the united states government and the u.n. have documented that the taliban has not really broken ties with al

qaeda. so the terms would appear to be not yet in effect and therefore i think it's nearly inevitable and certainly would be correct for president biden not to pull out on may 1st. but his administration is still looking for a way to reduce america's commitments to these conflicts in the middle east. we've already reduced our forces by 97% compared to their peak. they're down to 2500 troops. probably too few, actually. but certainly even if we were back around 4500, which was sort of the level that u.s. central demand and the pentagon determines at the end of 2020 would probably be a good number, that would still be a 95% reduction from peak when mr. biden was vice president under barack obama. i think that's a sustainable

level. i think the peace talks may take years, not months. anyway, president biden hasn't yet made that decision and he appears now to be looking for sort of a third way, avoiding this tough choice, do we stay or go, do we comply with the february 29th deal or not? what he's looking to do, apparently, is to convene one of these big afghan gatherings or at least some kind of a major meeting of many officials from the government and the taliban and the rest of society and see if they can't form an interim government and have that be the basis for then governing the country until there is a real power-sharing accord. i'm not really sure what problem that solves because if you can envision how to do an interim government of power sharing between the taliban and others in afghanistan, including the elected government, then you

probably have a formula that could be a long-term power-sharing arrangement. and either way, the task is daunting. so if you have an interim government, who is going to control the army? who is going to make big decisions on the future of the country, nato presence there, et cetera? and so i'm not sure this is going to be such a breakthrough and i think the biden team is going to have to accept the reality that if they don't want to see afghanistan descend into complete civil war, they're probably going to have to keep a few thousand troops there for some years to come. >> a lot more to come about, iraq, russia, china for this biden administration, the challenges that they face. the "new york times" notes that the president's secretary of state antony blinken gave his first major speech this past week. their headline is he proposes a foreign policy not disconnected from our daily lives. listen to what he had to say.

>> all of our priorities go directly to our core sources of national strength. and we define strength broadly because a truly strong country is strong in many ways at once. real strength isn't bluster or bullying, and it's not based in military power alone. real strength is that and more. it's making sure our most valuable commodity as a nation, human resources, can meet their full potential. it's a flourishing democracy and innovative and inclusive economy. it's the ability to bring countries to together because they trust us to lead and no one can unite others like we can. it's having our diplomats walk into buildings around the world and be respected because they have the confidence and trust of the american people. >> we want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation, michael, but what did you make of what the secretary of state had to say? >> well, first of all, i'm a big fan of secretary blinken and i

think he's an excellent choice. very experienced, very cautious in some ways but also creative in others. very seasoned, experienced, also just a very good human being and a smart guy and a humble guy. he'll be a good person for bringing together many other countries because he's well liked and well respected and he's respectful. having said all that, i don't think that his speech gets us too far, except to sort of return us to the way we usually do business in republican and democratic presidency, except for mr. trump's. president trump was a disruptive leader. he didn't have a lot of use for alliances. i'm not trying to make a strong partisan statement here. i think trump himself would agree that he wanted to shake things up and he didn't necessarily think that, you know, being popular internationally or having all of these alliances proved that the united states was benefitting in some way.

and i disagree with mr. trump, but he still raised some fair questions even if his style could be challenged. even if mr. blinken and president biden get their way, we return to where we were at the end of 2016 but all the problems are still there. a speech that emphasizes multilateralism and cooperation maybe repairs some of the challenge of the trump years, but it doesn't actually chart a path forward. i thought the speech was fine for an early day's kind of speech, just to try to recapture the bipartisan tradition of professionalism and respectful diplomacy that i think americans have typically seen in their democratic and republican president's administration, but i don't think it advanced the ball very far on any big issue that i can think of. >> glenda, savannah, georgia, an independent. >> caller: hi. greta, i think you guys do a

great job with your method of questioning. when somebody is asked about how their opinion was formed or how they came to their opinion, you know, it affects people who don't even think about how they get their opinions. but, anyway, back to the middle east, when cheney and bush went into afghanistan and iraq, they were so naive. if they would have watched -- discovered that the arab culture is so complicated and that the sunni and the shia don't vote each other in and out, they use power, reality, bullets metaphorically. when i see everybody was against assad, when we went into iraq, we destabilized their borders and, of course, that affected every neighbor country. and so when assad is -- we want him out, i was thinking, what if we destabilize that country completely with no government, please tell me what you think

will be the result for israel, anybody? >> michael? >> well, very good points. and i think there are a number of people who regret that we handled syria the way we did. i think most of us would regret it and say that frankly leave assad in power without encouraging on the opposition would have been better than what we did for the simple reason, of course, that assad is still there, anyway, and a half a million people are dead. but assad himself, while a brutal dictator, nonetheless, syria under assad up until 2011 was still probably one of the more tolerable places to live in the middle east. i'm not trying to sing the praises of president assad. but it's true that when john kerry, hillary clinton and

others were dealing with the middle east back in 2010, they were still hopeful that he could be prodded toward reform. and we have been unsuccessful. it's true that president bush didn't have any success and had a fair amount of naiveté, but we haven't done that much better since. those of us who are specialists in the field, we got some things right, that bush and obama didn't listen to, but we got a lot of things wrong too. the number one point of agreement i would have with you from the get-go. on syria going forward, we certainly should not, i don't believe, try to uproot assad at this point. we can try to create conditions to increase the likelihood of a peaceful transfer of power down the road. try to use our financial leverage if we're ever going to see syria rebuilt, syria should

have a more inclusive kind of government and that's probably not going to convince assad to step down. we can persuade him to have a more representative kind of cabinet and have some international monetary about how aid is used. that's probably about the best we can do. >> ron in california, a republican. >> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: nice to have you on the show. listen, a couple -- first thing, some housekeeping business, greta, when people call into your show, i think that you should ask them whether they know who their congressperson is. because most of these people call in and they're just repeating things that other people have said before. so they don't -- if they don't know who their congressperson is, they probably don't have much to say. anyway, back to the issue at hand. this is a big heavy lifting job for the biden administration, no

doubt. we're talking about the china problem. we're talking about the middle east and especially the key -- you may agree with me, is afghanistan. we need to stay there. we've stayed in south korea for how many years and germany for how many years. we should stay in with some semblance of force in afghanistan for some years. the taliban, all the things on pbs will tell you, they all are laughing at us and saying we beat the russians and now we've beaten the united states. if necessary, do you believe it would be possible -- this is thinking out of the box -- would you believe that it would be possible to separate afghanistan into four states and therefore give the taliban one state that we could watch carefully and another one for the al qaeda and the rest to the true afghans. i don't understand that part of the world that much.

whatever your thoughts are, please tell me. >> it's an intriguing concept. in fact, whether we favor it or not, it's possible we will wind up with a partitioned afghanistan. maybe not into four parts, but maybe two, if indeed, the united states and nato pull out of their military positions because i would anticipate that the country could then descend into an all-out civil war. the only problem with your concept, i think is that -- although it may wind up being the place we get to, but the main problem is that the taliban is not popular even among the fellow people from whom taliban fighters are recruited. afghanistan had four major ethnic groups, basically all taliban are this group of

people. but the problem is that, again, most of these people don't like the taliban. if you force them to live under the taliban, it may be the state that we can watch from surrounding territory and try to do some counterterrorism strikes when necessary. in other words, it may wind up achieving the minimal american goal of counterterrorism, but the depth in devastation that would happen along the way to get to that point, the ethnic cleansing that could happen would be a humanitarian travesty. and the taliban could still control about half the country, current afghanistan, which if we have no access to that territory is a pretty big space where bad things can still happen. and i'm not sure our count terrorism will be that successful. i would consider it a mitigation of disaster as opposed to a desirable option. >> elena, democratic caller.

>> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: i'm recalling a high school lesson that i had at a civics class that is titled -- the book was "internationalists at war or isolationists at peace" and that might be a good guide to follow with our foreign policy. in history, it should be mentioned we're all immigrants because -- unless you're 100% native american, we're all immigrants. that's all i wanted to say. and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak. >> well, thank you for the comment and the observation. i think in broad historical terms going back to the outbreak of world war i, it has been more

stable when we've had alliances. we've not had world war iii. and i think the reason is that the united states stayed engaged after world war ii and has built up an alliance system that has helped keep the peace. when i say peace, i don't mean a perfect peace. there have been a lot of small to midsized wars along the way. but to your point, it's fair to observe that even in that period, the united states has struggled with the conflicts it has fought, korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan and smaller ones as well. sometimes we've at least kept a lid on the problem, but we haven't had resounding successes. we prevented world war, but we haven't very well prevented small to midsized wars with terrible tragedy often for our people in uniform.

i'm calling for people to try to do better. we have to keep the structure of alliances and the basic foundations of this overall global peace that has prevented world war iii. but we got to get better at avoiding the big wars like korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan that are not world wars but that have been incredibly costly and tragic. i guess that would be my philosophical question in response to this whole debate about internationalism versus isolationism. we have to figure out how the united states can stay engaged. we have to stay resolute with the alliances in preventing world war iii. but we got to look to try to be more restrained in the smaller uses of force that typically haven't gone so well since 1945. >> michael, a text from our viewer patrick in nashville who

writings, regarding the biden administration's international challenges ahead, what worries me the most is how president trump ignored russia's concentration in the middle east and their unknown influence. russia failed for many years in the middle east, but trump gave them an open door to create future chaos. your thoughts? >> well, you know, here's the thing, i'm a democrat. but i got to say the russian presence picked up in the middle east in 2015 during the obama administration. syria was such a mess. and i don't think it was worth trying to fight russia to push them out. it wasn't worth risking world war iii or conflict between the united states and russia over the syrian civil war which is the main thing that russia has done differently in the last decade in that broader region. and so it's a bipartisan tragedy in the united states. i'm not just going to blame

president trump. trump did not have a particularly good legacy to leave in regard to russia. but i'm going to give him credit for one thing. at least he recognized that it was dangerous for the united states and russia to have the horrible relationship they did. he never translated his desire for a calmer relationship. he brought along very few republicans in how he thought about russia. in that sense, he doesn't leave us with a better path forward. but the instinct of trying to defuse the danger of the u.s. russia relationship, i agree with trump on that. the question is how to do it. maybe that's a separate question. i won't bore you with my own thoughts at the moment. it's true, trump didn't figure out how to deal with vladimir putin. but russia's presence in the middle east started growing before trump. >> your question for michael?

>> caller: mr. o'hanlon, i have a syrian doctor and friend in the state of west virginia and he has tried to bring his family over from syria. it's a horrible, horrible place to be. he says, they're just like me. they believe in the capitalist system. do you think -- you seem to know this new secretary of state. do you think that they may allow some immigration out of the middle east in the coming years, within the next couple of years? >> michael o'hanlon? >> that's an excellent question. you have a big difference between trump and biden, and, yes, i think there is hope that refugee policy will return to what its largely been in the past where in this kind of of a situation, we have a much higher likelihood of bringing over a

given individual or family like the type that you mentioned with your friend in west virginia. so i certainly hope and pray that's the case. and i would expect the biden administration is certainly going to rapidly reopen traditional refugee policy. i don't know, of course, how long any given case will take to resolve. >> another challenge for the administration posed by jim in bakersfield, california, can americans count on the biden administration to protect us from attacks from fancy bear and cozy bear and other state-run cyber terrorist organizations? >> i'm going to be blunt and say no. internet attacks are not preventable by any president in the abstract. in given cases, we can try to retaliate. we can certainly ask people to patch up their software. we could protect certain government infrastructure more effectively. we could change the way the government interacts with the

private sector, at least on things like big utilities, you know, electricity, grids, water and power and financial infrastructure to make sure that those kinds of crucial national assets are up to snuff on the latest internet protection. but even if you do that, you're still going to have some new vulnerabilities that come up when new software is written and we're still going to be vulnerable unless we come up to full speed on all of our internet protections. i don't think most americans are going to want the government to mandate that. so i think the short answer is to some extent, this is the brave new world we're in. and the good news is, most of us on a daily basis don't suffer catastrophically from internet attacks. there are protections and provisions and resources that you can take even if you're the victim. i would expect that this kind of cyber competition and even

cyberattacks will continue and we can do certain things to reduce our vulnerability, to reduce the fallout when bad things happen. we're not going to be able to prevent it. >> pam is a democrat going us this morning. go ahead, pam. >> caller: yes, i have two concerns. one is the israeli-pakistan relationship and i won't go into detail because it would take too long. but in general, i'm concerned about the pakistanis. second, i've been really concerned about the huge amount of trust that we must have lost when we left the kurds in syria and i was just wondering if you could respond to that concern as well. thank you. >> thank you. well, on the kurds in syria, we haven't deserted them

completely. we reduced the size of our presence after isis was defeated and president trump seemed to want to get out completely. but he was talked into staying partly because it was a way to prevent iran from getting more influence in that part of syria. and partly because it was a way to keep some control working with the kurds over the oil assets of syria which could then limit president assad's own power and ability to consolidate his victory. for those reasons, trump decided to keep that smaller u.s. presence in the kurdish region of northeastern syria and we're still there. now, we're not doing that much. we don't have that much capability. but even if you have a few hundred americans on the ground, you get intelligence, you can call in air power if there's a big effort by the enemies of the kurds or isis, let's say, to try to do something nefarious. at the moment, we have not deserted the kurds and the turks are angry with us.

they want us to desert the kurds. they want to punish the kurds or at least as they see it, prevent them from pursuing more autonomy in syria. so we're in this position where no matter what we do, we've got at least one of our friends unhappy with us. but i think we may have found sort of the least bad option for the moment, trying to keep some influence and leverage with the kurds in northeastern syria, reduce the odds they will be overrun, and, yet, maybe over time get some ability to mitigate turkish concerns by working with the kurds to make sure they don't have any weapons or fighter flows into turkey. i think we're in the least bad position that we could be in. it's not a stable, long-term plan. at some point we're going to have to work internationally to figure out how assad's government will be dealt with in the future. i don't think just having syria

essentially a collection of, you know, pieces of its former self is a very good long-term policy. at the moment, what we're doing, may be the least bad approach. >> james in alabama, democratic caller, you're on the air with michael o'hanlon of the brookings institution. go ahead. >> caller: yeah. i would like to say, you know, this is going back to all three parts of your discussion this morning. you can teach civics. you can listen to these guys get up there and talk. >> james, i apologize, you're breaking up. hard to hear you. what did you just say? >> caller: this goes back to all three parts of your deal today on civics, the other part and this part. let's look at what's what.

we've got -- let's go with that. we tried to make things too complicated. just like with -- talking -- teaching civics. you got to have some commonsense. do you have any commonsense? it does you no good -- >> okay. james, i'll move on to kevin who is in d.c., democratic caller. kevin? >> caller: i wanted to ask about colonel mcgregor. he was the senior adviser to the secretary of defense who is an interintentionist and speaks the truth. i wonder if you're -- if you've had any contact with him. he's been advocating against getting out of useless wars and also max blumenthal, he's been talking about misinformation.

have you guys been in contact with either of those people? the other thing is, the attempt to get out of the middle east and afghanistan and iraq was kind of thwarted by congress. they said they needed permission to pull out. but they didn't need permission to star wars. but they were trying to get out of the afghanistan and iraq and syria, especially colonel mcgregor. i think it would be useful to visit with him. >> michael o'hanlon? >> i know douglas mcgregor and he wrote a good book 20 years ago as well on army reform. let me get to the people that mcgregor and others were

advising. i've been in good contact professionally with secretary mattis and secretary esper and we just did a brookings event two weeks ago with myself interviewing secretary esper. this is a group of people that in many cases i work with well, some of them are my friends. there are some areas of bipartisan cooperation in washington even when we have a trump presidency and the kind of partisanship that existed at the top levels of our political classes. i guess that's a partial comment. you say congress forced trump to stay, i think congress recognized that also in south korea and germany, it was important to have some degree of stability, that our alliances have actually helped keep the peace of the years and they should not be discarded lightly. congress did have a role in the wars. both of those wars were approved by congress. let's not forget that.

congress did not declare war and so you get into constitutional debates about whether an authorization on the use of military force is adequate. but congress did vote in favor of both of those wars 20 years ago. and at that point, it was seen as a relatively bipartisan agenda. the iraq war was more controversial. but you had a lot of democrats that support the initial idea. going back to the -- the previous caller and the discussion and the cry for pragmatism, the plea for pragmatism, we have to recognize across party lines that the middle east is just a hard place to operate as an earlier caller noted and we need some new ideas. the good news is, in both iraq and afghanistan, we only have about 2500 to 3,000 troops in place. that's a huge reduction relative to the peak. we're starting from a position

that is much more sustainable than we had been at before. i don't think we need to be in a hurry to just say we're done forever with the region or we've ended the forever wars. the forever wars, quote/unquote, are not nearly what they were. and they're primarily being fought by the militaries of the countries as they should be. america's role is much more minimal and advisory with intelligence and air power support. we're in the least bad place we can be for a lot of these conflicts at the moment. >> one last call for you, it comes from david in virginia, a republican. >> caller: good morning, c-span, thank you for taking my call. i agree with the last caller in the comments of mr. o'hanlon made about those. but let me ask you about lists of intervention wars that we've gone into.

2011 with sycamore timber, cia covert operation, our influence of libya, the support of arab spring and the muslim brotherhood and the 19-year war in afghanistan, the almost illegal war in iraq and also our support in yemen of saudi arabia. if we had energy independence from the middle east, i think our chances for peace throughout that region would allow us to withdraw if not all troops, most troops, which has been done in the past four years. so i like your comments regarding our position in the middle east as related to energy independence in the united states. >> okay. >> thank you.

very good question. and certainly we have much more energy autonomy in the united states now than we had most of my adult lifetime and yet we still have interests in the middle east because the global economy still depends on middle eastern oil. our allies are importing from the area. the price would go up for us too if supplies were cut off. energy independence for the united states itself is not the be all and end all. i like the fact that we have a little less vulnerability than we did before. that gives us more room for maneuver. that's part of why we have reduced u.s. military capability throughout the region so dramatically. more than 95% in iraq and afghanistan. we still have substantial presence in a number of countries that are peaceful countries, bahrain, kuwait, qatar, united arab emirates and

turkey, and djibouti. we send marines into the broader waterways of the region. we still have quite a substantial military footprint and i think some of that is needed, as you seem to agree. but i think also secretary austin at the pentagon who used to be the general in charge of central command is also right to embark on a global posture review. and i think there's a decent chance he'll be able to whittle away by let's say another 10% to 25% our military footprint in the broader region. i'm thinking about kuwait, bahrain, countries like that. not necessarily places where our troops are at grave risk today. but still where perhaps we could -- reduce the cost of the taxpayer and reduce our exposure a little bit further. in that sense, i'll go along with the spirit of your question even though i don't think there's a basis for a dramatic

additional downsizing. >> michael o'hanlon is the author of the book "the art of war in an age of peace: u.s. grand strategy" he's also the program director at the brookings institution. you can go to brookings.edu to learn more. thank you for the conversation. >> thanks very much for having me. ♪♪ more than 2,000 students entered this student camera competition. here are our student cam winners. first prize eighth grader, carson collins, a homeschooler from austin, texas, with his documentary on chinese supporting courses u.s.

universities. their documentary is on education and standardized testing. first prize high school central winners are zain and gabriel for their documentary about online piracy. first prize goes to sofia and anna from california on the spectrum cable system for their documentary about u.s. foreign policy and our $5,000 grand prize winner is theo from new york on the spectrum cable system. >> we just wanted to call and congratulate you today because you're our 2021 grand prize winner. >> really? >> really. congratulations! >> congratulations.

>> i'm speechless. thank you, guys, so much. theo won the grand prize for his documentary about trust in government and political division. >> the american experiment is one built on successes and failures. in order to get out of this pandemic, to achieve racial justice, to try to reunite a fractured nation, we need to hear the truth even when, especially when, that truth is that the path ahead is going to be long and full of struggle. once we come to expect the truth, even hard truth, we the people can place our trust in a better future. >> thanks to all the students who participated in this year's student cam documentary contest. the top 21 entries will air on c-span starting april 1st. you can watch all of the winning documentaries any time online at studentcam.org.

>> louis dejoy testifies today answering questions on mail slowdowns and efforts to replace the current fleet of mail trucks with electric vehicles. watch live beginning at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3, online at c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. president biden speaks to the nation in his first prime time address to mark the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic in the u.s. we'll have live coverage beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can also watch at c-span.org or listen with our free c-span radio app. >> we're joined now by the chair of the house veterans affairs committee, california democrat mark takano. it's a huge $1.9 trillion bill that passed congress yesterday. what's in this bill specifically for veterans? >> the main thing that -- or the

$17 billion that is carved out for veterans would do is to basically empower and enhance the veterans health insurance to be able to anticipate the increased utilization of va health care. we're looking at higher -- increased rates of veteran unemployment during the pandemic and anticipating that many veterans -- many, many veterans are going to need to return to the va for their health care. the va is doing everything it can to vaccinate all 6 million of its enrolled veterans that are in the system as well as look at ways in which we can alleviate the co-pays. most of the veterans that qualify for va health care are lower income veterans and so