>> that seem to -- whether it's in the ukraine or whether it's in named the hotspot. congressman rogers, i want to ask you, and for all i know president obama is laying out his foreign policy vision and strategy as we speak in west point. maybe all these issues are covered and addressed. i tend to think probably not, but possibly, but what are your thoughts? do you see a time where congress can stand united with an executive -- if we lay out a clear, articulate, straight

forward strategy because, i mean, there's some disconnects between the executive and legislative branch, and i don't see everyone looking for solutions. i look at -- i see folks who identify problems. how do we fix this? >> well, and that's a -- -- >> that's what's happening. >> that's what's happening. >> that's what makes them so lethal and dangerous. you served all authorities of government to deal with what you have to. >> what you see in the crime boss, who is now the governor, is exactly what was happening in all of ukraine, and that's where the russian influence came from was that criminal side of the house, and we shouldn't forget

that. can congress work with the president? absolutely. i will tell you, as somebody who has tried to work with them and i have, and i have agreed with them when i could and disagreed with them hopefully civilly when i couldn't. they are very difficult to work with. i'll give you a great example today. so today -- yesterday the president comes out and announces the troop levels. we certainly weren't consulted. we've been asking for about 18 months you have to give us the troop numbers so that in this year's budget we can appropriately fund operations that would have it separate from d.o.d. on the ground in afghanistan. i hope i'm not being -- the intelligence community would have separate costs and separate operations that would be sustained and functioned, and you can't do that without the support of the department of defense for quick reaction. fairly important details like

that. this has been the most frustrating national security that i have faced certainly in my time in congress. they lone wolf he's things without consultation for the folks who are going to have to implement all of the aspects of these plans. i think it's candidly quite dangerous. so for those of you who have military experience, you tell me what -- where although command energy is going to be on the ground in the next six months. it is no small undertaking to remove that many troops and equipment and do it safely. it will consume 90% of their efforts in the next few months. we have a safe haven developing in afghanistan. this is what happens when

there's no interaction and discussion about how something like this would work. it's dangerous. i'll express my frustration one step forward. i believe this happened because somebody was trying to -- we've been asking for this for 18 months. it gets announced yesterday. this is a serious, serious national security policy announcement yesterday. i don't know what the president is going to talk about today. maybe we're going to get back reengaging in the world in a way that i think helps push back on these issues. if not, we are in some serious trouble. you know, you can't -- a policy like this can't be because i want to have a line in my biography that says i ended the war in afghanistan. i'll guarantee you the taliban hasn't. they haven't surrendered. they didn't put out their timeline and say by 2016 we're going to be done. as a matter of fact, we're seeing them escalate their activities because of these announcements. think about where we are right now and why this is so important. i know time is short, but think about this. we have the russians who now we

believe, according to public reports, have violated their nuclear inf treaty in a very serious and significant way. tell me what options we have. not many. they've been occupying 20% of georgia -- the country of georgia's territory without much effort or interest by -- including our european allies. he now fwz into crimea. people just say, well, he got that. maybe we can stop the rest from going maybe. this is a serious a problem as i have ever seen, and we don't have any good effort to push back. i'll tell you this one quick story, and then i'll be quiet. this is so important. messages matter. engagement matters. it doesn't mean military. everybody says there's either all in with 101st airborne -- that's completely wrong, and it's disingenuous. there are lots of options. let me tell you this quick -- i was over there right after the president unilaterally pulled

out the four radar deployment in the czech republic. i happened to be in moscow shortly thereafter trying to have a discussion about missile defense systems. can you kind of figure out how that went. afterward this general pulls me in the meeting afterwards and said can i talk to you afterwards. i won't do my russian accent. it's very bad. he pulled me in this room and said basic will he, listen, congressman, it's great to see that america is finally admitting she's a nation in decline, and we've been through it, and we would love to give you all the advice and counsel you can take. you think of the slow progress. vladimir putin is as popular today as he has ever been in russia. what do you think his next few decisions are going to be? pull back? give up? start negotiating? i doubt it. why? because he has no economic plan for recovery in russia. it's not doing well economically. this is the one place he can get his numbers through the roof.

every indication we have is it's going to get worse, not better. >> congressman, i want to allow one -- to depoliticize, i think it is emblem attic on a bigger challenge where we focus on tactics, not strategy. they're mascarading. it's lv almost add. you stee in every issue. i want to offer one question, maybe a student. do we have a student with a question? we're actually coming up against our -- or we're actually beyond our timeline, and apologies to c-span. do we have any burning, burning questions? okay. one question here. please. we're going to have to then close. please identify yourself. >> i'm leanned are a burnstein with -- this is a question, actually, not about russia, but i would like to know your thoughts on the usa freedom act which passed through the house, but not with the support of the

original sponsor, congressman, because he said it was stripped of the oversight that he believes congress should be conducting and also there have been numerous statements from senator weidan, senator leahy concerning their ability to conduct oversight on the nsa, so how do you respond to their concerns and the concerns of many american people that congress is not able to conduct oversight? >> well, i absolutely fundamentally reject the fact that there has not been oversight, including by somebody i work with, senator widen. he had that ability. we do conduct oversight, which is why he came to the conclusions that he did. he was participating in something called oversight. oversight cannot be on the front page of the washington post. that's not oversight. that's dangerous.

so on these very sensitive programs you have in a constitutional republic, you've selected the people who have clearances at both parties who have the ability to drill down and get all that information. you know, for folks who feign, oh, my gosh, who knew, i will tell you, as a member of the committee for the last ten years, i supported these programs when they were classified, and i support these programs today. why? because i believed in the oversight responsibility very seriously. so you have most -- he was a co-sponsor. didn't write the legislation. if you look at jerry nadler, hardly someone you would say is wishy-washy on these issues. jim sensenbrenner, all of them supported the bill in the house. that is the process of which we're in. i believe it was an important place to get to where you say we're going to protect america's ability to catch that safehouse from yemen, calling into the united states.

the biggest problem that was expressed, by the way, in all of these discussions was who holds the information? it wasn't -- was it abused? it was not. it was who holds the information? that was the biggest dispute. we solved that problem, and in this bill where both sides said we can live with this. i will tell you, this is not the bill i would have written for the simple reason that it slows us down a little bit. it does. but understanding the public needed rebuild its confidence in these programs, we decided or i decided along with dutch that maybe moving it from the nsa back to the companies would rebuild that confidence. you know, it's not the solution i love. in order to protect the operational ability, that's the -- i think the legitimate place we came to. i think we have accomplished both. you continue the operational capability, and you take care of the notion that it could -- by the way, this is what the whole fight was about. it could be abused. not that it was. it could be abused.

okay. here's how we got there. you know, one thing i found in this whole debate, there are individuals that clearly they have a brand name they need to protect in politics, which i think is really dangerous for all of us. celebrity politicians and people who are trying to brand themselves as x or y, forget about the substance of the facts. this really isn't a political game, the united states congress. it is a serious, serious, serious matter. we're not always going to agree. sometimes we're going to have passionate disagreements. we do. even in the intelligence committee with the doors closed and no microphones, you should hear what happens. i think america would be proud of, it candidly, because nobody is getting credit on the front page of the paper for it. it's all done because they believe it. we need to get back to that, and some notion. if you have a disagreement, that's great, but saying it doesn't do x or y because i'm the only one that understands the constitution of the united states i think is simply wrong, and it's irresponsible. this is the most responsible

effort to make sure that everybody's concerns were met, and we still have the operational capability to protect the united states of america, which, by the way, is in the constitution of the united states. >> congressman rogers, on that note, the time requires i being a tyrant before we take a moment to think thank all of you for your wonderful insights. i would like to thank congressman knapp and others for their commitment to the cyber security work and marina who will be leaving d.c. has been such a powerful light for estonia, so you will be missed, but not forgotten. rachel and my team for all their hard work. on that note, i have tokens, literally, figuratively, and literally, of our appreciation. coins of the institute. i wanted to say thank you for your time. please take a moment and thank the speakers.

>> i also have as a bow tie wearer, the g.w. bow tie. wear it proud. >> so what has been the result we have this classic economic holdout problem with retransmission for video, you have companies doing this game of chicken where they cut off service to customers. they're starting to block traffic on the internet services for customers. the ultimate result is programming costs spiral up and up third you wonder why your cable bill keeps going up? one big reason is that the resolution of these disputes over retransmission where the fcc is really hamstrung by the interpreted. rates

these results is these hearties whichally agree to deals raised prices and give the consumers channels they don't want very that is what i am afraid of. i think to say that interconnection happens in a private way is great, and i think there definitely should be room for private deals, but if we get to that point of interconnection i think would be a real tragic outcome. >> this weekend on c-span, the impact of an open internet from the progressive policy internet -- institute. a live three-hour program in depth with author and columnist. railamerica features u.s. government films made during world war ii by academy award-winning director frank tapper. sunday afternoon at 4:00. >> president obama made a

surprise appearance at the white house briefing to announce that press secretary jay carney is resigning. mr. carney worked as a time magazine reporter before becoming press secretary in two thousand 11. deputy press secretary josh earnest will succeed mr. carney when he leaves in mid-june. in april, jay came to me in the oval office and said he was thinking about moving on and i was not thrilled to say the least. wrestle withad to this decision for quite some time. he has been on my team since day one, for two years with the vice president, and three and half years as my press secretary. it has obviously placed a strain on claire, his wife, and his two .onderful kids, hugo and della dulles little league team, by the way, i had a chance to see the other day and she is a fine pitcher, but he wasn't seeing

enough of the games. jay was a reporter for 21 years before coming to the white house, including a stint as moscow bureau chief for time magazine during the collapse of so heiet empire, comes to this place with a reporter's perspective. it is why, believe it or not, i actually think he will miss hanging out with all of you, including the guys in the front row. [laughter] but, jay has become one of my closest friends and is a great press secretary. a great advisor. he has good judgment and good temperament and he has not a good heart. lot.l miss him a i will continue to rely on him as a friend and advisor after he leaves to spend as much of the

summer as he can with his kids before he decides what is next for him, whatever it is. i know he is going to be outstanding at it. course, that meant i have made a decision, which means who succeeds j. we have enormous talent around here, but i have decided that we're going to put in this slot somebody who is also a friend and advisor. jacket isthe flak officially passed to a new generation, mr. josh earnest. [applause] josh is the coaches son from kansas city. for the royals, i guess. [laughter] know, his name describes his demeanor. josh is an earnest guy and you

,an't find a nicer individual even outside of washington. the country knows him for his golden voice and dulcet tones on west wing week, the biggest viral internet hit since between two ferns. have an incredible history going back all the way to the iowa caucuses. josh was my iowa communications director. even when he was in that role, you would find in spending in next hour or two helping young staffers make phone calls or knock on doors. there is no task that was too small, no detail too unimportant for josh to attend to. at the white house he has been a mentor to many of the young people here who i know are thrilled for him today. judgment andd great temperament.

he is honest and full of yougrity, and i am sure will at some point get frustrated with him as well. but it is going to be hard, because he is a straight shooter and a great guy. , be nice to jay on be nicewell tour, and to josh during his initiation, which i'm sure will last maybe two days. or perhaps to questions. to let him hang around a little bit to milk it for all its worth. [laughter] thank you, guys. ? any questions >> we will hear from cloud computing pioneer marc benioff, youtube ceo susan widget ski and

mike rawlings. atc-span's new book, sundays eight, includes journalist and applebaum on the fall of the soviet union. >> the soviet system in europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems at the and began at the very beginning. i spoke already about the attempts to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create a position and attentional dissidents everywhere. if you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one artist says no, i don't want to paint that way, you have just made him into a political dissident. somebody who might otherwise have been apolitical. if you tell boy scout troops that they are not allowed to be boy scouts anymore but now they have to be young pioneers, which is what happened in a number of

countries, and one group decides they don't like that, they form a secret underground boy scout troop which absolutely happens. underground scouts were very important in poland all throughout the communist. period. >> read more about a conversation with anne applebaum and other features. it is now available for a father's day gift at your favorite bookseller. years, c-span brings public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences. and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago, and brought to as a public service by your local cable or seller provider. watch us in hd, like us on

facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> the university of southern california honored marc benioff at their commencement ceremony. he is a usc graduate. he talked about working with early cloud computing technology by creating new models for charitable giving and life lessons taught to him by a spiritual guru in india. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you. good morning, trojans. you for having me here. it is great to be with you today. what a gorgeous day this is. thank you for addressing me as the world's largest commencement anglin. that is fantastic to be here.

congratulations to this great class of 2014. congratulations to all of you. i really do not remember my graduation. i kind of remember sitting out been aut it might have late night at the 9-0. late nightve been a at my fraternity house. it probably was. him i have been many things but i do not remember my graduation. april asked me, have this great opportunity to speak all over the world. i get to talk to folks about technology. i will tell you there is asked me because i tell them i went to usc create how did you choose usc? them it was simple. my mom went here. my mom went to usc. she started here in 1957.

mom knows best. congratulations to the parents of the class of .14. congratulations to my mother. i loved it here. i was loved being here. i was loved being here on this beautiful campus and i loved the incredible student body and going out to the athletic games. i loved the fraternity lifestyle. i love my marshall school of business and my entrepreneur program. i loved all the great musical programs and dance programs and all the great things we have it usc that make us a special and

unique. i will tell you i love the student body here. i love the diversity of it. i love the meritocracy of it. i love the spirituality of it. moree that it usc we have catholics than that notre dame. which i think is a college in the midwest. is that right? jews here then brandeis. more hindus here and there's a lot of people like me who are grateful to god for this glorious day. i will tell you i was sitting out here not so long ago but life does go fast and i made an unusual decision. i was graduating on a friday just like you are here and monday i started work. i was ready to hit it. i was ready to get going. ready to make it happen.

inspiredivated, i was by my commencement speaker and i was ready to go. monday i started at the software company called oracle corporation. this little software company. i got up there and they were excited and they were inspired. worked and ast you heard i had some great success there. i was the youngest bp and i went on and created some great products create a decade went by after my graduation. life goes fast. .0 years went by people are always overestimating what you can do in a year and underestimate what happens in a decade. a decade went by and all of a sudden i felt a little bit weird

. i felt kind of unmotivated, an energized, not very excited. not very inspired. i was kind of in a bad mood. kind of grumpy. a little bit pissed off. boss. in and talked to my i am not feeling that great. i need to take some time off. he said go for it. good idea. very supportive. thirtysomething and i did what all lust thirtysomethings do. i went to india. and i tookto india with me one of my really good friends and we were touring india. he was born in new delhi but he had never been to india and i wanted to go to india. i was going to make good use of it. we had all these great cities from the north to the south to the east and the west. something amazing happened.

hut and up in a little and wee area of india were sitting in a little hut with a guru. saint.edible female all the saints in the south are female. we were confessing our lives and worries and concerns and our exide he's and fierce and talking about life and what we and we wanteded to change and we were on our quest. they're sitting there in that hut and it was kind of fun and amazing at the same time. , monks were flickering were chanting. to he was getting ready start this new venture capital company. he took out his business plan therearted reading it and

were going to be social networks and everything would get connected together. she sat there so patiently for an hour. it was great. i was inspired. she turned him and said this while you were working hard to change the world, i am sure that will all come to pass. do not forget to do something for others and he was kind of taken aback a little bit and i felt like she was talking to me. i found whatt like i was looking for. she said do not forget about other people.

well we are doing this hard work. while we are changing the world. do not forget about others who well takene less care of them we are here. we left create the next day was our time to go home and that night we were on a rice vote on arabian waters of the sea and were eating our vegetarian meal going down this incredible river talking about that. businessis incredible and technology life and we have these amazing degrees and we're putting it into action. on the at the life we have this rebirth desire to do something for others. our challenge is how we're going to put this together . how are we going to put this together and we really had no .dea

we went back to san francisco. i went back to my post at oracle and he went off to start his company. just as i arrived back a got a phone call. it was a facebook call to attend something called the american summit for the future. it was in philadelphia. it was incredible. i arrived in this huge conference room and it was being colin powell.eral was representing ronald reagan. the general came up and he came up on stage and stood at the podium and everyone in the audience were the ceo's and leaders of these major corporations. i looked around and i thought i

am in some incredible company. i recognize these faces. and general powell stood up and he said, ladies and gentlemen, i bringt you here today to you something important. milton friedman was wrong. thatess is not business your companies, your organizations are some of the richest, most powerful resources we have in our great countries. but we need to do and he went on is we need to tap into your employees and we need to tap into your product. and everything that is going on

in your organizations and you need to get out there and help our boys and girls clubs and ymcas and build safe places and do mentoring and tutoring for you to can integrate her corporations with the community that they exist in. you do not have walls around to hear that separate you from those that you are living next to. it was inspiring. he ended it and he said, just remember this area to get out there and do something for the people. said, wow, i have a second guru. hearing this and now i am in philadelphia hearing the same message and i said to myself, i

think i am getting at here. i am understanding what is coming through me. i tell you what. and i back to oracle talked to my boss and said we have to create the foundation and do everything that general powell said that he said you are right and we're going to do it. i found myself in the day, morning time putting computers in -- in schools and wearing them and training teachers and working with kids. in the afternoon i was building products and markets and ichnology and it was awesome. think this is what i want to do. i kind of have both things going on. this is exciting. then i got a call from general powell. mcfarlandjust adopted

middle school in washington, d.c. you need to go put those computers in there and i said yes sir, general. i will get it done. engineersy three top and 100 computers and we set them all out there and they were ready and it was a hot day out there when they arrived. hot like this. maybe hotter. about 110 degrees out. they had to bring those computers up three flights of stairs and we have called our local office to make sure there were employees there to help them. and then i, maryland got a call from jim. he said i got a problem. i said what is it? computers.got the i am here. the guys are here. the employees are not here. i do not know how we will get these up three flights of stairs and installed.

i was worried and dejected i said i had better call general powell and tell him this will not happen. i got on the phone and called and i said general, we got the computers there and we got our engineers but the last day in the quarter and our employees could not get there and we will have to reschedule. i was asking for his forgiveness and the phone hung up on me. i said hello, general? he was not there. it was over and i felt so bad. powell, onegeneral of the great americans. i sat there at my desk and i said maybe i got this all wrong. trying to do this and put it all together and here i am and i just upset general powell. and then the phone rang again and answered the phone and it was jim. he said mark, a battalion of marines just arrived here and

mcfarland middle school. they are installing the computers and we are fit to go. i said it is good to be a general. i learned something that day. what i learned is that if you're going to connect your business and your philanthropy you better make sure that it is integrated deep into your culture. it is not just something you will tack on. build an integrated business. you will get these things to work, people together. you can do it. when i started my company i decided to do three things. cloud computing. a radically new business model, subscription services for software. new philanthropy model. of equity and profit

and employee time into a 501(c)(3) public charity. we had no products or equity or people. today salesforce.com is doing great. we will do a billion dollars in revenue. we're heading into the fortune 500. the top 500 companies in the world. admiredthe most software company for 2014. we are forbes' most innovative company in the world for three years in a row and where the best face to work number seven this year in the world. place,re the best work number seven this year in the world. @salesforce.com is my e-mail

address. todayput that model in so i am proud to be able to tell you that we have given away more than 600,000 hours of community service this year. we have even away $50 million in grants and we run more than 20,000 not-for-profit and ngo's. and that was deep into our culture. firstalso tell you on the day of employment our new employees command and we show them where the desk is and where the kitchen is and they do something for someone else. they go out and learn that salesforce is a company that is about building great

technologies and being innovative and creating new markets and also giving back and doing it simultaneously. that integrated by for so important. because the real joy in life comes from giving. it comes from service. it comes from doing things for other people. that is what is so powerful about this. .othing will make you happier you will love to come back many years from now and always remember this great day and your great time here at usc. perhaps one of the very greatest of all the universities in the world. the most useful universities in the world. look around at these beautiful faces. and all this incredible joy.

one of the things that is most beautiful about usc is its commitment to service. they delivered 760 5000 hours of community service. that's what makes this community so great. -- 756,000 hours. [applause] today, wero then here drove through -- when we all drove through here today, we drove through some high fences and high fences and highgate. only a few blocks from here are some of the most impoverished people in the world. commitment to others is so important and everlasting. don't let those walls be a life.or for your own

get out there and do something for others. fight on, trojans! [applause] she became ceo of youtube earlier this year. she told the graduates the story of how google was started in her home garage in menlo park california. how youtube was invented. and how to face failure. this is 25 minutes. and how to face failure. [applause] good morning, johns hopkins.

it's a beautiful day. there is no rain. i've never checked the weather is much as i have this past week. you, president daniels, for inviting me here to share this special day with all of you. i'm honored to be here to share this with you. congratulations to the board of trustees, esteemed faculty, all the proud parents, supporting friends and family, but bigcially let's give a congratulations to the blue jay class of 2014. [applause] i've thought long and hard about

what i wanted to say to all of you here today. i thought about my own commencements beaker, lessons veryed, and after thinking deeply about it, i realized i remembered absolutely nothing from that speech. i'll remember this a success if you remember just one thing. here's the first thing you can remember. setting achievable goals is important. let's get started. it turns out most of you were born the same year as the internet as we know it. you probably cannot imagine a world without texting, e-mailing, blogging, googling, and watching youtube videos probably when you were supposed to be studying on d level.

yet none of those verbs existed when i was in my cap and down and now the world has over 2 million people doing those things every day. back then, only that things went viral like mono. [laughter] things you definitely did not want. now things like david after gangnam style, or the recent video of cats vicious dogs.from it proves that the world has changed since i graduated. the acceleration of technological process is unmatched. it will not slow down. it will only speed up. i want to share three stories from my life and how i think

they can help you in the new, fast moving world you are about to enter. i joined google during the height of the first dot coom m boom in the 1990's. at the time, i was newly married in we decided to buy a house which was a huge decision. we can barely afford the mortgage so we decided we would rent part of our house and the garage. a mutual friend, we rented our garage to two graduate students at stanford who were looking for office space. they seemed nice. [laughter] their ideas sounded kind of crazy. back then, no one had heard of there a page, sergei brin, or the new company with a funny name. larryone had heard of

page. google? what does that mean? it doesn't matter. as long as you build -- pay your rent on time, you can build your googly thing here. they would talk to me about how their technology could change the world. then they would go on equally excited about the fact that my house had a washer and dryer. [laughter] proclamations. we will organize the entire world wide web followed by -- which is recycling day? when i asked them how much experience they had to back this ambitious plan they would say, our combined ages almost 50. they were entering a competitive area. there were many well-funded search engines. famous at that time, although

you've probably never heard of them, altavista, lycos, excite. if you aregine searching for something online and you said you needed to altavista the answer? let's excite that? you should be thankful to them for the name alone. i was working at intel at the time and i think i can say this now. i thought they were crazy. then, one day something funny happened at work. i opened up my browser to look something up and it turned out that google was down. there was an error page. i could not get my work done because i realized no other search server could find the information. i have become dependent on google for doing my day-to-day work. then it hit me. google had become so

indispensable to me that maybe the vision was not so crazy. maybe there were people all over the world sitting in their computers upset right now because they could not yet with a needed2 done because the site developed2 by those two dudes in my garage was down. information matters to a lot of people. that information could instantly empower people across the globe. i decided i wanted to work for google which, at the time, was also crazy. with a mortgage to pay, student loans, i would have to leave a comfortable job at a fortune 500 company and work for the guys who lived in my garage and a handful of male employees and also did i mention that i was pregnant? thought i was the crazy one. looking back on this, i've learned that life does not always present you with the

perfect opportunity up the perfect time. opportunities come when you least expect them. rarely are opportunities presented to you in the perfect way and the nice little box with the yellow bow on top. open this. it's perfect. you will love it. opportunities, the good ones, they are messy, confusing, hard to recognize. they are risky. becauseappen so fast our world is changing so much. you have to make decisions without perfect information. believe that the status quo will be supplanted by something better, someone's crazy business idea will become real and important. believed that this technology will be big in the future.

this groundbreaking cancer research will save lives. john hopkins lacrosse cross will win the national championship. [applause] look. i know that the opportunity i've had with google may seem one-of-a-kind but think how much our world has changed since evolved grown up. think of the new technologies and discoveries just in your lifetime. out when youame were in high school and now you cannot live without them. you can share your video with clinics. in just a few take a picture. put a filter on it. to your music in the cloud. you could be doing this right now.

instead of saying not to do that, if you are, just say something nice about my talk. #jhu2014. .t is not just the web nanotechnology, health, medicine, all parts of society. you have opportunities that you cannot even imagine right now so here's the one and you can choose to remember. opportunities, the ones that make you believe in the future that will be the best ones. those the ones that can change your life and can change the world. to talk about youtube. do you guys use youtube? [applause] i want to talk about how i first discovered it and then almost lost it. it's a story about recognizing an opportunity but also about facing failure.

butow it's hard to believe, in 2004, there was no youtube. video on the internet was rare. we were trying to figure out the right strategy for google to be in the online video process. nothing was getting traction. wouldy, we decided we allow users to upload their video to google. we did not tell users what would happen to their video and we had no idea what users would send to us. it was an experiment in every sense. amazingly, people all over the lots andoaded lots and lots of videos and it just went into a database at google that no one could see. friday night, we got together and decided we would watch some of these videos and see what we should do with this new experiment. we opened it up and waited.

it was of a purple furry puppet dancing and singing in swedish. you know, just what we're are used to watching on tv. probably one of the first user-generated videos anyone had ever seen. honestly, i had no idea what the tank. my kids knew what to think. they cheered. play it again. i played that video a lot. the videos were unusual. i have not seen anything like it before. everyone wanted to see more of them. we started building out a platform called google video for theirto upload and see videos. every day we were getting more and more uploads to google video. we had our first hit and it was not from where you thought it would be from. it was two college students in their dorm room singing and

dancing to the backstreet boys with their roommate doing their homework in the background. in spite of this, it became the first video to reach one million views, which was a lot that then. to theve us an insight future of video. online video was a new medium and it could unleash the creativity of people all over and sparked curiosity of people who wanted to watch them. even though we knew it was early , it had the potential to be big. soon after we had our initial success, another site launched, youtube. and it started growing faster, a lot faster. sudden, we saw our newfound success slipping away. just after we thought we were winning, we found out we were losing. we were scared and confused.

very quickly, i had to make a tough call. do we pretend things are ok and try to fix them, continue to build google video and hopefully catch up? do we admit our failure may look to acquire youtube, a company with no revenue, lots of legal that was only one year old and pay $1.6 billion for it? just as we were making this decision as if it was not hard enough, an industry veteran published a well read article saying only a would buy youtube. [laughter] -- only a moron would buy youtube. you know how this ended. i guess you can call me a. i had to go and say google video was losing and we would have to spend over $1.5 billion to fix

the mistake. it was painful have a public. one of the hardest decisions i've had to make. people on my team quit and ruffle -- in revolt. acting fast, facing up to the problem, making a decision, buying youtube and investing heavily was also one of the best decisions that was ever made. today, youtube has over one billion users around the world and it has been used to develop and justinmacklemore bieber, although we will not dwell on that one for too long. [laughter] it has helped to build companies like go pro and has shined light on venezuela, egypt, and ukraine. they share songs like pharrell's

"happy" and videos like this one. ♪ do the harlem shake ♪ that's the shortened version. [applause] that was in the library. anyway, you guys are very talented. that was really good shaking. [laughter] youtube over a relatively short time has become the primary platform for people to entertain, dance, sing, laugh,

love, learn. if i had not owned up to my mistake and confronted failure fast, i would not be here today. maybe another possible thing for you guys to remember -- i'm trying to help you guys. when you fail, face your failure . face it head-on. admit it area to grow from it. right knows what the answer is and everyone will face failure. ideas that were once can't miss, miss. companies that were surefire went down in flames. it's what you do when that happens that determines who succeed to does not. it's part of the process. it's what makes us who we are. out at all of you, i'm

reminded of my own graduation. i remember there were an awful lot of question marks forming. graduating, leaving behind my friends, my college life in that it had to figure out what to do with my real life. i had no idea what i was going to do. i had no job lined up, no prospect. my big plan was to go home, live with my parents, share the family car with my little sister. of you, that might sound like a strange fear. hopkins is a unique place. some of you have known exactly what you wanted to do since you set foot on this campus. many of you have useful dreams, biomedical engineering. public health. economics. [laughter] applied math.

computer science. what else am i missing? ok, all those others. those, too. those are useful degrees. i had a degree in history and literature. ,hich is a great degree, too but they are some of the least practical majors and i combined them. it's not like i didn't have an idea about what to do after graduating. i thought about taking the foreign service exam, spending life as a diplomat. i even thought about medical school and how i could save sick people, but then i also thought about waiting tables, maybe opening a cupcake shop. in the meantime, life intervened. i became practical. i needed money after graduation

and my parents were not going to pay my way anymore. i stopped worrying about getting the right job and i focused on just getting a job. although it was quite difficult that the time, i need to thank my parents for forcing me out into the work force. my mom and dad are here today. thank you for making me get up, get out, and do something. [applause] that something turned out to be technology. with just a few courses of computer programming, i found work for a small educational startup in palo alto. technology was created. i could build wings for people all over the world. it was the start of a journey that has led need to incredible places.

it was never my plan. maybe one thing more to try to remember is plans are made to be broken. to need to be prepared explore a bit, make decisions on what you find, enjoy, discover. i never would have experienced any that or started my career in tech, joined google, led you to if i tried to stick to a specific plan that i had made when i was your age. the internet as we know it did not exist yet. we need to think about our plans being written in pencil, not pan. guarantee you will change course, go backwards, sideways. some of you will need to adjust the plans you currently have because they will turn out to be the wrong fit.

some of you will start a business. fall in loveill and move halfway across the world. some of you could open a cupcake shop. thank you, in advance, to those people. there's the old john lennon quote. life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. aroundsit there and look saying you still have a lot to figure out, i don't know exactly where i'm headed, just know that it's ok and your parents should hear that, too. it's ok. if your parents have concerns, they can talk to mine. they are right over there in the front row. my parents could probably write a book of their round about the three crazy daughters and the journeys we took along the way that encompassed a babysitting, investment banking, siberia, learning swahili, childhood obesity, and starting a personal genomics company.

so far, we've turned out ok. i'd like to take this opportunity to bank our parents and those who have supported us to get to this point so far in thank them in advance for their support as you fumble, frigid, and fail sometimes and figure out the right path for you. four were ever that path goes, i promise it could not happen without the people supporting filling the stadium who encourage and inspire you to get there. let's give them all a big thanks now. [applause] if you had told hopkins class when i graduated but the world would be transformed by the , that 2 billion people would be connected online, that you would find all the world's knowledge in your pocket, that

you could map full genomes for a few thousand dollars, developed technology like star trek come and no one would have believed you. actually, this is hopkins so there probably would have been a few who said, "duh. we knew that." future was us, the beyond our imagination as it is beyond yours. this generation that has grown up in a digital world, you understand the power of connection like no other class that came before you. you can make an impact far engineers,n the secretaries, and 22 nobel laureates who came before you on this campus. yes, you. all of you here wearing those robes.ats and black

you have opportunities that none of them could have imagined and now you have an education that will allow you to design and create the future for all of us. the world is spinning faster, but it's at your fingertips. you can spin it for yourself. soar.s blue jays, cancel remember this if you remember nothing else. you can be the crazy kid and some ladies arrived going on and on about how you will change the world and then you can go out and actually do it. so thank you, congratulations johns hopkins class of 2014. keep on thinking. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

about the team minutes. -- this is about 15 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, president turner. it is an honor for me to be here today. you look good, by the way. it is an honor because this is truly a joyous day. it's a day to celebrate. we must live in this moment, and we must be self-satisfied if even for a moment.

but if you're like me, you don't know how to celebrate. and if we're not celebrating today, we are not living in this moment. and if we can't live in this moment, we won't succeed when we are in the depths of self-doubt. so live in this moment, graduates. live in this moment, good parents. live in this moment deans, provost and president turner. today you can say you have done well. for tomorrow, you ride. you ride on a journey into your future.

this journey, like the season of life, is long - at least we all hope it is. it's not just for one moment, not one game, not one play but a series of great moments. we must know when it's time to kick yourself and when it's time to pat yourself. today is one of those back- pat moments. i understand your anxiety. you must be asking what your journey holds. i remember leaving boston after i graduated from college, driving west on i-90 to texas. for me, singer james taylor said it best in his song "sweet baby james," when he sang -- "now the first of december was covered with snow and so was the turnpike from stockbridge to boston though the berkshires seemed

dreamlike on account of that frosting with 10 miles behind me and 10,000 more to go." i'm still on my long journey and it's been a wonderful one. i hope yours is a journey filled with learning, leadership and love. we all must realize that we had a big head start on our journeys to get here. this is not a critical statement, because i had a head start as well. we all won the life lottery. it's like we went down to 7-eleven and won the powerball. to be healthy, with a full stomach, graduating from a school of smu's acclaim, on scholarship or not, in dallas, texas and in the united states of america. compared to the billions of people on the planet earth, you were dealt a great hand of cards. i know i was. [applause]

we seem to have found our way to homer's elysian fields, the fortunate isles of the blessed in the western ocean at the end of the earth. there is no moral judgment from this fact. good or bad. it's just that, a fact. it was our fate, and is a matter of pure luck, timing and genes. but this fact of nature does raise the important question you face. that of what you are going to do now with that good fortune? are you like the servant in the gospel of matthew who takes the talent given to him and buries it to make sure he doesn't lose it?

or are you going to put it to work, take personal risk and turn it into something that makes a difference in this world? it is your obligation to address this. now to answer that question, there are three other questions you should ask yourself -- how will you continue to learn throughout your journey? what type of leader will you become? what and who will you love? i know it feels like you've been learning your whole life, but to have a great journey you must continue to learn. never stop. search for the environments that teach you. work for people who expect the most of you and will reward you with gifts of wisdom. learning is what makes life exciting. in fact, that's why i decided to become mayor. i had no idea some 38 years ago that my journey would take me

through city hall in one of the top 10 cities in the u.s. at that stage in my life, i felt there was so much more to learn, and i haven't been disappointed. i've learned that the wealthiest individuals have as much insecurity as those without money. i've learned about the heartbreak of poverty in dallas, which is more widespread and deeper than i ever realized. i've learned how to speak frankly, and how to subjugate my ego for the good of our citizens. if you are going to continue to learn, above all, you have to read, read and read some more. read books that are in your field. [applause] read books that are in your field. read books that aren't in your field. read books that you don't understand.

and read books that are profound in their simplicity. i discovered one of those books recently when i participated in a sophisticated training session for future leaders in a dallas school. i got to read to kindergarteners the book "i like me," by nancy l. carlson. these books, that day, were printed for each student, with their name as the book's protagonist. one was printed for me. it showed me how one person can grab an idea and make it a reality and change lives. it also showed me the art of customization. each book was tailored for each student. they gave me one, too. the first page reads "i like me. i like my name, mayor mike. this book is written about me. i have made a great discovery. i am the only me here in this whole great big wide world." the importance of self-esteem for each of us, and these kids, is profound.

this book, "i like me," is not about politicians. it's about each of us. it continues with how i like to work with people, how i like hugs and not drugs, and how i like all these things. on page 11 was a big one for me, "i like to tell the truth." as a politician, that is a very scary challenge because the minute you tell the truth, one side of the room does not like you. politicians like to be liked, because, i like me. however you continue to learn, just learn. make it a life mantra to learn

until the day you die and your life will be ever so fulfilled. the next question you have to ask yourself, what type of leader are you going to become? the question is not whether you will lead or not, because i believe we are all leaders. simply put, a leader is a change agent, a person who impacts or changes the world. you have already done that. you have chosen to change your world by studying and graduating. you have decided to not let the absurd forces of nature and human mistakes send you into the shadows of disheartenment. but going forward you will have tough leadership decisions throughout your journey. this becomes an existential personal choice about you and the philosophical other. you and the world. are you going to change it, or is it going to take control of your life?

i love stories of great leadership. let's turn back to some 50 years ago, when the mayor of dallas j. erik jonsson took office three months following the assassination of president john f. kennedy. now that was not good luck. it was arguably the nadir of our city's history. mayor jonsson answered that question of leadership for himself and for dallas when he challenged the citizens to to "dream no small dreams." fifty years ago he made a choice for dallas that put us on a track towards greatness from which we all benefit today. his city plan, called the "goals for dallas," laid out a blueprint of the city we live in today. now dallas-fort worth is the fourth largest market in the

country behind new york, los angeles and chicago. we are the fastest growing, slated to be the third largest market by the 2020's. [applause] a huge catalyst to that growth was the dfw airport, the fourth busiest airport in the world. mayor jonsson dreamed of an airport, and he helped build one that is bigger than the island of manhattan. because of that, corporations relocated to dallas from all over the country and continue to do so today. it was recently announced that the north american headquarters of toyota was moving to plano. we have built the largest light rail system in the u.s. we got serious about higher education

as well. all this because mayor jonsson led the citizens of dallas to "dream no small dreams" and to believe we truly were a city of opportunity. a young, 22-year-old new kid in town - that was me - bought into this. his leadership choice to "dream no small dreams" changed my world, and it impacts yours today. you see great leadership all around you on this campus, it's been happening for 100 years. the cary m. maguire center for ethics and public responsibility has already made a difference at dallas city hall. today i see it in the impact that students, teachers and dean chard of the school of education are making in west dallas. i see it in the students that are coming out of the cox school of business. i see it in coach brown on the basketball court in this very building where we saw how a

basketball team and a university truly grew by great leadership. great leadership can be done quietly. like an anonymous courageous young man who berates his buddy for not treating women with the respect, dignity and the equality they deserve. [applause] i promised i would never make a speech without saying to young men, never hit a woman. [applause] never hit a woman. you can call a guy who hits a woman a lot of things, but you cannot call him a man. sorry, end of preaching, but i needed to say it. so when confronted with that old question that we all face: lead, follow or get out of the way, always chose leadership. the last question is more difficult to ask because it's a

question of emotion, not brains. who and what are you going to choose to love? it's a critical question because it is through passionate love that we take learning and leadership and focus it to make a difference in this world. you will have to make this choice yourself, but i hope you choose to love the we and not the me. i hope you choose to love the good in the world, not the gold in it. i hope you choose to love your family, the one that's here today and the one that to come in the future, and not fame. remember st. paul in i corinthians 13:1, "though i speak with the tongues of men

and angels, (and have graduated from smu) and have not love, i become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." those are the choices dear graduates. those are the questions you face. will you continue to learn? will you clothe yourself with the cloak of leadership and choose the right thing to love? those are hard questions to answer, and the answers don't come like a sudden flash on high, but more like a mirage in a desert seen from a distance. but through hard work the answers become tangible, within your grasp, then finally, the most real thing you've ever encountered. they become part of you. so may your 10,000 miles to go, of which james taylor sang, be filled with hills of hard challenges to make you tough and curves of challenging decisions to make it exciting. may the support of those that

love you be like the wind at your back. may you have the hunger of dissatisfaction mixed with hope. may your courage to do what is right be tempered with common sense so others will follow. and may you have the self-esteem to believe in yourself when no one else does and with the humility that you are a child of god trying to do his will. travel well my friends on your journey and never forget, have fun while you are doing it. thank you. [applause]

>> my son was in children's hospital. he had been diagnosed with heart defect and had to have this surgery. otherwise he would die. part of the waiting for the surgeon to come back from

overseas was being in the hospital realizing all these other families are there and you're in the trenches with them. this family, maggie's family, had been through nine surgeries in nine months. as daunting aws our situation was, we were wrolly feeling for them. and in the waiting room we walked past mag eas bed on the way to paul's passnet and the day of paul's surgery we came in and maggie's family wasn't there. she had passed away the night before. and it was really, really hard to imagine that that family had spent so much time waiting for her to get out of the hospital and she didn't make it. so we went in to surgery that day eight hour surgery his first open heart surgery of three, and as we're sitting in the cardiac intensive care unit watching through a clear plastic babbedage's my son's heart beating, which was a moment in and of itself, the

nurse comes over and says you have a phone call. and they brought me the phone. and it was maggy's mom checking on paul's surgery. the strength and the grace and the fortitude it took for a mother who had lost her child the night before to call and check on our child i think was a moment that we'll always remember.

>> what they found is that the misconduct has not been limited to a few v.a. facilities but many across the country. totally unacceptable. our veterans deserve the best. they've earned it. last week i said that if we found misconduct it would be punished and i meant it. secretary shinseki has now begun the process of firing many of the people responsible including senior leaders at the phoenix v.a. he has canceled any possible performance bonuses this year for v.a. executives and the v.a. to contact every veteran in phoenix waiting for appointments to get them the care that they need and they deserve. this morning i think some of you also heard rick take a

truly remarkable action in public remarks he took responsibility for the conduct of those facilities and apologized to his fellow veterans and to the american people. in a few minutes ago secretary shinseki offered me his own resignation. with considerable regret i accepted. his hinseki has served country with honor for nearly 50 years. he did two tours of combat in vietnam. he left a part of himself on the battlefield. he wrote to command the first cavelry division, served as army chief of staff, and has never been afraid to speak truth to power. as secretary of the v.a. he presided over record investments in our veterans. enrolling 2 million new veterans in health care, delivering disability pay to more vietnam veterans exposed to agent orange, making it

easier for veterans with post traumatic stress, melts issues and traumatic brain injury, improving care for our women veterans, at the same time he helped reduce veteran homelessness and helped more than 1 million veterans service members and their families pursue their education you should the post 911 give bill. to rick's commitment to our veterans is unquestioned. his service to our country is exemplarry. i am grateful for his service as are many veterans across the country. he has worked hard to investigate and identify the problems with access to care. but as he told me this morning, the v.a. needs new leadership to address them. he does not want to be a distraction, because his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care that they need.

that was rick's judgment on behalf of his fellow veterans. and i agree. we don't have time for distractions. we need to fix the problem. for now, the leader that will help move us forward is sloane gibson who will take on the reins as acting secretary. acting just three months agent his grandfather fought on the front lines of world war one, his father was a tail gun anywhere world war ii. sloane 2k3wr5d wutted from west point, earned his qualifications and served in the infantry and most recently he was president and ceo of the u.s.o. which does a remarkable job of supporting our men and women at war, warriors and wounded warriors. all told he has 20 years of rivate sector and --

experience. i'm grateful that he is willing to take on this task. i met with sloane after i met with rick this morning and made it clear that reforms should not wait. they need to proceed immediately. i've also asked rob neighbors to stay at the v.a. testimony prearg to -- temporarily. in the meantime we're going to look diligently for a new permanent v.a. secretary and we hope to confirm that successful and fill that post as soon as possible. we're going to do right by our veterans across the board. as long as it takes. we're not going to stop working to make sure that they get the care benefit and opportunities that they've earned and deserve. i said we wouldn't tolerate misconduct and we will not. i said that we have to do better and we will. there are too many veterans receiving care right now who deserve all of best efforts and an honest assessment if something is not working.

this week i visited some of our men and women in uniform. our newest army officers who graduated from west point, our troops currently serving in afghanistan, our veterans and our military families at arlington. what i saw is what i've seen in every single service member veteran and military spouse that i've had the privilege to meet. a selfless clear-eyed commitment to serving their country the best way that they know how. they're the best that our country has to offer. they do their duty. they expect us to do ours. so today i want every man and woman who served under our flag to know whether your tour has been over for decades or is just about to end, we will never stop working to do right by you and your families.

>> what changed in the last few days? >> which judgment? i think his belief that he would be a distraction from the task at hand. which is to make sure that what's broken gets fixed so that his fellow veterans are getting the service that is they need. i want to reiterate he is a very good man. i don't just mean he is an accomplished man. i don't just mean that he has been an outstanding soldier. he is a good person. who has done exemplarry work on our behalf. and under his leadership, we have seen more progress on more

fronts at the v.a. and a bigger investment in the v.a. than just about any other v.a. secretary. cut veterans homelessness by almost 24%, brought in folks who had been exposed to agent orange who had been waiting for decades to get the services and benefits that they had earned. making sure that post traumatic stress disorder traumatic brain injury was dealt with in a serious way making sure we had facility force our women vets who all too often weren't receiving the kind of specialized services that they needed. so he's been a champion of our veterans and where there's problems he has been ready and willing to get in there and fix them. so with the disability backlog that had shot up as a consequence of the admission of

the agent orange veterans as well as making it easier to apply for post traumatic stress disorder disability claims, when it spiked he went at it in a systematic way and we've now cut it by 50% over the course of the last year or so. he is not adverse to admitting where there is a problem and going after it. ut we occupy a -- not just a an environment that calls for management fixes. we've also got to deal with congress and you guys and i think rick's judgment that he could not carry out the next stages of reform without being a distraction himself. so my assessment was, unfortunately, that he was right. i regret that he has to resign

under these circumstances. but i also have confidence in sloane and i share rick shinseki's assessment that the number one priority is making sure that problems get fixed so that if there's a veteran out there who needs help that they're getting a schedule and they're able to come in and see a doctor and that if their facilities don't have enough doctors or do not have enough nurse ors do not have enough space, that that information immediately gets in the hands of decision makers all the way up to me and to congress so that we can get more resources in there to help folks. and that seems to be the biggest problem i think that's the thing that offended secretary shinseki the most during the course of this process. he described to me the fact that when he was in theater he might have to order an attack just based on a phone call from some 20-something-year-old corporal. and he had to trust that he was

getting good information and it was life or death. and i think he is deeply disappointed in the fact that bad news did not get to him. and that the structures weren't in place for him to identify this problem quickly and fix it. his priority now is to make sure that happens. and he felt like new leadership would be -- would serve our veterans best. and i agree with him. >> how much responsibility do you personally bear as this being an issue you campaigned on during your administration now that we're at this point? >> well, i will leave it up to the justice department to make determinations in terms of whether there's bn criminal wrong doing. in terms of responsibility as i've said before, this is my

administration. i always take responsibility for whatever happens and this is an area that i have a particular concern with. this predates my presidency. when i was in the senate i was on the veterans affairs committee. i heard first-hand veterans who were not getting the kinds of services and benefits that they had earned. and i pledged that if i had the privilege of serving as commander in cheach and president that we would fix it. the v.a. is a big organization that has had problems for a very long time in some cases management problems in some cases funding problems. so what we've tried to do is to systemically go after the problems that we were aware of and fix them. and where we have seen our veterans not being properly served whether it was too many homeless veterans or a disability claims process that was taking too long we would go at it and chip away at it and

fix it. when it came to funding we've increased funding for v.a. services in an unprecedented fashion because we understood that it's not enough just to give lip service to our veterans. but not being wling to put our money where our mouth is. so what i can say confidently is that this has been a priority. it's been a priority reflected in my budget. and that in terms of managing the v.a. where we have seen a problem, where we have been aware of a problem we have gone after it and fixed it and have been able to make significant progress. but what is absolutely clear is this one, this issue of scheduling is one that the reporting systems inside the v.h.a. did not surface to the level where rick was aware of it or we were able to see it. this was not something that we

were hearing when i was traveling around the country the particular issue of scheduling. and what we're going to have to do is see how do we make sure that we get information about systems that aren't working. i just was talking to rob neighbors and he described to me for example just in very specific detail how in some of these facilities you've got computer systems for scheduling that date back to the 90's. the situations in which one scheduler might have to look at four or five different screens to figure out where there's a slot and where there might be a doctor available. situations in which they're manually passing requests for an appointment over to somebody else who is then inputting them. so you have in many cases old systems broken down systems. this is stuff that is

imminently fixable but we've got to know about it. and the big concern that i've got and what i'm going to be interested in finding out is how is it that in a number of these facilities if in fact you have veterans who are waiting too long for an appointment that that information didn't surface sooner so that we could go ahead and fix it? one last point i want to make on this. when veterans have gotten access to the system the health care itself that they are receiving has gotten high marks from our veashes service organizations and the veterans themselves. so i think it is important to keep in mind that what the review indicates so far at least is that there have been great strides made in the actual care provided to veterans. the challenge is getting veterans into the door

particularly for their first appointment in some cases. and where they don't have a established relationship with the doctor and they're not in the system. part of that is going to be technology, part of that is management. but as rick shinseki himself indicated there is a need for a change in culture within the v.h.a. and perhaps the v.h.a. as a whole -- or the v.a. as a whole to make sure that that bad news gets surfaced quickly so that things can be fixed. and i know that was the attitude of secretary shinseki and that was what he communicated to folks under him. but they didn't excute. and that's a problem. >> last question. >> you said that it was the general's own judgment that made the decision for you here. if i remember secretary correctly secretary sebelius offered her resignation and you

declined to take it. is there scape goating taking place here? >> meaning? >> the dysfunction within the department seems to have been very deep and very widespread. so is lopping off the head of it really the best step to take going forward here? what i'm asking is is there a political reason for removing him other than going straight to the problem? >> well, the distractions that rick refers to in part are political. he needs to be -- at this stage what i want is somebody at the v.a. who is not spending time outside of solving problems for the veterans. i want somebody who is spending every minute of every day figuring out have we called every single veteran that's waiting? have they gotten a schedule? are we fixing the system? what kind of new technology do we need? have we made a realistic

assessment of how long the wait times are right now? and how are we going to bring those wait times down in certain facilities where if wait times are too long. if we need more money, how much more money do we need to ask from congress? and how am i going to make sure congress delivers on that additional funding? that's what i want somebody at the v.a. focused on, not how are they getting second guessed and speculation about their future and so forth and so on. and that was what rick agreed to as well. with respect to secretary sebelius at the time i thought it would be a distraction to replace somebody at hhs at a time when we were trying to fix that system and i wanted to just stay focused because i knew that if we bear down on it and we got folks enrolled that it would work.

in each instance my primary decision is based on how can i deliver service to the american people. and in this case, how can i deliver for our veterans. and because they are people of integrity i think in both the cases of secretary sebelius but certainly in the case here of rick shinseki they've got the same priority. their view is what is it that's going to best deliver on behalf of folks who, as rick said this morning, have been let down. >> i remember at the time you felt she had so much knowledge about what had gone wrong that you couldn't afford to lose that. does somebody in three months in leadership at the department have the capacity to attack the problem quickly now? >> well, we're going to need a new v.a. secretary. so sloane is acting. sloane i think would be the first to acknowledge that he is going to have a learning curve that he is going to deal with. but the nature of the problem

that has surfaced and is -- has been the cause of this attention is one that we can start tackling right away and transforming tely the system we can immediately make some progress. we're going to have some longer term issues that we're going to have to take care of. so my first step is everybody who is out there waiting, get them an appointment. if we need more doctors, let's figure out how we can insert some doctors in there to make sure they get the help they need. what i want to make sure of hen is that even if it's still patchwork how do we make sure that there's no slippage between somebody making a phone call and then getting an appointment scheduled? and let's have a realistic time for how soon they're going to get an appointment. those are things that don't require rocket science. it requires execution.

it requires discipline. it requires focus. those are thing that is sloane has. they are then gog to be -- going to be broader issues that we have to tackle. that will cost money, take time and have to be implementing. i think there are going to have to be some changes in the culture within the v.h.a. because as i said they're providing very good service medical treatment to our veterans when they get in the system. but they don't have apparently the state of the art operations that you would want to see for example in a major medical center or hospital. now, keep in mind those of us who are outside of the v.a. system and try to get an appointment with the doctor in the private sector and try to get an appointment for a schedule for hospital visit. there are probably some wait

times as well. so part of what we have to do is figure out what are realistic bench marks for the stms and my suspicion is that with not only all the veterans from iraq and afghanistan coming back but also the aging of our vietnam vets who may have more chronic illnesses may need more visits we may need to get more doctors. and we may need to get more nurses. and that's going to cost some money. which means that's going to have to be reflected in veteran affairs budget which i was consistently increased even during fiscally tight times there's been no area where i've put more priority than making sure that we're delivering the kind of budget that's necessary to make sure our veterans are being served. but it may still not be enough. and we're going to -- before we start spending more money, our first job is let's take care of some basic management issues

that i think can be fixed. all right? thank you. >> house speaker john boehner also issued a statement on the resignation of eric shinseki. he says the resignation does not absolve the president and he should outline his vision for solving the problems. during a brief question and answer session speaker boehner also took questions about the house benghazi investigation. general shin sicki has dedicated his life to our country and we thank him for his service. his resignation does not absolve the president to make

things right for our veterans. business as usual cannot continue. as a first step, the senate should immediately take up the house-passed v.a. management accountability act. and until the president outlines a vision and an effective plan for addressing the broad dysfunction at the v.a., today's announcement really changes nothing. one personnel change cannot be used as an excuse to paper over a systemic problem. our veterans deserve better. we will hold the president accountable until he makes things right. >> the president referred to congress and the media as being part of the political distraction that he felt forced to hand of the secretary to offer his resignation. do you think politics was a factor in this decision? >> i think there's broad bipartisan concern about what's happening at the v.a. and the

treatment that is being denied to our veterans. these people put their lives on the line for our country and they deserve better much better than they're getting today. >> in her new book hillary clinton writes this about republicans and benghazi. those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country. is she right? are republicans politicizing the benghazi attack? >> this was about one issue and one issue and that is getting the truth for the american people and the truth about what happened in benghazi for the four families who lost their loved ones there. that's why we created a select committee. it's about getting to the truth. we have to remember we've been asking for documents now for 18 months why does the administration refuse to turn over the documents? why do they refuse to tell the american people the truth about what happened? >> other than urging the senate

to pass your bill, what specific steps do you want the president to take on the v.a. that he hasn't taken already? >> i think the president could order the v.a. to cooperate with the congressional investigation that's under way, passing the v.a. management accountability act in the senate will be another step. and in addition to that, the president needs to outline his vision for how do we get to the bottom of the problems at the v.a. and how do we make sure that those veterans who are waiting for care get access to care sooner rather than later? the waiting times at the v.a. continue as they are, we've got to find a way to get veterans the care they need now. >> comment on the president's -- [inaudible] are there still questions about hillary clinton's response to the attack in benghazi and do you think this book could answer any of those questions? and also do you think that hillary clinton should appear before the select committee to

answer questions? >> i will let the select committee deal with who they're going to call as witnesses. but it's clear to me and it has been clear that the american people have not been told the truth about benghazi and we're ommitted to getting. >> next, live your calls and comments on "washington journal." then an f.c.c. discussion on open internet policy. after that president obama opens the white house science fair. >> the soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems we saw at

the end begin. to control all institutions and economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is when you do that, when you try to control everything then you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one artist says no i want to paint another way, you have just made him into a political disdent. somebody who might have otherwise been apolitical. if you tell boy scout troops that they're not allowed, now they have to be young pioneers which is what happened in a number of countries and a young -- one group decides they don't like that so form a secret underground boy scout group which absolutely happens, underground scouts were very important in pole nt all throughout the communist period, you have created another group of political opponents. >> read more of our conversation with ane apple balm and other featured

nterviews. >> this morning on "washington journal," politico pro reporter the hris carol discuss resignation of eric shinseki. then derek willis is on track to produce the least number of proposals. since the clinton administration. we'll take your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. shinseki offered me his resignation.

host: that was president obama at the white house yesterday after emerging from an oval office meeting with his department of veterans affairs secretary. eric shinseki's resignation came after lawmakers from both parties called for his departure. on saturday, may 31 20 14 we are opening up our phone lines to our washington journal viewers to hear your thoughts on eric shinseki's resignation, what it means for the agency, and how it impacts