and simply make the assumptions for al qaeda, this is what you would get. in fact, you would have only two or three groups that are which of those is true or false it depends on whether people have come forward in the last few weeks, months, and have specifically stated i am with al qaeda and i reject isis, and or i reject isis. i would look for that. >> on the top of it, when trying to put up an estimate, it is an imperfect model, and i do not like the charts that i see from dod that go al qaeda group 1, 2, we do that because powerpoint makes us do that. we get into that we are trying to make top-down charts, with

stars and bubbles. through, i wasng just interviewing a lot of different people. 14 or 15 people that i will talk to and say what do you think about this scenario. i do not like anything that is less than a probability of what things might be. that is why you saw me put up three scenarios. i do estimates based on circle size. lly troublesome one, a confederation in syria. how do you assess them? i do an estimate for the overlaps of how i think they might communicate. i came up with those estimates in terms of not official statements, because i do not care about the official statements, i care about what those supporters are talking about in the online community,

who i am reaching out to in terms of experts. i will ask them their opinions because i cannot stay on top of these different groups. official statements will stay with the old-card al qaeda, but i look for pushes and pulls in between. al assessment on ou sharia, based on the foreign fighter numbers. if you read the biggest section, part three, it should be updated .lready this is one that mary picked out and there are six of these in their. scenarios.fferent i do not know what the breakdown is. i am trying to give you an estimate of how things might emerge. the main issue you will see in the second chart which is the foreign fighter numbers to iraq that come out. libya, yemen, saudi

arabia. that is rid of fault lines are, they mayer those two, go with al qaeda, or maybe isis, or on their own. that is really estimate comes from. >> i think you can talk about those ad nausea him, but i would open up questions to the audience to give them a chance. microphones,d with please state your name, affiliation, and please ask a question. do not take another statement, please. this man right in front, please. thank you very much for the discussion. international.io i have a question that perhaps realityi am a -- maybe -- but it seems when you have these parallel i'm not necessarily working together hierarchies it is scarier than

having want to deal with. another question, what is going on in eastern europe, is that going to change the equation with what is going on in the world with the terrorist groups? will that be another opportunity for them to open a new front? so, let's go back. let's talk about eastern europe, because we did not get to the counterterrorism discussion. a wonderful opportunity for us to do a little art of war in the information space. the real foreign enemy for al iran.is russia and they are sticking it to us in the information space now. why don't we give a little love back to them? what if instead of just trying to directly counter old-guard al qaeda, which is not paying attention to us, they are fighting insurgencies around the world, why don't we shift that, ok, guys, iran is really the one supporting the assad regime in

syria. they are the ones behind keeping the assad regime in play. there is a lot of opportunities in that information space. syria now,player in interesting that you can definitely see a legion of dies from augustus -- a legion of fighting the caucasus in syria. it would not be a future battle against the russians, whatever gets tangled up in the caucasus region. what was your first question? >> you have these hierarchies that are [indiscernible] totally agree. in the fourth part of this, i mostd about the two dangerous scenarios. i am a big fan of the competition model. to jihadi groups want compete with each other, that

works great until they start pursuing external attacks in europe and the u.s. against each other trying to one up. what keeps that going is constant resources. to dry that up and part of my counterterrorism part, part five, the number one thing we have to focus on in the counterterrorism strategy is quashing terrorist financers in syria right now or shipping what that is. if isis can sustain resources continues to sustain resource, they will mobilize them in a way where they will pursue external operations against the u.s. agree.utely the one thing i see about this ist dangerous scenario out-of-control file its tends to erode popular support. that is what you see with isis now. they're going into bumbling plots a little bit and rushing it, trying to hurry up and do this. and theyetting caught,

will hit targets where it alienates the population. i think it is a concern, that the europeans should be more worried than us. we have a lot to worry about, foreign fighters coming back, but it is a testament to the counterterrorism of their community, that the europeans have a big problem. and 10% ofetween 3% foreign fighters you would expect go back him and participate in violence. we have 10,000 fighters there right now, 5000 of them survived the battle field. we are looking at a significant number. depending -- i think you are right. >> i found myself nodding my head, and it depends on where does.mpetition looks i get between fighting each other and attempting to do things elsewhere.

to be at least incapable of carrying out major attacks inside syria much. you hear a lot about attacks carried out by them in iraq, but hardly anything against the regime by isis. when it comes to the competition there, it looks at least and looking at it from the outside that-- is winning competition. when it comes to the split, more of this violence depending whether are they splitting or not, it affects the response to it. you will get a ton of violence anyway. >> back to you. >> how to these foreign fighters get to in and out of syria question mar? also the matériel? how are they transiting turkey

so easily? could you discuss that? >> [indiscernible] basically it. they literally go buy plane tickets and make their way down to the border. they can link up some connections. there are different groups. you can be a foreign fighter from the middle east and you are more likely to have your own logistical person or one of libya, they can pipeline you into a certain group. the other way is you make your way into turkey. ng some people on social media and say how do i get my weight down there? -- my way down there. it is remarkably unsexy. the way we think about in our minds a lot of times is the worn identity kind of movies -- the "

identity" type movies. yeah, i would say there is a difference between -- and isis. they are smarter about it, whereas issa will take anybody that shows up like a volunteer. >> why aren't the turkish authorities picking these guys up? withrkey is overwhelmed foreign fighters into syria. we have had u.s. officials talk about the fact that it has been the most we have ever seen. gentleman right here. i am an undergrad at the university of southern california, and me and my colleagues are in a class with a professor now studying nuclear

nonproliferation. that being the subject of our class, i would like to ask our experts, with this divide between the two major attempts of jihadist terrorists these days, what prospects of nuclear terrorism against the united states, what should be looking for? it seems we should be have two competing groups of jihadists there would be less of a nuclear threat directed towards us, and more of a reason to look toward nuclear terrorism in the middle east itself. i would just like to know what you guys think about that. threatll ask what the from chemical weapons would be, especially in syria. >> that is everybody's nightmare, nuclear terrorist attack. i do not have any basis for making that sort of assessment. i am sorry about that. something we all worry about. way oft have any

assessing it paid when it comes to chemical weapons, we do, because it was al qaeda in iraq, they used chemical weapons, chlorine bombs, not against the americans, but against ordinary muslims. and scores of people were seriously injured, probably for life, and a few people were actually killed in those attacks. that to me to just that isis, the current incarnation, would be far more likely to use theical weapons than any of other groups engaged. i'm very worried about that coming from isis, actually. >> yeah, i think isis would do it. the only thing that placed our favorite in the really bad scenario is the best people for executing those sorts of things are probably in yemen. seems to be the group that can do those external operations and plan things out, do it smartly. they made underwear bombs.

likeseem to have it down, they can think through and plot out. the only thing that is to our advantage that the stockpiles are in syria, and the best planners are in yemen, but if those things collide they could put something together like that. the range is limited. if they are going to hit a u.s. target, it has to be in the region to do it. the one thing that is competing to get it was so much is they are in a hurry, especially in isis. >> the gentleman in the middle of the room. >> i'm an intel analyst. inre shall be no compulsion religion, and yet you will never hear those words coming out of american foreign service officer. i want to hear about counterterrorism strategy. why are we engaging on our turf instead of our -- why are we not -- instead of or in addition to foreign ministries?

why isn't there a group of scholars at the state department sifting to the koran to come out with appropriate ammunition that can turn down the fields of harvest from where these fighters are coming? that is obviously a very touchy subject and one that u.s. officials have been very reluctant to engage on. -- soould be sort of like this is what the analogy i haven't had for what is going on asbin laden saw himself somebody who is going to renew the religion. saw himself as a revivalist, and other words, of the religion. in addition to being a great leader of jihad. was that he,n alone, amongst all humanity, understood the true version of islam and he was going to impose that version of it is some on

people whether they wanted it or not, and we have seen what that looks like in places like iraq and in and bar province, or northern mali. in any case, his vision of going and to the original islam, he was making this up as he went along, in some ways reminds one of the reformation in europe. if bin laden israel like -- and if there are lutherans in the --m, do not take this amiss if he is luther or calvin, what role do we play? we could be the ottoman empire. that is who we are. we are the people who have had a conflictual relationship with this part of the world, and people who are not trusted and have looked little bit ask ants, and -- askance, and we are making an argument to the pope that we can solve their luther problem. it does not compete.

there is so little space for us to be doing that as outsiders coming in. to me about the biggest thing we can do -- and i hope we have been doing -- is encouraging ordinary muslims in the muslim majority world to stand up to these guys and to state what they think and feel. here's the thing -- it has been happening. it is just never repeated intermediate. our media ignores all sorts of -- let me give you a great example. benghazi attack, a huge deal. does everybody know that immediately afterward there was 100,000 person march to the state of benghazi condemning it by the ordinary people of benghazi? by and large that was off the radar as far as our media goes. hardly anybody talk about it even. i think that that is one of our biggest problems. the only thing we can control is hopefully getting our media to pay more attention to these sorts of things out in the muslim-majority world rather than focusing on the negative

side and on the people who are carrying out terrible attacks. >> i agree with what mary said. we are just terrible at it. on the ideological step, we try to get involved with it, but i have never seen it over well. we cannot coordinate. we are a pluralistic society. we do not understand it. inare reading it from afar translation. we do not have credible voices. i think there has been some success in using other ideological authorities to counter from that region, helping them embracing them, but for us to do it i do not think we do it very well. >> this has to be the last question. university of southern california. you mentioned that since bin laden was killed the fragmentation of the jihadist world has been isolated and that you mentioned we cannot tell which scenario is going to play out when. my question is, because the

fragmentation has escalated, how do we respond, and is that response going to be less and less viable as that fragmentation escalates? >> watch everything, listen to what they say, and act very rarely, but whatever you choose to do, be very decisive about it. in 2006, we used to run what was that national limitation model for counterterrorism, and we did hundreds of tasks very poorly and lightly across an enormous bureaucracy. it was a disaster. i remember going to meetings and it would be like a department of education, everybody wanted to qaedaomething with an al dude. that is how convoluted our strategy was. we were trying to do everything and solve all the world's problems. in my opinion, with the decentralization, we need to do one thing which is five-part for

intelligence capabilities, because mr. snowden was failed to prove that there has been this gross negligence in surveillance in america, and has also coughed up to all the nationstates, including russia, and these al qaeda groups have picked out how dominant we were in the intelligence space. if we are going to figure out which way it is going to go, we better have our intelligence capabilities at a peak right now to know what is going on overseas. editing is be very nimble in terms of what we pick and be prepared for the repercussions of each. i will give you one key decisive point. let's say we are doing drugs and we do decapitation and we get someone who is the most important person in old guard out had a. -- al qaeda. what is the chain of events that would enfold from that?

we could also look externally and cfx in a lot of different churches because there are a lot of young folks going off on their own. to do that we got to have capabilities. we need to plan for the most dangerous scenarios. i hope the administration is doing that right now. what are we going to do if they hit israel? what are we going to do if we get this scenario where the groups are lashing out in a lot of different directions? not overreact and overextend. tests, do, pick a few them a, see what shakes out, and assess. the one thing i like is that distribution matrix discussion that came out and people thought that was the drone targeting. that was the smart folks in the counterterrorism community. forget all the politics. i do not care about that. i work too hard to be a politician. on the counterterrorism side i think there are some really smart folks in the government, intel agencies, fbi, that had been doing it and they have

figured out what's come up with a disposition matrix and how do we mitigate this risk. i think we got to support that instead of constantly tearing that down. and enabling those people with good intelligence coverage will be critical. >> anyone want to respond to the question? so first of all i actually think it is far more ambiguous whether there is this splintering going on or not, as andcan tell from my side, it is unclear which side is going to win out. what you can see is the vibrance has spiraled out of control. morehat violence needds than we have been doing. i would say first and foremost we need to stop the the escalation of what is going on in our fight. this is a 26-year struggle with al qaeda that we are

de-escalating what we're doing. since 2011, and i did not think it is any question that the violence has part of control de-escalatede have what we're doing. we withdrew from iraq. we are withdrawing from afghanistan. we are cutting a lot of capabilities. we are doing all sorts of things to draw this fight down and try to pretend it is still 1995. i do not think we can pretend it is nice 95. be 1995oing to ever again. the second think that we should be doing is we should be paying attention to this and not ignoring what is happening in the rest of the world. --have been very focused on i'm not saying we should ignore our own security and pretend we do not have a fight against us, but we cannot pretend that there is violence out here that has no meaning. even if you want to say these have nothing to do with al qaeda, the fact that you have gone from this to this says we have to be doing more that we

cannot simply withdraw into our own country and pretend all is well with the world. the final thing is we cannot depend solely on attrition. attrition works for small terrorist groups. you kill off the small groups, they do not replace themselves, problem solved, right? it does not work at all for insurgencies. it can exacerbate. it can be used as a point of recruitment for them. so attrition alone is not the solution, and we really need to find another solution. it is one of the things that aei and i are working on and have been working on for quite a while. we are hoping to find an answer to that. >> concluding thoughts? >> concluding thoughts? we got eager fish to fry than terrorism or not, to be honest. we have russia, iran, and the climate change, something i'm concerned about. if climate change is real, i do not know if it is or not, this is all really kind of silly, in

the big picture. we're talking about collapse in 20, 30 years, things like that. the second thing i would tell you is stop listening to al qaeda experts. there are too many things going on that you really got to find people who are experts in regions, and i rely on them. i do. all these great folks that are out there, doing great jobs, i talk to all of them, and i cannot stay on top of all of this. if you want understand boko h aram, you better have language skills. hide abusesanish, that. i cannot stay on top of any of this. you better have people who have been on the ground in those countries and learn things i understand the cultural dynamics. three, you got to work them together in interdisciplinary teams. there have been fantastic stuff in like mathematical modeling of attacks. you got to have that. you has that? we got to trust in our

government. they haven't. they are not all great, but other than they were 12 years ago, which brings me to we are talking about de-escalation. never once and i see parallel grades in two places in africa on the same day. somali, libby, we did two raids on the same day. we withdrew with no casualties. fire it up. we cannot do this 12 years ago. we were on our heels in counterterrorism. that is a testimony to the people out there working. i'm not about de-escalation. i about being surgical and nimble and not overreaching. if you really want to bring all these hottie groups together -- these jihad he groups together, do a foreign intervention. it goes to your point about being able to focus, and think through what you're doing, but let's not be silly and think we are not going to have another attack from one of these groups. it is going to happen.

to mitigater best it and empower the people we have brought on in the past 12 years. to think we do a raid in somalia and libya at the same time, it took a half hour. did anybody watch the video of nabbing the guy in libya? we built some great capability. let's keep empowering them to not tear them down with our politics and debates here in the states. >> thank you, both. please join me in thanking our panelists today. [applause] they will be sticking around afterwards, if you want to ask questions. we will be following up on e-mail. thank you, again. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> hiring continued for the fourth straight month in may, with employers adding 217,000 jobs. down from the hiring levels of april. the labor department reports that job gains have now averaged 234,000 over the past two months, and despite the gains the unemployment rate remained at 6.3%. reaction, harry reid said today's job numbers reflect the 51st rate month of private-sector job growth. with businesses now adding over a million jobs so far this year, these numbers suggest that we are on the road to recovery. but he adds that more needs to be done to strengthen the economy. house speaker boehner says some in washington may pretend this cause for celebration, but the fact of the matter is our economy can and should be doing a lot better, and we have a long way to go

before getting beyond this new normal of slow growth. obama is in normandy, france, today, to honor you as shoulders killed they are 70 years ago in the d-day invasion. nearly 10,000 americans are buried there. french president hollande told a handful of surviving veterans in attendance take you for having been here in the summer of 1944. earlier in the paid tribute to u.s. soldiers area at the normandy american cemetery, saying long live the memory of those who fell here for our liberty. you say today reports president obama said the story of the day should be seared into the memory of history. here's a portion of what he had to say. >> what more powerful menace the station of america's amendment to human freedom than the site after wave ofwave young men sporting those votes to liberate people they have never met.

if it could not be any other way. in the annals of history, the world had never seen anything .ike it and when the war was won, we claimed no support bills of victory. we helped europe rebuild. we claimed no land other than the earth where we buried those who gave their lives under our flag, and where we stationed those who still serve under it. but america's claim -- our commitment -- to liberty, our claim to equality, our claim to freedom and to the inherent dignity of every human being -- that claim is written in the blood on these beaches, and it will endure for eternity. >> congress sent a delegation to

represent the best at the 70th anniversary of the d-day invasion. duckworth is a war veteran. you can see in her small tweet picture on the screen, saying thank you to our d-day here oes. bob casey tweets this was the first site i saw at the cemetery here in normandy. sergeant gray of pennsylvania. ehan says the memory does not go away. a local vet remembers what the date was like for him as a 21-year-old soldier. tonight we will have the 70th anniversary of the event in france with obama and other world leaders, including the president's speech as well as the keynote address by the french president, 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> russia and the united states

is a nation which believes in even though our missions are similar, we believe in freedom, we believe in distributing our core values, which suddenly disappeared in the 1990's and 2000's. at our core, it was still there. -- for russia during all these years was the victory did. that was aramaean national holiday. that is what united the full nation, the fight against fascism. how it was presented to the nation by president putin is that in ukraine those are weapons of fascists who came to he was treated with

flags of former ukrainian liberation army who were alive during world war ii, and so he used that to prove that these are fascists who are fighting against both russian and ukrainian nations. so it is the interpretation that we are looking just to protect russians or russian-speaking minorities. no. for the overwhelming majority of russians, we are continuing world war ii, and we are liberating, really liberating, ukraine from the fascist threat. >> a look into the politics of putin's russia. richer'srage of the row lit fest.rs

john podesta now on issues facing the obama administration. the epa recently announced power , the emissions rule dahl, and hillary clinton. mr. podesta served as white house chief of staff from 1998 until 2001. his comments are an hour. is john podesta, his fourth visit of the group. the last was in 2009 when he was president and chief executive officer for the center for american progress. chicago, urges bachelors degree from knox , and an alumni from

georgetown. he spent his early career on capitol hill. with ted kennedy and later chief counselor of the senate agriculture committee. in 1988 he founded the well-known government relations brother tony. he served president clinton as to be the chief of staff and then as white house chief of staff until 2001. he was cochairman of obama's transition team in 2008. he is the proud father of air force captain gabe podesta. so much for prior review. now to the process portion of our program. a gas alliance is breakfast.today's our thanks to them, for sitting

at the table back there keeping me from the pain of premature retirement. sponsors or not, we are on the record here. no live blogging and no filing of any kind while the breakfasts is underway to give us time to listen to what the guest says. as regular attendees know the monitor breakfast is one of the last bastions of fusty folkways. do the traditional things and send me a subtle nonthreatening signal, and i will happily call with the time we have available. we will move to questions around the table. i would like to thank them again for doing this. >> good to be here. i want to start and talk for two minutes. lots has been going on in washington this week, what one of the things i have been focused on is the rollout of the proposal to reduce carbon pollution from power plants

across the united states, which gina mccarthy announced on monday. i raise that because one of my principal duties now at the white house is to coordinate our activity on climate change and energy, and put this in a little bit of context. accounting fore about 40% of the co2 pollution in the u.s., 1/3 of the overall greenhouse gas emissions. it is the largest source of emissions in the united states. it is important to reduce the level of pollution. the president began to discuss this proposal when he went to children's hospital to take his weekly address a week ago today, which aired last saturday. the reason he did that is because there are huge public health benefits that will attend and come from this rule. more than 130,000 asthma attacks

amongst children avoided, 2800 heart attacks avoided, 2700 to 6600 premature deaths, visits to the hospital afford it, lost workdays. the day we will release a report that links the effects of climate change to public health. many of the benefits that i just discussed come from that coal benefit from reducing traditional pollutants, so2, pm2.5 emissions. climate change itself will increasingly the a problem for our public health, and the -- be we will releasing releasing goes to the national climate assessment as well as

ipcc report to show how the effects of climate change will have effect on ground-level ozone, which is predicted to raise for example the emergency room visits in suffolk county by 10% over the next decade. days,are more frost-free which means there are more plant-based allergens in the upper midwest, which will lead to more lost workdays. carbon pollution enhances the urban heat effects, sent it again hurts -- it has a particular effect on the elderly who are living in an far and where theyvironments can be affected by it in stronger way some and the distribution of diseases from west nile virus or lyme disease are being affected in the united states. particularly, dealing with this

rule, reducing carbon pollution, will have the effect on asthma. is is the third leading cause of hospitalization for children. african-americans are twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma than whites. more likely to die for latino children. in 2004 u.s. spent $5 billion on asthma-related illnesses. we tend to get the job done but we have created a flexible rule that can be implemented, but it will have enormous health benefits. i wanted to start with that because it has been what i have been up to this week. i would note that the jobs report came out this morning. we have a role in the white house we do not talk about until 9:30, so i will watch the clock here and if anybody wants to ask me about that, when the witching hour hits, i will be happy to

talk about it. we will start with kate and then david. russ coverage of the power can't -- plant role listed for hurdles that could stand in the way of getting it implemented. a court challenge, action by coal-dependent states, action by congress under the congressional review act, or action by the next president, since the states have until 2018 to file plans. youh of those risks do consider the greatest, and what are you doing to counter it? gettinge committed to this done. that is why we released it now. we have a year to finalize the rule. we are taking comments for on hundred 20 days. -- 120 days. we have requested to comment. to be extended -- the comment

period to extended. into myhen i came opposite my -- my position in january chemical to do was make sure that that direction to epa that the president gave last summer as part of the overall tomate action plan was propose this rule by june 1. when i said that i do not realize that june 1 was a sunday. we managed to get it in on june 2, and we are committed to finishing the role by next june. it gives the states one year to create plants that will then be reviewed by epa. you know, dave, that some states can move that back, particularly if they get together in regional arrangements which is the most statesfective way that

might come together to get the reductions that will be required once the rule is finalized. and if they choose to go that route, as the northeast states have done, or is california has a moreo go to market-based system and get together to find the most cost-effective reductions, then they will have until 2018 to finalize those plants. i am confident we will get oluur job done. i am confident we will resist any -- i have no doubt that there will be an attempt to try to overturn this to the congressional review act, but i am certain we have the votes to once it is rule whapon finalized. there is a long history of litigation starting in 2007 that

recognizes that co2 is a dangerous pollutant and that epa has the authority to regulate it. there's no doubt going to be legal challenges to this, legal challenges to almost a think the epa does. but they have had a stunning string of success just this spring in terms of upholding their authority to tackle these major causes of pollution and major causes of illness in our country. >> last one, about the politics of this. the president has been quoted to say i do not care to be president without the seventh, but it was written in "the post," in a contest between presidential legacy and senate control, obama has chosen legacy. he is coupled hitting message of some democratic senate candidates and exposing them to political risk he refused to

take himself." i wonder if anything is wrong with that analysis? >> as some of you may remember service ofprevious the white house, where i banned the word "legacy," what the president is thinking about is he has an obligation to the american people, children, grandchildren, people who are making decisions today to build a cleaner, brighter future them, to build a strong economy based on a clean-energy future, to tackle the problem of climate change. we are seeing the costs of that droughtsrom increased and heat waves to storm surges, sea level rise across the country. we are seeing the effects of climate change. we are seeing in the public

health, as i mentioned earlier. the president's obligation is to thehat he needs to do under legal authorities that he has ,een granted by congress through the clean air act, to ensure that we tackle this most important, really almost existential, problem. and i think if you think about it from a political perspective, a poll came out this week that shows there is a broad support for aching action to reduce carbon pollution. roughly 70% cross the country. in red states and blue states, amongst republicans, strongdents, democrats, support for taking action to reduce carbon pollution. there's no doubt some states where this is an issue that presents a different sort of political challenge,

particularly coal-producing states. they will try to attack it and try to knock down that rating, and they will try to put it squarely in the context of the political campaigns that are ongoing in 2014. but i think anyone who wants to go out and talk about the benefits from this rule, do what the president did, visit children's hospital in their home state. i think they will find that the politics is such that you can defend taking action here and the public will support that. i think we think that people who deny the existence of climate change, who want to try to run, suggesting they really are not scientists and they do not really get it, and cannot see what is going on around them, and they want to deny the public health effects that the

pollution is having on our families and children in the country, i think that is the losing side of the argument. i am certain that if you think the cycle coming forward, anybody who tries to be in 2016 willier have a hard time running on that nationally. but people need to put together the resources to fight back against advertising campaign from koch brothers and others, i think that is politics that people have to decide on their own and a state-by-state or district-by-digit basis. >> [indiscernible] i think it is a hard choice. [laughter]

but i think i have no doubt that the narrative she tells in the book from her experience of secretary of state mobley and honest one and she will lay the she saw them. i am anxious to read it. i have read some of the excerpts of the book, and i saw a little bit, a couple of passages of it earlier. like most of you, i'm still catching up with the excerpts that are now being printed. be interestingll for the public to see what it is like to have to take on those tough problems that she took on quite successfully, and i think as secretary of state, and i think the public is awaiting being able to line up at the bookstore in manhattan, i guess,

tuesday, and get copies of the book. what is a complicated epa rule -- >> [indiscernible] one thing that you mentioned earlier was about how some states have until as late as the 18 to finalize how they're going to do this. as you know that was used to the next administration. you run the risk of possibly ceding too much ground to that next what house, especially if a republican is there? thinkl, you know, i again that the country needs to tackle this problem. i think with the deadline of 2018, it exists for states that want to join together to try to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective way possible. i think states that choose that will make a commitment to

do that and carry forward with making those reductions. the rule will have been finalized. so the need for states to reduce their emissions will have been finalized by the end of the obama administration. be under legal obligation to try to take those reductions down. i think states that decide whether they want to join with california, and i know there are some discussions on the west washington andly oregon, but other states, 32rhaps, combining with ab system that california has implemented or other standards wanted to join reggie, junior jersey, depending on what the election in pennsylvania, you might see that happening. there are other states that might decide that path forward. but i think once you made that

decision, then i think there will be a legal obligation to move forward with it. there will be a political commitment to move forward with it. i think this will be implemented. president bush try to overturn a number of rules that president clinton issued at the end of his term. i believe none were successful. arena, the environmental a few that president bush finally, when they did go into effect, took credit for, if my memory serves me correctly. anduding the diesel rule others, but he tried to reverse others, and they were -- the them under thed laws that were prevailing at the time. itple could try to roll

back. i'm fairly confident. i am fairly confident we will have a president who embraces the cause of tackling climate change and reducing emissions. i think if you think about a challenge in the 2016 context and the politics of this in the a16 politics, if you are climate denier trying to run nationally, you will have a hard road to hoe getting elected in the united states. plan, themate action rules, is that the peak? to a combo swore in the obama presidency? >> the climate action plan that was put out last summer is based on three pillars. thegation, of which this is crown jewel, but other elements, including implementing

rules for heavy duty truck and more deployment of renewables. we are doubling the amount of renewables on public-permitted lands. we just had a successful solar summit. the president was out in california recently expanding both the commitment to distribute solar as well to more building efficiency. one is mitigation. the second is resilient. this is the first administration that has focused on the fact that we're looking at a significant amount of climate change baked into the system and that communities are going to have to react to that. plan for that, and build more resilient economies going is ard, so that there whole work stream going forward on that. the president has proposed $1 billion in the

current budget gives states and communities the resources they need to begin to plan for the bake-in the effects of climate change. the third is on the international front. goinge a strong dialogue at both the multilateral level. the president was just at the g7. this was a serious topic, and all the g7 leaders recommitted themselves to try to move forward towards positive outcome in negotiations that will culminate in paris in 2015, and are all committed to put forward significant reduction strategies d at thatst-2020 perio time. they spent a lot of time talking about building energy security, particularly in the european system, as a result of the aggressive actions the russians have taken in ukraine. so there is a lot to do at the

international side. al placese princip we are in dialogue is the with the chinese. there's news coming out of china, but it is mostly from academic advisors to the government, about what they intend to do in this post-2020 but there's movement in china to take on a commitment to have their emissions peak and reduce them. there is a lot to do. i think this is the most important element, but it is one element of a multi--pronged strategy. >> [indiscernible] as opposed to medicare. why not do it permanently? why not just turn it into a voucher,? system, and i think people who you have seen servedpress recently has

veterans well when they are getting care. this has been a problem of being able to get into the system. i think the bill that senator mccain justsenator agreed upon night is a much better way to go than privatizing our veterans' health care. we have a sacred obligation to our veterans to provide health benefits that they have been promised, and i think resources that are contained in the sanders-mccain bill will focus on getting more primary care doctors into the system, the improving the facilities that would come from the resources that are contained in that bill would be a much better way to go than simply privatizing the system. bill is on the president's commitment, which

sometimes gets lost in the recent conversations, of having fornding access for pts agent orange, for taking care of , the baby-boomer veterans that are now entering the system, as well as the post 9/11 veterans who need care and need quality of care that the veterans system is capable of delivering, but we obviously have problems in the structure of how that service was being performed. actingu know, the not taken action, as he announced in phoenix yesterday, you improve that, but i think it is going to take the kind of legislation that is not moving on a bipartisan aces to the senate to really improve the delivery of health care in the system.

we also obviously are looking for someone to lead the v.a., who can lead the veterans health system, who can perform the kind of reinvention that will be necessary to get those improvements in place. >> george? >> there is a lot of democratic unhappiness with the level of the president's engagement in the congressional campaigns. they are happy with how effective he is at raising money, but do not feel that he has been at all effective in framing a message that the democrats can run on. when array going to see that, and how do you break through? will he break through the issues that are getting the headlines of bergdahl and v.a.? has framed aent choice between an economy that

works for the middle class and working people versus an economy that is based on old, failed ideas. so his push for raising the minimum wage, which is has caught traction across the country, as we have seen states and cities raising the minimum wage, his push for pay equity, the way for reforming individuals are paid for overtime, i think are all things pointers inuable a democratic that congress would leave the country versus a republican congress. so i think he is doing what he needs to do, which is doing his job, first and foremost. and secondly, putting issues on the table where we can make harvest through executive

action, but noting that with democrats in congress they can be much more effective in getting the economy working to get wages growing for the american public. when does he engage that? he is not out running himself, and he will and gauge when it is appropriate. he makes that argument, i think, to democratic constituencies to do that in the fall. i think he has been out there talking about the issues that are according to the american public. whether that is the cost of wage, payhe minimum equity -- those are all issues that are critical to moving the country forward and they are all democrats on capitol

hill have said are ones they want to campaign on. i think he is not on the ballot. they are and they have to make the case to their own constituents but i think he can provide a narrative in a supporting environment that he is trying to make. with ago john, susan, david, alexis,. >> thank you. you talked earlier about candidates running and problems they would have. natalie kenneth, democratic set candidate for the senate and west virginia and mr. -- mr. lundgren grimes running and kentucky both came out after the many republicans in denouncing the new standards and referred to it as an assault on the coal

industry while republicans rather than take the climate change approach, their criticism is it's a war on the floor and disbelief to hire extra city -- higher electricity rates. how do you respond to those charges and what do you say about other democrats and when they criticize this within hours? >> with respect to the republicans, i think the poor might be surprised to learn of the concern that of the lack of concern for them. if you look at the real economics of this, as the epa analysis shows, because of the efficiency being built into the system here, you will see prices -- you will see bills on average go down by about eight percent over the course of the program. >> all income earners? >> that's the price of electric bills at the household level.

are thingst there that we need to do to ensure and theple administration has a commitment to making sure that people get affordable, reliable electricity. we think this bill gives the flex ability to do that. the states need to implement that. i mentioned reggie earlier. if you look at the reggie system, the nine states that are now in reggie, they have spent a significant amount of money of the homes of low-income individuals and they have reduced their bills by $2 billion. so it's possible to do that with the right policies. that's what i think we are asking the states to look at. of course it's ultimately, they have the flexibility to decide how to move forward with that. is ither thing i would say

will come back where i started which is the poor are the most affected by the public health implications of continued pollution at the levels we are seeing. i gave you some statistics at the beginning to demonstrate that. they get both the public health benefit and i think there are ways to ensure that electricity remains affordable and reliable and that's why the flexibility is an ultrathin to do that. -- is built into do that. with respect to the politics in coal country, i would say couple of things -- this rule does not end coal in the electric system. it reduces the amount over a fairly long period of time, between now and 20 dirty from 40% to 30%.

there will be increases in gas, renewables and a significant reduction in demand as a result of the rule. but we are not taking all the coal out of the system. the coal that will be burned will have to be done in a more efficient way and more effective way to raise the efficiency of coal that is being utilized. the oldest, dirtiest, least , i think states and utilities will make decisions about whether to keep those online or whether to retrofit them. we are not taking coal out of the electric system through this rule. unemployment are available. we will go to susan page. [indiscernible] having served in the bill

clinton white house and the obama white house, how would a hillary clinton president to be different from obama's presidency and from bill clinton's presidency? that's a topic i have not pondered, susan. i think each person who comes into office brings their own skills and the times are different and the challenges are different. breakupusly faced the of the soviet union and we tried democratic and more unified europe. that is being challenged right now. i think the project was pushed forward. we had to deal with al qaeda and in thesm that nothing way that president bush and then president obama had to come to

grips with in terms of that question. the challenges will be different. i think people bring their own personalities, their own talents to the job. i think that one thing three of them share is i think the purpose of the job. duty andheir primary that's to ensure that everybody has opportunity in this country. that's what motivated all three of them. i think if she does decide to run, and she is elected president, she will get up every day as president obama gets up every day as president clinton got up every day and go into the oval office and think what can i do to help the middle class and help working people. >> you have known hillary clinton for a long time. do you have three adjectives that would describe her presidency? >> [laughter]

disciplined tough and determined. as the president was weighing the pros and cons of the bergdahl trade, did he ponder what terms he could live with and how is this a political problem for you guys? the secretary of defense made the determination. that the transfer was in the natural security interest of the united states and that the threat posed by the detainees to the united states or u.s. persons would be substantially mitigated. there were assurances given by the qataris - i cannot get into

that -- there are were ways we had to monitor them beyond what al qaeda is doing. i think that first and foremost, the president thought that we had a commitment in the duty to leave no man or woman in uniform behind in the battlefield and he exercise that and has talked about it several times this week. he thought was the right thing to do and the secretary of defense who had to make those like first it was in the national security interest to move forward with this and second, that the threat , now thethe detainees transferees, could be substantially mitigated. that's what the discussions and dialogue with the qataris was all about. >> [inaudible] know, thereobably

are many ways of knowing what people are doing around the country and around the world. f -- i think's it's fair to say we will keep an eye on them role,now and your current you have been in this role for a small portion of time. the president has nearly -- had nearly six years to go big on climate change and specifically to address carbon emissions from power plants. why did he wait until now to do it? the have to say that in first two years, we were seeking legislation. a bill passed the house and ultimately did not pass the senate. that was an economy wide that if you are an economist, you would save might be more efficient in getting those reductions. you goteantime,

substantial reductions out of the transportation sector. into office and immediately began to work on the climate action plan in the second term. again, the centerpiece was to take reductions out of the sector for co2 emissions coming from the power sector. he has been deliberative trying to get her legislation when that failed, the congress is unlikely to really move forward. i think he was working in sectors of the economy to reduce the co2 pollution as much as possible. that's why we are in the position to keep our copenhagen pledge with this rule to reduce carbon emissions by 17% by 2020. not taken theent actions and the climate action

-- let me start that over -- had he not done anything including the transportation improvements to those who think this is all about fracking and natural sm these omissions were going to come down anyway, if he had not done that, you missions would have been four percent above 2005 levels. having done those actions in the first term, they would have been five percent below 2005 levels. as result of the climate action plan, we will be in the range of 17%, below 2020 so that is a significant movement. the globe, across the united states has reduced its omissions more than any other country over this time. i think that's a testament to his leadership both in terms of the investments that were made in clean energy at the beginning of the administration due to the

recovery act and these important regulations including much more efficient appliances and commercial appliances. >>karen? >> [inaudible] you have the experience of serving in the clinton administration. some critics lately including some democrats have accused this white house of political tone deafness lately on the rose garden appearance on bergdahl and perhaps the president's slowness to take action on the v.a. scandal. i'm wondering what you think about those criticisms. -- thatnk the president goes both ways. the president knew this was a controversial decision. decision -- and he

has spoken to this -- that he has taken ownership of and went out the rose garden because it's important to stay to the american people that this was about an actual human being who was under great distress, being held by the telegram and that while controversial, he needed to do at the market people. he makes no apologies for that. he said that yesterday in europe and i think it was the right decision and we will move forward with it. v.a., heect to the asked secretary shiseki to do a review and after those reviews were done, i think the secretary decided that the department would be better led by someone else and he accepted his resignation. these are tough calls.

i think particularly the decision to bring back b sergeantergdahl was a tough call and we knew it was controversial but it was the look right thing to do as chairman dempsey said, this was our last clear chance to bring them home and the president made a decision to do that. >> alexis? in theuse of your role transition and now, i wanted to come back to the guantanamo question. does the president believe he has the constitutional executive authority before the end of his term to close one, on his own say so believing it's a national security issue to transfer the detainees before he departs? >> i think the president wants to close one, and is working

hard to do it and he is doing in it within the bounds of the laws being passed by the congress. we have let our friends on capitol hill know what restrictions are unacceptable in the current round of negotiations. think we will just keep working to ensure that the remaining detainees there are and that thed guantánamo is closed by the end of the administration. >> [inaudible] in "the newuote york times" by senate democrats say they have to stop putting out fires related to guantánamo. are you sympathetic to senate democrats who feel that way? >> we would like to be talking about the economic future of the country.

when the president has an obligation and there is a in the as we found scheduling at the v.a., you have to tackle that. when there is the opportunity to bring sergeant bergdahl home, it's a tough call but you have to make it. that gets served up to you. the president will make those tough decisions. i think the context for that is he will keep coming back and coming back and we will do it when he comes back from europe in talking about an economic progress that will deliver better results to the american people. choice inon't get the sorry, i'mo say i'm going to wait until after november to deal with the ourrtunity to bring one of young soldiers home.

captured by the taliban. you don't get to make that call. you have to make a decision right then and there and he made at any rate -- and he made the right decision to bring sergeant bergdahl home. >> i want to ask you about immigration. [inaudible] the white house has asked the pentagon to stand down for now on any actions, administrative actions that could be taken as a mobile because house republicans can act between now and august. i wonder if the mere threat of taking action is jeopardizing your position because republicans will say that he will still do something on his own at the same time, given the litmus of what you can through

executive action, are you putting yourself the twin a rock and a hard place at the advocates of legal status who want broader action from you? h, i never tried to make a living psychoanalyzing republicans. i think there is an opportunity. i think that speaker boehner would like to see registration -- legislation move forward. i think that is what the president thinks, that there's an opportunity to get comprehensive immigration reform done. that is a much better solution and a permanent solution for our broken immigration system and the pain that it is causing across the country. if that means we have to wait to see whether the republican

leadership can get a compromise together that can earn bipartisan support over the course of the summer, the president is prepared to do that. the secretary is reviewing his authorities about how to the painrly alleviate of family dislocation that he is focused on. i think we will have to think areough what our options if congress is unable to act. if we went ahead and acted, i'm fairly certain that they would use that as an excuse for inaction. we will have to wait and make an assessment sometime during the course of this summer about whether i have the capacity to

act. are the moves that you have at your disposal enough to satisfy people who want something country as of done? i want to follow-up on something -- the administration determined this week the number of unaccompanied minors across the border has risen to crisis numbers. how is the administration looking at that issue? how will that propelled him to now were made before they were willing to hold off a little longer? summer isump this largely coming from central america. the law requires that unless the children, unaccompanied minors are coming from china for -- from canada or mexico, they cannot be returned. they need to be turned over to

the department of health and human services. put surge in numbers has pressure on the systems so secretary johnson has pulled together an interagency group to work this problem with the task force that is led by fema and cr fugate -- this is a heartbreaking situation where you see 10, 12-year-old kids unaccompanied by their parents particularly in central america to find their way to the u.s., often to be reunited with maybe their parents who are living up here. it's another reason why we think to reform the system and get a legal immigration system that will work and be viable. in the meantime, we have to deal with the humanitarian crisis. all of the agencies in the

and hhsnt led by dhs but core dated by fema are finding appropriate places to house and make sure those kids are safe and well taken care of. >> is there any indication that congress is looking at this issue? >> i don't know the answer to that. let's go back to the epa issue. the critics of what the administration is doing .2 these figures that show that this rule averaginge job losses 124 thousand per year in 16 years. you said earlier something that struck me -- that climate change is an existential issue. i'm wondering if it's truly an existential issue. are you even taking into consideration whether there are potential job losses and

economic costs? epaure, if you look at the filings, you'll see what they say about the effect on jobs. we think it will have a positive effect because we will go about more clean energy infrastructure in the short-term and much more long-term efficiency in general in the electric system over the long term. i think these claims of massive job losses have been debunked. they are tased on a set of assumptions that have zero to do with the role that was put on the table. the fantasy job loss numbers is what they are. they have been debunked by independent experts who have looked at them. that is not to say that there will not be places and occupations where you will see some job loss. i think we need to be sensitive to that and attend to it and make investments in communities

that might be affected by job loss whether that is the loss of a plant or otherwise. we need to ensure that we have -- and the white house, our efforts to make sure we can respond to that -- i think the congress also has an important role to play in smoothing that transition. every time an environmental regulation has been put forward, they say massive job losses, lights going off, electricity system crashing, bills going through the roof, they were wrong before, they are wrong now. i think the particular chamber is based onferenced the assumptions that have absolutely zero to do with the rule the epa put forward. it's a fantasy analysis.

>> and terms of your motivation, if you see climate change as an existential threat to the planet,maybe to the does that mean anything at all? >> we are paying the cost. billion ofr $100 losses last year from extreme weather events. we are already paying the cost. which side is the risk on? we think we can build a stronger economy, better economy based on a clean energy future. the people who are invested in the status quo, the polluters, want to keep getting the rent set of the current system but there is no question the opportunity to build new , tostries, to create jobs create new technology, to make the world a global leader in clean tech is available to us.

the question is whether we will put the right policy environment in place to ensure that that goes forward. we are very much about trying to build a strong and powerful and good economy. but that will come through investments in cleaner energy systems, not in reliance on the systems we have had in place which have now increasingly are burdening our economy through years in agriculture and forestry and extreme weather losses and sea levels rising. you want to ask the question -- where is the risk? clean or dirty? you mentioned the president's commitment to veterans got a little lost with the uproar over

the weights -- waits. was there a review on this and was very a review with congress over the bergdahl decision. ? >> the people who made the decision are briefing congress. they will hear why. --hink there was evidence that aas an analysis premature disclosure could result in the loss of his life because of divisions and the taliban, etc,. they will answer those questions. with respect to the former, we are always trying to take a look.

in this case in particular, i'm sure sloan gibson who now is the acting secretary, rob neighbors who has gone over to the v.a. when we white house -- have a full, to people at the top at the v.a. are going to drill down and look at that question. i think we owe it to our veterans and to american whyzens to always be asking did we miss that, not just in this particular case, but across other issues in government to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government. you try to learn from error rather than just run from it. i think that's what we will have to do here. with respect to the specific question you asked me, again, i

think that is what rob and the acting secretary are in the process of doing, trying to -- this was not a one-off problem in phoenix. there was more there was more systematic error here. why was that not attended to earlier? >> i have one minute left. you talked about how the presidents were different. how is your role different? >> it is a lot better to be a counselor then chief of staff. >> we have the quote. thank you for doing this very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house event, briefings, and conferences, all as a service of private industry. we are c-span, created 35 years

ago and brought to as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. and the united states ournations that believe in mission and our missions are similar. he believed in freedom. we believe the -- believed in district in corvallis, which in they disappeared , but itnd the 2000's did not go anywhere because at our or it was still -- at our core it was still there. the biggest day was our national holiday, victory day. how it was presented to the president -- president

fascistsputin, the came to power, and he illustrated that with the flag of the former ukrainian liberation army that were outlined during world war ii. he used that to prove these are fascist that are fighting against both the ukrainian and russian language -- nations. it is a massive petition -- thenterpretation -- for majority of russians we are continuing world war ii, and liberating, really liberating ukraine from the fascist threat. >> this weekend on c-span, a look into the politics of vladimir putin's russia.

coverage ofo, live the chicago tribune printers row c-span three,on the seventh anniversary of the normandy.sion in today marks the 70th anniversary of d-day, when soldiers stormed normandy beaches in france during world war ii. you'll find speeches from world -- from u.s. presidents they they have made during past celebrations including george bush at the 60th anniversary and bill clinton at the 50th anniversary. conversation is underway on our facebook page about the impact of those speeches. presidentwrites -- " bush still highly respected among our military." manny says "you were a great president, bill.

your legacy won't a clouded by those who sought to do you harm." president obama and several members of congress are in france today for the ceremonies. the video is also posted on facebook. karen posting about it -- join the conversation on our facebook page, facebook.com/ c-span. you'll find a number of discussions about today's events and the previous d-day speeches.

you can see all of the events in normandy 10 at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span including president obama's speech and a keynote address by french president francois hollande, who hosted a ceremony marking the anniversary at the sight of the allied landing. president obama and several world leaders were in attendance including german chancellor angela merkel, russian president vladimir putin, and british queen elizabeth ii. we will show you the ceremony now. it runs about two hours. ♪

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