celeb under the rug in this country, probably and most likely because most of the perpetrators are male stop the only way this will ever changes his men are willing to look at their own bad behavior and address it head-on. yourm listening to commentator and they are talking about the bills being on harry reid's desk -- each and every one of those hills has a repeal of what they call obamacare, or the affordable care act. so whoever is the commentator -- >> i just heard the comment from the lady that called in -- i'm watching the show recorded, by the way. it would be good, rather than

having the democrats leave a comment and the republicans leave a comment, just air them one at a time. let them fight it out sounds like verbally on the show. if you ever decide to do that, i'm up for that. >> continue to let us know about the programs you are watching. call is at 202-626-3400 and email us at c-span.org or send us a tweet the join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> president obama is traveling this week. his first stop is in beijing, where china's hosting this year's asia-pacific economic cooperation summit. on wednesday he'll meet with the chinese president. on thursday and friday the president will be in myanmar, also known as burma, where he'll meet with burma's president and secondly with the opposition leader. the trip concludes in australia saturday and sunday for the g-20 leaders summit, where

president obama is expected to eliver a major policy address. >> the chair of the republican national committee, reince priebus, spoke last week about the midterm elections and the 2016 presidential campaign at a breakfast hosted by the "monday night football." he hasn't decided whether or not to seek another two-year erm as chair of the r.n.c. for the "christian science monitor" mon. >> ok, folks, here we are. i'm dave cook from "the monitor." our guest is reince priebus. his last visit with the group was in march of this year and we thank him for coming back. lifelong as had a interest in politics. he was the self-appointed

campaign manager for ronald reagan's presidential bid at an lementary school in wisconsin. he earned his bachelor's degree from the university of wisconsin whitewater. worked as a committee staffer in the wisconsin legislature, before moving to warmer climates, earning a law degree from the university of miami. after several clerkships he practiced corporate law, ran unsuccessfully for the wisconsin senate, and in 2007 was elected chairman of the wisconsin republican party, the youngest person ever to hold that job. in 2009 he became general counsel of the republican national committee and in january of 2011 became r.n.c. chair. he was re-elected in january of 2013. the chairman and his wife, ally, have two young children.

now on to the ritual recitation of ground rules. as always, we're on the record. please, no live blogging or tweeting no, filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to actually listen to what our guest says. there's no embargo when the session ends. to help you resist that relentless selfie urge, we will email several pictures of the session as soon as the breakfast ends. if you like to ask a question, please do the traditional thing and send me a non-threatening signal and i'll call on one and all in the time we have available. we strive to operate in a strictly nonpartisan fashion. so let me note that we've invited mr. priebus' counterpart and hope they'll accept soon. we start off with opening comments, then we'll move to questions from around the table. with that, thanks again for

doing this, sir. >> i have a few comments to make before we open it up. number one, tuesday's election was a big night. it was a wave election. we didn't squeak by. we won by large margins. i remember when we were here in march, i said it was going to be a tsunami. obviously some people thought that was kind of an irresponsible or overly excited type of comment to make. but the wave we didn't think was inevitable. as recently as last week democrats were predicting they would hold the senate. i think we have a handout going around with some of those quotes for everybody. after tuesday, though, democrats are changing their tune. now they're telling you that the wave was so big that even the best ground game couldn't overcome it. and that's not analysis, that's

really just a lame excuse. they don't want to admit that the republicans actually beat them at their own game. so number two, if we had not seen -- if we had not been laser-focused on turning out low-propensity voters in states like iowa and colorado, we would have not been victorious. the ground game mattered. our unprecedented investment in data mattered. i'll admit that the democrats' ground game was bigger and more expensive. ours was smarter, targeted, more efficient, and ultimately more effective. we made important gains across demographic groups because we believe that voter engagement works. let's talk about hispanic outreach. look at georgia. david perdue won 42% of the

hispanic vote. nathan diehl had 47%. african-american voters. john kasich in ohio, 26% of the black vote, asian-americans. exit polls show that republicans won 49% of the asian vote. in 2012 it was 26%. and when it comes to female voters, a few things. corey gardner handled the baseless attacks from mark udahl. second, mitch mcconnell beat alison grimes among women voters. greg abbott in texas beat wendy davis among women voters as well. finally, people asked me what the takeaway of the election is. i think it's that the republicans were given an opportunity to lead at every level, local, state and federal. in the senate, we have a decisive win obviously across the board. and it was clear that it was a defeat for harry reid's dysfunctional leadership and the barack obama agenda.

harry reid's refusal to allow votes in the senate in order to protect incumbents backfired and actually, it ensured their defeat. in the senate it was a night of important firsts for the republican party. johnnyy earns -- ernst became the first woman in congress from iowa. tom cotton will be the youngest member of the senate. shelly will be the first woman elected to the senate from west virginia. tim scott becomes the first african-american elected to both the house and the senate. in the house we have a majority bigger than most of us have seen in our life tilse. we're proud to see mia love in utah, will herd in texas 23 and lee stefanik in new york, who will become the youngest woman ever elected to congress. the gonchingse races across

america -- governs races across america affirmed the conservatorship of republicans across the country. and in the bluest of blue states they rejected the democrats. in maryland, in massachusetts and in illinois. even the president's home state, where he campaigned vigorously, elected a republican. i think that kind of tells you how big this victory was. it wasn't just a rejection of barack obama and everyone connected to barack obama. it was also the acceptance of conservative republican leadership across the board in the states. republicans now control more state legislative chambers, 69 out of 99, and hold on to more legislative seats than at any point in the history of our nation. not only is that important for putting in place the right policies at the state level, it also means that we're going to have a much deeper bench for future congressional and senate

races. ultimately this was all a direct rejection of the obama ajepped. but as you all know, president obama said very clearly -- and he went out of his way, and i think was also perturbed by the strategy adopted by democrats cross the board, when he declared continuously that his policies were on the ballot. and the voters were, in response, very clear as well, that they want nothing to do with the policies of barack obama, and when hillary clinton and bill clinton tried to come in for the last 60 days and be the face of the democratic party, that didn't do anything to move the dial either. these were the president's candidates, and they were also the clintons candidates, and they lost. remember, the clintons were campaigning hard. they couldn't save their candidates even in blue states. i think in arkansas tom cotton was declared the winner at about 8:01 by "the associated

press." but after wednesday's press conference, i'm not sure that president got the message. he was dismissive, he was flip, and this isn't the first time the president's told us he'd be bipartisan. so it's hard to take him at his word when he hasn't followed through before. sure, he said he needs to let john boehner win at a round of golf. but that's not going to be good enough. he's missing the point. he needs to listen to the american people more and work with speaker boehner and senator mcconnell so he can find ways to support republican ideas, which are the ideas americans chose in this election. in clozzes, -- closing, we won in red states, in blue states and purple states and we'll build on our successes of 2014, so that we can have a successful 2016. this is going to be an uphill battle.

i think we're going to have to be about perfect. but i think we can get there, and we're more prepared today than we have been before as a republican party. >> thank you for that. i'm going to do one or two and then we'll go to the others. that should keep us going. you've been very enthusiastic in your description of the results of the election. a number of your fellow epublicans are urging a less view. the chairman of the campaign committee said i wouldn't label in a mandate. haley barbour said this should not be a rousing endorsement. memo to the g.o.p. -- you had a great night, but remember, you didn't win it. the democrats lost it. are you still feeling the voters' embrace?

how sweeping a mandate do you think you actually got from the results on tuesday? >> well, i think when the president doubled down and claimed that his policies were on the ballot and actually went on talk radio in georgia and said if you elect michelle nunn, you're actually going to be advancing my agenda and the policies that i've put forth. he about sunk michelle nunn with those comments. i mean, if you think about it, michelle nunn was back on a trajectory that brought georgia close to even in the polling. and we were seeing it, too. the president came in, articulated his message, wanted the voters of georgia to know that the direction that he was bringing this country could be advanced by electing michelle nunn, and that race became a race that everyone was assuming was going to be a runoff to an outright win, and it wasn't

even close. >> did you think about the election being, quote, the embrace of the values of conservative government? >> it was. >> this morning you said acceptance. so you think it was more than just -- >> well, look at wisconsin. i mean, look at that state. mean, you have a state that accepted, maybe perhaps "embrace" might be a little over the top. but clearly if you look at scott walker, larry hogan, charlie baker, what is that? s that -- is that an accident? is that, oh, the democrats are lousy everywhere? everywhere on the grounds they were no good. they didn't do well in maryland. they were lousy in massachusetts. they didn't have their act together. come on. the fact is everything that was attached to barack obama lost, and about every tough governors race in america where

republican principles, conservative principles were on the ballot, republicans won. i would call that a pretty sweeping victory. and whether it's a mandate or not, that's a different topic. i happen to think that it's clearly a mandate, or it's clearly a message that the american people don't want to follow down the pathway of barack obama and his policies. that's clear. that's number one. when republican principles were put on the table, republicans won. and by the way, democrats didn't -- whoever said that the democrats just lost, look, they had put together one of the best ground games that they had put together in a midterm. i know, because we were fighting it for the last eight months. so if anyone is going to tell you in any interview that the reason the democrats lost is because their ground game stunk, they don't know what they're talking about. the fact is we were just a whole lot better than we've ever been. and like i said before -- i

just want to make one other thing clear. i also haven't lost my mind to think that we don't have a long way to go. like i've said a few times this past week, if you heard me, and i mean this, it's sort of like when my wife was asking me how i'm doing on a project around the house, and i tell her, well, i'm about 80% done and i've got about 80% to go. i mean, that's kind of where i see us at in the party. >> let me ask you one other, and that is there seems to be sort of a split -- one the challenges for the party seems to be a split over tactics. the "post" and others have written about efforts by speaker boehner and soon to be majority leader mcconnell to lay plans for a series of quick votes to look not obstructionist, but you can get things done. on the other hand senator cruz told the "post" last weekend that first order of business should be hearings on president obama, "looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the

regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration." how would you assess the party's challenge in keeping a sense of unity going forward in terms of objective? >> well, i mean with 54 seats in the senate, and i don't know where we're going to get in the house, maybe 247, 248, 249, i'm not sure where it's going to go, i think unity is pretty achievable with those kinds of numbers. and -- but i don't think it's a problem. i mean, everyone has a different opinion on what direction the agenda in the senate and house should go. ultimately we're going to have two leaders that get along very well. i think if you look back historically, i don't know if you're going to find two leaders that are more cohesive and on the same page than speaker boehner and mitch mcconnell. and what ted cruz said i think

is appropriate. the american people in part put -- in part. that wasn't the whole campaign, but the american people, i think, are sick and tired of the abuse as well. they want answer os the i.r.s. they want answers on benghazi. and i think that they deserve to get those answers. so, yeah, i think that there should be a continuation of trying to get answers to the erican people, and democracy has to be transparents. i don't think it has been over the last few years. >> david? >> the republican sweep in 1994 affect the presidential election. you go all the way from ted cruz to jeb bush. given those divisions, how do the republicans get together and find a presidential candidate that can capture -- in two years? >> the democrats go from elizabeth war remember to -- warren to senator mansion in

west virginia. every two years there's chatter about whether he's going to become a republican or not. so we don't have a monopoly on diversity in our party. i think it's a good thing, actually. i think if you look back at our nomination process, we tend to nominate canned dates -- senate right candidates. but i guess historically, i our see any evidence of party not coalescing around a nominee. some people argue with me about it, but that's ok. it's my opinion. having a month of proportional tee in 2012 created an close election, taking it down to a slice and

dice in about 60 days is smart and i think that's what you're going to see. it's going to be a faster omination process. we're going to have some control. we're going to have enough debates where we take care of as many partners, television stations, cable stations as ossible. >> is there any doubt in your mind you'll be running against hillary clinton? >> i sure as heck hope we're running against hillary clinton. i think what you just saw on is about as flat

a performance as you could have seen from the democratic arty's brightest star. if you look at the races across the board that she was playing in, she didn't fare very well. if your job was to unify the party and to raise a ton of money and to get a ton of volunteers on the ground, i promise you, you'd want no other opponent than hillary clinton to run against. >> jeff? >> in the wake of 2012, the republican national committee produced a 97-page report. you don't like to call it an autopsy. you called it an opportunity project. do you believe that -- in one of the passages, it said, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. do you believe that still needs to be an imperative of the party going forward to 2016? and on the report as a whole, what still needs to be

accomplished from that report or should it just be shelved? >> we actually -- if you look at the report -- so let me back p. the report was written after an appointed group of people interviewed and talked to people all over the country, activists, leaders, you know, thousands of people. and it was written for the republican national committee at my request. that report was not written by me or somebody in our, you now, building. so it's a report for the entire republican party to review and i think that by and large it was a great report and we've been trying to, at least as far as the republican national committee is concerned, follow the recommendations, especially when it comes to the mechanics, the ground game, the work that a national party needs to do in order to be a competent partner, which i don't think in

many cases the national party has been over many years. and i think we're getting there. as to the immigration issue, i think it's pretty clear, you know, comprehensive immigration reform has sort of become loaded language, because it means something different to verybody that you ask. rand paul went to the hispanic chamber on march 19 of 2013 and said we need comprehensive mmigration reform. as you know, lindsey graham said the same thing. my guess is rand paul's version of what comprehensive immigration reform is might be a little different from lindsey graham's version. so i think ultimately, immigration reform is a subject that most people in our party agree we need to tackle.

however, what we've seen happen over the last several months is that the president has been using people as political pawns and lying to people when it comes to immigration reform. he promised immigration reform when he ran for office in 2007. he used it as a basis to do well among many voters. ultimately, when he had a majority in the house and a supermajority in the senate, he idn't get anything done. now he says if only it wasn't for these darn republicans, we would have been able to do it. but he didn't deliver it when he had an opportunity. he threatened executive amnesty, which is in our mind, a nuclear threat, to reject the basis of the separation of powers doctrine, reject article 1 and 2, as far as what lies within the power of the president.

then he got pushed back on executive amnesty. and then he came back and said, well, you know what? and obviously his poll numbers were in the tank over the summer. he said, boy, i better not do this to my candidates that are running in all these states that we're worried about getting killed in, so i'm going to pull back. then the activists that he's trying to please get upset. then he says, well, now i'm gonna threaten these guys and do it after i get elected. >> going forward, do you believe that the republican party needs to follow up on what was mentioned in the report to have comprehensive immigration reform for the arty to be successful? >> and so what i -- what i think he's done is unified the country and the electorate around one big principle, and that's that we need to secure the border. he has created a situation that i think may have not existed before that episode that has galvanized the country in a place where i don't believe

most people are interested in comprehensive immigration reform unless they're sure that the border is secure. i think it was because of the president's haphazard political game that's created an environment that will not allow the legislature to move forward unless people can be convinced hat that border is secure. and that's where we've come. and i think it makes sense that there was a lot of talk about immigration reform and now -- which i think rightfully so, we're talking about border security first, before we get to anything else. >> todd gilman? >> thank you. so you mentioned wendy davis in texas. and the democrats made a big to-do about battleground texas. this was really going to be a huge push. abbott won by an enormous

margin. is texas more republican now than it was before this election cycle? is the day further away that democrats threaten to own the white house forever because hey take over texas? >> i think what's happening is the texas gop, and i would say the republican national committee, took the threat of battleground texas pretty seriously. if you look at f.e.c. reports, what you're going to see is that the r.n.c. has been investing in texas for about a year and a half on the ground with hispanic engagement operations, regional offices. and i would say that the texas g.o.p. itself is one of the best parties in hispanic engagement that there is in this country, along with great

candidates like greg abbott. so i do believe that battleground texas did a lot of work down there in registering hispanic voters and, again, i just think that they woke up the party in that if we don't start paying attention to recruiting volunteers and engaging hispanic voters in texas, that it's possible the party could have a problem in the years to come. but what i will tell you is that we don't plan on slowing down in our engagement in texas. i already know what our budget is going to be for next year in spending on the ground in texas. and it's going to be because we know that we have to hold and get better in texas because while i don't think it's going to be a problem in 2016, if we were to just forget about texas and think everything is going to be great there, 2020, 2024, i don't want to see us, you know, either becoming a close

state or a state that ends up becoming purple. >> are you running for another term as rnc chair? have you made up your mind on that? >> i'll probably decide the first week of december. but i'm -- i'm leaning to do it again. >> and just a -- >> but i have to talk to -- that being said now, my wife is going to see this. i mean, i've got to talk to -- [laughter] i haven't really had that serious conversation at home. [laughter] which is -- yeah. i guess it's going to happen tonight. [laughter] oh, i got a text. you know, the thing for me isn't that i wouldn't want to do it again. we have put ourselves in a four-year plan. i think we've got a long way to go to be ready for 2016. so granted we're excited and

proud of where we've come. i think we've got to be about perfect, as a national party, to win a national cultural vote in this country. i think the democrats can be good and win. we've got to be great. in order to do that, you have to have a national party that's obsessed over all the boring stuff like the mechanics and the ground game. nobody ever wants to talk about these kinds of things. but i'm convinced that this is how we're going to win in 2016. i think candidates are really important. but i think the mechanics are more important. the only hesitation i ever have is that i think it's important to get back to normal life, with a nine-year-old and a four-year-old, have a backyard, and just simpler operation than what it is being chairman of the rnc. >> do your kids like it

here? >> they do. they like it. but, you know, it's pretty obvious that when we go back to kenosha and they grab the bike, they're out around the neighborhood -- i don't know. it's just better, a better life in wisconsin, i would say. >> jill? >> you framed this as a rejection of the president's policies and that's certainly one way of looking at it. i'm just curious about how you explain some of the ballot initiatives where some of the policies he's identified with, like raising the minimum wage and gun control, did very well. does that send any -- what do you take from that in terms of whether republicans should start thinking along lines like that? >> well, i mean, i think -- yeah. i think these are the issues that our legislators have to look at and they have to decide how they want to governor in -- to govern in each of these different states with different

agendas. some states present unique differences than one national agenda. and as far as minimum wage and marijuana is concerned, i mean, i personally don't believe that artificially raiding the minimum wage -- raising is minimum wage is going to put more money in people's pockets, because i think eventually inflation goes up and products cost more. i think it's sort of a false -- ort of a false hope. but as far as marijuana is concerned, i mean, i'm opposed to that. i just don't think that we need to be promoting things like that with kids and with high school kids and i just -- i'm not if favor of it. >> for republicans -- >> i think the legislators have to consider everything. but as chairman of the party, i'm the mechanic. i'm the one that's got to understand and get our act together when it comes to our data operation.

i'm not the guy that sits down with scott walker and says, you know, you really need to look at this issue regarding minimum wage or marijuana. this is what legislators, governors have to do in order to determine how they can best govern their individual states. if you talk to chris christie, he's going to govern in a different way in his state than, you know, governor haslam is going to govern in tennessee. i think everything is different. that's the great thing about the democracy and the united tates. >> mr. drucker from "the examiner." >> notwithstanding the data operation, in 2016, you're going to have a broader mass, higher turnout. you won't necessarily be able to run against somebody with a 40% approval rating.

you talk about the -- and you've talked before about how your data operation, it never ends. you keep refining it and trying to get it better. have you had a chance yet to figure out, with the success that you had tuesday, where it needs to go from here so that when you get to 2016, you can compete theoretically against the democratic operation that might be as good as what the president fielded in 2012? >> you know, not completely yet. it's only been a few days. but i have an idea. my guess is that we're going to have to be three times bigger han we were in 2014. i think it's going to take a massive amount of money and a huge paid program in the battleground states, starting immediately. i will tell you, we're not pulling staff out of any

presidential battleground state. it's hard to do, if you know how hard, you know, our money cycle works. to not strip down to bare bones and then build back up. i think that we need to have a full-blown field operation in place by march, in florida, ohio and virginia. and that's an extremely expensive thing to do when people are tired and tapped out. but i think the nice thing about what happened on tuesday is that our investors at the rnc are excited that the mechanics worked and they can see that a good competent program on the ground is something that they're willing to invest in again immediately in 2015. >> okay. just one thing on the 2016 map. and you alluded to this before.

it appears, at least right now, to be an easier map for democrats, where the swing states, they've got in the bank a lot more electoral votes than you guys do. you guys need certain states like ohio and florida or virginia or some combination of purple as opposed to the solid reds, if you look at the count. is there anything that changes hat? or do you really -- is it that narrow of a path for you guys? >> well, i mean, if you think about where we were as a national party a few years ago, not just being $26 million in debt and where we were at with 80 employees. barack obama at the same time had 800 employees. we didn't have a whole lot initially to offer. and mitt romney lost by a quarter million votes. so i mean, it wasn't like -- you know, granted the electoral college was pretty lopsided. but vote totals, you're talking about 100,000 or so in florida, virginia, ohio.

obviously we needed new hampshire. but we're talking about working like dogs here to grow the electorate and turn the dial just a few little notches in order to win. i think if we work really hard and we've got a -- and we got a candidate on the ballot that people actually want to sit down and have a beer with, i think we can win. i will tell you this. if we didn't win purple states on tuesday, it would have been very difficult for me to sit here and make a case for you that if we couldn't win a purple state in a good environment with good candidates, it would have been very difficult to tell you that we were going to be able to win with 75%, 80% turnout, ok? so i get the point. and my answer to mr. cheney's question probably would have been a lot different if we didn't which in colorado and north carolina and iowa.

so i think the challenge is that our data and our targeting has to continue to improve and i think it will. and i think that our early vote program has to decisively beat the democrats. and if you saw what we were doing, we were targeting low-propensity voters. so we were finding the consumer characteristics of people, what they buy and don't buy, how many kids they have, what magazines they subscribe to, finding out and then taking the information that looked like voters that would be our voters, and then matching it up to the voter rolls of people who don't always vote. so finding your high probability republicans but low-propensity voters, targeting them early. and we're just going to have to do an even better job of that in order to win in places like colorado, iowa and north carolina in order to win in 016.

i'm getting where you're at but that's where i think we need to go. >> we're going to go to your hometown paper. craig gilbert, the milwaukee sentinel journal. >> ah! >> so you have states where the party has been kind of dominated at the presidential level but still winning midterms. other states where you've been winning midterms or dominating in midterms and yet still losing some presidentials. so what does -- does what happened in 2014 change the size of the challenge, the presidential challenge for you? it sounds like you're saying you still have to be perfect to win a presidential campaign. why is it that you have to be perfect? what is the nature of that challenge? and leaving mechanics aside, when you're just talking about sort of demographics and people's preferences. >> for one thing, i don't think we've been showing up enough in hispanic, asian and black communities over the last

several years, because if you look at the map, you know, who represents milwaukee, craig? right? a democrat congressman, a democrat state assembly person. a democrat senator. who is at the church festival on sunday morning in the hispanic community? the democrats. so while you can win everywhere in a midterm, when you have 2.4 or 2.5 people vote in the midterm, right, in wisconsin, in the recall, four months later, you have 3.1 million people vote and you feel great about the performance in the midterm. but then if you're not showing up and working hard in those communities on a year-round basis, it comes back in the presidential, and you ultimately have a big problem. so the things that we fundamentally changed at the

rnc is putting paid staff in black, hispanic, asian communities on a permanent asis in order to get, number one, get to know voters, engage voters, register voters, tell people about what it is that we believe in as a republican party, open up college republican chapters at hbcu campuses across the country. these are i think important steps in us moving forward as a national party. i think you're going to see, when you get the actual numbers from the secretary of state's office in places like colorado and georgia, you're going to see that we've made a lot of gains and improvements, because number one, we're showing up and making our case and trying to be better and do better in those communities. >> we've got about 20 minutes to go. your answers have been great. i'm not asking for them to be shorter. i just want to let my colleagues know we've got ten people on deck. we're obviously not going to get to all of them.

we'll do the best we can. nick from "the new york times." >> obviously it's been a good week. but what's still your worry as you look ahead to 2016? what do you think is still the biggest hurdle that you have to climb? >> being able to continue what we're doing and raising the funds necessary to, in scale, do what we did in the midterm in the presidential, because i know it's going to take a massive lift on the ground without the white house helping us raise money to keep doing what we're doing and compete and be prepared when we're going to have a nominee that isn't going to be able to -- no nominee is going to have $100 million for a data platform. and no nominee is going to be having a year-round field operation. they're going to be raising money for themselves and making sure they win a primary. and it's going to take the

republican national committee to fill that void. and it's going to be extremely expensive. >> just -- i know we have short time. just a quick clarification. you mentioned the nuclear threat. i'm curious what one does in a threat, in a nuclear threat. then secondly, yesterday, rob of the rnc said he was thankful for democrats sidelining the president during election cycle. i'm curious if you share that viewpoint. and if you wanted to run an autopsy on what the democratic -- do you think it was a mistake to distance themselves so much? >> i don't think anyone is in a position to know right now, without extensive field work, polling, postelection, real scientific work and interviews.

but anecdotally, i've heard from democrats that have stopped me and told me that they were offended that the democrats sidelined the president during the lection. i'm not the person to know. but i would just say this. i have not heard anything that disputes that narrative among people that i've talked to and have heard from anecdotally. that's the best i can do for you. >> how do you feel he was sidelined? >> i don't think so, only because the president made it so clear that he was on the ballot or at least his policies were on the ballot that it really didn't seem to atter. i would suppose that if the

president was coming into these states that were in play more, i think the democrats probably would have done worse. there may have been a couple of exceptions, maybe in north carolina. but it's hard to tell. i just don't know. sometimes you just don't know. >> on the nuclear threat, i mean, once he goes forward with his executive -- >> i think that the republicans have to convene about whatever possible options we have to stop it. i mean, whether it be court, whether it be legislation. and i think those options have o be explored. the problem we have is that we really can't believe anything the president says on immigration. so we get asked these hypotheticals. and i know you guys are doing a good job of it. but when you're sitting here like me or someone else and you're hearing for the 100th time that the president is going to sign an executive amnesty bill, i mean, i guess

we just don't buy it. i just think he's said so many different things about this that it's hard to know what to believe and therefore i think it goes in one ear and out the other at this point, when he makes these threats. but if the president does something like that, what essentially he's telling the american people is he doesn't give a darn about republicans and democrats working together, you know. he'd rather just stick it to the republicans as much as he can and the heck with getting along and working together in washington. so all the talk about how -- and i agree that people are sick and tired of washington and dysfunction. the president is just throwing a barrel of kerosene on a fire if he signs an executive amnesty order. >> chuck of the st. louis dispatch. >> thank you. as you know, the senate map in 2016 is not as nearly as

favorable to you. just geographically. you've got a number of senators in states that are either purple or blue, some of which won narrowly last time out. i'm wondering, for instance, in the case of somebody like senator kirk in illinois, who favors parts of the health care law, if the headlines early in the next congress are confrontation and partisan votes on repeal and potential vetoes and overrides and that sort of thing, how much does that endanger him in a blue state, and are you concerned about it? how fragile is your senate majority? >> well, i think it's a state-by-state analysis. when you look at my state of wisconsin -- and, you know, it's very individual. ron johnson is going to be up for reelection in 2016. mark kirk. i think it's really important that -- and i have complete faith in mitch mcconnell and

speaker boehner in making sure that we lay out a very clear plan, whether it be two or three things that we believe in as a party, that are achievable goals, that a majority of americans agree with, that is accomplished, and that we repeat and repeat and repeat to the american people those achievable goals that are accomplished so that, as you say, people can see that what they invested in and voted for in a republican majority resulted in progress. in washington, d.c. i would agree with you that if all we get out of this is a bunch of fighting and bickering, then i would agree with you that that's not a good result. i think that achievable goals, clear agenda, is where we're heading. and i think you can hear it and

see it from mcconnell's comments and boehner's comments, kevin mccarter has -- kevin mccarthy has been out front on this very clearly. and i think they're going to be doing a whole lot of talking over the next month to organize such an effort. >> how fragile is that majority based on the map right now? >> it's hard to say now. a year ago people gave us 20% to win the majority of the senate. and so i don't know. i just think it's hard to tell. i really think that thing change quickly in politics and knowing what's going to happen in two years is, i think, just impossible. >> mr. gizzy from newsmax. >> thank you. there chairman, you touched on polls. several people have said that polls in this election were way

skewerpd to rse, democrats. the prognosticator touched on this. the senator from virginia said the whole polling industry should be completely fumigated after it's investigated. do you think -- do you have any thoughts on why polls were off, and do you believe they were suered for the democrats? -- skewered for the democrats? >> not as a whole. if you take the polling and the averages, whether it be public polling or -- the public polling and the averages. you know, we see every single poll in our war room that comes out. if i just looked at public polls, and i was talking to people about what i thought was going to happen in colorado or arkansas. you know, i wasn't -- i generally had an idea, because i would review every single poll and i'd have an idea that, well, tom cotton has been ahead

in nine out of 10 polls that i've seen in arkansas between 4% and 6%. he ended up winning by a lot more than that. but i think generally the public polling pointed to exactly what ended up happening on tuesday. we were far more confident than a lot of the media was over the weekend in wondering where the republican wave was, because we knew through our data operation and our modeling that we were going to have a huge night on tuesday. you may have seen a couple of articles written from some reporters that had a little bit of a review of what we were doing beforehand, showing people, here's what we think is going to happen in this state. and here's where we think we're going to be in this state. we were almost exact. in north carolina -- and we're going to have better information than what you get from quick exit polling and

things like that. but we had three models in north carolina. we had a best-case scenario model. this is a model to determine where undecideds were going to go. you take all the data and compare it to that universe, and we set up various models. we had a mid-case scenario and a worst-case scenario. we ended up in about between our mid-case and worst-case in north carolina, but we knew that in order to get to our worst-case scenario, which would have been a tiny loss on thom tillis -- i mean, we would have had to get crushed in that vote by like 75% to 25% to get to that worst-case scenario. marquette poll. i think about that in wisconsin. it was dead-on accurate, wasn't

it, craig? >> yeah. >> right. so, i guess i have a view that s a whole, i think all of it collectively is helpful in predicting the outcomes. think in the case of virginia , it's hard to tell what happened there. i'm not sure if some of these universities -- what science they're applying to these polls or who's doing they will. i'm not sure where the public polling was there. >> but we were not shocked that it was close. >> well, follow-up question, then. >> real quickly on the follow-up. >> follow-up question. do you think that mr. gillespie, your predecessor, should ask for a recount? >> i don't know. it's up to him. i don't know where the numbers are at right now. i talked to ed yesterday and i'm sure i'll talk to him this morning. i don't know what the latest is there, but we're prepared with whatever we can do to help him, and he knows that.

so he'll probably make a decision today. >> i'm from "time" magazine. you said before that the republican party needs to be as close to perfect as possible if it wants to stand a chance against hillary clinton in 2016 in the presidential electorate. you said after that candidate recruitment was an important factor. the n.r.c. has talked about that a lot. the outside groups have talked about their efforts to influence the primaries. how do you keep the republican party perfect when you're going to have -- >> we're close to perfect when you're guaranteed to have sort a divisive primary, a long, drawn-out primary. very diverse. how do you plan to keep it, civil, a, and do you plan at all to sort of tip the scales a little bit to tell people to get out of the way if they're no longer relevant and keep them out of the debates if they're low in the polls, to try to make it a more perfect

process? >> ok. so the first part of that question i would tell you that people that invest in the r.n.c. are buying what we're doing and what we're selling. so as you saw in our fund-raising over the last couple of years, we've been able to out-raise the d.n.c. anywhere from -- i don't know what it's going to be, $18 million to $20 million or more -- maybe more -- because our donors understand that what we're doing on the ground matters and it works. and i think what you're going to see that is the people who have been funding the r.n.c. over the last two years, they're going to double down on our program, because they know that investing in mechanics is the way that we are going to be able to win in 2016. so that's the first piece. the second piece is that i understand that while i can't always control everybody's mouth, i can have an influence

over how long we fight each other. and that's why we are providing and working on a reasonable number of debates that allow candidates to make their case, but are not so many that it creates an unnecessary amount of fighting and bickering and unproductive activity. and the primary process is going to start somewhere right after february 1. i don't see much of a chance of having an avalanche up front based on the penalties that states would suffer from competing outside of the window. and i think that the winner-take-all contest os march 15 is going to be a pretty massive day in the country. so you're going to have a big primary on march 1, which will be proportional, and i think you're going to have an even bigger march 15 that is going

to be a winner-take-all. you want to -- >> in terms of getting, you know -- >> it's a lot to remember. >> even between now and february 1, 2016, that's a long time. >> right. >> 10, 12, 15 declared candidates will be bickering back and forth. how do you intend to police that, if at all? >> as you know, the first amendment, right? people can say and do pretty much what they want. but i think that there is a feeling -- you may think this is pie in the sky. but i think there is a very the feeling among grass-roots and many of our donors that aren't going to put up with republicans slicing each other apart, and that i think there's going to be a high level of disdain for candidates who spend their time

trying to destroy other republicans. i think that there is a high level of interest among various people in our party to employ reagan's 11th commandment and i think you're going to see people very vocal about that moving forward and less concerned about getting involved in the middle of andidates. i will be less concerned about y own reputation and refraining from being vocal with candidates that go out of their way to simply just kill each other. >> we've got about two or three minutes left. a number of people aren't going to get questions. i apologize to them. last one, karen. >> thank you. mr. chairman, you said that the ideal candidate would be -- for 2016 would be somebody that people would want to have a beer with. could you elaborate on that?

>> a wisconsin phrase. sorry. >> well, could you elaborate on what you think the best qualities would be for an ideal republican candidate? and if you care to mention any names, that would be -- >> i'll probably refrain from that. but i would say -- i think judgments ctions are on the past as far as performance. and i think presidential lections are about the future. and i think that it's -- i think hope for tomorrow and who's going to provide a better future for our kids is the candidate that wins. it's not necessarily the candidate that can better articulate how we're going to combat fair trade with china or what we're going to do about clean coal and fracking. it's about who's going to provide a better country for

our kids, because people want to be hopeful. people want tomorrow to be better than today. and so people people want to believe someone is going to provide a better future for them and their kids. i think hope, the future, and who can best articulate those big themes is the type of candidate that will be able to win the white house in 2016. >> thank you. >> thank you everybody. i appreciate it. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> of the house and senate are in session on tuesday at 2:00 eastern. current and former presidents would be able to restrict records from certain times in the white house. newly elected house members for the 114th congress begin orientation on thursday. that continues the following week. elections are

expected on judicial nominations. senate democrats have scheduled votes for majority and minority leader as well. you can watch the house live on c-span and the senate live on c-span2. on thursday's watch into journal we will be joined by dennis faster to. he is the longest-serving republican speaker. he will speak about how the republican should govern in the 114th congress. we will have that live on c-span. >> tonight on "the communicators" a professor at the university of pennsylvania law school and the director for the technology school of innovation -- the people that oppose our administration should look at the four header.

that is the magic that makes the internet work. there is something called the type of service flag. high-bandwidth services, different forms of prioritization. that was designed into the internet from the beginning. people say that is an old artifact. we were running out of internet addresses. and not only kept that shield, they put in another shield to do another form of prioritization quality services. if you look at the engineering design, prioritization was never intended to be allowed. engineering knowledge went a long way. it is a design feature of the network on the beginning. people are using the network to deliver, for example, voice services. we all have been frustrated. services are. known as volty.

it is the only way to make the call quality work. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> tomorrow is veterans day. announcedert mcdonald a reorganization of the department. the possible discipline or firing of up to 1000 v.a. staff. whethers asking reorganizing the v.a. is enough. join us on c-span chat. some of the comments say --

conversation on facebook.com/cspan. >> c-span veterans day coverage begins tuesday morning at 8:30 with anington journal" interview with the veteran director. featuring martin dempsey. we are live at 11:00 from arlington national serb -- arlington national cemetery for the traditional tomb of the unknown. selections from this year's medal of honor ceremonies. >> the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. spoke about the u.s. role in peacekeeping missions around the globe in remarks at the american enterprise institute.

brief introduction, she spoke and took questions for almost an hour. >> good afternoon. i do apologize, but we have been running a little late. ambassador power has a legitimate excuse. she was in a cabinet meeting. i never had such a good excuse. we will use it and not abuse it today. i am the senior vice president for defense policy studies at aei. it is a pleasure to welcome ambassador power. i think this is your first time here, ambassador power. all the more welcome. today ambassador power will talk about peacekeeping, united nations peacekeeping, and ideas for peacekeeping. there are 120,000 men and women who are serving in u.n. peacekeeping roles around the world. increasingly, they are under threat from kidnapping and

worse, and increasingly there is no peace to keep. the united states spends more than any other nation to support peacekeeping operations idea united nations. and the american people ask are they getting value for their money. ambassador power will give a short talk and we will continue the conversation and open things up to the audience. let me welcome her to the podium. [applause] >> hello, everybody. i have come here today to talk about u.n. peacekeeping. there is a lot going on in the world right now. elie wiesel shared with me the following thought -- the winds of madness are blowing, and that

is how it feels. the urgent, critical issues on our plate should not diver us from an important fact, which is that the united states has a vital interest and a critical role to play in strengthening peacekeeping to meet demands that peacekeepers are currently struggling to meet around the world. i start from a basic premise -- conflicts in faraway places matter in various ways to the united states. these conflicts matter because we recognize that violence within any particular country can quickly cause national and regional instability, displacing millions of people, upending markets, and spilling over into neighboring countries. conflicts undo the hard-earned progress countries have made toward building democracy. they weaken both governments and civil society, and they allow criminals and repressors to thrive. they also matter because the instability created by these conflicts increasingly attracts

extremist groups, who can use the vacuum of authority to terrorize civilian populations and plan and launch attacks. the suffering caused by these conflicts can be a powerful recruitment tool. even conflicts that are not field at the outset by extremist elements can attract and foster them, or, because state authority breaks down, places of conflict can be comfortable places for extremists to hang out unmolested. whether it be darfur, mali or the central african republic, we ignore these crises at our peril. not only does curbing violent conflict make us safer, it is also consistent with what our hearts tell us is right. a number of public opinion polls have shown that large majorities of americans support action to prevent mass atrocities from occurring in other parts of the world. we do not want to live in a

world where more than 9000 kids are recruited in less than a year to become child soldiers, as has happened recently in south sudan. we do not want to live in a world where religious or ethnic communities who have lived together for decades in harmony, such as muslims and christians in the central african republican, learn to hate and fear and demonize one another. neither do america's foreign-policy leaders. the possible next chairs of the senate foreign relations committee and the armed services

committee senators corker and mccain, have long been strong advocates of preventing such atrocities. so have the committees' current chairs, senators levin and menendez. the question is, what should america do to stop them? the united states has a lot that we must do right now. we have a lot on our plate. our troops are fighting isil in the middle east. they are deployed to west africa to beat back ebola, and they continue to serve valiantly in afghanistan, all of us as we faced substantial budget cuts. crises from eastern ukraine to gaza continues to cascade on the broader foreign policy horizon. as president obama said at west point, america must always lead on the world stage, but we should not go it alone. even if the united states has an interest in seeing confident but were civilians protected, at the mean that u.s. forces should be doing all of the abating. we should not send the u.s. military into all places where conflict is burning, civilians are hurting, or extremists are lurking.

because we have the most capable military does not mean we should assume risks and burdens that should be shared by the broader community. this is were peacekeeping comes in. when conflicts in congo, mali, or south sudan, peacekeeping is the best operation we had. peacekeeping ensures other countries shoulder the burden like intruding treats and sharing the cost of operations. provided that peacekeepers deliver on their mandates, multilateral peacekeeping also brings a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. because missions are made up of troops from multiple countries with strong representation from the global south, spoilers and militants have a harder time

cynically branding them as having imperialist designs. even in places where the united states has decided to deploy troops, we have benefited from being able to hand off to the united nations as we did in haiti, allowing the peacekeeping operation been to provide longer-term support for security, rule of law, and political transition. the multilateral nature of peacekeeping helps address the free rider problem we see in so many matters of international security. from the spread of ebola to the rise of isil to the recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters, whereby countries with vested interests in addressing threats rely on the united states to do the lion's share. we need other countries to stand up rather than stand by. we start from the premise that in a world where we had a vested interest in seeing violent conflicts curbed and seeing suffering prevented, america needs peacekeeping to work. precisely at this moment when we recognize this crucial role that peacekeeping can play, shoring up u.s.' interests, demands are

outpacing what we can deliver. we're asking peacekeepers to do more than at any time in history. there are currently 16 u.n. peacekeeping missions worldwide, made up of 130,00 personnel, at least 100,000 of them being uniformed military and police, compared to 75,000 total personnel a decade ago. that is not to mention the more than 20,000 peacekeepers fighting in the african union's mission in somalia. this is by far the most peacekeepers that have ever been active in history. yet the numbers only tell a small part of the story. the strain on the system would be challenging enough if we were asking peacekeepers simply to do

what they used to do, to monitor cease-fires between two consenting states. but we are giving peacekeepers brought and commanding responsibilities in increasingly inhospitable domains. we're asking them to contain, and at times even disarm violent groups like the countless rebel groups in the democratic republic of the congo. we are asking them to ensure safe delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance, such as by escorting emergency shipments of food and medicine to civilians as peacekeepers have done in south sudan. we're asking them to protect civilians from atrocities such as those been carried out in the central african republic. and we're asking them to help provide civility in countries emerging from brutal civil wars, as in liberia, and in virtually all of these missions we are asking them to carry out these duties in countries where governments are extremely weak and often unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens. today, 2/3 of u.n. peacekeepers are operating in active conflict

areas, the highest percentage ever. peacekeepers often employed to areas where rebel groups and militias have made clear that they intend to keep fighting, and the warring parties in in modern conflicts increasingly include violent extremist groups who terrorized civilians and you peacekeepers openly, treat peacekeepers as legitimate targets. but precisely at this moment when we are asking more of peacekeeping than ever before, and as we recognize the crucial role that it can play, we see both the promise and the pitfalls of contemporary peacekeeping. we see life-saving impact when peacekeepers are willing and able to fulfill their mandates, and we see the devastating consequences when they are not. a few examples. in south sudan, where a new civil war has displaced more than a million people and killed more than 10,000, just since last december, the u.n. peacekeeping mission has

arguably played a critical role in preventing even more bloodshed. on december 15, a day that infighting between the president and former vice-president that sent the country spiraling into violence, government soldiers went house to house searching for ethnic men and executing them in the streets. in one incident, soldiers crammed between 200 and 300 men into a small building an open fire on them through the window, killing nearly all of them. in the city of -- rebel forces targeted the homes and looting. in response the u.n. gates of the space to civilians fleeing the violence, eventually taking in more than 100,000 displaced persons. on a trip to south sudan, i took in august, i visited a u.n. base where more than 17,000 people were taking shelter.

rough as the conditions were for the people on the base, and they were rough, many of them were living in foot-high for deep filthy water, they told me they had access to food and clean drinking water and protection from deadly attacks, which was more than could be said for the south sudanese outside of the gates. two decades earlier, recall when civilian sought refuge under the u.n. flag, peacekeepers made a different choice. in april 1994, some 2000 rwandan tutsi sought records in a base. hutu were chanting "hutu power," drinking banana beer, and brandishing machetes. when orders came for the peacekeepers to evacuate, they followed orders. they had to shoot over the heads

of tutsi to get out. not long after to the peacekeepers walked out of the school, militia members walked in, butchering everyone inside. that was then. now we have u.n. mission in south sudan opening its gates and staying with its people at time of great need. at the same time, south sudan today demonstrates the continuing challenge of rapidly deploying peacekeepers and equipment they need. at the outset of this december conflict, which continues to this day, the security council swiftly authorized an emergency surge of 5500 troops, nearly doubling the number of troops there on the ground in south sudan. yet almost one year later, the mission today is still more than 2000 troops short, severely restricting the ability to project force and provide security for civilians outside the camps. it has also suffered from a chronic shortage of helicopters.

there is a shortfall of helicopters across u.n. missions, consistently restricting effectiveness, often in life or death situations. in the democratic republican of congo, there is similar good news, bad news. after years of stagnancy, the u.n. has played a really important role in the last year and a half in disarming and defeating powerful rebel groups. alongside congolese forces, these efforts have been led by a mission unit known as the force intervention brigade. the brazilian u.n. force commander, who has been absolutely critical to a heightened emphasis on preventing atrocities, told fellow peacekeeping commanders at a recent security council meeting to change their mindset and to stop reporting just what happened yesterday and instead start reporting what we did yesterday, so the accountability is for what we did in the face of what is happening.

and the brigade under him has put these convictions into action, neutralizing a number of powerful rebel groups, including the m-23, which had committed atrocities against congolese civilians. the general has set an example by putting himself on the front lines of this aggressive effort, in patrols with his troops and even traveling personally to the headquarters of one rebel group to tell its leader to lay down their arms or face a frontal assault. this is not your mother's or your grandmother's peacekeeping. and yet even with this singular leadership, we still see you in peacekeepers in congo fairly routinely failing to protect civilians. on the evening of june 6, assailants attacked civilians at an outdoor church service in a congolese town. many people called the nearby u.n. base, only five miles away. they were begging for help. in some instances they were

using the free phones that peacekeepers had provided them for just such an emergency. yet the peacekeepers sat at their base, later claiming they thought the local congolese military commanders would intervene. more than 30 people were massacred. one victim was a four-year-old boy with disabilities who was burned to death. these are the stakes of what gets done right and what gets done wrong. we are not done in this case. this incident in congo was unfortunately not an isolated case, even though the protection of civilians has moved to the heart of mandates. a report by the u.n.'s internal oversight office in march found in 507 attacks against civilians from 2010 to 2013 peacekeepers never used force to protect civilians under attack. thousands of civilians may have been killed.

in mali, a teenage girl was whipped 60 times in timbuktu for daring to talk to young boys. music was banned. major mazza liam's were demolished and libraries were burned. today peacekeepers are playing a critical role alongside the french to help root out extremists. u.n. peacekeepers are helping those in mali to reduce displaced persons by 60%, and their presence has prevented extremists from taking towns like timbuktu, where the community is reconstituting its long tradition of religious tolerance. at the same time, the peacekeeping mission in mali faces serious challenges in projecting force over the vast territory north of the niger

river. the mission has struggled to establish base camps and sustain them in an austere environment with unusable roads. the mission has had to spend millions of dollars to transport water to its troops in that environment. worst of all, u.n. peacekeepers are facing unprecedented attacks by extremists. to give a few examples, on august 16 a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck in with explosives into the heart of a u.n. camp and detonated. two peacekeepers were killed and seven others were wounded. on september 18, five chad peacekeepers were killed when their truck rolled over an ied. on october 3, there was an ambush, which killed nine peacekeepers from niger.

suffice it to say, when peacekeeping was created six decades ago, it did not have suicide bombers or ied's in mind. when we deploy peacekeepers into some of the most complex areas in our time, some of these problems would likely be evident even if the world's most advanced militaries were the ones wearing blue helmets. regardless of the problems i have described -- slow troop deployment, the challenge of keeping units fed and hydrated, the failure to confront aggressors and protect civilians -- are problems that are in the u.s. interest to see addressed. i would like to share four ways the united states and our partners can strengthen peacekeeping so it can better meet the demands of 21st-century conflicts.

first, the pool of countries that deploy troops, police, and military enablers has to expand. peacekeeping is increasingly funded by developed countries and manned by developing countries. this is unsustainable and unfair. it will not produce the peacekeeping forces that today's conflicts and our national security demand. it perpetuates divisions between the two camps when we have a shared interest in seeing peacekeeping succeed. that is why vice president biden convened world leaders at the general assembly in september for a peacekeeping summit, to press for more commitments from capable militaries and to demonstrate our common cause with those who are performing this dangerous task. we are encouraging european militaries, many of which are drawing down from afghanistan, to return to you in peacekeeping were they play a very active role in the 1990's. we are urging latin american

militaries to deploy outside of the western hemisphere. we are asking east asian militaries to bring more substantially to peacekeeping, some for the first time. these countries will not only bring more troops to operations, but also potentially niche capabilities, such as the surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that dutch and mali, which should help prevent deadly attacks on peacekeepers and civilians like the ones that have taken the lives of more than 30 peacekeepers in mali in the last year. at the september summit, many of our partners answered the u.s. and the u.n. call. colombia announced it will deploy its troops to you in peacekeeping. japan announced it will change its domestic legislation to permit greater participation in peacekeeping. indonesia announced it will more than double deployment of troops to u.n. peacekeeping operations and create a standby force to permit rapid deployment.

more than two dozen other countries, from sweden to chile to china, made commitments. we will continue to urge more contributions of the coming year, and world leaders will reconvene in september, 2015 to make new pledges to peacekeeping. as for our own military in addition to our heightened efforts in afghanistan, against isil, and ebola, the united states also sent about 1400 troops to the multinational peacekeeping force in sinai. bosnia.nato mission in as vice president biden said, we are reviewing gaps that the united states is in position to fill, and that includes building base camps as we are currently doing for the mission in the central african republic. we're also doing more to share our unique knowledge of confronting asymmetric threats like the ones that peacekeepers are confronting in mali and

somalia, lessons we learned from more than a decade of war in afghanistan. we're doing more to help peacekeeping missions make better use of advanced technologies, such as counter-ied equipment. our second goal in this effort is to ensure that countries with the will to perform 21st-century peacekeeping have the capacity they need to do so. because african leaders see firsthand the consequences of unchecked conflicts, several have been at the forefront of embracing a new approach to peacekeeping, seeking to execute the tasks assigned to peacekeepers and in particular the responsibility to protect civilians. the african union has demonstrated a commitment to building rapid response capability on the continent, and the united states is leading a coalition of international partners in support to this end. in august, president obama announced a new initiative at

the u.s. africa leaders summit. united states will invest $110 million each year for the next three to five years to build the capacity of a core group of six countries -- ethiopia, ghana, rwanda, senegal, tanzania, and uganda -- and we are hopeful our allies in nato and elsewhere will join. and then make a commitment to protecting civilians from violence. to give one example, rwanda's troops were some of the first boots on the ground when conflict erupted in the central african republic. because rwandans reinforced

their mission, people from other countries trust them. aggressors who would attack civilians, fear them. the united nations has trained hundreds of thousands of peacekeepers in the past decade through the global peace operations initiative launched under president bush. it is an important supplement to that effort. our military experts will work alongside partners like rwanda to strengthen their institutions and capabilities so they can deploy troops when crises emerge and they can't supply and sustain their forces in hostile and inhospitable environments. in exchange for this support, these countries have committed to maintain the forces and the equipment necessary to undertake rapid deployment. third, we need to build a global consensus in support of the mandates peacekeepers are being asked to undertake.

the security council first tasked a peacekeeping mission with the responsibility to protect civilians in sierra leone in 1999. in the face of that brutal civil war in their country. today, 10 missions constituting almost 98% of u.n. troops across the world are charged with protecting civilians. a number of large troop contributors openly express skepticism at the scope of responsibilities the council has assigned their troops. these countries cite this traditional principles of peacekeeping, operating with consent of parties have remaining impartial, and using limited force. this approach is understandable. many of the countries that subscribe to this view served in some of the earliest peacekeeping missions, and which blue helmets were deployed at the invitation of warring parties to observe a cease-fire along a demarcated line. such as one between israel and

syria or india and pakistan. in that context, it was that peacekeepers had the parties' consent and that they observe and reported infractions. for more than 20 years, peacekeeping has steadily evolved, and we must question how relevant these principles remain to places like mali at south sudan where peacekeepers are called on to defend peace and protect civilians. as the ethiopian prime minister argued, we cannot ask extremist groups for their consent, remain impartial between legitimate governments and brutal militias, or restrict peacekeepers to using force and self-defense while mass atrocities are taking place around them. if peacekeeping is to be effective in the 21st century, we have to close the gap between the mandates the international community asks peacekeepers to undertake and their willingness to successfully execute those mandates. if not, it puts the lives of civilians and peacekeepers at

risk and undermines the legitimacy of peacekeeping everywhere. recently, some of the largest and longest-serving troop contributors have demonstrated a willingness to tackle this issue head on. over the last year, bangladesh has conducted a conference of internal review to craft a new peacekeeping strategy aimed at adapting to the demands of contemporary peacekeeping. it has recognized the evolution of peacekeeping and pledged to make protection of civilians and essential component of its troops' training. meanwhile, pakistan removed a sector commander who failed to deploy his troops to protect civilians under attack, and that send a message to pakistan's 8000 peacekeepers worldwide that such action was not condoned. last week pakistan declared to the u.n. that it was committed to robust peacekeeping to protect civilians. translating these shifts in posture into unity of purpose

will take time, but these are promising steps, and we will work with our partners and the u.n. to encourage more like them. in turn, we must take seriously and seek to remedy the troop contributing countries when dealing with countries' frustrations that they lack sufficient opportunity to share with the security council the practical experience of their troops undertakings on complex and robust mandates which put in harm's way their men and women in uniform. fourth, we need to press the u.n. to make bold institutional reforms. it is easy to criticize the u.n. for all the problems we see on the ground, but that the same time as we create much-needed capability for failures and for abuses, we should take note of some profound changes that the u.n. secretary has made to peacekeeping since the catastrophic failures of rwanda

and srebrenica to improve logistics and procurement, the united nations has made advances. last year we spearheaded the effort to enact further reforms, including longer troop rotations, to preserve institutional memory, financial penalties for troops who show up without necessary equipment to perform duties, and financial premiums for troops who are willing to accept higher risks, incentives and risks. ban ki-moon has just announced a new review of peacekeeping. years.st in 15 while we do not expect a review to remedy deficiencies in

capabilities and shortages in political will, the review should address the shortcomings in peacekeeping that the u.n. itself has the ability itself to fix -- inadequate planning, slow troop employment, uneven mission leadership, unclear and unenforced standards for troop performance, inadequate measures to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, insufficient accountability for failure to protect civilians, and an inefficient division of labor between peacekeeping operations and other u.n. agencies. most of the issues i've just described, the u.n. secretary can take a strong leadership role. member states then in turn have to step up. you have to have both for lines of effort ensuring peacekeeping better addresses 21st-century challenges. they demonstrate the need for u.s. leadership and to exercise that leadership, the united states must pay our u.n. dues in full. i understand the frustration many americans feel that the united states paying a

substantial share of the peacekeeping budget. and with the u.s. share rising over the past decade, due to the formula that the united states negotiated in 2000 which allows our regular budget contribution share to be capped, we agree that the formula should be changed to reflect the realities of today's world. until that happens, we also insist on paying our full dues at this critical moment. if we do not, he will dramatically undercut our power to achieve the reforms needed. we will undermine our leadership. and we will potentially underfund important african-led missions, such as the ones in mali and the central african republic. this does not mean we sign over large check and look at the other way. on the contrary, as stewards of taxpayer funds over the last six years, we are pressed hard to improve the cost efficiency of peacekeeping and to prevent significant costs.

through u.s.-led reform efforts, the u.n. has cut the per-person peacekeeper cost by 16%. we've also aggressively fought cost increases, saving hundreds of millions of dollars per year. we have pressed to streamline and right-sized missions where warranted by changing conditions on the ground. in the ivory coast we've cut the number of troops in half, from 10,000 to around 5000. in haiti, we've reduced the number from 9000 after the 2010 earthquake just over 2000 today, and we were on course to do the same in liberia prior to the outbreak of ebola. these efforts ensure that governments do not use peacekeepers as an excuse not to take responsibly for their own citizens' security.

and streamlining missions in this manner frees up troops and resources that are needed elsewhere. we will continue to work to make peacekeeping as efficient as possible without undermining its effectiveness in close coordination with congress. as congress reconvenes next week to consider a spending bill, i plan to continue working with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to find a path forward on this critically important issue. before closing, let me touch briefly on a trip president obama asked me to take last week to take stock of the international response to the ebola outbreak in west africa. long before ebola hit sierra leone and liberia, civil wars did. and both nations hosted u.n. peacekeeping missions. the u.n.'s mission in liberia is ongoing. when peacekeepers arrived in sierra leone in 1999, the cease-fire between parties was shaky. more than 50,000 people had been

killed and rebel groups had amputated the limbs of 20,000 people. over the next six years, the u.n. sierra leone mission was performing a lot like the contemporary missions i described earlier. it suffered some very serious failures and setbacks, including credible allegations of an outrageous pattern of sexual abuse by troops, and less than a year after the mission deployed, rebels kidnapped hundreds of peacekeepers, killed four of them, and renounced their cease-fire with the government. talk to sierra leoneans, as i did last week, and you recall a mission that had an impact in helping sierra leone rebuild after a devastating conflict. these efforts helped disarm 75,000 fighters, including child soldiers. they helped integrate into families and communities once again. the blue helmets decommission more than 42,000 weapons. they helped 500,000 people who were displaced. after helping the first democratic election in 2005, the

u.n. peacekeeping mission was drawn down. one of the questions that kept running through my mind as i toured freetown last week, what if peacekeepers had never come? what if the country had still been at war? how much faster with the virus have spread? how would doctors and nurses be able to flood the country to help support that country's weak health system right now? how would the military be able to help build ebola treatment units or bearer operations if they were tied down fighting rebels? we rarely ask these questions of peacekeeping. we see the many ways that peacekeepers come up short, the slowness to deploy, failure to protect civilians. what we cannot see what is impossible to see is the counterfactual.

what would any of the more than a dozen countries where u.n. peacekeepers are deployed today look like without a peacekeeping presence? and as the missions do their jobs, as in sierra leone, they make themselves obsolete. they draw down, troops come home, not to parades. in spite of having risked their lives, they come home to anonymity. yet this what if question is one we must ask ourselves with every mission -- what would have happen in south sudan if no u.n. peacekeepers had been present, or if the u.n. had not opened its gates to those people? what would the central african republic look like today if no african or european union peacekeepers -- now u.n. peacekeepers, had come to prevent attacks of civilians, being massacred with abandon.

the violence and suffering would likely have been much worse. the what-if question does not let anybody off the hook. not peacekeepers, not that countries that fund and support peacekeeping and authorize the admissions. nobody gets off the hook. it does remind us of why this effort was so worthwhile and why american leadership is so critical. it is because places like sierra leone and south sudan and the central african republic are better off than they would have been without peacekeeping does not mean that the institution is where it needs to be. it is not. nor does it mean that we are satisfied with peacekeepers filling parts but not all of their mandates, or peacekeepers standing up to protect civilians some of the time rather than all of the time. we are not. when the stakes are as high as they are in these conflicts,

when shortfalls can result in atrocities committed, communities uprooted, and communities being split along ethnic and religious lines, getting it right some of the time is not good enough. peacekeeping must be consistently performing and meeting our expectations. we will keep working with our partners to bring about the kinds of reforms upon which the security of millions of people around the world may well depend. thank you. [applause]

>> good to go? >> good to go. >> if you can hear us, marvelous. i want to make sure we get at least a little bit of time and not have any of the throat clearing questions about how good you look today. you said something that was very interesting to me as a former congressional staffer, on peacekeeping. >> thanks for that. >> you are welcome. you want congress to react that

money. at the same time, how much are the chinese contributing? >> the chinese share of peacekeeping has doubled. it is up around 5% now. >> and you want us to go to 27 percent? >> you are old numbers. >> i am old. >> the share now that we are billed for is 28.4%. which means that 71.6% is paid by others. but we are paying a large share. >> you should have stuck with what i said before. that sounded better. that is going to be a hard case to make. there is a lot of bipartisan support for particular missions, whether it is the syria/israel line, which is now active -- it

used to be just sheep, and now it is all nusra. mali, where we have seen al qaeda get pushed out and then re-establishing a foothold. south sudan, of course, the united states -- i think it is true that when you raise the issue of peacekeeping in the abstract, people blanched a little bit. if you can disaggregate it and look at the protection of civilians in the central african republic, and muslims as well -- i think we have a lot of support. >> you make some very specific and persuasive cases. let's talk about a couple of the ones you just mentioned are really tough. peacekeepers, i think you rightly outline -- not delivering peace, but keeping peace prevailing. obviously, the peacekeepers --

not a peacekeeping operation, but you mentioned the multinational forces around al qaeda. how do we manage these situations where peacekeepers are more than -- should they be taken out? >> many of them would like to not be present in those roles. refreshing the conversation with the american people, with congress, is so important. the truth is, we do spend a lot of time rightly drawing attention to the ways in which they fail in this environment. with no anti-ied equipment, with no iav's, with extremists in your neighborhood -- there are no obvious candidates to take their place, if we cannot reinforce the efforts they are making.

on the list of options, allowing vacuums to persist or civilians to be slaughtered wholesale -- we are in a situation now where we are trying to change the training, change the capabilities, change the mindset. there is a lag between the missions of the kind you have described and i have described and the traditional mindset that many of these broad. we have been in this evolution as well from the 1990's. now, as i said, the huge percentage of u.n. peacekeeping being performed not in conflict areas. the exception is when there is actually peace to keep. if there were a door number two, i think we would all walk through it. instead, what we have are these imperfect coalitions of people who are willing to put

themselves on the line in service of international peace and security and protection of civilians. we cannot hope to wish them well and hope these tensions resolve themselves. >> are these contributors all going to be game for the notions that they could be in the sorts of conflicts now? >> let me give you an example. with each country, it is a specific dialogue. we need a new contact on the rules of engagement they need to embrace, if for no other reason than the major of the environment they are operating in. just to give one example, mali, 30 peacekeepers have been killed this year.

and you have african countries wanting to walk away? no, they want more robust rules of engagement. i do recognize that if you do not deal with a crisis in the neighborhood, coming to a community near you, you have a lot of political will. you either have a shortage of will, and some capable and experienced forces, or you have a huge amount of will and some issues of equipment, being able to sustain themselves. anti-ied.el and we have to close those gaps. >> if you would be kind enough to identify yourself. she is coming. she is right here. >> hello. >> and identify yourself. >> first of all, then you for all the discussion. i saw my first peacekeeping

mission in 1960, in the congo. it took the life of the secretary-general. the countries like the congo had so many peacekeeping missions. how much of that did they pay themselves? >> a country like the congo, i think the answer would not only be nothing, but it would be also that they look to the international community to support their security forces who are operating now side-by-side with the peacekeepers, taking on some of these armed groups. there are exceptions like in cyprus. it is a very different

situation. you had a developed country where they do contribute a very substantial share of the peacekeeping. your larger point in congo, i use the phrase "stagnating" about years of peacekeeping missions in congo that produced no dividends, at least in terms of overall change. maybe civilians were safer here because there might be a peacekeeper in the neighborhood, but when you look at the net crisis, it looks like more of the same, year to year. this is an example -- they are using a forced intervention brigade, where you had three african armies willing to be part of this -- south africa, which are raring to go against armed groups. they are also using uavs to monitor the border and see whether arms are coming across or actors in the region are

getting involved in problematic ways. i think there is actually something different that has brought about meaningful changes for the past year and a half. when you look in the congo, it is harder to say. >> young lady back here. >> i am caroline. i study peace and conflict resolution in africa. there has been a tendency for african countries to want to consolidate peacekeeping efforts, and want to find larger units to deal with issues. one of the more recent is the overarching protocols within security governance, these larger themes. we have also seen them come into a conflict resolution role, in congo.

i wonder where you see the future of the african g.a.r. and conflict resolution in the region. >> to distinguish that group a little bit and a little bit of effort -- there was a security reform piece. putting security to one side. i should've said at the beginning, i hope it goes without saying that the political processes, the mediation and the national reconciliation, that that is the first order priority, of course, of international efforts. the best you are going to do with the security forces is, hold the militias at bay and hopefully defang them and protect civilians. unless you have that parallel peace at work, where you try to give rise to what gives conflict in the first place, you are

going to be playing whack-a-mole. that is what we have seen in the congo over many years. without getting into the technical aspects of what the regional effort is seeking to achieve, i think what we have seen in parallel to these improvements, and this aggressive attitude on the part of the peacekeepers, is way more regional ownership of what is happening. in an interesting and noteworthy development, they have stepped up not only in that region, but also in the central african republic. countries are stepping up to provide peacekeepers that have not before. they are looking to expand the forces and make sure they have the training capabilities they need. it is probably not worth going so deep into the specifics of what the regional effort is right now. there would be no solution to congo on the peacekeeping side. it is going to come through a

political process. when there is enough will on the part of all of the stakeholders in the region and when there is a deterrent to the armed groups, where they feel like they need to surrender their weapons or face something on the security side. find a place where their constituents can find a home. >> she has a plane to catch and i don't know how she's going to in 45 minutes. audience.gize to our we'll have to have you back. >> thank you all! [applause] audience. we'll have to

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the federal government's goal to have people enrolled in coverage next year. politico.tion from general stanley mcchrystal. and later, a conversation on access.d internet president obama arrived in for the asia pacific economic cooperation summit today. there on your screen. he met with the chinese president on wednesday. thursday and friday, he'll be in burma, holding a h lateral meeting