the other thing is to try to communicate in a way that is always science and evidence-based. you may not get it across the first time you say it, but you've got to say it over and over again. that is the issue of risk and probability. to try to explain to people that the risks of things are there. we've got to accept that. direc

with bodily fluids, blood, fece fecesvomitous, things people doo o talk about which is the reason healthcare workers are the ones who are most at risk because they put themselves, they run in to the fire, not away from the fire. that's why we have the risk translated into infection. >> gets extrapolated by the american public when they see ebola, they think somehow, everyone is at risk, and you've got to keep telling them the scientific facts, that they are not. i remember so clearly, jack, being on ted coppell, "nightline" trying to explain to someone who was arguing against me that the risk -- this was 1982 and '83. the risk, they say, well, why don't we not allow gay waiters

to wait on tables in greenich village? because we know now that a substantial proportion of them are infected. so what happens if they bring avacado -- you have a cut on your hand, you pick a plate up. people were focusing on that. so you had to bring the scientific evidence. is that possible? yes. but do a probability curve. it is more likely you will get hit by a car as you walk out the restaurant than it is somebody giving you hiv that way. you just keep going over and over it. finally, when all of the scientific data was in, people believed t that's how you counter. you've got to be calm. you've got tot a negative pejorative of people who disagree with you even though you think they are unreasonable and keep countering it with

scientific based evidence and it works. >> here at georgetown, i think the key to this response is a unique combination of science and faith. science, as tony indicated, being medically aware and having the best policies based upon the best science and the kind of information tony talked about, but has with the hiv aids crisis, the role of the faith community in preaching about compassion, about tolerance, about non-stigmatization, about volunteerism, about service, that's also a key element of the response. one of the first venues i had at the whitehouse was with faith leaders from all faith den om nations sending people to volunteer in wet africa. dr. kent brantly who has now become a face of recovering ebola cases here in the united states and has donated generously of his own plasma to help treat other people. he was there on a missionary

mission in west africa. sometimes places like georgetown, we wonder, how do faith and science go together? how do we reconcile these two things? the ebola crisis is a crisis that shows us we need both of these things to address all elements of the response and all elements of the crisis. >> i think you both have captured a couple of very important points. i would just like to explore a little bit further before we open it up. ron, in mentioning faith, identified the role that communities play in helping to control the spread, the arc of an illness. and in the 1980s, many communities came together to compliment, supplement the support that colleagues were working in the science to create a immersive context of the dine

amics of the illness. right now, one of the organizations on the front lines has been doctors without borders and they do seem to borrow some of the efforts that you were describing with paul farmer's work of bringing a whole community into the work. could you say just a little bit more about your own experiences in trying to mobilize the power of communities in support of responding in moments like this? >> well, the thing that i have most experience and obviously, in hiv is because it was so pervasive. i mean we have had the anxiety of ebola. and we have had a handful of cases here back then, we had tens of thousands of cases and not a lot of people were paying attention to it early on. so when you talk about community did, i think the involvement and caring community -- mostly the activist community -- have transformed the way we look at

diseases now in the united states. so, it's a little bit different because we don't have or need that with ebola in the united states. but i can tell you, the reason is that we have the success in southern africa with hiv is that the activist community in the playbook, if the united states they say there are drugs out there. they are making people well. we are dying. we need those drugs community did in africa, there is government you disfunctions and civil war but if the community

makes the demand for the kind of systems, kind of from a structure we are talking about, that's going to go a long way to making it happen. there is nothing like a community to change the way leaders look. it happens right here in the united states with hiv and the aids activist community. why not happen in africa about healthcare? two quick questions and we hope open it up. roughly $2 million has been offered, a u.s. responsible for a good quarter of that. at the same time, u.n. and who have outlined a pretty ambitious plan to try to bring this in control by january. is the level of funding, roughly $2,000,000,000 that have been dedicated by nations from around the eu, is that sufficient to respond to the crisis?

>> no. so, it's not. >> is why we have been moving forward on a number of fronts. we solicit contributions of people, resources and funds from all over the world and from all kind of international organizations. i think it's work remembering, a faptastic response from non-governmental organizations, foundations, non-profits, generous been factors here and around the world that's also part of it. but critically, president obama asked the congress the first week in november a funding request of $62,000,000,000, $47,000,000,000 for immediate use, 1 dots .5 billion in case it goes to other currents trees or having unanticipated needs as well as those here at home and we had had some progress so far.

we are really hoping that in the next week is, it kind of wraps up omnibus spending bill or whatever truck tour they put the spending bill in, that a large chunk will be passed. we need those funds urgently. you know, the response of the u.s. has mounted with all of our agencies doing something has really been on borrowed money and reallocating resources, real indicating people. no one a year ago had ebola response in their budgets. we have sentence hundreds of civilians to west africa, thousands of service people to west africa. all of that has come by moving resources around. those resources are running out. and the only way we can keep up the response, let alone expand it to do what we need to do, is by getting this emergency funding request approved. >> tony, in your earlier comments you mentioned the importance of a vaccine. my colleagues here will no doubt attest that i never allow an opportunity to goo by where i

don't make a pitch for increased funding to the nih that works its way back to our colleges and universities, but. >> this is an opportunity. this was discovered in 1976. we don't have a vaccine. can you tell a little bit about the background kocontext for th? >> we have been working or a vaccine since 1999/2000. when i recruited the team from the research center that came here rnth our first paper was in "nature" by nancy sullivan and her colleague, gary nable. and we, were making a better and better vaccine, we never were able to get a serious pharmaceutical partner for the simple reason that they didn't perceive it as something that would be a blockbuster when you

have, from 1976 to now, 241 outbreaks for a total ex excluding the current outbreak of about 2300 people. so no one wanted to vicinity in that i think that's one of the roles of the federal government. the federal governments have a way. this is one of the ways where the federal government said we will stick with this, develop it appeared finally, when things started to percolate, then we got good pharmaceutical partners. if we had not been involved in that. again, it's a lesson that if you really wants to be preparedition difficult to get money for something that hasn't happened. when something happens, people say: what were you doing? why weren't you ready for it? but when you say guess what. we need to be really for a

pandemic flu or whatever, it's we have same thing with pharmaceutical companies. they want to have something they know is going to be used right away. >> all kidding aside, the reality is that the level of funding for the national institutes of health were significantly impacted during the sequester, more than a billion and a half was removed. we got a billion back in january in the new bucket reconciliation, but we are still below 2012 levels. >> that's not a trajectory for us a as a nation if we want to be able to respond to the kind of challenges we face. >> open this up now. there is a microphone in the center i'll. if you would like to ask a question, if you could just get in line behind the microphone and we will take as many as we can in the next 20, 25 minutes or so. >> one the topics -- >> please introduce yourself. >> berl braden, a member of the

faculty in the school of public policy. one the topics that wasn't really discussed so far is the relationship between science and politics. we have scene the difficult in the u.s. system of dealing with one aspect of the political role, which is the structure of our system, federalism. i wondered if you would comment on that and comment on some of the let's options you might draw on between the relation between science and politics. thank you? >> thank you. well, i think that notice popular press, i am referred to as the ebola czar and i never deal as unczary as when i am trying to deal with this. our response to the united

states is incredly benefitted by the hard work of many state and local officials, too. this is a two-way relationship. right now, we have about 1400 people who have traveled from west africa in the past 21 days and we monitor them twice a day for their temperature. that's done by state and local officials. our local public health authorities take on at that work every day and make a big contribution of this effort in keeping the rest of us safe. obviously, as we have rolled out our system of ebola treatment centers we just announced earlier this week at the nih when the president was there, 35 hospitals, 53 beds, those are set by state and tlolz designating, aftpproving and reviewing. the federal system worked for 225 years and some days frustration but many days, great benefits to united states it's

been guide post for us. i think by and large, that's been successful. as tony said, translating si scientific ideas into a public discussion is tricky. we have been lucky. i want to repeat myself because it bears repeating. very lucky to have someone like tony who has incredibilitychible expertise but a great ability to explain this to lay people to help make the brim between science and popular discussion we should be careful to not always equate politics as a dirty word. we live in a political system. it works. politics is politics but it does work. it does work.

please introduce yourself? >> my name is dan carney. i am a senior. this question is for dr. fauci. it's it's an honor to speak to you as a graduate of regionis high school. my question has to do with ebola and something we have learned in one of our classes here at georgetown. we learned about neglected tropical diseases. one that came up is could ebola be considered a neglected tropical disease? and it's a point of debate because it has certain qualities but it's missing a few key one. i was wondering whether you would consider it a neglected tropical disease? >> the answer is certainly bebroader criteria, it is a tropical disease and it's neglected because we don't have the tools right now that we wish we did have.

glected tropical diseases, as you know because you are studying it, different definitions but i look at it more loosely. i would consider this as something that now, it's going to be considered by the world as a neglected tropical disease because it's on everybody's radar screen. the one thing i hope we get out of this is drugs that we prove work and a vaccine we know works. if there is one silver lining of tragedies like this, it's that you get something out of it so we don't have to go through this the next time. so the answer to your question is, in my mind, it's a neglected tropical disease. >> thank you. >> good morning. my name is niglato. i was wondering if you could speak about the case of thomas eric duncan and whether his life could have been saved or not and there was a lot of debate surrounding the case. i was wondering if you could share your opinion. >> you know, you really can't

make those kinds of predictions of having taken care of so many thousands and thousands of patients in my life to say, we could have saved his life if we did this. there is always the possibility. the man was sick. he we want to an emergency room. he was not immediately diagnos d diagnosed. it's tough to be pejorative about that. it's easy for somebody in an easy chair in gaston haul to say an african man comes in, in the middle of an ebola epidemic. it's fortunate he was not diagnosed early. when he got into the hospital, he was vallreally very, very ile been plugged into an intensive care system earlier, could it have made a difference? possible. but we shouldn't look at it that

way. we should try to look at lessons learned from that. i don't think we could say things would have been different. it's possible it could have been. >> thank you. thank you for coming to speak to us today. you both touched on briefly the role of nss in the ebola outbreak. i was wondering if you had any thoughts on why there was such discrepancy between the nsf response and calling this outbreak unpress deposited in march and the whots response waiting until august to declare it an international health e members of the ju emergency. any thoughts about why they saw this happen? thank you. >> a tough question because i have always been knowing it and still am a straight shooter. i think if you look at w.h.o. , w.h.o. has suffered from chronic under funding. and one would have hoped that they would have recognized very

early on that this was something that really was go to go explode. they didn't have the manpower. they have had budgetary constraints, have substantial cuts in their experienced personnel. so what msf, which is a fantastic organization, they are there. they are on the ground. they see it as it -- as it is happening and as its unfolding, and they called it correctly very early on. i believe if the who had had the strength of -- that they should have had at the time, that they probably would have been much more intensively involved in there on the ground. >> i wanted to speak to you today. my name is rossa capari, a sophomore in the school ofphon service. as a student of anthropology, i have been taking careful note of how the media has been reacting to the ebola crisis. i was wondering why you thought

the media is a big part of the u.s. response and we have seen this high level of anxiety. why do you think there has been such extreme level of stig matation and other ing. in my home stand we had a lot of issues, but in particularly two school children who were almost kicked out of school. there is a school teacher in kentucky who had visited africa and was forced to resign. why is the ebola crisis triggering such high levels of other ing. is it a marker of rachel tensions? is there something else going on? what do you guys thing? >> i am not an anthropologist, and so, what i would say is i can't really explain why the reaction to ebola has been what it has been in america. what i can tell you is what we have been doing to try to address that. and so we have been working very hard to make sure that those who

were involved in treating the disease, both overseas and here at home, aren't subject -- and their families aren't subject to stig matization or ostracism or anything like that but are celebrated for what they are, which are heroes. and i think part of this is just a need to do more educating, month are informing about what tony referred to earlier, the low level of risks that are involved here and getting to the to be more aware and comfortable with that. we have seen this. we have seep this for even healthcare workers in america, the people at bellevue who treated dr. spencer reported many of them and their families were having negative reactions when they we want back home and what not. i think it's an important thing for all of us to do, to speak out against that kind of stig matization, to battle ride the healthcare workers going africa to fight this disease. those people, the people who are volunteer, the people in msf,

paul farmer's group, all of these people sending people over there, those are the people keeping us safe here they are doing great humanitarian work, saving looipz lives but if nothing else, we should think of them as the people who are keeping us safe here and welcome them home with the kind of welcome they deserve to be given when they come back from that. >> so one of the things that i have learned, it was tough for me to accept it, after you see it a lot, you do. fear is a raw emotion that sometimes get people who otherwise would be considered good people to do things that are not so good. and i saw it in spades in the hiv aids epidemic. now, obviously, there are shades of racism and other things that might be going on, but i don't think that's the predominant motivating force. it gets to what i was trying to

explain before about the issue of the public perceives risks. we go through risks every day of our lives. but the risks are chronic, and you accept them. for one reason or another, which anthropologists, budding anthropologists like yourself probably no better than i that when there is a new risk, en if the risk in a probability prioritization is much lower than the risk that you are alrea accepting on an every d-day bas for strange reasons, you react much more violently in your mind metaphorically against that risk because you don't like a new risk even though you are already living many, many risks. so the one that was very, very clear -- there were many, but back in the aids days when children of an

aids patient or ryan white, who was a young man who was a hemo fi hemophilliac, they tried to burn down his house because of the fear of this unknown disease even though the risk was much less than any of the children who didn't want to go to school with him, probability of risk, the probability of their getting hiv from ryan was infinitely less than them getting hit by a car going to school, yet they wouldn't let ryan white into school. so fear does really strange things to people. and that's something that is deep-seated in our nature. and, you know, it's part of us unfortunately. >> mile in a is andrew. i am a history mainly but i am a

biology minor. i was wondering whether this crisis, which has been such a nexus of the science and political systems in the united states, whether you think that a similar crisis would create political and comic will to fund research into these neglected employeeses whether they are tropical diseases or not and really make that a national priority that's bi-partisan p what mechanics would we need to create to epsure these are priority did, and how would we go about it that? >> well, i think it already has. i think that when you look at the progress we have made, hopefully on a bi-partisan basis in getting the president's emergency funding request to the congress, a lot of that money is going to go to nih to hit jack's plug and to other parts of hhs and to this global health

response. i think noel be investments in more long-term approaches as well. i think it's important. the president was at nih on tuesday and the post he made there, which tony and i were talking about on the way up here was how this crisis shows the importance of basic science of, of investments in basic signs. if you decide the day after ebola appears on the front page of the u.s. that it's time to do the basic research and the creating a vaccine, you are 10 years too late. a lot of this response shows a spotlight on need to go make basic investments well in advance of the crises so we can deal with these crises as they arrive. and to see something like dr. nancy sullivan of the nih who i

now met twice who has been working on this for 15 years and probably for the first fourteen years of that was one most obscure people in science. in the past year, you know, is one of the most prominent people just shows you how long this takes and how much, how important basic sigcience is to dealing with crises like this when they arise. >> we are coming close to the end. so what i would like to do, if i quo, is ask the next three people, if you could ask your questions, each of you, and then we will try to see if we can give a response to them all after we have heard from all three. if you could be quick in articulating your questions, that would be great. >> my name is manshon i am in the school of foreign service. what has the medical community, what has the washington community, so to speak, what has it lends from this crisis look forward in terms of identifying the next risk or how to respond to the next risk? >> okay.

>> mariana from the school of foreign services, senior as well and i wanted to talk more about the relationship between under development, poverty, lack of infrastructure within the medical and the government in this country and the current crisis. what is being done, and what could be done to actually have a sustainable approach to ebola addressing lack of capacity of the states? >> last question. >> my name is kelsey. i am a master's student in the biomedical science and advocacy program. my question is how ebola will act as a precedent on the global health platform and how its basically going to set the stage far how people will react to different how the breaks in the. thank you. >> ben, lessons learned, capacities. >> all of the three questions are linked. what have we learned? what about the global -- sfroep

global health? it relates to what ron and i both have been saying about it's dramatic experiences like we are going through right now which under score, building not only the kind of healthcare infrastructure, global health security agenda, infra strushing, not only from a health standpoint but from a research standpoint. you know, the investment in research that will not have us to play catch-up all the time and the investment in a health infrastructure that not only will detect diseases earlier but allow us to respond earlier. that's really what a lot of the global health agenda is all about. >> well, i can't add much to that other than to say it is a sad fact what a large role

poverty plays in the fatality rate from ebola. i think every way read ebola kills 70% of its victims. >> that's true without treatment and without interventions. even in west africa right now, some of the ngos that are treating people withno nothing more complicated than giving people iv rehideration are bringingnat bringingnatedalty rates down to 25 or 30 percent. >> that's still horrible, but when you think about the fact that you can cut the death rate of a disease in half by giving someone healthcare, it shows you how important, what a role resources and building up these healthcare systems and helping these under developed countries get to a basic level of care. if you could cut the death rate

from ebola in half by giving people ivs, not the stuff tony has been doing treating nita pham but basic care, that's a telling fact, a telling an he can't don't about this. certainly, we need to make the investments. we have to invest in current trees around the world in getting the global health infrastructure in place and develop long-term issues as well. >> let me ask you the question. s class are ending this week. going in to exams next we're. we are going to be off for a little while. we will we will be back in a month. advice for us as a you university community. are there thinged you thing a place like georgedown to do in the spring semester that might contribute to the effort to respond to this challenge,ing this really urgent challenge that is particularly facing west africa but raises a number of

questions beyond that that require on you attention? any advice for us as a university community? >> i wouldn't recommend you ghoul and try to take care of patients. >> that's for sure. but to develop as part of experience in global health, a solidarity with the young people in those countries to try to get them to realize that the young people here care about what's going on with them. i think you can do that through various organizations, volunteering or doing it by communications. it meant an awful lot to the people in southern africa when we reached out to them in the aids epidemic without even going over there but encouraging them in their fight against aids and their pressure that they put on their own governments, particularly in south africa when their government refused to allow drugs to be distributed because they didn't think that

hiv caused the aids when they were communicating with our young people who gave them actually the fortitude to go ahead and just demand it, which they did. >> all right. i would add to that. i think that, one, i think it's dominate that all of the differently schools at georgetown where this is an appropriate discipline study what happened in this case, domestically and overseas and learn. you know, you can't return from crisis like this if you don't study them, if you don't learn about them and have an amdemic work that communicates that and dissem natures that. >> that's an important project. i think that being voices for dealing with some of these stig matization, off the trazati trazationicians are things we can do here and 0 seize and it's important to make sure it's sglrmths engaged from people

ofthies these three thaingsz. her experience in sierra leone and have that experience here at georgetown and being able to be a bridge between our community here at georgetown and those communities is an important part of that, more of that interchange will make us better as a community at georgetown and make this response to the future a more effective response. >> i want to thank you both for being with us today. it's been an extraordinary moment for our community to have a chance to be in conversation with you both. we are grateful to you for the leadership you are providing our nation and our globe at this important moment. it's a real privilege to have you with us. ladies and gentlemen you knew, would you please join me in expressing our gratitude? [applause.] >> thank you. here are some of the

programs you would find this weekend on the c-span network: today at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, live coverage of the memorial service for former washington, d.c. mayor marion berry. sunday evening at 8:00 on q and a, ann compton who recently retired as abc news white house correspondent. at 10 on "look t.v.," jason sokel on how the northeast u.s. wasn't always the haven of rachel equality and supportive of civ rights. summed at noon, our conversation with american enterprise institute arthur brooks with your phone calls, e-mails and tweets and on c-span 3 tonight at 8:00 on lectures in history, university of michigan history proser on female slaves and the law. sunday at 8:00. >> president h.w. bush james baker on the fall of

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natured ashton car ter to be his next secretary of defense. he made the aeannouncements. from the roosevelt wing of the left wing. if confirmed, he will 60 seed chuck hagle. this is about 20 minutes. good morning, everybody. please have a seat. at a time is wonderful to be able to announce not the creation but at least the filling of one new job, but before we do, i wanted to make a somewhat broader statement about the economy and ash is willing to indulge me. last month, america's businesses created more than 300,000 jobs.

if this kees apace so far this year that we have not seen since the 1990s. so far, this year, over the first level months of 2014, our economy created 2.65 million jobs. that's more than in any entire year since the 1990s. our businesses have now created 10.9 million jobs over the past 57 months in a row and that's the longest streak of private-sector job growth on record. we know the pick-up and the pace of job growth has been in industries with higher wages and wages are rising, a welcome sign for millions of americans. we have an opportunity to keep um this progress if congress is willing to keep our government open, avoid self-in conflicted

wounds and work together to invest in the things that support faster job growth and high-paying jobs. >> means exports, infrastructure, streamlining our economy, immigration reform, giving minimum wage workers a raise. it's been a long road to recovery from the worst economic crisis in generations. we have a lot work to do to make sure hard working americans wages are growing faster but the united states continues to outpace most of the world. over the last 4 years, we put more people back to work than europe, japan and all other industrialized advanced countries combined. we are going to keep at it until every single american who is willing and anal to work can support their families. it's worth us every once in a while reflecting on the fact that the american economy is

making real progress. and if we can continue in this trajectory, continue to grow robustly and if we make sure that those companies who are seeing profits that are probably higher than any time in the last six years, that they are also making sure that their workers are sharing in that growth, then, you know, we can get a cycle that's going to make a difference and be a critical component of strengthening our national security because national security starts with a strong economy here at home. now, i know that some people think i announce cabinet positions on fake twitter accounts. this is not the case. is a year ago, when ash carter depleted his tenure as deputy secretary of defense, secretary hagel took to the podium and

looked at the awed yenthsz for civilian and military leaders and he said, i have known ash carter for many years. we benefited from his friendship, his inspiration and leadership. chuck we want on to express his gratitude to his partner for what ash has done for this country and will continue to do in many ways. couldn't have said it better, myself. i am pleased to announce my nominee to be the next secretary of defense, mr. ash carter. now, with a record of service that has spanned more than 30 years, with public service, and advisor, as a scholar, ash is known as one of our foremost execute leaders, as a top member of the pentagon team, including two gears as deputy secretary, he was at the table in the situation room. he was by my side navigating

complex security challenges we were con fronting. i relied on husband expertise and his judgment. i think it's fair to say that ash in woourn-year attempt at retirement from public service, you have failed miserably. but1-year attempt at retirement from public service, you have failed miserably. but i am grateful you are willing to go back at it. ash brings a unique blend of strategic perspective and technical know-how. he understands the united states, and i am quoting him now, is the simply most provider of security in the world. he plays a key road in devising our defense strategy to advance that secure. it's a physicist which means he is one of the few people who understands how many of our defense systems work. >> has allowed him to serve with extraordinary breadth and depth in a whole range of work that we

have had to do. in one way or another, ash has served u7bd 11 secretaries of defense. it's an innovator that helped doelt the program that has dismantled weapons of mass destruction and reduced nuclear terrorism. he is a reformer who has not been afraid to cancelled old or inefficient program. he knows the department of defense inside and out, all of which means on day 1, he is going to hit the grounding. he is known by our allies and friends around the world having served both republican and democratic secretaries, he is respected and trusted on both sides of the aisle. he has been a close partner with our military leaders and he is admired by civilian leaders across the department because he was a mentor to so many of them. there is one other quality of ash's service that i think gets overlooked and that is his true regard, his love for the men and women in uniform and their

families, relentless dedication to their safety and wellbeing. when he cut out dated and unneeded systems, he did it because he was trying to free up money for our troops to make sure they had the weapons and the gear that they needed and the quality of life for themselv themselves and their families that they deserved. when our troops in iraq and afghanistan were strulling to defend against roadside bombs, he moved heaven and earth to get them body armor and vehicles. there are countless americans alive today in part because of ash's efforts. when our forces sat down for thanksgiving dinner far from home or as our wounded warriors recovered in the hospital or when our fallen heroes returned to dover, ash was there, on on his own time without any publicity or fanfare. and i know ash will be there for

them now as secretary of defense. we face no shortage of kwhal he knows to our national security. our combat mission in afghanistan ends this month. we have to transition to a new mission of advising and assisting afghan foersz and going after remnants of al-qaeda's core. we have to keep degrading and ultimately sdroifring isil and build counter terrorism partnerships and new platforms. we have to continue the fight against ebola in west, if anything. we have to continue to strengthen our alliances including nato and continue rebalancing our defense part tour in the asia pacific. going forward, our armed forces are necessarily going to need to be leanner. as commander in chief, i am going to make sure that we have a military that is second to none that continues to be the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. that means we will have to bolster new cape abilities, sigh

ber defenses, how we deal with satellites and how we are day dapting our military and investing in new capabilities to meet long-term threats. we are going to have to work with congress on a more responsible approach top defense spending, including the reforms we need to make the department more efficient. that's how we are going to r preserve readiness, keep faith with our forces and our families, how we are going to deliver world-class care to our wounded warriors. ash is going to be critical to all of these efforts. we talked about this job. we talked about how we are going to have to make smart choices because there are so many challenges out there and we are going to have to squeeze everything we have out of the resources we have northed to be as effective as possible. i can't think of somebody who is more qualified to do that. in his career, ash has been confirmed by the senate three

tiles. if it were entirely up to my dear friend, carl levin who is sitting here, i suspect it would happy really quickly because that's the kind of guy carl is. carl, i know, has had a chance to work with ash in the past. my hope is that in the new congress that we get similar speed and dispatch. we will miss quarrel levin. i just want today mention that [applause.] >> one last piece of critical information that may have tipped scales in me wanting to prom oat ash. ash is a big motown fan. and one of his favorites is a classic by the four tops: reach out. i'll be there. so ash, i am reaching out to you.

you have been there for us, our troops, our families our nation. i also know that he's been there for his lovely wife, stephanie. sometimes by skype because he's been traveling. but the sacrifices that stephanie has been willing to make, you know, this is a team effort because it is true for our military families and so we are very grateful to stephanie. she joined ash on a lot of those thanksgiving trips to see our troops and at the bedside of wounded warriors. thshe knows the sacrifices they are going through. stephanie, we thank you for your service. we thank will and ava who couldn't be here but we know they couldn't be prouder of their dad, and with that, i want to let, hopefully, our soon-to-be new secretary of defense saw a few words [applause.]

>> mr. president, mr. vice president, it's an honor and a privilege for me to be nominated for the position of secretary of defense. general skocraf, my long time mea mentor, thank you for being here. thanks to another long time mentor bill carey, many other colleagues past and future for coming out today. i accepted the president's offer to be nominated for secretary of defense because of my regard for his leadership. i accepted it because of the seriousness of the strategic challenges we face but, also,

the bright opportunities that exist for america if we come together to grab hold of them. i accepted the offer because of the the deep respect and abiding lo of that stephanie have for our men and women in uniform. as we talk together in the past weeks, mr. president, we discussed the challenges and the opportunities and the need both to keep america safe and to make a better future for our children. if confirmed in this job, i pledge to you my most candid, strategic advice. and i pledge, also, that you will receive equally candid military advice. and finally, to the greatest force the world hasser known, to

you, i pledge to keep faith with you and to serve our nation with the same unflinching dedication that you demonstrate every day [applause.] [applause.]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2014]

host: good morning. it's saturday, dessbrr 6, 2014. we have a three hour "washington journal" ahead in which we'll discuss today's runoff elections in louisiana, the ongoing debate over genetically modified foods and whether president obama is trying to remake his political image. but first we'll discuss yesterday's better than predicted monthly jobs report. with over 32 0,000 jobs added and an unemployment rate of 5.8% we're asking whether the u.s. has turned a corner. tell us about the situation in your part of the country. our