sharp and horrible, like a high harpoon. [laughter] and i certainly enjoyed feel strongly about putting this element into my cartoons, but, i don't know, you have to make choices as to how you present what you have to say. i mean, that is really half of the job. for me, i want my cartoons to personal way of being with information and i just feel if you make it look sweet and nonthreatening, and does it invite you in rather than stiff arms you away? sudden you find

yourself and mashed in my world, and then you discover, there is a hook in their. -- there. [laughter] been s.: i have always interested in your little biographical tom toles in the right-hand corner. what are you thinking about it when you write it? the thought, initially, was the thought derived from pat all oliphant, who to me is the watershed of political cartooning, and he hates me to this day for coining that, and heme that is perfect because invested in it and it was so personal, and it seemed like it was off-limits. library, i wasa looking through early 20th century american cartooning, and

i found out this marginal commentary was part of the -- andand and i thought i thought, i would give it a try . i put myself in a personally. it is a drawing board. david s.: do you have any way of putting yourself in the cartoon and giving a second opinion? tom: yes, it is just another dimension. when i draw cartoons and sketches, i always draw them without that in mind. take that away, the cartoon is designed to work without it. a lot of the times, i will get to the end of the day, and i won't have that part, and that often turns out to be the hardest part of the cartoon. this is just another way to personalize it, add another thought, and sometimes it

reinforces the main thought, and sometimes it cuts the other way. i want -- i mean, political cartoons are very much the opinion of the cartoonist himself or herself, and i just wanted to make it clear that there is a person, not just a cartoon, there is somebody behind it, trying it, and this person has their own thoughts, their own take, and it is me, and i am not ashamed or especially proud of it, that is just the way it is, so that is why i am there. ivid s.: all right, signe, agree to show one of yours now, and you said that this is a cartoon that only a woman could do. signe: this was done many years ago before recent discussion of

[indiscernible] comes back into discussion. david s.: get ready, everybody. [laughter] wait a minute! i was going to read it for you. [laughter] --ne: your speechless you'reessyou're there -- speechless. tom: yes. david s.: i am speechless. we agree in this particular field, there are only a few do you feelnists, that there is a political obligation or calling about women trying to make these kind of issues? signe: no.

if you look at the number of cartoons i have drawn in the 35 years of cartooning, i have --wn a lot of women put women, but i have also drawn a lot of men. equal payvarious issues, and actually, one of the reasons i wanted to get into cartooning was i was sick of having all the men draw cartoons. this was back when the women's movement was just getting started. maybe womenng, could dry few of those cartoons. if you could leave these ideas at the door and just run these cartoons, anyway, it has been a privilege to do it. when i got started in my first full-time job, which is defined as having one with health benefits, there were about five applyingen cartoonist for the job. ,oday, there is no one

actually, in a full-time, paid position, for women. there are many fewer men. when women's issues come up, i want to draw about them, definitely. but it is not the thing i draw about most. i consider myself a generalist, so i don't draw exclusively about gender, and at the same time, i feel it is something that i am constantly aware of, and possibly more aware of than some people who have been in the field. there are many male feminist cartoonists out there. but i think just through life experiences, there are some perspectives that you bring to the table, that there is no one monolithic female perspective, of course. but you do at the conversation

things there are certain in life experiences that you are just going to bring to the cartoon. cartoons --table of i do a fair number of cartoons, but at the same time, i don't mind being identified as a woman cartoonist. to have more women in the media, you have to be conscious of that. you can't just sweep it under the table and say, we are going to ignore that. but again, i do view myself as a generalist. it is not my exclusive niche. signe: a lot of my hate mail -- dearith, "dear woman jen." [laughter] signe: it is amazing how many men think i am a scandinavian ex-pat named jen sorensen.

keith, do you want to cover this next one? sure, it is how to discern an innocent gesture from a gang sides -- gang sign. [laughter] david s.: you originally, you come at a sort of comic strip background. did you always do political commentary, or did this sort of develop over time? it was always a part of my repertoire, it was part of me in college. my first lack professor i had was in college -- first black professor i had was in college, and he was in english literature professor.

his name was professor gerald. professor gerald, he was amazing. he gave us for a reading assignment, he gave us james mayain, mayor angelou -- king, allartin luther of these different books, all of these different writers, and when somebody brought it up to him that they were all black writers, he said to them, they are all american writers. whoi thought, in my head, a, that was so cool. comics thatnt from were funny to comics that meant something. towhen i got the opportunity do it, you know, i had always been influenced by not just stuff like calvin aren't pops --

calvin and hobbes and peanuts, comics.r it was always great to find extra cartoons off of the comics page or the editorial page or the classified section or at a love tell sometimes he had panels or he didn't have panels, and he would do comics just about a lot of different things. not only was it something i liked to do, when i would cover anything i liked to talk about, but this was coming at a time when i really wanted to do a strip that represented me. in the early 90's as a hip-hop , the only people i saw who were into hip-hop were gang members and hoodlums and stuff like that. no, most people that i knew who are into hip-hop were smart

and politically aware. they were you know, into nerdy stuff, so it was important to bring this is ability to the comics stage. david s.: one thing i noticed about your work, and it is like tom a's little corner of his work, is like how you have a little conversation with the reader and you address the reader directly in your work. is that something you think about? totally conscious. another big influence on me are my dad's side of the family. every holiday, it would end up that we would be down in the cellar at my great uncle's house , at the bar, and everybody would be spinning these funny stories. so the context is, this guy is telling you these stories in a bar, and you are not sure whether to believe him or not. so i'll is have that in mind when i am telling a story, even

when i tell -- now i work my stories out on my two-year-old and my seven-year-old. i can't trick them as easily as i can trick everybody else. [laughter] david s.: all right, jen, do you want to advance the thing every time? jen: sure. david s.: this is a piece from jen's where it is a series of panels and she is going to go one panel at a time. jen: this is hillary clinton, pro versus con. on the pro side, we will keep health care reform, saving countless lives, on the con side, supported the iraq war using countless lives. -- theing the flag go rainbow flag, she is also burning a u.s. flag. she was partly cut by her

husband deregulating lawsuits. friends with obama, friends with kissing her -- with kissinger. ofld want total destruction -- would want total support of the supreme court, can't do much about scalia. president,a woman lives in the country where we can't even put a woman on a late-night tv show. she is the only realistic choice. she is the only realistic choice. [laughter] [applause] so the first thing that strikes me is that, you know, in "the new yorker" when i write a caption, captions are always these filaments that have to be in exactly the right place, and there is always the kicker at the end.

you always try to nail it with the last word. you seem to have a lot of comedy chops in your work. is that something you think about. is that something that is important to you -- think about? is that something that is important to you? jen: whether i can make it funny or not, sort of depends on how the process goes. case, actually, one thing i found very interesting --the controversy all aspect most controversy all aspects of this cartoon by far was that she was friends with bono. for me, i would say it is about making a point first, but catching it in a hopeful and hopefully amusing way.

david s.: you said something amusing about humor, you said that you think it is a much more persuasive and intellectually challenging thing in comparison to anger. jen: absolutely. that is one reason that i went into cartooning instead of academia. something in at really appealing and amusing message, you know, people who might not be predisposed to side with you, they might have a little opening there were you can reach them once in a while. david s.: i wanted to show you that a man can make a very interesting a powerful cartoon about women's issues. this is tom's. tom: all right, this is -- this is. this is --

david s.: you'll have to read everything to understand what is going on there. [laughter] tom: i give up. [laughter] tom: the news this week was that someone is talking about putting a woman on the $10 bill, and the first question is, who should it be? but that was too obvious. the thing i didn't comment on in the cartoon, ellie satan think i did, yeah, i didn't, was, first of all, why not the 20? rid of andrew jackson, and i think we can mostly agree with that. [applause] tom: there is no justification for him being on any currency,

but i think it is like, oh well, the 20 is the best currency that everybody has. that is what comes out of the wall, so you can't have that, so immediately, they are talking about the $10 bill. so i -- i -- well, you can see where i went with it. want you to get on where you are going with this, but some of the things that i added in, well, you are way ahead of me now, but the federal deserve note was i -- was, what i thought, a nice touch, if i could complement myself. [laughter] david s.: ok, that's enough, tom. [laughter] tom: it is enough. david s.: another one of the cartoons of yours is next, so --

i asked these guys to give me to cartoon or, on one particular subject, and this is a particularly difficult subject, the subject of guns, and i wanted to sort of get a sense of each of how these cartoon ideas happen, what sort of moment happens where you get the information and then you have that little flash of insight and the cartoon happens? origin story of the cartoons, and i thought it would be interesting to do them all on the same topic. so i'm going to start with, i am sorry, tom again. this one is yours and i want you to tell us how this one happened. tom: i don't remember. only remember is you said this is the one i want you to put up about gun control. wastually had one that i going to substitute for, but i could not find it. david s.: unbelievable. it was somebody putting up a second amendment corkboard, and it had 1000 hashmarks, no, i

am getting it backwards, the first thought was the number of tyrants overthrown, because this is the big argument on the second amendment side, they need big arms to overthrown the tyrants, and then the number of tyrants overthrown was covered with #'s and then the number of people killed by firearms was , so it isth thousands an inversion of the expected imagery. an analogy tends to reinforce has the argument backwards and this have -- this has arguments coming out of the gun, and it is just a matter of the number of bullets, as you can imagine, being fired at a rate where these weapons are being misused for horrific violence. jen, i've got your

campus carry cartoon if you want to take us through that. , campus all right carry, it is a hot new trend sweeping campus colleges. because no college student is ever depressed, guns will only be used for protection. [laughter] jen: enjoy and enhance theme parties. hold still, brah! [laughter] jen: great for late-night sliced defense. step away from the pie. the surprise of finding your gun in your messy dorm room. oh, there it is. oh, who are we kidding? this will be the real reality of campus carry. kind of a downer. did this idea just pop

into your head or did it take some work and thinking. work and thinking? i live in austin, texas, so that is a start, and the university of texas, well, the state of texas just passed a law earlier this year allowing guns on campus, and basically, insisting upon them to some capacity, i think they could still banned them in certain places, but basically, allowing concealed weapons for permit law of and that is the the land now. i guess it will begin on august 1 next year. been protests to the university of texas, and the chancellor of the school, william mcgowan, actually, the of the hunt for bin laden, that is what he did before he was the chancellor of

ut, and he was opposed to it, all kinds of people were not wanting more guns on campus, so there is a big protest gathering for when this actually happens next year. so i mean, that is the thing. david s.: keith, i am actually going to put two of yours up, one specifically about guns that you made -- that you gave me and secondly, the other one is also about guns, and you can talk about either or both of them in terms of how they work for you. i am going to show you both of them. remember, folks, hugged them extra tight before going to sleep tonight. you never know when they are going to be taken away from you. and this one is a more serious cartoon. david s.: what you tell me all about this one? about it is interesting

this one, because if you are not a nerd, then you probably don't get it, but basically, this is, i did this just after the dylann roof shooting in south carolina, and a week before, what gave me the idea, a week before in south carolina, the kid who played anakin skywalker in "the phantom menace" was pulled over a high-speed, 100 mile per hour chased by the south carolina police. the kid is so traumatized from it being in that movie that he is like, a mess now. so when dylann roof happened, and a posted some of his pictures on facebook or wherever, he had the same sort cut from the- bowl and iom phantom menace, thought, that can look like in a can skywalker, and so there was

that connection. cut andhrough the bowl i had these three little flags, and the gun, and it just sort of made sense with the shadow and everything. david s.: what kind of response did you get from the cartoon? keith: just, it was one of those were a lot of people say, wow. some people say, that was one of your best. one nerdy blogger guy put it really, really well. and i forgot to take his quote and put it on my website, i can't remember it now, but it was like "yeah, yeah, that is what i want to hear." but now people see it and say, what does that mean? in thees you do stuff moment, and it doesn't really last, but the strip before, you know, you always hear the hug them while you can, and i just afterhat over and over

every shooting, hug your kids, hug your this, your that, and i just automatically thought of guns instead of kids. david s.: this is interesting, because humor is really just about the position of putting together two things and kind of exploding this into a joke, and i think you all have shown aspects of that in your work. me twou also gave cartoons, and for a specific reason. did you want me to show them both right away or just the first one? do you mean signe? signe: the other woman? [laughter] david s.: you know, at "the new we looked at the number of women cartoonists, and

it was in a tiny number, and so the same is refunded in the number of women we drew, so we have been rushing to raise that number. let's just keep this amongst ourselves. [laughter] tom: at the last convention on last convention i was at, someone said, keith, you should submit to "the new yorker," and i said, why? and they said, i think they are actively seeking women and people of color. i got the secret e-mail. [laughter] keith: if anybody wants it. [laughter] spec work.t of david s.: it is a lot of spec work. but we are not here to talk about me. [laughter] keith: that is the great thing about being a cartoonist, you

come up with all of these cartoons, and just because they don't run in the "new yorker," it doesn't mean you can't use them. tom: yeah, it does. [laughter] myth: one of my fairness -- favorite exhibits that i have ever seen was rejected "new yorker" cartoons. i could see them being inappropriate for the new yorker but theyew yorker," were hilarious. now with self-publishing and you're on websites, things have changed, there is all this stuff . even if you do 10 a week that get rejected, that is 10 that you can put into your next book. of pain, it is a lot keith, it is a lot of pain. keith: but we're used to rejection. signe, i am going to move onto yours. , and one focuswo

is on the gun issue, and i live in philadelphia, and we have always been in competition with baltimore to see how many more people we can kill than baltimore, and we were a head , i'm sois last year proud to say. so i was looking over my cartoons about guns and about what i would choose, and i was of roughly-- sort counting them up. there was approximately 160 cartoons on guns. i hate it when there is another shooting because i think i have already done all i can possibly say on this, and yet, it still shocks everybody again when it happens. so i'm going to show one, and i'm going to show you it to show

you how pointless cartooning really is in the grand scheme of things. one of them is a cartoon after a particular round of shootings in philadelphia, and it is the kind of cartoon i have done, 100 60, or maybe 70 are like this one. david s.: want me to put it up? signe: yes. my opinion is that the city's lead abatement program still needs work. these are obviously kids living in a poor part of the city that are getting killed, and that poor,ts the numbers of african-american kids in the city getting killed. as a cartoonist, this is a super i didn'tsue, but if draw these characters black, it wouldn't be the reality of what

we are experiencing in the city. but i got tired of trying these cartoons, and people said, oh yeah, this is really nice. can we put this in our newsletter or our church bulletin or whatnot, and two days later, there would be another bunch of killings, and it just seemed sort of pointless. i felt like people were really talking around the issue. now, this is very many years before black lives matter, so , butis when it was worse this was one of the most controversial cartoons i did. of youngnt great views black men killing each other, then use ku klux klan traveled to come to philadelphia. you are not laughing. [laughter] signe: most people did not laugh, and particularly african american activists really went after me in a fairly major and

direct way. with calls anded pickets and whatnot. then showed this because what happens when you draw really controversial cartoons they get at something pretty fundamental that a lot of people are thinking about but don't have a way of discussing is that these letters in the newspaper and we gave all op-eds toople -- gave people who objected to it, and then there was this second wave of people who said, wait a minute. that is what is happening in our city, she is right, even though she is a white woman. this is what was happening in the city. and then the discussion takes on a life of its own. it has nothing to do with the cartoon.

the letter writers cap going back and forth amongst kept going-- writers back and forth amongst themselves. this is pre--internet chat rooms. there was a discussion in the city about what we ought to be doing about violence. laterended up some months on a panel, and the guy who sat down next to me was one of my were on ars, but we panel on something different, and we both agreed on that, and we got talking about it, and he says, well, my opinion has really actually changed after the whole discussion that we went through. and again, even having gone , it became of that more of an issue that our mayor, mayor nutter, in his

inauguration a grant -- inauguration address, was on gun violence -- was violence in the african-american community, but still, we had 250 murders so far this year. cartoons, while they can draw people's attention to things, they in and of themselves, can't unfortunately solve anything. david s.: just, i also have one of mine on this issue. this one, for me, happened after shootings, and i was in my studio trying to squeeze my brain all day about what can i do about something so painful, how can i make a joke when i felt the need to make a statement about something, and i finally gave up and turned on the radio and john hockenberry was doing interviews with gun owners and the midwest, and one

of them said the exact words in this caption, and the image popped into my head, fully formed. people not from here don't understand, it is not a weapon, it is a way of life. so next i am going to show a few , and what i was wondering about, in my memory, i don't ever remember the country being quite as divided as it is now on every level and how tough the discourse is, so i am going to dish -- going to show a few cartoons in a row and then maybe we will talk a little bit about how that affects your work. the first one is by thom, and it is just a really interesting cartoon. [laughter] tom: do you want me to say anything about it or do you want me to just -- [laughter] tom: well, again, this is simple

and complicated at the same time. read a situation, the purchase of "national and sometimes the imagery falls and aligns right in the place, and i don't need .o add much to it i'm going to show one of keith's. [laughter] so i actually do talk about gun issues, and i also talk about police brutality issues for 20 plus years. one ofar as i was doing our ferguson, i was thinking, i can't believe how every time i do it, i wonder if this is the last one i have to do, and i would be psyched if that were the case, and it never is the

case. so i put all of my heart is together in a slideshow and i started touring the slideshow. so now i have presented 20 years of my police brutality cartoons and it is kind of sort of the modern era of police brutality, starting with rodney king in 1992. one of the interesting pieces they came towards the end of that slideshow. the great thing about social alwayss that someone does or says the right thing about this stuff. talk about all lives matter in the black lives matter movement, someone put it on twitter, and i will always when i have a bumper sticker that says save the rain forest, it doesn't mean

forests.the other it means all the other rain forests are getting cut down at an exorbitant rate and we should do something about it. [laughter] so that's what we mean by black lives matter. it doesn't mean that nobody else's lives matter, it is means itething is happening -- means that something is happening in a very bad way. when somebody gets out of shape because something says black lives matter, you got to think about what it means when it says lack lives matter -- black lives matter. moved to chapel hill, north carolina, and i have started to write about the south because i have never lived there. now that i live in the south i can write about it. had written into the

newspaper, and he was a very angry white man, and he wrote -- saying that there it black community making him feel guilty, i said, it is not the black community making you feel guilty, sir. it is youreyes, y -- it is your eyes, your hearts, and your -- it is your eyes, your heart, and your brain, and what you are hearing is bullshit. so the question is, what do you think about that feeling? do you write about justice, or do you write a silly op-ed to your newspaper? [laughter] [applause] mentioned social

media, i am wondering, do you guys obsessively follow comments? you all moved from print to digital in a lot of ways, do you guys search for reactions to your work when it appears? does it bother you? on that learn early you're going to get clobbered. [laughter] tom: i mean just clobbered. worse, butgotten luckily by the time it had gotten worse, the skin had already gotten pretty thick. i used to look at them just to rangee myself as to the of opinions, the intensity of opinions. you cannot take it personally and you have to understand that you have to picture of this person, trying to think of the words that he can find that will hurt you the most. [laughter] sweatou can feel the

beading on his forehead. what can i say when i have heard it all? wow. david s.: have any of you guys regretted something that you published afterwards, thinking maybe you had gone too far? , andthe regret is when there are some examples, it is when the cartoon is read opposite of what is its intent. that >> you spend enough time

thinking about what you want to say and why you want to say that. somebody being upset about that will not make you change your mind. misinterpretation does give you a moment of pause. the new yorker closes on friday and comes on monday. aboutissue, i did a joke a beheading. over the weekend, there was a he heading, and on monday the magazine was inundated with outraged people, none of whom could understand there was something that could be done about it. i sure wish i had not published that cartoon. say that ilike to

have never found one of the cartoons funny with guns. seehen you watch tv and you csi or whatever, there are guns in the movies and television. what is it about cartoons that make that an issue for you? >> i don't know. it is just visceral. >> ok. [laughter] >> i will just show one of mine. [laughter] ask to havei will us taken to another one. this one is called "advice conservatives never give themselves."

[laughter] >> i did this after the sandra bland incident, the woman who died in her jail cell. reaction so much coming from people saying that she should not have stabbed that cop. theou compare that to right-wing response to the rancher who had an armed standoff, a lot of people

thought he was a hero for standing up to authority. there seems to be a bit of a double standard there. thats also around the time the confederate flag was being debated. that was the impetus behind the cartoon. questions to move to from the audience. i want to show one more cartoon by someone who is published everywhere. i notice there are no conservatives on this panel. i just wonder what your reaction is. do think this cartoon is funny. ? i don't think anybody here is finding it the to gilly funny, so what does that say about the issue of preaching to the choir, that your work is always

directed to people of the liberal persuasion, and that is something you think about at all? news andof all, fox rush limbaugh, they don't worry about preaching to the choir much, so i don't worry about it. >> ok. [laughter] [applause] philosophy ofne cartooning that i try to follow is do no harm, just like a doctor. i feel like it is my response ready to and lighten and not add to the suffering and misrepresentation in the world, so i would say that this cartoon fails. >> i couldn't agree more. [laughter] >> one more quick question, you guys have been watching the debates? >> it's funny. i sort of missed the last two, even though i wanted to see them, but i forgot they were on. it just shows you how boring

they have become. liked it when they were crazy, saying crazy stuff. want to leave this as the last image up there. i will put one of mine up. this is the cartoon i thought up when i stopped watching the debates. [laughter] >> i may take questions from the audience. go to the microphone to ask your question. ok. we used to some bad language. >> thanks. i was hoping you could take your last question and take it on

more seriously. the absence of a conservative on the panel is not a problem, but conservativef viewpoints in political cartooning in america is very noticeable. i would love to hear a serious consideration of why is that. andke your point that fox rush limbaugh don't apologize, but i would like to know why in political cartooning, where are they? >> there are a lot of very good conservative cartoonists, including glenn mccoy, whose image david showed. ithink he chose it because was one of glenn's not so great cartoons. [laughter] if you look at people, they were always come at me and say

they never get prices to the conservative cartoonists, but the pulitzer prize has gone in the last 10-15 years to several very conservative cartoonists, -- they don't appear in the washington post. i don't know. you have a deficit situation. doy are out there, and they their work just like we do ours. >> i remember someone writing to me saying that if you did conservative cartoons, you would make so much money. [laughter] >> i didn't know that. [laughter] >> yes? so iam a librarian come have a dorky library in question, which is how do you -- especially the three of you,

tom, i know you are at the post, so i think there is some archival stuff there happening with your work. how do you keep track of your stuff and organize your stuff? do you tag them? how do you find the ones about guns? anyone who wants to be answered, that will be great. >> nobody is interested in that question. i can guarantee it. >> nobody else is standing up to ask questions. [laughter] >> fair enough. mine just go into boxes. youarchival sophistication imagine, if it exists, they have not told me about it. [laughter] >> i feel bad about the situation. they are one match strike away from oblivion.

they are not water damaged yet. >> i think that is a really interesting question. tag my blogthat i posts on my own website with different tags for each cartoon, and i do a search on my own website. that is the only way i can remember. your hard sit on drive and there are certain titles and everything, it's easy to remember. my originals are splayed across , but it's a mess. it is all over the place. i do have a few pieces in the library of congress, so those will forever be protected. [laughter] >> at least three or four of them. >> yes, you have a question over there? could you talk about striking

a balance between an ambiguity that provokes and having a crystal-clear message? , howuch do you want oblique do want to be? what do you want readers to figure out for themselves and what you want to tell them directly? >> that is a great question for which there is not a good answer. exactly what everybody on this stage deals with every to find thatow balance point between obvious and clever come because the humor -- clever, because the humor in the cartoon is right there. that's where it is, where it is not so obvious, not hitting them over the head, but not soaps gear that you have people scratching their heads. -- but nota matter

so obscure that you have people scratching their heads. -- not always missing the same place. some readers will find it too obvious, too puzzling. i bet nobody will argue with me about that. maybe only yes, no? >> since i do different ones. i do a daily comic strip called the "nightlife." the one thing i started it was it is similar to the fact that there are fictional characters mixing in with real stuff, like doonesbury. the one thing i took from doonesbury was that it is hard to look at stuff from the 1980's or 1990's, so when i went ahead

to do the davies, i make references to stuff in obscure ways -- to do the dailies, i make references to stuff in obscure ways. i very rarely name the president. that will always stay fresh. beefully, they will always in the present. i try not to get to specific, or when i make reference to certain things, it is always -- there is specific, because somebody will open it and go this is from 20 years ago. obscure be as sort of with the dailies. you can't do that with a lot of editorial cartoons. there are certain things that sometimes you have to drop. i self published most of my books, and the ones that have

the shortest shelf life are the editorial cartoons, so i print the fewest of those. is -- ink what tom says think that striking that balance is how you get into people's heads with your work. if you had them too hard over the head, it does not have the thatimpact as the subtlety can get people to think like you came up with the idea themselves, which i think is a crucial way to communicate. >> the 10 patient to be didactic, -- temptation to be didactic like an op-ed columnist , but that's the game. you have to make it more complicated. you have to bring concepts into the fold. a challenge of cartooning. it is an extra step. cartoon depends on a lot of

people knowing exactly what you are talking about and having this same information that you do. lot of my cartoons, what theyhave no idea were about if you did not live in philadelphia. also, the difficulty is that people get their news in so many different places. it is hard to say what everybody knows. a lot of people just don't read the same way that they used to in the good old days when i was growing up. [laughter] >> yes? >> i was wondering how much work goes into a cartoon. i saw the debate last night and i want to draw a cartoon about it and doing the sketching, playing around with the captions -- how long does it take to get to the hot moment -- to the

moment where you know what the cartoon is going to be? >> david was saying that he heard that line and the image popped right into his head. reading, andoften -- writing is really helpful. you come across this phrase and the images right there. those of the great days when it comes up like that. >> there must be some days when you decide you want to make a cartoon about something and you have to figure it out. i'm not sure it's that complicated. [laughter] >> it comes all different ways. sometimes it is a sketch, you hear something. it is just all different ways. the toughest part is to kind of

train yourself to be open all the time, constantly open all information,ng in just sort of having a sketch ink there or typing information so you remember it. if you put it down on paper, it allows for more stuff to come into your head. >> if you feel clearly about the subject, it is often easier to do a cartoon. i admire cartoonists who have that -- it's like a direct pipeline to their viewpoint, and they make it clear. -- now i will have to when they were proposing the iraq war, tom is in the vortex of the discussion, and he was

one of the really consistent voices saying the iraq war is going to be a nightmare, don't do it. nobody listen to him. back to my point about cartooning. [laughter] >> ok. yeah? something stood out to me about the attacks in response to a religious figure without naming the religious figure. i just wondered if there is anything off-limits when you are drawing cartoons, or how do kind of edit your work given certain sensitivities of your readers? >> that is another great question. not to say that all the questions haven't been perfect in every way. [laughter] >> might as well. >> there is lively debate, and sometimes he did debate among cartoonists on this very subject.

i say the spectrum runs from first amendment. -- to the most shallow. [laughter] >> it's the place a cartoonists ought to start. firstural ground zero is in ament absolutely, and way i'm there, but as a functioning cartoonists i am not there. i opt to feel like i have and do have and would explain to have the right to say any damn thing i want to. for me, it is what i want to say. there are things i do not want to say, and if i see another , i amnists saying them often extremely conflicted in my support for their right to say it.

my vigorous disagreement with the judgment that was shown in there saying it, and then i am , which webad position got into all of us with the bdo cartoons. is it desirable for you to in the reprintingt of an image that you personally thought was very ill advised for a variety of reasons? i found myself in a real quagmire of trying to explain the subtleties of my position on that. those cartoons in particular -- support freeu

speech, then you have to support those cartoons and the reprinting of those cartoons. my answer to that is this, the history of political cartooning contains many many very shameful, shameful chapters, and no, i don't support a broad brush it with every single thing that has transpired under the rubric of political cartooning. the two obvious examples, there have been vicious anti-semitic cartoons drawn that have real consequences from extravagantly racist cartoons that have real consequences, bad consequences for real people in the real , and i can't just say that anything goes and i support anything that any cartoonist does. i support the right to do it, but honest to god, there are things i would not do and i am

upset when some cartoonists have done things showing very bad judgment. >> i think you state the dilemma we all struggle with really well. >> there are two separate more questions here. there is the question of free speech, which is very simple and straightforward. obviously we should all be free to express opinion no matter how vile without repercussion, without being killed, repressed, persecuted by the government. there is the question of representation, which is an important moral question and does have real world consequences as well. i think a lot of people are getting confused on this issue thesee they are missing two separate moral questions, and they are saying you can't have one without the other. i don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive.

we can completely support the freedom of cartoonists to draw what they want, but at the same time we can have a conversation weaponspresentation, cartoons mean, because that is a part of free speech, too. >> we have time for two more questions. which side? i will go to that site, and then you, sir. yes? >> in a society where we tsmmunicate more with tex and tweets and people have a lower attention span now, how do you think political cartoonists -- how have political cartoonists change its ways of informing the public where people don't have the attention span to read a 5000 word exposé in the new york times for example. ? is the bestdia thing that ever happened to

cartoonists and the worst thing that ever happened to cartoonists. our stuff is being seen by more people than ever, and we are getting paid less for it than ever. [laughter] >> it is sort of a combination of the two, where it is like, yeah, great, i'm getting e-mails from people all over the world saying, i saw this and all this is thatut what is nice we are starting to catch up in the sense that there are so many more ways now for cartoonists to make up the lost revenue from all the print media that has gone away. 75% of my newspapers and stuff like that, but i made it websites. art patron i make it up there selling and i do a lot of shows

where i go to schools and present my police brutality slideshow. those are the types of things that are totally enhanced by social media. again, it is the greatest thing that ever happen and the worst thing at the same time. and peopleunity knowing about something, -- editorial cartoons were traditionally newspaper based, and people just are not reading newspapers the way they used to. look at this audience. most of the people here who know and like cartoons are of a certain age where you don't even think about subscribing to a newspaper. my children would not. got throughhey

college and they wouldn't even by my newspaper. [laughter] rate, the downside of it -- yes, you get your stuff out to lots of places, but he goes to places where people agree with you or they like that subject. where as a broad-based and newspaper, you have people who did and didn't like your point of view, and again, how do we get a conversation started, how do we go back and forth on issues, if people are in their silos and not even seeing the same material? lot,nk, yes, we get out a but we get out in a much more narrow bandwidth a lot of times. i think that is not a great thing. >> ok, we have time for one more

question. >> you covered most of the stuff. [laughter] >> where'd you get your ideas? [laughter] >> i get mine on d-day. i don't think there has been --ine and answer to that >> i just want to touch on one last little point. that is driving the content now more or less, and how you think that is affecting cartoonists coming into the field? not draw a cartoon and i am syndicated, i have try to sell it to somebody. it has a short shelf life if i have to try to sell it to someone. will i build an audience by drying things that people want

to see so i can get my voice heard? i'm thinking of the young cartoonists today trying to find a voice. findere audience going to them through the internet and they will find funding? where the something marketplace is moving in this direction, so people was start drawing cartoons they think they can sell? >> i don't think cartoonists think that way. i think cartoonists think about being artists and creating what the voice inside them tells them to make. i don't know about everyone else, but i don't think too much about my audience. i think that is a dangerous way to go in terms of developing your own voice. >> i think it would be hard to get started today. i started in the late 1990's when alternative newspapers were a growing industry, and it seemed like there was some real potential there.

i started doing an alternative weekly strip and started to get it in a enough papers to support myself along with freelance work on the side. the great recession was very scary. fortunately, there are some websites that have begun paying for cartoons like daily post and others. and so they have stepped into path -- itut that never seemed all that clear, but it seemed like there was a path in the late 1990's. now i don't know what i would say except to be highly diversified. in addition to doing my weekly strip, i edit a comic section on a website. i do freelance work. i've done graphic journalism work. it really is -- it sounds like a cliché, but it's about being

entrepreneurial and having lots of bowls in the air basically. balls in the air basically. >> we started around the sign -- the same time. it is really diversified. i have more hope for people starting out now. as long as you are doing a strip that you want to see and read, -- how manybillion are there? there are a lot of people in this world. [laughter] all you have to do is find the 1000. you have 1000 fans. here has 1000 hard-core fans, and you just have to and you willork find those 1000 fans. have to convince those 1000 fans to give you $75 a year. [laughter] >> and you do that by providing

them an opportunity to give you money, like reading books or having a site for them to support, just different ways in different things. in addition to those 1000, there will be peripheral folks who buy a book every once in a while. of have to continually sort -- yeah, it really is a hostile, a constant hustle. i've never had a steady salary gig. i have been in the industry for 20 years. on thising two kids wacky cartooning thing that my dad is like, where are you making money? [laughter] there, and when people see that you are doing something that you are

passionate about and they see some sort of truth or sincerity in it, they are willing to support you. think you go for it. there is axample is young lady who all she does is review sex toys with her husband has gained this crazy following of people -- and she makes time of money -- tons of money. she gets free sex toys. [laughter] makes comicsem and out of them. it is amazing. >> seriously? [laughter] >> i will show you. >> no. [laughter] on that note --

[laughter] reachedthink we have the end of the program. thank you all. [laughter] [applause] >> on the next washington journal, rick nelson examined potential attacks on soft targets in the u.s. washington post reporter tom hamburger talks about the fundraising efforts of the clintons. on islamice council american relations, he discusses the syrian refugee crisis and concerns of muslims in the wake of the paris attacks. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. sunday, on q&a, -- reachm the first woman to

at the ranks of four stars in the united states navy. i had only been a three-star 110-11 months when -- for 10-1 months when the coo asked to see me. that is when he talked to me are lookingy -- we at you to be a four star and there are a couple of opportunities that we think you may do well. chief of naval operations, michelle howard. admiral howard discusses becoming the first four star admiral. she also discusses her career in the navy prior to this appointment. her rescue mission in 2009. counterame head of the

piracy task force. captain phillips was kidnapped. was our responsibility as a task force to get him back and get him back safely. that was obviously a surprise kind of mission and a challenge. we got him back. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. earlier this year, the manhattan institute released a paper critical of the fda for approving new disease treatments based on precision medicine. joining in this discussion were the authors of the report, the cancer patient advocate, and a medical geneticist. fda officials were invited to participate but declined. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

>> hi, everybody. we will go ahead and get started. >> hi, everybody. we will go ahead and get started. thanks to all of you for being here today. i'm the senior fellow at the manhattan institute and the new opinion editor at forbes. 's what i worked on in my time at the manhattan institute. what you may not know is before i came to manhattan, i spent a dozen years on wall street as an investor where i looked at clinical trial data and fda regulatory actions to figure out which companies we should invest

in based on development in medicine and science. this is an area i have long been interested in. i am glad to have this the chance and i was glad that all invited me to help moderate this discussion today. we talk about how to pay for health care and how much it costs. we don't spend enough time talking about how innovation is transforming the quality of life for millions if not hundreds of millions of people in america and around the world. the manhattan institute has been a thought leader in this area. we have this institution that is called project fda, which is centered around fda reforms. that has probably been one of the most productive areas at the manhattan institute in the sense that i don't know of any other think tank doing the kind of work the manhattan institute is doing on this issue. the question we will talk about today is one of the most

interesting areas in terms of how we think about how to reform the fda. people always complain that the fda is too slow in approving innovative, new treatments. one of the areas that has come up recently is this area of precision medicine. what is precision medicine? there are these things called biomarkers. when you go get your cholesterol checked at the doctor's office, that is a biomarker. that's what we mean. a biomarker is a lab test. it is something we use to correlate something going on in your body with a particular outcome of disease. in the case of cholesterol, there is decades of research that indicate the high cholesterol levels, particularly protein or ldl,

high levels are highly correlated to heart disease and heart attacks and other problems. that is a biomarker. 50 years ago, maybe we had a couple of dozen biomarkers. but because of advances in genetic science and all things we are learning about how different genes in our body regulate and produce different proteins which regulate cellular processes, biochemical processes we on the verge of having , hundreds of thousands of these kind of lab tests were biomarkers. they can help us determine many things. they can help us advance more quickly drugs to market that affect certain lab tests or biomarkers. they can help us design clinical trials. for example, there are many people with lung cancer, but it is not all the same. different people have different kinds. it might be responsive to different treatments. the fda and drug companies are

trying to figure out how to tailor their investigation into the individual patient and the individual patient's clinical and biochemical and genetic position. these are the kinds of things that are going on scientifically in the world in the private sector. the question is, is the fda doing what it can do to take this scientific knowledge into account in the way it regulates ?he development of new drugs in that light, peter huber and paul howard have put out a new paper which you have in your folders there. it argues that the fda is a little behind the curve in addressing how these new developments, these new scientific developments can help accelerate the discovery and development and approval and

marketing of new treatments for disease. we will hear from both peter and paul today, and we have brought two additional panelists with those who i think can illuminate a lot of this discussion. we will also hear from you meal -- emile kackus who is the ceo of ultra-genex who specializes in the development of treatments for ultra-rare diseases. before he was there, he was with another company that specialized in this area called bio-marin. ultra-genex has had some success. it went public last january and as a market cap of $2.3 billion, which 10 years ago was unheard of but has become more common as , companies have gotten more sophisticated at how to develop these drugs. he will talk about the trials and tribulations he has had in this field. we will also hear from lynn

matresian from the pancreatic cancer action network. she will tell us at the patient level what some of the challenges have been in trying to work with companies and work with people doing critical trials if you are a patient to take advantage of personalized medicine, precision medicine, to develop new treatments. with that introduction, i think we will go ahead and start and maybe get the ball rolling. i want to go through that each of you based on your expertise -- maybe we will start with lynn -- you have had experience in the pancreatic cancer world. tell us from the patient's point of view, what are the challenges? how do you think about cancer varies between patients and what are the challenges in getting the fda and drug companies to respond to the unique characteristics of individual patients?

>>. thank you very much yes, i will tell you about that through a story. so marjorie called our call center, the patient central at the pancreatic action network a few months ago because her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. our associates at the call center gave her lots of information about the disease and physicians who saw a lot of pancreatic cancer and nutritional information and that type of thing. and then they offered her and charlie the opportunity to get his tumor molecularly tested and do a biopsy and do something that learn something about a test that will tell us something about what was causing his particular cancer and therefore how we might treat it. that made marjorie pretty happy because she read the statistics

and she knew that only 76% of people were not going to be alive in one year and only 7% were going to be alive after five years. she said this is something i can try, because the current standards of care are pretty crummy. they agreed to do this. about a month later, they got back a report and it has mutations and alterations in genes that underlie charlie's cancer. he has been luckier than 55% of pancreatic cancer patients based on this molecular profile. so now there are some options that this physician would never have thought of before. some of those are off label

treatments so they are drugs that have been developed and other cancers that are for a mutation that charlie has in his cancer. and some of them are clinical trials. here is where they were faced with not really medical problems but system problems and problems , with how does he get access to these drugs and how does he decide what is working for him? there are no real clinical trials in pancreatic cancer for any of these drugs. there are 50,000 patients per year of which 4.5% of them go on to clinical trials. then this mutation is only in 2% or 3% of those 50,000 patients. 3% of that going to clinical trials so how do we learn about what to treat charlie with human that we have this molecular information? what happens is that even if he

can get on a clinical trial or get off label treatment and there is all sorts of insurance issues and being out of network and those kinds of challenges that he will face -- even if he can, what usually happens in these clinical trials is that he is treated with the drug and then three or four month later, they take a radiological scan and they look at the tumor if it has grown are shrunk. the overall result is whether charlie lives or dies and how long he lives. in the meantime, they are checking what's called a a biomarker in his blood called ca-19-9 which if it goes up, the tumor is probably growing but we

are not 100% sure that is always true but there is good data that says that is often the case. if it goes down, that's a good sign. you cannot act on that information. there has not in the proper studies to know whether the drug is doing charlie any good or not. if it's not, he could go on another treatment. i think that is two examples where we do not have the information to determine what treatment we should give charlie and we are not able to act fast a biomarker to determine whether we should change that treatment or not. i think those are both opportunities for the fda to pay attention to a disease that is life-threatening. charlie does not have a lot of time. survival is measured in months and weeks and this disease. when he to act faster and we need to change the system so people like charlie can benefit from the science that we have around cancer treatment these

days. >> let me introduce peter. he is the senior fellow but i like to call them the resident genius of the manhattan institute. he has a phd in mechanical engineering from m.i.t. and a law degree in harvard and writes about energy policy and legal policy and tech policy and is the author of the cure and the coding of 20th-century law is undermining 21st-century medicine so he is equipped to talk about this topic today. how do we take that every day patient example and translate that into better policy? >> the first thing to understand is the example that lynn went through. there will be a test for a device that will check for these oscillations in a patient's bloodstream and what it tells us about the drug. it does not get to the market without the fda say so. i have a number of oncologists that tell me if they were not

allowed to prescribe off label which they do, oncology would , shut down. >> explain what that is. >> that means the drug has been approved for something but not , for what you are prescribing it for. i don't know what the off label drug was in your case. the fda is not capturing every possible use of every drug. your life depends on people who do not believe that. there is hope for a lot of off label work because it is happening all over the place. cancer can look different in different parts of the body and have the same underlying ing thesms and repurpose thin drug and prescribing drugs based on their molecular effects and the etiology of the cancer is widespread in this area. it has been used in other areas but this is where it would be most effective. if a drug company walks run and says it does this for pancreatic

cancer and if the owner of the drug tells you, they will probably get prosecuted. they will certainly face a civil suit. these are billion-dollar issues for drug companies. it is a pity because they know an awful lot about this. they are compiling the data. doctors who share this can and the fda has not gone after them but they very well may. the fda questions these uses. it has not certified it to be true so it wasn't true and they had to shut down half of their business in the state. the fda has plenary power over how much of this biomarker information you use in a drug in and the vice approval process. you have to persuade them that this biomarker is good and valid

and can be used. this is especially painful because the best people at the fda and i would start with dr. woodcock who is the head of the center for drug development and research, they know exactly what is right here. there are excellent presentations that were given 10 years ago. she says "biomarkers are the foundation of evidence-based ."dicine they determine what happens and what we should prescribe to home and outcomes happen to people not populations. there is an indictment of what the fda has been doing for 50 years. the fda clinical trials are -- trials or population-based trials and are overwhelmingly based and looking for empirical correlations. if what you have defined as the disease is 25 different

diseases, the drug does not get through. there is a core problem with the fda and their existing trial protocols which statisticians call the reference class problem. if each of you represents 1000 patients, the simple question is this. if this row here, if i round you ,p with your pancreatic cancers who is to say you are predictive of the rest of the people in this room? if patriotic cancer is an absolutely identical disease, it's probably a pretty good answer. there are in no most of genes.ons in the fda issued its first guidance for data and 2003 or early 2004. agenciess one of the

and the washington that does a lot of research. said tell us what you mean. what are we supposed to be gathering? research andl this we set up an internal standards for what is good. nih, the premier scientific institution in washington. one year later, the fda did issue its critical path report saying that biomarkers are something that we have to do, and they set up an institution -- what is a cold? critical path institute. there are good people saying the right things. meanwhile, we have an anonymous amount of taxpayer and health

care money going into sequencing. getting new sequences every time doctors treat patients. you're developing huge databases that say we see these profiles associated with these effects. isolate the links between microbes. now you can work out molecules. molecules are way more complex. they work in very complicated networks. we have fantastic computing power today and no one less than andy grove has decreed this. apple knows this and google knows this, and that's why they're getting into this business. they've got incredible computing tools. you give them enough data and they can unravel pathways. suddenly berpa

interested in cancer? they issued a big mechanism notice a couple of years ago will give you a complex data set and we will give you some technology. why is darpa doing this? database.s a huge if you can send drones all over the world to blow people up, you -- i'm quite sure the nsa would not want to share its database. this is terrific news for oncology. they got it exactly right. if we left the analysis of the stuff to the nsa, we would be in

good shape. this is what it is all about. >> i think you found a political platform. just validating biomarkers. they are very good at it. >> i think what i'm taking away from these discussions, there 3%,these patients, 2% or small subpopulations within a larger population of cancer who may have a unique genetic signature, but that is a tiny number of patients. to show statistically and a tiny number of patients that your drug is having an effect. ceo, how dompany you negotiate that? that you found a correlation between your drug's ability to target this subpopulation?

then, how do you take this big isa idea that revolutionizing the rest of the economy, and had you convince the fda to adapt that technology into their own thought process? weright now we don't, but would like to. dealing with small subsets, and we have been struggling with it for a long time. of the mosts one important ways to gain power and determine what is going on, allowing you to determine what your drug is doing in the small population. the challenge has been, and there are thousands of rare diseases, many of them that you would not know how to spell or say, that they are 10% of the u.s. population.

you probably know somebody with a rare disease. the truth is that we should be doing more translating what we do have. being able to get the power to determine what is going on in these patients with biomarkers is critical. i'm president of a foundation focused on rare disease issues. we focus on how to accelerate biotechnology and innovation. we believe that biomarker story is one of those key pieces that could help people with pancreatic cancer and the stories that peter has been talking about. that since the acceleration of approval in 1992 , in that-aids crisis time there has only been in the rare genetic disease area only to

in the early 1990's, so there hasn't been anything new. the question is with all the genetic information we had and all the rare diseases that are out there and the science that has been done that we know and , understand what has been going on. how can it be that there are no biomarkers based approvals for more diseases that could require them? i know doctors had them because i working on a program for disease and it -- type seven, that disease is a slight disease. only 20 patients in the united states perhaps with this disease. yet, we have a treatment that has been around for 20 years. it works beautifully and not translated because we cannot detect or do a study with 10

patients and prove it is working. if you used the biomarker, how much material they have in their bodies, we could do it immediately. with a biomarker, we can run the study with 12 patients and get the study to work. based on all the signs we have, showed that is a reasonable treatment and get these kids treatment. what is the point of all the nadh research we have been funding? the billions of dollars we have been spending and if we find the treatment, we do not turn them into products for someone to get? that has been a tragedy for nps seven. i have made it my mission to get that through the process to show white should be done to make the process better. we continue to work on access and policy and legislation. writing and policy and legislation. it has been challenging and i think my manhattan students are

trying to figure out a way to make something actual happen on the biomarker friend. >> you bring up the case of your company of trying to study disease with clinical trials basically impossible, because you cannot ethically do a study where you let the patients died. you have to treat them in the way that you know how to treat them. the only way to measure progress is through the biomarker or lab test. the broader problem is if janet woodcock were here or representative of the fda, she or he would say, well, it is great that you have all these biomarkers, these test that may correlate to better clinical outcomes, better performance on disease or measurement of disease, then they probably would have otherwise had, but we do not necessarily have that. we do not necessarily have a -- have conclusive proof that the biomarker is correlated to

better disease outcomes and longer lives in statistical -- the typical situation. pushback on that. tell me why the fda should not be cautious, should not be scientifically conservative and say, you know what? yeah, this biomarker sounds like it is a good thing to test, but there is no definitive evidence that it actually means a patient who does bad on a lab actually going to have a longer life or do better on a disease. >> i think one dimension of that problem, if the industry would say, it doesn't make it easy, you can make it hard, but tell us exactly what the standard is for validating that particular biomarker for the particular context and use. we would go out and we would develop these evidence base or find cities that do that. i think the agency is concerned to something like this -- funded researcher runs a study,

discovers a biomarker for cancer or some other disease, publishes or nature in science by technology, declares victory and moves on. the agency will look at that and say gosh, that is not a , biomarker, it has not been reproduced, how do we know that is good science? how do we know it has been validated? what is the reference class control that would prove he would hit something that is really important for that particular disease or indication or context of use. i don't think that is what we're talking about here. there is an interesting study that we did one year or two years ago, researchers out at stanford, what they did was to achieve expression profile, looked at classes of drugs that were already approved by the fda and then compared them to cancer expression profiles across a number of different tumor types. what they found was a match between the genes that were hit

by a 50-year-old class of drugs of antidepressants, some of the first antidepressant that came online, and a very red class of lung cancer called small cell lung cancer, about 20% of cancers. i think it was called the endocrine tumors, a small class of pancreatic tumors. they said this was interesting. the pathway that these drugs inhibit, it seems they are implicated for this class, particularly in small cell lung cancer but other cancers we know about that are endocrine. let's do the science, so they ran and looked at tumor cell lines, they looked at knaus models where they grew tumors in mice and then they hit them with the drugs, they hit them with other drugs. it was a neat experiment, and they said, you know what? we are to launch a clinical trial. right now, those drugs, 50-year-old drugs, are in

testing for efficacy and escalation. the interesting thing here is that unfortunately these drugs are 50 years old and have not been used very much. this is a more recent class of drugs. we have lots of data on observational data, so we will look at these positions and see how many patients have been taking lithium or some other drug with rates of brain cancer slowing or a better response or , no endocrine tumors for lung cancer or other cancers and do they have good response rates? there is a range of other dad is taken years to valid -- there is a range of other dad as they can use. it is observational data. they can be used to enrich a clinical trial for a particular class. if you can get down to a little -- the level of knowing what it is exactly that is causing the cells to self-destruct, then we can use that as a circuit in

point. i think what we are asking the fda to do is hand out that evidence of development which they have said they are not equipped to do, or have been reluctant to do, to the people who are capable of doing it, which is the research community. >> would that be a particular professional society over that the -- or what they deputized certain academics? how that process go? >> how about getting it to the people who are spending billions a year on taxpayer money? the nih has characterized them as characterizing genomic variations that have medical impacts. they do not just say to anybody who would like to send it in. i would add in contrast to that, the one database that i know that they monitor is where they invite people from all of the country to send in reports about adverse effects of drugs. it is so poorly monitored, i googled it they tested that they , have done vaccines that transformed into incredible

hulk, so that is the one you should be worrying about an apparently got a call sometime later saying, oh, that is -- would you please withdraw this? anyway, look, first of all, people talk about drugs doing a biomarker. endpoints are not drugs pointing toward a biomarker, they are drugs changing the level of some biomarker, ok? certain endpoints are about understanding. if you're going to do a collective, it is understanding the pathway which will often be a whole series of interactions and alzheimer's is probably dozens or hundreds of proteins in a chain. it can be any number of them and each one will have the same effect because it is a chain effect and the weakest link is what causes the disease. you have to understand these mechanisms, that is why i'm glad dartmouth is looking, they deserve a nobel or something. you are talking about mechanisms of action.

if you contact those down in much smaller data sets, in fact, you don't really have to use of statistics at all. you can simply wake up and this is leading to that, leading to that and these are a lot of experience. i would also add that the tumor typically for the more common effects you can find 10,000 mutations in a cancerous and they can go crazy. they mutate in every possible direction. they just do it wildly. these analyses are sophisticated methods. these tumors have -- they call it days and network analysis, i have some of them in my book, they look like this huge spidery web with links between them and you can quantify the links and it is important to note that these are hierarchical networks. they're clearly important almost all variations and others are playing alongside try they map our system systematically and for a long time, they have four major categories, depending -- i

think there are four major but more recently become of the database is [indiscernible] but nonpatent statistics -- that non-basics as his six, they do have these large databases and it does it very well. the drugs are developed to be oriented toward these therapies and they work. very red diseases -- nobody can with the number that is collectible from a molecular perspective. very strong correlations with very rare diseases associated and the effects that are often one to one. sometimes you have to double up get better effects. once you have it narrowed down, you can do very good studies on the mechanism and it is a very long chain reaction and more difficult.

we can know how to deal of complexity. that is of modern computing is. >> i think two takeaways from your paper, actually, that i thought were very interesting was one, first call, the fda is very restrictive in the ability to talk to drug companies and biotech companies because of conflict of interest that prevent them from talking. even the national institute of health, which is the major governing agency that runs a good -- academic biomedical research, even nih does not have a lot of cross channel medication with the fda about some of these advances and maybe as you said, that they could work with nih and use nih as the intermediary to help develop some of these standards. the second thing that you talked about in the paper that was very interesting was the fact that their european medicines agency, the em ea, european equivalent of that day, actually spent more forward thinking on some of these issues relative to the

u.s. fda i thought, paul, maybe could talk about a little bit and, emil, the reason we have this $2.3 billion market cap is because the em ea has been more forward thinking on some of these issues than the fda has been, so maybe you could touch on that, as well. first paul and then emil. paul: just a look at one of them and say, there is a foundation for the nih. there's biomarkers consortium which is a private profit nonprofit foundation that works because academic researchers and are companies have an interesting partnership that we talk about called the advancing medicine's partnership looking up for diseases or five diseases. some are alzheimer's and lubitz. they do exactly what we are talking about, you go through, validate biomarkers, and debunked evidence. -- develop the evidence.

i think it is a big step forward. and then i think the emea has something called innovative medicine initiative which is making biomarkers one of the key projects and sending hundreds of millions of dollars compared to fda costs a few tens of millions of dollars a year and that could breakthrough, the key is getting this outside expertise that the agency is usually walled off from, involving critical standards so that people like lynn and emil and academic medical community and the drug companies can say, this is all the evidence we have. this is how it can validated and we should go about validating so we can affect and check things off the list. move the science forward. emil: i think what i would like to say about the market is it is not all based on biomarkers. [laughter] and i do not own it all, to the clear. we do have one program that is

looking into by margaret approval. i think in general what we can say about the ema and the agency, the last few years, they have been more scientifically based in less regulatory precedent base. they're willing to look at what you've got to make intelligent decisions about it. in the case of mps-7, we showed them the plan and how we present the data and that is based on qualification criteria that we just published for qualified by margaret. we created a very thorough, thoughtful set of on how to qualify a biomarker and we present it in that format to them. they were convinced we have a -- we had enough data pieces to put together so be impossible that the marker is not correlated with disease activity in the patient and would not predict, as i said to them, and there is also the drug approval that made sense.

what they told us is that this is the only way you can do this study, that is what he said, the only way to do the study in the disease is of the urinary substrate measurement and there is no other way to do it. so their view is that this is the only way forward and we will accept your plan because we think it is reasonable to do given the rarity of this , disease. i think that is the basic fact, at some point in the rule and regulation policy in the country, we have to make it practical or realistic. otherwise things will not get , done. to say that i want a clinical endpoint driven center and i want walking test and this test and that test, unit 100 patients or something to do this study and there are only 20 in the united states, you're basically saying that i figured out a way that we are never going to find the science for the patients to be treated. we want them all to die rather than risk hitting treated with a biomarker in point.

that fundamentally is no one us would agree with that. that is sort of the ultimate outcome of that decision and that is what we need to change. i think there are ways to do this in a the way and we proposed them. some of the low group of industry, academic and foundation people, developed the criteria and wrote a paper on it. it is not trivial, it is not quick and dirty, it is there a, comprehensive, and the key thing is it does not require things that are impossible. there is little to require you to know the cardiovascular outcome in the disease that has less than 100 patients 10 years from now. you're never going to get that data. what about the data you do and how good is that? work off of what we know. what the law said, and this is important to remember, they had a piece on approval that said it was to include ways to qualify a biomarker endpoint by using pathological and pharmacological criteria were other types of

data, in other words, outcome data, was impossible or impractical to collect. so it really struck me that you need to be practical hearing your choices. you are not creating unrealistic and if possible barriers that will cause the disease is not to get treated. i think that is where the differences. you may see the practical and scientific side and i don't think that they did -- theft is a can of precedent and concerns. i think their concerns come from the fact that a couple of drugs and the harder area and circuits did not play on people were hurt by that. there are these big fancy cases of drugs in the big market area that did not play out. it is causing them to flinch and move away from diseases where we know a lot more about what is going on with a specific biomarker and the clear genetic condition. it is just not the same situation where biomarkers have failed in the past. we need to get over that story.

i love bob temple, he is a great guy, he keeps telling that story and needs to stop telling that story. needs to get on with, you know, new science and where we're going now which i think is much more soundly based. >> when i introduced lynn, i neglected to mention that you are president of the national -- american association of cancer research which is the most important academic society in cancer research and the country and she also worked at the national cancer and the national institute of health as a phd in molecular biology from the university of arizona. please, talk about and it is obvious points that you have been hearing. lynn: well, there are lots of ways that i could do that, but what occurs to me is that what we are duly saying is that the fda looks like one of those human resource departments that you roll your eyes at that says, one-size-fits-all.

you've got to do it, these are the standards, everybody has got to fit into these groups. you know -- and for those of you who have been in that position where you just say, come on, we have a mission here and there is something we need to complex and there needs to be some flexibility around, so i think for historical purposes, the fda has this one-size-fits-all. i am not -- not a real big government agency and in order to gain efficiency, everything has to fit in the individual little silos. i think that is what has to change. this idea that not all diseases are the same, they have a very important role in protecting our society. and protecting us around drugs that are out there that thousands and thousands of people take who are relatively healthy. blood pressure controlled

medicine, those types of things, that is a very different story than rare diseases or deadly cancers. it is that ability to be flexible enough and yet stick to the principals of some sort of scientific validation and overlaying exactly, as you are saying, emil, the principality of it. what is really required here. in a population that we are addressing, what is their risk tolerance? i can tell you that think ready cancer patients are, in general, much more willing to take risks with their treatment because what they are facing is really virtually certain death, otherwise. it is overlaying all of that into the decision-making that goes into what is approved and what is the level of validation that we need for those biomarkers that seems to be the mindset that has to change within the agency. roy: how good is the science or, lynn? a paper came out of johns

hopkins, suggesting or indicating that sometimes when we do these profiles and a tumor in a particular patient that we are not actually getting good data because if you do not benchmark that to the baseline genetic profile of that patient, maybe you are not getting accurate information about how that tumor is distinctive. there is a lot of commentary out there that, ok, yes, it sounds great in theory to do this genomic work and biomarker work, but at the very basic analytical level, are we at the right level? are we mature enough windows analytical tools that we can actually say, ok, we are actually measuring accurately the genetic profile of the patient and being able to make the decisions on that basis? lynn: it comes down to don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. it comes down to the research component of it and the practical patient treatment component of it.

right now, yes, it is not what hundred percent certain that it will respond to a receptor like pancreatic cancer. i have no evidence of that, but i have seen it work in other cancers. this patient has very little options. i see no reason to say, well, i really have got to check their genomic dna and they should that this is right. you know, it is the perfect standing in the way of the good and moving forward. now in a research setting, yes, , we should be doing that. in a research setting, you should be sequencing both the tumor as well as the normal dna, looking at the difference, understanding what is specific for that tumor versus what is normal background for that person. that is all absolutely true in the research setting, but -- and that will eventually inform the

patient treatment setting. give us a little bit of time to move things from the research lab into the clinic, but for right now, the thing that would scare me about that kind of the statement is that people would still up their hands and say, well, we should not be doing any of this because it is not good enough. it is a whole lot better than shutting your eyes and treating the patient exactly like you treat every other pancreatic cancer patient, and you know you are only giving them a couple months to live. >> they have a biomarker with their product because they see i know how the process works, we know what to expect. if there is clear evidentiary standards for the qualification of biomarkers and the industry will suddenly say, we can reduce the cost of development, the

time it takes to bring new products to market, and they can invest in bringing academic research and other tours up to the level needed to meet that, so i think that is another half. when there is a clear pathway, as there is for accelerated approval for cancer and hiv and some other drugs that have basically 90% of the approvals which use surrogate in points are three classes of drugs for cancer, hiv, and anthrax. we need to move beyond that. avil: we are going to go to questions. there is a microphone circulating around. when you get the microphone, give your name and your creation -- your affiliation because this is going to be on c-span, i believe. while the get the microphone moved around let me ask one

question to the floor -- there , is something going on in congress called the 21st century cures initiative. it is through the house energy and conference committee led by chairman upton. they're planning to develop some of these ideas into a concrete congressional bill that would push the fda in the right direction. i opened it up to the floor, have you all been following that process, how do you feel that is going, are they doing the right things? are there things that you want them to do that they are not currently thinking about? emil: my foundation is working on one part of it, the open act, which is a provision which allows companies to repurpose them for rare diseases as an incentive to get more of our science that we have already created for rare disease patients. the goal is extremely long. i think it is more than 400 pages and a lot of sections. it is a very ambitious effort

and i think what fred upton was trying to do was get all the best ideas that he could, but the in, work through them, and come up with something that would really change the way things get done. side, there is something else that is being put together that would be comparable, but i think there are things with patient input into the drugs process. there are incentives and a number of other aspects of it that i think could improve. i think it is a good discussion to have because it gets different stakeholders outside of the fda to start talking about fixing and improving things as we need to. paul: i think we would not be having this conversation without chairman upton and the commerce -- and the congresswoman. we are focusing on the biomarker piece of it and i think that is a good direction because it is recognizing that evidentiary stands for particular context for use of a particular biomarker and that would incentivize investment and bringing in those other expert bodies can be those groups and

make each of the patients are at the table, industry at the table, to develop standards that ensures everybody the science is done correctly and the fda will recognize it. peter: i might add it is quite stunning how bipartisan this has been. they have equal numbers of democrats and republicans and i might add taking obama's count through technology two years ago which gets all this right through, as far as i can tell. a lot of people believe that this stuff is science about saving lives. and medicine. it withrd to pollute political attitude. that's what is politically wonderful about this. it looks really well on this and the responder project that polymeric -- that paul and i wrote about several weeks ago, as far as i can tell, they are

doing retrospective studies of clinical trials of cancer drugs that fails on fda standards and going back to reanalyze that -- for drugs that can in fact work well. i think it is truly wonderful. >> anything else? lynn: 21st century cures is a step in the right direction, getting perspectives at the table, the devil is in the details, and there will be an awful lot of working through the details as to go forward, but it is certainly -- it is delightful to see the effort being put into that. avil: let's go to queue and -- q&a. remember your name and affiliation. yes, sir? >> i am harry lewis, i'm a lawyer here and new york city. i just would like to ask the panel, listening to the discussion, i have read complements about darfur and nih, but i have to ask, to what

extent has fda outlived its usefulness? they do some things that remain useful what are we better off limiting the jurisdiction at a macro level and permitting the market to take this on and move with it? lynn: to me i would assume that is a step or could be a step backwards in terms of safety. i think we rely on somebody to determine the things that we can buy and get prescribed for us. that we understand what those safety parameters are anyway. in my mind, it is a matter of dialing in the flexibility. the flexibility we need to look at specific situations as opposed to the one step for all. emil: if you ask any of the biotech investors are i know, pretty much everyone, they would

say that getting rid of the fda would disaster. avik: the fact is, companies are -- companies sometimes lie. sometimes they do studies are of a time not disclose what went wrong with the patient or a be the base like your district for patients with different. the journal of medicine does not have the regulatory authority to audit this patient records. they have to rely on the on the of people who submit those instead to the new england journal of medicine, let's say, where the fda goes through with a fine tooth comb. maybe they go too far, but they are able to do things in terms of the rigor in which they analyze clinical trial data that civilian institutions are not able to do. for me personally, and a lot of people in the investment committee would say, there is an appropriate role for the fda but should the fda role be modernized? i think that is why we're competing at the meeting.

paul: the fda is actually necessary. emil: i think they need to help recruit more people that are connected to the academic world as they were when they had more people which would help them be more creative, connected to the science than they are now. the easiest thing to do to help them get better, i do think they need more funding. i think they need to figure out how to better organize and look for people that can keep connected to what is going on, drive the science down to the review level. i think they need fewer political in the shares on programs where they hire people and need to get more money into their drug review and the quality of people involved and appropriate as for biomarkers and other things. i think there are ways to make it work and i definitely think it would not work well without them. peter: i don't think there is a single major drug company that

would say yes. it would be a stockholm syndrome problem. [laughter] they are well aware that a lot depends on confidence and social miss. i will add that the rise in medicine is progressively moving power away from the fda. i do not know if obama was aware of this when he endorsed medicine in the state of the union address, but it darfa can do it, and awfully the world, the fda has not said it is ok to prescribed is canceled drugs off label, but they will be prescribed as off label. the problem is getting them to market. once it is in market, that they -- the fda has lost grip on it. avik: let's say you have a drug identity has approved for breast-cancer, once the drug has actually been approved by the fda for any disease, a doctor has the liberty to prescribe it for anything.

in theory, the the drug that has been approved for breast-cancer, your doctor can prescribe it to you for high cholesterol. that would be stupid and super malpractice, but he has the legal authority to do that. what happens a lot is what peter refers to, doctors actually have a certain amount of liberty once the evidence is out there in the public domain to say, yes, this is out there. there is evidence that it may work for your pancreatic cancer or your lung cancer or your high cholesterol, so i'm just going to prescribe it to you for that. that is where the fda once it approves a drug, loses control of the story which is why it has become more conservative in cases of approving drugs because they are worried. they know that once the cat is out of the barn, they do not have the complete control anymore. peter: they have more than you are suggesting.

such incredible courage, i assume you know about the drug thalidomide from the 1960 that caused birth defects across europe and australia, it was a licensed drug in the united states but they put on a lot of conditions. i might add it scare them even more. [indiscernible] and looked at your genes and said it predisposes you to this, that, and other things. people are doing the diagnostics and they are doing it on the huge scale of much more data and specific recommendations. i'm side, the federal drug law is written so broadly that everything google sets up in the country is a technical and medical device, telling doctors to treat patients with that. they have not dared to hold their fire. if they do, [indiscernible] i think they will lose on first

amendment grounds. >> i'm a recently retired oncologist. i want to talk about what mr. howard said, this goes back to the very -- 1969 when we had the four-drug combination of approved ticket hodgkin's disease, to cure 62% of the people, the single drug that we used was assisting nine-month remission. we discussed it at that day never approved combinations of drugs but we went ahead and did it. we never got bothered and we still laugh about it years later. it was really -- it was really well to has the mutations caused by other diseases, but the key issue that has to be addressed is that when we went down to the american society of clinical oncology to lobby congress, they told us that just get some patients, put it in front and said it around, they cannot argue with cancer patients. when you come down here, they

think you are a bunch of money-grubbing guys, you want to make a lot of money and i'm sure the same goes for biotech people. my question is -- i'm so glad to see you, what more can we do to get patients involved because it is very difficult to do, especially with pancreatic cancer, but the people who have gotten involved, the breast-cancer patients, people listening to them, we need a patient approach because congress people think one way and it was sad to see john dingell against president obama. he was one of the people must -- who was most against it. he went after david and that is sitting next to the president when he approved something for health care. we need patients involved and please, tell me what you guys are doing? emil: almost everyone is going to be a patient at some point.

technologies -- 23 and me i think only does few. paul: i think it is about $1000 now, but the price is prevalent to the program that it will get at the clinic and at some point, they will get pricked, and look at it and say, we see predisposition for heart disease, diabetes, or potentially colon cancer. that level at which everyone suddenly becomes a patient advocate or potential patient advocate i think is a game changer. lynn: the advocacy organizations have a very important moral and -- role in exactly what you are talking about. using the power of the people, the power of the patient in order to influence change. i know for specific example that recalcitrant cancer research

act was passed into law of january 2013 as a result of the efforts that started out as pancreatic cancer research act. we could get 600 patients, not usually patients but family members of patients of families who had lost someone to the disease, all dressed in purple on capitol hill year after year, so this is important to us. the end result was asking the nci to come up with a scientific framework for the deadliest cancers which are the major cancers with five-year survival rates of 50% or less. that is something the nci is acting on in terms of looking at that from a more strategic viewpoint as to what can be done with what disease. i think those are the types of things that take a long time. you need a lot of organization in terms of making sure the message is consistent. that you know that what you are asking for is what you want. a lot of those things, but that

is clearly one way to affect the kind of change. emil: at our foundation, we actually organize the rare disease community and we have about 80 rare disease groups that are behind our campaign that we call the "cure the process" campaign. every year, we bring about 200 patients, go through a conference to tell them what is going on. have lobbies, and train them to know how to talk to congress and staffers and we set up meetings with their particular congressman or staffers. we send them out on the hill, we put ads in "politico," and we

make it a big where disease week and we have a premier movie where we do a rare disease caucus and you make a big event out of it and we do it every year now. they know we are coming. actually, congressman with rare disease issues feel like these are good events for them. we work both sides of the aisle. they are very aware and some of the 21st century cure said is basically where disease focused work. it is not just the company. it definitely has to be the patients that are affected by these for diseases telling their stories on the capitol hill and we do it in an organized way with enough firepower so that they can feel the presence of those groups by having them contact the hill on one day every year in february. avik: any other questions? amy: my name is amy and i teach at the university of pennsylvania. i am wondering if one possible way for the whole ind ticket and it is a slow ticket would be for the fda to have something like a recalcitrant disease program -- just carve out specific diseases with dismal diagnoses. a lot of them would be cancer and create a much freer, much looser regime for treatment

protocols. i can see one obstacle to that is this kind of conceit that existing treatments work and everything has to be compared to existing treatments. i think that is probably pernicious for diseases like pancreatic cancer and lung cancer -- but it might create some tension to say that the really works. but nothing really works, so we should just try anything. lynn: i think that is exactly along the lines of trying to open it up so it is a one-size-fits-all. even if they have to lope some diseases into those that are particularly difficult and really recalcitrant and nothing to do for them, that might be easier for them to do then to really think about it each disease individually, although

it -- certainly at some level, that needs to come to play. avik: next question. jonathan: i'm jonathan, network for excellence and health innovation, can you comment on if you are doing any work or have any feelings about the payment side of this? certainly in another reason why do has not been a lot of activity in the biomarker industry, i do not think you could even get something approved by the fda. you have to go through another three-year to five year odyssey before you determine what you are going to get paid. it tends to be very depressing for number of projects that get financed. with the exception of a drug company with absolute positivity that it will get its drug approved and has an essential requirement for a test trial on the door, have you looked at all what the incentives are for product developers and what they

get through the fda? peter: i think it is a major economic problem for reasons slightly that you suggested. i know there are only two ways to monetize that can serve in an point. first of all, let's put it this, if you come up to an end point for alzheimers, a good one that fda approves, it would be $1 billion discovery at least. definite all summer drugs with conventional fda trials would be [indiscernible] it is too slow of the disease. it is interesting in response to an earlier question, people across the united states and huge debt of gratitude to the gay community with their activism in the late 1990's and my team night -- and 1980's which is physically the primary military -- primary way of introducing from logical and -- pharmacologic and basically, molecular stuff. but the two tools for monetizing

these discoveries are the diagnostic devices. if you're going to have a targeted drug that is prescribed in these conditions, and you will have to have a diagnostic look. i'm not sure if they still do it but the fda required a companion licensing of the device. the problem is that if you are good pioneer and you find a new target and you find a way to accelerate the approval, so now you have a lubricated pathway for rapid approval by the fda, it is easy to follow up and someone to steal your invention. they work out the mechanism of actions of your drug, the conduct of studies, and they ride on it. the classic story are statins. the japanese researcher worked at the basic chemistry and discovered the first but did not work out the chemistry but his grandfather was interested and looked at the wonders of nature that produce all these medicines and he figured, they be some microbes might have found a way to disrupt cholesterol because cholesterol is also used in nature, so meanwhile, in the united states, they were working

out the molecular cholesterol pathway, and they got no buffer that. they caught the most decorated molecule in history, anyway, -- [laughter] these people did incredibly valuable work. the whole staffing industry sort of hinged on what they did. -- statin industry sort of hinged on what they did. one british company came out with another patent but it did not go far. so pfizer ends up with about three or four drugs later doing lipitor which is a billion-dollar debt. we have no way to monetize this expensive research into chemistry. we need some kind of intellectual property and researchers want everything shared with everybody, but this stuff is expensive and you have to have some incentives.

paul: some kind of a compulsory license, you could say like .5 of revenues that would be any product that is approved using a validated biomarker would flow money back into diagnostics industries, back into the academic medical community and would encourage companies to share data. if they say, we could pool our data and pulled revenues and that would allow us to get biomarkers validated that much faster, so much the better. avik: any other questions? one more? we done? let's do one more. mixed signals from my governors over here. >> sorry told everyone up. i am genvec from the parkinson's disease foundation and i really enjoyed your discussion today and it focused a lot on cancer. i represent neurological parkinson's disease and other diseases like ms and alzheimer's. i think it is important to recognize that this is a rising tide which can raise both, and we focus on the genomic area and how it helps people to recognize that something as simple as mri

scans or pet scans can really help these other neurological conditions which currently represent barriers for drug approval. there is a scan for parkinson's to indicate whether someone has or does not have parkinson's, but people who are negative for the scan still have to be included in clinical trials even though they do not have parkinson's disease. the fda won't allow it, so how do we increase this in order to get fda to say, we recognize these people do not have parkinson's disease, you connect with them from your tiles, therefore, in short that drugs which can help will actually get to approval to help people living with the disease they have today?

paul: a big chunk that we did not discuss is actually located in the slips these and starting point. i mean, is there profile that tells us hopefully well in advance, yes this is subject to both of this disease. peter: there are quite a number of rare diseases where the profile is crystal clear. you can scan and a number of other things. from what i have read, a lot of -- would you call parkinson's a neurological disease? they are very complex from molecular perspective because you have changed propelling the signals and numerous signals and so on and be multiple molecules in those chain and variations in any number can lead to the same disruption that causes the same clinical symptoms. and the institute for dental health recently -- for mental health recently tossed out standard definitions of neurological disease as we are setting that anymore, we are not funding that.

they actually used the analogy for precision neurological medicine that we will isolate the pathways in the brain that affect pain, emotion, and some finite numbers and they will work on those as much as possible. the use of biomarkers, it was the fda and the city is choosing its own name, [indiscernible] of course, we should not be testing someone who does not have the disease. the second problem is that there are quite a few people with the genes but they happen to be really good and not succumbing to a disease even if they have been affected. there is a micro-fraction of people that get infected with hiv but it never progresses. a rather small number but they are the elite controllers and so on. there are other markers like this with cancers and so on. you do not want to test drugs on people who are not sick because it stacks the deck wrong and makes the medical trials incomplete. that's the best i can give you on that one.

avik: i think we have covered a lot of ground here and i want to thank all of our panel for being here. the particular emil. [applause] i want to thank the reporters at the manhattan institute for helping us invest in this important and neglected area of policy, so thank you very much. [applause] [indistinct chatter] ♪ >> on newsmakers, georgia congressman tom price, chair of the budget committee, talks about new republican leadership under speaker of the house paul ryan. and, what to do about fighting isis. rep. tom price: the real challenge and he will problem is, the united states does not have a strategy.

the united states does not have a strategy, they refuse to make it in a way so we actually defeat isis. so, what the house did this s -- past week was to say, because the homeland security secretary and because the director of the fbi says we do not have to be certain that folks who come in the refugee program are actually coming here not having any association with terrorist groups, we have to pause the grandma or stop the program right now and then on a posture of making certain that they are able to vet these individuals in a proper way. that is what the american people are clamoring for. but obama says he is going to be know this. but the american people need to ask themselves is, what does it mean when a president vetoes a legislation that is solely for people.ng the american

it is a very troubling time. i call on those who voted for this to recognize the concern in american people have on this issue. this is not child's play. this is a serious issue. to have the president say, even in spite of his homeland security secretary saying they are not able to appropriately vet these issues. that is not a republican senators. that is not republican governors. that is his security secretary. a the president say he is not going to listen to that end he is going to allow people into this country that he cannot say do not have ties to terrorism, that is very troubling. >> sunday at 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. eastern on c-span. stateocratic

bel edwardsve john has been declared the winner in the louisiana governor special election. both candidates addressed supporters after the results were announced. itter,rt with senator v who also announced he will not run for reelection to the senate next year. [applause]

gov. vitter: thank you. tonight.came up short let me rephrase that. i came up short. lost one i have campaign in my life. tonight. , ironically, it is the campaign and political effort i am most proud of, particularly these last few weeks fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with you. thank you so much for that honor. [applause] i called john bel edwards and

wished him our sincere congratulations and best wishes. wendy and i really, sincerely hope he leads all of us with the right solutions and succeeds. he and, we wish him and his family only the best. let's give him a round of applause and good wishes. [applause] as for me, i am a good to -- i am eager to refocus on the important work in the united states senate. [applause] [cheers and applause] i am, but i probably going to do -- i am, but i am only going to be doing that for one more year, through this term. when i decided to do this with wendy, i decided i was going to

pursue other things. outside the senate. i have reached my personal term limit. now obviously, we are disappointed that those challenges are not leading the senate, but i am genuinely and with wendy, we are starting a new chapter with my star\ting a new chapter with my personal life a and all of the fun and reward and challenge that will bring. we are looking forward to that challenge very much. and, in saying that, i am also very confident that we are going to elect another strong conservative to fill this senate seat next year. [applause] and, i will certainly be working with all of you to make sure that happens. it is important for louisiana and for our country. with that said, how can i begin to express my thanks.

i am so blessed. so enormously blessed. to wendy, thank you for being such a fabulous spouse and mom and partner in this important work, and best friend. thank you so much. [applause] >> [chanting] wendy wendy wendy gov. vitter: to my children, thank you for all of your love and support. and, i hope i have encouraged to

through my small old to always follow your dreams, to always take on new challenges, and to never settle for the easy or the comfortable. never do that. [applause] gov. vitter: to our family, they are almost all here tonight, thank you for your love. you all do so much for us and give us such support, including all of that great sign-waving today. thank you for that. [applause] gov. vitter: to our senate staff

and campaign staff, your are all, bar none, the best staff in louisiana political history. thank you for that work. you have served the people of louisiana is so amazingly well, and i am honored to have worked side-by-side with you. and, you all know, like wendy and i certainly know, staff, you have had the best team leader imaginable in kyle. [applause] gov. vitter: that is my campaign manager and chief of staff kyle rucker. >> [crowd chanting] kyle! kyle! kyle! kyle! >> we love you!

gov. vitter: well, i am about to return it, because last but not least, you are family. we love you. we are honored to of worked side-by-side with you, we will always love you, and thank you so much for this enormous honor of service. thank you all so much. [applause] [crowd cheering, whistling] >> thank you. what a great night. is this a great state or what? we heard a prayer while ago. we are supposed to glorify god sayll that we do, so i will

be the glory god for tonight. first and again, with words of deep and profound gratitude for all of those who worked so hard. who were willing to believe that we could confound the conventional wisdom that this victory just could not happen. and yet, thanks to all of you, here we are. it did happen. [applause] i love our great state and its wonderful people. i am especially grateful tonight to my beautiful wife. 26 years. [applause] [crowd cheering] >> yes. she is a public school teacher. she is the last person i talked to every night. i want to thank our children as well.

for over two years, they did not see much of their poppa. i have missed them tremendously. but they are the best children i , could ever have hoped for. i love them very much and i want to tell them i appreciate them for everything they have done. they sacrifice like you would not believe, but they knew that tonight was possible. i want to tell you i think my family. i am standing next to my mother. a charity hospital lot nurse. [crowd cheering] >> a charity hospital nurse who taught all of her children compassion for their fellow human beings. i love you, very much. tonight, i cannot help but think about my daddy. my poppa who i lost in april of last. a great man. a great public servant. who, along with my mother, raised eight children.

a wonderful man who loved his hotel room where we are right came herehose daddy in 1927. when he ran for sheriff and one, he spent the night here and woke up the next morning and read the times picayune to make sure he really one the race. and my sister, the only girl of seven boys. her, she feel bad for was the oldest and she was plenty mean. [laughter] but my brother and my sister, i am joking -- they were so incredibly hard. they came, they volunteered, they did things i never knew they did. they traveled the state, putting up signs, moving signs, talking to voters. i could not have had a more supportive family.

my wife, my kids, my brothers, my sister, my mother. nothing they did and nothing you did was more impotent and the prayer shall offer it up. not just for me and not about the great state of louisiana into our people. so, thank you so much for the prayers. [applause] it takes a lot of to do the footwork that to a campaign like this requires. calling people, telling our story. to those who contributed money to what a campaign like this cost, because it does cost a lot all, the but most of good people who voted for us. god bless you. i am eternally grateful. i am humbled. thank you so much for the confidence you have shown in me. i will not let you down. [crowd cheering]

john bel edwards: i want to thank the hundreds of committed volunteers all over the state of louisiana and i want to tell you i have the best campaign staff that has ever worked in the state of louisiana. and it was the smallest campaign staff that has ever worked in the state of louisiana. underpaid campaign staff that has ever worked in the state of louisiana. i want to thank my campaign manager right here. she did a wonderful job. i want to thank [indiscernible], i want to thank also my legislative colleagues, democratic, republican alike. but i want to single out, angelos get in trouble when you do this, but i want to single out my seatmate, sam jones.

sam, thank you so much. he was the first true believer. and i want to take just a moment and thank jay darden. he is a great man and a committed public servant. he put louisiana for. not self. not party. i am so proud of him. this election shows us that the people of louisiana, in a time about our cynicism politics and future, that the people have chosen hope over over and negativity and distrust of others. i did not create this breeze of hope blowing across our beautiful and blessed state, but

i did catch it and i thank god i did. this breeze has its roots in the songs of louisiana, the food of our cajun ancestors, the spirituals of our african-american churches, the faith of our italian immigrants and strawberry farmers and the energy of native americans and hispanic immigrants. no, i did not start the breeze of hope, but i did catch it and so did you. so did you. thank you. that is why we are here tonight. because we all caught the breeze. the people of louisiana have chosen to believe we can do better. and by doing better, we will be better. i submit to you, we will be better as of tonight. [cheering] you know, struck by the words that nature can do, but down by attacks on education,

embarrassed by the vanity of its leadership, the people of louisiana have chosen hope over business as usual. and, i pledge to treat their trust in this hopeful spirit as a sacred obligation. we have a lot to of hard work to do. we must unite to work together. party,r, regardless of regardless of gender, race, geography, we're together. we are one louisiana. together, always putting louisiana first. to gather, always tackling our biggest challenge together. together restoring opportunity and prosperity for the great people of the great state of louisiana. now, let me tell you it is going to be difficult. but with god's blessing and your

hard work and your prayers we will prevail whether it is our finances, education, job creation, transportation, taking care of the environment. we are going to prevail. and i want to invite all louisianans of all persuasions, all ethnicities, i don't care your economic station in life. i want to invite all of you to join with us to work hard, to work together, to pull together, to move louisiana forward. so, as abraham lincoln once said, to call on the better angels of our nature and catch this breeze of hope that these deep and abiding issues can be dealt with in ways that speak to the common good. i am going to be the governor of all the people. and i am thanking everybody in louisiana right now.

whether you voted for me, did not vote for me, or did not vote. i am going to be your governor and i am going to work just as hard for you as i am working for those who supported me from the first day. i'm going to work with you and for you just the same. and that goes for senator vitter, too. he called me tonight and he was very gracious. i am going to work with others i want you want to know that i will work with him and every , peopleect did official and the private sector, people all over the state of louisiana. ofause every constituent senator vitter is also a constituent of mine. he announced tonight that he will not seek reelection to the senate. cheering]

and so does my hope and expectation bad tee and i worked together to serve the state of louisiana, to promote the common interest. i look forward to that opportunity. my pledge to you tonight remains the same as it has been four months. i will always be honest with you. i will never embarrass you. [crowd cheering] >> i will get up every day fighting to print the great people of the great state of louisiana first. god bless you. and god bless the united states of america. [cheering and applause] ♪ >> every weekend, on american tv, 48 hour's of

programs that tell our nation's stories. road to the white house rewind it looks back at the 1988 political campaign of george herbert walker bush. of john f.color film kennedy's trip to texas. then, back story with the american history guide. -- university of virginia professor, and theessor emeritus discuss 1915 film, the birth of a nation and its significance. history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> millennial's and their role in today's economy was the topic of a republican task horse on capitol hill.

outlined their retain to hire and millennial's. this is about one hour and 15 minutes. ber of congress. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> the house republican policy meeting task force on millennials will now come to order. the committee is meeting today to discuss the essential role of mill epials in today's economy. and though we're meeting on that important topic, couldn't start today's hearing without mentioning that our hearts and minds are with the people of paris today as they deal with the horrible tragedy over the weekend. we want them to know that we

hurt as they hurt. and we all understand together that we have to be united in standing up to these terrorist thugs threatening our waive rife and ultimately douefeating them. i will recognize myself for an opening statement. i want to thank everyone for coming today. it's an exciting day as we host the second millennial task force to discuss how the millennial generation is shaping our economy. today millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, and by 2020, just five years from now, they will represent 50% of it. now think about that for a second. in just five short years, millennials will make up half of the american workforce.

that's exciting througnews, but also creates a number of challenges. the writing is already on the wall for many p millennials. student loan debt has risen]íúi $1.2 million. increasing over 50%. wages have stagnated. young people are being poursed to live at home longer. and the president's health care law has shifted the cost from the old to the young. millennials aren't asking us to give them a prepass. they're just asking us to give them a fair shot. and we've got a long way to go. but the good news is that even though government pea hamay hav helped create this mess, it can also help fix it. as ronald reagan said, there are no easy answers, but there are

simple answers. we just have to have the courage to do what we know is morally right. the first praise lace we can st getting out of the ways of businesses that are fighting to give millennials a chance. there are companies that are rewriting the rule book. these businesses have taken an uncommon approach to fixing common problems, and by doing so, they have truly changed the world. for instance, when was the last time that you opened an encyclopedia or had to walk miles to find a cab? these businesses are changing the way our economy works, and for the future of the millennial generation, we can no longer allow government to get in if the way. congresswoman elise stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to congress has been a tireless

advocate in the halls of congress for millennials, and we are pleased to have her leading this task force today. for those of you in the audience or watching online who pea have questions for our witnesses, you can tweet your question using the #, #gopfuture. and we may ask your question, time permitting, during this hearing. i now recognize the gentle lady from new york, the chair of the policy committee's millennial task force, congresswoman stefanik. >> thank you chairman messer, and i would like to take the opportunity to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for taking the time to testify and share your knowledge and expertise with us. it is a distinct honor to chair the task force and lead today's hearing as we continue our discussion on how i would as legislators can greatly empower the millennial generation.

i'd like to take the opportunity to revisit our previous hearings. this is the third in an ongoing series where we have explored and discussed the millennial generation. in june we held our first hearing and we had the manhattan institute laying out the demographic break down of americans between the ages of 18-34. we reviewed current trends and polling data that showed this generation is different in many ways from their parents and grand parents. for example, millennials are the most highly educated generation in american history, yet they also feel the most politically disengaged. in august i held a field hearing in my distribute where i heard from millennial constituents representing a diverse set of backgrounds, they shared real world examples facing a john

racial that will soon comprise half of the american workforce, problems such as regulatory issues that hold back farmers. things that prevent the next small business from opening and a government that is slow to adapt have left these young americans feeling stifled. as we come together once again we have the privilege of hearing from industry leaders who represent the cutting edge of fresh thinking and adaptive policies when it comes to the modern workplace and economy. we will hear how companies are attracting and retaping millennials to their workforces and gain a better understanding how technology is empowering our constituents to support themselves and giving them the flexibility they desire. millennials have now surpassed generation xors as the largest generation in the labor pours. one in three american workers today is a millennial, and this percentage will rapidly increase

in the coming years. for companies to stay competitive, they will need to be able to harness the talents, experiences and energy of a generation that currently includes 80 million americans. with this new generation, as with all generations come new ways of doing things and fresh outlooks on the world around us. past generations have looked for stability and certainty, whereas millennials look for flexibility and fulfillment. i brief these shifts will make the united states stronger and more competitive. i look forward to a pro ducktive dialog. other members of the task force may be recognized in the future when they come in to share statements, but i will move on to introducing the witnesses. i will start with maisie clark who is a government affairs analyst at google, working on their advocacy efforts on a wide

range of technologies. she has worked at google since 2010 in the people operations, sales and governmental affairs divisions. prior to google, she worked at kiva.org. she graduated from harvard college in 2009 with a degree in history. terry mcclemens is the washington metro managing partner for price waterhouse cooper. she leads a practice comprised of over 4,000 professionals serving public, private and government clients and is responsible for all client services in the washington metro area. she previously served as oust human capital leader and global tal. leader. during her tenure as oust human capital leader, her strategies were recognized and she was recognized by the women's business journal as one of the most powerful people in the

greater dc. area. she was also recognized by the national council for research on women as a trail blazer. one of those who contributed to significant change in the lives of women and girls. our last is the policy leader for uber. he is responsible for advocating uber's pro-growth, market-driven business model to all stakeholders and interested parties. prior to uber, he served for kevin mccarthy. in this role, he was responsible for coordinating outreach to key organizations that were interested in legislation being considered by the u.s. house of representatives of brian began his career in washington, working for congressman dave hobson and served as a political appointee at the u.s. small business administration and as a vice president of affairs for independent electrical contractors.

he is a graduate and lives in arlington, virginia. the chair recognizes maisie clark for five minutes for an opening statement. >> hello. i'm going to start over. thanks. hi, everyone. my name is maze eye clark with google. it's an honor and pleasure to be here with y'all today. i worked at google in a variety of different roles in the past five and a half years. as you poe, the recession has disproportionately affected millennials. i graduated from harvard college in 2009 at the height of the recession and i did not have a

job lined up on graduation day. i took an unpaid internship for five months as i searched for aen gaua engaging and salaried position. recruiting wasn't exactly the career path i imagined i would pursue when i was in college, but i really mighted needed to money and move out of my parents' house. i couldn't ask for a more rigorous and engaging experience. this is because of the way google focuses on its people. it positions itself in many ways to hire and retain millennials, but four themes unite them all. a culture of flexibility, trust in our employees and a constant pursuit to have an inclusive workplace. countless surveys about what motivates millennials, including

deloitte's 2015 millennial survey show that a mission they believe in is the most important factor for millennials. google's mission is to organize information. our mission is distinctive in its simplicity and scope. many focus on customer experience and improved operations and shareholder value, google is focussed on purpose rather than business goal. mill epials also care a great deal about having flexibility in their careers, both in their day to day work but also in their career trajectories. work hours at google are flexible. and as long as you get your work done the company is happy. we also allow 20% projects where they can spend 20% of their time

working on projects which they think can benefit the company or delight customers. gmail launched in 2004 and is now one of google's most beloved products. google always encourages us to keep learning. googlers can receive an educational reimbursement for courses they take outside of work. if a software engineer wants to take a course in medieval literature, google will pay for one third of the cost of that course. if it's like learning a new code language, google will pay for two-thirds of the cost. they offer year-long rotations to experience what it's like to work in another department or another part of the world. my colleague is in south africa and is gaining meaningful experience and cultural exposure as a result of it. trust in our employees is also an enormous cultural pillar at google.

the code base, which contains all the source code that make our products work is almost 100% available to newly-hired engineers on their first day of work. by trusting our employees with confidential information we are treating all people including millennials like the valued, mature people they are. they hold a company wide meeting where they take questions from any employee about products, leadership decisions and the direction of the company. it allows each employee to make his or her voice heard and have access to the top of the company who are making important decisions for the business. this creates a meaningful connection that has a positive motivation for their loyalty to the company. they place an emphasis on bringing our whole selves to work and respect the differences of others. our lack of dress code is a large appeal but it goes far beyond that.

google has invested a great deal of resources of combating unconscious bias, which is the capacity to give preference to others. they work to brake down the bias to make sure we're assessing in the most objective way possible. we also have a number of employee resource and advocacy groups. mission, transparency, trust and inclusion have paved the way for google to be considered a top employer by mill epials, and we strife each day to retain this incredibly talented john racial of technologists. >> thank you, ms. clark. the chair now recognizes mrs. mcclemens for an opening statement. >> thank you, congress stefanik, congressman messer and other

distinguished members of the congress for inviting us to talk to the task force hearing. we are delighted to share some of the innovative strategies we've implemented to talent attraction, development and retention of a group of people often misunderstood, millennials. our workforce is streakingly young. by next year, mill epials will account for approximately 80% of our peep. so the issue of how we attract, engage and develop the youngest members of our organization is something we've spent a lot of time thinking about. they are often stereotyped as being self-absorbed, lauzy or quick to shift loyalties. we've found that to be unfounded. and when we started paying attention to the millennial workforce motivations and interests, we ended up with a fresh perspective on the work

experience for our entire firm of in 2012, pdbc collaborated with researchers from southern california and rlondon business school, what motivates them and how to keep them engaged. what we found were real generational differences among older and younger hires. one of the main take aways from our study was understanding how much millennials and even our experienced people valued flexibility in their schedules and their careers. in many cases, millennials are willing to give up the opportunity to make more money or climb the corporate ladder to find a role that offers them the flexibility to work from home or time to follow their passions. we use this information to rethink what kinds of flexibility we are offering all of our people. in january 2013, we launched a contest, which we called plan to

flex, where we asked our managers to work with their teams to find a way to achieve flexibility by supporting each other during one of the busiest times in our business cycle -- january through march. the goal was to focus on clients and have time for things that matter to the individual. we had more than half of our people participating. in early 2014, we took it one step further and rolled out year-round flexibility for the entierp organization. we're finding more unique ways to offer flexibility and balance. we recently launched our flexibility scare tquare talent network. we've had professionals enroll in medical school during most of the year and come back to us for the busy season. another professional started

their passion and started a bakery. millennials are also reminding us about how to engage in communication. it's a myth that younger people only want to communicate through electronics. this insight pushed us to take a fresh look at our performance management practices, which, at the time, were largely paper-driven, process driven, back ended and often focussed on assignment of compensation as opposed to career development. in 2014, we replaced our old process with a new leadership development experience, grounded by our pdbc framework which emphasizes the competencies necessary to solve important problems in an ever-increasingly complex world. we are creating a real time development culture, emphasizing

frequent, informal, in the moment feedback to help our people every day. we developed an app that charts progress to facilitate morrow bust career conversations. millennials also want to know that they're valued and appreciated for the contributions they're making. it can come in the form of real time rewards or for finishing a project. it can also be expressed more subtly in the way we talk with each other and express appreciation. have you use just one of your seconds to say thank you? that's appreciation. it takes about a second, but the value of giving that feedback can be impactful and longer lasting. it used to be that the promise of one day becoming a partner of pbdc was the reward for slogging away at the office to matter of the other demands one may have

outside of the work. but today, pbdc's goals honor purpose, our reason for being, our millennials take that purpose to heart. they're even willing to leave if what we're doing as an organization doesn't align with their core values. we've invested time in teaching people about our purpose, how we build trust in society and solve important problems. we have spent time looking at pdbc's commitment to social issues and sew sigh tal trends to make an impact. we've taken an active role to promote literacy and support the needs of our veterans and be involved in our own communities to take time away to engage in something meaningful to them. this issue of purpose and meaning has led to one of ou newest projects.

wife' looked at the recent debt, there are currently $1.3 trillion in outstanding loan debt in this country. most of that debt is owed by millennials. we saw this as a sew sigh tal issue that we could have impact on by helping employees at pwdb. some in our firm will be able to receive $7600 over six years to repay student loans. in closing, one of the biggest lessons learned is to embrace the opportunity to learn from anyone offering a fresh perspective. our research into millennials has breathed new life into a number of policies. we are not afraid of millennials. of a and we're getting results with higher overall employee satisfaction and retention rates. lastly, i would add that our job

is never done. we need to constantly think about its rating our talent practices. thank you for having me today. i'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, mrs. mcclements. >> i appreciate your giving me an opportunity to be here today. i want to talk about this a little differently if i can. i don't want to talk about uber does for full-time employees like me, because it's just as good as what you've heard -- so i don't get fired -- it's better than what you've heard from the other two companies. we've heard a lot about flexibility and what a value millennials place on nextbility. i think we all do. and what uber does, and what that means for people as consumers and people who are drivers on our platform as well. when i have this conversation about uber, it's somewhat

ubiquito ubiquitous. but five years ago the company just got started. six years ago the technology didn't exist of the phone battery would drain when it was plugged into the driver's car. now the technology exists, and we take this for granted. who knows what the next year would bring or what the next technology is or the next app on our phone saying i can't remember what it was like not to have that on my phone or not to be able to do that. so that's where technology is moving and it's changing the way people interact. it's empowering individuals to not have to go through a big chain store to deal with, we're dealing with the person we're having the transaction with. when you're a uber ride, you're dealing directly with the person who's paying you or providing you with the service and you get to rate them afterwards. it's a very empowering thing. there are a lot of app-based companies that provide this kind of interaction and cut out the

middleman. to give you a smap shot, i'd like to give the committee a snapshot of what we're talking about and how this impacts and what it means economically. right now on uber platform, we are in more than 300 cities around the world. pour tan 70 countries. united states, we are in more than 200 cities here. we have 400,000 plus active uber drivers in the united states, people on the platform driving, these are people who do more than four trips a month. globely, that number's excess of 1 million. 23% of the drivers on the uber platform in the united states are 29 or younger. 49% of the riders on the uber platform are 49 and younger. and this is something i want to talk a little more about. the way this is changing the way the millennials get around and the way they move aroundsd) ci or move in cities now as opposed to living out in the suburbs. it's changing the way cities are

shaped and the way people move. if i can give you a couple more numbers that speak to the flexibility of this platform and the flexibility of the technology allowing peep. more than half of the uber drivers drive fewer than ten hours a week. more than 40% are below eight hours a week. they're picking up, whether it's a weekend. the first uber ride i took i went to headquarters, go to the joint giants game. my driver stays home during her day with her child. she says if my kid's sick, i don't get fired. if my husband works late i don't have to go out. if i can, i go out and make a little extra money. for a lot of people, that's a big deal. that's a make or break thing or the difference between going on

vacation or paying down your student debt. so providing people with that flexibility without locking them in to what we traditionally whe consider full-time jobs is empowering for individuals. and these technological developments are allowing. this wasn't possible ten years ago. this wasn't possible when i was in the mill epial cohort, which i'm no longer in now. it's a real tunes that technology's provided to people. the other number i want to throw out, so far in 2015, drivers on the uber platform in the united states have brought home $3.5 billion in earnings. that's an exciting thing as well. as the product arts starts to g and expand, and this isn't just new york city or boston or san francisco, this is going to be upstate new york soon. there's more potential there for people to take advantage of this flexibility to fit into their

own schedules. so the next thing i want to talk about if i could is the way this changes how people move. and this is the other thing about when you talk about the 49% of the riders on our platform, people who take rides are in this millennial cohort and 29 and younger. this is the way they're moving around their cities of it talks about how a story about urban revitalization but economic opportunity. we compared yelp, we use yelp data with our own trip data and showed that 31% of our trips begin or end at an independent business. it wouldn't be a chain store or chain restaurant. you go to china town, all the things around are big box, big chain because that's expensive real estate. it's the guy five blocks away, bar, own boutique, whatever it is. uber's making it easier to get to those businesses.

we presume and hope when they get to those businesses they spend money. we know those independent businesses are the drivers of our economy. that's an exciting data point we like to throw out there. that will bare more fruit and we'll be able to show you more data like that for the cheecono impact on our cities. something else that people like to do at bars is drink. we've seen dui reduction, incident related reductions. we've got data to back this up. we work with local law enforcement in certain places. we have breathalyzers set up so you can take a test and decide it's best to take a uber home, but that has an impact as well. you have a large sew sigh tal benefit. there is no excuse to say i can have one more and drive. you don't need to do that

anymore. you have a convenient, easy way to get yourself home or heave your c -- leave your car if you need to. people get around their cities, people are more yaapt to go out. another thing i'd like to talk about is a trnd that baffles me, but this is the idea that people don't want to own cars anymore. i don't understand thacht i'm old enough to remember how old i was when i got pmy first car an the makes and models of my friends' cars. people i work with at uber, some of them don't even have a valid driver's license anymore. they carry their passport. they don't want a car. it's a generational thing. i don't understand it, but i

accept it. if you're not going to have a car, you've got to have a means of getting around. that brings you to uber. a lot of this is that first mile, last mile. i live five miles from the metro. i take a uber. some of it is debtigetting stra from a to b. this is uber pool, a car-pooling function. and, again, talk about something i don't understand how they make it work, but the app now can determine whether multiple people are going along the same route to generally the same direction. we both volunteer, we both ask for a ride on uber pool. it picks me up, picks the next person up, plsplits the fare automatically. instead of having two cars take

wou two of us somewhere, you have one car do the same thing. you look at whether it's a large at this or small area, sitting in rush hour traffic, congestion downtown. you're talking serious mitigation of traffic, which obviously has infrastructure benefits of but then you're also talking about, again, you're making it easier for people to get around. they're more apt to be out, spending money. this is the kind of thing it's okay for me to work from home i can get in there quickly and conveniently. maybe it is something i'm allowed to work from home. and i think that's a benefit more and more companies are seeing for employees. we're chaping the way people move around their cities. and with that, the thing i'd like to caution folks about or encourage them, i go back to the fact this being a five year old company. who knows what we'll be talking about a year from now or two

years from now. i think the positive impact this is having is something congress should look at as something they should nurture and encourage and not something they should try to hug so hard that they strangle it. so with that appreciate the committee having me here and happy to take any questions. >> thank you, mr. worth. i now recognize myself to ask questions, and my first question, i will ask of ms. cras clark. so you mentioned google 20% plan which allows employees and members of the workforce to folk on e focus on the company. can you give us an idea on how that could work in a more traditional setting. how might the government be able to implement a system to our processes which seem woefully

out of date? >> i would say just being flexible enough to allow people to come up with these ideas and perhaps having an interm system for people to sure those ideas, you could use crowd source, people could vote on whether or not they think the idea is something that the group of people could pursue. and then it's really just about empowerment at the end of the day. the technologies exist to allow this to happen. but i think, you know, having staffers come up with great ideas and having all the different offices support allowing them to have time on these ideas to update older processes i think would be wonderful, and it's been amazing at google. i, myself, got a wonderful trip to london out of a to% p20% proi did on journalists how to use a

google tool to expose money laundering around the world. it was very impactful. and i thinksourcing those ideas would be wonderful. >> thank you. mrs. mcclements, you referenced how pwc is constantly reaching out to get feedback. can you talk about how that has impacted the office culture and does this create a sense of motivation and ownership as you've noticed the difference as you started this program. >> thank you. wonderful question. so we have a culture whereby we are constantly seeking feedback. so there's two things a we do. we've moved from an annual survey process from our people to get feedback on the environment to more quarterly surveys on the work environment. that is something that we call real time feedback.

so each and every day, with every major interaction, we're seeking and asking for feedback. both upwards and downwards, so that with every new assignment, every new client, every new conversation, the next time that we have it we will be better equipped to have a more strategic conversation with our clients, with our stakeholders and the community. so we've got this concept of real time, in the moment paid back, supported by periodic surveys that we call listening, learning and adapting so that we're constantly getting feedback to adapt our processes. >> my next question is for mr. worth. you talked a lot about millennials moving to urban areas and the increased ridership in underserved neighborhoods. do you think an increase in types of services like uber could help attract millennials to more rural areas across this

country in. >> sure. as this becomes more common, we've seen this in the difference between large cities and mid-sized urban areas, it does become do you want to be that city, do you want to be that area that attracts, and it's not just about uber. it's about access for people. and i definitely think this is something as the technology, papds and becomes pour widely used, this is absolutely something uber will be in more places than it is now. it will be much more commonplace. it will attract people. it will be something people look towards. if you're used to having that and that convenience, that's what this is about, flexibility. you're not going to want to give that up if you go somewhere else, it's going to be something you factor into that. >> thank you. i now recognize chairman messer. >> great. thank you. can i have maybe a more

direction questidirect question about policy. you know, maisie, i have to talk about when you talked about being an intern at google, i can't help but think about the internship where they were defeating unconscious bias. those who don't know the movie, vince vaughn and owen wilson were a couple of washed-up 40 somethings who had an internship at google and became fairly successful. for those of you closer to my age, think "revenge of the nerds" for this decade, but really kind of a fascinating movie. but could you talk a little bit more about this principle of unconscious bias and the way it's out rit utilized in the? >> i will note that i was an

extra in the movie. we do have an employee resource group for older googlers. they call themselves graiglers. >> older is what, 45 in. >> i would have to look it up, but it's probably woefully low. there's been a big push specifically about magoinabout everybody recognizes the differences of others in a way that doesn't hinder them to have the best dialog and to review employees, you know, for performance and promotion, making sure that everyone's evaluated equally. and there's, we have a bunch of reinings, we have in-person trainings that weigh have. we times do them externally as well for people. so we have trainers who, that's either part time or pull-time job for them. and then we have an online training that's available to all employees, and i've taken that

myself and found it really informative. so weed'd love to bring that to the government, make it more widely accessible so we can follow up on that later. >> now carrie, sort of fascinated to hear this number that 80% of the workforce at pwc is millennials. could you, one, expand a little on how that happens? and then maybe talk a little bit about some of the opportunities and some of the challenges that come from that makeup of your workforce. >> sure, great. i think part of the why we get to 80% so quickly, when the workforce is literally going to be at about 50% is our business model in terms of how we promote and develop people. with the add developmevent of o leadership experience, we want to be the developer of talent. so whether people decide to stay

with our firm long term or whether they decide to go to pursue a(uá career in another , we want to be the company where they want to come to grow and develop. and i would love to share the fact that we are second behind google in terms of recognition from campus, in terms of the brand where business students see their destination to go, which is fantastic. so then, as to the second part of the question, looking at the opportunities and the challenges that perhaps exist, we see it as opportunities. we saw the fact that many areas -- i'm a boomer -- with the influx of the generation helping us see that there were different ways to do what we were doing, delivering our services internally and externally from a talent perspective. so we took advantage and through innovation challenges several

years ago to get ideas from our people for ideas on how we deliver our products, we see all upside. >> and brian, real quick, it's amazing to hear that uber's only in year five. when i think of the story of uber, i'm reamedy:f$z that the s quo is a fierce fighter, and you have been through regulatory challenges, as those that are vested in the preexisting structure sort of push back against the disruptive technology that uber represents, could you tell a little bit of that story? some of the challenges that uber's faced or in dealing with -- >> sure. absolutely. and a lot of this comes from, you know, uber being something so new. we're not a transportation provider in the typical sense.

the app connects someowith some wanting a ride. we were going city by city, duking it out with the taxing industry. and now it's expanded so much. i mentioned more than 200 cities in the unit, we do something that frankly for myself as a republican and for most business seems odd, we should go and ask to be regulated. don't let us be crammed into this old box, there's something new out there. you need to treat it as something new. you need to have some floor of regulation to allow a company to operate with stable. from a business standpoint, it makes total sense. you need that kind of stability and structure out there to operate your business, but it's been fascinating. we've watched from the inside from this fight we're having, whether we should even exist, whether we should be allowed to

operate to now uber can operate, but how do we treat it? how do we tax it if how do we regulate it, how do we do all these other things. it's something where i think we might be starting to grow up as a company and getting away from the start-up phase. when i talk about the nature of how it connects with the person you're riding with, whether you're the rider or the driver, it has allowed uber to win these regulatory fights at the state and local level. the constituents, whether it's the state legislators, the constituents want it. they say yes, i know exactly what it's like to not have that, and i want to have it and you as my lawmaker need to figure out how to make it work. it has been fascinating to see that from a grassroots standpoint. it's one of the most tra significanceal pdiggsal

products that we boy. it's amazing to see the grassroots of this product. >> i want to start with you, ma maze eye. why do you think millennials find having an engaging mission so important to their careers? >> it's a really interesting question. i think it has a rot to do with being raised predominantly by the baby boomer generation. that was a very idealistic, strong-willed generation in its own right, and we were instilled with those values by our parents of certainly the case for me. and i think at that's true pour for a lot of millennials, and incorporated into education that it wasn't quite 60 years ago. i think that's the predominant

reason and a great thing. >> so just to follow up. in terms of google's mission, it's very unique in that it can never truly be complete, as you mentioned. it constantly needs to innovate. and many occupations and businesses aim to accomplish a very known and clear task, whether it's providing a ride from point a or point b or what pwc does on an annual basis. how do you think companies in professions such as the trades or outside the technology, i would ask you to start. >> it's just about wording. i think companies such as pwc and uber are constantly innovating and could frame their missions and probably do to a certain extent frame their missions in ways that are very forward-looking, long term, and i think that that's something very special about google's

mission that i think it is really helpful, and it's a big hallmark of the tech industry in general. >> so, if i think about our purpose, right, and is to build trust in society and solve important problems. and you can think about that broadly and say what is that? what does that mean? and our millennials care about that. so if i think about that, whether it's building trust in society and solving problems from the work that we do to financial statement audits or the reports that we produce so that investors are making good decisions. whether we turn to other sew sigh tal issues where people are working on better ways to analyze data, that might help reduce suicide rates for example, those are the real kind of projects that we're working on for society, for businesses, for our government. and so our people look at that and say that's real impact.

so our people have been pleased to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time visiting our public sector practice in the kind of work they're doing, supporting the united states and our people know the mission. they know the mission they're working on. and they're excited about delivering's really how we brint to life and giving understanding and feedback on that purpose as well. >> uber, i think the onus is pretty clear. we're change the way cities move and the way people move. most of my colleagues who are doing the really great stuff, we've got uber eats, uber pools, different areas of the uber product that perform different functions. that's the exciting part, that's the mission that what we're doing is scratching the surface.

this is being a better option than a cab is the easy part of that. that was the low-hanging fruit. that's what keeps driving people. the mission of this company is literally to change the way people move all over the world. ms. stefanik can talk about your district. the town front in western ohio with 20,000 people, that could have uber and i think it will at some point. that's the mission to continue to build on this great thing we've got on this great foundation and keep building it up. >> i yield to chairman messer. >> i have to admit i'm a dead square gen xo eorxor. what other products have been developed by googlers during their 20% time in >> put me on the hot seat.

i know they are wide ranging. ad sense. that's one of our advertising projects that's a very big money-maker for google. so it's a big revenue generator for us on the advertising side, and that was something that was an it 20% project very early in the company's history, so not only are they things like gmail for free, but things that are revenue generating. >> and the next one, can you talk about how it has incentivized drivers to drive during surge hours? >> surge pricing. it's what it is. everyone keeps calling it surge pricing. we're sticking with surge pricing, and i'll get punished

when i get back to the office. surge pricing is basically flexible pricing for the rate of your uber ride. there's a base fair but the rate will float up as demand rises.

one of the things i have noticed is, when i ask students what they wanted to after they commone, one of the most answers i hear is they want to start a company. but is their version of the american dream. testimony today is representative of large companies at this point, as you think back to the stories in each of your companies developments, what were the roadblocks? entrepreneur's perspective, what are the challenges today to pursuing this empowerment economy that millennials are looking for? >> i will go first. i think the story is easy with us. when you look at when the company was started in san

francisco, it was started because our founder and ceo could not get a cab in san francisco. they're the same number of tax me get -- taxi medallions now that they had in that 1950's. you tell people that they think it is absurd, and it is, but that shows what our company has been through, going toe to toe with the incumbent market and their regulators, just to be able to exist. whatever the next app is where somebody says i have a better way to do product x, they will run into -- if they have a better way to do what is out there now, you will run into the incumbent. they will not what you in their space. innovation will always run into that. most want to be an entrepreneur is the have a bright idea to do something no one has done.

what you constantly run into among everyone in that market is incumbency. it is in the interest of the entrepreneur if the government is in the business of opening up those markets. say,years from now, we can i cannot imagine what it was like to live without that. gettingrnment should be obstacles out of the way and not blocking innovation. >> i would take it from the perspective of innovation, can happen within an organization, from starting your own company. one of my colleagues -- several of my colleagues wrote a book called "the self-made billionaire." they researched the habits of what they identified as producers and performers. being the innovators. many of those producers ended up

coming from leaving larger corporations where their innovation was stifled and they went on their own to produce, to create innovation. perspective,y's someone who wants to do innovation can find that on their own in larger organizations. i would suggest that companies and organizations need to be open to people who think differently than they do. successfuls a very story, it started in the garage. the government didn't get in the way for us. one thing we want to focus on is something called google abroad,

it is a hub we have in a lot of locations abroad where regulation may not be so friendly. we think having a strong entrepreneurial community is for the internet as a whole to make sure regulation is not getting in the way of small business owners. messer.ld to chairman what wouldtweet, your first steps be to extend uber to rural college towns? sandra we do not have many drivers in tennessee. >> well for the business, they don't allow me near any side of that this us operations, to the benefit of all of us. but my school was in miami university in oxford, ohio and

we are in oxford, ohio now. they've really been able to expand at a rate i would not have imagined at the start of the company. significants have dui related problems. if you went to school in oxford, ohio in february, when it's 10 degrees to get to class and it :00 a.m. and you gladly would take -- pay some money to take you to class he did not walk in the cold, we've come a long way in 18 months and 18 months from now we will have a more positive answer to that question. >> i will give everyone here my last statement and then we will chair. back to the i mentioned the movie "the but i didn'tater,

tell you i quoted the movie a couple years ago. there is a scene in that movie, of whatkest moment vince fawn and own wilson's team experience when they are down and out and are losing their opportunity, and one of the young people turned to the group , you grew up with belief in the american dream. this idea that we all can do better. for our generation, that's all it is. a dream. i made the points of the students, never allow yourself to believe that. i have to tell you that i have incredible optimism for the future, and part of it is rooted andhe millennial generation the incredible talent and values that they bring to the table.

is my own life experience. i am a gen xer. i was born in 1969. that was a bleak time. double-digit unemployment, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates, lots of reasons to be pessimistic. russia was running wild in afghanistan. yet leaders came together and saw a brighter future and took the steps that we needed to make sure we left the next generation better than the last. generation in the history of this country there is every reason to believe it can happen again. i asked you a second ago to highlight any problems or cautions so i will ask the question in reverse which is

what are the opportunities that we have. you are here on behalf of these innovative companies speaking to congress about what we can do next to make sure america's future remains bright. so what opportunities would you youent, what would encourage congress to do? >> a focus on technical education is important for preparing people for the type of jobs that will be available in the future. it is something that google has devoted a lot of time and money to. to develop time in education for those in elementary school high school, middle school and the collegiate level. wantsk if the government to step up in an arena giving people the tools to be

techpreneur's and work it companies is the best thing i can think of. >> i think about that in a couple of ways. i'm optimistic and realize that i am the oldest member of the conversation today. about ouroptimistic future and think there is opportunity not just in science, technology, and math. becomesthat technology an even more important piece of the conversation going forward. not so much what policy perspective because we had done from the organization to allow our newest talent to push us to new ways of doing things that as the u.s. government we would be open to that innovation as well from the services that we provide to our people.

that is something that i think about. i am bullish on our opportunity. recommendation weather for lawmakers, staff at the federal or state level, it would be to learn about these technologies, the potential of that. i tried to talk a little today about what more we are doing. people just want to get back to the office and that is all it is, it is so much more than that. if you learn about them and start to appreciate that that can shape your policymaking in a positive way. so much of what we have seen has ifn a knee-jerk reaction folks had a little bit of a better opportunity about what it is and what it can be.

we should always try to be opportunistic. -- happye happy order warrior. that's how we ought to approach policymaking. that we understand the potential, let's not screw it up. i go back to the office and make fun of the fact that they where t-shirts and now they where hartigan sweaters, i give them a hard time but they are a generation of folks and they are very committed to what they are doing and they want to change the world and a good way. the best thing we can do is stay out of their way and let them do it. next i yield back the chair. think all offirst the witnesses today. it is truly inspiring to hear the innovation and you are at different points in your lifespan of the company.

there are a lot of lessons and principles that we can learn from. one is greater transparency. bottom up feedback rather than top down. and the constant desire to innovate. congress,nnial in these are issues i'm constantly focused on that we are to better job representing our constituents. there is a greater opportunity to rethink institutions that need to be modernized. one of the institutions is secretly reference is,, when you think about an issue like tax reform, i like to point out the last time we had fundamental tax reform in this country is when i was two years old. that is one of the number of issues that we need to have a modern take on, to get feedback from the modern public and hear from millennials firsthand.

i hear from those were growing and learning about building a business from scratch. i think about economic developers thinking outside the box about how we can use technology in our communities. is an excitingis time that we need to be more optimistic about what they are adding to our economy and will eventually add to congress. thank you for the optimistic take on what they can add to the workforce and i look forward to continuing on the task force. thank you. >> thank you.

>> c-span has the best access to congress with live coverage of the house on c-span and the senate on c-span two. et, morning at 10:00 a.m. congressman buddy carter, the only pharmacist serving in congress. norcross.nald friday at 10:00 a.m. et, representative mark, the former restaurant owner. then congressman mark walker. and saturday morning at 10:00 et, commerce when mimi waters a republican from california, a former state senator who andrned in washington, d.c. then a massachusetts democrat and marine who served for tours in direct.

to congress access is on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. press from the national club, elizabeth warren discusses ways to change the nation's corporate tax code. she talks about some u.s. corporations moving to foreign nations to avoid high tax rates and says the system needs to be reformed. to the press club, i am one of the business editors at npr here in washington and i am on the board of governors at the club. our guest today is massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. first i will introduce folks at the head table. any applause until i have introduced everybody. this is the chair of the speakers community -- committee. and betsy martin who helped

organize the event. welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow us on twitter. now, our guest speaker. she has been called america's most popular populist. and although you will not see her name in the presidential primary ballot she is very much a force in the 2016 race. that's good she has been on a mission to hold candidates from both parties accountable for the issues that matter to her that include wall street accountability, transparency, college affordability, income inequality and female it equality in general. now is hillary clinton moose toward solidifying support, can elizabeth warren still serve as an aggressive powerbroker and

continue to serve that debate? as senatorerving from massachusetts as a democrat. theis widely recognized as author of the consumer protection bureau which i wish had a simpler name. she served as the chair of the congressional oversight panel for the troubled asset release program in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis before setting up the other organization. she was elected in 2012 and made a name with her passionate attacks on big banks and .inancial institutions she has written extensively on issues relating to economic fairness was a professor for 20 years at harvard law school.

she's published 10 books in three bestsellers. fighting chance, the income trap and all your worth. she is a native of oklahoma and grew up in modern circumstances which she has called the ragged edge of the middle class. she entered law school after having her first child and practiced from an office in her living room before the coming a professor. bewashington, she seems to everywhere. you had at least two previous press conferences but those are just the ones i know about. one was dealing with women's wages and the other with the transpacific partnership. visibility shegh has said many times that she is not running for president. but while the ready for warren super pac has put its support behind bernie sanders, it's senator warren herself has not made an endorsement in the

democratic primary. she did raise eyebrows a few months ago when she had a private lunch with vice president biden. much speculation the potential for a biden-warren ticket evaporated when the vice president said he would not be participating. so it remains to be seen who the senator will endorse. for now, we're going to welcome where she press club wants to talk about the international corporate tax reform and she will take questions from the audience. sen. warren: thank you so much. i appreciate you doing a list because, i wanted to come here to expand that list a little bit. change is in the air in washington. the lobbyists are swarming on capitol hill.

congress is going to revise the corporate tax code and the time is nearly here. the lobbyists have a strong elevator hitch. it says u.s. corporations are paying too much in taxes. 35% and it rate is is forcing u.s. corporations to free -- fleet abroad. the solution is to slash corporate rates across the board. that is the elevator pitch. the story of over taxation is everywhere. it is told and retold by lobbyists, told and retold by their friends in congress and promoted by more than one republican candidate for president. sampling. ben a carson says, our government is driving business to other countries because our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world.

donald trump, our multinational corporation cannot compete because we have the worst corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. marco rubio, the u.s. imposes a double tax on the corporate earnings of u.s. multinationals, holding back our nations potential to compete around the globe. ate earnings of u.s. multinationals, holding back our nations potential to compete around the globe. there is only one problem with the over taxation story, it is not true. there is a problem with corporate tax code but that is not it. so, let it go through the numbers. let's start let's start with the claim that u.s. corporations pay more than therefore counterparts. now, it is true the highest nominal tax rate on paper is 35%. but hardly anybody actually pays that rate. multiple studies have estimated the average effective tax rate

for corporations, the tax rate they actually take to the u.s. government after they take advantage of the deductions, exemptions, credits, is only 20%. 20% is right in the middle of corporate taxes paid in the rest of the world. right in the middle. so, the tax rate is about average. what about the trendline? are corporate taxes getting more burdensome as lobbyists claim? no. in fact there has been a ten-point decline in effective tax rates for u.s. corporations between 1998 and 2013. but there is a deeper line hidden right at the center of the elevator pitch. the tax code is so tangled up with exceptions, with credits that some of the biggest corporations the effective federal income tax rate is zero.

that's right, not 35 percent, not 20 percent, 020%, 0%. for example, over a five-year period boeing, general electric, and verizon paid nothing in net federal income tax. that is across a five-year five-year period. these fortune 500 companies reported nearly $80 billion in combined profits and actually got tax rebates from the federal government. now what is the problem with our corporate texaco? it is not it is far too high for giant corporations as lobbyists would say, no, whether we generate taxes is far too low, the trendline here is unmistakable. over over the past 60 years corporations have contributed a smaller and smaller, and smaller share to the cost.

in the 1950s is about three out of every $10 in federal revenue. today, corporations contribute just one out of every $10. well, of all countries, 75% of them collected higher corporate tax revenues as a shared gdp as we do here in the united states. that that means three quarters of all developed countries require corporations, just a few of the countries that collect a bigger share of corporate tax revenue than the united states. now think about this, fortune 500 companies probably proclaim

they are making record-breaking profits and then they hire armies of lawyers to make sure they do not pay taxes on those record breaking profits. i could give you a dozen examples of how different tax dodges work. there is check the box, reverse hybrid mismatches, inversions, earnings, stripping's, but before you head to the execs because that you're afraid that is what i will do, i will focus on one, i, i will just highlight one of these. that is attributing corporate income to the subsidiary set up of offshore tax savings. at the end of last year nearly 3/4 of all fortune 500 companies operated subsidiaries in tax havens. based on filings with the fcc, these 358 companies reported at least 7622 tax haven subsidiaries. that is more than 21 tax haven

haven subsidiaries for each fortune 500 company. the tax dodgers that shift money to these lows tax are an average the tax rates of just 3%. not the 35% of the elevator pitch, a tidy little 3%. the amount of money tucked away in tax havens is truly staggering. together, u.s. corporations have $2.1 trillion in untaxed profits sitting offshore. once again, look at the trend line. in just the past ten years the

amount of untaxed, offshore profit has increased nearly fivefold. in other words, one of the hottest investments in america in the past decade hasn't been biotech or big oil, it has been tax lawyers. the money sheltered overseas is now about the same as the combined total earnings of all u.s. corporations into a 2013. but here's the trick, that tax bonus is not shared evenly. now the game is rigged and it is rigged for the really big guys. out of the millions of businesses in the u.s., just 50 corporations hold 75% of the $2.1 trillion in untaxed offshore profits. even in that error there is a tax dodger hall of fame, just

ten american companies hold more than one third of all of those offshore profits. here's the real kick in the teeth, the average american household pays federal tax rate of 17.6%. the average tax rate for the corporation with fewer than 500%. but the biggest american companies are paying far, far less. in many cases nothing at all. they enjoy all of the benefits of being an american company but they leave it to leave it to families and small businesses to pick up the bill. for years now gridlock in washington has worked in favor of the tax dodgers. despite the expose in the media the corporations and their top executives continue to sweep

sleep comfortably secure in the knowledge they could block any real tax reforms. but now, there is it change in the wind. why? because the giant tax dodgers themselves are lobbying for change in the tax laws and they are lobbying hard. they are even signaling they just might be willing to bring some of that sheltered money back to the united states if we will give them a sweet enough deal to do that. so what is going on? why the sudden chain? a burst of conscious? patriotism? no. as always, it it is about money. while the united states congress may be asleep at the switch others countries are waking up to tax dodgers and they are starting to rewrite their tax law. many of of our global competitors have started

cracking down on the infamous levels of tax avoidance by u.s. companies. they know u.s. corporations are shuffling cash through their borders without paying taxes and they want their cut. the u.k. for example is developing a new tax to go after profits hidden away by u.s. companies. what is the name of the bill? they are calling it the google tax. the european court of justice is striking down sweetheart deals for u.s. companies and their subsidiaries around europe. your pain has been ramping up tax investigation and climb back tax benefits collected by u.s. corporations. the g20 just released a sweeping new plan for cracking down on cross-border tax gains. there is a move afoot internationally to shut down tax dodgers. even even here in the u.s. the treasury department is

entering in tax information exchange agreement with other countries to uncover hidden cash. the treasury is also developing new country by country reporting requirements that will shine a light on the scams used by the tax dodger. in fact it is so bad that tax advisers have been setting out to panicky alerts warning that other countries have crumbled to the tax dodger game and as always the days of single-digit corporate tax rates are coming to an end. so these giant corporations have suddenly found religion. they say it is time for tax reform. of course, they, they plan to write the tax reform. their strategy is simple, tell a story about about how u.s. taxes demand tax cuts for the you night states congress and threaten to leave the united states for good if they don't get what they want. i say it is time to call their bluff.

why? first, because i know tax rate for giant american corporations are far lower than the lobbyist claim. second. second, i know the tax deals available abroad are disappearing fast. third, and most of all i know america is a great place to do business and that is worth a lot to these multinational corporations. we have the world's best work force, smart, skilled, hard-working. we have the world's most attractive consumers, hundreds of millions most attractive consumers, hundreds of millions of people who are ready to buy. we have the world's most reliable and transparent legal system. we have the deepest and most liquid capital markets. we markets. we have copyright and patent laws that will ward innovation. one evidence for why this is a good and how much people believe this is a good place to do business? look where startups are going. more. more than 3% of newly started businesses with physical headquarters in the u.s. chose to incorporate, not in a tax

shelter. i set it backwards. fewer than 3% chose to incorporate in a tax shelter. tax shelters won't build the next new industry either. america is a great place to do business and our companies know it. so if we think about fixing our broking tax code we should bet on america and we should focus on actual problems not the fake ones pursued by the tax dodgers, by the lobbyist, and by the presidential candidates who are hoping to attract big corporate contributions. it is time to reform the tax code but let's do it right. how about three principles here. first, tax reform must substantially increase this share of long-term revenues paid by big corporations. not just over the next five or ten years but permanently. our tax system has already been

so corrupted by tax dodgers that a revenue neutral rewrite of our corporate tax laws leaves this country with too little money to operate basic services. if america is going to build the 21st century infrastructure, operate 21st-century schools and invest in 21st century research, then giant corporations must pay a fair share of the costs. second, tax reform must level the playing bill between small businesses and big businesses. in cambridge doesn't stash profits in luxembourg. in the bakery and all arlington doesn't put money in the cayman islands. auto electric cannot hire an army of lawyers to set up a reverse hybrid mismatch to lower their taxes. these loopholes and gimmicks are

available only to giant corporations. when small businesses have to pick up a disproportionate share of the taxes paid will be that much harder for them to compete. third, tax reform should promote investment and jobs here in the united states. the loopholes that litter our tax code and allow tax dodgers to hide cash overseas also actively encourage multi- national to outsource jobs and invest money abroad. right now, u.s. companies can take a lower rate by investing overseas instead of the u.s. for companies can strip out profits. these three principles, raise

more long-term revenue, level the playing field for small businesses and invest in jobs in america. most americans probably agree with me, it is common sense. but congress doesn't congress doesn't talk to most americans. congress talks to ceos and their armies of lawyers and lobbyists who are pushing. i want you to consider three tax proposals, first repatriation. this is a giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers who have already lost 2,100,000 dollars overseas. it says overseas. it says bring home the money but only pay half of what you all. or, with negotiations going on in capitol hill right now if that kiss is not wet enough, some are suggesting the

repayment rate should be even less than half may be around%. think about what that means. all of the businesses that have been paying their taxes in full keep on paying in full but the tax dodgers will get a special rate. but apple with a tax break of $27 billion. microsoft would save $18 billion. citigroup would save $7 billion. and what's the total price tag for this is juicy smooch? estimates are in the range of 300 to $400 billion paid by u.s. taxpayers. right at the moment when other countries are starting to get tough in the attached dodgers one of their money back to the united states, washington top

reform idea is to give the tax dodgers a big tax break. now the second ideas even worse. the ideas tax overseas income but to do it at a rate that is lower than u.s. income. so for example, money earned in the u.s. would have a top tax rate of 35% while the top rate for money held abroad would be 19% or maybe even less. it is like holding up a giant sign to all corporation that says, higher taxes if you invest in the u.s., lower taxes if you invest abroad. the result would be for every small business in every family in america would be subsidizing foreign investments of multinational corporations which would be a great deal for those multinational corporations and for our foreign competitors, but a terrible deal for us.

the third idea is called an innovation box. i think about it as the kiss for lazy tax dollars to her's. to get this loophole you don't have to move money around or corporate subsidiaries, no. instead a corporation can just text the innovation box on its tax return and magically pay lower taxes on the earnings it claims came from innovation. so big pharmaceutical companies and giant tech companies a provision like this just make pain a chunk of taxes optional. now look, i strongly support a robust innovation policy, like, like investing in nsf or nih. i believe in basic research and encouraging companies to invest in research. but the innovation box does not do a single thing to encourage new innovations.

lobbyists and lawyers are really excited about the prospect of tax reform. tax nerds are a buzz, but when i look at the details, i see the same rigged game. a game where congress hands out billions in benefits to well-connected corporations while people who could really use a break, the millions of middle-class families and small businesses that have been squeeze for decades are just left holding the bag. that is what this tax battle is really about. who does this country work for? is it just for the rich and powerful? those those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. can we make this country work for millions of hard-working people? this is not a fair fight. the corporate giants are lined up to make sure the tax changes

all tilt their way. america's working working families don't have a zillion dollar pr team to counter the false claim that corporate taxes too high. small businesses do not have a zillion dollar lobbying organization to fight back against tax giveaways for giant corporations. mostly, what they have is you. the people in this room. the people who report on what is going on in washington. the people who will hear the elevator pitch over, and over. and they will decide whether to repeat it or push back. as tax reform moves forward i hope each and everyone of you will be paying very close attention. thank you. [applause]. >> thank you, i have some

questions that many people participate in the audience here. you have been talking about corporate taxes but there is a question here about individual taxes as well. a lot of americans sympathize with the republican argument that the tax code is too complicated, is it too complicated and can it be simplified in a way that a way that is fair, would you simplify? >> yes it is to complicated. it is hard. i always made it a point of pride to fill out my own taxes. it has lots of moving parts to it. it is complicated. what worries me the most is what is hidden in the complication. it's that the system overall is tilted, it's not like there is a bunch of random stuff in here and sometimes it will help poor people and sometimes it will help middle-class wagers, sometimes it will help this group or that group, no. it is that the tax code has been

reshaped over time and particularly over the last decade. the reshaping has expanded the number of twists and turns that permit billion-dollar multinational corporation to say woo hoo, this is great. invest in tax lawyers because we will not have to pay money if we can exploit enough of these loopholes. this is available to anybody else. i don't think the answers to try to figure out how to get middle-class americans to shelter their money and it became an islands. i think the answer is we have to get a system that is level and that means giant corporations should not be getting a competitive advantage in this economy simply because they can exploit tax loopholes that are not available to anybody else.

for me that is the hardest. >> some candidates have also suggested a lemonade the irs altogether. just not having an irs. is that a practical idea? is there any formulas that that that make sense? >> no. [laughter] >> okay thank you. what about the republicans who want to impeach the irs commissioner, is there any validity to their charges against him or how do you feel about that issue question mark. >> you know, look they can make whatever claim they want to make and try to do whatever they want to do, it's politics. what i want to talk but is really what's in the tax code. i'm serious about this. this issue is upon us. the tax lobbyists are swarming capitol hill. everyone is starting to talk, tax rewrite, tax rewrites, tax rewrite. we need tax rewrite

that has a voice at the table for middle-class family. a voice at the table for small as this is, voice at the table for those who really are left to compete in a tough economy. right now the united states taxpayers are subsidizing some of the largest and most profitable corporations in the entire world. that is where the true scandalous. that is where we need to flipping on all of the lights and exposing it. >> obviously one of your main concern has been incoming equality. this morning you did another press conference about women and equality wages and all that, is the best way to get to income equality through this tax coders that really more of an issue through things like minimum wage, which way to get at income inequality more efficiently question mark. >> so if you let me, i will do a

little bit longer answer to this. this is why the whole you list, all of these pieces are woven together. let me start this way. america was a booming economy until we had the 1930s, in the 1930s the real genius of the moment that came out of the great depression was saying we can make this better going for. we can put regulations in place with banks, we can separate high risk gambling from boring banking that was glass beagle. we can do progressive taxation and invest in building a middle class. that is exactly what we did. we did. we invested in education, g.i. bills, we invested in infrastructure, interstate highway system, power grid that was upgraded, we invested in

basic research, medical research, scientific research, engineering research with the idea that if we made those investments we would create the right environment. we whip all the field so that businesses could grow here at home. they could could create great new jobs here in america. people who worked hard and play by the rules to get an education and have real opportunity and for half a century it worked. from the 1930s until the 1980 much happen across that. is gdp kept going up and so did the income in the united states. the 90% of america everybody at the top 10%, okay top 10% moved a little faster but the point is

we built america's middle class. then, just take in 1980 as a point of inflection obviously the years over lap a bit, but picking 19 it is a point of inflection a new idea take hold. the new idea that comes his trickle-down economics. trickle-down economics is two parts, one is directly, fire the cops, not the cops on main street cops street caps on wall street. second, cut taxes for those at the top. how can you do that? the only way you can afford to do that is that you cut all of those other investments that helped us build the middle class. that is exactly what happened. we could go through the numbers bulimic cut to the bottom line, 1980 until 2012 the latest year for which we have data, how is the 90% done?

the group that is not in the top 10%? remember how they got 70% of all income growth from 1935 to five to 1980, will from 1980 until 2012 they got 0% of income growth in america. none. nothing. 100% of income growth in this country went to the top 10% in america. is it related related to taxes? you bet it is related to taxes. it is related to what we didn't spent in investing in education what we did not invest in infrastructure, what we didn't invest in jobs here in america,, what we did not invest in research, it is related to firing the cops on wall street and sane have added, build an entire industry out of cheating people on mortgages, credit cards. that is the heart of what is going on. now those people have so many

lobbyists in washington, so many lawyers crawling across capitol hill that we are ready to rewrite the tax code in their various, you bet, they want to rewrite the tax code to pick up even more benefits for themselves. that is why say the fundamental question in america today is who does this government work for? doesn't just work for those who can hire an army of lobbyist or lawyers or are we going to make this country work for the rest of america? >> the plans that you talked about of changing the corporate tax code would moderate democrats in the congress support you? how much support is there for this idea of re-shaping the tax code? >> well, we'll find out. i mean, look part of his starts and have always pushed back on the elevator speech. the elevator speeches everywhere, you heard

that elevator speeches everywhere, you heard that republican candidates, does anybody but impact check them? on these assertions about how much american corporations are paying in taxes? we have to start by having the conversation and then why does anybody who claims to want to rebuild america milk middle-class. anybody who claims to be there for small businesses even midsize businesses, anybody, anybody who claims to care about jobs in america should want to sign up hook, line, and, and sinker for these tax proposals. >> i just want to switch to other topics people of talked out. the minimum wage he touched on briefly. their different proposals out there for $15 or $12, do support either the 12 or 15 and what a steep hike have any impact on hurting job creation in low-income states?

are there some problems with having some federal minimum wage that's a hard question mark. >> look, i want to keep see the minimum wage go up and i will put anything that will raise minimum wage i think it's the right direction to go. i am a data nerd. the data just don't support the claim that when minimum wage goes up that employment goes down. look at study after study, the gold standard of studies, when the minimum wages put in place across the metropolitan area and because half of the city is in one state and happens in another or because half the cities in the county and half is outside the county you can actually do a comparison what happens before and after. you just do not see a strong

measurable impact as a consequence of raising minimum wage. there are a few reasons for this. one, it turns out higher minimum wage means lower turnover. people are more stable in their jobs, employers don't have to spend as much training people and so on. part of it is people who work at minimum wage than all that money. they spend it locally. so it is a real shot in the arm for a lot of local economies for people to have more money. i i hear from small business owners around massachusetts who say they are doing the right thing, they are going up there and tried to get their work as a living wage. they just like everyone they are competing against to have to do the same. that is what i think raising the minimum wage is all about. it's about trying to weather the plane feel. i know you want the lightning round but let me say something real quick about the minimum wage. this one is really personal to

me. i'll do a very short version of this, my family had some really tough times. when i was 12 my dad was out of work for long time and i had a stay-at-home mom. we lost our family car, we were right on the edge of losing our house. my mother put on her best stress and lipstick, put on her high heels and she walked to the seals sears roebuck and got a minimum wage job. that minimum ways job saved our house and it saved our family. but i grew up in america where minimum wage job would keep a family of three afloat. today, a minimum wage job in america will not even keep a mama and a baby out of poverty. this is about economics but this is also a fundamentally moral

question. no one in america should work full-time and still live in poverty. we can do better than that as a country. [applause]. >> there is another issue that you have been dealing with today that is the transpacific partnership. the information that has been made public all 6000 pages, can you tell us more about your thoughts on why you oppose it and give us an update on where you see this issue moving forward. congress would have to approve it, will it move in 2016 to the floor of the senate and the house? what is this likely to happen question mark. >> and lots of questions in there, if i don't do it all you can elbow me on it i will try to remember. let me start on the trade deal with the process of getting where we are today.

>> as negotiations took place there were clear advisors, people here in the united states met with them talked with them, help shade the trade deal and 85% of them were either corporate ceos or lobbyists. that builds a tilt into the entire process. now we've seen the product and the tilt is right in the product. let me give you one example, the administration talks a lot about the great promises in the trade deal unemployment and competition for workers around the world, on human rights. and there are some good promises. but promises without enforcement are not worth the paper they are printed on.

so what is the enforcement? the answer answer is, it is the same enforcement of every trade deal that precedes it that has not worked. so, i want to be clear on this, going back years and years now democratic administrations and republican administrations have not enforced the labor provisions, the environmental provisions, an earlier trade agreement so the promises can get fancier but if there's no enforcement there's nothing there. on the other side, what about the giant corporations? the ones who want to trade all around the world and what local countries to follow rules that make it profitable for the corporations. if they don't like how something has gone and what they believe are the promises they are entitled to, what they have to do? they just just have to go to a private arbitration board.

private. that private arbitration board will then issue a ruling and there is no appeal, there is no core process that comes out of that. the country that loses in that deal has to write a giant check and that's it. now, there are are a lot of countries that have already ended up on the short end of the stick in that process. for some of them writing a giant check is just not possible. so what is the alternative? they back down and simply change local law. that is the kind of power this trade agreed meant magnifies for the giant multinational corporations. that is the tilt and trade policy. it does not work for american workers, it doesn't work for the american people.

>> just to move onto another topic that has been huge this week is the republican suggestions we stop resettlement of any syrian refugees to the united states. can you comment on the situation was serious. >> i can't. actually on the refugee in particular i did a i did a speech on the floor in the senate yesterday that is available if anyone wants to look at it. there is the longer answer around this. let me just say on the shorter answer, it is our responsibility to protect our country. it it is our responsibility to protect our people. we do not do that by turning our backs on refugees who are fleeing the butchers of isis. right now to make it as a refugee in the united states from syria requires a screening process that lasts from 18-24

months. we can always look at it and see if there's something else we should add to it but we are screaming syrian refugees. screening them very carefully. if we are concerned, concerned, and we should be concerned about terrorist threats, the much more worrisome problem is across europe. i recently traveled to greece and visited refugee centers. greece is so overwhelmed at this moment by refugees. last month, 100,000 people came through turkey into greece and all they can do is a fingerprint them, write down their names, and pass them into the rest of europe. think about that means, there is no effective process on the

front-end. people are pressed into europe and end up with european passports which permit them to travel throughout europe and to travel to the united states. we need to focus our security concerns more carefully on where threats actually exist. if if we want to make a real difference in threats to europe and the united states that we need to help the great government and europeans that need to be helping the great government. they need the resources to deal with the refugees who, sure and they need the expertise to do more screening of the refugees that arrive in greece. we have to get the focus in the right place here. and i should say one more thing, it really was a long speech yesterday but i do have to say one more thing. this is not who we are. we don't turn our backs on

people fleeing from terrorists. we aren't nation of immigrants and refugees, we were founded by people who are seeking to escape religious persecution, who are seeking religious freedom. the idea that we would turn back children and babies to the murders of isis because somebody doesn't like their religion, that is fundamentally un-american. that is not who we have ever been in the past and that is not who we will be in the future. [applause]. >> i want to remind the c-span audience and that if you hear applause, many of the people in the audience are not journalists so journalists do not applaud.

i want to quickly turn to the topic of politics. it seems when you listen to the democratic and republican it debate the topics are not the same. it is him is like their two parallel conversations going on but there are so little ground in the middle that we have a new house speaker who is still one year left in the obama presidency, is there time, is there space, is there any opportunity for finding some sort of middle ground for having a productive year in 2016? can 16? can anything get done in washington? >> look, i hope so. no, i do. there are places we are working. right now we are working on an education bill to replace no child behind. so going over the details it has some really good features in it that both republicans and democrats have agreed to and

have hammered out. we talk about medical innovation. this is an area where we should all be able to come together. who doesn't want more funding for the national institutes of health? i just want to add to the side a little commercial here, last year in america collectively we spent $225 billion taking care of people with alzheimer's. what could we offer them? we couldn't offer them any help. we cannot delay the onset by a single day, we couldn't reduce the impact of it by 1 inch. so what should we be doing as a country? we we should be investing in brain science. in alzheimer's research. you know how much we spent my string in the nih? less than two tenths of 1% of

that $225 billion. the nih budget over the last dozen years have effectively been cut. by 25%. we do not bill the future by turning away from medical problems that are bearing down on us. we build a future by investing in medical innovation and investing in that research. so there is a place that i am hopeful that we can get there with the democrats and republicans together. i have a bill out there, i will always put in a plug for my bill, right. that would add another 5,000,000,000 dollars to funding nih. there are some other ways we may do that. i will take anything as lane speaking get more money into nih. so, i am hopeful, i am hopeful there might be places we could do this. that should be why we are here. we should should be here to try to build a strongercountry and

we should be able to agree on that. >> just to push a little deeper into the political questions. hillary clinton wall street contributions have become an issue in her campaign, are you concerned with her ties to wall street question mark. >> i am concerned about everybody's ties to wall street. look around washington, i am worried about the influence that wall street has on washington. maybe that is partly because i watched in the aftermath the great crash in 2008 when congress was trying to put together a response, the response -- i assume that when they started this process just like they did back in the 1930s that these giant financial institutions that had been permitted to load up on risks and then had crash the economy and then bailed out by the u.s.

taxpayer would at least be humbled enough to stay out of the political process. by that shows you how naïve i was about it. wall street was spending more than $1 million per day for over one year. they're doing that to lobby against financial reform. they have not let up, and backed when dodd frank pass one of the lobbyist was caress having said, we do we do not lose it is just half-time. that is the case, they have come back. they are there day after day, after day, they want they want to punch this whole and dodd frank, punch that whole, they want to treat it like they do the tax code. they want to make it work for the biggest financial institutions in the country. so, this is the fight, this is

the 1i am deepened. >> looking at how surprisingly well bernie sanders has done, do you look back on and wish that you had gone ahead and run? >> know. >> before i ask you the last question i have a bit of housekeeping to take care. first i just want to remind everybody the senators going to have to depart immediately so please stay seated until she has left the room. thank you for that consideration. the press club is the world's leading organization for journalists and we piper free press worldwide. for more information about our club please visit the website, press.org. you can donate to our nonprofit the journalism institute and that is that press.org/institute. i would also like to remind you of a couple of programs we have coming up on the 23rd secretary of the air force, debra lee jane is going to come

and join us to discuss budget cuts, sexual assaults and other issues facing the air force. she will be at a press club luncheon on wednesday, december 2. on tuesday, december 8 the club will have david squirting, the new secretary of the smithsonian institution. at that luncheon he will discuss his plans for the 169-year-old institution. now, i would like to present our guest with the famous traditional club mug. >> thank you. >> i will now ask you our last question. this is just kind of a yes or no. >> one more question after the mug? >> i could run now.

>> if hillary clinton asked her to be your vice president could we have an all woman ticket would you do it? >> let me put it this way, if hillary clinton were running for president and i were running for her vice president, i am pretty sure it would be in all woman ticket. >> okay, for those who are free to applied can we have a round of applause. [applause]. i would also like to thank press club. we are adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this morning at 10:00 eastern, our new series, road to the white house rewind, looks back at the campaign of george herbert walker bush. at 4:00, the film "the last two

ofs," a 40 minute color film is that john f. kennedy's fatal trip to texas. and then we are live with the american history guys. they discuss dw griffith's 1915 film, "the birth of a nation" and its significance. american history tv, all we can, every weekend, on c-span3 erie it -- on c-span3. >> the mother of journalist james foley who was kidnapped and killed by isis last year testified before a house subcommittee. she talked about the u.s. hostage in policy -- hostage policy and how terror groups like isis fund their activity. this is an hour.

>> the subcommittee will come to order. without objection all members will have five days to submit statements for the record subject to the legal limitation and the ruling. chair recognizes itself for , and when statement the ranking member gets here he will of course be allowed to make his opening statement. we will proceed at this time. the terrorist attacks in paris last friday remind us the damage

that terrorist organizations can do with even a little money. isis however is the richest terrorist organization in history. last year alone they made over $1 billion. that is more money than some countries make in a year. fromof that money was made seizing state assets, selling oil on the black market, and taxing people living in so-called caliphate. those sources of money are mostly internal and do not use the international financial system, but other sources of funding are more dependent on the outside world and maybe easier to cut off. for example, i just nearly $50 million last year from kidnapping for ransom. some estimates put kidnapping or ransom as high as 20% as isis -- of isis revenue. they are said to rely almost exclusively on kidnapping or ransom for funds. this is the same terrorist group that attack a gas plant in algeria and killed one of my

constituents after taking him hostage. 22014 terrorist groups made roughly $165 million from ransom payments. to try to stop this wave of payments the united nations passed a three security council resolutions condemning the payment of ransom to terrorists. we have a long history of countering this barbaric practice. in the very beginning the united states has always if you -- refused to pay ransom to terrorists. americanaptured merchant ships and demanded ransom to release the cruise in the early 1800s. even then president thomas jefferson refused to pay the bounty. argued that doing so would only encourage more attacks. throughout history terrorists have learned to demand ransom from those who will pay. recognize that this issue can be complex.

we have the mother of james foley here with us today. my. fully, i want to express condolences to you for the loss of your son. i think it is important we hear from family members of those who are kidnapped and the committee appreciates the fact that you were willing to testify. arris group had long depended on criminal activity -- someone shut the door. thank you. terrorist groups have long depended on criminal activity for funding, including the antiquities.f i -- isis is currently in possession of hundreds of sites throughout syria and iraq. they are the cultural heritage of humanity but isis sees them as financial opportunities. they made hundreds of million dollars from selling these antiquities. according to some estimates, antiquities smuggling at one point was isis's second largest source of funding. isis is killing people with the money it makes from these artifacts also destroying

history. believe it or not, there are some people who voluntarily give their money to these murderers. isis has maintained connections with wealthy donors for nearly a decade. many of these donors are based in gulf countries like qatar, kuwait, and saudi arabia. and 2014, isis received as much as $40 million from these wealthy benefactors. isis is not the only terrorist group benefiting from these deep pocket donors who give money to terrorist groups. wealthy individuals from these countries fund terrorist all over the world, including al qaeda and also all -- al-shabaab. directlyel the money to the terrorists. the government of this country theot do enough to stop steady stream of terrorist financing that seems to start from a handful of middle eastern countries. these private donors are just as goofy as the terrorists.

the countries are complicit in the crimes. these three sources of terrorist funding has given isis hundreds of millions of dollars in the last year. cutting off even one of these sources could make a big difference. off of thes appearance that it is winning. by cutting even a portion of isis's funds we could challenge its narrative of victory. that would mean not only less money for the terrorists but possibly less recruits. more importantly it was -- would mean less victims. resources atll the our disposal to target every source of terrorist funding. that is the purpose of this -- these hearings, to listen to these experts on this issue. i will now turn to the gentleman from massachusetts for his opening statement. mr. keating? >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you for conducting this hearing. thank you to our witnesses.

this hearing is on terrorist financing generally, but in consideration of recent events, it is an opportunity to pay particular attention to isil. friday's attack in paris, the recent bombings in beirut -- and the bombing, we can now say, of the passenger jet in egypt indicate that i still may intend -- isil may attend increasingly to attack resources outside of its base in iraq and syria. it is worth taking the time to express on behalf of myself and the committee, our greatest sympathies to the families of those terrible tragedies. this worrisome development in the united states -- demonstrates a list endeavor on all fronts to defeat isil. to defeat continue our allies militarily to roll back the territorial gains made we must and in addition

work to cut off their supply of money and manpower by more effectively countering terrorist recruitment, travel, and financing. according to a 2015 report by the financial action tax force, i still earns revenue -- isil earns revenue from several sources, including funds received from the occupation of territory, kidnapping for ransom, donations by or through nonprofit associations, support from foreign fighters, and fundraising through the internet. one of the significant ways i itsl wonder -- isil funds activities is through the sale of antiquities. they are directly involved in anding in iraq and syria the sale of these antiquities on the international market. further, they earned money by charging others for licenses to loot archaeological sites, by

taxing traffickers moving items through isil controlled territory. today they have reportedly earned tens of millions of dollars from antiquities stolen in syria alone. to counter this threat we need to do more to prevent the theft and destruction of antiquities in countries like iraq and syria. we also need to do more here at home to ensure that the united stolenis not importing antiquities and financing terrorism as a result. i have injured -- introduced a , that would enhance coordination and training within the department of homeland security to stop antiquities from entering the united states, and even more important, to investigate and then prosecute the smugglers, traffickers, and other criminals that participate. hr 22 85 was originally transported out of

committee and i are to my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill aimed at stopping groups like eiffel -- revenue fromning these antiquities. i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and learning more about different forms of terrorist financing including antiquities trafficking and how better to stop this illicit stream of income. think -- thank you mr. chairman. i yield back. not recognizeill members who wish to make opening statements for one minute each. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. cook, for one minute. >> thank you mr. chairman. this is certainly a very timely hearing. i want to thank mrs. foley for being here. this past week many of us gave speeches talking about veterans day and the sacrifice that so many americans have given in wars.

no matter how you slice it, this is a war that we are waging with , whatever you want to call them. their tactics -- there are no limit to them. i personally think that many people in the middle east and throughout the world have gotten a pass on this. we know that there has been support of that through some nations in the middle east, the gulf states, a lot of money. thathese different things have already been mentioned by my colleagues. without a doubt we have to do something about this, and i think, as i said, after what happened it is a most timely hearing. thank you. you.ank the chair wants to recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. higgins, and also recognize the work that he is doing on the issue of kidnapping of americans for ransom. the gentleman from new york is

recognized. >> thank you. thank you for holding this obviously important and timely hearing. smuggling represent an alarming and largely underappreciated source of terrorist financing that is largely gone unaddressed, further complicating our -- further propagating competent issue, many of these transactions are done without reliance on the modern banking system. in recent years kidnapping for ransom has become increasingly with reports indicating that as much as $165 million has been paid to al since twoisis thousand eight for the return of hostages. unlike the united states and the united kingdom, many of our allies continued late -- continue to pay ransom which involves -- creates a vicious

cycle where these groups seek out countries known to pay. we must hold government-sponsored ransom payment. deprive them of a major resource. i have proudly working on legislation to address this issue and i look forward to today's witnesses. i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. the chair that recognizes the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson. >> thank you for your leadership on this critical issue. i would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to mrs. foley for the courage that you have shown in coming before the committee today to share your story. our hearts are with you and your family. the murderous attacks in paris, killing 159 citizens on friday, beirut killing 41 persons last week, and the bombing of the russian charter jet killing 224 innocent passengers october 31,

further highlights the fact that our current methods of financing arel not working. it is critical that america and its allies have the necessary resources to cut off funding from any source that we can. it is imperative that those who do business or provide funding to the islamic state in any way are able to be accurately have laws and that we in place to deal with them. i look forward to the recommendations of the panel. >> to any other members wish to be recognized for an opening statement. therefore without objection all members will have five days to submit statements, extraneous materials, subject to the limitations in the rules. and also without objection all the witnesses prepared statements will be made part of the record. i ask each witness pleased to keep your presentation to more than five minutes. i will introduce each witness and then give time for their comments. formern kucera is a special agent to the u.s. department of terrorism -- u.s.

to form and security office of terrorism and finance. he is considered an expert in money longer -- money laundering in the middle east and the growing threat of government and systems. dr. david weinberg is a senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracy, where he works primarily on saudi arabia and the gulf states. his research focuses on energy security, counterterrorism, alliance transparency, and human rights. this is diane foley, the mother of james foley, american journalist, who was kidnapped and killed by isis last year. she is the founding of james foley's legacy foundation to continue his legacy of rita and justice for those without a voice. once again, thank you very much for being here today. dante currently serves as the academic director of the american schools of oriental research cultural heritage initiative, which

reports on the heritage situation in syria and northern iraq. he is a near eastern archaeologist with experience directing programs in syria, iraq, and iran. , we will start with you and you have five minutes. members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. it is an honor for me to be here. mr. chairman, i have submitted a written statement. i would like to take a few minutes to give a brief summary. kidnapping for ransom is a crime as old as antiquity. unfortunately in recent years terrorists associated with criminal organizations have turned to kidnapping is a relatively easy and lucrative source of funding. the united nations estimates that a proximally 120 million in rates of payment was paid to terrorist groups between 2004 and 2012. some experts believe kidnapping for ransom is our most significant terrorist financing

front today. as the tragic events in paris last friday may clear, the united nations and the international community are rightfully alarmed. the terror organization has kidnapped hundreds of not thousands of victims, including local iraqis, syrians, members of ethnic minorities, as well as westerners and other foreign nationals in the region. some were brutally murdered to send a global message. others were used to extort ransom payments. according to the task force, a 2014 isis raised approximately $45 million from kidnapping for ransom. in fact, because kidnapping and associated crimes such as extortion have been so successful, it appears that the average ransom payment is increasing. it is a vicious cycle. there is no doubt that ransom payments lead to future kidnappings. future kidnappings lead to additional rental payments.

and of course the ransom payments eventually build the capacity of terrorist which fuelns additional terrorist attacks. there have been several united nations security council resolutions. despite the restrictions, the world has not stopped payment. of course the copycatting factories are humidity. it is difficult to turn away from the angriest -- anguished cries of those kidnapped in the frantic appeals of their loved ones. a new book that i wrote was released, "trade-based money laundering." it is often overlooked, but the misuse of trade and associated underground financial systems are often part of the kidnapping for ransom equation. for example, money and value transfer services are found throughout iraq and syria

including areas where isis operates. sometimes they are trusted brokers who have established relationships throughout the region. they operate on trust and secrecy. do not conduct electronic fund transfers as banks do, but rather communicate via e-mail, fax, and phone with a local foreign -- local or foreign associate. brokers must settle their accounts. sometimes they use cash, sometimes the conventional banking system. andi want to emphasize -- this is something that is continually overlooked -- and that is historically and culturally, and all areas of the these terrorists operate, trade-based value transfer is used to balance the books or settle accounts. so, examining trade records for invoice fraud and value transfers could be the back door into money and value transfer systems used by terrorists.

unfortunately, neither the united states nor our partners are doing this. moreover, i can make the argument that if one includes all of its varied forms, including underground financial trade-based money laundering could very well be the largest money laundering methodology in the world. unfortunately it is also the least understood, recognize, and enforced. yet i am optimistic. by using modern analytic tools to explore a variety of roles and big data sets, i believe international trade transparency is theoretically achievable, or certainly possible over -- -- many times over what we have today. --as an added bonus cracking down on for -- trade fraud could be a revenue enhancing incentive for the government involved. in my book i go into details on many of these issues and provide recommendations for achieving trade transparency.

i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, as i'm am happy to answer any questions you may have. thank you. >> the chair will recognize dr. weinberg for your statement. chairman, ranking members, and the state was members of the subcommittee, thank you on behalf of the foundation for defense of democracy for the opportunity to be here today. i will highlight some weak links in america that convince our allies to target financial facilitators and private donors to terrorism who often go unpunished. i will also offers some policy recommendations to hopefully help address the growing epidemic of kidnapping by terrorists for rent. well i will defer to others on this panel regarding antiquities trafficking, i would ask for approval to enter into the record this new report on

antiquities trafficking in financing the islamic state. >> without objection. several of america's mideast allies, mainly qatar, kuwait, saudi arabia, and turkey, unfortunately pursue problematic or even adversarial positions over tackling terror finance. despite promises to do so they have failed to effectively strike the source of such funds. in my written testimony i know dozens ofort -- reports of such instances. in many instances these impunityts grant legal . i also revealed detailed new indications that turkey, qatar, and saudi arabia have let their territories become major financial hubs for hamas. to ensure that our sanctions list is not treated as a mere toothless piece of paper the

u.s. should develop a broader range of options for when our allies refuse to do the right thing versus terror financiers. congress can help sensitize members of the executive branch outside of-- treasury to these concerns. when an individual who enjoys legal impunity in one of these territories is indeed a financier for terrorism, the u.s. could privately and then publicly seek that individual's extradition. if that fails the u.s. could even consider capturing or killing them as it does towards other terrorist operatives. congress could help hold these governments responsible as well. trade or dual use items, and by amending the foreign sovereign immunities act so they tense of terrorism and their families can sue foreign

governments in local court. as to be a vicious terrorist attacks and kidnapping for ransom, we should recognize that americans are still being held hostage by terrorists today. 2012, the treasury described kidnapping for resume as the most significant source of terror financing. the volume of that income has only increased. isis actually makes more money off of oil sales, but ransom have helped them conquer that territory in the first place. the obama administration announced a new hostage policy in june, which is mainly comprised of efforts to be more responsive and successful at hostage recovery, but there is little sign that this is being matched by efforts to decrease the money that terrorist taken from such efforts. even though the new york times, ap, reuters, and the wall street journal have described how allies governor -- governments in europe and the gulf enforce such payments. the journal calls such payments

game changers which can incentivize future kidnappings. the donors reported role is particularly striking. in my testimony i compile press reports of 50 different episodes in which the chart has mediated has mediatedtar hostage talks. the u.s. should stigmatize governments that pasting ransoms. congress could require the administration to expose of such government in public, perhaps even imposing targeted financial sanctions. president obama should also direct that laments to prioritize convincing those governments to stop paying such state ransoms. congress can encourage policymakers abroad to enact such prohibitions into local law. the u.s. can also follow in blocking steps, rob -- insurance companies providing payments to terrorists, that

only in a manner that would not impose an undue burden on hostage families. congress and the administration could consider starting a fund to competent victims and their families for their suffering. the good news is that the u.s. now has a plan to try to improve .fforts of hostage recovery the bad news is that u.s. policy is failing to did her foreign governments, primarily our allies, tempe multimillion dollar ransoms that in which terrorists and incentivize further attacks. our government needs a new tactic to address the new -- this problem. >> think you dr. weinberg. mrs. foley? thank you. diane foley,- mother of american journalist james foley who is publicly executed by isis in august of 2014. i certainly want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with the people of france, who has

suffered such tragic loss at the hands of isis. we to as americans have suffered from isis. our son james was tortured and starved for nearly two years, just for being an american. our family's ordeal was made worse by our incoherent and often ineffective hostage policy. jim was the oldest of our five children, born into a very average american middle-class family. he was well educated, holding two masters degrees and right -- in writing and journalism, but far more portly he was a man of service, teaching in our inner cities through teach for america and later in chicago and massachusetts. he was also passionate about those without a voice, be they hostages, conflict journalists, or disadvantaged children in our inner cities. in fact his believe in human rights actually led him to become a journalist so that we americans might hear the unheard

stories of suffering in conflict stones. in my opinion, our current american hostage policy has not changed. i am very aware that our u.s. makes nolicy concessions to terrorists to include no ransom or release of prisoners. however, our policy also states that the united states will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of our american citizens held hostage by terrorists. horrific captivity in syria, our policy was interpreted to mean, no concessions. no engagement with his captors. our government officials have often mistaken no concessions for meeting no negotiation. leading to an inconsistent and often unjust approach to the kidnapping of our citizens.

fbihands of our powerful were tied during the 2014 syrian captivity of our son jim and three other american citizens held by isis. that our strict appearance to this policy save lives by decreasing the rate of capture of americans. but no one has been able to show me the research behind our hostage policy. in fact, it would seem that americans are becoming targets at an alarming rate. demand to see the proof that our current hostage policy is truly protecting americans. , orid not protect jim susan, or kayla, or peter. in the last 18 months before americans have been killed because of our policy was strictly applied.

,hereas five other americans or were negotiated for by us others, have returned home safely. implementationnt of our american hostage policy is unacceptable. additionally i would have you gentlemen know that we were deceived as an american family. we were told repeatedly that jim was their highest priority, your highest priority. we trusted our government to help him return home. during the brief months that jim's isis captors reached out to negotiate for his release, our government refused to engage with the isis captors, leaving us alone as parents to negotiate for our sons freedom.

after his captivity, our family and three other families of hostages held with him in syria were threatened by colonel mark mitchell, member of our national security council, with prosecution by our government -- although there was never any precedent. if we attempted to raise a ransom to free our loved ones. he also very clearly told us that our government would not ask allies to help negotiate for their release, and would never conduct any military operation to rescue them. ourade it very clear that united states government planned to abandon these for americans. thus it became clear that jim, peter, stephen, and kayla were considered collateral damage and that we were truly on our own. i have spent much of our savings, quit my job as a nurse practitioner, to travel monthly

to washington to beg for help for jim to the united nations, countless embassies, and to europe to speak to free hostages -- all to no avail. well our u.s. senators reach out to us and were sympathetic, we never even heard from our congressman. did try toamily raise a ransom for jim's release , in spite of threats of prosecution. but because we believed in our government to help, we started much too late and were unable to raise the money. the reality is that very few families would be able to raise money actually needed to free their loved ones. u.s. government also refuse to engage at a high level with our allies, who also had citizens held by isis. point there were over 20

western hostages held together, and all of them were and our -- were and are our allies. in the spring of 2014 is freed french hostage has very significant information from isis to negotiate for our four american hostages and the three british ones, but our government refused to engage with the french or u.k. to save our citizens. the result is that all the european hostages are now home, where is our son, the other americans, and british were brutally killed. although we had specific information regarding the exact location of their captivity, beginning in the fall of 2013, our military operation was not even attempted until july of 2014. we are sincerely grateful to the brave soldiers making that attempt, but it was much too late.

our situation our hostage policy prohibited our government from interacting in any way with jim's captors. prohibiting even for investigating who are sons captors were. had our government been allowed to engage the captors, perhaps vital intelligence about isis might have been gleaned. our government abandonment of their desk to be used as propaganda for isis recruitment, thus strengthening and emboldening isis. it surely helped in their recruitment of other violent people who want to destroy us. said before, at one point there were more than 20 western hostages held together, all of whom are citizens of our allies. all of our western allies valued their citizens enough to negotiate for their freedom.

had it jim been french, spanish, german, italian, or danish he would be alive today. we form coalitions for war. why did we not engage with our allies to free all the western hostages? i believe that much stronger coalitions with our allies are essential to deal with the shrewdness and hatred of these terrorist groups. posture of noour engagement with his isis captors led to our underestimation of their intelligence and their deep-seated hatred for the united states. if we had been shrewd enough to engage his syrian captors in the fall of 2013? themarn all we could about , instead of ignoring them? is it ever wise to ignore enemies of freedom and justice? .im believed in america

he believed that our government valued him as a journalist and as a citizen. i am told he was hopeful until the very end of his 20 months of captivity. he and our family were truly abandoned by our government. how would you feel if one of your sons or daughters had been in his predicament and been treated similarly? for americans were publicly beheaded. where is our outrage as americans? is an individual american citizen no longer valuable? why were jim and the other americans in syria considered collateral damage? is our united states of america truly wants to protect and prioritize the return of its so, i ask you, esteemed members of congress, to hold this new fusion cell

accountable for the return of our american citizens and to mandate a thorough reevaluation of our current hostage policy to make sure that recent, validated research is being done to ensure that our policy truly saves the lives of americans. thank you for your attention. i appreciate it. >> think you mrs. foley very much. dr. dante. >> thank you chairman and ranking member keating for the opportunity to discuss terrorist financing. it is an honor to be here among such esteemed company, but of course with a heavy heart and very serious concerns. since the outbreak of the syrian civil war in 2011 and the 2014, we of isis in have witnessed the worst cultural heritage crisis since world war ii. on a daily basis, cultural sites are being destroyed for tactical

ideological reasons. they are being pillaged to finance continued global terrorism. as an ideologist -- archaeologist who has worked in syria and iraq for the last 25 years, there is not a day goes by when i do not anguish for the atrocities isis and other groups are committing. my colleagues and i work closely with syrian and iraqi cultural experts and other concerned parties who are daily risking their lives to save heritage from systematic campaigns of cultural cleansing. these brave professionals understand the importance of ensuring a brighter future by preserving the past and cultural diversity. syriarrent conflict in and iraq is a war over ideas and cultural identity that is rapidly spreading to neighboring countries. constantly i direct monitors the cultural heritage

crisis in syria and northern iraq, implements heritage project in syria, and produces reports and conduct outreach for the u.s. government and the general public. we have seen that most of the major combatants commit cultural property crimes, but by far isis is our greatest concern. over the last 16 months isis has developed a highly organized approach to looting, trafficking, and selling antiquities for funding. they also brazenly destroyed heritage to promote its radical ideology and gain media exposure. there is no doubt that terrorists derive significant revenue from looted ancient antiquities and stolen cultural happy. theseite imagery and countries support this conclusion. information and antiquities are covered by u.s. special operations forces during the raid in may of this year proved that isis uses the illicit antiquities trade as an important source of revenue.

are as, antiquities natural resource to be mined from the ground or pilfered from repositories. has criminal activity increased as other revenue streams have been targeted through airstrikes or other .ountermeasures antiquities trafficking is difficult to target, and for it hasd other extremists the benefit of rewarding collaboration. antiquities trafficking does not make as much -- many enemies among the local population, but instead it explains poverty and hopelessness. don't know the total dollar value of the listed trade. there are too many unknowns. but isis in other transnational criminal organizations certainly find it crucial to their .perations the financial and cultural costs are manifest now and will have a cascading effect for generations to come. the current crisis requires increased and improved capacity from the united states for cultural security and cultural

diplomacy. we need a more proactive and nimbler approach. high-level coordination would greatly enhance this work and would facilitate containing, degrading, and ultimately destroying crisis and other , andal groups transnational criminal organizations operating in the middle east, north africa, and beyond. reducing global market conflict antiquities should be one of our highest priorities. legislation is pending in the house and senate that would help to achieve these goals. ultimately the best solutions for the current cultural heritage crisis in syria and northern iraq also contribute to alleviating the humanitarian crisis, promoting conflict conflictn -- resolution, and fostering peace building. thank you. >> thank you very much dr. dante. thank you all for being here today. i recognize myself for some questions. and i may not --

have all of their sources of revenue, but we have heard that terrorist groups will do anything for money. they will steal, like the robberies of the banks in iraq. -- i call that money laundering. trade. the books on they make money off of antiquities. they make money off of hostages, and they make money off of their wealthy donors who want to send money to these terrorist groups and there are probably a whole lot more. let me try to address a couple of issues. mrs. foley, you gave us some remarkable information. if i understand the current status of american hostage law statesedure, the united

has always had a policy not to pay ransom. now it has changed, the government will not pay ransom, but if families or individuals do, that law will not be enforced as to the payment. is that your understanding of the current status? a family has- never been prosecuted for paying ransom to criminals. >> that is what i'm asking. as far as you know no family has ever been -- >> i know that because we researched it. we finally realize we were on our own and we had to try to raise a ransom. but of course he wanted to protect anyone who would care to help us. there is no precedent for that. >> so that portion of the law has not been enforced as to

prosecute families. >> it really was never meant to prosecute families. it was meant to prosecute any groups that might pretend to be a charity and instead give money to terrorism. it was never meant to be -- >> was your son is for ransom or was he kidnapped as a propaganda tool? >> that is a good question. only god might know what was in their heads. he was a westerner. they don't check passports when they kidnap people. he was obviously a westerner, he had been in and out of syria, over a year. and more and more of the 2012.sts said come in in jim had made very good relations with a lot of the families there who tried to expose the atrocities of the assad

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do we know who those donors are? >> the united states has sanctioned a number of those multinationals? >> that is exactly the problem. don't do it again. local problem is that the government often does not do anything about it. i have seen not a single convictingof qatar anyone under terror finance laws that have been on the books. >> do we have a military base in qatar? >> no, they tapered. >> so you think they are paying both sides -- playing both sides. >> i think they're absolutely playing both sides. areo they harbor people who

paying terrorist groups but they also have a military base where the united states can go and attack terrorist groups. >> is the united states chose to do so, it would not be too difficult to launch airstrikes, if we were convinced -- >> you mentioned that the united states has the authority to after these people who are contributing to foreign terrorist organizations. >> if he chooses to use that capacity -- >> to your knowledge, this is my last question, how many people are we talking about that are contributing money to terror groups? >> people in qatar, you could count them on a single hand. >> it is not very many. everecond, have we exercise, prosecuted, or taken out somebody who has given money to terror groups, to your knowledge? >> the united states sought to a man from qatar

territory in the 1990's. he was a senior al qaeda operative responsible for attacks -- >> did we ever get him? >> according to former u.s. qatar royal senior family member or government official tipped him off and he fled the country. , have wequestion is ever captured, extradited, brought back one of these bad guys who are giving money to , to prosecuteps them? , buttimately we caught him we did in pakistan. >> mr. keating for massachusetts. >> thank you mr. chairman. i think one of the most important things any of us can do as americans is to get to the root issues of what is going on even though it is dangerous, even though they risked their lives doing it.

not.foley, your son did -- mrs. foley, your son did that. i think he inherited a lot of testimony -- a lot of his courage from his mother. i know there are things we can do tangibly in terms of antiquities and things we can do in terms of trade-based money laundering. i know there are things we can buto sanction countries -- it is really troubling on the issue of kidnapping and ransom. could you tell me a little bit about the james w foley legacy foundation you are so involved with? one of the things they do is hostage support. could you describe what kind of work you do there and what the foundation is doing? >> in truth we are just beginning. jim was very concerned about people without a voice. one of the big issues,

obviously, are our american hostages. they end up in a truly gray zone meaningmeaning -- gray that nobody knew whose job it was try to get them out. nobody really wanted to take on the issue. so one of the first things we have done this past year is we have raised funds for something called hostage u.s., which will ,e similar to hostage u.k. which will support an american families in this predicament. but the james w foley foundation wants to go further. we want our americans home. so where is hostage u.s., we will continue to support them -- i could have cared how i was treated if jim was home. i really feel as americans we need to be shrewder. we need to find a way to get them home. i recognize that it is complex

because we certainly don't want us to find terrorists, but is it wise to not even engage these people? then we don't have a clue. we don't know what is going on, we don't know what they want, we don't know who they are. i don't think so. i just think we have to be a lot shrewder, otherwise we're going to be at a loss. as far as the foundation, yes. we are working very closely with lisa monaco, jen easterly, trying to find ways to thought -- cold them accountable. this individuals have mission, to bring americans home. none are home yet. amnted it is new, but i concerned because i think their hands are tied in a lot of ways. that is one thing. the other issue is conflict journalism. it is to be in world war ii,

journalists and aid workers were off-limits. they had a certain neutrality. that's not so anymore. journalists and aid workers are targets. we have to be aware of that. ourselves,ocracy unless we come together for global safety for people who are giving us information, who dare to go where many do not dare to go, that is a huge concern of ours. we are really working with international coalitions for , and wend journalism continue to be concerned about children without access to education. he really felt that education was the only way for societies to get out of poverty. so we are looking at that. >> one of the things i hope we can do is not have others experience everything that your

family has experienced. as you go forward with the foundation's work, if you can keep us informed about some of the areas you think we can get involved with as you go forward. please do that. feel free to do that, because i think we can certainly do better. sir. better do better, it is frightening if we cannot do better. agree, thank you. another question for dr. dante. isil leader, you call that a game changer. what did we learn from us that we did not know before? >> we learned that antiquities are very important to the organization. there were e-mails, there were documents indicating that he had been put in charge of that trade because it was important to the organization. he was found to be in possession of hundreds of antiquities, some of the looted from the muzzle --

mosul museum. >> i don't know if anyone else wants to comment on that briefly, but i will say that we are so frustrated we put up our hands and we say what can we do? i thank you for witnesses have given us things we can do to further fight this effort, and i appreciate it. i think these are very tangible, real suggestions that can go forward on all fronts. thank you. i yield back. >> i want the members to know that we are in the midst of voting. we will continue after votes. we have one vote, we will not recess until we have at least one more member asked questions. .nd then we will come back i apologize to our panelists, but that one vote should not take a long time. mr. wilson, from south carolina. foley, again, thank you

for your courage. as a former reporter myself, so many points you have made that again, in other conflicts, journalists have been noncombatants. it is such a chilling reminder that we are dealing with illegal enemy combatants. mes is just -- to be -- to -- so extraordinarily unprecedented. we are at a time, even within the last 48 hours, that isil daesh issued a statement that washington and rome are the next target. we have to be vigilant. that is why i appreciate the point that you are making, that we all support no concession but that does not mean no negotiating. you are making a difference by raising these issues.

and then it is appalling to me that there was not an effort of military rescue. was there any reason? particularly when you indicate that it was an exact location of 20 together -- with that information, it is just appalling to me that that action was not taken. that is one question. and the next question, why was i not done? with the attack in benghazi, we are still track -- discussing who did it. this should be determined. there should be efforts to find them. what is the status of determining who these murderers are? >> those are all good questions. the questions that i truly don't have the answers for -- all i we started to have

eyewitnesses as of early fall of ,013 of exactly where jim was and our government knew that there were three other americans with him. are quite sure that they also realize how many other allies were also together. because slowly the other allies were negotiating all of these people out. jim had already been held a whole year before all of these other people -- jim was one of the first, jim and british , who wasohn cantley taken in august of 2012. they were the first ones that i know of who were taken in syria. but then gradually all of these others were taken. most ofthem in later -- .hem later in 2013

but the other european countries got right on it and started negotiating with the captors so that their citizens came out. held, as where they were we had information throughout, starting in the fall 2013, and then again december 2013. they were moved, but because the hostages started coming out in early 2014 we received very detailed information. as a matter of fact, it became clearer and clearer, as the spring of 2014 went on, because these european hostages came out with very specific information. one -- some of them, one italian citizen, came to the u.s. twice on his own get somebody to

hear the specifics he had in terms of the exact location of where they were being held. but no one wanted to hear it. particularly federisome of theo do that. their governments figured out a way to get them out. -- theyerstand it understandably expected our government to work with tears, to collaborate, to get our citizens out. it is inconceivable, that there could not have been an effort to determine who the perpetrators are. with you.: i agree i am appalled as an american. >> i yield. we will now go to mr. higgins for his statement.

or question, sorry. higgins: you were left to negotiate with your son's captors. with some did you negotiate? for a month at the end of 2014 14, out of the blue we got an e-mail saying that they had jim. >> who was they? mrs. foley: they did not want us to know. they identified themselves only as syrian rebels. a very encrypted e-mail that our fbi had no way of tracking. they are very shrewd.

to reach us, but we did not know how to reach them. so you couldn't respond? mrs. foley: we could only respond through the e-mail, but we could not find out who sent it. it was obvious that they spoke english because of their command of the language. rep. higgins: did they speak about a ransom number or condition? mrs. foley: when they initially reached out, it was ridiculous. like they wanted, 100 million euros or all the prisoners, kind of thing. all of the fbi, we sent it to the fbi, they said "keep them talking." few e-mails, when they realize they were only talking to the family, they had no interest and cut off discussion.

time, sir, was when the french came out in march of 2014. they came out with another very specific offer to negotiate for all americans and all british. rep. higgins: your primary source of contact in the united states was the fbi? no primary we had source. we had one fbi agent who debriefed me all the time. rep. higgins: on what? talking to i was anybody. all the freed hostages. a lot of the times, the fbi could not even get to them. rep. higgins: at what point in your ordeal did you get a sense -- did you get a sense that your son was going to be freed at some point? mrs. foley: not at all. anyone i talked to at state or fbi, they told me that jim was

the highest priority. we were deceived through the first 18 months. rep. higgins: you never believed it? mrs. foley: i believed it totally. that's why we did not try to raise ransom or do anything privately. we totally believed it. rep. higgins: when did you not believe it? mrs. foley: the late spring of 2014. when mark mitchell threatened us and made it very obvious that our government was going to do nothing. rep. higgins: what was the nature -- what was his threat? all,foley: that first of as americans, if we dare to raise a ransom to get our loved ones, we would be prosecuted. secondly, there was no way our government would ask another country. he was going by the law. i know the law says we do not do these things. what he was saying, essentially,

was your government will do nothing to get your people out. nothing. -- god it in a very bless that man, anyway. i don't know. that as aning american we would do nothing for some of the best of america -- some of our journalists, people who care about the suffering of the people in syria. it was appalling to me, sir. rep. higgins: i have no further questions. >> we will be in a short recess until members vote, and quickly come back. we will continue this. i want to thank you for your patience. your information is so important that i do not want to end this hearing at this point. we will be in recess, 15 minutes, maximum.

>> the subcommittee will reconvene. recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman. sherman: qatar does not only allow its government to give to terrorist groups -- examples ofyou where some of our friends are not serious. the iraqi government pays salaries to former civil in isis who live controlled areas. i do not remember general de gaulle sending gold coins to french teachers in normandy or bordeaux. the oil fields controlled by isis we do not bomb. bumped world war ii oil

fields, not these. some say it is because the iraqis want them back in tact. some say it is because the iraqi government is making a lot of money on this war and does not want to see isis lose the revenue. you have something, by definition of the war we took more seriously, world war ii, is a target. we know isis is pumping oil. we will hit the refineries, but not the fields. , thee not hitting the dams electric generation facilities. i cannot get an answer if iraq is providing free electricity to mosle. the lights are on for reason. the biggest schoolwork, and i realize it may be slightly theide the death and -- biggest score, and i realize it

may be slightly outside the definition, they got their hands on iraqi current scene. what other countries do, for various reasons, is they issue new currency. you recall the greenbacks and issue blue backs. iraq did not do that, because that is a technique that is used to go after corrupt politicians and organized crime. when you have a government installed bios, protected by us, financed by our money, ran -- dependent on and dependent on iran and organized corrupt elements, they won't recall the currency. hostages, we definitely should not do nothing. the rate didn't work, but it shows the u.s. determination.

we need to sanction iran for holding five american hostages. the president made it clear that the deal in geneva related only to nuclear weapons. if any other country was holding five of our hostages, we would certainly sanction them. , does qatar even pretend to outlaw voluntary contributions made by its citizens to hamas? it is a violation of the law? they've had: several laws on the books of that man's individual citizens from collecting money without authorization for donation. that is collecting

from others. is it illegal to send your money directly? the qatarrg: government has given itself the authority to lift terrorist groups -- rep. sherman: have they lifted any? dr. weinberg: not to my knowledge. the u.s. has yet to see serious -- rep. sherman: it is illegal to give money to anyone on the list . is the list a point piece of paper? dr. weinberg: the latest law, theoretically, means you need governmental authority to collect donations for anybody. rep. sherman: is qatar residency that there is a disaster in bangladesh and they give to the bangladeshi red crescent

society, or unicef, or something like that, they don't need government permission to writer a check to unicef, do they? dr. weinberg: the most striking evidence is the united states spoke to qatar nationals that were running the most high profile fundraising organization for syria relief in qatar. the u.s. alleged that they were al qaeda level financial operatives. it took the almost a year after allegedly,ation was according to the washington post, endorsed on social media to be shutdown. a year after that, when the u.s. sanctioned them, it was indicated that the two men were not yet arrested. rep. sherman: i would like to point out to our friends in qatar, just because you host a u.s. military base is not mean the united states has to

preserve your regime. we have a military base in cuba. mean we are supporters of the government in havana. to have the base there, that doesn't mean that we have to support their government. i would also point out, and with mrs. foley here i feel bad saying it, but i don't think that we should be allowing paying money is ransom to terrorist organizations. from an emotional standpoint, you want to. , and emotional standpoint and make it your particular loved one back, but it is just a while before they kill other americans or sees other american hostages. other american hostages. with money that gives them the incentives.

the chair recognizes mr. keating from massachusetts. rep. keating: what other nonprofits are there? do some donate unwittingly not knowing with the money is going? if you could, enlighten us on some of the sources. some of the sources that the terrorists get. a. weinberg: this is been long-standing practice among financial operatives were al qaeda for years. basically, while we can't openly practice what we do in many regards, let's cloak it in a veneer of charitable relief. there is a particular know where the case in kuwait. there was a fund-raising outfit operated by an individual which

was presenting itself, in most of his presentations, as relief for the syrian people. support for legitimate resistance. to thetice, according u.s. government designated, he was funding al qaeda in large amounts. since then, he has been called in for questioning by the authorities. rep. keating: are the donors aware? dr. weinberg: some of them are innocently being exploited. tribes in kuwait have been exploited by people playing on her sympathies. kinds ofenge for these fraud to be exposed, the penalties are inconsistent at best. the united states could work to try to build leverage to motivate those governments to act. so far, they did not seem to be

sufficiently, consistently motivated. rep. keating: it is kind of like whack a mole. dr. weinberg: exactly. that individual was put under sanctions, but his co-cap 10 in one of his main -- his cocaptain is still a cooperative in a kuwaiti military party. i'm curious, with the packaging for antiquities, what are the transit countries involved? what is being done? are they following the same routes as other illicit activity as drugs and money laundering? are there parallels? we can do things at home to tempt down on demand? talk to people in the u.k. come a similarly get them motivated to do that in terms of final destinations. what about the transit countries? what can we do to disrupt that

chain? >> for the past 16 months, the primary trafficking points for antiquities out of syria were lebanon in turkey. much of the material was going to bulgaria and greece. those other cases we were looking at. there were routes taking a trivial to jordan, israel, and the gulf. since october, some of the routes have shifted as the turks have taken military action. some of the border has fallen to forces. or turkish some of the sunni arab and islamic state isis trafficking is moving towards lebanon. there has been a shift in the markets, reasonably taking the material 11 and to cyprus,

greece, or bulgaria. limitould be done is to the number of ports involved in illicit trade in antiquities, and to limit the number of importthat can legally antiquities. as far as following other illicit activities, and -- and looking at the routes it was following other two at of the companies such as stolen automobiles. the same border crossings for isis hold its would-be migrants to join the celliphate.n the sources indicated that that was the route the antiquities were leaving the country from reports

in western turkey. in southern and western turkey, that is where the islamic state is joining with organized crime units within turkey to move that . they islamic state's new management taking advantage of existing routes and trafficking network. they have essentially just encouraged far more looting and trafficking of antiquities. these routes existed in the pre-conflict time. rep. keating: i yield back. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. thank you. kidnapping for ransom has become a significant source of terror financing. , al qaeda would get $2 million per hostage, they are now getting $2 million. half of their operating revenue

comes from kidnapping ransoms. .sis seems to be different they are involved in other activity. a lot of their ability to raise funds is locally. terrorizing the local population, taxing people. every activity that is done there is taxed and results in a revenue source for isis. any thoughts about that distinction, and what is claimed fromit -- what is gleamed it? anybody on the panel? >> it is important to contextualize this. of themary source revenue that isis in particular controlderived from local territory. it is important for us to recognize that treasuries isis, andthat branches of al qaeda in yemen and north africa, have conquered

territory because they have used private of nations ransoms to fuel that territorial conquest. alliested states and the have worked to cut off their income from oil smuggling and from their ability to hold territory in the first place. they're going to fall back on other sources of revenue. if you really want to conquer the phenomenon, you want to address that. isis and al qaeda will frequently use the private donations and other external pay forto particularly moving recruits from other countries, which they have done in the tens of thousands, to battle. if we can cut off these other sources of lending, we may be able to limit the abilities of the organization to function, even if they have other sources of revenue. it is not only sources of funding, it is laundering money.

i would like to share an antidote. after 9/11, i had a conversation with the pakistani gentleman, who you could charitably describe is working in the gray markets. i was talking to him about money laundering, over and under evaluation, the afghan transit trade, etc.. he turns to me and says mr. john , don't you know that your enemies are transferring money and values under your nose is, but the west is not see it. your enemies are laughing at you. that encapsulated a lot of what this issue is all about. we have spent an incredible amount of time since 9/11 looking at many of the wrong places. have been concentrating on financial intelligence, setting intelligence units,

filing reports, sanctions, designations. we are nation of laws. .ur adversaries are not they are laughing at us. we need to think about how they operate. we need to understand their cultures, their methods of doing business. their values. we are making progress, but it is taking too long. we are emphasizing the wrong things. just an observation. mrs. foley: i would concur in a big way. i feel they have the upper hand because they are more shrewd. they have studied us, they know how to use twitter, they know how to use pr, video, etc. to get their message. to recruit people who hate us. week, you know, we want even talk to them.

know our enemies. we have to use our cultural expertise to get serious about engaging with this. that is why, i realizd -- i was just at jim young american, but they did not use that situation with four americans being held there the find out, who are these people holding onto our americans? what do they want? they didn't even try. how are we going to understand and engage the enemy if we don't even try to know them? thank you. i yield back. recognizesr itself for closing. in the list, we started out recognizing where terrorist organizations get their money.

wildlife poaching is another way they get their money. as a friend from new york mentioned, he make money off of human trafficking as well. and charities. mentionedrg, you specifically charities and other countries. we have charities in the united states that are not really charities? they are just a front for money thatering -- or donations go to "charity" but ends up in the hands of the bad guys? dr. weinberg: the most recently, u.s. law enforcement pressed charges against a network of thatal yemen nationals were using a listener methods within the united states to fund raise for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, including defrauding credit card companies, taking out money and closing the accounts.

looking historically, hamas used methodsritory deftly in exposed during the holy land foundation trial. any of those individuals have gone abroad. people that were linked to the holy land foundation, to continue to be part of the hamas regional and agile network, in one case identified in my testimony. the handful of individuals who do most of the contributing to foreign terrorist organizations, getting the money, we know who those people are. is that right or not? dr. weinberg: sometimes. part of the challenge is the donors are often harder to track than the operators. you can look at it like a pyramid. >> for drug trafficking, we get the guy selling it on the corner, not the guy bringing it into the country. we cannberg: the more

take out the people in the middle, the people at the bottom of the pyramid are more prone to sting operations. >> going back to your comment, the united states has a financial investigation of money going from banks to bank, trying to track it to see if it is legitimate or not. your testimony, terrorists do not operate in that way. is that a fair statement? they operate through trade. how much illicit money have they been making with the money laundering through trade that you discussed? first of all, i would like to explain. terrorists diversify. just like any criminal organization does. good investor. you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. they use a wide variety of funding and laundering methods.

buthey use banks, there has been an over emphasis by a star getting western-style institutions. we are still fighting the war on drugs wear dirty money goes through western financial institutions. the anti-money laundering into place a decade ago. we need to be no on -- we need to be more nimble. >> how much money are we talking about? talking, the magnitude of money laundering in according to the international is 3% to 5% of the gdp, or in rough numbers, $5

trillion a year. roughly the size of the u.s. budget. you are talking real money here. they further think that that is equally divided between -- talking suspicious activity -- sua, suspicious unlawful activities. the criminal side. antiquities, smuggling, human trafficking, narcotics, and tax evasion. divided, that is $4 trillion a year. how much of that involves trade-based money laundering? my personal opinion, and i detail that in this book, is

that that is the largest money laundering methodology in the world. we don't know, because it has never been systematically examined. our department of treasury has never taken a look at it. financial action task force, the money laundering methodology in 2006, they threw up their hands. is not a solvable problem. it is something that we can do a great do more to combat. the data exists in many hidden money laundering systems, methodologies, out there today. .or example, smuggling it is difficult to follow that trail, but this type of thing has data. with modern analytics we could do a much better job. >> i want to thank all of you for being here. questions? sk more

>> mr. chairman? i want to bring to the attention of the subcommittee it is not only qatar by takes a blind eye, it is also the u.s. government. i brought to the attention of the attorney general and irs the fact that there is a group based in britain that gives money to hamas. you have to understand, in liberal circles, in very liberal leftist circles, it is acceptable to give money to hamas. it isn't al qaeda, it isn't isis , but hamas, ok. i brought to their attention the viva. in the website for the community organization.

you get the tax deduction for alestinianey to viva p to give money to hamas. not only was there no criminal taken, but after five years there's just a review of the interreligious foundation. if there's anyone in this room that once a tax reduction and give money they can be certain that will go to hamas, the website is available to you right now. i know we are the international affairs committee. published the has fact that they are doing a study on this. they may eventually turn to the interreligious foundation for community organization. haspite of the fact that it interreligious and design their status.

maybe. by then, we will have peace in the middle east and hamas will not be a problem. -- the double entendre would be i have been on a jihad to get the state department to hire a few people that were hired not because they can pass the foreign service exam, but because they are real experts in the reality and jurisprudence. you have to understand your enemy and the group we're trying to win over. the muslims that isis would like to win over to their side. they are pretty rigid over there. if you go to princeton, they will hire you. if you reach one of the highest levels of knowledge in reality and jurisprudence of islam, they won't.

their arguments are basically to tell people that isis is bad, men, women, kill and children without being in a position to argue -- to deal the argument from isis that that is a good thing. looking at their twisted interpretation of islamic theology and jurisprudence. while we criticize other governments, we have a government that to this day will give you a tax reduction for giving money that you know will go to hamas. we have some people in the state department that know some things about islam, whatever you can learn on the outside in a couple of graduate seminars. we have religious muslims, but they may be working on trade issues. there is no department that says, hear how we can frame are

arguments to islamic governments based on a real knowledge of islam. i think i've gone over time and yield back. i'm yielding back a minute early? put that on the record. >> that is a record. i want to thank the members of congress for being here. can't emphasize enough how valuable the information that you have given us is. and ig member keating were talking during the break that we could have a hearing on each issue you have talked about. it is important information. we appreciate the fact that you and have given us this information. once again, mrs. foley, thank you for being here. i agree with the comment, you spunk from his

you. that is a compliment. if you have information to share with the committee, give it to me and i will share it to the committee. the committee is adjourned. [indiscernible conversations]

>> a house judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on thursday on the u.s. response to the syrian refugee crisis and the national security implications. you can see that today at 10: 30 a.m. eastern on c-span. has the best access to congress with live coverage of the house on c-span and the senate on c-span2 numera -- on c-span2. carter, the

republican from georgia and the only pharmacist in congress. and then the new jersey democrat and a longtime electrician. then representative this sunday, a former restaurant owner. saturday morning at 10:00, congresswoman waters, a whoblican from california, interned in d.c. is a college student. moulton,, congressman a democrat, harvard graduate, and marine who served for tours in iraq. >> democratic state representative john bel edwards has been declared the winner in the louisiana governor special election. he defeated two-term republican u.s. senator david better, bobbyll replace

jindal, who was terminated. they have not had a democrat in statewide office since 2008. both candidates addressed the public. governor ritter, who announced he will not run for senate. then we go to governor elect edwards. [applause] gov. vitter: thank you. y'all -- so much.

well, we came up short tonight. let me rephrase that. i came up short. thank you for your hard work. we are so honored by that. you know, i have lost one campaign in my life. tonight. ironically, it is the campaign and political effort i am most proud of, particularly these last few weeks fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with you. thank you so much for that honor. [applause] gov. vitter: i called john bel edwards and wished him our sincere congratulations and best wishes.

wendy and i really, sincerely hope he leads all of us with the right solution and succeeds. he and, we wish him and his family only the best. let's give him a round of applause and good wishes. [applause] gov. vitter: as for me, i am a -- i am eager to refocus on the important work in the united states senate. [applause] [cheers and applause] gov. vitter: i am, but i am only going to be doing that for one more year, through this term. when i decided to do this with wendy, i decided i was going to pursue new challenges outside the senate, no matter what. i have reached my personal term limit. now obviously, we are disappointed that those

challenges are not leading the state but i am genuinely excited , and with wendy, we are starting a new chapter with my professional life, and a new chapter with my personal life a and all of the fun and reward and challenge that will bring. we are looking forward to that challenge very much. [applause] gov. vitter: and, in saying that, i am also very confident that we are going to elect another strong conservative to fill this senate seat next year. [applause] gov. vitter: and, i will certainly be working with all of you to make sure that happens. it is important for louisiana and for our country. with that said, how can i begin to express my thanks? i am so blessed. so enormously blessed.

to wendy, thank you for being such a fabulous spouse and mom and partner in this important work, and best friend. thank you so much. [applause] >> [chanting] wendy wendy wendy gov. vitter: to my children, thank you for all of your love and support. and, i hope i have encouraged to -- encouraged to you, through my small example, to always follow your dreams, to always take on new challenges, and to never settle for the easy or the

comfortable. never do that. [applause] gov. vitter: to our family, they are almost all here tonight, thank you for your love. you all do so much for us and give us such support, including all of that great sign-waving today. thank you for that. [applause] >> love you, david. gov. vitter: to our senate staff and campaign staff, your are all, bar none, the best staff in louisiana political history. thank you for that work. you have served the people of louisiana is so amazingly well,

and i am honored to have worked side-by-side with you. and, you all know, like wendy and i certainly know, staff, you have had the best team leader imaginable in kyle. [applause] gov. vitter: that is my campaign manager and chief of staff kyle rucker. [applause] >> [crowd chanting] kyle! kyle! kyle! kyle! >> we love you! gov. vitter: well, i am about to return it, because last but not least, you are family. we love you.

we are honored by your friendship, we are honored to works and fought side-by-side with you. we will always love you. thank you, so much, for this an enormous honor of service. thank you all so much. [applause] [crowd cheering, whistling] mr. edwards >> thank you. : what a great night. is this a great state or what? we heard a prayer while ago. we are supposed to glorify god in all that we do, so i will say right now, to god be the glory for tonight. first and again, with words of deep and profound gratitude for all of those who worked so hard.

who were willing to believe that we could confound the conventional wisdom that this victory just could not happen. and yet, thanks to all of you, here we are. it did happen. [applause] i love our great state and its wonderful people. i am especially grateful tonight to my beautiful wife. 26 years. [applause] [crowd cheering] mr. edwards: yes. she is a public school teacher. she is the last person i talked to every night. i want to thank our children as well. samantha, sara, and john. for over two years, they did not see much of their poppa.

i have missed them tremendously. but, they are the best children i could ever have hoped for. i love them very much and i want to tell them i appreciate them for everything they have done. they have sacrificed like you would not believe, but they knew that tonight was possible. i want to tell you that i think my family. i am standing next to my mother. nurse.ty hospital [crowd cheering] mr. edwards: a charity hospital nurse who taught all of her children compassion for their fellow human beings. i love you, very much. tonight, i cannot help but think about my daddy. my poppa who i lost in april of last year. a great man, a great public servant. who, along with my mother, raised eight children. a wonderful man who loved his hotel where we are right now,

and whose daddy came here in 1927. when he ran for sheriff and one, -- and won. he spent the night here and woke up the next morning and read the times picayune to make sure he really one the race. and my sister, the only girl of seven boys. but don't feel bad for her, she was the oldest and she was plenty mean. [laughter] mr. edwards: i am joking. but my brother and my sister, i am joking -- they were so incredibly hard. they came, they volunteered, they did things i never knew they did. they traveled the state, putting up signs, moving signs, talking to voters. i could not have had a more supportive family. my wife, my kids, my brothers, my sister, my mother. nothing they did and nothing you

did was more important than the prayer you offered up. , and not juste about the great state of louisiana, but for our people. so, thank you so much for the prayers. [applause] mr. edwards: it takes a lot of to do the footwork that to a campaign like this requires. calling people, telling our story. to those who contributed money to what a campaign like this cost, because it does cost a lot of money. all, the good people who voted for us. god bless you. i am eternally grateful. i am humbled. thank you so much for the confidence you have shown in me. i will not let you down. [crowd cheering] mr. edwards: i want to thank the hundreds of committed volunteers all over the state of louisiana and i want to tell you i have the best campaign staff that has ever worked in the state of louisiana. and it was the smallest campaign

staff that has ever worked in history of the state of louisiana. and, the most underpaid campaign staff that has ever worked in the history of the great state of louisiana. i want to thank my campaign manager right here. she did a wonderful job. i want to thank [indiscernible], i want to thank also my legislative colleagues, democrat, republican, independent alike. i want to single out my seatmate, sam jones. sam, thank you so much. he was the first true believer. and i want to take just a moment and thank jay darden.

he is a great man and a committed public servant. he put louisiana first. not self. not party. i am so proud of him. this election shows us that the people of louisiana, in a time about deep cynicism about our politics and future, that the people have chosen hope over scorn and negativity and over a distrust of others. i did not create this breeze of hope blowing across our beautiful and blessed state, but i did catch it and i thank god i did. this breeze has its roots in the songs of louisiana, the food of our cajun ancestors, the

spirituals of our african-american churches, the faith of our italian and hungarian strawberry farmers and the energy of native americans and hispanic immigrants. no, i did not start the breeze of hope, but i did catch it and so did you. so did you. thank you. that is why we are here tonight. because we all caught the breeze. the people of louisiana have chosen to believe we can do better. and by doing better, we will be better. i submit to you, we will be better as of tonight. [cheering] mr. edwards: you know, struck by the words that nature can do, but down by attacks on education, embarrassed by the vanity of its leadership, the people of louisiana have chosen hope over business as usual. and, i pledge to treat their

trust in this hopeful spirit as a sacred obligation. we have a lot of hard work to do. we must unite to work together. together, regardless of party, regardless of gender, race, geography, we're together. we are one louisiana. [cheers and applause] mr. edwards: together, always putting louisiana first. together, always tackling our biggest challenge together. together restoring opportunity , and prosperity for the great people of the great state of louisiana. now, let me tell you it is going to be difficult. but with god's blessing and your hard work and your prayers we will prevail whether it is our finances, education, job

creation, transportation, taking care of the environment. we are going to prevail. and i want to invite all louisianans of all persuasions, all ethnic groups, everybody from all over the state of louisiana. i don't care your economic station in life. i want to invite all of you to join with us, to work hard, to work together, to pull together, to move louisiana forward. so, as abraham lincoln once said, to call on the better angels of our nature and catch this breeze of hope that these deep and abiding issues can be dealt with in ways that speak to the common good. i am going to be the governor of all the people. [applause] mr. edwards: and i am thanking everybody in louisiana right now.

whether you voted for me, did not vote for me, or did not vote. i am going to be your governor and i am going to work just as hard for you as i am working for those who supported me from the first day. i'm going to work with you and for you just the same. by the way, that goes for senator vitter, too. he called me tonight and he was very gracious. i want you to know that i am going to work with senator ander and with all others the private sector, people all over the state of louisiana. because every constituent of senator vitter is also a constituent of mine. he announced tonight that he will not seek reelection to the senate. [crowd cheering] mr. edwards: and so does my hope and expectation bad tee and i worked together to serve the state of louisiana, to promote the common interest. i look forward to that opportunity.

my pledge to you tonight remains the same as it has been four -- been four months. for months. i will always be honest with you. i will never embarrass you. [crowd cheering] >> i will get up every day fighting to print the great people of the great state of louisiana first. god bless you. and god bless the united states of america. [cheering and applause] ♪ >> next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal." the budgetair of committee. after that, house hearing on the

u.s. response to the syrian refugee crisis and national security. >> tonight on q&a, -- >> i'm the first woman to reach four stars in the united states navy. i'd only been a three-star, 10 months or 11 months. askedin norfolk, and he to see me. i presumed it was about the next job i was going to. that is when he talked to me about -- we are looking at you for being a four-star. here are given opportunities that we think you would do well and benefit the navy. >> the vice chief of naval operations. admiral howard talks about becoming the first four-star female admiral in the history of