tv Key Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN November 26, 2015 12:00am-7:01am EST
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and then you can hire workers for less? if you believe this is about dignity, why would -- there would be two major hotels that are tied to unite here for decades. shortly after that $15 went through, both the hotels' management decided they didn't want to be unionized. in those contracts have never been made public. the press has not asked for them to but there was a very strong suspicion the reason the hotels decided to be unionized does they said they don't have to pay it if you bring us in. i think that is reprehensible. host: we have a special line set aside for minimum-wage workers. (202) 748-0003 fo. maryland making
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the minimum wage. how much is that in maryland, harriet? itler: i believe right now is $7.45. host: tell us about your experience. caller: i'm going to tell you my concern. because there is going to be more competition in jobs. i am also an older worker. and there is credits given. i am not sure what, but when you fill out your application, they give credits. the government gives credits if you have ever been on welfare and for certain things they give the employer credits. they lower the wage for those people. and we are already and competition. we are getting older. we can't here as well, we can't well, well, -- hear as can see as well, and we can't compete as well. we can't live on social security. we didn't even get a raise this year. host: let's get a quick reaction
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to her experience from kendall fells. guest: i agree. you know, we have some politicians down in florida that took what the workers called the minimum wage challenge, which was essentially politicians trying to live off the weekly salary of a low-wage worker. and i think that what we saw was that politicians began to sympathize and empathize with where workers were coming from when they had to go to the grocery store and make decisions based off of what food was the least expensive versus ford that may be the best for you are the healthiest food or the best tasting food -- versus food that may be the best for you or the healthiest food or the best tasting food. who in this country can survive on $7.25 an hour? workers need $15 just to be able to get by and get off state assistance. and i don't think that taxpayers
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want to continue to keep paying and footing this bill. i think that is why this movement has been so successful. twitter, minimum-wage workers are invariably on food assistance, meaning corporate profits are subsidized by the taxpayer. guest: this is something where the economists on kendall's side of the aisle disagree with this analysis. existence ofe the these food stamps programs and the like and the various government welfare programs for state employers to pay slightly higher wages. there are two possible models of wage setting in the world. you could imagine that walmart want their's employees to have a basic standard of living, so the government kicks in. or that they are setting wages and are basically amoral. they are setting wages based on
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supply and demand. basically everyone agrees with the latter. what do these government benefit programs due to the supply and demand? they don't have much of a supply -- effect on the demand. to workight be willing part-time in stead of full time because they've got the benefits. and if you don't have income have benefits coming in, there is not quite as much pressure. everyone agrees that these government programs reduce the labor supply. play -- a slightly higher wages. this is one of the academic -- ges even liberal economists agree that it is a talking point that is not correct. host: james sherk has been researching economic policy
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since 2006. kendall fells with the push for fight for $15, the conversation is morning about minimum wage. about 15 more minutes of your phone calls and comments. for democrats. (202)748-8001 four republicans. (202)748-8002or independents. wageine for a minimum earners is (202)748-8003. . caller: i'm coming to this conversation as a middle-class property owner. it can't be left to the states. several states received between $.65 and $.75 back to the states for every federal tax dollar that is paid.
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the property owners who are middle-class, who have long been suffering from triple poverty, have to pay more for our roads, uninsured,eltered, school lunches. states like mississippi, texas, florida are getting way more $1 of federalery income tax they pay. their states are reducing their taxes, reducing their minimum have, and the corporations moved to the red states because the corporations get the subsidies from the taxpayers. , notaxpayers are federal state-by-state. blue states have long been subsidizing the dates -- subsidizing red states. corporations are moving to red states. the reason why is because there is no parity in the federal income minimum wage.
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it cannot be a state-by-state decision. because the federal tax dollars are doled out on a 50-state basis. host: james sherk, you were saying that you believe the minimum wage should be left to the localities. what do you believe about what she had to say? guest: she is simply wrong on the economics. companies pay slightly higher wages than they would otherwise. i have seen people like jason use that as argument for why we don't want to do things like a living wage, and instead just use these programs. she is simply incorrect on the economics. if she wants to discuss cutting down federal spending, i am certainly in favor of a smaller federal government with less of a fiscal footprint. her on that. with in terms of the economics, she simply incorrect. host: let's hear from pensacola, florida. on the independent line, go
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ahead. caller: i have changed a little bit of my idea. i think the major point we are looking at is that people are talking about the symptoms. kendall made some emotional points about people having tough times, and that is true. my idea, looking at how honest someone is in talking about their position is whether or not they can debate the other side. i would be interested to see both sides put their views. wouldd like to see -- i be interested to see both sides flip their views. i'm on the heritage site. the heritage side. of thell part fundamental transformation of america. when people are poor and they like have medical care, this lady says, she's using the bad example of the federal government taking more money from new jersey and new york,
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and what have you. now we are looking for our hand in the cookie jar, who is going to give us the most money? it is the united states of america, not the federal states of america. there is no discussion about how the actions of these minimum wage people -- most of them are out smoking during their breaks. how much does a pack of cigarettes cost? of them are high school dropouts? how many of them have kids and then live off of convenience foods? we look at their choice of careers. people make choices when they are younger, now they have to live with them. , i think you're living in some sort of fantasy world, where -- why don't you give those people extra money yourself? host: there is a lot there on the plate of kendall fells. he will give you a chance -- we will give you a chance to respond. guest: i don't think politicians, governors, city council members, the owners of
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these large, private companies are raising wages because it is bad for the economy and bad for their bottom line. obviously, they are raising wages because it is good for their bottom line because they know that more money that is put into the pockets of low-wage warner -- workers is money that is going to be spent, and not going to get the economy back on track. i think the facts speak for themselves. if this wasn't the right thing to do and it didn't make sense and it didn't connect, then this movement wouldn't have started out with 200 fast food workers in new york city in 2012 and just on november 10, we had the largest strike we have had so u.s.,70 cities across the with workers for almost every low-wage industry. this movement has connected with low-wage workers. these low-wage workers are huge voting bloc. they have the ability to swing elections all across the country. they have already shifted the ground in this country back to
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the ground that politicians operate from. the grant has been shifted to the left. wages are already being raised. companies are stepping up, coming to the table voluntarily, raising wages. i don't think any of this is happening -- these people are not dumb. i don't think any of this is happening because it's going to have a negative effect on their company or on the economy, or people wouldn't choose to do it. a governor like governor cuomo wouldn't come out on something that doesn't make sense. the people and the voters have spoken, and politicians are following behind them. consumers have spoken and companies are following behind them. we see the trend in this country toward higher wages, and it is simply a new wage floor that is much higher. it was shipped wages in the country upwards -- it will shi wages -- shift wages in the country upwards. host: here is a tweet that says $15 was never meant to be a living wage -- a tweet that says
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minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. learn a skill that will earn a wage. how are you? caller: good morning. i'm a veteran. i could say a lot about minimum wage. i learned a lot about politics. how people operate in politics. number one, i think if you look at minimum wage in the 1960's, you were making the same thing you are making now. you have people that drive 25 miles round-trip to go to work, seven dollars an hour, get paid every two weeks, what are they going to live off of? that's why the united states has so many people on welfare, because these companies are making money. they don't want to pay you their money.
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they prefer to send money overseas to pay for something we are not winning than to take time to congratulate the workers that they have. host: can you tell us what kind of work you do, and how long have you been earning the minimum wage? you say you are 68 now? caller: 58. i do security. host: and how long have you been doing that? caller: i've been doing that right about eight years. host: have you not gotten a raise above minimum wage in those eight years? above minimum wage, and they cut our hours down to 32 hours when obamacare came into play. host: let's hear from our guests , reaction to what he is experiencing. highlight one of the problems with the affordable care act, causing companies to cut the worker's hours. that a lot ofubt people are in a difficult
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situation. we want measures to be effective. last time we raised minimum wage , the former minimum-wage becausegot -- went down the wages hurt them. taking on some of these regulations that are driving housing prices -- if they were not trying to hold down housing supply, the average renter would pay 10% less for their housing. the auto dealer monopolies have gone through. 15%ed car would drop about in price. -- federal milk marketing it adds $.50 to a gallon of milk for everyone in the country. the ethanol mandate raises the costs, taking 40% of the total u.s. corn crop and turning it into a harmful fuel additive. if we got rid of that and we were using that for food instead, the average american's food bill would drop $250
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annually. if we address the problems that of living, the cost it would be beneficial for all americans, whether they are on ,isability, low-wage earners rather than cause people to lose their jobs and be in even worse position. host: what is your experience in kansas city? experiences the same we have, where the majorities of workers involved in this movement are trying to figure out how to get to work. a lot of workers are spending half their check to get back and forth to work. when we talk about addressing this issue directly, i would say the fight for $15 is directly addressing this issue. raised wages being across the country. you see politicians stepping up to the plate. you see private companies -- to the point of losing jobs, facebook raised their pay to dollars, people still have their jobs. to $15,ised their pay
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people still have their jobs. these companies aren't making more money. they were already making money. now these companies are deciding, because workers have been in the street, because the demand is so loud, because the voting bloc is so large, people are stepping to the table because they are listening to consumers. once again, the facts speak for themselves. i don't think the city council in a way would raise wages if it was going to have a negative effect on the economy. i don't think governor cuomo would do that statewide, not just in new york city, but throughout the state if it had a negative effect on the economy. host: here is a quick snapshot of some of the wage increases that have happened. this is bloomberg bna's hr payroll blog. the federal minimum wage unchanged in six years. more states and municipalities have created their own wage requirements. as of january 1, 2015, 29 states
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and the district of columbia have minimum wage is greater than the federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25, and 26 of them and the district increased the wage since january 1, 2014. let's get a couple more calls. we go to new jersey, tom, on our republican line. welcome. caller: good morning. my concern with this recommendation of mr. fells is that it is almost like another big government program. it makes me think of another great society, which has done nothing good -- i shouldn't say that. but in the big picture has not advanced the cause of the people we are trying to help. we have put a tremendous amount of dollars into that. haswhat it has done is dampened the potential of this population. you raise the minimum wage, it does the same thing, in effect.
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there is no striving to get out of that lifestyle. host: ok. robert from greenville, north carolina. line. on independents' caller: the gentleman from the heritage foundation made a remark that raising the minimum uld make thewo cost of product go of 30% to 40%. that's not a fact. that's a lie. it would be 3% to 5%. i would be more than happy to pay that 3% to 5% to let people have a living wage. also, corporations, large corporations are against this, not small businesses. small businesses benefit when more people have money in their pocket. this is for the walmarts, the koch brothers that pay your salary. and you should be ashamed of yourself. host: let's finish. a couple of comments there. the cost of productivity. he is disagreeing with your figures.
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the other caller mentioned this was another big government program. i would encourage the gentleman to look at the study we put out, specifically for the fast food industry. you're close to doubling your cost for labor. will bypass food if it becomes more expensive. they will have to raise costs even higher. in the fast food industry, we found the price increase would be 38% in the short term. they will install machines that will automate a lot of these jobs. you will see cashiers replaced with kiosks. you will see machines like the alpha, a device that has been invented by inventors in california. it's a nominated california -- it is an automated hamburger cooker. it cooks gourmet burgers. sears the outside, as
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condiments, freshly slices toppings. it does all of this, 360 burgers per hour, without a single human worker doing anything after set up -- set-up. those machines are pretty expensive. fast food companies will start buying machines like that. that will mean less jobs and less opportunities for the very workers kendall wants to help. hear from kendall fells, reaction to what callers had to say or what james sherk had to say. popeyes cameo of out this month -- there has been a lot of hubbub to what has been happening, the , and thatge increases the industry would adjust accordingly, the same way they do for the price of chicken wings or biscuits, etc. this is a $200 billion industry, one of the fastest-growing industries in the company --
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country. they have more than enough money to go around. there is evidence to show -- no evidence to show that the increase in minimum wage for companies making billions of dollars per year will suffer job losses. as far as automation is concerned, automation is part of life. a lot of companies have automation, but workers are still making $7.25. those workers are on strike, saying we deserve $15 per hour. nobody knows what these workers need more than somebody who actually has to live these lives, somebody like guadalupe, who have received a sickly over a four dollar raise between increases -- received basically a four dollar raise between increases. she has received a 50% increase in the last two years and we have not even won the campaign yet, and i think that speaks for itself. host: kendall fells is the
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borders and sf trauma center in kunduz, afghanistan. let me start by offering my sincerest console -- condolences to the victims of this devastating event. no nation does more to prevent civilian casualties than the united states. but we fail to meet our own high expectations. this was a tragic, but avoidable accident caused primarily by human error. it was important that the officers investigating the in -- incident have their seniority and independent to conduct their thorough and unbiased inquiry. for that reason, i requested an outside investigative team. u.s. central command supported my request. they sent an army major general independent of army forces afghanistan, to lead the investigation. he was assisted by two brigadier generals. one from the army, one from the air force.
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also, outside from my command. the report included specific findings related to systems, processes, and personnel. and i have already approved some of the findings and recommendations. based on the recommendations, i have already directed some immediate changes to be sure we learn and apply the right lessons from this incident. in addition to the u.s. national investigation, the nato and afghan partner combined civilian casualty assessment team also conducted an investigation. the findings of both reports were generally consistent. i have personally briefed the nato secretary-general, the president, and dr. abdullah on the results. nato were released the report in the coming days -- will release a report in the coming days. also earlier today, i briefed the nsf on the results of the cat. national and c
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investigations. recommendations dealing with systems and processes will be managed within this command. matters regarding individual accountability will be managed in accordance with military justice, and administrative practices for joint commands. i have decided to reverse some of the recommendations to the commander at u.s. special operations command. for his review. i will not discuss individual cases, because the system requires fairness and the discussion of decision-makers. i can tell you that those individuals most closely associated with the incident have been suspended from their duties, pending consideration and disposition of administrative and disciplinary matters. because i am still in the process of reviewing the investigative report and investigating officers report, i will defer any questions today to my spokesperson, brigadier general wilson shoffner. that said, i am able to provide an account of the events.
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on october 3, 2015 the report , determined that u.s. strike upon the nsf trauma center in kunduz city, afghanistan was the direct result of human error. compounded by systems and procedural failures. the u.s. forces directly involved in this incident did not know the target compound was the nsf trauma center. the medical facility was misidentified as a target by u.s. personnel, who believed they were striking in different building several hundred meters away where there were reports of combatants. the report also determined that the personnel who requested the strike, and those who executed it from the air, did not undertake the appropriate measures to verify that the facility was illegitimate -- a legitimate military target. it is important to place the events leading up to this tragic incident in context. on the evening of september 27, kunduz city was suddenly attacked by a significant force of taliban and insurgents.
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by the evening of september 20, -- 28, local afghan forces quickly withdrew leaving the , taliban in control of most of the city. on september 29, nsf sent the coordinates of their trauma center in kunduz to multiple recipients within the u.s. and nato chains of command. those coordinates were received and distributed by this edadquarters to support headquarters. the united states special operations forces and their afghan counterparts rapidly deployed to a camp adjacent to the kunduz airfield on the early morning of september 29. by that evening, they were forced to defend the airfield from a taliban attack. the u.s. maintained defense of positions at the airfield throughout the night until the early morning on september 30. later that day, they moved from the airfield into the city and established themselves in the
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provincial chief of police, or -- pcop compound. between the time that they were established in the compound and the time of the incident on october 3, u.s. and afghan partners retailed heavy and sustained enemy attacks and , conducted multiple defensive strikes in kunduz. by october 3, the u.s. soft had remained at the compound longer than intended. as a result, by the early morning hours of october 3, u.s. soft at the compound had been engaged in fighting for nearly five consecutive days and nights. during the evening of october 2, afghan soft advised that they intended to do an operation that night. this included a former national director of security , or nds headquarters building that they believed was occupied
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by insurgents. the afghans requested close u.s. air support as they conducted their clearing operation. the u.s. commander agreed to have the support on standby. he remained at the compound during the operation and was beyond the visual range of either the headquarters or the nsf trauma center as he monitored the progress of his afghan counterpart. the report found that from this point forward, multiple errors occurred that ultimately resulted in the misidentification of, and the strike on the nsf trauma center. , first, the a c-130 aircraft designated to provide close launchedrt in the city 69 minutes early in response to a troops in contact situation. this type of emergency requires an immediate response, but the result was that the aircraft launch without a mission brief, or securing crucial mission
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essential related materials, including the no strike designations, which would have identified the location of the nsf trauma center. because this a c-130 aircraft and crew were not needed for the initial troops in contact mission, they were diverted and fight to provide close air support to the u.s. soft commander in kunduz. during the flight, the electronic systems on board the aircraft malfunctioned. preventing the operation of an essential command and control capability, and eliminating their ability of the aircraft to transmit video, send and receive e-mail, or send an receive electronic messages. this is an example of technical failure. in addition, as the aircraft arrived in the vicinity of kunduz, the aircrew believed they were targeted by a missile, forcing the aircraft to move away from its normal orbit to an orbit approximately eight miles from the mission area. this degraded the accuracy of certain targeting systems, which
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later contributed to the misidentification of the msf trauma center. i would like to refer you to the chart in order to show you key locations as i described the events. to give you scale, the distance from the top to the bottom of this graphic is approximately 1000 meters. the u.s. soft commander on the ground is located at the chief of police compound, the green dot in the upper right of the chart. through his controller, the u.s. soft commander provided the aircraft with the coed -- correct coordinates to the intended target. depicts the location of the compound. again, this was the building that the u.s. commander intended to strike. but when the aircrew enter the coordinates into their fire control systems, the court in
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-- coordinates correlated to an open field over 300 meters from the headquarters. the yellow 2 on the chart depicts the location of the open field. this mistake happened because the aircraft was several miles beyond its normal orbit, and it's centers were degraded at that distance. -- sensors were degraded at that distance. the investigating officer found the aircrew visually located the closest largest building near the open field. which we now know was the mfs trauma center. the mfs trauma center is depicted by the red 3 on the chart. the physical description of the headquarters building provided by the end soft, to the u.s. soft commander roughly matched the description of the nsf promise addressing by the aircrew. -- trauma center as seen by the , aircrew. at night, the aircrew was unable to identify any signs of the hospital's protected status. the second chart shows the mfs facility pre-strike. this is what the aircrew was
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able to visualize, although they would have been seeing the facility at night. according to the report, the aircrew concluded based on the description of a much building, -- large welding, that the trauma center was the headquarters. tragically, this misidentification continued throughout the remainder of the operation. even though there were some contradictory indicators. for example, once the aircraft returned to its original orbit, the aircraft's grid location system correctly aligned with the facility instead of the open field. however, the crew remained fixated on the physical description of the facility, and at that point did not rely on the grid coordinate. also, the investigators found that the aircrew did not observe hostile activity at the mfs trauma facility. these are examples of human and procedural errors. the report determined that as
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the operation proceeded, the u.s. commander requested the aircraft to engage the building that the aircrew mistakenly believed was the nds headquarters. the report found that under the circumstances, the u.s. commander lacked the authority to direct the aircrew to engage the facility. the investigation also found that the u.s. commander relied primarily upon information provided by afghan partners, and was unable to adequately distinguish between the nds headquarters building and the mfs trauma center. -- msf trauma center. according to the report, one minute prior to firing, the aircrew transmitted to their operational headquarters that they were about to engage the building. they provided the coordinates for the msf trauma center as their target. the headquarters was aware of
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the coordinates and had access to the no strike list, but did not realize the coordinates matched the location on the no strike list. or that the aircrew was preparing to fire on the hospital. this confusion was exasperated by the lack of video and electronic communications between the headquarters and the aircraft, caused by the earlier malfunction, and a belief that the headquarters that the force on the ground required support as a matter of immediate force protection. the strike began at 2:08 a.m. at 2:20 a.m., a officer or see -- received a call from msf advising that their facility was under attack. it took the headquarters of the u.s. special operations commander until 2:37 a.m. to realize the fatal mistake. at that time, the ac 130 had already ceased firing. the strike lasted for
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approximately 29 minutes. this is an example of human and process error. the investigation found that the strike resulted in the death of 30 staff, patient, and assistants, and the injury of 37 others. u.s. forces afghanistan is currently working hand-in-hand to identify-- msf the injured and the families of those who lost loved ones in order that we may offer appropriate condolences. based upon the information learned and the investigation, the report determined that the approximate cause of the tragedy was a direct result of avoidable human error, compounded by process and equipment failures. in addition, the report found that fatigue and a high operational tempo contributed to this tragedy. it also identified failures in systems and processes that, while not the cause of the trauma center,sf
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contributed to the incident. these included the loss of electronic communication systems on the aircraft, the nature of the planning and approval process employed during operations in kunduz city, and the lack of a single system event for targets against alist. -- a strike list. we have reviewed each of these failures and implemented corrections as appropriate. we have learned from this terrible incident. we will also take appropriate administrative and disciplinary actions through a process that is fair and thoroughly considers the available evidence. the cornerstone of our military justice system is the independence of decision-makers following a thorough investigation, such as this one. we will study what went wrong and take the right steps to prevent it in the future. as i said in an earlier statement, this was a tragic mistake.
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the u.s. forces would never intentionally strike a hospital or other protected facilities. our deepest condolences go to all the individuals and families that were affected by this incident. we will offer our assistance to doctors without borders in rebuilding the hospital in kunduz. doctors without borders is a respected humanitarian organization that is important life-saving work, not only within afghanistan, but around the world. alongside our afghan partners, we will work to assist and support them in this critical role that they play in this country. again, thank you very much for your time. i will be followed by general shoffner, as he will take your questions.
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general schaffner: good evening and good morning to those of you joining us from washington d c. williamgadier general shoffner, the spokesman for the forces in afghanistan. regarding the investigation, what we have said from the beginning is that we are determined to ensure this investigation is both thorough and transparent. the fact that we are even doing this is conference today is unusual. but ask secretary carter has said, we are committed to ensuring full accountability on this incident. this investigation is an important step but it is only one step in the overall process. u.s. authorities may determine additional investigations are required and if so, that process will take additional time. we have to ensure the due process for anyone involved in this process. in an effort to be transparent, we are going to share everything we possibly can at this point.
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once the investigation is redacted, the full report will be posted to the central command website and we will provide a link to that at the conclusion of this process. at this time, i will take your questions. >> thank you. following due process, etc., it sounds like multiple violations have been addressed as human error. there is a chain of command and there has to be some responsibility. where does the buck stop? people stop with -- directly from the president? are we looking at a matter of honor, offering resignation? afghan officials have said all along that they have specifically referred to the
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hospital as the command and control center as -- for the insurgents. where does the nds come into this? making the decision whether or not to continue the attack, where do they come into this? and, it seems like a contradiction, so i'm wondering what impact this will have on the level of trust between the u.s., nato and afghan forces going forward? gen. shoffner: to the first part of your question, the investigators found some individuals involved did not follow the rules of engagement. in terms of what happens next, as i said, the investigation itself is an important step in the process but just one step
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toward full accountability. based on its findings, the investigating officer made several recommendations. general campbell has decided to retain some of those at his level and has referred others to -- formander of the u.s. his review. the individuals most closely associated with the incident have been suspended from their duty positions. i will comment while those views -- won't come in on the recommendations that have been made while those reviews are underway, and i will not comment on individual cases underway as , we have to allow for due process for those involved, and we must allow for the independent review by the decision-makers involved. to the second part of your question, i won't speak for the minister but i will point out that on the civilian casualty assessment team, investigation and i was done, that was not
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just a u.s. investigation. it was a nato investigation. of the team consisted of coalition partners, u.s. and non-us, seven afghans that were appointed by visiting ghani.- president i need to point out the purpose of that was different -- it was intentionally narrow in purpose and designed to determine the basic facts and whether casualties had occurred. as for your final question, we remain committed to working with afghan partners to help them build sustainable security in afghanistan. thank you. can you tell us how many individuals were suspended? word general campbell
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or yourself interviewed by the investigators? gen. shoffner: all i can tell you is some individuals have been suspended. i can also say u.s. authorities may direct additional investigations to determine whether further actions are warranted regarding actions of specific individuals involved. should additional investigations be required, those will be made public once complete and redacted. again, we have a responsibility to ensure due process. >> and general campbell, was he interviewed? gen. shoffner: i won't comment on his physician, as he is reviewing some of the recommendations that have been made in his capacity as the appointing officer for the investigation. >> roger, can you hear us at the pentagon? >> we hear you just fine.
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can you hear us? >> we've got you. go ahead. >> this is bob burns from the associated press. you referred to the rules of engagement were violated. aside from reaching the point where there were accommodation of human error and other malfunctions, was the basic decision to use air power under these circumstances justified giving -- given the noncombat role that the u.s. assumed at the end of 2014? in other words, there are limited, narrow circumstances under which use of force is permitted. did that fit this circumstance? thank you. gen. shoffner: under certain
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circumstances, u.s. forces can be used to support afghan forces if they request air support. ultimately, that decision is in the hands of a u.s. commander. i won't get into the specific rules of engagement, but we are determined to make sure this does not happen again. we will evaluate all the recommendations in this report and use them to improve our systems and processes. we take all reports of civilian casualties seriously, and we have reviewed each one of them thoroughly. general campbell has already directed a thorough review of our planning process, as well as the targeting process. this will take place at all echelons of command and will determine how we use no strike lists. -- thorough command of how we
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develop and use no strike lists. >> a quick follow up. do i understand your answer to mean that no, this was not the proper circumstance in which to use combat power? is that what you are saying? gen. shoffner: the investigation found that some of the u.s. individuals involved did not follow the rules of engagement. >> general, i'm from nbc news. doctors without borders, which has proven to be a pretty reliable source in regard to what happened there, said they made at least two phone calls. and one prior to, during the airstrike, to the pentagon. we have been told that was relayed from joint staff to the
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nmcc, that they were under attack. did that information ever reach the operators in the battlefield? what i would like to do to better answer the question is briefly review the sequence of events leading up to the issue at hand. approximately 12 minutes after the firing commenced, doctors without borders called to report the attack. unfortunately, by the time u.s. forces realize the mistake, the aircraft had stopped firing. it is important to remember this is a complicated and chaotic situation. the ac 130 had been shot at by a surface to air missile and u.s. personnel at the time or focused on doing what they had been trained to do. that said, chaos does not justify this tragedy. let me be very clear.
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clear, we did not intentionally strike the hospital. we are absolutely heartbroken over what has occurred here and will do absolutely everything in our power to make sure it does not happen again. you mentioned doctors without borders. we have great respect for the important and life-saving work doctors without borders does in afghanistan and around the world. we are committed to working with them and committed to rebuild the hospital and provide condolence payment to those affected by this tragedy. we appreciate the easing of the -- dedication to easing the suffering of those affected by conflict, and we will do everything in our power to enable their efforts. >> one last one from the pentagon. go ahead. >> just a couple of follow-ups. did the flight crew aboard the a c-130 express any concern or question the validity or legality of the target they were about to strike and, if there
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were so many problems with systems and identifying targets, why was that attack allowed to proceed? gen. shoffner: i will tell you that the investigation found that some of the u.s. individuals involved did not follow the rules of engagement. >> tom from npr. a couple of questions. one was the msf called less than halfway into this attack and it took 17 minutes, you say, for
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the commanders to realize they made a mistake. that's almost half the time of the attack itself. why did it take so long ?also, did you ever get answer to that? if there was no fire coming from the hospital why would , they think this was a legitimate target? gen. shoffner: the investigation found that the medical facility was misidentified as a target i u.s. personnel who believed they were striking a different building several hundred meters away, where there were reports of combatants. i think it might be helpful to put this in context. at the time of the incident, u.s. and afghan forces had been fighting for five days when the incident occurred. both u.s. and afghan forces had reports of taliban throughout the city. again, we are determined to
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learn the right lessons and we are committed to ensuring this does not and cannot happen again. another question here. >> here in the room. [indiscernible] >> [indiscernible] gen. shoffner: general campbell has already directed that all u.s. personnel in theater received training on targeting authorities and on the rules of engagement. alsoal campbell has directed we conduct a comprehensive review of our planning process, as well as our targeting process at all echelons of command. he has directed a thorough examination of how we develop and how we use the no strike lists.
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do you have a follow-up? >> do you want to continue that kind of close air support in the future? gen. shoffner: again, i will state that we can remain -- remain committed to working with our afghan allies as we assist them in building sustainable security for this country. >> a few hours before the msf strike, the location is clearly known. how do you count for this discrepancy a few hours later ? the coordinates shift. and as you say, the hospital was mistaken for the other building -- a few hours earlier, they had to have been striking that area. gen. shoffner: the investigation
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found that the u.s. special operations forces commander did rely on information provided by the afghan partners on the location of the nds compound. however, the investigation determined the grid coordinates given by those forces to that compound were correct. let me comment on how we came to that conclusion. the investigative team went to great lengths to ensure a full and in partial accounting of the facts and circumstances. they were driven by the need to be thorough, not by a timeline. the investigative team consisted of three general officers and a dozen subject matter experts. they spent a full three weeks on -- completing the report, they visited the doctors without borders site, and other sites within the city. they interviewed over 65 witnesses, and compiled over three dozen pages -- 3000 pages of documents.
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they also visited and engage with each astral on in the chain of command. we stand by their findings and recommendations and support the process by which they conduct the investigation. [indiscernible] >> [indiscernible] gen. shoffner: i'm sorry, could you repeat the first part of your question? >> [indiscernible] gen. shoffner: general campbell did meet with representatives from doctors without borders. when he met with them, they provided their initial review. he gave it to the investigative team. they read it and considered it
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as they wrote the report. i will also point out that the findings of the u.s. national investigation were consistent with the ccat, the combined civilian casualty assessment team. we are confident with those investigations coming to the same conclusions in those findings. >> are you going to allow a national independent investigation? general campbell is the commanding officer andy adjudicating officer, and it seems the investigation team was all american and the forces that launched the attack was all american. is there any problem in that? while you say it was not an intentional strike, every u.s. -- that doesn't aggregate the laws are the rules for every u.s. servicemen from basic training and prior to deploying must review the basic rules of war, including proportionality and
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sanction. -- distinction. even if you had struck the proper place, do you think the attack was proportional? in terms of it's not just the rules of engagement, but the basic laws of war that you were training to make things better? gen. shoffner: the investigative team has completed a thorough investigation and we are confident with the facts and evidence collected. with regard to your question, i -- rules of engagement, the laws of war. gen. shoffner: with regard to your question, i can tell you what the investigation found. some of the individuals involved did not follow the rules of and -- engagement. the investigation found the actions of the aircrew and the special operations forces were not appropriate to the threats they faced. the investigation officers recommendations have been referred to the proper authorities for this i this
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position. i cannot comment further because that matter is under review. again, we did not intentionally strike the hospital and we are absolutely heartbroken over what has happened here. >> what about an independent investigation? gen. shoffner: the investigative team has completed -- >> and international independent investigation. a panel said that there has to be a u.n. mandated procedure when there is a humanitarian problem. they are ready to go but they need the americans and afghans to say yes and it seems they have both said no. gen. shoffner: we believe the investigation completed was full and in partial, and we stand by the findings and recommendations, and we support the process by which it was conducted. >> how can it be impartial when it to yourding adjudicating officer, and the people investigating are in the same organization as the people who attacked? gen. shoffner: general campbell has decided to refer some of the recommendations to the commander
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of u.s. so con. for his review and action as appropriate. >> this is not the first time u.s. airstrikes have caused civilian casualties. [indiscernible] how can you assure that this will not happen again? gen. shoffner: we are determined to learn the right lessons from this and ensure it doesn't happen again. the civilian casualty assessment team process that i mentioned is part of this headquarters' procedures whenever we have an civiliann of casualties, or allegation, it provides a means of looking into it quickly to determine if further investigation is needed. if further investigation is needed, that will be done and we will use that investigation as the basis for adjusting our
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systems and procedures so this does not happen again. we have time for more question. >> [indiscernible] what kind of messaging was passed? between afghan special forces and u.s. special forces? [indiscernible] i can tell you that the investigation found that the u.s. special operations forces commander did rely on the information provided by afghan partners. the investigation also found that information was correct. as i stated earlier, the investigation found some of the u.s. individuals did violate the
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rules of engagement and we will take appropriate -- >> you have to take precautions around civilians -- does that not [indiscernible] it looks like your systems were not working. these systems were set up to protect civilians. gen. shoffner: the investigation found the actions of the aircrew and special operations did not take place. -- the actions were not appropriate to the things that were taking place. i will not comment on that further. that's all the time i have her questions, but before i depart, i want to emphasize that we made a terrible mistake, that resulted in unnecessary deaths. we have been committed from the beginning to a transparent and thorough investigation and we will do everything possible to
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prevent this from happening again. this investigation was an important step in this process, but it is just one step toward full account ability. -- accountability. finally, we would never, ever do anything to harm innocent civilians. thank you. >> >> coming up, the new smithsonian secretary on the future of the institution. ibm's watsonat apputer, the founder of an popular with isis and rapper snoop dogg on his new cannabis media platform. then, national security.
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on the next washington journal, an update on afghanistan operations with major general gordon davis. then brendan duke of the center on therican progress state of the u.s. economy. that's followed by a look at the work in congress to update the no child left nine legislation. our guest is allison klein of education week. journal, live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> john hinckley was the person who shot president reagan, and president reagan was not wearing a bullet-proof vest that day. the thing is, john hinckley was stalking jimmy carter before this. >> sunday, ronald feynman talks about various assassination
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physical threats made against presidents and presidential candidates throughout american history. >> there have been 16 presidents who faced assassination threats. elong, who inugh 1975 was assassinated, and i talk about robert kennedy in 1968 who was assassinated, and george wallace who was shot and in 1972. for life so i cover candidates as well as presidents. and it is a long list. >> i denied it 8:00 eastern and q&a.ic on c-span's >> next, a look at the new smithsonian institution. this is an hour and 15 minutes.
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damian: i think we are ready. good afternoon, thank you for being here. i am damian woetzel, director of the aspen institute arts program. it is my pleasure to curate the roundtable series, sponsored by michelle smith. thank you for supporting these conversations. the conversations i curate naturally deal with the arts, but also the arts and society. and how they intersect, how they can be productive, and evermore interactive partners with all of the areas of society, which is very much of course in keeping with the mission of the aspen institute. today, we are very happy to welcome dr. david skorton. id skortom.
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n. the new secretary of the smithsonian, who comes with us building on a distinct career as a cardiologist. and president of the university of iowa and cornell. he was appointed the 13th secretary beginning this past summer. and i can say that as an artist who visited the museum's since a child on the mall, an endless source of inspiration is at your disposal. and also a tremendous source of work. i'm proud to serve on the committee for the arts and humanities, along with others in this room. stevens is george here. one of the earliest things we did was partner with disaster recovery in haiti. it is an activist role of sorts that the smithsonian took on in that instance. far be it from the idea of
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things we go to look at. in that spirit, we welcome you here. i'm proud to say that my boss and great leader, walter isaacson, will be moderating. he needs no introduction. but to say he is a chronicler of great men and and inspire her of many. >> thank you very much for putting this together. michelle, nice to see you here. and i asked earlier whether i should call you dr. k skorton. >> everybody here and call me david. walter, call me your excellency. [laughter] >> that was a line from henry kissinger. he said that will do. in your case, and actually fits. inaugurated or
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installed, it was -- i read the speech. you give a wonderful speech about this is magic, in some ways. but you also allowed someone to play louis armstrong's horn. tell me about the inauguration and the idea that this is magic. david: the official title -- let me interrupt. i want to thank you damian. he is a fellow flute player. he is an officia but it is wonderful to be here. thank you. i do want to a knowledge mind partner -- acknowledge my partner, richard curran. he was a source of a lot of good ideas. henceforth, they will be considered my ideas. [laughter] so the installation which my
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colleagues are calling here at the smithsonian, i want to set the stage. the currency we deal in, just as you said, is inspiration. whe currency we dealing, higop we deal about it, it is inspiring people to understand more things, dream bigger, to make things, create things, understand things. so the word i used his magic comment to reflect the many different ways we bring that together. some of that is based on being face-to-face with an object, a painting, something that has historical significance. increasingly, it has to do with the dynamic interplay of ideas. which might or might not need to be in the context of an object. i try to touch on those areas in the speech. the speech is available, and if you have trouble sleeping -- and who doesn't these days -- if you read it, you will fall asleep
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quickly. you will stay asleep for 6-8 hours and awake with no bitter aftertaste. try it out. [laughter] walter: you talk about being in the presence of an object. whether it be a horn, flag, you can see all of those things digitally online now. where does the museum of the future go in the digital age? david: as you know, but you are tonight to say, i really do not know much about the museum world. andme from a career lifetime spent in the life sciences. i am a cardiologist. i took care of young people, teenagers, young adults with inborn heart disease. i'm comfortable in that world. i am an amateur musician, comfortable in that world. and i'm just learning about the museum world. that is a sort of disclaimer. but i'm reading avidly, three
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different books on museum studies of various kinds. very frequently, as you may have noticed, there are articles about the so-called 21st century museum. the most recent one i read was four days ago in the times. in those articles, there are sort of three themes sounded. i want to be clear that i'm not saying these are the three most important. these are the ones i absorbed. number one, as walter eloquently raised, moving from an object based encounter to one where you do not have to be on site. that could be visual, could be auditory, could be some other way that doesn't require to be in front of the object. i believe right now, from my own experience just as a museum goer, and a few weeks at the smithsonian -- a few months at the smithsonian -- institutions that are large, broad,
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and respected will for the for seeable future should have a foot in both worlds. we need to preserve the objects we recognize as part of the american and international tradition and coulter. and yet, as richard and others have been doing for some time, begin to push the boundaries of what can be done. my predecessor, formerly president of georgia tech and a great creative person, began the process of more aggressively digitizing those parts of the collection that can easily be digitized. is 138 million things. and some of the museums, i believe the sackler's digitized. the verb he used was to democratize the collection. you do not have to be among the relatively small people worldwide who will ever get to the mall.
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unfortunately, even in our city, there are people who do not get to the mall. that is one theme that it sounded. the second theme, which resonates with me and i'm very concerned about, is the issue of diversity writ large.. and the audiences we are serving, the employment at the museum, diversity in the programming we are offering to whomever. diversity in the themes we are willing to touch. i would not mind coming back to the controversy later, as one of those things related. that is the second theme that sounded. in the third one really has to do with an underlying issue that i think our society is dealing with. and that is, how much do we focus on the stem disciplines and the non-stem disciplines. the smithsonian is an unusual institution that touches the gamut.
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a friend of mine, a cornell graduate, he is a lifetime washingtonian. and what he found out i was appointed in 2014, let me give you a quick description of the smithsonian -- everything under the sun. astrophysics to art. so the institution absolutely, positively needs to make sure we do not overly focus on the stem disciplines. despite the fact we think about it in vocational, economic terms and leadership and security terms. all of that is important and necessary, but not sufficient to work our way through a troubled world. walter: you seem suited for that because you have a science background as a cardiologist. and even in your cardiology, you are most renowned for imaging and how to use it to understand things better. then you have also been a flute player. you have loved the arts. instead of seeing things as the arts or the stem disciplines,
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used it at the intersection. is there a way to make sure that people can get to that combination, of the two cultures/ ? david: i'm a cheerleader, not an expert. not to be a cheerleader, but what you do at aspen is a great example of bringing ideas, even differing points of view -- especially differing points of view -- together. my partners and collects together at the smithsonian, not limited to richard, have done a fantastic job across the disciplines. we can do a lot more. we are doing reorganizations we are still in the midst of. we are still in the infrastructure stage, to make it easier -- walter: like at cornell, when there are less departments and divisions, you are doing that with a big ideas -- climate
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change, things in the smithsonian. david: when you have an institution that has been around for a long time, and the smithsonian is one of those and cornell is one of those, the only sure way to do something that is really different is to be able to turn the page on a new chapter. directorour wonderful of the soon to be open national museum of african american culture, which is beautiful and profound both, she is going to turn the page on a chapter this started as a blank slate. a long, long overdue expiration of african american history and culture in this country that we sorely need. he is going to do interesting things i think you will find fascinating, dealing with what you are talking about. that museum will touch history, culture, science, almost everything you are talking about. but the hardest thing to do, it is easier to take something that is in existence and turn it into
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something. at cornell, the best opportunity i had, i was just three separate recipient, i have nothing to do it. the new place on roosevelt bloomberg --ichael --ter: and others david: he was president of the new york city economic corporation. the idea was to analyze the economy of new york city, one of the largest in the world. and they discovered that although the prediction was that finance, media, fashion, biomedical studies and so one would be part of the economy, and the tech sector, there was a relative shortage of graduate-trained professionals, that his computer scientists, electrical engineers, materials scientists, so they had a contest which we partnered with
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the real institute of technology, it was a blank slate. that campus is being put together with no departments. no departments. what we set up were what we called hubs, for lack of a better term, three areas that seem to fit the new york city economy that we can bring together as strands to create a new kind of fabric. and those three were healthy living, the field environment broadly including transportation, infrastructure, green tech, and so on, and the so-called connected media. short of turning a page and having a blank slate, it is a tall order. because places like the smithsonian or universities have to be distinguished. because it distinguishes disciplines. if we abandon focus on individual disciplines or excellence, we will get nowhere by combining them. we can do things like what we
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are doing with african-americans, we can create out of the whole cloth. otherwise, it is a delicate organism. it has to be handled very gently and carefully. and i'm a strong believer in has to be bottom up./ even if i had been 20 years in enoughiness, it is not to have one person come to the table and said we have to work together. it have to be grassroots. walter: you mentioned the importance of having younger people, youth, and never city be part of defining the museum of the future. how are you going to do that? david: you look at me, one of you say even younger? [laughter] whole attitude is extremely upsetting. i will let it go this time. [laughter] from being in higher education for so long at interacting with undergraduates,
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my wife who really is a source of the very large proportion of good ideas, she had the idea we should live with the freshman in freshman dorms at cornell. walter: that sounds like something i would not consider a good idea. [laughter] david: the latest thing she is talking about is having a stayover -- having sleepovers at the museum. you think it is a good idea, but those floors are marble. [laughter] forgetting that, so when you think about the higher education experience, i always thought that our ideas about some aspects of academia could not depend on audience response. if one is teaching civics or biography or poetry or dance or whatever it is, we have experts and professionals to do that. they interact with students and get feedback. but other aspects like the way we do things should have
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consumer input, or whatever the right word is. i want to emphasize public input into how we do planning, specifically, we're going to set up a youth advisory council here in the city of washington. we have a wonderful experience of talking to mayor bowser about it. it is a busy time in the cities y's life. we will work on it together. we hope to bring high school students, perhaps freshmen and sophomores still thinking it through, from all over the d.c. area and show them some things we are thinking about. in the case of people who preceded me as leaders and the smithsonian, like richard and others, they have already done a lot of that. in the museum of natural history, when you venture in and see the constitution, if you turn to the right, there is something called the curious cue.
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it was designed in part why washington high school students. it is fantastic. and there is art land attached to the hirschhorn. it deals, if i get this right, with kids 13-19. they don't have to be students. they are in their learning how to do everything from -- i was in there a couple of days ago -- stage lighting to dj work. to postproduction music, sketching, you name it. there are already youth programs. but i need the input as the new leader. so we are going to set up a youth council. i will listen to them and to the extent that they can spend the time with me, a lot of the other leaders will have a chance to try things out. you can't have your customer to you exactly what to do. i am reminded of the book, "the innovators dilemma." where one of the many interesting ideas i remove or so
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clearly was that if you want to listen to customers, you cannot run the company. you tell them what they need. convince them. walter: the old steve jobs line. henry ford said if i asked my customers, they would say a faster horse. [laughter] david: i'm thinking about a faster horse. my first car in 1965, and most of your parents were learning how to walk, was an impala. and i just got a new one. walter: chevrolet will be happy. david: it is a fabulous car. walter: damian, you and i have talked about around the country -- we are serving a new division here at the institute -- for people who are in high school and early years of college, especially from less served communities, getting them involved. we are to be working with you on that i hope. you mentioned earlier
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controversies. the smithsonian seems to either stumble through or thrive upon these great controversies. like should we have shown this or done that. tell us your view of some of the controversies that have happened, and how you propose to handle them. david: i would love to talk about it. the one thing i will not do is second-guess decisions made before i got there. it is very hard to do that. let us talk about the general proposition. to me, creative activity will very often engender controversy. think about creative people. i am most comfortable in the sciences. but if someone he has a new idea, that maybe sounds heretical to people in the field and be controversial, and maybe traversing over four two sets of reasons. are used toe and we
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having actual arguments -- heated arguments over points of view. you know a lot of this about the innovators on whom you have written. but it is equally true on the arts. think about contemporary art, which in every generation, is what is happening now. i believe that artists, whatever kind they are, they could be dancers, musicians, performing artists, visual artists, they may perceive the world differently. they may perceive trends sooner than the general populace. so when creating an expression that reflects that different perception of currency of reality, they may bump into reality do not share that point of view. years go by, generations go by, perhaps that was an early perception that turned out to be true. maybe not. whatever it is, creative activity across the spectrum of human activity will engender controversy. we have to be ready for. and i think the few actions to
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me would be if a professional curator backed by normal institution processes done correctly decides to put something up, we should not take it down. we should not take it down even if there is public outcry, even if there is concern. one example right now is t in the sanger's bus national gallery. in that case, i cannot be more supportive of the decision of the director of the national portraiture gallery. at undersecretary richard curran, we have to tell the story of our country -- both parts we are very proud of and the parts that we shake our heads about perhaps and wonder. otherwise, how are we going to understand and think more towards the future? it does not mean we have to be arrogant. that we cannot improve the that we cannot think more actively in a preemptive way about what might be controversial/ walter: can you give an
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example? david: the bill cause be port -- bill cosby portrait. means -- ibasically think it was very important to understand the reasons for that exhibit. and not to punish the artist. not to punish those who would art because of potential problems. walter: so you have not walked that back. david: and i will not. what youou talk about did as being preparation, there is a lot of discussion these days about political correctness on college campuses, causing controversy or try to stop people from doing things. what did you learn at cornell
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from that issue that you are applying to the smithsonian? david: 16 weeks, i am basically understanding where the entrances are and so on. [laughter] walter: you had the bill cause osny. by. david: my approach to student protest was to go and talk to them. they always wanted to talk to me. they were always interested, but i wanted to make the offer. it is important for me to leave my ego at the door. walter: but the issue of political correctness. david: i will get there. this is like a paragraph. you are so much of an editor. [laughter] here's the thing about political correctness. political correctness is one way of looking at the world. one way of looking at the world, it is possible to think of it in a pejorative sense. but when we began to use
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gender-neutral language, it is important. it reminds us to think about the world as beyond people who look like you and me. as good-looking as we do. [laughter] i think there is a place to think about those things. but when you use it in a pejorative sense, what you mean is limiting expression. putting a boundary on expression, if it does not fit a certain mold. it has to be avoided. a world ofbringing ideas together, once again as aspen does so well, is important to read and maybe leaders like you and i have to make an extra effort to bring ideas that make our own blood boil. areake sure that we, too, not self-selecting things we are most comfortable with. one of the things i love already about the smithsonian, and i don't mean this to sound facetious even though it may, i don't want people to think like they have to defer to me on
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things like that. i am there at their service, like i was at the university. to make sure that 1000 flowers bloom. and when that does happen, something else will happen. and that is just the way -- the nature of the beast. walter: let me open it up, if i may. questions? david: i'm a licensed physician. walter: you go first. >> i does want to say my family has enjoyed the smithsonian for multiple generations. it was a place we completed our education, basically. i have a question about the museum of natural history. recently the museum with some distinguished guests, family, and a group. i had not been there in a while. i've noticed some of the changes. the 21stmuseum for century, it was not dynamic enough.
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in fact, i made a comment when it was creepy looking -- i like it better. all that to say the smithsonian has served as an institution where we enhance our education. i wanted to give me more excitement about the natural history, science. i was not feeling that read that you tell me more about the plans? david: thank you for the input. you are a devoted follower. it means a lot. i was looking at the plans, and when i mentioned earlier, can i me your --you can call excellency? [laughter] when i talked before about the smithsonian having, and i believe for the future it should have, one foot in the world of things that maybe don't seem so still aand exciting but portion of the populace wants to
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be there face-to-face, even if it may not seem dynamic. and another foot in the world where things are becoming more interactive and so on, that museum is going to be an exemplar of the curious teen-oriented things. in ify not wander you are not in that age. but they are making an attempt without giving up the enormity of the collection. most of the collection is attributed to that museum -- 126 million out of 130 million. biological specimens and all of those things. they're dealing with a heavy lift, not to give up the attention of the -- the intention, excuse me -- but to make them available for scholars. the questions come up in paleontology, how wonderful it is to go back and look at something that is there because it has been preserved carefully. and yet appealing to a broader and broader populace by making
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it more dynamic and interactive. they are in the direction of doing that without giving up the former. so if you had time yourself to go in and look at curious, and you had time to write me a note about it, i would love to see your reaction. if you think it is going in the direction you are talking about. as i mentioned, i'm so new to this world, that i myself, and try to soak all of this up. may, if you goi to the cooper-hewitt, the national design museum in new york city at 91st and fifth, you will find a dynamic approach there -- using a digital pen or you can touch a spot on the sign and collect the digital image of that item in your collection. it is fascinating. across the whole institution, there is enormous movement in that direction. but variable depending on the
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subject. walter: the cooper-hewitt just reopened. david: yes, almost a year ago. walter: you have the museum that is being done -- the renwick. david: the ribbon-cutting is a week from tomorrow. walter: you're all invited. david: you are. but anyway, that is going to be a very different experience. i'm not going to steal the thunder. because you want to put it on c-span or something. walter: you will have to show up. >> i used to work at the smithsonian. i am the executive director of the jazz festival.
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i was excited when i did a walk-through of the american history, to see the experiences that are happening over there. i think that speaks to what you're talking about, the 21st century digital image. i want to thank you. i know you don't take credit. but it is a wonderful place now. ingng something very excit with jazz in the garden, and i know that you are a jazz musician. really, thank you for doing that. david: thank you for being so positive. the jazz orchestra is impressive. the director is charlie young, the director of the jazz program at howard. they took pity on me and let me sit in on two numbers about three weeks ago. i did not tell you buddy, in case it went south. [laughter] it was a latin jazz concert. i used to be the producer and dj on a latin jazz show in iowa
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city. i know the literature, so to speak. it that mean i can play it. but i know the literature. number called a little blues, a 12-bar blues to a latin be. the other was an old chestnut by tito puente. popularized that one, he did a certain electronic version -- electric version. it is just great. the original tito recording was challenging for three charlie young is a past master, and he assigned it to me. my heart rate went down low 200 just a couple of days ago. that orchestra is fabulous. and if i want to plug one more thing for the american history
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museum, for those with jazz who is the other thing -- those unfortunate souls who have not seen the light yet -- or the chamber music society that has its own performance space. not only are there unbelievably great interest, they're playing a vintage instrument. i have not gone to one of the concerts yet. i've read quite a bit about it. eleanor? eleanor: thank you. i want to get back to the museum of the 21st century. and the new york times article, from the bottom up, my name is eleanor fink. i'm the manager of the american are collaborative, a consortium of museums that are getting rid of data silos so you can search across all of them. the american art, portrait art, and archives of american art belongs in the smithsonian read
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my question is, given the great diversity of the smithsonian, it would be wonderful if that article alluded to someone going from a painting that depicts an invention that happens to be in history and technology to the portrait of that inventor at the gallery to maybe something of the national history. technology is there to do it. we are doing it at art project. it is not so much a matter of money. we don't have everything digitized, to start. you have to have the will. and at the smithsonian, to get this kind of collaboration across all institutions, bottom-up will not work. because each is thinking of their own. it is such a wonderful opportunity, one would not want to pass it up. how can you maybe instill something for the museum of the 21st century? david: thanks for the question and for caring so much about agreed we are proud to be a group of that.
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i was proud to set that up. bit to push back a tiny conceptually, because we are here to have a frank discussion, i think it is very important is bottoms up. if i cannot persuade them and the chief tool i have as the ceo, is persuasion. if i cannot persuade them that it is a good thing to do, then i have a problem in my argument. nonetheless, i buy the goal. absolutely, i agree on the objective. there is all kinds of ways to do that. i've tried a bunch. sometimes they were, sometimes it do not. you throw a little money at people, and so you can only touch it if you do something you have never done before or collaborate with someone you have never collaborated with before, and works to a certain extent. for sure. i'm confident through richards leadership and the directors of the units themselves, which is halfway between, they are not way up here. valhalla, like i
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am. i think there is a will to use technology. sometimes we get lost everywhere and all of our endeavors by using technology is because we can. just because we can. as opposed to doing it because we know where we want to get to, we know the destination. technology can help us get there. there are a lot of people talking about that. i don't want to sound too polyan na-ic. it some protective mechanisms to make sure that the funding fedronment, all amounts are to get things done every day. that is a terrible mixed metaphor i just did. but anyway. , i believe that the level of the directors and undersecretary want to do this thing. why would they want to? because people who have been leading the center of excellence
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who say they haven't come in there since they were kids, they want to stay relevant. they want to know the american people and others believe in it, crave it, and want to be there. they want to make it new and different. but there is also the matter of 18 million people coming here every year. someide variety of things, of them just want to have the old time experience, some want to have new things. some don't know what they want. they have never been and what to see what it is. those leaders have the burden, i would call it, the responsibility of having to be there 364 days. a year it is not an excuse. is dragging our feet, but it a set of response abilities to have to be met. i think you we very happily surprised when you see the things come to fruition. and as a person who has been a medical research for a time, the
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only way you hit it is to take a swing at the ball. you may miss it. we talk about silicon valley, those who have written about every good idea, they know their are a bunch of them that have gone belly up. and if i can do anything from the castle, and every decentralized organization, the name of the building is like a hated word. [laughter] at cornell, it is day hall. day hall is stopping us from doing what we want to do. here it is like the castle is standing in the way of progress. but i think you will find that from the castle to the desktop of the people cranking it out every day, you will find a spirit of one to push ahead, while maintaining the traditions. i hope you keep in touch with me, eleanor. let me know what you think i will keep track of the collaborative data.
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that would be great. walter: go ahead, joanne. joanne thank you. i'm curious about the high arc levels, envisioning feedback from the bottom up. musk likesthat elon to have people just directly sent to him any notes. something is wrong, maybe a -- howdea, people that do you deal with the mid-level advisory, managers who take some umbrage? david: is a tough question. don't you like when a speaker grades your question? end with thet to class, i will call this class, we will be there for the speak
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leepover. david: be sure to bring me an air mattress. [laughter] behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. at cornell, i gave everyone my e-mail. wrested faculty, do they all right me everyday/ thankfully, no. i have those come directly to me. my lieutenants, or whatever you call them, hated when i went to a town hall and gave them my e-mail. great, he is only going to forward it to me. but i got a lot of good feedback. why don't people want to do that? they are afraid of retaliation, being embarrassed. they are most afraid of never hearing from you. done, there i have is a formulaic way at the smithsonian to do it. townhall meetings, when you have those, there are two kinds.
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i guess there are three. newkind you have where the guy shows up. they want to see what the new person acts like, can they talk, can they tie their time. turnout.od and there are townhall's when there is a problem, an issue. in every organization, if they fall upon hard times financially, if layoffs are looming and so on, and the ceo calls at townhall, people show up. and then there are no crisis, we arty know who the -- we already know who the folks are. and i have my first one of those in the museum of natural history a few days ago. i'm am so terrible in estimating this. maybe a couple of hundred people, a couple hundred more online in cyberspace. i forget what you call it, live streaming. he doesn't know. i did that to be polite. [laughter]
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eventually, from the e-mails and the townhall meetings, and then meeting with the director level people, at least there is the opportunity for input. ther it happens, depends on if the employees feel it is safe to criticize and bring things up. the core attribute that is necessary for a functioning organization is the feeling of safety in every single employee. that he or she can criticize or argue with their supervisor. that they can speak truth to power. and that is easy to say and very, very hard to do. that is why am devoted to trying, everywhere that i have had a leadership. sometimes it worked, sometimes it flopped. in the case of undergrads, they violently disagree and decide the way to do that is take over the office. which is ok. sometimes you get a day off that way. [laughter]
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walter: take over the castle. [laughter] david: you can do that anytime, walter. walter: you have a question? >> i wanted to follow-up on your comment that you do not want to over focus on stem. course isf well-established, everybody knows what we mean. but there is also now steam. and i wonder if the smithsonian and your emphasis on not over focusing on stem is going to be willing to push the idea of steam, using your considerable persuasive powers to make steam as well fixed in the american psyche as stem. know: it is terrible -- i quite a bit. it is alright. i am always concerned that we do not portray the artist in the humanities as handmaidens to the
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sciences. ifing something onto stem, you do not think about it very deeply, one might think, well, it is important have the arts because it order to complete thinking about some scientific thing you have to think about it conceptually or communicatively. there is also this value of perception that anyone can i get any other way. so i struggle, as silly as it sounds, i struggle with it is a good idea to have steam. i was very privileged to be on that american academy of arts and sciences group that did that on the humanities and social sciences, not so much the arts. and i have a chance to talk and learn from people as various as bill safire and many others. many, many in the art world. and i do not want to be perceived as denigrating the stem disciplines.
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because a lot of changes in our world that we take for granted and really like, like the communication technology that is making this whole business possible, would not happen without very robust things happening in the stem disciplines. and if i can just put a plug in for those who do research for society based on competitive ineral grants, at a time both life sciences and the physical sciences where the tools that are at our disposal for answering scientific questions are like never before, the public has not been able to invest or not willing to invest as fuelas could be used to move that engine forward read so th. so the sciences have a very real frustration and shortcomings. in the arts and humanities, quite separately from their ability to help solve problems that you cannot solve with
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ecience alone, they havv intrinsic importance in so many ways. when i talked to members of congress or right in huffington post performs, or have been interviewed by people like walter, i tried very hard to give both sides of the discussion. one side is that there is practical value in liberal arts education, thinking about these things read even economically, believe it or not, there is very great data showing earning potential years later, not right arts.e baat, of liberal tomorrow, i am receiving an award from the colleges of arts and sciences in the u.s. and there is a lot of data that i was refreshing myself on to group.o that august quite separate, no matter what the earning potential is, we get
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a lot of understanding of what we are as humans. i feel so silly saying this in a pedantic way. having to listen to, well, last night, walter and i were at an event at which some music was sung of a patriotic nature. both of us got teary-eyed. we are a couple of old guys. why? because music has that power, that power. in dance and visual arts and everything else that is not even counting reading poetry. outside of my office, i set up a poll and of the week. people send it in, if your opponent, and want to send it. tond@si.edu. if your opponent, send me the lectern. wehink it is important that support that, that we push it,
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that we do not allow it to be trivialized as a frill. that is what i think. to finally answer your question, what are we doing at the smithsonian? we are supporting with arguments to congress and with philanthropy, recognizing more and more the fact that some of the museums defy categorization. so for example, i mentioned the kuiper hewitt design museum. what you call design? is it science? is it psychology? definitely. social science/ . today i'm talking a lot, and i'm listening in general. number two, i'm encouraging people with a bully pulpit, the small one internally. thirdly, i'm try to get on my hind legs and make sure people
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remember these disciplines are what a lot of us really have and to experience understand ourselves as people. walter: it is so important to talk about arts and arts and humanities with their own sake, not just the utilitarian. i'm sorry. ok, you had a question there, too. your hand was a first. i will get to you. be patient. ,> i was lucky enough years ago and i went to that facility. it is very much closed. i went back with another group, and there was no air-conditioning. that could affect about three quarters of your collection. is there anyway you could set up something? david: i want to be honest.
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i don't know too much about the details. i understand the need, not to trivialize the question, real quickly, i'm still learning. the vast majority of any museum and i know about, not just the smithsonian, it is not on display. it has to rotate. why don't you write me separately. i will find out an answer you buy enough. walter: i wasn't trying to cut you off. go ahead. the education division, i am , as a member of the program sometime ago, i think it is a fabulous program. as i understand it it is your continuing education for the
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washington area. and i just wondered if you have a new vision for it, see it moving in a new direction? david: i will tell you what i've done with the associates so far. i've talked to them. and i have joined as a contributor. so i'm still in the listening mode on that one. i do think it is very important for a couple of reasons. one, it is a way, as you are inferring, of greatly expanding the access of the sony. and in a way, it is a way of serving washington. i am a big believer that nonprofits, because we are by definition, whatever our status, private universities, they to think about serving the community -- to the extent we can do it. the taxpayer giving us nonprofit status is making enormous contributions. quite separately, and other settings of the property taxpayers who do not get the credit for that, so still in the
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listening mode on that would. it is important for that reason. and congratulations on working at that organization. one of my favorites. walter: you can go online and joined the smithsonian associates. which i urge you to do. david: you can go online and spend all kinds of money. walter: let me go to the one in the back, so people do chance to participate. >> i had the chance 20 years ago on the charles jackson collection, the european arms and armor site. it seems that you are getting away from the nations attic model. have you looked at what you can do to refine and save on storage costs?
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david: all kinds of discussion going on about that now. thank you very much for the question. nothing conclusive to bring you today. you can imagine the collection that size, on the one hand, it would be great to do what you talked about. on the other hand, not knowing when something in the collection might be important to a scholar subsequently, there is a certain danger in doing that to vigorously. stay tuned. that is about as evasive answer i can give you. [laughter] walter: on a broader scale, you think that museums in general which display only a small percentage of what they do are beginning to do a disservice by not having ways, that such a loaded term? david: that is a loaded question and term. i would say whatever we can do to make our collections more accessible we should do. there are many paths which could
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be done. with the exception, there is only one. i do think that because museums are set up in the public trust in general, and because of the nonprofit status, we have to operate that way for real -- not just say so. we have to do everything we can to increase access. that is for sure. what understand the need that the smithsonian is a special case. when james smithson wrote the bequestf the for washington, a place he has never been, he was a chemist. the diffusion you are talking about, the research part, it as a special twist of complexity. who knows when a researcher and some field is going to want to have access to that thing? it does mean it cannot be elsewhere. but then that greatly, kate said. there is enormous amounts of
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scholarly activity in the arts, sciences, anthropology going on at the smithsonian. that is a set of imperatives we also have to meet. walter: give a shout out to james smithson who was a pembroke college alumni. >> thank you. i am a health writer who is also a poet. and i will be sending you a poem. david: i will write that down. send some bio. on the right side is a little bio. we will never know, you can make a lot of stuff up. [laughter] >> thank you very much. i want to say, my kids really t a lot out of the smithsonian when they were growing up. i think it is not necessary to really think about how to package, combine arts and sciences. just putting it there, someone
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here mentioned it would be good to put more about medicine in the smithsonian. putting more of the arts and sciences next to one another, i think people make the connection. i have noticed in the past years there are some literary magazines that have been founded at medical schools or associations like bellevue. they have a literary magazine. cuny has a magazine. ma i think take poetry. all of it is a great way to ecome part of d ecompartmentalize it. david: they will have a
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description, i don't know if you've seen it, it is fascinating. some medical journals or psychiatric journals will have photography competitions and so on. i think it is a very good point. i wrote your name down. walter: i think your poem will be displayed. david: and your bio. my husband was at a board >> my husband was at a board meeting. we went to something on taxonomy, how do you identify millions of things? it was a fascinating debate about how do you apply that, meaning, your science over here and it is all registering. how do you recognize that as part of the discussion about climate, ecology, biodiversity, about all of those things. i do not know how to do this. but one of the things that would
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be taking the middle level people and moving the discussion out into the larger thing, just raise what the people are working in the smithsonian in different areas are actually debating among themselves. so that then the public can see this is not top-down. decisions are not made and then just handed down to people. that actually all of these hugely committed staff people and volunteers are actually having this discussion among themselves. and i think it helps enormously. i am from new york. cooper-hewitt, there than a lot of discussions going on, if they were real to the public, i think they would be fascinated by. david: such a fascinating idea. one of the big areas science agonizes over, my wife and i talk about it all the time, something what you're talking about all the time. it is an interesting t
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wist. you give me something to talk about my wife. i wish you called more people your excellency. but anyway, i think it is fascinating. it brings to mind two trains of thought that occupy our time. of is this whole issue complicated matters outside of the canon. there is a certain amount of churn among the between specialists that i don't think it would use the jargon and get down into the weeds for any exclusionary purpose. an economy there is of communication. it does make a harder for other people to participate and to understand. and a second set of issues is that communication per se is not necessarily a skill that is valued rewarded when you are
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going through the training to become a scientist. the skills that are rewarded are the communication is among specialists. brook gotin stony started. camp is that the sunni organized would have a formal program bring it on scientist -- are greatists who communicators and effective at having people do that. i want to bring up my wife. when she was at the university of iowa, she created something like survival skills for a research career. in which in addition to all of the statistics and learning about the biology and all of this stuff, one learned how to be interviewed, how to speak to
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the media, how to write a review article for a more general audience, things like that. she also worked at cornell in a program to teach graduate students how to teach. as opposed to teach graduate students how to discover, which is mainly what we teach them. if we had more of an emphasis, and i want you to call my wife and say that i'm talking about her -- [laughter] i so need to get some points on the board. she's probably not, she is too busy. this is what we need to do. ,ithin that universe of ways richard and i will be talking about this, a very interesting idea. >> i wanted to ask you a question. when you think about the smithsonian in the frame of the relative lack of interest in
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learning that is perceived by some in the u.s., not a culture that is that interested in learning, do you feel the obligation to create a kind of exhibit or special event, the large scale things that will actually put flags on the map on that score? >> it is a so interesting that you ask that question. i have been struggling with that in wanting to establish this youth advisory council. the kind of learning that i am used to dealing with is formal learning that goes along a path to a formal recognition, like an undergraduate degree, continuing medical education, whatever, where it's much easier to plot that path. you know the eventual hurdle that has to be jumped over. this is a wholly different thing. this is something where it's completely populist, wide-open, come one come all, spend 30
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seconds at a part of the exhibition, or spend all day, it's up to you. breadth -- ithe don't want to use the word audience, the breadth of fellow human beings who we hope are increasingly coming to the smithsonian, either in person or over the wire. do you hear how old-fashioned i am? it's not even a wire anymore. over the wireless. [laughter] it is a much bigger task, a much harder task than a teaching in a university, where they are forced to a specific purpose. even if that purpose, in my case, was to discover what i wanted to do. and it is much harder. i think within that nonanswer i just gave you, it is true that the people who are actually
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having their sleeves rolled up and building the exhibits and deciding how to do them are thinking about this exact question. again, sorry for the redundant , this-- the redundantcy was an attempt to focus on an approach to attract interest of a certain demographic. an age demographic or what have you. the broader question is when you are dealing with an institution that attracts and wants to attract literally throughout the lifecycle of community and many parts of the world, how do you find something that is general enough? with this philosophy has been, understandably, and i think defensively, has been to let 1000 flowers bloom and try a lot of things. just like at a faculty level at the university, they have curators that are professionals
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in respective fields. maybe we can have more feedback. that is one thing richard and i are talking about. it is a never-ending question. too much feedback. not enough feedback and there is a certain arrogance, that results. the smithsonian has adhered to a good middle course or i would not have been attracted to it as much as i was. we can always try harder in that regard. it's a big question and we are think about it a lot. >> i think the ability to create a learning culture and a curiosity culture in this country -- there is no institution better positioned than of the smithsonian. we feel comfortable with it. i will take the moderator's prerogative to do a couple quick follow-ups. then we can get going. you talked about the importance of design and how across the spectrum, how it deals with industry and arts and everything else. what are your thoughts at the moment on the arts and industry
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building? >> the arts and industry is the second oldest building in the smithsonian. arson industry is right next door. -- arts and industry is right next door. that building was closed for a while now. it has been repaired and updated to the extent that we can begin to have some events there. i choose to have my installation in arts and industry. the first floor is more or less done, the upper floors are not done. i like the environment where you're sitting in this gorgeous area, and there are maybe 900 people. then as your gaze wanders, you see the second and third floors, and they were construction zones, safely away from the people. we are still thinking about what to do with that space. a lot of ideas are being tossed around.
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evene nowhere near deciding ourselves what to do, let alone going public. but it's a fabulous opportunity to do something important and significant because, imagine the preciousness and real estate on the mall, the greatest home-court avenging the world is the mall. -- advantage is the mall. i fabulous new exam on african-american history and culture on the constitution. but we are spending quite a bit of time talking about it. after january 1, i believe we are going to have it open for some events, like a reception. we are setting up the mechanisms to do that. i take your question to be a more programmatic question. we are talking about that more. we clearly need to do something significant with that. millions ofipate visits to that site, given where
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it is. question,technical because we did not get to the research arm of the smithsonian so much, although you mentioned it earlier the cutback in basic resources of the federal government. and how that is perhaps the string future innovations -- destroying future innovations if we don't have that type of funding. talk, if you would, about the astrophysics observatory. one of the lesser-known parts of these missoni and. what it's doing and why basic research funding is so important for someone like that. -- lesser-known parts of the smithsonian. skorton: let me first tackle the conceptual question of basic research. it was brought up earlier in some of the questions raised. we have this view of progress in
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science as being this linear process, where a mad scientist is sitting somewhere underground in a quiet dark room with a lot of sharpen pencils and things that bubble and steam. and he comes up with some observation about nature. and then that observation is shared with others, perhaps intellectual property is protected and is handed off to a business world, where a product or service is developed and is marketed, and there is progress. a certain amount of economic development in this country, quite a bit of it in the last century, was based on that model. you have written about that. >> we have talked about this model, looking at something like semiconducting material makes the transistor. mr. skorton: here is the rub.
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if you take something that we consider useful and important now and you carefully retrace steps of the science that led that to be enabled, it is a nonlinear path. you could not predict, well, you better study this particular thing, because then you are going to solve some other problem later -- it doesn't work that way in science. you have to make an observation for the sake of understanding, and then some other michael figure out how to put it gather. in that regard, it's very important to recognize that a new thing is happening in the economy in which it's not quite so linear in that fashion. the tech industry is a great example of that where someone can at the same time be developing some concept in the tech sector that a prototype is developed already, and it might even the marketed in some form.
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those steps are open to much shorter-- you implied that when you talk about more modern innovators. that is an argument for 2 different things. an argument to yes, support basic science without having to hang a burden on it, to say we will only supported if it is obvious how it can be turned into a national security or economic development. we have to have the confidence and process that is made the u.s. and ending of the world in higher education and science in general to evil follow their nose in terms of good ideas. -- let people follow their nose in terms of good ideas. at the same time, it's very understandable in a constrained environment that scientists are feeling put upon. they feel put upon for two reasons. one is that the inflation rate of doing the science is not the same market basket of goods and services that the fines a cpi. -- that defines a cpi.
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it has to be vibration free, or health science research. it's true that we are not keeping up with inflation, therefore missing opportunity. i don't know what they are, but we are missing them. second, we have trained a lot of phd's in this country. you can look at the statistics for how many of those are able to get full academic editions -- positions. most of them are not. i hope to attract some of them to the smithsonian as an alternative. but there has been some in balance. we have produced a lot of phd people with terminal degrees. because of funding constraints, we have not kept up with opportunities. that is a delimit we have to think about carefully. it touches on immigration reform, a lot of other issues that we don't have time to talk about today. about sony and, it is true -- about with sony and, with focused on the fusion part and
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not the increased. there are areas where i have no idea even consisted -- existed. i went to visit cambridge, i was giving a brief panel at harvard. i went to visit it. it is unbelievable. >> the astrophysics observatory in cambridge. skorton: not only in cambridge, massachusetts. it also runs the chandra x-ray observatory out in space. it's unbelievable. that is all a fabulous interaction between harvard and the smithsonian. hundreds of scientists figuring out things excites me the most. il-8 science fiction -- i am a science fiction geek. i used to have a sufficient to a magazine called "analog."
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i'm not sure if it's still being published. i used to really enjoy it. maybe that's one of the few things you didn't write yoor edit. [laughter] i found out from a couple of scientists there. there is an instrument we are all working to develop, over 10 institutions, called the giant magellan telescope. and 82 foot diameter telescope. there is an instrument they are developing at the smithsonian observatory. the attempt is to identify oxygen in the environment of a far-off heavily body. that is a sign of life, oxygen. tell you, i was just giddy that some people that are part of the estonian are working on instrument to look for evidence of extraterrestrial life. -- that are part of the
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smithsonian. there are so many examples like that that i am learning every day. >> that is why wanted to get the plug-in. it's not just the pandas, it's the astrophysics. skorton: there is nothing wrong with pandas. >> you are pandering to the pandas, i think. [laughter] the astrophysics observatory is astonishing, something the u.s. needs to do with the magellan. but to talk about how basic science is not necessarily linear. if there was exactly 100 years ago this week that albert einstein went to the prussian academy and gave his first lecture explaining general relativity, and it was just pure science for the sake of science, not bell labs saying we need to amplify the phone signal. just, how does space and time curve and thus create gravity?
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it is an awesomely beautiful thing. it has been 100 years, but now when i pull up my iphone, my daughter is going to be traveling to mexico. and we say, let's share locations. everything from gps to lasers to microchips to how electrons dance on the surface of a solid-state material. all coming from what einstein did just pacing at the prussian academy 100 years ago. we need to nurture that in our society. the place that nurtures it best is the smithsonian. it's wonderful for us in washington and those that love the smithsonian that you are coming down and breathing life into it. we always love to learn something new about somebody. i had known about medical imaging and how you treat teenagers with congenital hearts. what i never knew is that you were a dj and flute player at a
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latin jazz show on the radio in iowa. skorton: i wasn't playing on the radio. if i was playing on the radio, i would have no listeners whatsoever. [laughter] i just put the cd's on. my daughter and the boy she was dating at the time would come to the studio. and i would say, what is the -- what does the youth of america think of this new cut? i would say, don't be silent, they call that dead air, they would change the channel. youth ofwhat do the america think? [laughter] >>
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towe may not show gratitude our men and women in uniform, or those who have achieved great things for humanity, but after 60-70 years we come around and we give credit where it is a do. , they flew "widow makers." pilots they were standing in for, they were afraid because it was nicknamed "the widow maker."
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these women were hand of selected. these women flew those b-26 planes and loved every minute of it. they were an incredible group of ladies. i got to meet them when the congressional medal was bestowed upon them in 2009. that is my drawing. in terms of process, it is a pencil drawing. i might go through 45 different versions. >> thursday, the designing and history of the congressional gold medal, america's highest honor. we hear from the designer, joel iskowitz. that is at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. sunday, former minister --
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former british prime minister tony blair and howard buffett discuss world hunger at the museum at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span has the best access to congress with live coverage of the house and senate. eastern at 10:00 a.m. the only pharmacist serving in congress. then, a new jersey democrat and longtime union electrician. friday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, a california democrat. at 10:30 congress mark walker, a republican. and saturday morning at 10:00 eastern it is congresswoman from california congressman.
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he is a marine. >> next, a demonstration of ibm's artificial intelligence system known as watson. dogg on hisnoop cannabis pop culture media platform. it is one hour and 45 minutes. unenthyou for that usiastic welcome back. [laughter] i appreciate that. it's monday, so we are only going downhill from here. our next guest is very exciting to have him join us on the stage. we talked a little bit about ai. elon is not offend, yuri is.
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-- elon is not a fan. please welcome dr. john kelly from ibm and our moderator. ♪ >> we are going to do a live demo. what are we about to see, and why do we care? >> what you are about to see something that no one else has ever seen, other than those deep in my research labs. many of you remember watson, the artificial intelligence machine on the game of "jeopardy." at the time he was an open domain question and answer system. fast-forward to today, what you're going to see is watson has adjusted all of wikipedia, and not answers questions, but reasons over that and conform
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opinions on any subject. >> so the tech guys can make it turn on for us. the recount. i believe it has in introduction going on first. watson? >> is he going to do with? -- to do it? is it going to happen? >> watson? please start. >> hello and welcome to the imb research demonstration. today we will research some of her keep abilities and generating argument for or against specific topics. to proceed, please select a topic. >> okay, let's go ahead and do on speech. >> skinning for one million wikipedia article. returning 10 most relevant articles. scanned all sentences. ready to deliver.
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thank you for the opportunity to share my view about this interesting topic. it is always good to start with some background. the reliability of wikipedia compared to other encyclopedias and more specialized sources has been assessed in many ways, including statistically through comparative review, analysis, and historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in the editing process unique to wikipedia. my opinion is that wikipedia is reliable. i would like to say a few simple reasons for that. contributors provide identification. another reason is that wikipedia provides better coverage and longer articles in general. these claims are supported by the scientific literature. for example, an early study conducted by ibm researchers in 2003, two years following wikipedia's establishment, found vandalism is usually prepared -- repaired so quickly that most users will never see it.
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wasoncluded that wikipedia surprisingly effective at healing. i hope i have convinced you to support my view, wikipedia is reliable. thank you for listening. >> that is going to make high school kids everywhere so happy. >> so that is good. i am curious, when you in just that much data -- when you ingest that much data, had you formulate questions and answers? do you train it, or does it automatically understand how to pull up different topics from a data set? >> all you do is give it a topic. what you just saw, watson was not trained in that domain. we gave him the corpus of information and wikipedia. we gave him a topic and said, for many opinion on this topic. it went through an organized all the information. it understood the context of all of the passengers in wikipedia,
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took apart all the syntax and reassembled it and machine generated the language. >> how does it understand a concept like honesty or accuracy? how does it understand this concept so that you can actually pick how to argue for some position? >> it looks for multiple scenarios and reinforcing information. for instance, i was surprised to hear a reference to imb research working in that area. found some was it passage in wikipedia, then it went off and validated it was legitimate scientist from ibm research before it would say it. it's constantly looking for verification of what it's about to say. >> is that piece of technology, is that currently something people can use in the market? is it more of a forward-looking thing that you have not released yet? >> its forward-looking which will be available as a service. let me remind you all that i see time of it jeopardy, watson was
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a large computer system in a room. since that time, we have taken watson apart, if you will, lifted it up to the cloud. it's available as a set of services and apis. everyone in this room cannot go out and start to compose their own mini-watsons, if you will, in the application space. >> is it a six-month question, three-year question? how far a week away from having that out? >> this is probably 12-18 months from being in the market. that is a trivial example of the beauty of. remember that in the area of health care, watson has ingested almost all of the world's medical domain. if you give watson a disease topic, it will go into all andished pubmed journals form opinions on diagnoses or drug discoveries. >> i was doing research today and found a funny story. nikita khrushchev actually came
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to an ibm facility in san jose. this was back in the 1950's. they rigged up a computer to ask questions. have you solved it? is it done now? or are you still making progress? >> that is a great question. prior to watson, everyone in the artificial intelligence community had tried to solve open to me question and answer by writing a month of rules. rules based learning, or organizing research. that had very limited success. it wasn't until we took a full open to me statistical approach -- open domain statistical approach that watson was able to answer questions in open domain. >> on that point, i have heard more about ai and computing in the last six months than the last six years.
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it seems that there is a moment going on in this space. why are we seeing innovation and growth so quick now? what has changed in our approach? >> we are at the proverbial perfect storm. much of the world's information is now digitized, including natural language and areas like health care, law, etc.. computers can now access it. we now have the computing power to do something like you just saw. we did not have met a few years ago. >> just the raw capability. >> yeah, and what has really changed in the area of artificial intelligence is areas like machine learning, statistical analysis are now advanced to the point where we can do things like you saw there. that was not the case a few years ago. >> machine learning is one of the things watson can use. it's one of its building blocks. >> that is right. think of watson as a whole series of statistical learning engines. it's not one thing.
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and it's constantly computing and trying to learn over information. we do not program watson. we give watson data were better data -- or better data, but we do not reprogram it. we give it better algorithms, but we don't reprogram how it operates. >> you give it a stronger brain over time, but you don't tell it what to think. >> no, it learns over the information. >> i brought some with us today. when you got to pitch developers watson in new york, what is your core pitch? >> the interesting thing is that it's such a powerful technology, i don't have to give a sales pitch. they immediately go into, how can i use this? can you give me an api to do a certain set of services? i was up at mit and they are blown away by it. they have been working at ai and
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machine learning for decades. they are just using the services that are coming out of this. we have opened up the platform. there are hundreds of start up companies. ibm informed a $100 million fund to bring additional players onto the platform. >> so if you want a check, you should grab you offstage. >> middle of a progress in watson over the last 18 months. been impressive, has it been slow, or what you have expected? >> it has been exponential. we're running as fast as we can to keep up with demand. not just for developers, but for investors. even large enterprises are using it to transform areas of their business. old respectedry company. the history, lots of work. it's not snapped at or facebook.
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-- snapchat or facebook. do you think you have the share you need in silicon valley to attract other developers to your company? or are you still fighting off that stodgy pocket protector kind of image? no offense. >> we do not have the mind share here. it's growing exponentially. but if you listen carefully later this week, you will hear things from us that will reinforce our commitment to the developer community. i would also remind you that when you think about the arrows of computing, the first was tabulating machines. -- the eras of computing. that was in the early 1940's. then we had programmable systems. every computer today, every device today is programmable. watson is not a programmable system. it's a learning system. it's the first of a third era of
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computing. i will remind you that ibm played an important role in the first and second eras of computing. we will play a key role in the third era of computing. >> this is a good segue. who is her main come edition -- who is your main cover edition? >are there any big players tryig to encroach on your territory? there are a lot of great people working in the area of ai and cognitive computing. most are developing single algorithms for solutions to solve some problem, to improve search. >> a very narrow solution. >> they are narrow solutions. we are the only company that has developed a complete platform, open api, that ability -- the ability to innovate on top of this. if i had to make a prediction, for every innovation coming out of ibm research and development labs, there will be 100 or thousands of pieces of innovation that will occur on
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top of it. that is what we want. yes, we are in old company. for watson on a regular basis? >> we do a value share platform. >> aws charges by usage. why did you pick that model? >> the first decision we made, we still could sell lots of watson boxes. but we decided we wanted to open a platform up and make it as a service, knowing where the club is going. -- were the cloud was going. that was a strategic decision for us. then it came to, do you charge by the click or not? because this is a learning system and is becoming smarter, it's important that we share the value with our partners and customers. >> have you had any pushback
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from developers? we want to pay on more of a click basis? >> no, it is a shared risk. for developers, you come on for free, develop your business. as you are you revenue, then we sure that. but we want an easy on-ramp. we want to get going. we think is very fair. >> is watson going to be a key revenue driver for imb going forward? >> we have a set of strategic initiatives in the company. watson is part of our analytics business, which is part of a $17 billion double-digit high-growth business. watson is the fastest-growing component of our analytics business. >> now we can talk about the future. >> thank god. >> i'm going to presume that you don't think that ai is going to end mankind as we know it. there has been some talk about what this looks like, and should we be worried. do we build defense against
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this? this seems relatively benign and more industrial than progressive. >> when any new technology comes along, people get scared. technology can do great things were not so great things. it depends on how we use and control it. whether that was the steam engine, automobiles, x-rays, you name it. this is a brand-new technology. it's going to change the world. there is no question in my mind. we think about what this technology can do, fundamentally if you look at decisions that human beings make, we make decisions with a bias. we make decisions on incomplete information. i believe that nearly or perhaps every decision that would make of any importance in the future will be made with a watson by our side. >> does not letting the computer making our own choices, it's giving options that we can select from. it's more of a addition. >> that is right. didsimple demonstration we
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around wikipedia. think about watson where it has ingested all the world's information on drug therapies for cancer. i don't know about you, but if i had cancer, government, and the cancer board was meeting to decide what chemotherapy they were going to give me, i would want watson to have gone through it. to be sitting at that cancer board to augment the decision. say hey, guess what, you may want to rethink that based on this piece of information. or, here's a new con to the procedure. >> as watson gets smarter will they be more leaders in our lives? will we handle off stuff to watson? -- hand off stuff to watson? >> there will always be moral decisions, labor death, where it will be a joint decision. we as humans will always have
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the control of position. as time goes on, more and more decisions will allow the system to make. think about the internet of things when we need constant responses in milliseconds. making that in real-time versus waiting for me to digest something in seconds or minutes. >> in our daily lives, in 5-10 years, does watson power experiences we already use? or is it a standalone product that i would talk to? >> it's going to be a combination. it will be literally everywhere. it will be powering things that you just take routine in your daily life. if you are buying something, watson will be behind that, enhancing your experience. it will also be visible in many of your applications. you are "if, or you want -- you are being creative, and you just don't have the time. it will be both visible and
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highly invisible, both ubiquitous in every thing we do. >> but to be fair, you want watson to be a brand name and technology. will i have a watson sticker on my phone? >> watson is already the premier brand in ai. not something we set out to do, but through the demonstrations in jeopardy and whatnot, they have already had brought -- broad recognition. as we move forward, we will decide whether we want to do "powered by watson." we opened up a new division of ibm around watson. >> health care vertical. >> stand up a new divisions around education, the internet of things. as watson becomes capable of operating in those domains, we will bring him into those areas. >> before we go, humor me with this last question. was there a moment where you and
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wow,team were like "oh that actually works." how did i come to be? -- did that come to be? >> on the journey to jeopardy back in 2001, there was a point of time -- in 2011, there was a point in time in 2009 when watson made a quantum jump in its ability to learn questions. at that point, i remember sitting in my conference room looking at the demonstration. i said, we have something that is going to change the world. it was shocking. >> did people you back then? -- people doubt you? they they agree with you at the time that this would be a watershed moment? >> yes. obviously my research team had hydrogens. they were very focused on the q&a machine. -- had high ambitions. this is not just another computer system.
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this is a new era of computing. >> but no zombies, no apocalypse, no matrix? >> it's only going to help us with complex decisions. >> thanks. [applause] >> man, this room is filling up. you are here to hear the investor talk, aren't you? how many on maneuvers are in the room? so all of you. listen up all of you. maybe you can shut your laptops and learn something. these are the folks that are going to give you money. please welcome our guests.
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big round of applause. [applause] ♪ >> i am so glad to have this great panel. i will roll into things and ask you a hypothetical. say i am this supersmart entrepreneur. i have a great product, i live in maybe austin. everyone is telling me i have to move to san francisco. is that true? money if you're raising from greg croft. >> why is that? >> i think 82% of our investments have been outside silicon valley. we are finding opportunities everywhere. i think there are great growth pockets in austin, new york, ellie, seattle, all over the
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world. >> i think it depends. if you are based in austin or l.a. and you have a network with a recruiting advantage, then it might make sense to stay. like there is expertise that you need that doesn't exist in the market you are in, the bay area is quantitatively the best place to found companies. >> is not getting too expensive though? -- isn't it getting too expensive though? being based in san francisco at this point cuts your runway in half. he said, if you live in san mateo, oakland, you can get so much more mileage out of your fundraising. does that change things? spendlong as you don't all of your money on candy bars, you are fine. do think you can
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found a company anywhere. the challenge is scaling back company to the next level. you can find great individual contributors. you can find great designers, great product people in any country, in any city, in any town. once you start to scale, let's say it's working and you starts to hit 100 people on the team. you have folks that are not up from theut 2 frontlines. back is difficult the further you are from the bay area. -- that gets difficult the further you are. experiences,t of
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especially on the consumer side. it only exists here. there are certain cities in the l.a.,-- new york, increasingly in europe, you are starting to see some of that second generation experience. if you are in tuscaloosa, you are going to have a tough time finding that locally. more importantly, a tough time attracting someone who has that experience to move there. if you're in a global city where people are willing to move, and i think l.a. and new york counts. austin i think is on the edge. it has some livability that makes it attractive to people. it doesn't have the same ecosystem for what people do next. that is something people care about. that is the key question. if you can't attract people who
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are willing to move to your city, you have to consider moving your headquarters to a place where those people already are. network --ou have a i would argue l.a. might have the most talented people in the media business out of anywhere in the world. dynamics ofand the that market better than anywhere. if you are starting a digital media company in san francisco, you will be creating -- you would be recruiting executives from l.a. it depends on the network you bring. any great entrepreneur has to be a pied piper and be able to recruit people anywhere, whether you are in reykjavik or in chicago. we have seen great companies in both of those places. that is a huge part of it, to pick a vision and tell a story that attracts people anywhere.
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>> what about new sections of technology? maybe i will segue into asking what you're looking at that you were not a couple of years ago. i don't know if there is a virtual reality headquarters. >> john. we just announced this morning, we and disney: an investment in john, the virtual reality company based in palo alto along leadcmc, a chinese investment platform. it's the combination of both technology and innovation that you find here any specific expertise on related to content and distribution that you would find in disney. caa.n
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the a combination of l.a.-shanghai media landscape married to the technology innovation here. most of the most interesting technology innovations are happening here. channels areng happening elsewhere. it is the combination of both. funded anything in the last couple of years that you were not have imagined funding a couple of years ago? >> we are looking at a lot of things that, 2-3 years ago, we would not be looking at. the food category known was looking at 3-4 years ago. now it is a $1 trillion plus market. looking at drones. , we have been starting to look at more health-care related things. capital,akes a lot of
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it's probably not a great fit for us. when things become increasingly consumerized, i think it can make more sense for investment. that is been challenging for us. i have been hearing a lot more about health care and a core sciencies. holland is a take for you to get up to speed on a new sector? -- how long does it take you? haven't done anything in it, so i can't speak to it. but what are the big sectors that we see? i think that the punch maneuvers --entrepreneurs see opportunities. it's hard to predict the future.
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it's easier to just observe the present and see what is working, then trying to suspend judgment. "oh, that is just for kids, oh, that is not going to scale." predicting the future is very difficult. insultingd recently that is given us tremendous growth on the back of social media. it was not tell you going to be a big driver, that this was the right time. none of that made sense. the point is, all we need to do is recognize it, see who the leaders were, and suspended
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judgment. saying, it's not silly, it's actually a meaningful thing. having the context matching and say, okay, this fits into a lens of self-expression at has a truth matter of e-mail signature files through aim buddy icons and myspace propos pages. you can start to see that connection. that is where having a sense as to where things are going based on where things have come from is important. here is whereing, the opportunities are going to be. >> we have a slightly different model. we work with investors as partners along with the entrepreneurs that they back. we invest with industries with a long track record. we are the largest health-care investor in the world. biotechnology companies, drug
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discovery companies, ally, format, etc.. it gives you a different perspective and allows us to be a strategic partner to companies. we tend to find ourselves not competing with venture firms or earlier stage investors, but rather coming and when we can be a real partner. we got involved with uber and airbnb, we can and because the object newer wanted a partner that was global and had deep industry capabilities. allowednally they have us to scale. we are jumping in the boat and helping them row as opposed to being particularly wise at where things are going to unfold at the earlier stage. >> a lot of people don't realize tbg growth was a large investor in airbnb and uber. cbg asf people think of
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one of these firms that drives valuations. what do we do here? it is obviously a problem. are you writing bigger checks? are you writing fewer checks? we are at the beginning of the supply chain of venture capital. for us, this year we have been slower to invest. are yearslysis, there that have lots of great new ideas. last year and the year before were better ideas. ideas are looking for higher valuations. the punch newer -- entrepreneurs that are looking
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for rich valuations to realize they could be setting themselves on the wrong trajectory for the rest of their life. we try and balance the fact that sometimes the valuation doesn't matter if you are in on some thing big. you don't want to set the company up for failure because it started out too expensive. this year seems like a great year for companies starting a couple years ago. we have not been super active this year. we are looking for bright ideas at the right valuations. >> agreed. there has been a significant increase in number of violations, but those levels are relatively constant. -- in number of valuations. today, theo pre-money valuations have essentially doubled. that is not healthy for the overall ecosystem.
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that is where you sit back. when you look at average exits going back 30 years, 90 plus percent being at $105 million, the math gets tough. there is the reality factor that plays in. we think about that a lot. in the markets where we invest more heavily, some geographies tend to have more valuation discipline, just a lower supply of capital. >> are there any factors that are better deals? certainly people are interested in synthetic biology, something relatively undiscovered. >> we have continued to invest
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in e-commerce companies at a time when he has been relatively out of favor. never been a has better time to start a new brand. when you look at the market and look what millennial's are driving, it's a completely different brand message. you can just change your messaging. marketing through a completely different channel. is not television and newspaper. you can't spend at big volume on a lot of each other channels. evenook and instagram are old now. no better time to start a new brand. if they have great economics and a great value proposition and a great brand, we think they are a great opportunity. >> there has never been a better time to be an object newer -- entrepreneur.
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>> were talking about ipos. he said there was a private-public confluence. you said that when i change. -- that would not change. at the same time, everyone on this panel wants their public -- their company to go public and julie. are we deluding ourselves? question. a big you are talking about $50 billion that has entered the market to invest that was not here before. so far this year, $7 billion of capital invested from historically public investors. $11 billion invested last year. all of which allowing companies to raise capital at a scale that is unprecedented. which allows for it deferral, the ultimate public reckoning, if you will. >> there was a time when this
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happened before. >> except even then, if you look ipo's9, 29% of all doubled in value the first day of trading. 1% of ipo's have done that this year. 29% versus 1%. this isn't a public double today. --bubble today. the bubble is largely private. if the gas gets let out of the bubble, it will be in a slow way. the public market has not been participating. do we see public investors to speak? of course. -- public investors participate? of course. there is liquidity. ipo's have happened at corrective values. >> in this case, is the correction hitting a wall?
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>> it's a funny thing. if you are a private company and see this correction happening, it's much worse for founders and employees to have a correction happen as a private company then a public company. you have preferences from all these investors that have put in all this money, who are looking to get made whole before any proceeds go to employees and founders. if you're public, the math changes a little bit. all of the preferences go away. everyone has the same stock. if there are fluctuations, everyone shares in them equally. markets,y private where folks with preferences and those that might you like they have overpaid -- might feel like they have overpaid are going to have much different preferences.
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now you have better access to additional capital as a public company. and you have employees and founders in a more beneficial situation if there is a correction. it's interesting there has been this reticence to go public for companies able to do so. [yelling in background] >> sorry, i'm having trouble hearing you. >> we have to get that guy up on the panel. >> i was at a talk last week bout sometalked a companies whose unit economics he didn't understand. he did not imply they were doomed. there are 150 companies evaluated at more than $150 billion.
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are there any names that you can offer? a company that you don't know what its fate will be, but you don't understand it's economics. >> i will not name a name, because that would be indiscreet. but we have to try to make investments where 100% of the investments work given the scale of the checks we are providing. if you look back at 1992 and you made 100 investments and it was in the tech sector, unit of making a 20% return on your capital by the time you exited 10 years later in 2002. but it would be-concentrated in a microsoft and intel. if you could invest across a basket of unicorns, as eileen contended in 2013, you would do just fine.
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you have a few of these companies that do extraordinarily well, but there will be a lot of roadkill and companies that don't survive. their unit economics don't work. ultimately in rising markets, people don't ask the hard questions about cash flow generation, unit you know, leverage of scale, etc.. they focus on revenue. and we have all learned this lesson before. ultimately, they have to get to a place to generate cash, and valuations are ultimately about cash flow. i have about 20 more questions, and we have to get going. thank you so much. [applause] ♪ anchor: and we're going to go to lunch. just kidding.
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you guys are all here. what are you excited about? i'm going to do this part of my job and relish it. please welcome to the stage snoop dogg. ♪ snoop: what's up? anchor: we go way back. wherever you like. actually, you are going to sit in the middle. you are here. snoop yes. anchor: it is all happening. live, and in the flesh. you have been investing a while now. first of all, if i invest, it has to be something that is fun and amazing.
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i associate myself with it, and that is what i am looking for when i do invest. of your in terms investing, are you reinvesting with some plan in mind? are you seeking something out? in the beginning, it was investing for creativity, and then there were things that i like. for example, the cannabis industry. i saw things in that field and saw that there are things that were missing, so i thought the best thing i could do was to develop my own system and get in on that side. something, and you might want to tell us a little bit about that? snoop: it is called mary jane. helpn watch a video to show.
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if you do not mind, we would like to show you a little clip. [video clip] snoop: in the world, mainstream cannabis. let's modernize and communicate. people all around the world use cannabis, and there is a global scale. in 2015, cannabis was named the fastest growing industry in the united states, set to reach $11 million per year by 2019. -- $11 billion per year by 2019. fashion, global music and sport, and today, mary jane cannabis. mary jane cannabis 2.0. for thew generation cannabis culture for all. jane has the global
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cultivation of cannabis. jane for everyone as the center of cannabis lifestyle. jane haslly, merry tools to bring together consumers and businesses in a streamlined fashion online. it is a revolutionary way to discover all products for a new era of consumption, and it is for main street to find premier locations. has that cannabis is part of our daily lives. merry jane is at the helm of the move. [end video clip] [applause] a whole new world ♪
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ok. what kind of partnerships are we going to see or the network effects are we going to see? think this is probably the priority we are doing in the cannabis space. obviously, we have been at the helm of this movement globally, and the time is just right. we saw, and as you mentioned, a huge tranche with the way that the conversation is around cannabis and what is provided for the community, and for those who are touched by cannabis and want to learn more about it. it just was not available, and it was not done authentically. there was a certain sophisticated standard of content, which is really our expertise, along with some of
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the partners that we have in this space, like my good buddy joining us in the content space. he will provide us with some content, and you can find some great content from mr. ch ung on the merry jane site. the and then there was miley cyrus helping brand merry jane during one of the gets, so it is getting the top-tier theuencers and sharing modern situation around cannabis. jordan: this seems like an obvious question, but, snoop, why do you like cannabis so much? i mean, it has been such a huge part of your brand. i want to know why?
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snoop: for one, i enjoyed it for medical reasons. [laughter] jordan: trouble sleeping? snoop: every time i have been around it, i have seen beautiful things happen. love, peace, happiness, and i have always been an advocate for it. it is more educational and and it gives off more than just me trying to smoke and to give you an explanation. ityou want to learn about come we provide you all of the information. it is an encyclopedia to the cannabis world. jordan: well, what kind of we expect to see?
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i know you said there would be celebrities, but there are editorials, videographers. what you expect from this kind of content? ted: there really is a diverse range and we are talking about cultural content. we have a cooking show, food, and a bunch of series coming out, and to kind of expand further, the great thing about the cannabis industry beyond its medical benefits and social benefit, the job creation -- we're talking about a business that is going to be in the $19 billion range, and that is just in a few years. there was over a billion dollars in colorado last year alone. and then the board of education. where else in america are you going to see a cultural revolution like with cannabis, and that is a beautiful thing about what we are doing.
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it is a movement, and the integration into what and as far as, series, we do have one thing to show you really quick. opportunity to meet captain mike owens and a sergeant from a charity that helps veterans reintegrate into is aorkforce, and this very cool, one on one interview series, where people enjoy cannabis and share a new life experience that they have, so if we could roll that, we will show everyone. [video clip] mike: i am mike, a former marine captain. marine am a former infantry sergeant.
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♪ mike: i can tell you the first time i pre-much discovered alternate medicine. being in the military, you have to operate. coming home, that white noise is deafening. there is the transition to the out of military, and i did not properly transmission. path and went to the veterans administration. here is what has been given to you. here you go. i went into a diabolical downward spiral. i saw it was not a route i wanted to take. him and, the same pathway.
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i was taking a significant amount of medicine for anxiety. i could not function on a daily basis. i was not in the gym. i was not healthy. i knew that i had to change what i was doing because i was not going to be around for too much longer. mike: i went on a retreat down in asian beach. and one of the things i saw teaches you about how medical cannabis with massage there be and healing, all of that for stress, and it is extremely beneficial. matt: there is so much medicine that veterans are on these days, it is overwhelming.
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mike: i would not say drug. the only medication that has beneficial results. >> and being able to take control of your own mental health. ♪ [end video clip] jordan: wow. awesome. congrats on that. i do want to move to a slightly lighter in it. my mind onsly said money, money on my mind. what is the terms of the business model for merry jane? is the more to be expected? advertising is definitely a part of the model and content integration. the huge opportunity here
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beyond, and most importantly opening up the doors to the real discussion for serious content and news, and then we have lighter content and humor content. there will be music videos. others are helping us curate that and put it together. the business itself, which is multi-billions, does not have a definite destination to share. sharing what they want to communicate, and the retail locations really do not have a place that has repeat usage, where they can accurately provide that information and medical staff and expert staff on the products that they offer, so we will definitely be at the helm of that when we launch.
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it sounds like legalization, right, but the industry and the country is changing pretty rapidly. you support legalization, i would assume. stand very high on legalization around america. it is necessary. thing.doing their you look at all of the medical studies, people saving their lives, and the kids, helping with seizures. it is just doing a lot of great things. it, and i just want to see it legalized. jordan: even though the costs are going up for the end user? they are making so much money, and they are putting it back into the schools and the community. the crime rate is dropping. it is helping out with the situation we have right now, just staying alive, staying strong. i am looking at what it is doing
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for colorado. what kind of what would we be living in? jordan: you have a channel on youtube, and it is very, very successful. you have been kind of a media mogul for a long time. jane,ou launched merry what you learned for being so embedded in that space, especially youtube, and what content is going to be brought over to merry jane? snoop: just the connection, the ability to get feedback. what they like and what they do not like. a hotline, and information hotline for the people without a wall in the way. that is the benefit of social media these days. they are more like my family. i do not call them fans. jordan: in terms of getting jane,rt for merry
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obviously, you are a huge brand on your own and can do your own promotion, but what about that? ted: -- snoop: we do what we do. we want get with some of the top people who know what they are doing. there is the information hotline. the cannabis. what it is for me. the grand professor. the face of the game. do you day? jordan: i dig, snoop. ted: you look at the competitive space, there are a few companies out there who have tried to enter into the marketplace, and arer page view totals numbers that we're going to crush within the first six
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months, so even today, you can e. and wec are inviting about 420 people in dayom, into our site. and we have tens of thousands of sign-ups. i think the interest level and the demand is there. it is just about people coming ,o the forefront, like snoop and providing the site in the media platform to take cannabis to the next level. you guys have been smoking, it feels like, forever, and your brand is high up in marijuana. merry jane,e with the whole idea is the mainstream version of cannabis, right, whether cooking or use a or whatever it might be, but it is tied up in other things, not as a standalone kind of product.
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andn your history with it, the fact that you seem to be prepping for the future, what does the future look like in five or 10 years with regards to cannabis? it gives me great pride and honor to say that merry jane will bring people out of the closet, because there are so many people in the closet right now that do what we do. they really want to come out, so now we are going to give them the opportunity to come out. show, watching this, are just being down with the site in general. a world where everybody comes out of the closet admits that they like to smoke. admit it. my name dispute.com, and i am a stoner. dogg, and is snoop am a stoner. jordan: how many here? be proud? in the closet, that
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is ok. it is ok. we are going to make a way to get you all out of the closet. jordan: snoop, you have conquered a number of articles. you have built an empire. stay on an island and get yourself a nice treasure chest full of green? why do anything, right? snoop: it is a challenge. i have always felt like i am a genius, and i have wanted to challenge myself. the right opportunities for me and my team. longe been pushing for so to make people understand what it is and why i love it so much.
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and around the whole world, international, 24/7, seven days a week. and to see if i am still great at what i do. jordan: other day when we were e wouldg, that merry jan be influential not just to those who smoke but it would touch everyone's lives. does not have any interaction with cannabis ever. like how does it affect her life? ted: well, she might want to ask you about it. as long as you inspire communication in any vertical, bennett some point you in your mother can have that conversation, and if she does ne is themerry ja perfect place to be while learning about it. flexible and connects over
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onlye database, not flowers, but what we call marijuana induced products, and we provided oil, and an experience. it is interesting you talked about your mother. and if she is interested. all of the other sites or apps that do exist, they are from a vantage point that might even be a little standoffish for a female fan or consumer, and with that in mind, since we started out, we had kind of our initial women,r the site, in yesterday i was walking around, and what is the name of the program? shorten: it is built by girls. especially the female
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audience, because they are actually at the highest rate, and this will bring everyone into the discussion so that we can really kind of elevate the presentation and do something cannabis 2.0 that no one has ever done before. jordan: time for my last question. snoop or snoop dogg. we are just going to go with snoop. we are going to leave the last name out until i can figure out this tech. merry jane launches in october. is that correct? ted: we are letting people into the beta site. by the way, you know the address of this location is 420. we plan to that.
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we planned that. yes, we launched in october. come check it out. we want to make the experience better and better, it will be available online. author. guys, a big round of applause for ted and snoop. and i will get to you in a minute. ♪ jordan: all right. i am feeling good. you guys feeling good? absolute silence. you guys were laughing at everything snoop said. all right. whatever. our next guest was at the techcrunch, the first one that we did, and he was working on a context, a russian word i cannot
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guest: i checked, and it was 12. mike: 12 million messages a day by telegram. in a world where there are so many other messaging platforms. avel: that is a good question, but to put it simply, it does not matter how many messaging apps are out there. : what about for you? sucks?whatsapp pavel: i can elaborate on that. mike: sure. in 2016, and we were supposed to have flying cars and that by now.
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mike: jet packs. pavel: it is over. you cannot send documents with big media. , with your communication, so i am not sure i was a big fan of whatsapp. mentioned privacy, and you made a big claim about telegrams, their ability to be encrypted. amean, that is obviously laudable claim, especially with , butoing on in the world it a sense, where is the business proposition in encryption? pavel: i had a friend. back when i was living in
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russia, i had a friend, and she was talking about the whatsapp messages in the police department, so they lifted her , and she told me that they tried to use it to blackmail her, so privacy is not just for businesses. ,hich people can be blackmailed and their information is more valuable. mike: so you're saying that you retain users because they trust you. pavel: that is just one of the things that makes the telegrams different. mike: describe that to us and how that might become such a significant part of what it is. this is a third-party developer.
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developer third-party , you could communicate with telegram, and on the other and of medications, there is a machine that is doing all of the and someon that side, have appeared using that paradigm or communication, , and ion, productivity that onenly yesterday of the most successful parts of digitatform had eight acquisition attempts. it is only like three months old. so you are saying --
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in other words, there are startups launched on the platform that could end up being acquired in their own rights? pavel: they can break out. mike: and like telegram. that eventually current third-party developers might make money in this way? pavel: all of the third-party could do it easily with users in telegram. mica: it is something new in , withof advertising channels for brands. pavel: that is already happening, unfortunately. i am not a big fan of ads.
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receiving messages. it is already happening. there are third-party ad agencies dealing with this. mike: what you are developing. pavel: it is only three months old. what we have seen, we are happy about. pavel: you have clearly made you have clearly made some compromises on the platform and there have been reports that you have met with and shutan government down some porn bots. can you confirm that for us? mica pavel: i cannot confirm the first part. tsdo say that we block porn bo
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where it is prohibited. the ones we block start to reappear in the form of bots. mica: this is happening in iran ? arabia.ran, iraq, saudi we got users we did not want. we are not big fans of porn. so, we do block these kinds of things. mica: you make a is there a secret behind the negotiations with these governments? pavel: no. we do it for business decisions and we do not do it in confirmed markets and we do not want to be
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perceived as something with porn . this is the same reason behind apple's decision to block porn. decision toram's block porn. we think this is the right thing to do. we can speak about privacy, freedom of speech. we have adamant principles about it. we have over two years of existence and we have not disclosed a single piece of data to third parties, including governments. it was not easy. as for freedom of speech, like i that if there is a bot criticizes government or opposition activity, we would never block such a bot. aca: you famously credited contact in russia at the facebook of russia.
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you, controversially, were told to get out of that by forces aligned with the government. is that the case? pavel: that is roughly true. mica: roughly true? which part is true and which is not. --is not? is not? pavel: it is true and rough. mica: there are incredible stories that you were framed for a car accident and that you are put under political pressure. nothing out of the ordinary in russia. believe me. and i am no different from the rest of them. mica: you have now become a
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resident and go around the world dressed in black, living a nomadic lifestyle. how'd you managed to continue to run a company in this way, moving around the planet, trying to evade authorities? you feel like a target? pavel: not so much. that, when ifeel go in and out of the country, that, it is a good question. we are a small team. we cannot afford to rent houses in the short-term all over the world. we spend a summer in finland. pavel: you rented a house -- mica: you rented a house in finland. pavel: yes. it was absently great. some of the guys say that we outsourced some of this by supportnd the customer
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was through europe and, other than that, there is a small team of 15. we like to travel and we want to use the opportunity. mica: you had to raise money. you took $300 million from the sale of the share. is that correct? cannot confirm the number. i was very lucky. mica: higher or lower? pavel: i was able to get out before the market crashed and it was before the events broke out and it was extremely fortunate. mica: that would have affected the value. that, the events broke out in the local currency went down. the value of the company was 3-4
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times slower than it used to be. mica: facebook would eventually take over. pavel: i am not sure. struggling to remain relevant because of the mobile apps protecting users. trap -- snap chat and apps like that. mica: any board meeting you have with outside investors might, you know, the in shambles, because you move around the planet so much. pavel: we like to be independent, at this point. we think there is more than market shares and revenue streams. mica: i mean, do you have enough money to last for a while? pavel: yes.
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definitely. mica: you can build out the platform as you see it. pavel: yes. -- i mean, in a way, is this a revenge on putin? secure messaging. i'm not focused on revenge. it is ironic that a lot of high-profile people use telegram . i am happy with that. russia is the number seven market for us, in terms of size of the telegram echo system -- ecosystem. it is not important if we are big, small, or blocked in russia. we have been there as a company that owns the russian market. this is not a new challenge.
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mica: can you go back to russia? pavel: i can. i was in russia for my mom's birthday. i can go in and out of the country. nobody seems to care, these days, because they have other things to be worried about. mica: so, you are not so high profile. pavel: not anymore. d my rights to a social network in russia. they should not be worried about me, at this point. i try to spend as little time as i can in russia because i want to see other places. pavel: you like to travel -- mica: you like to travel. does it concern you that isis uses telegram? pavel: they do. mica: does that concern you? pavel: that is a good question. mica: do you sleep well knowing
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that terrorists use the platform? pavel: you know, that is a good question. i think that privacy, ultimately, and the right to thancy, is more important our fear of bad things happening, like terrorists. there is a war going on in the middle east with a series of tragic events. will alwaysisis find a way to communicate. and, if any means of communication turns out to be not secure, they will switch to another one. so, i do not think we are action taking part in these activities and i do not think we should be guilty or feel guilty about it. i think we are doing the right thing, protecting privacy.
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mica: you think they would be using something else? pavel: absolutely. there is open source you can build and making christian and install them. and thel available technology is there. it is up to us how we use it. kik raised millions of dollars to build out more of an asian-style messaging platform, where you can order a car or purchase goods. you can order pizza on chen -chen. is that where you want to go with telegram? platform, notg just messaging, but also, other services, as well. pavel: yes and no.
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you have to have high penetration in markets. you have to be socially relevant for everybody. caseit is not always the with apps like telegram and kik, like you mentioned. we are big in some of the markets and number one in a couple of them. we do not have the dominance that is in china, japan, or korea. so, we will experiment with a payment system and a third-party application to build on top of telegram. we do not feel it is going that way in the near future. pavel: isn't there 8 -- mica: isn't there a danger that you become an also-ran? it is useful for messaging and
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there is not much more. yeah, the interesting thing that we noticed is that ram lastho sold teleg year and this year used it as the primary messaging application and that is why we see a huge increase in the activity. andave them delivered daily this is an indicator that people really love telgegram. more often than not, they start their day on the messaging app. that we should be happy we are definitely in the right place.
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what are the next big points you want to get to? when will you be at 100 million? pavel: we are getting there. something that is discouraging about getting the users is that you always get compared with the older messaging apps. this, theyovering say you have 70-100,000,000 and this is a far cry from 800-900,000,000. they do not take into account that we are that old. if you start comparing telegram companies, these are huge numbers. we are not big fans of announcing numbers. we will look with interest
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for the last 10 years. it is not a common thing to be someone with a medical background and get into vc. in medicine and did not know what a venture capitalist was. i had a long way to go. my career andd in developed new therapies for diseases that are in better en and i ended up at amg the board members were venture capitalists and they started to teach me about what they did, introducing me and the rest was history. i love building companies and ing entrepreneurs. >> there is interest in things that it biology. -- in synthetic biology. what have you seen from interest with co-investors?
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know, in the world, there has been a specialized space to invest in and there are a lot of people who are traditional biotech investors to come out of banking, business development, science degrees. we are seeing some of the tech firms investing in traditional biotech. there was an announcement we could go with peter keele, who inch -- who invested in a a tremendoushas opportunity to change the way diseases are treated by using technology. it is easier to relate to now. >> you have said before that this is the last industry for technology disruption. what do you mean by that? >> if you look at everything else that we do in our lives, whether it is paying for things andrdering our goods
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transportation, there has been health care, which is the last biggest industry to be disrupted. we spend 3 trillion a year on health care. when you go to a physician, you see computers and it is still really behind the times. it is a green field now. >> why do you think there is such an interest in a more wild science? insertinge, ,harmaceutical drugs, opiates why do you think this is a time when it is happening? >> it is about the tools and it
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has always been about the tools thehave to understand levels going on and the human and wewas sequenced understood what we did not understand before, taking it to the next level. parts ofsert different genes that allow them to behave differently in areas, like cancer, with something called t-cells. andare taking a t-cell engineering it with a new receptor that goes to where the cancer is and cures patients with diseases like a cute looking -- acute leukemia.
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it is a dream as a physician to have the impact on disease. i am not sure -- i was not sure we would see it in my lifetime. now, i imagine what else we could see. >> people go through chemotherapy and lose the hair. we have a barbaric way of getting rid of cancer. >> the way we have treated cancer is a blunt instrument. we used a giant hammer to kill the disease. you are killing all the cells. now, it is targeted. if feels like a tumor at a time. we are learning about the origin of the tumor and the genetic profile of the cancer. it allows us to engineer specific drugs and therapies to treat the diseases. it is remarkable. which you focus
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on focuses on their piece that do not affect everybody. the are you seeing that has ability to change medicine overall? >> let's take it from different levels. if we look at therapeutics, there is an area where people are interested in and i have no idea if it will change medicine. it takes advantage of what we asw is living in us individual organisms and how it affects health and disease. there are people who think about how we use the data and the analytics to understand how the micro biome can impact. it is early and it could be something impactful. if we think about how medicine is practiced and how it is going
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to the future, where you get the doctor, it, see the is changing. we to think about the doctor's office, the hospitals, the emergency room. we think the cell phones and smartphones. we think of retail, going into target. there is a clinic waiting. engagementout social that allows understanding diseases. consuming think about health care is different and is changing. >> it is interesting. the smartphone becomes the clinic. you can hook in your smartphone and there are certain things out there. on a stick and you said it's your doctor. -- you send it to your doctor.
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there are ideas that we are waiting on for approval. >> there is an idea we are looking forward to. it is a thermometer. it is the most common medical device use in the country and it is a technology that allows you to have on demand at the moment you need. it is transformative. they have an interaction with the physician, instead of running their kids to the emergency room. they have the local cbs or rite aid pharmacy and they can understand what is going on in the community, doing crowdsourcing of the diseases. it changes the way that we think about dealing with illness in the community.
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a small example. these beforelot of we even see them. what are some of the wilder ones we are starting to see? >> we see a lot of things data toto using discover things that, i am not sure are a big data problem. what drug will work for what disease? it would be nice to think that you could analyze a set of data and figure it out. to me, it goes away from basic biology and assumes it is all computational. >> we have talked about this. it is a huge problem that no one knows how to fix. patches to thef problem and not a solution.
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what needs to happen for us to actually have a solution integrated in the hospital and people truly communicating with their doctors in an on-demand the wholeughout country? >> there is a lot that needs to happen. the first is building the pipes. you have to have places for data flow and have it he ubiquitous. it cannot be interpreted. it is still in silos. the government is doing that and they are saying that every hospital and practitioner has to have electronic medical records. get the data out there. it is then ubiquitous and we have access to it on our phones and computers. the analytics are up in the clouds and that is where we will see the changes.
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we are seeing hundreds of pitches from entrepreneurs who are unencumbered with the old carel nature of the health , the hospitals, and the provider offices. they are basically ignoring that in a good way and they are coming off with different technologies that you can use that allow you to understand your health. hopefully, it will be communicated back. >> you will have this opportunity in a few short years where you have people communicating with their doctors about all sorts of things, rather than waiting on bureaucratic hospitals to get back the results. we see what happens and we will
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keep things more instant. >> let's lose another example of tackling onet is of the most important and highest priced diseases in the nation, diabetes. you want it to go up and you think about onstar for your health. you have to measure glucose multiple times a day. if you do not, you have terrible consequences. it is a pain to do. systemvelop a integrated and they go up instantly. they have diabetic nurses who will call you the moment the glucose is too high and too low
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and they will give you the information you need. instant where you are immediately connected at the moment that you need it, as opposed to waiting for an appointment. this is onstar. we have it in the cars. why should we not have it for diseases? living forevert and curing cancer. you hear about being beautiful at all times. what is your level of optimism on whether or not we will actually live forever in our lifetime? >> living forever is a flawed concept. the human body is going to age over time. at what was done with levinsohn and calico.
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thise are trying to tackle . the problem with the "live forever" concept is, let's say we can do a better job with cancerer's, diabetes, or , you still have bones, muscles, hearts, everything else that is going to age. i think we are pretty far off and i always ask if i want to live forever. not know that i want to. maybe extend life in little bit or live comfortably? >> that is the key. you want to be healthy and active until you drop dead. >> it happens to everybody. >> it does. knows?
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how close are we to finding a chair for cancer? >> it will not be a single chair. we are curing a cancer at a time and we are doing a good job at that. i talked about the leukemia and the diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer. i do not know if you sure this. you can make it a chronic disease. there is more behavioral moonshotd it is not a .live forever" type why is that? do both.e to -- wheren cases like
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we are trying to cure cancer in those companies, it is a step at a time. there is definitely a moonshot idea with digital health. we are trying to transform the entire way health care is administered to get health care on the smartphone. we are doing all sorts of investments. >> what is something that is not in the portfolio that is under the radar and we should pay attention to? think -- you know, talking about disrupting health care, companies that are changing the way insurance is administered, whether it is , thesecloverhealth companies take the old-fashioned that anhinking
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executive is putting together a plan that is right for you and that is not the case. you need technology and analytics. these are companies that are going to transform and a lot of what we think about as health care. >> i want to talk about someone on everyone's mind. now is the sentiment right about how long we have to be the firm? we are happy it is over. wouldse is done and we love to look at it and we are
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happy to talk about it. a lot of good came from this. there is always good that comes from adversity. you think about the levels and theincreased awareness with companies in the valley and it has really been incredibly positive. >> what is different? had the best track usord for hiring women with being the most forward-leaning firm. i do not know that we are different. there is more awareness and we are really excited about the partners we are hiring, focusing on a number of initiatives. class were women.
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underrepresented minorities and we are more focused on it. it is great for business in the right thing for society. it is great for the firm and the entrepreneurs. what company do you see as a unicorn? are a few unicorns already. hope that, instead of unicorns, we have public companies that are billion-dollar companies. excited aboutlly a number of our companies that are going public. so, i want to shift the unicorns -- from
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unicorns to rainbows. there is a pot of gold at the end of the robe -- the rainbow. hasoes public and liquidity. raincorn. billion-dollar companies in health and the biotech sector. >> thank you. >> thank you. appreciate it. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2015]
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ck nick nick captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. visit ncicap.org >> ahead of the thanksgiving holiday president obama addressed national security concerns saying that while there are no specific or credible threats to the u.s., americans should remain vigilant. here are his remarks.
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good afternoon, everybody. advisers. my all of us recognize how horrific and heinous what took place in paris was. as i said yesterday, for many of us the events there touched a deep core given the connection between the united states and france the degree to ich americans see in paris a way of life that's so familiar to us here in american cities. given the shocking images, i know that americans have been asking each other whether it's safe here, whether it's safe to fly or gather. i know the families have
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discussed their fears about the threat of terrorism around the dinner table and many for the first time since september 11th. it's understandable that people worry something similar could happen here. watching the events in pashice made the threat feel closer to home. so as we go into thanksgiving weekend, i want the american people to know that we are taking every possible step to eep our homeland safe. first we're going after isil wherever it hides. that's been our strategy for more than a year. i'll speak about this in more detail in the coming weeks. but let me remind the american people of what our coalition of some 65 nations is doing to destroy these terrorists and defeat their operation. so far we have and our coalition partners have cr ducted air strikes, have taken
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out key leaders, taken back territory. we continue to work to choke off their financing and their supply lines and counter their recruitment and their messaging. and even as america is already supporting french air strikes in syria yesterday president holland and i agreed to step up the coalition even further and do more of the work together. we will not let up. adjusting where necessary. until they are beaten. that's our first goal. second, we continue to do everything possible to prevent attacks at home and abroad and to prevent foreign terrorist fighters from entering the united states or other nations. since 9/11 we have taken extraordinary measures to strengthen our homeland security.
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we have improved upon these action over time. any time there's an event we learn something from it. and we continue to refine it. we continue to improve upon our approaches as we speak. now, right now we know of no specific and credible intelligence indicating a plot on the homeland. and that is based on the latest information i just received in the situation room. it is similar to the information that -- the briefing that i received on saturday before i left on my trip last week. so as americans travel this weekend to be with their loved ones, i want them to know that our counter terrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement professionals at every level are working overtime. they are continually monitoring threats at home and abroad.
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continually evaluating our security posture. they're constantly working to protect all of us. their work has prevented attacks. their efforts have saved lives. they serve every hour of every day for the sake of our security. they did so before paris, and they do so now. without fan favor or credit. and without a break for the holidays. so the bottom line is this. i want the american people to know entering the holidays that the combined resources of our military, our intelligence, and our homeland security agencies are on the case. their vigilance, relentless and effective. in the event of a specific credible threat the public will be informed. we do think it's useful for people as they're going about their business to be vigilant. if you see something
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suspicious, say something. that's always helpful. but otherwise, americans should go about their usual thanksgiving activities. spending time with family and friends, and celebrating our blessings. while the threat of terrorism is a troubling reality of our age we are both equipped to prevent attacks and we are resilient in the face of those who would try to do us harm. that's something we can all be thankful for. happy thanksgiving, everybody. he spoke at union station in
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to not know of any specific or credible threats of a plot , continued to be vigilant and and monitor what is happening here and for public safety. working to protect the homeland and reevaluate what we see. public.to encourage the if you see something, say something. it has to be more than a statement.
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this holiday weekend, i would like everybody to express thanks to those in law enforcement and homeland security. it keeps us all safe. for a couple of questions. [indiscernible] >> are you aware that mexico has been threatened by isis? comment on: i cannot specifics. we are in contact with itorcement continually and is something we are monitoring very closely.
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i am aware of the case you referred to. it involves families. i cannot comment more specific than that. heard repeatedly from security experts that say that there is a potential insider and most are not screened. april, i put out the directive to tighten up airport security around those who work at airports. we have more continuous random screening of airport personnel whetherre evaluating more is necessary. it is something that we have focused on as recently as today.
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differential in sizes of airports, you take atlanta and there is something like 63,000 people. and airport security is something that tsa works in collaboration with the local airport authorities, the city, the mayor, the commissioner and .he security people this is something we focus on and will continue to focus on. a credible not threat at this point? the question is if there are communications and you are so certain there is no credible threat.
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with the same thing be happening here in the united states. >> we are focused on a potential copycat act similar to things that have occurred overseas and we focused on a lone actor and we have seen some of that overseas in recent months. we are going to continue the efforts. we are vigilant and we are aware around the country. reinforcing of existing security measures and
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>> as i probably don't need to tell everybody in this town >> i d 't need to tell anybody in this town, when there is a terrorist outrage like this, the reaction is often fast and furious and rarely well considered. times, we have come to regret that. i think that we understand that the politics of the moment that the body politics demands a response to outrages like this and so, a response it will have. what good would like to do here because we don't have to be is tod to any office think about how that response can be consistent with the public desires but also as smart and considered as we can make it and i think that we have an
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acellent opportunity to have somewhat calm her conversation we have a because really excellent panel and an excellent group of people to discuss it and we are going to try to do it from a few different angles. the second speaker is from carnegie. he will talk about the links between french policy in the middle east. be lordd speaker will is the figural
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correspondent here in washington and he will talk about president don't want -- president francois hollande on's visit to washington and moscow. and finally, my colleague kim l curry she -- effectstalk about the of the french reaction and the attacks on the broader european migration and refugee debate. started with felipe. >> perhaps just to give you a quick summary of what happened. i'm sure you have been following the news. heard at itsen heart by terrorists for the second time in one year. , it wasn't charlie supermarkets but in every level of society, music
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lovers, soccer fans, young professionals having dinner. that perhaps explains some of the reaction that jeremy was describing. on the night of november 13, several attacks took place around paris at the stade de france, on the streets and at the bataclan theater where 89 people were feared -- were killed. 130 people were killed and 400 wounded. that makes it the worst terrorist attack in france since world war ii in the bloodiest in europe since the, 2004. french society is in a state of shock. just french society but i the main reason is because these attacks have been random.
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it could have been any city. it is not just friends. been arussels which has ghost city. it has been beirut. it has been shut marshak, where the civilians were shut down. it has even been in mali. a different organization. it is a wave of terrorism i will ask three questions to get the conversation started. the first question, perhaps the most difficult to answer -- a lot of my friends have been asking me -- why has france been targeted? why not others? first of all, other countries have been targeted later or before, but at this level is is
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thursday perhaps the fact that france has a fifth-largest defense budget, they have been using it against the islamic state. as well as africa and the middle east. as you know, president along giving special power to the police. that is an immediate response. that has been supported by french political parties, all of them. that is the local response, as well as the arrest and killing of some of the terrorists involved. not all of them, i must say. the second response has been to send the charge the -- charles de gaulle aircraft carrier to the east mediterranean. the last response is the depth -- diplomatic response.
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prime minister cameron, meeting on wednesday, with a visit to moscow on thursday. i would say that these meetings are critical, they are helping to define the strategy. i have to say, the end of that process will be monday, when 100 world leaders gather in paris for the prop 21 climate conference. this will be away also to attract attention. in addition to a number of measures, such as france invoking the mutual defense and the u.n. unanimously voting for
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resolution against the islamic state. my worries, first they will talk about that. the european corporation and security, the fact that the french president is meeting his counterparts in the u.k. in germany are important gestures, increasing the defense budget of these nations are important, but that's not necessarily the case for germany. you know, europe is in deep trouble. not just because of this terrorist attack, but also the energy crisis.
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i think that france has to show certain leadership. that is what president, -- president hollande, who is not seen as internationally minded, but who has become not just a world leader but a warmonger, a bit unexpected, perhaps. i think he has used a sort of adequate response so far. i think that the strategy has to be international cooperation at all levels. >> ok, first the response, then a strategy. sounds a good plan. france needs to take a leadership vision. how do people in the middle east feel about that, joseph? joseph: thank you very much for giving me the occasion to cross the demarcation line between our institutions. >> you have a 90 minute visa.
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[laughter] joseph: i will probably prolong what philip just said. what's the strategy, what to do in the middle east? what are the words on the arab component in france? a few words to diffuse some cliches about that. first of all, there is a debate in france now about some thinkers and pundits saying that this is after all a legitimate answer of isis to the anti-muslim policies, etc.. just a reminder to square off these issues. the french active involvement in the anti-isis campaign has really started or upgraded as of september 27, with the strikes. i'm not sure that operationally a terrorist attack like the one that happened doesn't need much
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more time than that. i think it was probably boot prior to that. the second argument to that, and philippe alluded to those charlie attacks, those happened before france got into the airstrike operation in syria or iraq. this is something that we also have to keep in mind. isis does not really need a pretext or an excuse to hit tomorrow the u.s.? it could hit in sweden or somewhere else. this is something that we have to keep in mind. the second thing of importance, yes, is an element that distinguishes isis and a muslim arab european phenomenon that is growing. europeans -- belgians and friend , born in belgium, all of them by national, they are european.
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it's not a question of foreign cohort crossing the mediterranean. it is inside of us that it is happening. this fends off something important for the future and for our strategy. on that level, the first important remark on that point is that if you look at the statement that isis published after the attack, it's very important to notice the wording. the statement uses a term, strike. in the islamic philosophy of the theory of four, it is something applied in the islamic cosmology. something that is part. meaning that isis considers now that europe or the united
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states, due to the muslim nation. it is not for the remote enemy, it is the kind of attempt. these are some points i just want to remind you of. they will weigh on the debate. what will france do? what can we expect out of that? first of all of course, you have seen it. france will upgrade strikes over most of, today, for the first time in a long time french aircraft have taken off from the charles de gaulle this morning to hit iraq. of course, france will be much more active in the airstrike
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campaign. this is probably based on the output of the meeting, and if they agree on that they will accompany. this is a departure of the former french reluctance to do that. i will explain this in a second. the second important dynamic at play in france, something i would like to really have in mind to understand what is happening in france, this is strong and probably this will increase. there is a strong pressure that is going to be exerted on the french leadership personally, politically, to change the course over here. even inside the socialist party,
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from the intel and military communities, what are we doing with these ambiguous forces? let us talk to a sod, pollutant, the iranians. it is already coming in the large parts in france. it is in order to stop the rise. will that lead to a change? this is a huge political loss for francois hollande. usually politicians don't like to admit that. this is also my personal opinion , on syria in iraq.
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the software of the flat -- french diplomacy on syria, yes, isis is a monster that grew for a reason. this reason has to do with the rotten situation in syria and europe. unless we tackle this issue, we will not be able to tackle the isis issue. this leads me to my last point. i think that in this diplomatic tour that has been described, this is exactly what francois hollande would be saying. this morning and tomorrow, the message to the u.k. at u.s., partners and allies in france, is that we would have to exchange more, have better intelligence cooperation. however, politically -- and i think that this will be said to obama tomorrow -- we also have to focus much more on syria. this american approach to isis, with the different shading a
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little bit, having a strong strategy against isis in iraq, a losing strategy over syria, probably have to change. this is probably what hollande would say. let us do together the things on syria. we have the program to do it. this will be the message to our -- to the french western partners. with russia -- i think that this is probably the most important part of his tour, the first day in russia, the message will be more difficult to convey. you are fighting isis since the first of september. so far we all know that your strikes have had very little to do with isis. you have hit 85% of non-isis targets. if you really want us to build a large coalition that you want us to build, let us focus on isis
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and not on other things also. focus on isis and call the mutual bluff, in a way. also, the second point, which will be much more difficult, is to focus on the political component. by saying that we all know that handling isis, vanquishing isis, eliminating isis, it will never work if we still put aside the question of the rebuilding of political hysteria. that has to do with the question of the regime. by the way, this is what hollande will probably add, two weeks ago in vienna we agreed that this is what needed to be done. this morning vladimir putin saw how many and a statement was issued, a very strong re-insistence on the fact that the question is something that
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is not to be discussed. that it is none of the business of the foreign powers. and that the west -- this was very worrying for me, coming from russia and iran together, the rest -- the west is hypocritical, alluding that the west has created isis. i don't know if you can partner in a battle against isis if one of your partners still believes that you are the root cause of creating the enemy you are fighting. these are the things that i think will weigh on the climate of thursday. of course, if i have to answer jeremy's question about -- what do people in the middle east expect? i think that this time the analysis comes from across the board. probably we would say much more, but this is exactly the way that things are seen. things are seen as the following. you cannot build a proper ground force in order to take on isis.
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moreover, you westerners don't want to put boots on the ground, which is i think a wise and clever decision. if you don't want to do it, probably it is the best thing not to do, you will have to rely him the people on the ground. kurds, arabs, tribes, etc.. to do that, you cannot in battle. addressing the question of the change in syria at some point. in the community we have the platform for that, altogether let's put a roadmap and calendar up for that. too close, i would say that the pressure to change course and abandon the discourse that so far exist are the two sides of the same coin.
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the battle together will remain probably in the deep software. however, what has changed for a time is probably a different priority. he will likely much more focused on militarily isis. and then the question of the regime and the political solution will likely be put on the longer. in the process of vienna he will likely be more instrumental. i don't think that we have to expect a change of strategy, but we can expect a change in focus in the short term. thank you. >> laure, is that how you see
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the visits the present is making to washington and moscow? mr. lecorre: -- [no audio] >> why don't we had over two kamal and get the technical working. ms. mandeville: now it seems to work. sorry, i'm taking the word back. so, yes, tomorrow we have the meeting. we have a lot of questions in very few answers about the things that are happening. we have a president coming, francois hollande, who is telling us that this is a game changer. that these brutal attacks on our nation are changing the whole political game. i think that when president
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obama meets francois hollande, he is going to wait for hollande to tell him what he wants to do. what strikes me is that in a way the contrast in the situation between these two men, they worked very much on the same line for quite a while. they were absolutely in line concerning syrian policy. the french more in 2013, obama decided not to do anything when he crossed the fame's redline on chemical weapons, the french wanted to go for a much more muscular approach. after that the same line was in france, paris, and washington. neither bishara nor the islamic states, neither strategy.
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there was an article by the person in charge of the president. she was saying that there was some kind of quoting of a diplomat, at close member weather was some kind of marginalization of use with the minister in favor of a new approach. the quintessential symbol of this very deliberately, you know, neither neither approach. sort of a very strong criticism of assad. in the context that we have today, does that mean that there is going to be some kind of shift? i must say i'm quite worried about the french context, actually. there is this huge emotional situation in france. the political class, especially on the right, as joseph underlined, is in line on this change of policy. a very strong anti-american feeling is growing in france. look at president obama.
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look at america. it certainly is feckless. they are not helping us. they actually created the situation with iraq. now they are not handling it. they are neither engaged nor committed. why not turn to the russians? at the same time you have a huge propaganda operation that has been going on for actually quite a few years in france from the russians. the russians actually using a lot of different weak points to underline that america is this decadent place and that europe should go back to its roots, to its christian roots, the vladimir putin may be the defender and chief of these christian european roots. i see that it makes you laugh but it is pretty effective the altra right parties throughout europe are becoming somehow the
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new common hand on which some people say the putin hand in which russia, moscow is relying to spread this idea that you need strong leaders and have to have a change in europe. this is coming in strongly. at the moment you have nicolas sarkozy, who used to be the best friend of america, the most pro-atlantic person in france and political figure when he became president for the first time, he went to moscow a few weeks before the attack and actually spoke in favor of a much more -- much closer partnership with russia. he criticized very harshly the fact that president hollande had not sold the mistrial to russia
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in the middle of the ukrainian crisis, calling it despicable and horrible that he had done that. you have the former prime minister and presidential candidate, misaligned with someone staying away from that. this is quite a strong pressure on the president. so, really, the situation is fascinating. a bit like in the 30's, france, europe was between two geopolitical strategic threats. on the one hand you have nazi germany. on the other hand you have the italians, then you have the soviet union and soviet threat. of course, you cannot compare, it's up the same kind of threat
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we have now, but these are clearly too geostrategic threats weighing upon europe. one, and aggressive russia that has destroyed the international law and order that existed in europe by annexing crimea, which stabilized in ukraine and has been extremely pushy and aggressive, intimidating the countries like the baltic states , being extremely pushy and their relationships with many countries in eastern europe, trying to have a much better relationship with the germans, having the vice president of germany pleading for a big alliance with the russians, decidedly reluctant to do so because of angela merkel. so, this is the context of francois hollande. next to him tomorrow you will
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have president obama welcoming him to the white house. president obama, i must say, when i arrived in washington in 2009 i was really struck that the spirit in washington was that europe was this postmodern, even post historical place, where nothing would ever even happen. there were only these 20 -- how many? 27 countries? trying to settle some kind of bureaucratic issue? it's not important anymore. europe is some kind of slowly rotting -- maybe we should give it to asia. there was very little interest in europe and very little awareness of the dangers that were growing. i have been covering russian issues for 20 years. i just went back from the georgia war when i arrived in washington. i arrived in december to washington. the people did not seem to see
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that russia was becoming a serious an obvious threat to european security. there was not this awareness, which was strange. there was also a total underestimation of the islam question in europe. i know that it's kind of politically incorrect to talk about a muslim question in europe, but you know, despite the fact that the president and many people here think that there is -- it's not about this plan, what's going on. it's not about all of islam, but it is about a branch of islam that is at war with western civilization. it wants to destroy it. this lack of awareness created the situation in which the elite in the united states decided to blame the supposedly racist
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institutional system in france, supposedly and timelessly not giving any space in france instead of seeing that there was a defined and brutal ideology threatening europe and, also, huge part of the muslim world. i think that this is the context. now you have this situation. i was pretty critical of the lack of the awareness from the administration in the past, but i have seen -- i understand the caution of president obama why. the french are coming with a plan that is not a plan, actually. i think it you said we need a strategy now. what is the strategy? i understand why president obama
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is asking -- what is the strategy? is it just to embrace russia and go for some kind of declaration? we have to understand what it means. does it mean for the french to give up on the idea that we are going to push for a sod being away? we have to state that quite clearly, right? second, are the french -- do they want to go for a military option? are they ready for a serious option? not just a few strikes, but i don't know, some kind of safe haven that would actually have some kind of consequence for securing the situation of refugees and preventing them from coming to europe? a secure haven potentially for a military position that could be reinforced? are the french ready to put some ground forces on the ground? french decisions that were made in europe to ally with europeans and tell them -- you don't want refugees, so why don't you also
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put some troops on the ground and some peacekeeping operations? we have to really clarify all of that before we indeed ask for some kind of grand coalition. these are very serious questions and they have to be asked in pretty blunt ways. thank you. >> thanks. kamal, france has a problem with islam. maybe europe does too. how do you see this affecting europe? kamal: i knew that the issue of islam would turn around and come to me. >> let me take on the earlier remark that this branch of islam is at war with the west. frankly, i disagree with that.
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i think it is at war with the whole of the world. so far it is other muslims, islamists, who have suffered the most from what isis represents. if today there are 4.2 million refugees in neighboring countries, a good proportion of it may still be less than half. we could work on the mathematics of it, have been displaced into neighboring countries because of isis. one could make similar remarks about the internally displaced as well. today in "the washington post" there is a great piece on this turkish town on the border in syria. the destruction speaks for
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itself. a lot of construction was brought on because of isis. i think that we need to be clear about that. what i would like to do to tie this up is a piece that a very good friend and colleague of ours islamabad extremism, it's a piece today and the turkish daily newspaper. he says -- don't give isil the islamic phobia it seeks. he will be critical when responding or developing a strategy that france, the united states and others will need to
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develop. also, to address this issue of islamic phobia, it has been part and parcel of the presence in europe and elsewhere. very critical not to drift into essentialism, which i think has happened on many occasions in the past. there was a brief remark about the late 30's and recently in the media in bc there has been a number of pieces in a lot of these in the way that jewish refugees were treated in the late early's with some of the reaction to the syrian refugees
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coming out of the united states. itself. i would like to make a second remark that in some ways lines up with the question that jeremy raised. one of the greatest successes of the european integration project is the removal of borders. for someone like myself, who might be amongst one of their a few people in this audience who might remember the late europe of the 50's and 60's, who when crossing every frontier, europe, yugoslavia, italy, france, they could take anything from up to two or three hours and you could sense, as a young lad sitting in the back of my dad's car, i could sense that at each border there were huge walls. those walls were not necessarily just physical walls. they were walls of prejudice. walls of attitudes toward the other when you cross from france into italy or from that matter from britain into france.
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to me that great success of removing borders is what also needs to be reflected on when addressing this issue of what strategy to develop in the coming days and weeks. last point, jeremy, references were made earlier on to refugees and it has come up on a number of occasions and in that respect in the context of what has happened in paris, as horrible as it is, the bill should not be paid by these people. a good chunk of them are middle-class people. teachers, doctors, shopkeepers with their kids. what is striking for the connoisseur when you look at the pictures is that these are usually families with children. the reason they are moving on is
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precisely because of what's happening in syria. an inability to address those challenges. that's one point that must not be forgotten. the second is that today in the huffington post there was a brilliant piece saying more for europe. the euro crisis, when first corrupting, there were doomsday scenarios of how this was it, the end of european integration. somehow europe, as it has done in the past, has succeeded in addressing the challenge of the eurozone crisis as far as we can see. a similar attitude needs to be done, because the stakes are high. the 30's, 50's, 60's, it was a
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different europe and you cannot right away at the borders with the achievements in europe, maybe the answer again lies not more in france, croatia or hungary for that matter, but more of europe. i think i had better shut up year to allow someone else to speak. jeremy: thanks for shutting up. [laughter] before we go out to the audience i will ask a question or so to each of the participants. i have to say, in listening to these rich presentations i started to learn a lot, then i unlearned it, that i learned it again, so i'm a bit confused and i would like to try to bring it all home. the thing that most confuses me is -- something that laura got
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at, what is the plan? we have been talking a lot about reactions. obviously we don't really know what each, the french, russians, and americans want to do, but for me it's difficult to connect these actions to the strategies that were discussed. maybe we will start with felipe and ask you -- there have been these military attacks. they have a certain satisfying quality to them. isis attacks paris, we attack. that's quite biblical, if we are talking about a return to christian france. how does that fit into a plan to prevent terrorism attacks in paris france? joseph was talking about the fact that i sipped dust isis is the result of socioeconomic
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governance problems. among others. in the region. it doesn't seem like bombing a city from the air can really affect that in any great group -- great way. just makes more victims. what are those military attacks actually for? a sense of revenge? or do they actually have a more strategic purpose? mr. lecorre: as you know, the history of france in the arab world is a bold and complex one. obviously there are different elements there. one element, the fact that france is a military, diplomatic power that does have alliances with a number of entries in africa.
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and in the middle east it has decided, as was said before, to go for regime change. at least it will medically. as far as the military actions are concerned, there is obviously a similarity with what happened on 9/11. jeremy: does that make you nervous? mr. lecorre: yes, it does, actually. except it's much smaller scale and, i believe, the post-9/11 in iraq invasion, ordered by the bush administration, was about regime change. i don't think we are going for that at this point. on the other hand you have a french president who has another
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15 months to go in his term. the original election is coming up in two weeks. we haven't spoken much about the rise in things like that, but the french people have been shocked. there is a sense that something needs to be done. so to speak, the headquarters of isis are in syria. those who have committed the crimes were in europe. most of them either blew themselves up or were killed by the police. so, the dual approach of using counterterrorism and police actions and military actions is some kind of political response to what the french public is asking. arguably, it's not a strategy because something just happened
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on november 13. the strategy would be the plan. what are we going to do in syria? what are we going to do in the middle east? maybe jozef has the answer, so i will let him speak now. i think that on the political level, something had to be done. it's actually quite painful for francois hollande, who is a socialist. i do believe that he has much military knowledge or background to become a war leader. you could say that about a lot of elected politicians. but he has a very strong, very efficient defense minister. but that doesn't make them more
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powerful than they are. the french military is overstretched. the fact that they had to conduct operations in france and overseas to make their lives complicated. obviously if you compare the french military to the u.s. military, we are not talking about the same levels. there are troops everywhere. because there is this need for political action, i think that striking isis was right. jeremy: i don't envy the position of francois hollande, but i think that something had to be done, so he bombed the city -- that's not a very encouraging concept for a strategy. joseph, i would love to have you respond to that, if you want to. i wanted to ask you a somewhat separate question. you really got at this critical
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divide between the u.s. and russians. there was some disagreement as to which side the french were on on it, but over this question of assad. you made the case very strongly that you cannot really deal with isis until you have dealt with or without dealing with assad. the russian view is that you essentially can deal with isis that he is a critical part of the anti-isis coalition in part because it's the only thing holding the rest of syria together. in part because he has a lot of forces on the ground in there are no other groups in that coalition. to listen to laura, i think that the french, even some of the americans have been a little attracted to this concept. can you tell us quite directly, what is wrong with this?
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mr. bahout: first of all, very quickly, your three-point arguments are factually wrong, the three of them. assad is holding 20% of the territory, not syria. the syrian armory -- army has become a shadowy corpse. it is perhaps at 25% of its original capacity. three, so far assad has not shown a lot of willingness to fight isis either. we can multiply that. i think the russian view is -- this is where i also said before so far according to all the reports that we read that are probably serious, russia has 20 percent of the strikes over isis and the rest over something else .
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i will come back to that by answering or reacting to philip. first of all, i don't want to enter into a franco french argument, the french socialism has sometimes been good at wars. it's not a very fortunate example, but they made some good military operations. some are well respected as antiterrorist operations. france did not have to do that. the question is not air support. if i take the risk to answer your question, what would be the strategy? maybe it will help me to bridge or connect the dots with what was said before. what would be the strategy? first off, i would be a bad ogre. we will have attacks again. attacks are to be expected. france, belgium, england, i hope not in the u.s., but we have to
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expect them. it's not something from the coming months. yes, also, a military answer is required. of course you have to hit. not because you have to take revenge, but because you have really hammered the operational capacities of these people to organize, network, expose the device to europe, train people and etc.. if you only do that, you will not do anything. first of all, fine-tuning them, this will be partially discussed. probably better special operations. however, in coordination. if you don't do that, here i transitioned to my political power, if you don't do that with local partners on the ground, you can do the targeted killings
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that you want, as much as you want, you can kill the finance minister and oil minister of isis, he will be replaced in the days after. you will have to have a local partner on the ground. this is where the second part of the strategy is. it is perhaps a much more integrated political strategy that we need today. isis is in syria and iraq. you really have to approach it in one way, more or less, which is not to further the american posture. second, why are you approaching it? in a rack why would you say that we have to find a political transition and we found it by working with local tribesmen -- why don't we apply exactly the same argument in syria, where the case is more compelling? you will have to tackle this issue at some point.
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but what are the obstacles? indigenous, you say in english? it fills the gap. i think the cup -- the problems are threefold. the first problems are russia. we are not sure that they are on that part of the agenda. this is where i agree with you, i think that the possibility of holding a grand coalition with russia is fragile because of that. so, we have to call the bluff of russia, which is not a strong challenge to russia. saying to them -- we have not only signed together, but coproduced and cosponsored the geneva to platform and began a prop -- platform two weeks ago, in which we said we had to find a proper way to transition the power in syria. i don't want to get into ideological words that could lead to intellectual blackmail.
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yes, this is the regime change. transition is regime change, but it is a device that would take 18 months according to vienna that would lead to the ousting of bashar from the picture. yes, it is regime change. you must agree that this is the only way to dry up the swamp within which isis is swimming. if you don't do that, you will have more. the second obstacle is an american obstacle. you have a president that still has 12 months in office. he also still has to digest and finish digesting the iran deal. anything he will do or not do in syria and iraq is suddenly to do that. i understand that from a political place, however this is the catch-22. we need a more proactive president here with a more proactive american strategy that needs to say bluntly to the americans and iranians -- look, this is what we have to do to slow the issue. however, probably he doesn't
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want to do it. first, enough is enough and second, we don't really want to antagonize the iranians, which i also firmly understand. the third obstacle is an arab sunni obstacle. of course, you are not today finding arab sunni partners in syria. you don't have the assad component in your strategy. we talked about this. however, what's lacking, and to however, what's lacking, and to be fair in the blame on everybody, you don't have a proper arab sunni geopolitical component. your partners are not fully on board with that. first of all, of course there is the assad component that is lacking. second we can say, probably they don't really want to fight isis because of some reason. i don't really want to get into that. brookings had a paper on that today by your excellent colleague, saying that the links between saudi arabia and isis could be murky.
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of course there is that. operationally there is a problem , the gulf states are today sunk in another theater that is much more vital for them, yemen. of course, when it goes too much, you have no strategy because you have a lot of things to integrate. but if you want to have a strategy, better to take all the pieces of the puzzle and try to put them somewhere. without a proper military answer, it is not only a kind of revenge, but the first weeks, the french population, you have to show that they are taking revenge, but then you have to do something more. second, politics is about syria, with a proper, frank, and resident dialogue.
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look, isis is partly something that comes from view, from your habitat. please, help us in doing that. for that journey, this is something you are very much concerned about, we had this dialogue. for that you have to have a western leadership and part of it is an american leadership and part of it, so far at least from the point of view of france and the arabs. jeremy: you are saying that they need to confront the iranians. they need to round up the sunni powers who don't have an interest in this.
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they need an additional -- an indigenous force on the ground they can be the ground force. why not drop mana from heaven? this seems to be a harsh requirement that they failed to do in iraq. mr. bahout: just one word, two weeks from now we were sitting where john kerry was active. we produced a paper that said exactly this. either we produce papers that we don't believe in -- so stop producing them, or we produce papers and we are spending our words. when john kerry said last week -- solving syria is a matter of weeks, not months, frankly i am asking myself -- where is he living? not where i am living area
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jeremy: on that i guess we could agree. laure, i would love for you to react to that. you mentioned marine le pen. i'm wondering how this sort of french right-wing politics are affecting this response were going to affect the response. what is she and the front nationale going to do to take advantage of this? ms. mandeville: it just said something very interesting, this outline of potential strategy, saying that is what obama should do. what is interesting is i think over the summer, as far as i know from good sources, the americans have been precisely trying to do that. that is exactly what john kerry has been trying to do going to
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sochi to meet with clinton -- pu tin, getting the saudis to talk to the russians. >> and the iranians. ms. mandeville: there was this discrete game going on over the summer. the americans telling some sources it was going to work, it was not so bad, we are getting there. now, john kerry is saying we will be there in a matter of weeks. the question is that we are not sure it is going to work. you have to push the russians. but why would the russians give up? this is the question i have. why would they? what would push the russians to give up on a side -- assad when they've been using assad to keep their big influence in syria and at the same time divide europe
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along lines. it is a much bigger geopolitical game for the russians and syria is the way to get to the central point of strategy for russia, which is the relationship with europe and antagonism and confrontation of the united states, which i think is at the core of putin's policy. this is the question i have. i have another question, can syria still exist as a country? i remember over the summer, i had an interview with the former c.i.a. and n.s.a. boss. his view, which is probably more informed than mine, is that syria was gone. all these discussions and negotiations taking place in vienna were useless because the west was obsessed with the idea of getting rid of bush are -- bashar but mute on what to put in place. is it possible to reconcile all of this? because of that, i'm going to suggest a scenario that has been
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pushed by a few people for syria. some people say there are two real scenarios. there is the russian scenario, which is the scenario putin has applied in chechnya, which is quelling the adversary, just destroying it to the ground. i think that is probably the dream of the russian game. that is not what they rationally hope for but, but with the dream
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of doing in syria, what they did in chechnya. they managed to quell huge uprisings which was not radical muslims at first. it was sort of a nationalist quest for independence. they just destroyed it. they imposed a guy who has become the policeman of the caucasus this man has an army that has become sort of the guard, terrible, had an army of its own he would use to quell rebellion. i think putin is using that and they are kicking -- keeping the caucacus in order. it is in check for now, putting the lid on it. that would be the scenario. the russian-sunni uprising islamic state, you are just keeping the lid on by force.
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that is one scenario. the other is fine-tuning what is happening now, making it more effective, sort of the attrition model of obama. you keep striking islamic state. at the same time, you have special opt -- special ops and try to do something with the sunni army. the other scenario in between would be what some people have hinted that -- at different ways. kagen has written a piece yesterday saying why don't we create a no-fly zone in syria and put troops on the ground to protect refugees because we
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cannot get to an agreement with the russians, we put pressure on them. maybe at some point we get some kind of solutions. then we get this federalization of syria? i don't know. if these people cannot live together, do we get a country where maybe assad is in place for a while and another country that is sunni. i don't know. i am just asking that. would that be a temporary, tactical move which would show everyone the west is willing to act and at the same time push
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the russians. you were talking about europe. i think you have a very naïve and idealistic view of the european union at the moment. you say we need more -- >> [indiscernible] ms. mandeville: we need more europe. but at the same time, europe is not showing it exists. you don't give up the prey for the shadow, as we say in french. we have nation-states still. they exist. more or less, they are weak. but they exist. europe does not show it is existing. in september before the general assembly of the u.n., i was amazed the europeans did not together some kind of plan for syria. that was an existential question, the migrant crisis for europe is existential.
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and they want no initiative on european unified. there were discussions between putin and obama. there were no initiatives from europe. my question is, does europe exist? because it does not exist, maybe the solution is transforming the borders of nation-states and europe. when your house is attacked, you don't open the windows and doors. you close the windows and doors until you are sure it is safe outside and you are not going to have someone getting in. i think for now, i know it is beautiful, the europe without borders. i remember my youth. it was not so terrible to go to spain for vacation and spend even half an hour at the border of spain or even moving to another country in a couple of
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hours. if the future of europe is at stake, i think we should put the button on pause now. >> i would have loved to have more time. on that last point, it is not about only movement of you and i. it is also the movement of goods. that is what is maintaining economic growth or prosperity in europe. the moment you put up the walls, the economy is going to slow down. then you are going to place right into the hands of those nationalists and xenophobic circles in europe. ms. mandeville: i think it is the opposite. if you are not tough enough, he will play the game.
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they will vote for the ultra-right next time. >> i think i should stop here. jeremy: why don't you give a quick answer and then we will go to the audience. >> i think the answer would be to elaborate, let me just say i disagree and leave it at that. jeremy: let's go to the audience and see if you can offer better solutions. we will take three at the beginning. when i call on you, please identify who you are. please ask an actual question. and donations are accepted. [laughter] jeremy: why don't we start with gary. >> i write the mitchell report. since you have solved the problem, there's not much left to deal with. i will pose the question this way. i would argue that discussion
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about strategy is interesting but not particularly relevant. we have got more strategies floating around, each of which has its various weak points. the issue we are dealing with is execution. it seems to me the problem with execution has to do with the fact that each of the parties in any of the strategies has different objectives in the outcome. having said that, are we focusing on the wrong problem or wrong question? and should we be focusing on the more practical one, which is how do we do this rubik's cube? jeremy: good question. i think it invalidates my entire existence. [laughter] jeremy: let's go to the third
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row in the center. right there. >> madame mandeville, i speak on my own behalf as a frenchman. i don't speak on behalf of my clients. the italians and germans had proposed a plan which france refused because we see there was no united front in europe to respond to what was happening in syria. but once again on record, the italians and germans, there was a plan refused by france and other countries. we played a role in pushing back. >> what is the plan? >> it was on how to move and assist refugees who are already
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on european soil. it was not addressing the entire affair. it was some discussion of how to have a group arrangement from the start. the first question is -- three prime ministers of france said you have to speak to monsters. perhaps they were right. we did not. bashar al-assad and vladimir putin have to be part of the equation. is it true the americans are the ones claiming economic mobility is the reason? i would like to say maybe not. there was a piece published on
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brookings on the 17th. i focus on one paragraph that there could be a reason. two french have touched on one issue, which is we have to look at the socioeconomic mobility to understand where there is some identification from. perhaps we can wrap our arms around the affair. jeremy: we will take one more. let's go here on the second row. >> thank you. i am a phd candidate at the institute in geneva. i am surprised by the responses you have prescribed. i was surprised when of the first resolutions was to limit
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freedom. i was wondering whether it might make sense to also look inwards and see how we can, within europe, germany, the u.k., and france, do it without military attack. jeremy: some of the questions were directed to you. why don't you start? ms. mandeville: i don't understand which plans you're talking about germany and italy. you said we have to talk to monsters. i have debated it with him on russia and other issues, saying we have to talk to monsters. yes, of course. talk to them, yes. but believe them, i don't know. bashar, frankly, he explained why keeping bashar is not
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realistic. i am not an expert on syria. it is a big weakness of mine. it is difficult for me to talk about it. does he represent something? yes. journalists like me have no access to what is going on in syria. that is one of the big reasons why we are so deprived of answers on the syrian questions. socioeconomic issues, i am not saying there are not issues in the minority in france. not at all. i know there is disenfranchisement. it is not because you are poor you start killing people in the streets. what i want to say is there was this tendency to think because they are disenfranchised and because the french system has
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institutional racism, i heard that after the attacks on "charlie hebdo." i have heard some debate and was amazed professors with tenure were telling me the reason was france was institutionally racist that we had these terrible attacks on "charlie hebdo." i don't agree with that. it is not a question of political models. it is not a question of how you integrate muslims. why do i say that? because when you take absolutely different models of integration, the french republican model or the dutch model in the netherlands that have studied carefully, which is very similar to the americans, which is each community is a different color -- pillar. it is a community-based model, like the americans, the dutch.
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we are coming from absolutely -- the british model very similar to the american model in terms of organization of the minorities. exactly the same results as in france. you had attacks, murders by extremists, muslim extremists. it is not a question of model. it is a question of disenfranchisement and an ideology colored -- coming from the outside and coming from with islam -- from within islam which wants to destroy the west. by the way when you said i don't agree, i think it is not contradictory what you are saying and what i am saying because i said precisely there is a battle in islam.
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this battle has to be waged. i'm not the only one that says that. you have prominent muslim thinkers saying we have to wage this battle in islam. we have to have reformation in islam if we want to get rid of this terrorism, islamist terrorism. they say that. it does not mean radical islamists do not want to take on the west. i remember a prominent expert on isis, islamic state, and terrorism who wrote that in 2013, he underlined the journal of the islamic state allowed that one day we will get to rome as crusaders and the flag of the islamic state will be floating.
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if it is not an attack on the west, i don't know what it is frankly. jeremy: do you see a relationship between the integration problems in france and these issues? mr. le corre: you were saying you cannot see yourself as president hollande because it is difficult to deal with syria. it will be more difficult to deal with the integration issue. when you talk about xenophobia, obviously -- i think what we have to do is get rid of the "i" of isis. it is a terrorist organization. the reactions from the muslim community in france has been striking in saying this is not islam, and this has nothing to do with us. we have to make sure in the upcoming elections, and there is one in two weeks, touch wood,
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some of us are worried about the outcome. but we have to make sure learning how to live together becomes the critical goal and making sure this group is not identified with islam. as laure says, the system is what it is. i spent time in london, five years in the late 1990's, and i saw the birth of a rather radical movement at a mosque in london. the two systems did not prevent either way for radical groups to getting support.
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we know they are getting support from others as well. i don't think european countries should change their constitutions or religions. certainly, there are muslim schools in france. there are even imams in the military. i'm not saying it is perfect including the refugees in europe. they will join a certain societal system. let's make sure we lost her size -- ostracize the terrorists. jeremy: for those interested, there is a debate on the relationship between islam and isis on brookings website which is very good, although you probably will not find the answers. joseph, i would love for you to address the execution point and
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the integration question. mr. bahout: what is strategy without implementation? all of it is one part. on this issue of isis, syria, iraq, much more than ever before within the same coalition, interest are very divergent. i don't want to plunge into that but very quickly. for turkey, of course. if you have to say either or, it is the kurds are more a danger for isis. isis is worrying. but having iran in the lavonne and yemen is more worrying. within europe, the divergences
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are enormous. before that, on the arab-israeli process, in 1990 one when saddam invaded kuwait, in 2001 when we went to afghanistan after 9/11, it did not produce discord between france and the united states. people have differences in priorities and strategy. it took someone to put it together. this is part of strategy and political leadership. today, someone has to put some order in chaos, to quote the bookings -- brookings blog. it is difficult to do. i'm not calling for american preeminence or leadership. someone has to do it. it won't be solved by
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itself. i think this is a way of extricating ourselves. without a roadmap, an excellent strategy, it remains a good paper and not something that is incremented. the second point is interesting although it is not our subject, is syria livable again? like everybody, i have an opinion. i think it is beyond debate. the head of the french intelligence two or three weeks ago said syria is broken beyond repair. i believe that. i'm very convinced about that. i think syria is today broken. this is why assad is no more a problem. his ruling something that has disappeared. he is the head of a militia among other militias.
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before becoming french, i was lebanese. i lived in a country where for 15 years, it was broken. we felt at times it would never be patched up again. analytically saying something is broken is true, but politically it does not mean you have to accept it. you can let go of the syria process. at one point you will be legitimized. people who sit around the table and say these are the borders, let's accept them. i do not have anything against it. nations are born and die, maybe one day lebanon will disappeared. iraq has more or less disappeared. where all of us today bound to a process which is called geneva. we are -- want a democratic
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syria. if these words mean something i say let's do it. let's sit on the table with the syrians if they accept this part and say ok, you cannot live together, let us see where are the boundaries of your, it could state, aederate confederate state with parts of iraq. people who think that all state order in the labonte is dead. it will be replaced by something. my worry is how to shorten this limbo between something which is dead and something to be born and how to do it at the list -- least cost possible. --a political science scientist and a citizen that is
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what worries me. nothing is sacred in these issues. i know some syrian friends would jump from their chair. syria is comatose. you can say this but with a lot of effort. you do not have to say this, let's try to transform it into something else at the least cost possible. but this again leads a little bit -- needs a little bit of leadership. you are going to ask me. there andrefugees out and thens that the west eu and the united states and a areer of other countries signatories of legal documents. that promise that refugees are
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going to be treated differently than migrants or irregular migrants and this is an international responsibility. i would like to remind us all. i would also not want to walk thathaving listened somehow i am an advocate. >> i never said that. >> just a second. let me finish. all i said was to respond to keepsemark and brookings transcripts of these debates. you can always go in look. a branch of islam is at war with the western world. i said that branch is not in your just with the west but with the muslim world and with syrian
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people. that is the only point i made. you did not need to cite big literature that argues to the contrary. we have run out of time. >> we're basically out of time. a frightening of subjects. the wasteunged into to maintain our values, the ways to fight isis and the struggles over leadership and structure. sure we resolved anything but i hope we have given you a lot of food for thought. i appreciate you coming and please join me in thankin [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2015] ck nick nick
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captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. visit ncicap.org >> there's been so much going on in the world of farma. we've been reporting on this extraordinary state of merger activity. of course there are massive changes going on.
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[applause] >> good morning. >> good morning. >> anything you would like to tell us about? >> well, what -- i thought i would just take yur lead. >> front page of the "wall street journal." fieser in preliminary discussions. $120 plus deal. thought sngs >> well, it's amazing what the "wall street journal" will do to fill a room. what can i say. no comment. we have an official position that we don't dement on speblinglation. -- comment on speculation. >> if you don't mind. here we go. so without commenting on this specific position you've been vocal and clear with your
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investors about what you feel. what's your view? why should fieser obviously a big company already, what's the value of getting bigger from here? >> well, we've laid out i think in discussions of our investors that we have various future scenarios. one is to continue to look for organic growth. line line products are doing well. we have new launches. we had a really good quarter with growth. in emerging markets. so i would look at this not as a strategy but a way of facilitating strategies and accelerating, if possible, return to shareholders. we have a balance sheet that's substantial. we can do b.d. >> business development.
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>> if i believe it will accelerate. or we could also sit tight and decide to do a split. if we decide that was the best. or we could do a b.d. deal and then a split. we have luckry a whole series of strategic alternatives and we're driven by what we believe will produce the best long-term value to share holders. >> so scale seems such an important word. if you look at the health insurers two huge deals going on. for some reason you strike this deal it's a $500 billion deal. in 2015 alone. if you look at hospitals, consolidation there. drug store chains. wall greens and right aid. that's happening there. so what is the going on with every part of the health care system getting bigger and bigger? >> well, i think the pressure is on the provaders being driven by changes in the health
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care reimbursement system. that's true for payers and for -- and for the providers. i don't think the pharmaceutical industry as yet is being driven to consolidate because of the consolidation of the other parts of the system i think the consolidation is being more driven by companies that have the cash and want to look for ways to accelerate now, i do think there may come a point that the you can continue to see concentration on the seer side, and if we do more government involvement in health care than we have today, then consolidation would be a routine you would need to take. ian: why would you need to take that? -- dennis: why when you need to take that? ian: generally when you do
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business with government, you do not get free enterprise. you are dealing with a monopoly register, and that tends to to a newsolidation cost, to give you more have to so you have more weight in your negotiations. and it reduces innovation. how did you feel one hillary clinton especially -- -- there are others mentioned companies like yours, not by name, but certainly at your level, what is your response to that? privacy isponse is always an issue, access is always an issue, it is important -- wetients and consumers are vitally important to the health care system. can you imagine going into your doctor or into a hospital and
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not having pharmaceuticals? can you imagine doing an operation without modern medicine? unfortunately, we are an easy target because we do not interact directly with consumers. we interact with intermediates. politicians in the political moments, they tend to and giveake views votes by doing what politicians do, and i think good public policy will dominate. pricing has been an issue in the united states for 40 years, 50 years. it always will be. it peaks up in election periods. a real public policy is where pharmaceuticals take total
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health care costs. we have been at that percentage for decades. we have a built-in pricing mechanism that reduces the cost of pharmaceuticals by eloise's, loe's so if you look at pfizer's, price increase, everything is about 6%, but if you look at it in a different the cost ofook at society of our innovations, there is no increase. dennis: how do you say that? ian: because products that have gone through as close city -- through exclusivity, which is a mechanism for price, if you look through 2015, our prices in fact, if you are looking at prices of therapies that were in the marketplace and have come into the market place and had price increases was every year
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4% -- cumulative, 4%. dennis: a couple of points on that. the number i thought recently, about 1/3 of pfizer's revenue priceses came from themselves, so in terms of the revenue, more of it is coming from the price increases themselves. viagra was up i think 57%. we price our products based on the value they deliver, and i would like to point out that when we launch a product, we do not price it to recuperate the full value to society. if you look at studies that have been done on statins, for reputablea very economic journal. it had calculated over a period
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of a decade or maybe 20 years, it created $1.3 trillion of value for the u.s. economy by quality of life and productivity, and the cost was 30% of that. dennis: so maybe you have been underpricing drugs. ian: i would say we never price of drugs to social value because it is an affordability issue. dennis: maybe lipitor should have been price higher. ian: according to be benefits delivered to society, you could make that argument. it enabled us to fund investment and research. the point i'm trying to make as we increase prices because our expenses increased, because the fda requires big clinical trials, we have cost drivers, and we have a risky business. and the drugs are adding value.
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dennis: you understand the emotion when a consumer who is used to seeing old products getting cheaper in price, they see now, they see on the news and perhaps when they go to the pharmacy themselves, they see that price going up and up. butmight be totally right, the emotional response and therefore the political response is based on their experience where things should get cheaper over time. two countergive you arguments to that. -- got 95% cheaper since 2005. so drugs get cheaper, they get cheaper when they get off of exclusivity, and that is the bargain with society. we take huge risks, and when a golf patents, they become extremely inexpensive. number two, the cost to the consumer of our medications is
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really determined by the way society decides to allocate its resources to health care. we have very comprehensive insurance in the united states, but it is no longer acting as insurance. it is acting as a service administrator of benefits. mostly insurance companies today, their risks have been taken out. they have risk hurdles set by the government for medicare, medicaid. a large part of the business is really no insurance, is the government saying here is the premiums, this is what you can mandatedhese are the benefits you have to give, here they havebsidies when mainly become service providers for the government, so the incentives are not constructed right. dennis: so how would you
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construct those incentives? ian: i think insurance companies need to have an ability to take risk, the ability to price their products, and the incentives a reward to ensure the long-term health of their patients. ther rates get set on of a one-year basis, so depending if they have more patients, their risks get changed, but if new technology comes then, they cannot recuperate the cost, and i do not blame them. they cannot recuperate because there is nothing in the risk program that says this new medicine comes in that is fabulously important for savety, cures hepatitis c, the economy hundreds of millions of dollars or $1 trillion over a long period of time, but you
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have to change your risk priority for this year for it. so if they pay in the ear, it is a total loss for them. results -- have real ian: and real change in pricing. this is a very competitive industry. dennis: yet we know that outcome-based approaches are 1, hard to measure, 2, there are so many efforts by and large across the country -- how do we actually make that happen? is this a political decision in the end, what is this have to come from the bottom up? if what you are saying is correct, and it may well be, how does it actually occur? ian: you have got to let the marketplace work, and that is what we do not do. we do not have a marketplace that works. we have government interfering with what the risk of corridors are, what the gap is between your policies on risk. i think there is clearly a place
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for government, for people to provide a safety net. the government has gone way beyond that, so it interferes with the efficient working of the marketplace. you know, i think that is the bottom line where other countries believe that a marketplace with reasonable regulation can produce the best results, but we believe a central government can dictate -- and i for one do not believe that works. you just have to look at europe to see that does not work. dennis: why doesn't it work in europe? ian: look at statistics for people who get cancer in the u.k. and see what happens. if you get cancer in the u.k., you do not want to be in the u.k. you look at the access to modern technologies in europe, heavily rationed, and it is very difficult to get an appropriate reward for your technology. dennis: let's say hillary clinton calls you up, maybe she
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calls you up and says let's meet for a drink. for a drink, and this sounds like a setup for a joke, but it is not, it is a question. , "tell me the one thing i need to know as the potential president of the united states to resolve the potential problems here." what would you tell her? ian: i would tell her you have got to create full, appropriate regulations, you have got to create incentives for those providers, the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, to improve the long-term health care of patients. have incentives to do that. you also have to ensure that the patient has incentives, and we do not have that. there are not incentives for people to not smoke, to keep their weight down, not to become diabetic. some people become diabetic because it is unfortunate, it is genetic, but a lot of it is lifestyle.
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and we do not have those types of incentives in the system. dennis: does this eventually take us to a path -- somewhere in the near future towards genetic testing and being able to judge whether a person is or ag a behavioral choice sort of cursed by genetics? ian: i think sometime in the future, but it is not just genetics. there are so many factors. you can go so far, but you do need to have systems to say if you're supposed to take this, you take it, and if you do not take it, there have to be consequences. if you are divided, you take medicine -- if you are diabetic, you take medicine to control your diabetes. you have to have skin in the game. dennis: people don't? ian: well, patients get diagnosed that they need cholesterol treatment or within six months, 50% have stopped. dennis: because -- ian: because people do not like
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it. we do not understand it. we have done no amount of research -- the research we have done to try to increase the adherence to medication. it is a behavioral question. i do not think this is an easy solution, but the solution certainly is not a central government dictating the allocation of resources by interfering with the pricing mechanism. dennis: let's stay on government for a second. this is my word, and i would use the word "insane" to potentially go for a transaction in which would be tax and birding in an election year without commenting transaction, you have been pretty vocal about the tax regime and the issue of cash being trapped overseas. what is your view on it now? how is pfizer -- if so many of
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your brethren really have inverted across the u.s. shores? ian: my view is that i believe this is a country of laws. -- at leastlaws are by congress are clear -- and i think i have a duty to move to increase or defend the value of the company for the shareholders, and i also have a duty to our colleagues. i want them to have a company that is robust and can grow and they can have a career again, and i feel we are at a tremendous disadvantage right now in that race. i have foreign companies who have tax rates of 15% who can invest $2 billion, three billion dollars more in research than we can. and we are fighting with one hand tied behind our back. and your comment to me -- tell
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me in the last 10 years when it was the appropriate time? what level of confidence you have that in the next 10 years we will see rational tax reform? dennis: you have artie been through the process with your potential deal of too much political blowback on the issue. do not think so. i do not think there is any real political blowback. there was no political blowback in the u.k. the u.k. was quite willing to have us do that transaction. we did not have a capital market system which would make for an efficient transaction. dennis: are you ready for pfizer's name to become an election talking point:? willing for pfizer's name to say we are doing what we that wedo to make sure
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can continue to innovate, continue to bring cures, to continue employment, and to be a successful company. the problem is how tax code is usually disadvantageous to american high-tech multinational personally have been to washington for the last two years, i have talked to almost anybody who would listen to me, i have tried to get to this as an urgent issue, and i have been totally unsuccessful. dennis: what is that conversation like? understand, they all say yes, we know the tax code needs to be fixed, yet there is no political will to fix it. dennis: so that leaves you no choice, perhaps -- ian: with the assumption that even when there may be political wills, it is still going to be no guarantee of a
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competitive outcomes your european nations have a lot broader tax base, so they have corporate tax, they have personal tax, and they have -- this allows them to drive their corporate rate down to levels that the united states cannot. dennis: how much cash you have overseas? dependinguctuates where the money is that any one time. it can range between $20 million and $60 billion. dennis: that is a lot of money. this is an argument for an version. you can, with your lower tax rate, do more investment with the united states. ian: yeah. company, theeign issue is it is not that we don't as a company want to be in the united states. i think the united states is a fabulous place to do business. you have great schools, great
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intellectual properties, rule of law -- most of the time. but so does everybody else who can invest in the united states. there is no competitive and that advantage between being domiciled inside of or outside of the u.s. in fact, there is a disadvantage. if we make $1 in ireland, and we will pay the irish government $.12 in tax, we have $.88 left. if we bring it back to the united states, we have to then pay up a full u.s. tax load on that, so in fact we end up with $.65. if you are a european competitor in a non-us domicile country, you make the dollar in ireland, you pay the tax ther and you can
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bring thee $.88, back to the u.k. -- back to the u.s. you can invest in the u.s., you can adjust to at 38% in the u.s. -- why is the tax code making it better for foreign companies to invest in the united states than u.s. companies? dennis: a number of companies have voted with their feet. we have seen them one after thei next. you guys are almost behind the pack. ian: i am not saying it is the only element. when you look at a deal, it is not just driven by tax philosophy. is expense. it is expense on the p nl. it needs to be managed like any other expense. you look at what is the price of the company you are trying to acquire, what is their future pipeline look like, and what do the financial synergies look like, and you look at that as a
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combination, so it is one element of the evaluation. dennis: another element of courses r&d expense. the stock has responded accordingly. it has done very well under your management. what is the current philosophy if you are talking to a group about r&d? ian: my philosophy on that is that we need to have a sustainable engine for growth, so we looked at our r&d when i became ceo, we looked at in a fundamental way and say if we looked at what our success rates have to be in small molecules, what are the success rates in large molecules, what are the costs to bring products forward, wind we fail, how do we fail, fail early, fail often, how much do we have to spend to get a return on capital?
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dennis: you guys were basically peer were is there a power point were you solve the slide and you were like, "oh, my god." ian: no, it has been misjudgment. the more i get confident that the new pathway, the new iswledge, that the culture right, that the scientists are being productive. the more you build trust, the more you will understand. myself as part of the management team, and the investors are the same way. success begets success. if we are productive, then our investors are willing to spend more. dennis: what happened to pfizer before it made that are in the equation out of wet? -- of wack? leadership, good lack of appropriate culture, and
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we have taken a lot of steps to improve our science base, improve where we are, the competitiveness of our science, and a certain elements, to be honest, is also very often lu this is a very difficult exercise. if you pick the wrong area to go down and you make a mistake and you hit a blind alley and you do mayknow for 10 years, you be wrong bet. you just got out of whack. any drug company -- is there somehow a cultural, something that is out of whack, the veneration of r&d almost for its own sake, it is not as at pfizer but across the industry. of course it matters. in your view, is it mattering more than it should? ian: scientists -- most people
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who come to us at pfizer want to make a difference, and scientists really want to make a difference, and they invest time and capital in these projects, and it is very hard for them to give up a project. so you need a culture that rewards a team that says, "we want to cure this. we spent five years our life on this, but it is not going to make it -- let's move on." that is part of the culture change we work with -- dennis: saying no. ian: and we also at pfizer, we are right to change ks of oure of the nec scientists. chemistry, andn we are still probably one of the best chemistry -- innovative chemistry organizations in the world, which is vital to pharmaceuticals. new pathwayslow in
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on biology, and we were probably in the wrong places. you know, traditionally, pfizer put its research sites, manufacturing sites, and the big manufacturing sites where we had lots of water and ribbons. that is not very conducive to attracting the best scientists. you may attract the best scientists, but then 10 years later, you're not still attracting the same scientists, so i think our movement to la jolla, our movement to san francisco, to cambridge, of certain scientists allowed us to be more competitive. dennis: let's say you had the 100 top students from around the world and you say i want these three disciplines at the top of my list, who would you put there right now? ian: it has still got to be design chemistry, genetics, biology, fundamental biology. it has got to be in those areas. dennis: can we talk about
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genetics for a second? it is a little bit of a detour. ian: do not strain my knowledge too much. dennis: i do not know much -- that is why i am asking you. [laughter] let's talk about how medicine is moving in that direction. ian: from my understanding, there is a way the genes will change what proteins are made and how they are made in their structure depending upon the environment and what the body receives. so two people can have the same genes theoretically, identical twins, but if they have different environments and the east different foods and have different stress levels and different danger signals, they will have different outcomes. the genes do not dominate. it is what happens to the genes by outside influences. scientists toed clarify that, but that is my layman's terms. dennis: so working in that area
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-- ian: i think absolutely. even the microbes, right, in your guts dictate if you are going to be healthy or not. some people have the wrong microbes and they become extremely ill. you have to have some pretty difficult procedures, different flora in people's guts. dennis: on the other side of the r&d model is a company called valeant. when you see a company like that, do you think they're good for science, good for the business or not? ian: i think they are part of a free enterprise system. it is like the arbitrage in the stock market. everybody has a role in the system. they certainly pushed companies to be more efficient. they use, i believe -- i do not
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know much about the company -- but they use a lot of very sophisticated financial techniques to be able to take out companies who were undervalued. i believe it is a dead-end. dennis: what you mean by that? ian: there is no research. they are living off of underappreciated assets. they're coming in and selling them at close to the full value and making money from it, but you know, so, is it fundamentally helpful for science? no. will the marketplace to care of it? yes. dennis: you are saying the company, at least as it is currently operating, is a dead-end. ian: i am saying it is a dead-end for research. dennis: is it a dead-end from a business perspective? it has to be. ian: eventually, you run out of
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assets, and in our business, you have to remake yourself every 10 years. from that point of view, i do not see that that business model is sustainable. dennis: right. their use of specialty pharmacies, it is sort of in the weeds around distribution, but it is important for them. do you guys do that? ian: i do not know what their use of specialty pharmacies are. we do use of specialty pharmacies, but there is no type of agreement that would ant and otherle pharmacies have. we used specialty pharmacies for oncology and other drugs for patients who need a high level of attention from pharmacies. dennis: if you read the report in the "wall street journal," you will see that yes, they are specialties, but really their speciality was getting the insurers to pay. ian: i do not know anything about their business model. dennis: ok.
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fair enough. a company you have had some experience with, what is your exact nature of your relationship with -- aware am not particularly of a profound relationship. it is not on my radar. i'm not aware of any contracts. i am aware of how we ethically operate in the marketplace, and i am satisfied. dennis: but this is a blood testing company -- ian: i do not think we have a particular relationship. dennis: so not on your radar. ian: no. dennis: so where does pfizer go from here? you have done a great job of moving the stock. i think the streets feel better about it. from the r&d perspective, you have had some good success. what is pfizer and 2020? in, i didi first came
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not talk about vision. we moved it had the imperialism in place to talk about that. our purpose is -- our mission is to become the premier pharmaceutical company by the end of this decade. we described that is being highly respected, having work for us. having life-saving medicines, and being involved in conversations that can change, or affect, the structure and the outcome of the industry. i want people to say this is a great place to work. dennis: had do you change the culture of an 80,000 person workplace? ian: slowly.
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much ofd be amazed how the work of senior management is about if you want to change culture, talking about it and making sure that you act consistently. it.ave something called own that is owning the business. veryext one, it was controversial, no jerks. i felt very strongly. it is politically -- and it politically correct atmosphere to cannot and say no jerks, it was behavior. knowsn't have -- everyone a jerk when they see one. no one wants to work for a jerk. if you want to attract the best divisionalghtest,
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manager. if your manager is a jerk, you don't want to be at pfizer. that's became important to our culture. dennis: your conversation with the lawyers went like what? ian: like you can't do this, this is like putting a brand on people. it is naming them, you don't -- you can't say -- you shouldn't say people are of this persuasion or that persuasion. i said would not your permanently a jerk, we're saying no jerks with behavior. that is the way around it. it is a recognition that you have to tell someone and work with them. if they don't change their behavior come we don't want them in the company. dennis: you famously have a coin you like to share. ian: i do not have it with me. dennis: talk about it. ian: part of the problem of any system, part of the problem is to get the people who are the base.
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the people were intimately involved to tell you the truth. not just me, but to tell the organization what they believe. we have a saying at pfizer, coined by someone in australia. they sent me the e-mail, it said bad news early is good news. bad news late is really bad news. right? we need a culture where people , and canl intimidated stand up and talk. they can take on the hierarchy of this supervisor. dennis: what is the hardest conversation you had? it was thank you. i need to do know that. now we can bring the resources. if you do this two months ago, you should've talk to me to months ago. we would've had more time to fix
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it. it really is important. we had a filing, we bought a small company. we had a filing to the fda. .e got a refusal to file i called the people together, 12 people, and i said what happened? they said we knew it was a bad file. i said everybody knew it was at up? file, but? no one spoke talkingroman started about straight talk. it may not be your area, but if you are uncomfortable about something you have to speak up. the coin is a mechanism, a symbol, i am protected. i want to tell you what i believe is wrong about this product. -- likeit is likely the conch in "the lord of the flies." -- pneumatically describe --
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we have a good prop here. everybody has it. we had a big fight, we did not want to pay for them. cfos are like that. straight talk, you can put it down if you feel you're in an environment where fix it not been talked about. the element of the room has not been -- elephant in the room is not been talked about. you can use it like that, or there is own it. you can tell a colleague to own it. it happened to me, i was -- a very simple example -- i was discussing behavior. it is very important in no jerks. i was at the christmas celebration. we had a small instance, but very telling. carol a voluntary
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organization and they were singing. i don't have a voice. walking by, and they said you have to get up and sing this . we do this every year. it would be great if you sang. i said no. some of the come on, own it. i had to go up and sing. they got me. this is powerful. it is really powerful. people just say i want to have some straight talk. not owning this process. dennis: it became a bridging mechanism for the culture. where do you get the idea? ian: it came from our head of hr. he was a top gun pilot before joining hr. he came up with the idea of using this tool. dennis: is that patented? ian: this is like our culture.
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it is a permanent competitive advantage. are talking you about pfizer going forward. you mentioned the company might split. a lot of different ideas are being vetted, walk us through that process. how are you thinking about that decision? it is a very important one. ian: we have two basic businesses as a result of being in the business for a long time. we have an innovative business. that focuses on new cures. as such, it dedicated a lot of money into research. it dedicate a lot of money into education. you excepted, and working on guidelines. and we have another part of the organization that is selling products. them differently
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in emerging markets. in the u.s., they sell them with five people in a room. they monitor quality, and shortages. the priceat what levels are felt up emerging markets, the do it with huge selling on the brand. these are very different different -- businesses that need a different strategic set. different managers, different cross spaces. -- does the sum of pfizer equal its parts? slow-moving, established products business dragging down the value of the innovative, or vice versa? not operationally
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being as efficient as we can? our investors perceiving where taking money from the established business and subsidizing research. dennis: are you? i thought the was how drug companies works. you have all the products that would fund the new products. ian: some companies don't. bms is more of a pure innovative -- clearly it becomes patented and establish. hours is half and half. it is two big businesses. we are competing in strategic visions. so, the question is -- if we split those up, would we unlock the value? dennis: what is the answer? ian: i don't know. dennis: what will determine the answer? separatee giving them
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operating units, we're giving them different economy. -- full autonomy. we will start giving them balance sheets. at the end of 16, when i have the ability to do a transaction we will look at the company and say do we believe these two divisions are optimally working or not? could they work better outside? is there trap value? if we look at their pe's, does that give me a higher value of shares? sufficiently, realize that value? nothingon wall street, happens for no reason. without that flash through my mind is that he was going to break up pfizer. ian: no.
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no decision has been taken. is equal toparts the whole. investors are satisfied with our capital allocation. difficultiesmajor in running those two businesses in the same corporate shell. the decision is not been taken. dennis: you have the decision by -- ian: at the latest, the fourth quarter of 16. dennis: so much interesting stuff we have covered. with microphones i think in the audience. >> you talk a lot about pressures and pricing. pharma.eting specialty what about the positive side? live a health tech industry growing very fast.
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centers could potentially detect cancer early. , you didinnovation analytics, does that cause you to think about changing the business model? is that a cultural pressure as well? leveri think the biggest would be our business gene therapy. it is coming. we have gene therapy for blood disorders. therapy comes in, it is really going to stretch the payment systems. how do you pay one time, then lose the patient because he is cured? it is a dilemma for an insurance company. the technologies you're talking about will enable a better use of pharmaceuticals. athink they are embryonic
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the moment. as they become more sophisticated -- there is no such thing as an average dose. it is an artifact of us not being able to individualize the treatment for every patient. ideally, i would like an artifact that google could come up with which would monitor constantly certain parameters --t would tell the patient can they adjust their dose while keeping side effects in the right profile? would become perfect for every patient. we don't do that today, we take averages. doctor can adjust the dose through their experience. it is sub optimal. early the direction of cancer cells, i think that technology promises huge productivity. i don't see it as a competition to our industry. i see it as a facilitator of
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improving pharmaceuticals. dennis: a real-time monitoring device for cancer in a way? ian: it could be, like a diabetes. for any medication you need to take where you are trying to measure the impact it is having on certain parameters. dennis: how far away is a device like that? ian: probably between five and 10 years. if you- you have to -- are going to peers the skin, the fda will say what is the benefit. you have the a benefit if you will create a potential infection site. i'm goinggo and set to measure all these things and see what happens later. they will not allow that. creating say you are your own health risks. regulatory will slow that down. we miniaturize, and as new blood
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tests become available, these offer opportunities. dennis: another question, please. >> thank you for sharing your thoughts with us this morning. just to pick up on the previous question -- many major industries whether it is airbnb netflix -- you have disruptors. they are cheating the pattern from a competitor standpoint and otherwise of traditional industries. when you look at ,iopharmaceutical, do you see as you look ahead, such disruptive trends coming up? do you anticipate those trends will come from all sectors, or could they come from countries that traditionally don't follow
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the ocd? ian: i think the disruptor in our industry would be an ability to take a product from mechanism to market and half the time. fristes us, we got hte injecting of a pathway and from that attack is 19 years to bring the product to market. dennis: that product became what? ian: rheumatoid arthritis medicine. disruptor fore our business model is technologies that speed the products to market. it is a huge crater of value. a disruption would be gene therapy. i don't see the previous issues we are talking about as being disruptive. a disruption would be political change. a society not willing to support
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innovation. they don't believe the model we have is the most efficient and they will supplanted. that would be a disruption. i don't see it coming from countries that are not highly technologically advanced. dennis: ok. >> could you ask people to state their name? dennis: ok. >> you talked about the consolidation of suppliers. as a result, if you look 10 years, would you see the pharmaceutical industry business model changing and somewhat? how are you preparing options against that? ian: the business model is changing -- there are two parts to the business model. there was what to do to get a product to market, and part of that is what -- how quickly can you move? how quickly can you validate?
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can you use bio markets? we would hope to see the science continue to progress and will proceed to the regulatory side catches up to the science. they, we're stuck with regulatory environment that was crafted in the 1950's. trials,ed clinical non-adaptive clinical trials, no use of big data for efficacy. you can only use it for safety. it is extreme the professional, but it is cautious -- the fda. people only counted their mistakes which is very unfortunate. no one counts the great things that they do. all of the products they approve, their great products. it makes the naturally cautious. i feel for the dilemma. we do need society to say we're willing to take more risks. that would change our business
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model. he science, the regulators, use of bio markets, and communication with physicians. technology, better ways of getting to physicians to communicate the knowledge. dennis: what is the best idea you talk about internally? to communicate the positions? ian: everyone is experimenting with electronic methods will stopwebina webinars, bringing laptops, not sending people to congress but sending them to get messages to congress. now have a rep go in to see a physician it is up in a personal relationship. they're a so many restrictions around what we can say to a
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physician, given the regulatory environment. we have an investigator that developed the drug and he has huge experience. we ask them to give a talk to 200 positions. if someone says i heard this could be used in this way, that is not yet an approved usage, we have to get up and say you cannot answer that question. if we don't, we get sued by the fda. we can take them to lunch. not verye is efficient. publicize, and we publish all of that. we use ipads now. a doctor can say i would like to ask this question, and the question is because it is not on the label, our rep may need the answer but is not allowed to get the answer. and puts thephone them to ait and puts
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physician to they can ask the question directly to another physician. pbm's: do we need anymore? they seem like these middlemen. think they exist because of the regulations in the marketplace. i am a big believer in that. i think if you change the way drugs are reimbursed, potentially would not need them. they negotiate better prices. that has good and bad. canof the issues is they restrict the flow of new technologies. if they had a large base of older products, and are making a the rebates.on a new product comes in, they don't have any interest in place because they
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are not making rebate on it. it is a positive and a negative system. dennis: i think we have time for one more question. >> diane coffey, peter sullivan company. i enjoyed your talk so far. you're very nimble, i have to say. i have a question about washington. the house of representatives has just changed its speaker, or is about to. do you feel there will be any ness for the tax changes even though the house is still divided in that faction? it will be run by someone who is interested in tax policy coming from the ways and means committee? is: well, congress and ryan extremely interested in tax reform. said, theret being
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is no dynamic scoring. i believe this is the biggest issue that the united states has. the budget office cannot dynamically score policy changes. so it is difficult for congress changes thatlicy would be positive for the country for job creation. isdon't, i think it difficult to see radical change coming out of congress in the political situation we are now going into an election year. so many, there are restraints. that is good in our system. you have a majority in the senate you can't get a bill to the president.
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the fact that one side has majority does not really mean anything. they can't get hills through to the president if the other side decides to play hardball. right now, our political system makes it difficult to move things forward quickly. an example of dynamic scoring. the problem we have with it. we have, it was the america invents act that was passed a year and a half ago. consequence, part of it was to make the prosecution of patents faster. it was targeted at tech companies. they have lots of patents for short periods of duration. the patent trolls wanted an efficient manner to get there and adjudicate those patents. one of the issues was people were using it to invalidate pharmaceutical patents. so, we work 14 years to bring a
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aoduct to market, now we have new process that does not have the same standards as the civil courts. standard,a different and you have hedge fund people shorting -- well, taking a patent into the patent review and shorting the stock. they are using it as a way of making money on the fact that the patent was used likely to cancel the patent of than not. we are to get this change. we go to the congress, and the senate that if we change it and we give you a balance we know is right, the cbo has said it has to be paid for. i said, what? they said that the patents are protected it will cost society more money. so you guys have to pay money for us -- for the cbo to score
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it as zero? i said hold on, i thought patents were a good thing? i thought the created wealth? i thought patents were central part of our society? if they're being destroyed, people will not invest and we will have less productivity. that weem is so crazy would have to pay so that we can reestablish the right to have a patent. dennis: i hope congress gets one of your coins before it is too late. i hope i get one as well, it sounds awesome. thank you so much, it is been a wonderful conversation. [applause] >> thank you very much indeed. i can't add anything to that to say that if washington pursued your no jerks policy we might
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all be at a better place. that was a really fascinating discussion. we are enormously grateful to you, ian, for being with us. thank you to all of you for being here this morning. i want to pay special trip to our sponsors, american express global payments, and leases could tunis for joining us this morning. that concludes this morning to session. we will -- that concludes our season. we will be back in january. we would have the president and ceo of ziemann's. a will make sure with front-page story that morning, so we look forward to that. in the meantime, have a wonderful day, and goodbye. [applause]
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>> sunday, former british prime minister tony blair and howard buffett the brother of warren buffett discuss world hunger. that is at 6:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> john hinckley was the person who shot president reagan. reagan was not wearing a bullet-proof vest that day. hinckley was john stocking jimmy carter before this. feynman talksald about mary's assassination attempts and physical threats made against president and presidential candidates throughout american history. >> 16 presidents have faced assassination threat. i also cover three presidential
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candidates, i talk about you elong who would 1935 was assassinated in a talk about robert kennedy in 1968, and george wallace who was shot and in 1972. for life i cover candidates as well as presidents. it is a long list. sunday night, at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. today on c-span, washington journal is live next. then c-span's congressional freshman profiles continue with an interview with georgia representative eddie carter. --er that we talked to do new jersey were presented of. -- representative donald norcross. aning up in 30 minutes, update on afghanistan operations with major general gordon davis. duke at thendon center of american progress on
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the state of the u.s. economy. at 9:15 a.m., a look at the work in congress to update the no child left behind legislation. our guest is allison klein of education week. obama: right now we know of no specific and credible intelligence indicating a plot on the homeland. get the president advises all americans to remain vigilant. good morning. his comments yesterday from the white house following the national security meeting. among the headlines this thursday morning, reassurances ahead of the big travel weekend. it is november 26, happy thanksgiving. if you're watching from home we hope you enjoy the start of the weekend and if you are listening on c-span radio, safe travels on one of the busiest times of your. we will focus on homeland security and ask you this question. are you worried?
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