>> you can find the last few minutes of this syria discussion online. c-span.org. as we take you live to capitol hill. the u.s. house of representatives gaveling in. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, waington, d.c. december 15, 2015. i hereby appoi thehonorable trent kelly act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the high pressure system. the speaker pro teore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 6, 2015, the chair will now regnize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders fo morning hour debate . the chair will alternate regnitionetween the parties with each party limited to one hour and ea member other than the majority and minority

leaders and minority whip mited to five minutes but in no event shall debate continue beyond 1:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina, mr. jos, for five minutes. mr. jones: mr. spear, two weeks agwh secretary defense ash carter testified before the house armed services committee, i asked him if congress debating and ving on an authorization for the use of military force, an aumf would help in the cause of defeating isil. cretary carter said it would be helpful because we would need to show theroops that congress supports them. two wks ago the obama adnistration announced that it would be sending expeditionary force into iraq and syria to fight isil. in his columnast week titled "obama's quiet shift in war on isil" syndicated columnist mcmahon us in wrote, i quote,

if the expeditionar forces succeed as the record suggests th will, they will almost surely be followed by more. i completely agree with mr. mcmanus. onovember 6 my colleague, i am jim mcgovern, and i along with 33 of our colleagues wrote a letter to spear ryan urging him to allow debate on an aumf the house floor. we never received a response. last week jim and i wrote speaker ryan another letter urging him to allow a debate on the aumf on the house floor as one of the firsactions congress takes when we come bac januay, 2016. mr. spaker, president obama continueso escate our involvement against isil in iraq and syria. our fight isn't gng away any time on which is why it i high time conessulfills its constitutional duty and debate

our role in the middle east. as jams madison said, the power to declare war cluding the power of the judging th causes the ar is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature. the most important votby a member of congress to commit a yog man or woman fight and die for this country. mr. speaker, i have two letters th i would ke to ask unanimous consent that i mig submit for the record. the speaker pro tempe: without objection. mr. joner. speaker, if we do not meet our responsibility, we will become complit in the loss of life among our troops. how many young children will have a ve one that doesn't come home from fighting for this country? the picture here, mr. speer, is the first one that i brought after we went into an unnecessary war known as iraq. his daddy was a gunny sergeant wh ws killed in2003. the little boy's name is

phill jordan. this is actually 12 years ago annow he is 18 years of age. how many more children will haveto go without a father or mother who lost their life i war or brother or sisr? we needo meet o constitutional responsibility. it's embarrassing that we in congress, i don't even think we have a right to criticize the president, quite frankly. let's do our job based on e constitution. let's do our job and debate a new aumf or a declaration of war. let's meet our responbility for the good of r men and women iuniform d their families. with that, mr. spr, i yield back by asking god to please ble our nation, bless our men and women in uniform, and please, god, ctinue toless america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman om maryland mr. hoyer. mr. hoyer thank you very much, mr. speaker.

mr. speaker, within the next few days the house could take up a tax packe that exten a number of tax breaks rmanently. the ct of such a pkageuns in the 600 t800 bilon range. none of which i paid for. ballooning our deficits in a way that reinforces the misguided double standard that investments in the groh of jobs and opporunities must be offs, but tax cuts are always free. x cuts like everhing else is cost. if we fail to pay for them, 'll once agaiincrease deficits and debt which in turn wl be used as a catalyst for another round of ts to the very programs i believe are vital to our economy and to our people. therefore, mr. speaker i will opse an unpaid forax

extender package like this is proposed shout me to the floor. before going through my concerns about this deal in the package being disssed has t nbe of taxreferences hat i and many others support. th include making permanent expansions of the income tax credit, child tax credit, and american opportunity tax credit launched under the recovery act in 2009. it would also provide incentives businesses and individual filers for investment, research, charitable contributions, and teaching expenses among oths. most ofs support those efforts. in many waythis would a ll whe everyone gets mr. speaker, our childrnd grandchildren will get the ill.

what concerns me most about this bill is it further entrenches the false notion thatffsets only matter when it comes to spending priorities. the dire consequencesill be providing repubcans with the to propose hey need en deeper cuts to the very invissments thahelp gro the economy a create -- investment that help grow the econy and create jobs both in the shorrm and lon-term. frankly, i'msurprisewe haven't heard more of outcry that the roughly $illion in lost revenue from the package is nearly the same eorrectionary cuts republicans insisted upon in the sequester. it would appear we are setting ourselves up for republicans demanding the next round of severeuts that harm our economy and our people both on the nondefse side and on the

ation security side. , mr. speaker, we ust move away from this dangerous pattern. republicans contie to argue that t cuts pay f themselvesy spurring economic rowth. a theory that s been proven wrong and sadly our children will pay the price for the defics that have resulted. others willrgue that the effect on our deficits and debt of anoth $700 billn in unpaid for taxxpenditures over the next 10ears can be ignored becau we would extend them every year anyway. while convenient, neither of these is a responsible position for governing. in a "wall street journal" piece last monday, a good friend of mine and president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, the committee for a responsible federal

budget, asked, and i quote, how do we explain to our children that we borrowed more than $1 trillion that counts interest, not because it was a national emergency, or to make critical investments in the future, but because we just don't like paying our bills. close quote. our answer has to be not to justify the irresponsible behavior but to correct it. nd this tax extender package will make that much more difficult. first, this package undermines congress' ability to invest in and opportunities

that make the american dream possible for millions of families. when we cut taxes without paying for them, there are consequences. every dollar in lost revenue is a dollar that must be made up a that make the american somewhere else in the budget. as i said earlier, these unpaid-for-tax extenders will set the table for further republican attempts to slash critical investments in our nation's future. secondly, mr. speaker, it will hinder our ability to restore fiscal stability by making it less likely that we'll be able to protect the future sustainability of entitlement programs like medicare and social security. in order to appear balanced, recent republican budgets proposed trillions of dollars in cuts to health programs for seniors and the most vulnerable in our society. worsening our deficit's outlook by passing this bill invites them to continue that task. while we face a challenge to our most critical retirement and health programs, a challenge driven by the

retirement of the baby-boom generation and the looming effect of compound interest on our debt, my republican friends continue to offer budget proposals that severely cut benefits for seniors and the most vulnerable americans. they try to justify doing so because our deficits are too high. their proposal would exacerbate that by about $1 trillion as was said. here we are, though, about to consider proposals to raise the deficits even higher. and thirdly, mr. speaker, this type of unpaid for permanent extension will undercut our economic competitiveness by making competitive tax reform more -- comprehensive tax reform more difficult to achieve, not easier. we need comprehensive tax reform and this will make it more difficult. locking in preferences while lowering the revenue baseline by more than half a trillion dollars will ensure a plunge to

further debt. mr. speaker, i continue to believe that the business community would much prefer to see rates go down through comprehensive reform than simply an extension of individual preferences. this bill promises them both. more preferences and lower rates at the cost of deficits, debt, and diminished investment in our economic competitiveness. there are certain -- certainly components of this tax extender package that i, as i said before, would like to make permanent. i wish we could make them even bert, in fact. for instance, the child tax credit should be structured to keep up with inflation so that those working the hardest to get by don't continue to see their resources dwindle year after year. again, let me quote mcguinness when she highlighted this important point in the op-ed. quote, most of the extenses

under consideration are sensible enough policy and their merit is an argument for paying for them. i couldn't agree more. this tax extender package itself serves as a powerful argument, for democrats and republicans, to come together to achieve that which we really need, comprehensive tax reform. so in closing, mr. speaker, while i agree we need short-term certainty for tax filers before the end of the year, i believe the price this package would have us pay is too steep, too irresponsible in the short-term and in the longer term. instead, we could provide that same immediate certainty with a simple two-year extension. that's what we ought to do. i urge my colleagues to think carefully about the late-term

impact and consequences of this -- long-term impact and consequences of this package on the ability to create jobs and opportunities, crow our economy, invest in strengthening our security, reduce our nation's debt, and balance our budget. i losing, mr. speaker, believe that this congress and our people expect us to do better. we have a responsibility to our country and to our children to do better. let's do it. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman emmer, for a, mr. five minutes. mr. emmer: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to recognize anderson trucking service for their impressive 60 years in business. the founder of anderson

trucking grew up in the transportation industry and began hauling granite with his father. in those early years, harold developed a strong interest in machinery and driving so it was no surprise when he chose to pursue a career in trucking. harold officially started anderson trucking company after he returned home from world war ii, the company is now run by harold's sons as well as his grandsons. . it has grown and prospered but the anderson family has never forgotten their roots. the company and the anderson family represent the best st. cloud and minnesota have to offer. anderson trucking is matched by the community service provided by the andersons and their great employees. today, anderson trucking has thousands of rigs, hundreds of drivers and has driven millions of miles. the andersons, however, do not measure success by the number of miles driven or the number of deliveries made but also by the high level of customer service that the company

provides. for the past six decades, this international transportation company has successfully and safely delivered freight to their valued customers. we look forward to seeing the continued success of anderson trucking for this generation and generations to come. congratulations on your first 60 years. mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize preferred credit, incorporated of st. cloud for winning a torch award for ethics from the minnesota better business bureau. the preferred credit was established in st. cloud in 1982 and quickly realized their goal of becoming one of the preferred finance companies for the direct sales industry throughout the united states. this outstanding minnesota company accomplished this goal by giving their clients the best possible customer service and building strong personal relationships. the way preferred credit achieved success is evident of how deserving they are of this award. the torch awards is meant to recognize companies that go

above and beyond their customers, employees, vendors and their community. i would like to congratulate preferred credit, incorporated for receiving this prestigious award and for representing what minnesota is all about. thank you for everything you have contributed to the st. cloud community and to the great state of minnesota. we would be nowhere -- we would not be where we are today without great businesses like yours. mr. speaker, i rise today to discuss overregulation. chair of the federal reserve, janet yellen, recently said, quote, small community banks really are suffering from regulatory overload. i absolutely agree. community banks and credit unions are struggling with excessive and overly burdensome regulation. today, 17 of my colleagues on the house financial services committee and i sent a letter to the consumer financial protection bureau, better known as the pmbings cfpb, regarding the most recent addition to the pile of regulations harming consumers and community

financial institutions. the newly revised regulation crferings. regulation c requires most -- regulation c. -- lation c requires most what essentially doubles the current requirements triggered by dodd-frank. the cfpb without adequate justification of need now wants personal information, including business or commercial information, property values, property addresses, credit scores and interest rates. this appears to be a government agency phishing expedition which should raise serious concerns regarding our personal privacy and liberty. this significantly higher regulatory hurdle means community financial institutions will have to allocate more of their limited resources to deal with washington's red tape rather than providing loans to businesses and families in minnesota. it is my hope that cfpb will exempt small community financial institutions from

this new burden or we will have to draft legislation to help our small community banks in minnesota. because as i often say, mr. speaker, what is good for minnesota is good for america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. green, for five minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. , and aker, i rise today i stand in the well of the house as a proud american. i love my country, mr. speaker, and because i love my country, i try not to forget those who go to distant places, those who goo into harm's way -- who go into harm's way and they do it because they love the country. many of them do not come back the same way they left, mr. speaker. they are the men and women who serve in our military, and i never want to forget the

sacrifices that they make. so today i want to salute and honor them for the many causes that they have taken up and for the many times that they have left their homes and their loved ones to stand up for liberty and justice for all, to make real the great and noble american ideals, to provide us the safety and security we have today. but i also stand here today in the well of the house, mr. speaker, to announce my solidarity for justice, my solidarity with the muslim community for justice, for justice because i understand what it's like to be a part of a community that is treated unjustly. i lived through segregation in the united states of america. i know what it's like to go to the back door. i know what it's like to drink from filthy colored water fountains.

i know what injustice looks like. i've seen its face. i know what it smells like. i've been in waiting rooms where only blacks could sit and they were for blacks only because there were other places for others. so i don't want to see anything like that, similar to that, anything that's remotely similar occur to someone else. so i'm standing here today in solidarity with the muslim community because i have injustice that's being perpetrated against islam. i am a christian. my grandfather was a christian minister, but i stand here to support islam today. one of the great religions of the world. and i do this, mr. speaker, because to demean islam by adding the word terrorist with it is an injustice to the religious. islam is a peaceful religion. no religion condones to taking of innocent lives

intentionally. let me repeat this. o religion condones taking the innocence of the lives of innocent persons intentionally. this is why i'm here, because i want to make it clear that islam does not condone this. we should not be talking about islamic terrorists. why not call them what they are? people who commit dastardly deeds, and if you do it in the name of a religion, that doesn't make what you do a part of the religion. and pete ought not be found guilty of their -- and people ought not be found guilty of their affiliation with a religion. what these people are doing, al daesh, is isis, not islam and we ought not, as a result, decide we're going to bar all members of the islamic faith from this country. that would be wrong, mr. speaker.

to even consider doing it is something that i find repugnant. barring all people because of their faith? the islamic faith is not, is not the motivating factor behind all of this injustice that we see being perpetrated by isil. they can claim what they want, but the members of the faith have spoken up. in houston, texas, we met just recently and we discussed this at length. every muslim in that room denounced what was being perpetrated and perpetuated by isil, by isis, by any name, evil. and we ought not do this to a great religion. i stand for justice, and i stand for justice for the islamic faith. i believe that persons who are in harm's way in syria and in other countries ought to be given an opportunity to escape harm. i believe that the good samaritan was right. the good samaritan didn't ask

what will happen to me if i help this person who's in harm's way. the good samaritan posed the question, what will happen to him if i don't help him? this is the question we have to ask ourselves as it relates to our brothers and sisters, and they are our brothers and sisters and there is but one race and that's the human race. god created all to live in harmony. to quote dr. king. what will happen to them if we don't extend the hand of friendship? the good samaritan went so far to take a person to a place where there is a shelter, where the person can receive some attention and say to the innkeeper, give me a line of credit. i will come back and i will take care of my line of credit. we owe it to ourselves as a great leader of the world, the world leader to make sure that we extend justice to islam. and mr. speaker, i'd like to place in the record a list of the persons who were in attendance at the meeting.

the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. green: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 p.m. today. >> reporters on capitol hill saying a deal is likely to be filed late tonight. current spending authority runs out wednesday at midnight and congress may have to pass another short-term spending bill to keep the government suspend pfunded long enough to get the omnibus passed and signed. back to the house live here on c-span at 2:00. also this afternoon, live from the university of minnesota and minneapolis, a speech by democratic presidential candidate, hillary clinton, on national security and combating terrorism. we'll take you there live at 3:45 p.m. eastern.

>> the reagan narrative was he was a lightweight grade b actor with premature orange hair which is what gerald ford said about him in 1976. turning prematurely orange. even with all the successes of his administration, all the historians have consistently rated reagan low. i believe out of ideological bias. >> sunday night on "q&a," historian craig shirley discusses his book, "last act" a look add ronald reagan's life after leaving the white house and the way he's been remembered since his death. >> i like to write about reagan because i grew up in the 1980's. it was the house and time for us. but i also write about the facts. i didn't make things up. i don't believe ed meeze or anybody else makes things -- ed meese or anybody else makes things up. we have succeeded in

repositioning people's thinking about ronald reagan so that it was -- the picture that emerges of a very serious, deep thinking, considerate man. >> sunday night atle:00 eastern on q and -- at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." >> politico hosted one of its playbook discussions this morning. a year-end double-header with both senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and house speaker paul ryan on congressman ryan's 47 remaining days with the gavel as the new speaker. and senator mcconnell year-long plan to resort senate. we'll look at that now. >> good morning. thank you very much for coming to the final playbook breakfast of 2016, a double-header. >> we are very excited to welcome senate majority leader mitch mcconnell on stage to join us and start this iscussion.

>> thank you, my colleague, anna, is with me. we thank you who are joining us out in live stream land. go ahead and send us your questions at #playbookbreakfast. we are excited to have a double-header. leader mcconnell and shortly we'll hear from speaker ryan. thank all of you who have supported playbook breakfast all year. we appreciate your coming out. we have had a lot of fun. and made a lot of news. before we kick off we'd like to , bank of larry america. the playbook event series is a forum for convening conversations about the most critical issues facing washington with the most critical players. we have taken the playbook series across the country. this year florida, new jersey, mass marks california, new york, and some of you might have seen, chicago.

bank of america's been a great partner in 2015 and we really appreciate that. mr. leader, thank you for being here on get away week. anna will kick us off. anna: we have big news today with the big $1.1 trillion spending bill. $750 billion in tax extenders that you guys are going to release. what are the republican wins in this package? leader mcconnell: at the risk of confounding you, we haven't announced it yet and i'm not going to scoop ourselves. what we are looking for on the tax side is to have a large measure as opposed to a short-term two-year what we used to call extender bill with more permanency for things that we think make a difference for the economy. for two reasons. number one, it reduces the base line for getting to comprehensive tax reform which the country desperately needs. and number two, several of these extenders are so popular,

for example, r&d and section 179 to the business community making those permanent, i think, is an important shot in the arm to our economy. anna: you sat down with my colleague, kim and burgess, they said that the headline of the story today's politico is mcconnell vows ambitious agenda in treacherous 2016. what do you mean by that? leader mcconnell: we had a regularly scheduled election in our country every two years since 1788. we could always say well, we can't do anything this year. it's an election year. so what could we conceivably achieve? the one thing the democrats succeeded in completing thwarting this year was a normal appropriations process. they prevented us from getting on the appropriation bills, even though all 12 came out of the committee for the first time in five years.

what i hope we'll do now that we have decided how much we are going to spend next year is not spend any time arguing about -- or obstructing the process of passing the 12 bills that fund he government. this has been disfungal under parties of both majorities. the last time we did it right was 1994. that's something i think we could have minimal arguments over and try to accomplish even in the mid of a contentious year. mike: mr. leader, in the story by my colleagues, they say that you have had a solid first year and they said this is in the paper that's on your chairs there, they said you have begun a victory lap of sorts. is that what this is? leader mcconnell: more than a solid first year. come on, now. let's compare it to last year, for example. last year we had 15 roll call votes on amendments in the

whole year, 15. this year we had over 200. four of the last five years the democratic majority didn't pass a budget. we did that. admittedly that's a low crossbar just to get back to normal, but what i tried to do, accept the reality of the government we have. the president's not of our party. the democrats have enough support in the senate to prevent things from happening if they want to. so how do you break through you do it by issue selection. we did keystone pipeline. we did the identify rain nuclear review act. we did a multi-year highway bill. we did a rewrite of no child left behind. take the highway bill, for example, the democratic leadership actively tried to scuttle what was being developed by senator boxer and myself, and failed. and the reason they failed is because the committee process worked. you had the ranking democrat on

the committee committed to what we were trying to do and leadership simply couldn't thwart t the message is, if you go through committee on a bill that should enjoy bipartisan support, develops bipartisan support inside the committee, when it gets on the floor, even if the democratic leadership wants to thwart it, they can't. that's how we achieved as much as we did this year. mike: you do have a long list of firsts. you emailed us a year ago in january, 2014, two years ago you gave a speech restoring the senate has been harder than you thought. leader mcconnell: no, because it was a pent up demand on a bipartisan basis to get back to normal. hi democratic senators coming up to me before our new majority took over saying they don't like the job. mike: they still say that. leader mcconnell: not anymore. look at the bills they participated in and voted on. many of these bills that i mentioned passed by overwhelming majorities. it wasn't just done by

republicans. so they were saying that i worked hard to get this job, i took a lot of criticism, it was a contentious effort to get here. i don't much like this job. i don't think many of them are telling you that now. i'm sure they would like to be in the majority, but i don't being ey enjoy marginalized, being irrelevant, having all the action being in the majority leader's office rather than the committees. mike: you have empowdered democrats. leader mcconnell: absolutely. i don't have any choice because it takes 60 votes to do most things that we do. i was always looking for the kinds of bills that were worth doing that enjoyed bipartisan support. i'd like to ask the representatives the coin of the realm in the senate is floor time. is the majority leader and the person who decides what we are going to turn to, how are you going to use that coin? since it takes us three days to do the simplest things where the house can do it in an hour, how much time you have is the

big decision. what are you going to allocate floor time to? i accepted the fact we had a divided government. barack obama is in the white house. we don't have 60 senators. what can we do? the american people seem to like divided government we have had it so often. more often than not since world war 2. what are they saying? i think they are saying, ok, we know you have a lot of differences, but why don't you look for the things you agree on worth doing and do them. that's been my strategy this year. still there are big, big differences. we put repeal obamacare on his desk. we are in the process of putting waters of the united states on his desk. and two of these clean power regulations on his desk. mike: as a student of history, do you assume that in january, 2017, we'll have divided government of some sort? eader mcconnell: i hope not. anna: you said you have

empowdered democrats under your leadership. certainly your relationship with majority leader harry reid has been tense. maybe hit a low in recent weeks. how can you work together or do you work together and kind of repairing that? leader mcconnell: i don't think it's hit a low in recent weeks. i think the low point was when he broke the rules of the senate in the fall of 2013 to change the rules of the senate. the rules mean nothing if any majority at any given time with a simple majority changes the rules. and for those of you not familiar with t. the senate's rules don't go away tend of every two years, they are permanent. the rules of the senate require that you get 67 votes to change the rules of the senate. 67. what happened in the fall of 2013 in their desire to jam the minority, which had not used the filibuster very often at ok, we'll es, was,

just change the rules, like that. they overruled the chair with a simple majority and changed the rules of the senate. that was the low point of our relationship. i think it did a lot of damage to the institution. and further soured relations. so i think the last congress was the low point. i like harry, personally. i don't like the way he ran the senate as the majority leader. we have had from time to time worked around him to get things done with the new majority. fortunately there is a pool of democrats who want to be relevant. who think the job they were elected to ought to have some consequence, and they accept the fact we are in the majority. in order to advance the kinds of issues we have been talking about, it requires participation with us. mike: mr. leader, in september, carl and jennifer had a story in the "new york times" with the headline, boehner's exit will cost mitch mcconnell a kindred spirit. how has the house been different with speaker ryan?

leader mcconnell: paul's been around a long time. heat a pretty young guy but he's been around a long time. we have had the opportunity to work together. you'll have a chance to hear from him in a few minutes. he hired a guy that was thoroughly familiar with, long time friend, dave. we knew each other well so we didn't have to start from scratch. and i think paul can speak for himself, but i think he's in what i would call the make a difference side. you always have two kinds of people in politics, ones who want to make a point, and those who want to make a difference. we all from time to time want to make a point. we did that with the obamacare repeal which we are in the process of putting on the president's desk. i don't think the american people sent us here to do nothing. and they elected a government that neither party entirely controls. i get the impression the speaker would like to make a difference given the cards that we are dealt, which is not the perfect hand from our point of

view, and you can address the question to him, but i think the transition's been quite smooth. anna: one of the things i wanted to ask you about is the interview given to the "washington post" on the transpacific partnership, getting done before the end of obama's term, do you think it's punted to the next president? leader mcconnell: i haven't made up my mind. i'm disappointed at some of the -- at the outcome. but i'm not in any way regretful of doing trade promotion authority. all of you in the audience know what that is. it's a process by which this president and the next one can send a trade agreement to the congress and get it approved or it could be disapproved with an up or down vote. so i felt it was important to get t.p.a. in place not only for president obama but for the next president. we have that. and i'm really not decided yet

on the deal that he negotiated. it could have been, in my -- from my point of view, a lot bert. mike: you said it shouldn't come up before the election. do you assume this now goes to the next president? leader mcconnell: you heard trade discussed. all the democratic candidates are against the deal. many of the republican candidates for president are against the deal. if the president wants to succeed he ought to take into account the reality of the political situation. mike: the result of that will be what? leader mcconnell: it's up to him to decide to initiate the process. mike: your wish would be? leader mcconnell: i think he ought to take into account the obvious politics of trade at the moment in our country. mike: with speaker ryan next year, what will the outlook be for tax reform? leader mcconnell: i would assume it would be how in his agenda, you're going to have him here in a few minutes, if we get a larger tax bill here

at the end of the year, we do have a significant positive impact on the baseline for comprehensive tax reform, which the speaker would like to do, and i would like to do. there are some challenges in doing comprehensive tax reform with this president. number one, i believe it should be revenue neutral to the government. reagan and tip o'neill had an agreement 30 years ago that tax reform was not about getting more revenue for the government but by -- about getting rates down to the maximum extent tenth possible for the largest number of people. outrageously high corporate tax rate, which is one of the factors causing some inversions. we need to do something about that. we need to go to some kind of territorial system. and from my point of of view, we need to treat taxpayers as nearly as we can similarly. that means most american siness, which is not a corporation, most is an scorp

or l.l.c. they pay taxes as individuals. this president wants to keep the individual rate up here. so if you lower the rate only for corporations and you leave the rates for individuals up here, most american business doesn't get a tax relief. doesn't get any tax relief. so we have substantial differences with president obama about what tax reform ought to look like. summing it up, i think it ought to be revenue neutral to the government. i think we ought to treat small business just like big business. whatever revenue is produced by the elimination of preferences ought to be used to buy down rates, not be used to spend by the government. mike: last one. what would you say is the outlook for narrow tax reform next year? leader mcconnell: i don't know. i don't know. mike: can you imagine president obama wanting to do one more big domestic thing? or do you think he's done? leader mcconnell: i don't know. you'll have to see what he

does. mike: question from our cybersecurity editor, david lynch. since the paris and san bernardino attacks, the heads of the f.b.i. and c.i.a. have both expressed mounting concern about terrorists using encryption to mask their plotting. yet there seems little prospect for administration or congressional action. leader mcconnell: this is an area i'm disappointed it. i think weakening the patriot act was a mistake. and we had internal divisions among republicans over whether that was the appropriate thing to do. the metadata system was lost in the bill that we passed in early summer. i didn't vote for it. our conference was split right down the middle on the issue of whether weakening the patriot act was a good idea. the encryption issue is another good reason for revisitting that whole subject and that could well happen next year. mike: what are the circumstance where is that would occur next

year? leader mcconnell: it could happen next year. based upon what's going on in the world. i think we can't put blinders on here. this is a growing and serious problem. and to the extent that our intelligence capabilities, which in my view have never been inconsistent with american privacy concerns, are weakened, you have to ask the question, is that a smart thing to do? i don't think it is. mike: would you like to see action on that next year? leader mcconnell: we may well do that. mike: what would be at the top of your list? leader mcconnell: one of our leaders on that, interestingly enough, if not our youngest senator, tom cotton, who has had a lot to say about this on the intelligence committee. has already become a leader. i think chairman richard burr has concerns as well. that could be an area we address next year. anna: one of the things i wanted to talk about, immigration has been a big -- coming out of these terrorist attacks has been an big issue on the news and polls and 2016.

that's pearnl issue for you. your wife very successful from taiwan, first in the cabinet george w. bush's cabinet. do you think all this -- is it concerning to you? how do you respond to it? leader mcconnell: well, the up ident pretty much messed the environment for doing anything on immigration. in a proactive way with his executive orders after the election. in which he did things that he had previously said on numerous occasions he didn't have the authority to do. proving he didn't have the authority, the courts have stopped him. so that's on hold. a separate issue is immigration concerns raised as a result of terrorists coming in. and i do think we need to continue to look at tightening up the various ways in which people can come into the

country. the key in my view on the infiltration of terrorists as opposed to the lone wolf factor, it -- is having safe places inside syria so people don't feel they have to leave. robust requires a more military approach to what we are currently doing. more robust. that's something the president's been reluctant to do. tightening up the entry is important. but you have the lone wolf problem, which apparently was the case in san bernardino. that gets back to whether or not we have the tools that we need to have on the intelligence side. to track and discover these people before they do something like this. nna: speaking of having a more

robust presence here. you don't want to do an aumf -- leader mcconnell: the president thinks he has the authority to do what he's doing now. he's got a year left in office. i know the democrats in the senate well enough to know when they talk about an aumf they are talking about a highly prescriptive aumf. how many troops you have. how long they can stay there. maybe what they can do there. but if we are going to do an aumf, it ought to give the president all the authority that he may need. rather than trying to micromanage the conflict. i can't imagine this senate getting more than 60 votes for the kind of aumf that the next president may need, which is the authority to do what needs to be done. in other words, not to micromanage the military employment, not to tell them how long they can stay there. so i would not want to saddle the next president with a highly prescriptive aumf.

mike: anna will ask you a question about a specific senator in the second, but to pull back, what are the chances that republicans keep the senate and you remain majority leader? leader mcconnell: it's going to be a challenging cycle. state the obvious that the key to the republican majority lies in purple states. new hampshire, pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin, one blue state, illinois. nevada, colorado, florida. what do they all have in common? every one of those states except illinois will be the same states that determine who the president is. so i'm hoping for a presidential nominee who can carry purple states, who can actually get elected president because those are the states -- i would add one more to that group where we don't have a senate race, that's virginia. a purple state that clearly will be in play in the general election of the presidency. obviously if we have a presidential candidate who is doing well in purple states it would make it easier for us to have a majority in the next congress.

anna: speaking to your point on the purple states, how would senator cruz as a nominee affect the race of senator kelly in new hampshire? leader mcconnell: good try. you know i'm not going to start commenting on various candidates for president. i like them all with great nterest. mike: you won't resist this. how would donald trump as a nominee affect re-election of senator rob portman in ohio? leader mcconnell: i'm still not going to get into the presidential race. mike: you talked about the ability to win in purple states. would some -- not naming names, would some of these candidates be more helpful to keeping the majority -- leader mcconnell: come on, mike. leapt's don't waste each other's time here. i don't want to get into the presidential race. i have already stated it would be extremely helpful in holding the senate to carry purple states. all of you can draw your own

conclusions about which candidates are most likely to carrie purple states. mike: as a republican party, how do you hold purple states? what is the key to that? leader mcconnell: i think our members want to be able to say to their constituents they were a part of getting results. getting results on things that were worth doing. -- convey, d to von i said this after my own re-election in louisville last year i wanted us to be a constructive right of center governing majority. a constructive right of center governing majority. no antics like shutting down the government or threatening to default on the national debt. no feeling among the american people that if they were to marry up a republican president with this republican senate it wouldn't be a good thing. i want them to think that's a good thing. i think for people like kelly identify yot and pat toomey and ron johnson and rob portman and

mark kirk, they want to make the argument that they have been -- they have made a difference. not that they have sat around all the time making points, but that they have made a difference. i think we have an agenda that we have accomplished here in the first year that will help them do that. mike: mr. leader, chance here for a little reality check. this is the gray beard dinner written up in the lead store rift "washington post" g.o.p. to gird for a floor fight about preparing for a brokered convention. what happened at that dinner? leader mcconnell: we were just talking about politics. a bunch of politicians talking about politics. no conspiracy theories that i heard. mike: set the scene. tell people what the dinner is and what it was like. leader mcconnell: it's a group that gets together periodically and has no particular agenda nd certainly has no ability to control any particular outcome.

like a discussion group. mike: "the washington post" said, near the end mcconnell and r.n.c. chairman acknowledged to the group that a deadlock convention is something the party should prepare for. leader mcconnell: yeah. the meeting is called off the record for some reason. so i don't have any interest in uoting myself or others. this is a group that gets together periodically. i frequently go. we talk about politics. that's what we do in this town. and it's supposed to be off the record. i was among those rather appalled to hear people who are in the meeting talking about it. mike: now that we are on the record in front of cameras, is a deadlock convention something he party should prepare for? leader mccongress: it hasn't happened in a very long time. i think it's highly unlikely to happen.

and what delegates do at a convention is determined by state law anyway. and i guess the only way that could happen would be if you went past one ballot because most states bind the delegates for the first vote, although some may bind them beyond the first vote. i don't in a moment it's an interesting thing to discuss but highly unlikely. mike: highly unlikely, not impossible. what is your worry about it as you go into this -- leader mcconnell: i got a big job to do here and i follow the presidential race, obviously. but handicapping every possible outcome is not something i spend much time doing. nna: turning back to the senate and your job, one of the questions that is outstanding is how many judges the senate will confirm. can you give us any insight into your thinking on that, or when you view the cut off, unofficial cut off date? leader mcconnell: there isn't

any particular unofficial or official cut off date. the president has gotten a huge number of judges over the first six years. it was an explosion of judges right at the end of last year. and so most of the judges that were in the queue were already confirmed. and his overall record over this eight years is going to compare pretty similarly to previous presidents. anna: can you -- leader mcconnell: i don't have any specific. mike: mr. leader, tradition you have you take freshmen, republican senators on a trip to hot spots, afghanistan, iraq, israel, etc. in the middle east. you did two trips this year because you had so many freshmen. what do you get out of those trips? leader mcconnell: a lot of the freshmen did not come from the house, so they haven't had a chance to visit places that have dominated or national security and foreign policy discussion over the last

decade. so for the last few cycles, and this year as you indicated, i had, fortunately, a big group, so we went two times to israel, jordan, iraq, afghanistan. it's a way to immerse yourself in the situation quickly. because they have continuing important relevance. an example, it was clearly a huge mistake for the u.s. not to leave a residual force behind in iraq. whether you supported the war or didn't support the war, president bush handed over to president obama a war that was won. and rather than using the model of germany, japan, and korea where -- >> we are going to break at this point. take you live to the white house for the daily briefing. you can find the entire politico discussion online at c-span.org. >> straight to your questions. josh?

>> start with this the schools in l.a. what can you tell us if anything about that threat. has the president been engaged with school officials or other public officials in california this morning? >> can i tell you the president has been informed of the decision made by local authorities in los angeles. based on information that they have received. josh: i do think this illustrates something that's important for people to understand which is that ultimately it's local first responders who are responsible for taking the lead and protecting their communities. after all, these professionals are most aware of the unique characteristics of their community and understand what factors will influence the best way to protect the community. and this is true when there is a natural disaster. we talk about the role that the federal government has in

supporting local officials who are responsible for the response. this is also true when talking about strengthening relationships between local communities and local law enforcement. that the role of the federal government is to support those conversations where necessary. but the president convened this task force in 21st century policing where we had law enforcement experts, legal experts, academics, and others come together around a set of recommendations that are then and have been shared with local law enforcement agencies across the country. those recommendations cannot be imposed on local law enforcement agencies, but rather we can use our resources in the federal government to draw on the expertise of people across the country and share that information with local authorities, but ultimately it's local authorities who are responsible for deciding how best those recommendations can be implemented in their community. i think you have another

example of the important role that state and local law enforcement and first responders have in protecting communities across the country. >> what you're describing is essentially the same threat quickly determining it was a hoax and decided not to close the schools. does the white house feel the decision made by los angeles was appropriate? is there any federal guidance given to schools about you get threats all the time of the here are the ones you need to take specific action? josh: well, i'm not going to stand here at this podium and second-guess the decisions made by local law enforcement officials. in any community across the country. ultimately these individuals are making these decisions based on information they have received and based on their knowledge of what they believe is the best interest of the community. and obviously they would no better than anyone else. i can tell you that as these local law enforcement agencies are making these decisions and considering these decisions, they do so with the support and

assistance of federal agencies, in this case the f.b.i. i know there have been conversations between law enforcement officials in southern california and the f.b.i. in this matter. but, again, this is ultimately a decision that was made by officials in los angeles. >> we have been discussing homeland security in the wake of paris and california, the president has talked a number of times about not giving in to fear and not allowing extremists to change the way that we live our lives. i'm wondering if you can talk broadly about what advice the white house offered about how to strike the balance, particularly around the holidays, between vigilance and resolve not to give in to fierce of terrorism. josh: the most important thing in the mind of the president is keeping the american people safe. and we certainly do want to encourage everyone to be vigilant.

that includes the citizens of our country. we encourage them if they see something they should say something. that advice continues to be operative. and we encourage local law enforcement and state officials to be vigilant as they go about their basic business of protecting the american people. . should be an indication to you and to the public that the president and the federal government are doingry zant of e risks and are -- are

cognizant of the risks, and this is the president's top priority. as people go about their business and go about the holiday routines that many people rightly look forward to that people can have confidence that our law enforcement professionals that are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week are doing the work that's necessary to keep us safe. they remain vigilant and they continue to use every element of the power and authority of the greatest country in the world to protect our citizens. and that is part of what should give people confidence that they can go about their holiday routine. >> one other topic. i wanted to get your reaction to the new saudi-led coalition that is going to be working against the islamic state. can you describe how that's going to work overlapping significantly with the u.s.-led coalition, and does the u.s. have any concerns having saudi arabia heading that operation,

fueling the kind of sunni-shiia tensions that we've seen at play in iraq and elsewhere in the middle east? josh: josh, the first thing that's important for people to understand is the coalition that was announced by the saudis was not solely directed at isil but rather to extremist and terrorist threats that are threatening all of the members of that coalition. so it's broader than isil. i think the second thing is, you heard me say on a number of occasions, as recently as yesterday, we believe there are additional steps and investments that can be made by members of our anti-isil coalition to fighting terrorism. and speaking out. particularly when it comes to countering isil's online radicalization efforts. and i understand based on the way this was described by the saudis yesterday that is a central part of this particular coalition's activities. i would finally i would point

out i think the saudis went to great lengths to also make clear this is not a substitute or replacement for the 65-member anti-isil coalition that is built and being led by the united states of america. saudi arabia's made important contributions to that coalition effort and we anticipate that they'll continue to do so. thanks. julia. julia: josh, a team of sanctions monitors issued a report today that said that october 10 missile that iran launched was in violation of the u.n. ban. does this amp up the pressure for the united states to issue more sanctions on iran, or is that essentially been seen as potentially implicating the nuclear deal? josh: julia, i think the reference that you made is a document leaked by the u.n. this morning. i won't get ahead of any announcements made by this panel of experts. i would note, however, that the

united states, through our ambassador to the united nations, samantha power, raised our concerns about this october 10 medium-range ballistic missile launch back on october 21. and in raising those concerns, ambassador power described that launch as a -- as another clear violation of united nations sanctions. so it is -- it should be quite clear this is something we've been concerned about for a while, and we consider this to be a serious matter that undermines regional stability. and that's precisely why the united states has raised this issue and pressed it so aggressively before the security council. what we also noted at the time is that a number of the individuals who were connected to that launch are already subject to significant sanctions by the united states, but i certainly wouldn't rule out additional steps if

international security officials determined additional sanctions would be useful in countering this activity. i would say that probably the most important thing, however, hat can be done is for other countries to respond to the call that united states has repeatedly made to more intensively focus our efforts on countering iran's ballistic missile program and there are a variety of things we can do that relate to intelligence sharing in terms of stopping the flow of some technology and contraband in iran used to advance their ballistic missile program. and i would note this does underscore the significance of the historic international agreement that was reached earlier this year that ensures that iran doesn't obtain a nuclear weapon. there are obvious concerns people have legitimately about what role these kinds of tests could have in advancing iran's nuclear weapons program.

that's why it's so important we're able to in a verifiable way determine that iran is not in fact developing a nuclear weapon. julia: so at this point in time are you any more hesitant to issue sanctions to respond to this kind of behavior because of the fear that it would jeopardize the nuclear deal? or are you saying that sanctions are on the table? josh: as we made clear from the beginning, the international agreement to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was a high priority but separate from the wide range of other concerns that we had with iran's behavior, including their ballistic missile program. so like i said, if our international security professionals, including our sanctions experts at the treasury department, determine that additional sanctions would be useful in countering iran's ballistic missile program, then i'm confident that the

president wouldn't stand in the way of those sanctions moving forward. i'll just note that i would anticipate that there are a number of people on capitol hill who are raising concerns about the development of iran's nuclear program and suggesting that the u.s. government, specifically the obama administration, should take steps to counter it. well, one thing they could do is they could confirm adam zubin, who is the financial expert at the treasury department, who has been blocked more than a year by many republicans, many of whom are complaining about the programs, they are preventing the person who would impose the sanctions on iran and their ballistic missile program. i recognize i keep coming up to this but i think it's key how central mr. zubin is to our strategy to counter iran's ballistic missile program. that's why it's inexcusable for republicans to once again continue to block the nomination of somebody that even they admit is imminently qualified for the job.

he's somebody that served in both democratic and republican administrations and they have no legitimate justification why this financial expert is prevented from taking steps that we know would enhance the national security of the united states. i think it is an indication of just how petty their partisan agenda looks when we're talking about issues as significant as, for example, countering iran's ballistic missile practice. julia: well, for that -- on congress, with the budget deadline seeming on the horizon , there's been discussions on the hill of republicans being able to lift the ban on crude oil exports in exchange for democrats getting some of what they want on clean renewable energy. is that something -- first of all, can you tell us how far that deal might be locked down and would the white house consider a budget that includes both of those sides? josh: i have seen the reporting

on this that has -- further expanded since we discussed this issue even yesterday. however, at this point i'm not going to weigh in on the ongoing negotiations on capitol hill. what i'll do is i'll just merely restate what our position on this issue has been which is that we oppose legislation that would require the lifting of the federal ban on crude oil in the united states. and our objections are primarily procedural. this is authority that is vested in the executive branch and we believe we got the authority to make the best decision, but -- so that's our position on the issue. i'm not going to get into sort sort of how this is being discussed or negotiated or if it's even discussed or negotiated in context of the budget agreement. chris. chris: josh, over the weekend marco rubio indicated on "meet the press" justices of the

supreme court would reverse in favor of same-sex marriage. would he use it as a lit mass test are -- litmus test? josh: chris, in the context, particularly of his two nominees to the supreme court, both justice soto mayor and justice kagan, the president has been quite clear of the criteria he uses in nominating highly qualified individuals to the highest court in the land for a lifetime appointment. so he's been clear there aren't litmus tests, but i think for the -- for insight into how the president makes those decisions, i think you can carefully consider the experience and resumes, at this point frankly, performance of the two justices that he's appointed. chris: those two justices, they were in the defense of marriage

act, 2013. and the marriage bans this year. should we read that -- their appointment a as a confirmation that there is a litmus test that the president considers with regard to same-sex marriage in his judicial appointees? josh: no, i wouldn't read it that way. i would read it as their approach to resolving these ssues in the legal system is consistent with the way the president believes those decisions should be made by lifetime appointees to the highest court in the land. chris: is the president aware comments?ubio's josh: i am not aware he is aware of the comments if you if so he probably wouldn't be surprised. justin. justin: to the c.r. there is discussion, again, of a short-term couple-day extension. i know the president signed one of those already. is there a point of no return

which the president's actually going to say, no, we're not doing this anymore? i think you said days, not weeks. josh: there is. hopefully we will not reach it. justin: do you want to elaborate on it? is it christmas day? josh: no. i mean, i think i wouldn't describe it more than i already have which is democrats and republicans in congress have been given ample time to reach a bipartisan budget agreement that is clearly within the best interests of our economy and consistent with the need to adequately fund both our natural security and economic priorities. we've been clear what they need to do they've been given ample time to do it. and as you point out, they've even been given a few days of extra time to do it. so there's negotiation cues for this deal not being completed here pretty quick. and hopefully that will get done. based on the reporting from all of you, it does appear that they are on track to announce

an agreement here relatively soon. that obviously would be welcomed news but we'll see. justin: a couple extra days? josh: if there were a couple days that were needed for the legislative process to play itself out, that the president would agree to a short-term extension to give congress the time they needed to pass an agreement that's already been reached. justin: it's also been reported -- i know we're ven during into the territory we went that you don't want to comment. but the repeal of the cadillac tax will be included in the omnibus. that's something you've been a little bit stronger even on some of these other topics. when i asked about it last week, you said you would strongly oppose repealing the cadillac tax and would take a big blow to the president's argument that his signature achievement, it saves the government money. i'm wondering if that's a cross you're willing to die on this

omnibus? josh: well, i will speculate about how it is included in the ongoing budget talks or how it's being included in the budget talks. the -- our steadfast opposition to the repeal of the so-called cadillac tax remains in effect. and that's been our position for years now and it -- i recognize that is a source of some irritation even among some people who are broadly supportive of the president's agenda. but our view on this is rooted in the fact that we know that the application of the cadillac x would have the effect of giving employers an incentive to raise wages. that right now that a fancy health care plan, even one that is excessively larded with benefits that in some cases people never even use, is a way

for employers to offer compensation that doesn't actually benefit in full the -- their employees. so there is an incentive that's built in here to ensure that people have access to high-quality health insurance but also giving employers an incentive to actually turn their attention to raising wages. that's a good thing and that's been a central priority of our economic strategy since the president's first day in office. this is consistent with that strategy and broadly consistent with the people that generally support the president's agenda. this is an area where we do have -- that is a subject of some disagreement, but it's also why i feel confident in saying to you that we continue to strongly oppose the repeal of the so-called cadillac tax. justin: one last thing quickly. secretary kerry met with president putin today in russia. i know you did a preview yesterday. so i want you to repeat that stuff but i wonder if there are any new updates on syria that

russia and turkey relationship and the ukraine? josh: well, as i was walking out here, i know secretary crery and president putin were wrapping up their meeting and prepared to have a news conference in moss could he to discuss their meeting. so i direct your attention out there for the latest update on their meeting. that way i don't have to repeat all the things i said yesterday. marry. mary: back on the export ban. i know you said the president would owe -- josh: i avoided all the things we would consider a veto or be annoyed with but sign anyway. in terms of the inclusion in the omnibus, i -- our position on the export ban is pretty clear. we do not support legislation that would lift it. but we've also acknowledged that an omnibus bill is going to have to be a compromised proposal. so there -- i'm confident that there will be things that will

be included in the omnibus bill that we don't support. i don't know if the lifting of the export ban will be among them. but our position on this is pretty clear. mary: and on a different topic. our latest poll the support for donald trump increased since he called for a ban on muslims. a majority of republicans and 36% of the public overall support his proposal. how do you explain this level of support for an idea that you said should disqualify him from being president? josh: well, it certainly is a principle and a value statement that runs in direct conflict to not just the president's priorities but also the values that are central to the founding of this nation. this nation was founded by people who were fleeing persecution and looking for a place where they could freely practice their religion. this is a -- this is basic to what it means to being an

american. i can't account for the polls. some sophisticated and articulate individuals who work for abc who can do the polling analysis, but all i can say from here is that it is quite clear to me that those kinds of comments and in some cases those policy positions that are shared by some of the republican candidates for president. it's not just mr. trump alone, but other people in his party ho are advocating the kinds of things that stand in stark contrast to the basic founding values of this country. and that's disappointing. it certainly is divisive. it's a little cynical. but it's something that i continue to have confidence, does not reflect the values of the vast majority of americans. mary: and does the president plan to watch the debate

tonight? josh: mary, as some of your colleagues know, the president has another important engagement this evening that will prevent him from spending as much time in front of the television time this evening as he ordinarily would. i know the president is looking forward to this evening's festivities. jim. jim: just to follow up on your comments about donald trump. was the president responding to donald trump in some of the things he's been talking about during his remarks today? was that a response of sorts to trumpism? josh: jim, i think as i've said in the past, the comments you heard from the president today do stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric and divisiveness that will most surely be on display on the debate stage tonight in las vegas on your network. but the things the president alked about today are also firmly in line with the kind of vision for the country that the

president has long given voice to. and it's because of his success in advocating and fighting for those values and articulating them in a way that has attracted the strong support of democrats and republicans in the context of an election in 2008 and an election in 2012. the president's ability to be an advocate for those basic values are the reason that he's sitting in the office that he's sitting in today and i'm standing at the podium i'm standing at now. this isn't as -- it's not as if the president went out of his way to describe these values. these are the kinds of things the president has long fought for. jim: and apparently the last several minutes -- i don't know if this qualifies as breaking news and perhaps something you expected, but senator mccain is introducing legislation that would require d.h.s. to review social media and public databases and foreign background checks. that a concept that the

white house opposes, is willing to look at, might support? how would you describe that? because as we were discussing yesterday, it strains capacity for the american people to understand why businesses would look at facebook pages when they're considering hiring employees, and yet the federal government doesn't look at facebook pages and the social media content when it comes to accepting people into the country. josh: well, i guess the first thing, jim, i think as a factual matter, that's not true. the department of homeland security has been clear that there are a number of pilot programs that have been implemented for over a year now -- jim: pilot programs would not be across the board, right? josh: that's not across the board. that's why they're pilot programs. they are part of an effort by the department of homeland security to consider the best way to factor that kind of information into a background

check. and the department of homeland security has been at the direct order of the president of the united states, has been working with the state department to review the k-1 visa program, and they've acknowledged that part of that review is to consider ways to incorporate the use of social media vetting in their screening programs. so i think what i will do is leave it to the experts to determine the best way to strengthen the security of our screening programs. that is after all the president's taupe priority, and they will be -- the president's top priority, and they will be able to best assess the optimal way to incorporate the review of, for example, social media postings, in that screening process. jim: and so going with what

you're saying, so it's already within the authority of the department of homeland security to do this? in other words, you don't need legislation in order to mandate this to occur? could the president be in executive order direct the department of homeland security across the board to look at social media when it comes to accepting new comers into the country, whether they be from refugee programs or other programs? josh: well, i think, jim, the other thing to keep in mind here, if there are members of congress that have some new ideas for work they believe the department of homeland security should do, senseably that is paired with an increase in the kind of resources that would be necessary to fulfill those work requests. obviously if senator mccain were under the view this was important enough for him to pass legislation on, then surely he would believe this is important enough to fund. but i haven't looked at the entirety of this proposal so i'm not sure how he's factored this into his proposal. jim: does the president have that authority? could he tell the department of

homeland security, look at social media? josh: i'm not sure -- i'm not sure why any specific legislation would be required to take a step like that. jim: and i guess it's my understanding, also, within any moment now or day now, we're going to get new guidelines from the department of homeland security in terms of a new terror alert system or revamped terror alert system or changes to the terror alert system. i'm curious if there are things you can offer in terms of a preview? i know you won't want to steal their thunder if they're going to announce it tomorrow. what's the president's view of the old color-coded program that did get people's attention, although it was mocked from time to time? when is it a yellow, when is it an orange, so forth? you do notice -- see something, say something signs. in paris and california. i guess, do we need more of those signs? what are president's thoughts? i guess he would have some -- has he had some input into this process in terms of what he would like to see?

what can you tell us? josh: well, i can tell you that the color-coded terror threat system that was put in place in the previous administration was discarded in the early days of this administration in favor of a different alert system. and the department of homeland security has been looking for at least several months now at ways that current reformed system could be made even more effective. and the idea is that the system should be able to incorporate additional information that could be useful if shared with the public. and so the challenge that d.h.s. has been grabbling with how to essentially -- ggrappling with is how to essentially allow for more effective and direct communication with the public. so this is something they've been working on and i would anticipate there will be some

reforms and adjustments to this program that will be announced here in the next few days. jim: i don't mean to -- has the president had some input into this? has he said, here's what i like to say? josh: i believe the president has had discussion with the secretary of homeland security about the need for these kinds of reforms. but i think the president is -- has a lot of confidence in the experts at the department of homeland security to orient these programs in a way that's consistent with national security interest of the united states. ok. jordan. jordan: thanks, josh. i want to ask about t.p.p. speaker ryan sounded a bit more optimistic this morning about the prospects for a vote next year than leader mcconnell did. i'm wondering, does the white house view speaker ryan a partner in getting t.p.p. passed next year? has the president had any conversations recently with speaker ryan about advancing that legislation next year? josh: jordan, the white house was able to work effectively with leader mcconnell and

speaker ryan this summer in passing trade promotion legislation. speaker ryan was then the chairman of the house ways and means committee. he didn't serve in the august position that he currently holds, but he was an effective partner in advancing that legislation earlier this summer. we would envision a process working closely with the republican leaders in both the house and the senate to try to advance congressional approval of the trans-pacific partnership agreement that was recently completed. i will say that our view continues to be that our argument has been strengthened by the fact we now have a deal for congress to consider. previously we were making the argument that republicans in congress shouldn't trust the democratic president to go and negotiate this agreement, and that included reaching a 60-vote threshold knowing we had the strong opposition of a

substantial authority of democrats and republicans in both houses of congress. the situation is different. now we have a specific agreement for congress to consider and they have the details of 18,000 tax cuts they can dig through. there are now a lot of reasons to be strongly supportive of this agreement. and now that we have essentially a predicate for people who have previously supported the ability the administration to support this agreement, that should add some momentum to our ability to pass this because of the passage of trade promotion authority there is a more clearly defined legislative track or legislative path for this agreement through both houses which should speed passage. and that includes no longer needing to meet a 60-vote threshold in the senate. so we have some built up momentum behind this, and we're optimistic this is something that can and should get done in a timely fashion.

now, there obviously will be ample time for members of congress to consider the details of this agreement. this is one of the sticking points in trying to advance trade promotion authority legislation was members of congress clamoring to see all of the available details. and that clamor has now subside that had we have put the final agreement online for everyone to consider and i assume that part of the reason that that clamor has died down is it's now obvious the -- how significant the benefits are. and so we continue to be optimistic that this is something congress can and should do in a timely fashion and we'll work closely with speaker ryan and leader cconnell to get it done. >> have they spoken about them setting a groundwork for a vote and has he communicated in any way with leader mcconnell about his remarks not sending the bill up next year? josh: i don't have any specific congressional conversations to tell you about as it relates to

the specific matter. but i can tell thaw the white house has been in regular touch with capitol hill about the agreement and i can assure thaw ambassador froman's office has been in touch about approving this agreement. you recall that senior members of the president's team here at the white house met with business leaders who are quite enthusiastic about seeing prompt legislative action to approve the agreement and move down the track of implementing it so that american businesses and american workers can begin reaping the significant benefits. ok. margaret. margaret: is the white house aware of any threats to other school districts in the u.s.? josh: margaret, i don't have any specific threat information to share with you from here. again, if the intelligence community, the department of homeland security determines there is threat information that should be shared with the american public, then they will do so. federal homeland

security officials and federal law enforcement officials are in close touch with school districts and local officials in communities all across the country just as a matter of course. d, you know, we value the -- that relationship because in some cases there can be federal resources and federal expertise that can be brought to bear to assist local authorities as they assess information that they may have received or worked to determine the appropriate response to those threats. margaret: i understand you don't want to comment on the specific case since the situation is ongoing out in l.a., but broadly speaking, what does it signify here that an email can shut down one of the largest school districts in the united states? that level of fear and the impact it's had is pretty significant. josh: well, i think what is significant here is the challenge that local officials

face in remaining vigilant based on the threats that they are aware of and in some cases have received themselves while also making sure that they are steadfast in refusing to be terrorized and this is why the administration is so conscientious to ensure we're doing everything we can to support local authorities as they consider these kinds of threats and as they consider the steps they should take in response to them. but ultimately this is a decision that is best made and rightly made by local officials who know and understand their community the best. margaret: when you emphasize local, are you signaling this shouldn't be a federal matter in terms of terror concerns, in terms of a higher threat level here? josh: no. what i'm suggesting, as a factual matter, this was a decision made by local officials. there certainly is an important role for the federal

government, in this case, the f.b.i., to play in supporting local officials as they consider this threat information, as they evaluate the significance of it. as they determine what steps need to be taken to ensure the safety of the public. but ultimately when it comes to making the decision, it's a decision that's made by local officials. margaret: this week -- put in the context of this week, what we expect to hear from the president, what we have heard from the president in terms of what seems to be an effort to reassure americans, it does appear that at this level the white house has recognized that there is a certain level of concern about national security that seems to be trumping so many other issues that are pressing right now. i mean, how do you see that? should national security be the number one concern among americans right now? because you look at the polls, it's really kind of rocketing to the top, certainly for politicians out there running for office. josh: well, i think the

preponderance of the evidence addressed this to the nation from the olve office. the attacks in paris -- oval office. the attacks in paris and the attacks in san bernardino both literally and figuretively hits close to home. it, of course, raises a natural and understandable concern that people might have about the threat posed by violent extremists. that's understandable. you know, we see a similar reaction in the aftermath of some of these mass shootings. you know, whether that's in colorado springs or in oregon or even in charleston. and that kind of sort of visceral human response i think is a natural one. it's an understandable one and we certainly do want to encourage vigilance. so -- but at the same time it's important for people to recognize that the chief aim of the violent extremists that are operating, whether it's overseas or here in the united states, is to try to terrorize

people and to instill fear in them. and to provoke an overreaction. that is their most effective weapon. and it's why the president has, again, time and again reiterated his commitment to ensuring that we're not going to give into fear. we're not going to give into terrorism. we're not going to allow the actions of violent extremists, you know, whether they're motivated by a per version of islam or -- perversion of islam or something else, doesn't mean we're not going to be vigilant because we surely are. we've talked in the last few days about the significant and serious steps this administration has taken to both countering violent extremism and in the case of isil, building an international coalition to destroy them. but this is, you know, we're talking about some basic human

emotions here. and it's understandable that emotions are going to factor into this response, but, again, it's -- but it does illustrate why it's important we do not give into fear. margaret: ask can i ask you about the president's speech today? he spoke passionately about mmigration, about refugees and specifically he made an analogy between or compared the syrian refugees of today to the jews fleeing world war ii. and that's very powerful imagery. what is the president doing in terms of perhaps reviewing the number of syrian refugees that this country is going to be accepting since it is a relatively small fraction of the number around the world. just some 10,000 or so. is that number going to go up? josh: 10,000 did reflect a significant increase from the levels that were admitted to this country before. i think the other part of this

-- there are two other factors here that are relevant. the first is -- three, actually. the first is that the united states continues to be the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to this response effort. there are more than four billion -- i think we're approaching $5 billion in assistance that's been provided by the united states to countries in the region that are trying to meet the basic humanitarian needs of syrians fleeing violence. the other thing that the administration has been doing is leading an international effort to try to bring an end to the political turmoil inside syria that's contributed to so much violence and instability in that country. it's that violence and instability that people from syria are fleeing. so trying to address that root cause is a priority. but we've also seen that isil has tried to capitalize on this instability to essentially carry out a rein of terror against a substantial number, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. and the president has been

vigilant about building an international coalition to destroy that terrorist organization. so i think the response has been robust on the part of the united states. it's indicative of the preeminent role that united states has historically and continues to play in the world. it is in part at least motivated by the moral questions that are raised by all this. that -- and that moral question is essentially, we're blessed with so many resources in this country. what are we going to do to respond to our fellow human beings who are in need? and i think our response to that question has been quite forceful. margaret: precisely, too, that point. the president talked about the u.s. being a haven, literally, for people fleeing war. and the white house has said at least 10,000 refugees. is that number going to go up?

are we going to take more syrians in? josh: i he know there is a process under way at the state department. of course has to be balanced against our national security interests in the need to protect the safety and security of the american people. but the president has talked bout a -- a well-functioning immigration system doesn't enhance our national security. and it certainly contributes to the strength of our country overall, and it's why the -- why the president has strong support. i don't have announcement of a higher number at this point. there's certainly a range of other things that united states can do and has done to respond to the situation. i think the other relevant statistic here, margaret, and you know this as well as anyone, that when it comes to the u.n. refugee resettlement program, that the united states actually resettles more of those refugees through that u.n. program than every other country in the world combined. and, again, i think that is consistent with both our values

as a country and a response to the moral questions that are central to all of this. ok. kevin. kevin: thanks, josh. if i could just follow up real quickly on something margaret was asking about. has that $5 billion been set aside or been districted already and can we get a tick to be where this money bent? josh: that's something the state department can follow up with you on. these are payments over the last several years the united states has paid to the u.n., to other humanitarian organizations and in some cases directly to other countries. kevin: turkey. josh: turkey, jordan, lebanon, other countries that are housing hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of syrians fleeing violence. kevin: it's widely expected to -- the fed is widely expected to raise interest points, maybe a quarter of a point. i know you don't want to get ahead of that, impact markets.

i wonder if you could talk about the psychology behind rate hikes. people and consumer confidence in particular is impacted. whether it's the white house or the fed. i just would like to know if raising the rate by just a quarter of a point, is that really -- is that sort of an admission that the economy is really fragile, or is it a statement in and of itself that says, hey, listen, we don't want to push this too hard because we're not secure in how strong the economy is right now? josh: well, kevin, i think the questions you're asking are entirely legitimate but they are ones best directed to the federal reserve because ultimately they are the ones evaluating the health of the economy and making decisions about the appropriate levels to peg the interest rate. you know, in the -- as they make these decisions, i know in recent years the fed has tried

to embrace the responsibility that they have to try to communicate clearly with the public about what factors are influencing their decisions. so as they meet later this week, regardless of what decision they make, i'm confident we'll get some greater clarity from the fed about what factors are influencing their decision. i do think, though, if you look at the -- essentially the basics of our economy and whether that's job creation or consumer confidence or economic growth, the economy is stronger than it's been in quite sometime. kevin: speaking of job creation. yesterday you mentioned, i think westinghouse, if i'm not mistaken, we're talking about green energy and developing economies overseas, for example and you mentioned that they may be able to or may have on the books four nuclear plants -- was it china -- if i'm not mistaken. does the president believe that they should also be developing more nuclear technologies here

and establishing more nuclear power plants here because we haven't had any i think domestically since the 1970's, is that right? josh: there was a permit issued early in the administration for a nuclear power plant here in the united states. i don't know where that project stands, to be honest with you. i'm sure the department of energy can give you an update on that. the reason i highlighted that specific example is that we're talking about an american country, westinghouse electric, that is getting business in china because of china's commitment to reducing carbon pollution. that's good for the american economy. it's good for american workers here in the united states that we can essentially export some of this technology and this work from the united states to china. and it is a reason that the president is optimistic about this paris agreement. not because of the impact it will have on the health of this planet, because the impact it will have on the health of our economy.

when it comes to the domestic economy, we obviously made significant commitments in the context of the paris agreement and it will challenge the united states to make some decisions about the kinds of investments in renewable energy that we want to make here. and it's why we've seen such a dramatic increase, for example, in the production of solar energy that i believe that's actually up 20-fold in the united states since the president took office. when it comes to power generation from wind, that's tripled since the president has been in office. so i think that's an indication that those early investments are, again, good for the planet, good for us in terms of make -- meet the commitments that were made in the context of paris but also good for the economy. these are good manufacturing jobs. we're talking about the building of wind turbins or the installation of solar panels. these are good middle-class jobs. and certainly are an important source of economic opportunity for workers here in the united

states. kevin: and last, i want to ask you about former secretary of state clinton giving a big policy speech over in minneapolis. i was sort of doing a tick to be of where she differs -- particular t.k.o. of where she differs from the -- tick-tock of where she differs from the president. there's been some criticism. it's obama 2.0 if she becomes president. is that an accurate reflection from your vantagepoint and is that a good thing? josh: having served as president's secretary of state during his first term in office, after your careful review, you determine their approach to a large number of foreign policy issues is at least similar. at the same time, i would leave it to the campaign to describe o you exactly why -- what kind of policy agenda she's put really forward, and she certainly is -- has a well-earned reputation as an independent thinker and so i'm confident there are probably

some areas where she would disagree with the president. but to hear that based on your analysis that their approach is generally similar, i'm not surprised to hear that. ok. chris. chris: understanding you don't want to second guess any decisions from the podium. you said in answer to the first question that the president has been informed of the decision made in los angeles. normally in situations like this you talk about sort of getting briefed on threat. i'm just wondering if there was an analysis of the level of threat, whether they thought one existed. and the other thing you didn't say as you often do in these situations is he's continuing to get updated? josh: i'm confident -- i'll pit the president on this specific issue, he will be updated by his national security team. chris: sometimes you say -- josh: i've said that in the past. in this case i'm confident they'll update him if they

determine it's necessary. and they'll do that because the f.b.i. is in close contact with local officials on the ground in los angeles. and the president and the national security team at the white house continues to monitor the situation. so it's certainly something that we're tracking here. chris: the president talked about the unease in the country and this is the kind of things that happens. given the level of anxiety and the cost that's involved in logistics, the resources that are diverted when you have a down ce like that to shut a school system this huge, is there a reassessment of the federal role in a situation like this even if you understand the ultimate decision is going to be made on a local level, is there any kind of reassessment or any thought of a reassessment the role the federal government plays in coordination with local or state officials? josh: there's nothing that i'm -- nothing specific that i'm

aware of right now with regard to a reassessment of that role because i do think it's appropriate that in situations like this that local officials are ultimately responsible for making the decision that they believe based on their knowledge of the community makes the most sense and is consistent with their judgment about the best way to protect the community. and the federal government certainly has a responsibility to support local officials as they make those decisions and as they implement them. point ot aware at this of any formal effort that's under way to re-evaluate that relationship. re-evaluation like that takes place we'll definitely let you know. chris: given what's happened today, and this is the headlines that's dominating a lot of the cable news coverage. anything you can tell us about the president's plans for thursday? what we expect to hear from him?

why he's going to the national counterterrorism center? josh: well, the president typically shortly before the holiday break will convene a formal meeting with his homeland security team, including members of the intelligence community, law enforcement officials and obviously national security officials here at the white house to discuss the threat picture for the country in advance of the holidays. and it's something the president has done on an annual basis and will do again this year. i don't know if he's done this in the past but what's different is the president will travel to the national counterterrorism center where he'll get this briefing at that location instead of in the situation room. and -- but i'm not aware that will change who the participants are in the meeting but it certainly will give the president an opportunity to get an updated threat assessment based on the hard work that's been done by our intelligence community and by law

enforcement. chris: so mostly optics or something you hope will get more attention or is there something specific he wants to see there? josh: well, i would suspect it will get more attention because the president is traveling there, but it will also give the president an opportunity to thank the men and women in our intelligence community that based on their job description don't get noticed a lot. and these are people who often will have to be away from their families over the holidays because they're working. they're always on duty 24/7 to protect the country and the president relies on the information they obtain to make important national security decisions. and by traveling to the national counterterrorism center, the president will have an opportunity to thank those patriotic men and women who serve in our tension community and play a -- intelligence community and play a vital role in keeping our country safe. richard. richard: [inaudible]

up to 25,000 syrian refugees till february. we're just shy of 1,000 at the moment. things are going well in quebec, ontario. they're receiving health care when they get there. they're fairly welcomed. would you say the canadian example would reassure americans and states, in particular, who openly said they refuse to welcome syrian refugees, would it be an example to reassure americans that it can be done? josh: richard, in discussing the relationship between the united states and canada, it's not uncommon for me and for other people who have stood behind this podium to note the values that we share in common. and i think the response that we've seen from the canadian people and the canadian government is consistent with the kinds of values that are held dear in the united states of america as well. and obviously the response from

the canadians to respond with this gesture of generosity, to try to meet the basic humanitarian needs of fellow human beings who are in a pretty desperate situation, again, i think is a good representation of the kibeds of alues that are -- kinds of values that are central to this country as well. richard: immigration officials have said a suspicious case, they've found some and put them aside. so it's possible to do this in a secure way. and protect the population. josh: again, i don't have a lot of insight into the process that canadian officials are using. i'm not surprised to hear that canadian officials are prioritizing the safety and security of the canadian homeland as they implement this program. obviously that's what the united states does as well. and given the significant

undefended border between our two countries, those kinds of security precautions are something that are in the interest of citizens in both our countries. so obviously what they're doing is important from a national security standpoint, but they're responding to the same kinds of values that many americans believe are really important too. philip. philip: ahead of the republican debate tonight, are you in any way worried that the reputation of the united states as a whole could be hurt further by proposals or policy proposals from donald trump that have been deemed racist by many europeans, by many people abroad? do you think the reputation of the u.s. as a whole could be hurt further by things he might say? josh: well, philip, i think in general we have heard from many republican candidates, not just mr. trump, rhetoric that is offensive and divisive and deployed to cynically benefit

their political campaigns. and the fact is they're talking about the kinds of values that frankly should come before someone's own narrow political ambition. and i've been quite outspoken in condemning some of the comments from a variety of republican politicians. you had an hear from the president in settings where he's laid out his vision of how our nation's values should inform the foreign policy decisions that are made in this country. you know, but ultimately -- ultimately the american people will have to decide what kind of leadership they want and that's their responsibility and that's the way our system works. these values, these policy decisions are the subject of legitimate political debate. i'm not suggesting somehow the candidates should be silenced in one way or another.

i do think that country will be better served if those candidates are more committed to ensuring their rhetoric actually reflected the true values of our country. philip: and the proposal to ban muslims in the united states has been deemed racist and even fascist by editorial writers, by experts abroad. are those terms that you don't necessarily agree with but would you reject those outright? josh: philip, over the last week or so i've had ample opportunity to make my views quite well-known on the comments from mr. trump and from others. those views reflect the position of the administration and so i'd encourage you to consider the comments that you've heard from me as an

accurate reflection of our posture here. francesca, you will be the last one. francesca: ben carson received a seven-point plan today that he says would protect america and also deals with the -- one of the points of his plan is that the united states should urge its allies and partners in the united states to have recruitment of men in the syrian and gulf of syrian men in jordan to establish a military force to destroy isis. and first and foremost -- i have a question after that. first and foremost, do you know of an ongoing effort that to take the syrian refugees that are in that area to recruit and train isis? and what would the administration think of such an effort? josh: well, there has already -- that ffort that was the department of defense committed a substantial number

of resources to. trying to train and equip syrian -- moderate syrian opposition fighters that didn't yield the kind of results that we would like to see. you know, what we have said is that we do believe that our partners in the region can do more to contribute to our overall counterisil effort, and we certainly would welcome additional contributions to that effort. in fact, secretary carter is traveling in the region over the course of that week and i'm confident we'll be having discussions, both with his military commanders about what more the united states can do to contribute to that effort but also meeting with the leaders of other countries or at least senior officials in other countries to discuss what more they can contribute to our ongoing efforts. francesca: that's significantly different. that seems to me significantly different than saying that we should mobilize the refugees that are in the refugee camps in the region and train and equip them to fight isis.

josh: well, again, i vice president -- i haven't read dr. carson's program. so -- francesca: and the final thing is. you talked about canada and our shared border with canada. he suggested appointing the national guard to canada and the southern border and given your support in the past for the president's, i guess, own recommendations that maybe are directly affiliated with attacks that's already happened, i wonder your thoughts of sending them to the borders to protect from something like that? josh: well, i haven't seen his specific proposal. obviously the president is a strong supporter of border security. there have been more resources in terms of manpower and technology deployed to our border with mexico than at anytime in our history. that's a testament to the president's commitment to this issue. there will be significantly more resources to our border had republicans in congress not blocked comprehensive

immigration reform that would have made an historic investment in border security. so if dr. carson is concerned about border security, then i encourage him to take it up with house reps who blocked it investment border security to claim some of the problems that needs to be solved. thanks, everybody. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> and josh earnest wraps up his briefing just ahead of the house coming in. they're gaveling in briefly for one-minute speeches and later on picking up legislative business at 4:00 eastern, debating bills, suspension bills, including one to prevent terrorists from using social media to recruit members. off the floor, discussions continue on the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill with current spending authority set to run out wednesday midnight.

"roll call" tweets negotiators very close to a final agreement to extend 9/11 first responder 2090. funds to senator schumer says that. the spker pro e: house will be in orr. ay wl ered by rhaain,ather conroy. chapin conrlet us pra erl godwe give you thans rivng us other day. bless the members of the people's house as they work toward the difficulty and complicated task of funding our government in a fair and equitable manner. may they negotiate with one another in good faith and trust and shared love for our nation. bless our nation and its citizens as we aproshe the end of 2015 -- approach the enof 2015. help us to look to the future with hope and committed to a renewed effort to work together for a united america.

help us all to be truly grateful for the blessings of this past year. and as always, we pray that all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the compare compare. -- the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina reek recognition 234 mr. wilson: mr. speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, i demand a vote on the speaker's approval of the journal. the speaker pro tempore: the question son agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the journal stands approved. for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and make a point of order a quorum is not present. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question are postponed.

the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from south carolina, mr. joe wilson. mr. wilson: if everyone in the balcony would please join in. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. or what purpose does the gentleman, again, from south carolina, seek recognition? mr. wilson: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman virginia tech for one minute. mr. wilson: mr. speaker, i appreciate governor nicki haley of south carolina for her decision to enforce the law and find the department of energy for failing to process weapons grade plutonium, which the department was statutorily mandated by u.s. code 50, section 2566. while the mixed oxide

fabrication facility is about 70% completed t. will not be able to meet the january 1, 2016 deadline, establishing a million dollar a day fine, up to $100 million annual. this was documented today in the aiken standard by s.r.s. beat reporter derek. while other options have been examined using flawed bias strdies, they are not real alternatives because the mox process with the only viable, legal option under our nuclear nonproliferation with the rush kwlan federation. it converts weapons grade plutonium in green fuel, and eliminates the need for a repository. the department of energy should commit to complete the project in its entirety as it promised the people of south carolina, especially when considering the economic and environmental impact of storing the material. in conclusion, god bless our troops, may the president by his actions never forget september 11 and the global war

on terrorism. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker. house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on december 15, 2015, at 9:29 a.m. that the senate passed h.r. 2270. that the senate passed senate 2044. appointment, united states china economic security review commission, with best wishes, i am, signed sincerely, carn l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair announces the speaker's appointment pursuant to 36 u.s.c. it 302 and the order of the house of january 6, 2015, on the fog members on the part of the council to the united states holocaust memorial council. the clerk: mr. israel of new

york, mr. deutch of florida. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bill. senate 808, an act to establish the surface transportation board as an independent establishment, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until approximately 4:00 p.m. today.

>> we welcome mitch mcconnell and start this discussion. [applause] >> thank you very much for being with us. send us your questions. we'll get them up here. we are excited to have a double heeder, leader mcconnell and shortly we'll hear from speaker ryan. thank you who have supported

this. we have had a lot of fun and made a lot of news. we would like to thank john, and bank of america for making this series possible. the playbook event series is a forum talking about the most critical issues facing washington. this year, florida, new jersey, massachusetts, california, new york and some of you might have seen in chicago. bank of america has been a great partner in 2015 and we appreciate that. mr. leader, thank you for being here on get-away week. >> big news with the $1.1 trillion spending bill and tax extenders. and what are the republican views in this package? senator mcconnell: at the risk of confounding you.

we haven't announced it yet but on the tax side, we would like a large measure as opposed to a short-term, two-year extender bill, with more permanencey for things that make a difference to the economy for two reasons. number one, it reduces the baseline for getting to comprehensive tax reform which the country desperately needs and number two, several of these extenders are so popular, r&d nd section 179 to the business community is an important shot in the arm to our economy. >> you sat down with my colleague and the headline of oday's story is mcconnell vows mbitious agenda in 2016.

we completely did it right in 1994 and that's something we could have minimal arguments

over and try to accomplish even in the middle of a contentious year. >> in the story by my colleagues, they say that you had a solid first year and they said this is on the paper, you have begun a victory lap of sorts. last year we had 15 roll call votes on amendments in the whole year, 15. this year we had over 200. four of the last five years the democratic majority didn't pass a budget. we did that. admittedly that's a low crossbar just to get back to normal, but what i tried to do, accept the

reality of the government we have. the president's not of our party. the democrats have enough support in the senate to prevent things from happening if they want to. so how do you break through that you do it by issue selection. we did keystone pipeline. we did the identify rain nuclear eview act. e did a multi-year highway bill. we did a rewrite of no child left behind. take the highway bill, for example, the democratic leadership actively tried to scuttle what was being developed by senator boxer and myself, and ailed. and the reason they failed is because the committee process worked. you had the ranking democrat on the committee committed to what we were trying to do and leadership simply couldn't thwart t the message is, if you go through committee on a bill that should enjoy bipartisan support, develops bipartisan support inside the committee, when it gets on the floor, even if the democratic leadership wants to thwart it, they can't. that's how we achieved as much as we did this year. mike: you do have a long list of firsts.

you emailed us a year ago in january, 2014, two years ago you gave a speech restoring the senate has been harder than you thought. leader mcconnell: no, because it was a pent up demand on a bipartisan basis to get back to normal. hi democratic senators coming up to me before our new majority took over saying they don't like the job. mike: they still say that. leader mcconnell: not anymore. look at the bills they participated in and voted on. many of these bills that i mentioned passed by overwhelming majorities. it wasn't just done by republicans. so they were saying that i worked hard to get this job, i took a lot of criticism, it was a contentious effort to get here. i don't much like this job. i don't think many of them are telling you that now. i'm sure they would like to be in the majority, but i don't think they enjoy being marginalized, being irrelevant, having all the action being in the majority leader's office rather than the committees. mike: you have empowered democrats.

leader mcconnell: bsolutely. i don't have any choice because it takes 60 votes to do most things that we do. i was always looking for the kinds of bills that were worth doing that enjoyed bipartisan support. i'd like to ask the representatives the coin of the realm in the senate is floor time. is the majority leader and the person who decides what we are going to turn to, how are you going to use that coin? since it takes us three days to do the simplest things where the house can do it in an hour, how much time you have is the big decision. what are you going to allocate floor time to? i accepted the fact we had a divided government. barack obama is in the white house. we don't have 60 senators. what can we do? the american people seem to like divided government we have had it so often. more often than not since world war 2. what are they saying? i think they are saying, ok, we know you have a lot of differences, but why don't you look for the things you agree on worth doing and do them. that's been my strategy this

year. still there are big, big differences. we put repeal obamacare on his desk. we are in the process of putting waters of the united states on his desk. and two of these clean power regulations on his desk. mike: as a student of history, do you assume that in january, 2017, we'll have divided government of some sort? leader mcconnell: i hope not. anna: you said you have empowered democrats under your leadership. certainly your relationship with majority leader harry reid has been tense. maybe hit a low in recent weeks. how can you work together or do you work together and kind of repairing that? leader mcconnell: i don't think it's hit a low in recent weeks. i think the low point was when he broke the rules of the senate in the fall of 2013 to change the rules of the senate.

the rules mean nothing if any majority at any given time with a simple majority changes the rules. and for those of you not familiar with t. the senate's rules don't go away tend of every two years, they are permanent. the rules of the senate require that you get 67 votes to change the rules of the senate. 67. what happened in the fall of 2013 in their desire to jam the minority, which had not used the filibuster very often at all, on judges, was, ok, we'll just change the rules, like that. they overruled the chair with a simple majority and changed the rules of the senate. that was the low point of our relationship. i think it did a lot of damage to the institution. and further soured relations. so i think the last congress was the low point. i like harry, personally. i don't like the way he ran the senate as the majority leader. we have had from time to time worked around him to get things done with the new majority.

fortunately there is a pool of democrats who want to be relevant. who think the job they were elected to ought to have some consequence, and they accept the fact we are in the majority. in order to advance the kinds of issues we have been talking about, it requires participation with us. mike: mr. leader, in september, carl and jennifer had a story in the "new york times" with the headline, boehner's exit will cost mitch mcconnell a kindred spirit. how has the house been different with speaker ryan? leader mcconnell: paul's been around a long time. heat a pretty young guy but he's been around a long time. we have had the opportunity to work together. you'll have a chance to hear from him in a few minutes. he hired a guy that was thoroughly familiar with, long time friend, dave. we knew each other well so we didn't have to start from scratch. and i think paul can speak for himself, but i think he's in what i would call the make a

difference side. you always have two kinds of people in politics, ones who want to make a point, and those who want to make a difference. we all from time to time want to make a point. we did that with the obamacare repeal which we are in the process of putting on the president's desk. i don't think the american people sent us here to do nothing. and they elected a government that neither party entirely controls. i get the impression the speaker would like to make a difference given the cards that we are dealt, which is not the perfect hand from our point of view, and you can address the question to him, but i think the transition's been quite mooth. anna: one of the things i wanted to ask you about is the interview given to the "washington post" on the transpacific partnership, getting done before the end of obama's term, do you think it's punted to the next president? leader mcconnell: i haven't made up my mind.

i'm disappointed at some of the -- at the outcome. but i'm not in any way regretful of doing trade promotion authority. all of you in the audience know what that is. it's a process by which this president and the next one can send a trade agreement to the congress and get it approved or it could be disapproved with an up or down vote. so i felt it was important to get t.p.a. in place not only for president obama but for the next president. we have that. and i'm really not decided yet on the deal that he negotiated. it could have been, in my -- from my point of view, a lot bert. mike: you said it shouldn't come up before the election. do you assume this now goes to he next president? leader mcconnell: you heard trade discussed. all the democratic candidates are against the deal. many of the republican candidates for president are against the deal. if the president wants to succeed he ought to take into account the reality of the political situation.

mike: the result of that will be what? leader mcconnell: it's up to him to decide to initiate the process. mike: your wish would be? leader mcconnell: i think he ought to take into account the obvious politics of trade at the moment in our country. mike: with speaker ryan next year, what will the outlook be or tax reform? leader mcconnell: i would assume it would be how in his agenda, you're going to have him here in a few minutes, if we get a larger tax bill here at the end of the year, we do have a significant positive impact on the baseline for comprehensive tax reform, which the speaker would like to do, and i would like to do. there are some challenges in doing comprehensive tax reform with this president. number one, i believe it should be revenue neutral to the government. reagan and tip o'neill had an agreement 30 years ago that tax reform was not about getting more revenue for the government but by -- about getting rates down to the maximum extent tenth

possible for the largest number of people. we have an outrageously high corporate tax rate, which is one of the factors causing some inversions. we need to do something about that. we need to go to some kind of territorial system. and from my point of view, we need to treat taxpayers as nearly as we can similarly. that means most american business, which is not a corporation, most is an s-corp. or l.l.c. they pay taxes as individuals. this president wants to keep the individual rate up here. so if you lower the rate only for corporations and you leave the rates for individuals up here, most american business doesn't get a tax relief. doesn't get any tax relief. so we have substantial differences with president obama about what tax reform ought to look like. summing it up, i think it ought to be revenue neutral to the government. i think we ought to treat small

business just like big business. whatever revenue is produced by the elimination of preferences ought to be used to buy down rates, not be used to spend by the government. mike: last one. what would you say is the outlook for narrow tax reform next year? leader mcconnell: i don't know. i don't know. mike: can you imagine president obama wanting to do one more big domestic thing? or do you think he's done? leader mcconnell: i don't know. you'll have to see what he does. mike: question from our cybersecurity editor, david lynch. since the paris and san bernardino attacks, the heads of the f.b.i. and c.i.a. have both expressed mounting concern about terrorists using encryption to mask their plotting. yet there seems little prospect for administration or congressional action. leader mcconnell: this is an area i'm disappointed it. i think weakening the patriot act was a mistake. and we had internal divisions among republicans over whether that was the appropriate thing to do.

the metadata system was lost in the bill that we passed in early summer. i didn't vote for it. our conference was split right down the middle on the issue of whether weakening the patriot act was a good idea. the encryption issue is another good reason for revisiting that whole subject and that could well happen next year. mike: what are the circumstance where is that would occur next year? leader mcconnell: it could happen next year. based upon what's going on in the world. i think we can't put blinders on here. this is a growing and serious problem. and to the extent that our intelligence capabilities, which in my view have never been inconsistent with american privacy concerns, are weakened, you have to ask the question, is that a smart thing to do? i don't think it is. mike: would you like to see action on that next year?

leader mcconnell: we may well do that. mike: what would be at the top of your list? leader mcconnell: one of our leaders on that, interestingly enough, if not our youngest senator, tom cotton, who has had a lot to say about this on the ntelligence committee. has already become a leader. i think chairman richard burr has concerns as well. that could be an area we address next year. anna: one of the things i wanted to talk about, immigration has been a big -- coming out of these terrorist attacks has been a big issue on the news and polls and 2016. that's a personal issue for you. your wife very successful from taiwan, first in the cabinet george w. bush's cabinet. do you think all this -- is it concerning to you? how do you respond to it? leader mcconnell: well, the president pretty much messed up he environment for doing anything on immigration. in a proactive way with his executive orders after the lection.

in which he did things that he had previously said on numerous occasions he didn't have the authority to do. proving he didn't have the authority, the courts have stopped him. so that's on hold. a separate issue is immigration concerns raised as a result of terrorists coming in. and i do think we need to continue to look at tightening up the various ways in which people can come into the country. the key in my view on the infiltration of terrorists as opposed to the lone wolf factor, it -- is having safe places inside syria so people don't feel they have to leave. and that requires a more robust military approach to what we are currently doing. more robust.

that's something the president's been reluctant to do. tightening up the entry is important. but you have the lone wolf problem, which apparently was the case in san bernardino. that gets back to whether or not we have the tools that we need to have on the intelligence side. to track and discover these people before they do something like this. anna: speaking of having a more robust presence here. you don't want to do an aumf -- leader mcconnell: the president thinks he has the authority to do what he's doing now. he's got a year left in office. i know the democrats in the senate well enough to know when they talk about an aumf they are talking about a highly prescriptive aumf. how many troops you have. how long they can stay

there. maybe what they can do there. but if we are going to do an aumf, it ought to give the president all the authority that he may need. rather than trying to micromanage the conflict. so i can't imagine this senate getting more than 60 votes for the kind of aumf that the next president may need, which is the authority to do what needs to be done. in other words, not to micromanage the military employment, not to tell them how long they can stay there. so i would not want to saddle the next president with a highly prescriptive aumf. mike: anna will ask you a question about a specific senator in the second, but to pull back, what are the chances that republicans keep the senate and you remain majority leader? leader mcconnell: it's going to be a challenging cycle. state the obvious that the key to the republican majority lies in purple states. new hampshire, pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin, one blue state, illinois. nevada, colorado, florida. what do they all have in common? every one of those states except illinois will be the same states

that determine who the president is. so i'm hoping for a presidential nominee who can carry purple states, who can actually get elected president because those are the states -- i would add one more to that group where we don't have a senate race, that's virginia. a purple state that clearly will be in play in the general election of the presidency. obviously if we have a presidential candidate who is doing well in purple states it would make it easier for us to have a majority in the next congress. anna: speaking to your point on the purple states, how would senator cruz as a nominee affect the race of senator kelly in new hampshire? eader mcconnell: good try. you know i'm not going to start commenting on various candidates for president. i like them all with great nterest. mike: you won't resist this. how would donald trump as a nominee affect re-election of senator rob portman in ohio?

leader mcconnell: i'm still not going to get into the presidential race. mike: you talked about the ability to win in purple states. would some -- not naming names, would some of these candidates be more helpful to keeping the majority -- leader mcconnell: come on, mike. lets don't waste each other's time here. i don't want to get into the presidential race. i have already stated it would be extremely helpful in holding the senate to carry purple states. all of you can draw your own conclusions about which candidates are most likely to carrie purple states. mike: as a republican party, how do you hold purple states? what is the key to that? leader mcconnell: i think our members want to be able to say to their constituents they were a part of getting results. getting results on things that were worth doing. hat i wanted to convey, i said this after my own re-election in louisville last year i wanted us to be a constructive right of center governing majority.

a constructive right of center governing majority. no antics like shutting down the government or threatening to default on the national debt. no feeling among the american people that if they were to marry up a republican president with this republican senate it wouldn't be a good thing. i want them to think that's a good thing. i think for people like kelly ayotte and pat toomey and ron johnson and rob portman and mark kirk, they want to make the argument that they have been -- they have made a difference.

not that they have sat around all the time making points, but that they have made a difference. i think we have an agenda that we have accomplished here in the first year that will help them do that. mike: mr. leader, chance here or a little reality check. this is the gray beard dinner written up in the lead store rift "washington post" g.o.p. to gird for a floor fight about preparing for a brokered onvention. what happened at that dinner? leader mcconnell: we were ju talking about politics. a bunch of politicians talking about politics. no conspiracy theories that i heard. mike: set the scene. tell people what the dinner is and what it was li+++

so i don't have any interest in quoting myself or others. this is a group that gets together periodically. i frequently go. we talk about politics. that's what we do in this town. and it's supposed to be off the record. i was among those rather appalled to hear people who are in the meeting talking about it. mike: now that we are on the record in front of cameras, is a deadlock convention something the party should prepare for? leader mcconnell: it hasn't happened in a very long time. i think it's highly unlikely to happen. and what delegates do at a convention is determined by state law anyway. and i guess the only way that could happen would be if you went past one ballot because most states bind the delegates for the first vote, although some may bind them beyond the first vote. i don't in a moment it's an interesting thing to discuss but highly unlikely. mike: highly unlikely, not impossible. what is your worry about it as you go into this -- leader mcconnell: i got a big

job to do here and i follow the presidential race, obviously. but handicapping every possible outcome is not something i spend much time doing. anna: turning back to the senate and your job, one of the questions that is outstanding is how many judges the senate will confirm. can you give us any insight into your thinking on that, or when you view the cut off, unofficial cut off date? leader mcconnell: there isn't any particular unofficial or official cut off date. the president has gotten a huge number of judges over the first six years. it was an explosion of judges right at the end of last year. and so most of the judges that were in the queue were already confirmed. and his overall record over this eight years is going to compare pretty similarly to previous presidents. anna: can you -- leader mcconnell: i don't have any specific.

mike: mr. leader, tradition you have you take freshmen, republican senators on a trip to hot spots, afghanistan, iraq, israel, etc. in the middle east. you did two trips this year because you had so many freshmen. what do you get out of those trips? leader mcconnell: a lot of the freshmen did not come from the house, so they haven't had a chance to visit places that have dominated or national security and foreign policy discussion over the last decade. so for the last few cycles, and this year as you indicated, i had, fortunately, a big group, so we went two times to israel, jordan, iraq, afghanistan. it's a way to immerse yourself in the situation quickly. because they have continuing important relevance. an example, it was clearly a

huge mistake for the u.s. not to leave a residual force behind in iraq. whether you supported the war or didn't support the war, president bush handed over to president obama a war that was won. and rather than using the model of germany, japan, and korea where -- we left all together and there is no question in my mind why iraq is the way it is today. wouldn't have prevented syria why iraq is in a mess today. the president has been struggling over the last three, four years with a political desire to be able to say -- that would be a big mistake. we have a president there who is a good president who wants us to

stay. all the military feels we need to have a resideal force. the optimism umh number would be 10,000 for counterterrorism and ongoing training of the military. i hope he doesn't double down on the mistake he made in iraq. of polls show that -- terrorism is in the minds of voters. senator mcconnell: this is a serious problem. v. team.not the j. they control large swaggets of land. they have to be defeated with boots on the ground and don't have to include a large combat force of the united states. but we are going to have -- without american leadership, it will not happen.

we have to rally the saudis, the egyptians to join a kind of well led and supported by air power american effort to defeat isil and until that happens, the problem will persist. you need to have safe zones inside syria so people don't feel like they have to run for their lives. >> as my friend points out, they re not boots, they are people. senator mcconnell: they don't have to be all of ours. america needs to stand up and says here's the plan. i need this many troops from you, france, for example or britain, for example. this many troops from you egyptians, saudis, jordanians. it requires american leadership

or it will not happen. until that leadership is provided by this president or the next one, the problem will continue. >> we have a number of interns watching us. you were an intern for a senator. what is your advice for interns? senator mcconnell: it was to me transformative event. i had always thought i wanted to try and succeed in politics. even as a young guy and being here that particular summer was the summer that the senate broke the filibuster on the civil rights bill, 1964 and senator cooper was right in the middle of that. and we were a border state and even though we were not overwhelmingly hostile to civil rights.

i remember getting an opportunity to ask him one time whether he was worried about that or not and he said something akin to this, there are times when you need to lead and times when you need to follow and this is an example of stepping out and trying to convince people this is the right direction to take. he was an inspirational figure. i hope you are working for somebody you like and enjoy and learning lessons about how to conduct the job if you ever get o be a senator or congressman. >> what were your duties in the mail room? senator mcconnell: it was all snail mail. we got very few telephone calls because it was a long dance call. sorting the mail and putting it in different camps and giving it to the right legislative

assistant to answer. >> you always like the trivia questions and we thought it would be fun to ask you tomorrow's trivia question today. abe bra ham lincoln is closely associated with illinois but he was born and partially raised in kentucky. hat city was he born in? senator mcconnell: hodges. lorraine county. [applause] how is your team going to come back next year? senator mcconnell: they have to

get rid of pap ell bonn and it's not a team-building exercise and outfielder.lid good werth is getting older. and we could use another starter although their guy down in the inors would be the answer to zimmerman's departure. >> you are often there with george will and charles krauthammer. senator mcconnell: they know a lot more about it. >> thanks for being here today, mr. leader. [applause]

>> thanks for coming in. thanks for coming in. we have some family members. my sister bonnie and my neice race are here from ethiopia. grace is 10. >> all i want for my birthday is to get out of town. so if we could expedite that process. >> mr. speaker, you said in 2016 you want to have a big year and want to be the proposition party and not the opposition party and

you made comments to a local paper that you want to be more involved in the micro issues of policy and governing. now that you are speaker, some sort of narrow or tax reform gets done in the next year or so? the speaker: i like micro policy and speaker's job is more micro than macro. i said i want to find a way of balancing that. specific question on tax reform, that has to be one of the crown jewels. we have to show the country how we get this country out of neutral and jobs growing and wages growing and families and businesses growing and tax reforms critical to that. ways and means committee is going to take a lead, but i have a deep interest. i will work closely to roll this

out. getting it done in 2016 is not going to happen because of president obama is president. >> no hope? the speaker: not with barack obama. >> can you imagine him wanting one more thing? the speaker: that's something we were talking about last year, just this fall. so we have issues that i think people on both sides of the aisle will acknowledge we are losing our competitive edge internationally because of the tax code and that is something we should explore and that is something we could explore in 2016. >> you could imagine getting action on that? the speaker: i would like to see it. >> one speech was announced by your staff along with the #confidentamerica. you want to be a happy warrior.

mr. ryan: i was raised by jack kemp. that inspires the country. my whole message was we as conservatives should not go down the path of playing i had -- identity politics but inclusive politic, optimistic politics and that means mr. allen: optimistic agenda. we believe in our principles that make this country great. it goes to say if we take these principles that we believe in, liberty, freedom, self-determination, the bill of rights, apply those principles to offer innovative solutions that fix problems. so we can make this country better and we can restore confidence in this nation, that's something to be happy about and something to unify and

we can win converts to this cause and win an election and get this done. we need a mandate election to break us out of the slog and it can only be won if you present an agenda to the country, straightforward, honest and if you win that election, then you have the moral authority and the mandate to put it in place and fix these problems. >> there was a piece on politico the other day, the paul ryan way. that? the hallmark of the speaker: starts with air conditioning. it's 80 degrees in here. i come from wisconsin so we like it cold. the paul ryan way, it shouldn't be the paul ryan way but the founders' way. t's get back to doing things -- we call it regular order.

i call it democracy. and then let's end the cronyism and get back to our principles, we believe in limited government, strong national security. we have 45 million people stuck in poverty. we need to do something about these things and we believe that our principles are where we need to go to come up with solutions. so my way has always been oppose what you don't like, but then propose what you do like. we are pretty good at the pposing part but better at the -- that. >> has the freedom caucus been tamed? the speaker: are we giving people more say so on how congress operates. are we decentralizing power? absolutely. i did not like the way things

were going. people knew that. i didn't want the job in the first place but now that i'm in it, i like it. we can't consolidate the power of this place. let members do their jobs. we have had three conference reports in 10 days on something that i have worked on, our customs enforcement, we we needed to rewrite our customs laws. we had a huge highway bill. five-year highway bill. huge rewrite of esea. the people who go to congress get on a committee and specialize in these areas whether it's education, trade or transportation. they are the people who are the experts. they are the once who aggregate the reforms and the ideas. we had a huge amendment process on the floor so everybody could participate and we had good

reforms. that's the way i think congress ought to run. that's not what we are doing with an omnibus. but that to me is the way forward. we are liberating people so they can participate. >> why do you think if you have worked in washington the last couple of years, the government shuts down tomorrow -- well, it does and we don't see the kind of hysteria we have seen in the past. why is that? the speaker: you are in the media. you tell me. look i think we have been pretty clear we are not going to have a shut down. we are putting our bill together. we have been negotiating. we will be posting sometime today and waiting for the score

keepers to draft and things like that. i knew we weren't go to go meet december 11 deadline and needed to get it right. we'll have to do another short-term because i'm not going to waive the three-day rule. the c.r. expires tomorrow but we'll do a short-term and pass this on thursday. i don't know when the senate can take it up. >> do you think there will be a big republican vote? traditionally these spending bills have been carried by democrats? the speaker: democrats some, we lost some. the end of the day we are going to get this done. let me say something about this process. i have been around for a while and i have watched this from the outside and now on the inside i feel strongly, we shouldn't be putting together appropriation bills this way or a handful of

people in a room putting together a trillion dollar spending bill. this should be done under regular order and bring these bills to the floor. the experts, the committees who are in charge overseeing the committees write the bills and members can try to effect the bill and that's how things should be done. this really in my opinion is no way to run a railroad. i don't want to see it repeat itself. >> i'm going to go to mike bender. but first on the trade deal. what are the prospects for the t.p.p. and congress next year and do you plan to bring it to a vote? speaker per we are still scrubbing it. we dill have a lot of questions, ways and means going through their analysis of it. i am as well. i have been pretty busy. it's very important. there are concerns on all sides of the aisle on this issue but

something that's important that we want to get it right. i don't have a set date. but if we conclude this is the right way to go and there is a lot of promise with an agreement that has 40% of the global g.d.p. and so the ambition is right where it ought to be. does the agreement deliver on the ambition and if we conclude that it does, we want to move as soon as we can. >> sounds like you are headed that way. the speaker: i don't know the answer. i'm not foreclosing any options. >> i think you know our defense editor who has a question for you. >> after the paris attacks you said that the attacks were quote, an act of war, in february of this year, president obama sent to congress a formal request an authorization for military force against the

islamic state and nothing has happened in nearly a year. couple of weeks ago, 35 of your colleagues wrote you a letter, republicans and democrats saying that congress is abdicating one of the most important responsibilities by not debating and voting on what is becoming an expanding war and they argue that the aumf passed after 9/11 and one passed in the fall of 2002 need to be updated. isis didn't exist back then and it did not authorize military force inside syria. if you don't agree with them, why not? the speaker: how many questions was that? i do believe that we have legal authorization under the aumf and i believe it would be a good sign for american foreign policy

to have a new one updating our aumf to declare our mission with respect to isis. that would be good for putting america in an offensive posture. so the question is, can we write an aumf that the president will sign where he's not going to handcuff the next president and get consensus on how to do that. i have talked to ed royce and mac thornberry, plenty of members in our caucus who think this is a debate we should have. but what i do not want to do is have an aumf along the lines of what the president has been discussing and i'm hoping that he'll change. that doesn't handcuff the next president of the united states from doing what that person thinks is necessary to defeat not contain isis. we just passed the defense

authorization bill and it had a huge bipartisan vote was the requirement of the administration to present a plan to defeat isis. this bill has been around for three, four weeks and we are waiting for the president to present a plan to defeat isis. there is a case to be made to say let's see what the plan is to defeat isis and whether that requires or whether in our interest to have a new aumf to accompany the strategy to defeat isis. >> you think it's the president's responsibility. the speaker: this is congress' responsibility. the question is can we pass one give the military the tools they need to do the job and will the president accept that. will it handcuff the next president. the president put too many constrictions on the military. you don't take options off the table and don't telegraph what

you will or will not do to your enemies. we don't want to repeat his mistakes. can we put a new aumf? i think we can and should but we actually do have the existing authority. >> we are talking about a confident america. we are not hearing that from republican leaders. is there too much fear mongering from the republican party? the speaker: this is going to sort itself out fine. the democratic party was more competitive, you would be asking the same thing. you have the competitive republican primary, we have competitive republican primaries. i'm not worried about the outcome. the power is where it ought to be which is with the primary republican voter and the primary republican voter is a smart savy

voters who wants to win and make sure we don't repeat four more years of progressism. >> you said in an interview with the "new york times", you expect concern about the party indulging in our own version of identity politics trying to fuel themselves based on darker notions. whatever are you talking about? the speaker: the left plays and fuels themselves on envy, anxiety, class warfare. we shouldn't do our own version of that and not preying on peoples' emotions of fear. identity politics speaks to people in ways that divide people. and that's why our country is so polarized. we are all americans and we have common ideas and values and speak in ways that unify us.

we need to have a positive agenda based on core principles that are good for everybody that shows the rising tide and get prosperity and upward mobility and favorite tism for none. the role and goal of government is equality of opportunity so people can make the most of their lives. pursue happiness so long as they are not infringing on a person's right. take this with a grain of salt. the alternative is a government that equalizes the results of people's lives and government is so consolidated and so powerful, that doesn't work. that slows down economic growth, stops upward mobility. we don't want that. so we shouldn't go down the path of fueling a political movement

on angst yites. we should heal and inspire and unify and have an optimistic message. that's what ronald reagan did. hey would like to bait us into a 1964 election. we can and should have a 1980 election and win with a mandate and get the country out of its ma lace and give the people of this country a confident future. >> it's not the other side -- the speaker: that's as much i'm going to give you on this one, mike. >> you want your agenda to impact the 2016 election? the speaker: our agenda. the lesson i learned in 2012 is you can't wait until mid-summer to start putting together your national campaign strategy. you have to start earlier than that and what i believe, what an

19 0 election was about was ideas. we had a great messenger. but it's about ideas and you have to start earlier and have an agenda and ideas. we win ideas elections. >> the other 1980 parallel, jack jack kemp -- speaker ryan: jack was my mentor. he along with many other house republicans pushed a pro-growth economic agenda. that was the right antidote for the malaise, the stagflation of the carter years. ronald reagan picked up on that agenda and we got reaganomics. we got huge tax relief, tax reform, great prosperity, in addition to a stronger military and winning the cold war. i think that's the kind of

combination that we as a party hope to build upon, that's the kind of agenda our members are looking forward to. >> you want house republicans to -- speaker ryan: i want house republicans helping their nominee before their nominee arrives. we may not get a nominee until june or july. we know who we are, we know what we want to do. we want to go after cronyism, go after debt, we want to reignite upward mobility and get at the root cause of povertism we know we want a stonger military and more secure national security posture. we know these things. so we should tell people what it looks like. how we get those things, run those things. these are unifying things within the conservative movement. we believe that will help propel not only the nominee, whoever it's going to be, but help us win in the final election. >> my question on this, the possibility of a july nominee. how worried are you about a

deadlocked convention? speaker ryan: i don't think about stuff like that, i'm not worried about it. i'm not. >> what have you been told are the possibilities? speaker ryan: i haven't. i'm busy working in congress, i don't worry about stuff like that. >> you told a couple of reporters that you're trying to get into a new routine as speaker, you're a routine guy. have you found that routine? and what's changed as your humble days as ways and means chairman? speaker ryan: i have more people with me. i am a routine person. i work out here and i work. i've got that routine dun. at home it's a similar routine. volleyball and basketball are what we do on weekends. i do constituent events. packers had a goodwin on sunday. >> you were there? speaker ryan: yeah. i got myself back in my routine. >> you had dinner with nancy pelosi the other night in the

capitol, what was the most interesting thing you learned you said you haven't spent much time with her. speaker ryan: the most interesting thing i learned is that this is news worthy, that i had dinner with my democratic counterpart? isn't this normal, that we would get to know each other. she's my counterpart, i thought it was a good idea to get to know her better. >> what did you learn? speaker ryan: i got to know her better. she's a very smart lady. she's passionate in her beliefs. she represents her caucus very well. we pretty much have opposite views on moat things. but we're respectful of that. >> you talk about raising the gaze, not getting stuck on this rider or that rider but the work of congress can be very technical. speaker ryan: yeah. i enjoy both. i think we need to raise your gaze because we can get stuck into the here and now and the

petty and the small. we need to raise our gaze ecause time is so tenuous. i -- this is my 17th year in congress, working on these big issues, i believe we have four more years like these past seven years where we're ignoring the pending debt crisis, where we're basically having government take over the health care industry, government trying to take over the financial services industry, we're weakening our military, we have horrible foreign policy, we have economic stagnation, wages are flat, other country -- countries are eating our lunch competitively, internationally. if we keep down that path, we are not going to give the next generation a more prosperous future. we've never done that every general railings has sacrificed, has strived, has made a difference, made decisions, so that the next generation is better off. we know without a shred of doubt, it's math. that we will sever that tie,

that legacy if we don't get on top of our problems. so raising the gaze means fixing these problems while they're still fixable, while we can fix them on our own tirms as a country. one example, entitlement. most of them are age-based entitlements. medicaid and social security were there when my mom and i needed it, when i was young. but if we stay on this path, they go bankrupt. what dood does that do anybody. the sooner we tackle these problems, the better off it is. by doing it on our own term well, can fix these programs, prevent them from going bankrupt, so the government can keep its promises to the people who are now depending on these programs who are organized their retirement and lives around these promises. but those of us in the younger generation, you and i are in the same generation, like a millenial or something like that? yeah, you're 30.

so they're not going to be there for us if we don't do something about it. the point i make is, let's get on top of america's problems now. let's fix them while we can. let's get past the political impasse we have so we can fix the problems, keep the promises that have been made and do it on our own terms. if we keep kicking the can down the road, it's going to be a european debt crisis without america backing us up. so we'll have ugly, ugly reforms. we won't be able to reform government and programs and debt and deficit and economic problems on our own terms as a country. that's the point i'm trying to make. that's why we have to raise our gaze, take on these problems and tackle these problems before they tackle us. >> you were insistent that you didn't want this job. were you wrong? now that you have it, is it pretty cool? speaker ryan: it is what it is. i'm fine. >> you love it, i can tell. speaker ryan: i have to do it differently. i just -- you know, these

omnibuses, we shouldn't be opening like -- governing like this i want to get us back to regular order rm it's turning a battleship a little bit. we made some pretty good terms, we still have more to go. i do like it in the sense that i see progress being made and i'm excited about 2016. i'm excited about our party giving the people of this country a true -- the true an legitimate choice they deserve to have so that the people of this country, so that they can decide what this country looks like going forward. to have a sliver, a piece of that role in helping determine that, i feel honored to do that. so yeah, i see it as an honor. >> now that you have the gavel, what's been the biggest surprise, a constraint or a power? mr. ryan: i'm not a person who wants power. i want power to go out there. i want power to go out in the country. i don't want power to stay in the capitol. i want it to go out in the country.

if i can use this gavel to decentralize power, out of washington, back to the people where it belongs, then i feel that i can make a difference. that's what i like most about this. >> you're chairman of the republican national convention, you've said you're not going to reject or bless any candidate. very -- e already been trump -- very -- speaker ryan: i'm a euchre player, that's what we play in wisconsin. e use trump there too. speaker ryan: my rule is not to comment on the people or the ups and downs of the presidential campaign. >> but this was an extraordinary exception. eaker ryan: i'll leave it as

an extraordinary exception, so i won't answer that question you asked. >> you said this is not conservatism, not what the country stands for. how did you decide to go on camera and talk about it. speaker ryan: religious freedom, flurelism, this is who we are. i think when you see your principals, such founding and unifying principals under assault, you have an obligation to stand up to those principals. -- principles. >> i was enthralled by what he offguard. so -- i'm >> the chief white house correspondent at politico. >> mr. speaker, you used to wear ear buds in the capitol, those are gone, why? >> i used to walk by myself, just listen to music. it was relaxing to me.

i walk with other people now. >> could you say affirmatively that you will not be drafted into this presidential election? speaker ryan: i'm doing this job. >> the answer is a hard no? >> i'm doing this job. you have to stop all that speculation. we have -- >> i think you just stopped it. speaker ryan: good. >> talking about your routine, when you're back home. when you're here, what time do you wake up, what do you do in the morning? >> i get up at 6:00, go to the workout at, start my 6:30, workout until 8:00. >> 90 minutes? speaker ryan: i have to shower also. do you really want me to get into that? when i shower? what kind of shave cream do i use? then i go on my day.

>> who do you work out with? speaker ryan: a bunch of members. p90kx?t like speaker ryan: p90 x, cycling, yoga, crossfit, spin. spin is cycling, just so you know. cardio, all that stuff. >> what do these four groups have in common. the rolling stones, background band, c/dc -- zach brown /dc -- >> zach brown band is not on my playlist. i don't know anything about it. >> what do owe rolling stones, ac/dc, and rage against the machines have in common.

they're on my playlist. >> the beard is from deer camp. speaker ryan: i'm a bow hunter, i haven't gotten my first kill, that's why i still have the beard. i like to put about three deer in the freezer. i make italian sausage, bratwurst, steaks and ground venison, takes about three deer to get in the freezer, i've got one so far. the season goes to the end of the year, after session i'll get back in the woods. this shows two things. i'm a bow hunter, where deer season isn't over with, and i have a very tolerant wife who is allow noge keep this for a little while. >> two more deer then? speaker ryan: hopefully. we'll see. >> there was a picture of you at lamb bowe with your kids with

the world champion green bay packers, the new america's team. embarrassed the cowboys. what was it like to be at lamb bowe with your kids? speaker ryan: awesome. we try to get a game a year in. last year, i took them to the dallas game as well. when we looked at the schedule at the end of the summer, i like going to december games, sitting in the bowl, that's what we call it, in the cold. that's fun. it wasn't cold, it was 50 degrees and raining. but we wanted to go to a december game and the cowboys, it's just always great to beat the cowboys. so you know. >> do you get better seats now that you're speak her speaker ryan: no. not really. >> sherman will have the last word but what is your super bowl prediction? speaker ryan: i think we're -- as long as we keep our o-line healthy, which it is, and mike mccarthy is not calling the

plays, which i think was a hard decision for him to make awe but a good decision, i feel like if we hit our tempo, which we clearly can, and if aaron can connect with the new receivers as well as he can, they can get open running routes, which they're showing promise, that's the thing about going to a live football team, you can see receivers and see how well they do or don't run routes, you don't catch that on tv as well. my guess is it's the pats. that we would face. >> i thought you meant they were going to win? speaker ryan: no, we would face -- i shouldn't do this. but i think the patriots have a decent chance of a repeat. they seem to be back on their game. i don't know if denver will get there. my guess is the patriots. then russell wilson is playing pretty well. they're on an upswing too. the n.f.c. is tough this year. not all of it but some of it is tough this year.

the rest of the nfc is pretty good. >> five us one thing you're going to change in the house? speaker ryan: we're going back to regular order and appropriations. i do not want this hp happening gep. we should not take this as inevitable, that we'll pile up the appropriation bills and do something at the offend the year. we've got to stop thinking that's norm -- normal, because it's not. number two, i do believe there's things we can find common ground on, the next criminal justice reform is a good example. there are areas where we can find common ground, make a difference, move forward and then, we're going to disagree on a lot of things. that's fun. it's a good thing with two different political parties. let's disagree by offering a big agenda. then letting the people the side. that's the way i see 2016 unfolding. that's what i enjoy being a part of. >> i'd like to thank jake and anna for joining me today, their

fantastic coverage all year ong. hank you to politico playbook, and thank you all for making these conversations possible. thank all of you for reading out and " for coming supporting this event. mr. speaker, merry christmas. speaker ryan: merry christmas. [applause] >> speaker ryan and his house colleagues gavel back in in about 45 minutes. 4:00 eastern. several bills including one to prevent terrorists from using social media to recruit members. live coverage of the house here on c-span at 4:00 eastern. meanwhile, the top democrat in the senate, harry reid, says budget negotiations are stuck over a provision to lift the 40-year-old ban on exports of

u.s. crude oil. republicans want to allow the u.s. to sell its oil abroad. democrats want, in exchange, agreement to lower carbon emissions. congressional leaders are hoping to have a deal by tonight. they're also negotiating over expiring tax breaks, the number two democrat in the house says he wants the tax cuts paid for. and today is the 224th anniversary of the bill of ights. today is the 224th anniversary of the bill of rights, ratified -- on this date, there. e was a ceremony we begin with the swearing in. mr. hoyer: the house could take

up a package. uns in the 600 t800 bilon range. none of which i paid for. ballooning our deficits in a way that reinforces the misguided double standard that investments in the groh of jobs and opporunities must be offs, but tax cuts are always free. x cuts like everhing else is cost. if we fail to pay for them, 'll once agaiincrease deficits and debt which in turn wl be used as a catalyst for another round of ts to the very programs i believe are vital to our economy and to our people. therefore, mr. speaker i will opse an unpaid forax extender package like this is proposed shout me to the floor. before going through my

concerns about this deal in the package being disssed has t nbe of taxreferences hat i and many others support. th include making permanent expansions of the income tax credit, child tax credit, and american opportunity tax credit launched under the recovery act in 2009. it would also provide incentives businesses and individual filers for investment, research, charitable contributions, and teaching expenses among oths. most ofs support those efforts. in many waythis would a ll whe everyone gets mr. speaker, our childrnd grandchildren will get the ill. what concerns me most about this bill is it further entrenches the false notion thatffsets only matter when

it comes to spending priorities. the dire consequencesill be providing repubcans with the to propose hey need en deeper cuts to the very invissments thahelp gro the economy a create -- investment that help grow the econy and create jobs both in the shorrm and lon-term. frankly, i'msurprisewe haven't heard more of outcry that the roughly $illion in lost revenue from the package is nearly the same eorrectionary cuts republicans insisted upon in the sequester. it would appear we are setting ourselves up for republicans demanding the next round of severeuts that harm our economy and our people both on the nondefse side and on the ation security side.

, mr. speaker, we ust move away from this dangerous pattern. republicans contie to argue that t cuts pay f themselvesy spurring economic rowth. a theory that s been proven wrong and sadly our children will pay the price for the defics that have resulted. others willrgue that the effect on our deficits and debt of anoth $700 billn in unpaid for taxxpenditures over the next 10ears can be ignored becau we would extend them every year anyway. while convenient, neither of these is a reonsibl position for govning. in a "wall street journal" piece last ay, a good frie of mine and presidentf the committee for a responsible for aesponsible federal ittee budget, asked, and iuote, how do we expin to our chilen that we borrow more th $1

trillion that counts interest, t because it s a national emergency, oro make itical investments in the future, but because we just d't like close quote.ills. our answer has to be not to justify the irresponsible behavior but to correct it. nd this tax extender package difficult.th much more fi this package undermines ongres ability to invest in and opportunities that make the american dream ossible for millionsf famies. paying for them, there ar consequences. evy dollar in lost revenue is a dollar that must be made up a thatake the american somewhere else in the budget. as i said earlier, these

unpaid-for-tax extenders will set the table for further republican attems to slash critical investments in o na's future. secondly, mr. speaker, it will hinder our abily to restore fiscal stabily by making it less likely that wlle able to protect the future sustainability ofntitlement prrams like medicre and social securi. in orde to appear balanced, rent republica budgets proposed trillions of dlars in ts to health progrs for seniors and the most vulnerable in our society. worsening our deficis outlook by passinghis bill invites themo continue that task. il wace a challenge to our mo critical retirement and heal programs, a challenge driveby the tirement of the by-boom neration and the looming fect ofompound interest on our debt, my republican friends continu to ofer budget

proposs that severely cut benefitsor seniors and the most vulrable aricans. ey try to justify doing so because our deficits are too high. their proposalould acerbate that by about $illioas was said. here ware, ough, about t nsideproposals to raise the deficits evenigher. thirdly, mr. spker, this type of unpaid for permanen extensn willndercut our economicompetitiveness by making competitiveax rerm more -- comprehensive tax reform more difficult to achieve, not easier. we needomprehsive t reform and ts will make ore difficult lockinin preferences whi lowering the revenue baseline by morehan ha a trillion dollars w ensure plunge to rther debt. mr. speaker, i continue to believe that the business community wou much prefer to

see rat go down through comprensive reformhan indiual preferences. f this bil prises tm both. more preferenc and lower rates at the cost ofeficits, debt, and diminishnvestment in our economic competitiveness. there are certain -- certainl components of this tax extend package that i, as i said before, wld like to make penent i wis we cod make them even bert, in fact. for instae, the child tax credit should be strucred t keep uwith inflation so that those working the hardest to get by don't contin t see theiresourc dwindle year after year. again, let me quot mcguinness hen sh highted this itant pnt ithe op-. quote, mosttheenses underonsidetion are sensible enou policy and their merit is an argument for payi for them.

ths tax etender package itsf serves as powful argument, mocrats and reblicans,o come togeer to aceve that which w reay ed, comphensive tareform. so inosing, mrspeaker, whil agreeneed t-rm certainty for t filers before the end of the year, i believe pricthis package wod have us pay is too ste, irrponsib in the short-ter and in the longer tm. instead, we couldrovide that same immedte certainty wita simple two-yar extension. that's what we ought to do. i ge my colagues to think carefully aboutheate-term impa and csequces of this --ong-t impa and consequenc of this package on thability to cateobs and

opportunities, crow our economy, investn strengthenicurity, redu our nation's debt, an balance our budget. i sing, mr. speaker, elieve that is congrs and our pele expect us too tter. e have a responbility to our countr and to our children t do better. an oday marks the 224th verse oy of this the signing of the bill of rights. president obama marked the occasion with a citizenship with the we begin swearing in

>> new members of the united states citizenry, please raise your right hand and repeat after me. that i declare on oath a absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all any ance and fidelity to staten prince, potentate, or sovereignty, of whom or which i have heretofore been a subject or citizen. at i will support and defend the constitution and the laws of the united states of america

and st all enemies foreign domestic, that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. hat i will bear arms on behalf of the united states when required by the law. that i will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the united states when required by the law. of i will perform work national importance under civilian direction when required by the law. and that i take this obligation mental ithout any

reservation or purpose of evasion. let me be the first to congratulate all of you as new united states citizens. cheers and applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please elcome director uscis leon rodriguez. >> please join me in reciting the pledges of allegiance to the flag.

-- the pledge of allegiance to he flag. all rise. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> please be seated. the civic renewal network is an alliance of 26 organizations dedicated to raising the visibility of civics education and providing free high quality resources for teachers and classes. resources include the annenberg public policy center, the library of congress, the national constitution center, national history kay, the n.i.h.'s enticement program, the

newseum. the class from new york to read the preamble. >> we the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america.

[applause] >> thank you to the civic renewal network. let's give another round of applause to these students. [applause] please welcome to the stage the archivist of the united states, david fario. >> i want to add my thanks to the stewart hobson middle school for that wonderful rendition of the preamble, thank you very much. good morning, welcome@rotunda of the national archives. first and foremost, congratulations to our 31 new citizens of the united states. it's a great honor to have the president of the united states here with us today to celebrate your american citizenship. thank you to deputy secretary mayor cass, judge roberts, and

director rodriguez for joining us. the national archives is proud to host the naturalization ceremony with the president, the department of homeland security, the united states citizenship and immigration services and the united states district courts for the district of columbia. i can think of no better place to become an american citizen than in front of these documents. behind me is the constitution which remains the basis on which our federal government is structured. the preamble, which the students just recited contains three important words. we the people. that brief phrase captures the essence of our democracy. to my right is the declaration of independence, the parchment that the founding fathers signed in 1776 in philadelphia. they risked their lives, their families' lives, and all they owned in signing it. we have them to thank for our freedoms today. to my left is the bill of right the first 10 amendments to the

constitution. these amendments were added to the constitution exactly 224 years ago today. these amendments are the basic personal rights and freedoms guaranteed to every american citizen, which you will exercise every day. these documents, these charges of freedom, make up our foundation as u.s. citizens. i am the grandson of italian immigrants, and great grandson of irish immigrants. using passenger lists here at the national archives, i discovered that my grandfather at age 15 arrived in boston from naples aboard the ship commonwealth in march, 1903, and my grandmother, antonia giorgio, also from naples, arrived in march of 1909 on the romantic. many americans have stories like mine. now you are -- new you, our newly naturalized citizens, will

have your own journey oto share. here at the national archives we have over 12 billion pages of records. becoming american citizens make you now part of the nabblear kentuckys. your naturalization becomes part of our holdings and someday your desen dabts will search our records to discover your history. here history comes to life. we have tangible reminders of where we have been, how far we possible. nd what is the national archives tells everyone's story and now your story. congratulations. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome deputy secretary of the department of homeland security,

lejandro mallorca. [applause] >> mr. president. my fellow americans. congratulations. this is a special day in your lives, ands a an equally special day in the life of our nation. your identity will from this day forward be shaped by the united states citizenship you have now earned. our nation's future in turn shines with the promise of your contributions. in 1973, i became a naturalized citizen just as you have become one today. my parent, my sister and i arrived in this country in 1960 as refugees from cuba. while my parents always had faith in their children, i don't think they could have imagined that years latering their son

would be standing beside the president of the united states, addressing all of you in this most beautiful ceremony. but that is the promise of america. s president obama said, now as a nation we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea that everybody everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. that's an essential promise of america. where you start should not determine where you end up. ladies and gentlemen, the future of our nation is yours. not to inherit but to create. as a parent of beautiful daughters, yes, my daughters look like their mother, i try to bring life to the hope that our

daughters will one day live in a world better than the one that preceded them. more than six years ago, we moved our children across the country here to washington, d.c. because we believed in the president's vision for what that better world could be and how america could lead it. we feel that more strongly today than we did those years ago. i have been and remain privileged to contribute in some small way to the fulfillment of our president's vision for the promise of america. his vision champions our proud tradition and our everlasting identity as a nation of immigrants. i hope that you will embrace the citizenship you have earned, its rights and its responsibilities, and contribute to the future of our nation as well.

congratulations and thank you. > thank you. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the united states, barack obama. [applause] president obama: thank you. thank you so much. thank you. please have a seat. thank you. good morning, everybody. thank you, deputy secretary mallorca, judge roberts, director rodriguez, thank you to and rchivist, david ferrio everyone here at the archives for hosting us here today in this wonderful setting and to

our fellow americans, our newest americans -- i'm so excited. you are men and women from more than 25 countries. from brazil to uganda, from iraq to the philippines. you may come from teeming cities rural villages, you don't look alive -- look alike, you don't worship the same way, but very urrounded by the documents whose values bind us together as one people, you've raised your hand and sworn a sacred oath. i'm proud to be among the first to greet you as my fell row americans. -- my fellow americans. what a remarkable journey all of you have made.

and as of today, your story is forever woven into the larger story of this nation. in the brief time that we have together, i want to share that story with you. because even as you've put in the work required to become a citizen, you still have a demanding and rewarding task ahead of you and that is the hard work of active citizenship. you have rights and you have responsibilities. and now you have to help us write the next great chapter in america's story. just about every nation in the world, to some extent, admits immigrants. but there's something unique about america. we don't simply welcome new

immigrants, we don't simply welcome new arrivals. we are born of immigrants. that is who we are. immigration is our origin story. for more than two centuries, it's remained at the core of our national character. it's our oldest tradition. it's who we are. it's part of what makes us exceptional. after all, unless your family is native american, one of the first americans, our families, all of our families come from someplace else. the first refugees were the pilgrims themselves. fleeing religious persecution.

crossing the stormy atlanta toik reach a new world where they might live and pray freely. eight signers of the declaration of independence were immigrants. and in those first decades after independence, english, german, and scottish immigrants came over, huddled on creeky ships, seeking what thomas payne called asigh -- thomas pia -- paine called asylum for the lovers of persecuted liberty. down through the decades, irish catholics fleeing hunger, italians fleeing poverty, filled up our cities, rolled up their sleeves, built america. chinese laborers, jammed in steerage under the decks of steamships, making their way to california to build the central pacific railroad that would transform the west and our

nation. wave after wave of men, women, and children from the middle east and thed me terrain yum from air force base and africa, poured into ellis island or angel island, their trunks bursting with their most cherished possessions, maybe a photograph of the family they left behind. the family bible or torah or koran. a bag in one hand, maybe a child in the other, standing for hours in long lines. new york and cities across america were transformed into a sort of global fashion show. dutch lace caps and north african fezzes. stodgey tweed suits, colorful caribbean dresses. perhaps like some of you these new arrivals may have had some moments of doubt, wondering if

they'd made a mistake in leaving everything and everyone they ever knew behind. life in america was not always easy. it wasn't always easy for new immigrants. certainly it wasn't easy for those of african heritage who had not come here voluntarily were t in their own way immigrants themselves. there was discrimination. nd hardship and poverty. but like you, they no doubt found inspiration in all those who had come before them. and they were able to muster faith that here in america, they might build a better life and give their children something ore. just as so many have come here search of a dream, others

sought shelter from nightmares. survivors of the holocaust. soviets. refugees from vietnam, laos, cambodia, mexicans, cubans, iranians, leaving behind tedly revolutions. central american teenagers running from gang violence. the lost boys of sudan escaping civil war. public eople from the fill -- they're people like philip from the republic of con doe, who is now here. we can never say it often or

loudly enough, immigrants revitalize and renew america. immigrants like you are more likely to start your own business. many of the fortune 500 companies in this country were funeded by immigrants or their -- funded by immigrants or their children. many of the tech startups in silicon valley have at least one immigrant founder. immigrants are the teachers who inspire our children and the doctors who keep us healthy. they're the engineers who design our skylines and the artists and entertainers who touch our hearts. immigrants are soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen who protect us, often risking their lives for an america that isn't even their own yet. there's an iraqi, mohammed

ibrahim al-nayif, who was the target of death threats for working with american forces he stood by his american comrades and came to the u.s. as a refugee. today, we stand by him and we a proud to welcome him as citizen of the country he lready helped to defend. we celebrate this history this heritage, as an immigrant nation. and we should be strong enough to acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that we haven't always lived up to our own ideals. we haven't always lived up to these documents. from the start, africans were brought here in chains against their will and then toiled under the whip. they also built america. a century ago, new york city shops displayed those signs, no irish need apply.

catholics were targeted, their loyalty questioned. so much so that as recently as the 1950's and 1960's, when j.f.k. had to run -- j.f.k. was run he had to convince people his allegiance wasn't primarily to the pope. chinese immigrants faced persecution and vicious stereotypes and for a time were even banned from entering america. during world war ii, german and italian residents were detained and in one of the darkest chapters of our history, japanese immigrants and even japanese american citizens were forced from their homes and imprisoned in camps. e succumbed to fear. we betrayed not only our fellow americans but our deepest values.

we betrayed these values, it's happened before. and the biggest irony of course was that those who betrayed these values were themselves the children of immigrants. how quickly we forget. one generation passes, two generations pass, and suddenly we don't remember. where we came from. we suggest that somehow there's us and there is them. not remembers we used to be them. -- remembering we used to be them. on days like today, we need to resolve never to repeat mistakes like that again.

[applause] we must resolve always to speak out against hatred and bigotry in all its forms, whether taunts against the child of an immigrant farmworker or threats against a muslim shopkeeper. we are americans. standing up for each other is what the values enshrined in the documents in this room compels us to do. especially when it's hard. especially when it's not onvenient. that's when it counts. that's when it matters. not when things are easy. ut when things are hard.

the truth is, being an american is hard. being part of a democratic government is hard. being a citizen is hard. it is a challenge. it's supposed to be. there's no respite from our ideas. all of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves, not just when it's convenient, but when it's inconvenient, when it's tough. when we're afraid. the tension throughout our history between welcoming our rejecting the stranger, it's about more than just immigration. it's about the meaning of america. what kind of country do we want to be? it's about the capacity of each generation to honor the creed as old as our found, e plure bus ewe numb, out of many, we are --

weluribus unum, out of many, are one. scripture tells us, we are strangers before you and sojourners, as were all our fathers. we are strangers before you. the mexican immigrant today -- in the mexican immigrant of today, we see the catholic immigrant of a century coog. in the syrian seeking refuge today, we should see the jewish refugees of world war ii. see se new americans, we our own american stories, our parents, our grandparents, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, who packed up what they could, scraped together what they had, and their paperwork wasn't always in order. and they set out for a place

that was more than just a piece of land, but an idea. america. a place where we can be a part of something bigger. a place where we can contribute our talents and fulfill our ambitions and secure new opportunity for ourselves and for others. a place where we can retain ride in our heritage but where we recognize that we have a common creed, a loyalty to these documents, a loyalty to our democracy. where we can criticize our government but understand that we love it. where we agree to live together even when we don't agree with each other. where we work through the democratic process and not through violence or sectarianism

to resolve disputes. where we live side-by-side as neighbors. nd where our children know themselves to be a part of this nation. no longer strangers. but the bedrock of this nation, he essence of this nation. and that's why today is not the final step in your journey. more than 60 years ago, at a ceremony like this one, senator john f. kennedy said, no form of government requires more of its citizens than does the american democracy. our system of self-government

depends on ordinary citizens doing the hard, frustrating, but always essential work of citizenship. of being informed. of understanding that the government isn't some distant thing but is you. of speaking out. when something is not right. of helping fellow citizens when they need a hand. of coming together to shape our country's course. that word gives purpose to every generation. it belongs to me, it belongs to he judge, it belongs to you. it belongs to you. all of us. as citizens. follow our laws, yes, but also to engage with your communities,

to speak up for what you believe in, and to vote. to not only exercise the rights that are now yours but to stand up for the rights of others. [speaking foreign language] if you're from ethiopia. she said the joy of being in america is the joy of opportunity. we have been handed a work in progress, one that can be evolved for the good of all americans. couldn't have said it better. that is what makes america great. not just the words on these founding documents, as precious and valuable as they are, but the progress they've inspired. if you ever wonder whether america is big enough to hold

multitudes, strong enough to withstand the forces of change, brave enough to live up to our ideals even in times of trial, then look to the generations of ordinary citizens who have proven again and again that we are worthy of that. that's our great inheritance. what ordinary people have done build this country and make hese words live. it's our generation's path to follow their example in this journey, to keep building an america where no matter who we are or what we look like or who we love or what we believe, we can make of our lives what we ill. you will not and should not forget your history and your past.

at adds to the richness of american life. but you are now american. you've got obligations. as citizens. and i'm absolutely confident you'll meet them. you'll set a good example for all of us. because you know how precious this thing is. it's not something to take for granted. it's something to cherish and to fight for. thank you, may god bless you. may god bless the united states of america. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

[captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2015] >> president obama earlier today at the national archives. the citizenship ceremony. momentarily the u.s. house gavels back in. a short afternoon legislatively. two bills, including one to prevent terrorists from using social media to recruit members. we expect votes this evening at 6:30 eastern. meanwhile, work continues off the floor. the $1.1 million -- trillion, rather, spending bill, the omnibus spending bill, being worked on. word that it's going to be released tonight. live coverage now here on c-span. er proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered or on which the vote incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20.

record votes on postponed questions will be taken later. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, house suspend the rules and pass h.r. 3654, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: h.r. 2654, a bill to require a report on the united states strategy to combat terrorist use of social media, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from california, mr. royce, and the gentleman from new york, mr. engel, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. . mr. royce: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material for the record. the speaker pro tempore: so ordered. mr. royce: i also ask unanimous consent to place into the record exchanges of letters with the chairman of the judiciary and intelligence committees. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered.

mr. royce: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. royce: well, mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of this legislation, h.r. 3654. its entitled combat terrorist use of social media act of 2015. and i want to recognize the leadership of judge ted poe, a member of this body, on this critical issue. the threat posed by islamist terrorists have evolved. but the administration's policies have not evolved. if we're going to prevent additional attacks, then the president must lay out a broad, overa-ing strategy needed to win. and -- overarching strategy needed to win and that strategy must include a plan to counter the terrorists' use of social media. terrorists are skillfully exploiting social media to recruit supporters, to radicalize, to raise money, to spread fear. and two weeks ago in san

bernardino, california, 14 innocent people were killed and 21 people were injured by radical islamist terrorists. we know these extremists, husband and wife, used social media. one of them making a pledge on facebook in support of isis. this pledge was identified by facebook and taken down immediately. yesterday it was revealed that the u.s. department of homeland security actually prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media postings of all foreign citizens applying for u.s. visas and only intermintly began looking at posts from some visa applicants. so imagine a situation where you have people who are going to syria, who are posting on social media, and you've got a blanket prohibition on reviewing those social media postings. that was the state of the situation. as we're trying to defend the

homeland. frankly, the failure of this administration to incorporate a review of social media posts into the visa approval process is absurd. ignoring the online statements of terrorists trying to enter the united states puts our country at risk. this must be fixed. and this bill, frankly, is timely, it's important, it forces the administration to put forward a strategy to combat terrorists' use of this social media, in 2011 the president promised to create that strategy, but never delivered anything. we are simply not going to defeat isis or other terrorist groups without combating their social media recruiting. following a bipartisan letter from representatives poe and mr. engel and mr. sherman and myself last march, twitter strengthened their policies to assert that statements

threatening or promoting terrorism were against twitter's terms of service, and most of the other social media companies have similar user guidelines that prohibit threats of violence and use of their platforms by terrorists. we need a strategy that clearly articulates our country's goals, the responsibilities of each federal agency, what role each one will play, a vision of how our government is going to work with the private sector, a vision of how we're going to pull civil society into this effort. without a strategy the administration's effort to combat terrorists' use of social media appear to be disconnected, they appear to be ineffective. and then of course, after we have that strategy, we are going to need action. it is ironic that extremist groups have turned to twitter to face -- to twitter, to facebook, to youtube, to encourage attacks on a free

society. when these companies would not have been created without a free society. one which upholds free speech, free thought, encourages entrepreneurship. so, mr. speaker, it is imperative that the administration lay out how we will contend with these terrorists hijacking the social network for their twisted purposes. we truly have basically a caliphate today on the internet, a virtual caliphate, if you will, on the internet. this bill, by judge ted poe, is intended to force a strategy to solve this problem and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. actually, new york. mr. engel: new york. it's a long way from california to new york. but our chairman's from california. we have this new york-california alliance on the foreign affairs committee. mr. speaker, i rise in support of this measure that would push back against the use of social

media by terrorist groups. and i yield myself as much time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. engel: thank you, mr. speaker. let me start by thanking congressman poe for introducing this legislation. i'm very glad to be an original co-sponsor. i also want to thank congressman sherman for his hard work, and of course our chairman, chairman royce. so this is a real bipartisan, important, strong measure. i think we need to be using every tool at our disposal to meet the challenge posed by isis and other terrorist groups. and this bill will help us meet them on the virtual battlefield where they've been having such great success, social media. now, anyone who's looked at the situation over the past months or years know that the one major difference is social media. social media, of course, royals up jihadists and allows them to communicate in terms of plotting terrorist attacks. so we have to be one step ahead of them.

we cannot let them be one step ahead of us. and that's why legislation like this is so important. so i cannot think of a conflict in the past in which our enemies have been able to broadcast such horrific depictions of destruction and bloodshed like we're seeing from isis. we all know the images of a man who is known as jihadi john, as he bruletly murdered innocent people -- brutally murdered innocent people. those videos spread across the internet with staggering speed, showing everyone in the world the threat that isis posed. and the tactics isis fighters were willing to use. fortunately the administration's efforts succeeded in taking him out. but we know there are far too many waiting to take his place. isis isn't just using social media to foment fear and panic. isis and other groups have take full advantage of twitter, facebook, youtube, and other platforms to spread their violent ideology, recruit new fighters, and radicalize members of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

for example, more and more information comes out about the san bernardino shooters, it's becoming clear that tashfeen malik used facebook to convey her commitment to violent extremism, to overseas contacts. we need to find way to deal with this challenge on social media, without violating free expression of privacy concerns. it's going to require creative thinking, but i am confident that we can do it. we have to do it. we don't have a choice but to do it. we've already taken some steps. i worked with chairman royce and representatives poe and sherman to push twitter to make it easier for users to report recruitment efforts. this is a small step to help with one of the tools isis is using, but they are constantly evolving and we need to keep looking for ways to push back. that's where this legislation comes in. this bill would require the administration to device a strategy to combat terrorists' use of social media and to force greater collaboration between government and private sector companies to help

identify and stop terrorist activities online. again, we need to look for every advantage possible in taking the fight to isis. this bill would help us push back on one of the ways isis has achieved such a global reach. i again commend mr. poe for his tireless efforts in bringing this legislation to the floor and the chairman as well, mr. sherman. i support this measure, i urge my colleague to do the same and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. mr. royce: i yield six minutes to the gentleman from texas, judge poe, chairman of the foreign affairs subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade, and the author of this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida for six minutes. oh, texas. mr. poe: don't insult the folks from texas. i mean, from florida. i am from texas. the gentlelady from florida might object to me being from florida. i do want to thank representative sherman on the other side for co-sponsoring this legislation. i also do want to thank

chairman royce and chairman engel for being co-sponsors, original co-sponsors of this bill. mr. speaker, this is another piece of legislation that's come out of the foreign affairs committee, bipartisan, unanimously voted on and approved by the foreign affairs committee. as much of our legislation does. also, mamplee, and mr. speaker, -- i also, mr. chairman, and mr. speaker want to thank three staffers who -- mr. speaker, want to thank three staffers who worked on the subcommittee, who now works with the majority leader's staff. these three individuals know more about terrorism i think than any three people on the hill. i want to thank them for their work, not only on this bill, but legislation in general. as has been said, mr. speaker, terrorists use social media and it's exploded over the last several years. a recent study by the brookings institute found that isis now ses 40,000 twitter accounts.

40,000. terrorists use social media to do the following, mr. speaker. to recruit others, to raise money, spread propaganda, and even to train future fighters. and this legislation deals with foreign terrorist organizations. we're not talking about a person who claims to be a terrorist or we think he is or she is, but specifically foreign terrorist organizations that are designated by our government. that's what this legislation deals with. the recipes for the bombs used in the boston marathon, mr. speaker, were in al qaeda's magazine that was posted on social media before the attack. the al qaeda affiliate al-shabab live tweeted the attack on a kenyan mall that killed 72 people. the al qaeda branch in yemen, known as aqap, another foreign terrorist organization, held a press conference on twitter, allowing users to submit questions that were then ask answered by aqap -- that were

then answered by aqap and posted back on twitter the following week. a conference call by terrorists. in october, isis issued a new instruction manual on how to -- how terrorists can use social media. so, today wannabe terrorists don't have to go to the battlefield to syria to get trained. they can get trained like college credits online. how to be a terrorist. and how to be a fighter. nationwide, the f.b.i.'s currently investigating 900 potential lone wolf terrorists in the united states. the internet and social media serve as their playbook to carry out attacks. since march, 2014, 71 people in the united states have been charged with crimes related to isis. their brounleds are very different. but -- backgrounds are very different. but nearly all of them had spent time online voicing their support for isis. later they were arrested, after their online posts drew some attention by the f.b.i. in 2011, as the chairman has said, the administration

released a report on countering violent extremists that recognized that online radicalization was a growing problem, so the administration promised a strategy of how we can deal with this. four years later, unfortunately, we don't have a strategy, we don't have a plan. this is a problem because individual agencies are making their own unilateral decisions. this week we learned that the department of homeland security did not review the social media posts of tashfeen mehalik, who was granted a fiance visa but posted radical views on social media prior to obtaining a visa. the state department does not know how to effectively counter terrorist meaninging because it doesn't have the -- messaging because it doesn't have the expertise of the intelligence community and the intelligence community approaches social media as a capture everything. and the f.b.i. does not know how far it should be pushed -- it should push social media companies. .

so we must have a comprehensive strategy before we can effectively defeat the enemy on the cyberbattlefield. mr. speaker, all u.s. departments must be singing the same song on the same page in the hymn national about beating foreign terrorist organizations that use social media, american social media companies. i will say that facebook has in a fairly decent job bringing down facebook sites but not all social media companies have been as responsive to terrorism. mr. speaker, we already have technology that is used to make sure that child pornography is not posted online, thanks to the chairman of the computer science college at dartmouth college, he invented a technology that's used with microsoft and he said we can use that same protocol that we do to bring down child pornography to bring down social media sites that deal

with foreign terrorist organizations and their propaganda and their spreading of murder. here's what he says, there's no fundamental technology or engineering limitation. this is a business or policy decision. unless the companies have decided that they just can't be bothered. and so that's his opinion on how we can use the same protocol. and this can be done. use the same protocol to bring down these foreign terrorist organization sites. and it's not a free speech issue. that has been discussed and some are concerned about that because we're dealing with foreign terrorist organizations and the supreme court has already ruled regarding that issue in 2010 in the holder vs. the humanitarian law project, that a foreign terrorist organization does not have constitutional rights in the united states under the first amendment. so this is not a problem. in this 21st century fight against terrorists who are sophisticated and tech savvy, we have to defeat these organizations on all the battlefields. over cities, over here and

online and that's just the way it is. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. engel: yeah, thank you, mr. speaker. i'm ready to close. i don't know if -- mr. royce: yes. mr. engel: so i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. royce: i yield three minutes to the gentlelady from florida, mississippi ros-lehtinen, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee on the middle east and south africa. mr. ros-lehtinen: thank you for leading this committee in an abled and expert manner and bipartisan way and thank you, especially, to the author of this important resolution, the -- one of our subcommittee chairmen, ted poe. and i rise in strong support of judge poe's bill, the combat terrorist use of social media act, and i urge all of my colleagues to support this

important measure. extremist groups like isil are well-known for their extensive use of social media. spreading their hateful ideology, inciting violence and attempting to recruit susceptible individuals to their hateful and twisted cause. when we hear reports and statistics that we have heard today, like isis having over 40,000 twitter accounts or that 200,000 an estimated pro-isis social media posts per day, clearly more needs to be done. these jihadists have become more and more tech savvy, they're more adapt of manipulating the tools of social media and we, us in the united states, to counter their perverted ideological via social media. judge poe has very ablely

argued, we can stop pro-extremist social media like we stop online child porn graphy. isis and other foreign terrorist organizations do not have free speech rights under american law. now, we were all shocked, as you heard today, that our very own homeland security department maintained a policy that prevented the screening of visa applicants' social media accounts because we worried about bad public relations, we worried about intrusions into their privacy even though social media posts by their very definition, posts are effectively that, reaching out to the public through social manners, meaning through public ways. every poe isis post or any post -- every pro-isis post or any post that uses facebook, youtube or twitter, everyone that we are able to take down before action is being taken, that's one less chance for these extremists to recruit and

spread their vicious propaganda and the administration needs to start getting serious about stopping it. this bill will require the administration to provide congress and therefore the american public with a strategy to fight islamic extremists' use of social media as well as require the administration give us a policy that enhances the collaboration between the federal government and social media companies so that we can counter this troubling and dangerous threat. i applaud judge poe for introducing this bill. i thank our esteemed chairman and ranking member for bringing it to the floor in such a speedy manner. i offer my full support, and i urge all of my colleagues to do the same. and with that, mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. engel: if the chairman doesn't have any other speakers, then i'm prepared to close. ok. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized.

mr. engel: thank you, mr. speaker. every day isis is working to bring new fighters into its ranks, recruiting candidates from south asia, from france, the u.k. and right here in the united states. isis is able to catch such a -- cast such a wide net because they're taking full advantage of social media. we need to take this tool out of their hands, even as we press forward with our partners to fight isis on the battlefield. this legislation will enable us to work more closely with social media companies and put together a strategy to meet this challenge. again, i want to commend my friend, judge poe. i urge a yes vote on this bill, and mr. poe, you're right, that's just the way it is. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. mr. royce: thank you, mr. speaker. again, it was revealed yesterday that the u.s. department of homeland security actually prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the

social media postings of all foreign citizens applying for u.s. visas and only sporadically began looking at posts from some visa applicants. the failure to incorporate a review of social media posts into the visa approval process is absurd. ignoring the online statements of those terrorists trying to enter the united states puts our country at risk. this must be fixed. destroying isis will require determined leadership. it's going to require presidential leadership, and the president must use his authority as commander in chief to lead this fight to destroy isis. not to contain it. to destroy isis and other extremist groups. so it has been said that a

virtual caliphate, awashed in hate and propaganda, exists online. yet, u.s. government efforts in this area are failing. a strategy to combat terrorist use of social media is one of many measures the administration must develop so we can win the fight. promised in 2011, this strategy is overdue. with this bill congress is demanding that the administration deliver its strategy so that the federal agencies can effectively prevent terrorists from using social media to spread hate and fear and violence. i, again, want to recognize my colleagues, especially from texas, representative poe, mr. engel from new york, for their leadership on this measure which i encourage all our members of this house to support. i yield back the balance of my time, mr. speaker.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california yields back. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill h.r. 3654, as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- mr. royce: mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this uestion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. royce: yes, mr. speaker. i move that the house suspend the rules and pass house resolution 536, as amended. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 536, resolution supporting freedom of the press in latin america and the caribbean and condemning violations of press freedom and violence against journalists, bloggers, and individuals exercising their . ght to freedom of speech

the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from california, mr. royce, and the gentleman from new york, mr. engel, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. mr. royce: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the record. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. royce: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to bring forward this resolution, introduced by my friend and colleague, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. sires, on the important issue of press freedom in the western hemisphere. freedom of the press is the cornerstone of democracy. it is our obligation to promote and protect this fundamental right, particularly here in our own hemisphere. undoubtedly, mr. speaker, we have seen a troubling erosion

of these rights in several parts of the western hemisphere at the hands of authoritarian populous leaders as well as violence against journalists by transnational narcotics trafficking organizations. n ecuador, the president intimidates and censors the reporting unfavorable to him or his policies. in mexico, narcotics traffickers intimidate the press and violently target journalists to silence those journalists. in cuba, despite the administration's naive -- naivity, there is a political imprisonment of anyone who dares to speak or write against the castro dictatorship. this resolution is an important demonstration of our support for the fundamental right to freedom of speech and our

belief that regional leaders need to do more to condemn what in some parts of the region has become the systematic violation of press freedom. the united states must stand with brave journalists who are on the front lines of exposing corruption in government. earlier this year, chairman duncan held a hearing on threats to press freedom in the americas. one witness told the committee that there is now a growing regional trend of government persecution and harassments of journalists as well as an increase in violence attacks carried out by state and nonstate actors with near complete immunity. i applaud mr. sires and chairman emeritus of the foreign affairs committee, ms. ros-lehtinen, for introducing this resolution and all who champion freedom of expression as a fundamental part of a

vibrant democratic tradition. and i'll reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. engel: mr. speaker, i rise in strong support of house resolution 536, and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. engel: thank you. first of all, i want to congratulate my friend from new jersey, mr. sires, who is the driving force behind this bill, and my friend from florida as well, ileana ros-lehtinen, who co-sponsored it and the two of them worked very, very hard through the years to raise this issue and it's good we're taking up this measure now. here in the united states, we know that a free and open press is the cornerstone of a strong democracy. we count on the press to hold leaders accountable and shine a light on the challenges facing our country. the work of a free press goes hand in hand with the representative government we practice in this chamber. and as government officials, we have tremendous respect for our

friends in the so-called fourth state. so it's especially troubling when we see governments right here in our hemisphere try to silence this critical institution. on may 1, world press freedom day, president obama said, and i quote, in too many places around the world, a free press is under attack by governments that want to avoid the truth or mistrust the ability of citizens to make their own decisions. . unfortunately that threat to press freedom is particularly acute right here in our own hemisphere. that's why i'm so glad, as i mentioned before, that my friends, mr. ceres, ranking member. western hemisphere subcommittee, and ms. ros-lehtinen, the subcommittee's former chair, introduced this measure condemning violations of press freedom and violence against journalists in latin america and the caribbean. they are leaders on the western hemisphere in our congress and are never shy to speak up when

individuals' rights are in danger. i used to be the chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee, so i've seen this problem first-hand. here in the americas, leaders often speak out when electoral democracy is at risk. that's great. but unfortunately those leaders fall silent when it comes to the more subtle challenges to democracy, particularly violations of press freedom. we saw it earlier this year, when the ecuadoran government threatened to close down a press freedom monitoring organization known -- organization. chairman royce and i joined many in the international community in condemning this effort. fortunately the president relented in the face of international condemnation. still, attacks on press freedom in ecuador are a daily problem, creating a hostile environment for journalists trying to do their jobs. a 2013 communications law put

in place finds and sanctions for the press, so it's no surprise that freedom house rated ecuador's press as not free this year. the list goes on and on. in venezuela journalists have been targeted by politically motivated lawsuits. that's why it's such a miracle what we saw this past week or so with the venezuelan elections. despite the harassment, despite the lack ofs remain freedom, despite going -- lack of press freedom, despite going after people, the venezuelan people weren't fooled and vopetted overwhelmingly against the current repressive regime. that's good. good to see. but we need to make sure that free press really exists, not only in places like venezuela, but in cuba. the government has rounded up and detained independent journalists just for reporting the reality on the ground. just for reporting the truth in cuba. you get rounded up and detained. in mexico, drug trafficking organizations have brutally murdered many of those who report on their violent activities. just last week, the editor of a

mexican newspaper explained to "the washington post" that submitting to drug traffickers' demands is the only way to stay alive, he said, and i quote, you do it or you die, and nobody wants to die. self-censorship, that's our shield. unquote. and in colombia and honduras, journalist remains a dangerous profession. -- journalism remains a dangerous profession. this underscores these abuses and the scourge of violence against journalists. it reaffirms the important rule of free press -- the rule of free press plays in open societies and it urges these governments in the region to do much more, to provide protection to those journalists under threat. i urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution. i again economyment ms. sires and ms. ros-lehtinen and -- compliment mr. sires and ms. ros-lehtinen and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. royce: i yield six minutes to the gentlelady from florida,

the primary co-sponsor of this resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from florida is recognized for six minutes. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you so much, mr. speaker. i thank the chairman of our committee again and the ranking member, mr. royce of california, mr. engel of new york, for bringing this important resolution to the floor in such a speedy manner. i want to thank my dear friend, my legislative brother, mr. sires of new jersey, for bringing forward house resolution 536, which is a resolution to support freedom of the press in latin america and the caribbean, and condemning violations of press freedoms and violence against journalists, bloggers and individuals who are exercising their right to freedom of speech. i'm honored to be the republican lead on mr. sires' release -- resolution. basic freedoms are being threatened all over latin america, mr. speaker, by rogue regimes that seek to quash

dissenters in any way that they can. earlier this year we held a subcommittee hearing as the chairman pointed out -- hearing, as the chairman pointed out, on this very subject, on the threats to press freedom. and freedom house stated that when it comes to press freedom, only three countries in latin america were rated free by this organization. can you imagine that, mr. speaker? out of all of the countries in latin america, only three could be labeled as free when it comes to freedom of the press. more and more we south korea see countries like events -- we see countries like venezuela, ecuador, knick rag washington, cuba, taking steps -- nicaragua, cuba, taking steps to leave journalists and editors no choice but to self-sensor their very own content. law of social

responsibility in radio and television has provided the legal framework to quash and sensor the press and its provisions have been replicated by ecuador and other countries in the region. due to the provisions in this law, television stations and newspapers have been bullied by the regime or forced to sell their had outlets. in the case of rctv, broadcasts were suspended by the venezuelan regime. critical regime were forced to sell their outlets to business interests with close ties to the regime. ecuador faces equally daunting challenges to press freedoms. a large number of journalists watchdogged are being lass -- -- watchdogs are

being harassed constantly and newspapers are being fined for running articles that are not in agreement with the regime. in nicaragua, the ortega regime has also restricted media outlets by making it difficult for journalists to operate. and with the recent promulgation by the law of sovereign security, it has nearly ensured a muzzle on all reporters. former president of argentina and her court often demonize journalists and charged popular with inciting collective violence and terrorizing the population. these are actual charges. mexico, one of our closest allies in the region, is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. this year alone, six journalists are killed in direct connection to their

journalism work. in my native country of cuba, despite the misguided normization effort by the obama administration, the castro regime continues to hold total control of information. there's no free press in cuba. foreign media outlets usually sensor their own information because they don't want to be kicked out of the country. last week, mr. speaker, i had the honor of meeting a cuban artist here in watkins, known as the sixth one. he was jailed for nearly a year for announcing that he would take part in a performance art that criticized the communist regime leaders. the mere announcement was enough to be jailed for almost a year. citizen journalists who defied the castro brothers on the island are regularly subject to death threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture

by the repression apparatus of the regime. mr. speaker, this is a critical time for basic freedoms in our hemisphere. free and independent media are instruments to fight against the scornful, tyrannical regimes that plague our hemisphere today. so we in the united states, we must remain ever vigilant amongst our-free friends and foes in this key -- against our friends and foes in this key moment in you have the history, for freedom of expression in our region, and this vote today, mr. speaker, overwhelmingly supporting efforts like the one spear headed by our good friend, mr. sires of new jersey, is a good place in which to start. thank you, mr. speaker, thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member, and thank you, mr. sires, for your work on this important topic. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from florida yields. the gentleman from california reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. engel: mr. speaker, it's now my pleasure to yield five

minutes to the author of this resolution, the ranking member of the western hemisphere subcommittee, a good friend, a great member of the foreign affairs committee, mr. sires, five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for five minutes. mr. sires: thank you, chairman royce. ranking member engel. and all the staff for their support on promoting democratic values around the world. and in their efforts to bring this resolution to the floor. i also want to thank my good friend, ileana ros-lehtinen, for serving as the republican lead on this legislation. and i also want to recognize the leadership of my colleague, chairman jeff duncan, on this issue. freedom of expression is the key to a thriving democracy. it is the number one tool to hold people and governments accountable for their actions. in recent years, many organizations dedicated to

freedom of speech and advancing civil societies have been trying to bring attention to the deterioration of press freedom in parts of the western hemisphere. specifically in land america and the caribbean -- in latin america and the caribbean. cuba has consistently been characterized as having one of the most repressive media environments in the world. with the castro brothers controlling all aspects of the print and electronic media. venezuela and ecuador have harassed and fined the media, shut down press operations and even physically attacked journalists who are trying to expose the state-sponsored crackdown against peaceful political dissenters. in other countries such as mexico and honduras, an increase in drug-related violence and worsening security situations have created a consult of impurity, allowing violence against journalists and the press to go unpunished. as a child in cuba, i witnessed the deterioration of democracy as the castro regime took over

the island and systemically destroyed all aspects of freedom of speech and expression. there is a strong connection between the country's democratic values and the freedom afforded to the oppressed. working to preserve freedom of speech and pushing back against those who seek to quiet dissenters should be a top priority when engaging our neighbors in the region. that is why i introduced h.res. 536, a resolution condemning violations of press freedom, violence against journalists, bloggers and individuals exercising their right to freedom of speech. this resolution condemns these violations and urges countries in the region to implement the recommendation of member states made by the organization of american states office of special repertoire for freedom of expression. this resolution also urges our administration to assist the media in closed societies, to promote a free press.

i urge my colleagues to support h.res. 536, to help foster better protections for the press around our hemisphere. thank you and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey yields back. the gentleman from new york reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. mr. royce: i'll reserve the right to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. engel: thank you, mr. speaker. in closing, let me say that today we're talking about a particular challenge facing the western hemisphere. let me say that we've seen a great deal in the last few weeks, that we should be optimistic about. as i mentioned before, for example, voters in venezuela recently went to the ballot box to demand change. they did so in argentina as well. so we see once again that despite all of the challenges in the hemisphere, electoral democracy remains violent, but we have to keep -- vibrant, but we have to keep working to keep it vibrant. elections alone are not enough. we need to work in partnership with our friends in the americas, to ensure that every country has a robust democracy,

that includes a free and independent press. and most importantly, countries must guarantee the safety of journalists, especially as they courageously report in dangerous places. i again thank mr. sires and ms. ros-lehtinen for introducing this important resolution. i urge my colleagues to support its passage and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york yields. the chair recognizes the gentleman from california. mr. royce: mr. speaker, i want to thank my colleagues for their support of this resolution, as well as the chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee, mr. duncan. and of course the ranking member, mr. sires, the author of this bill before us today. i thank them for the work they've done on the committee, to bring attention to the troubling attacks on a free press that have plagued the western hemisphere. and, mr. speaker, as thomas jefferson wrote, in 1816, where the press is free and every man

able to read, all is safe. this resolution is timely and important. i'm proud of the work our committee has done to promote and defend press free which is, of course, the cornerstone of democratic principles. and the united states should and must continue to do more to help defend free expression across the americas. so, again, i thank mr. sires and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 536 as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. . in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative -- mr. royce: mr. speaker, on that i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. all those in favor, say aye -- all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain standing until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered.

pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this uestion will be postponed. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house approximately :30 live coverage of the house when they return here on c-span. as debate continues off the floor, discussion off the floor about the federal budget, with the current shortterm -- short-term federal spending measures set to expire tomorrow at midnight. tweets --

>> house members meet at 9:00. we'll have coverage of the house at 6:30 here on c-span. meanwhile, we'll take you live over to the university of minnesota campus. shortly, they're going to hear from democratic presidential candidate, hillary clinton, who is set to talk about national security and combating terrorism. we will have her remarks live here on c-span. once they get under way. it's running, according to the schedule, about an hour late. but we'll have it live here on c-span when it gets started. in the meantime, back to some thoughts from capitol hill and the democratic leader, the number two democrat in the house, talking about the negotiations off the floor, not just about the budget, but about the expiring tax breaks.

mr. hoyer: the cost of such a package runs in the $600 billion to $800 billion range. none of which is paid for. ballooning our deficits in a way that reinforces a misguided double standard that investments in the growth of jobs and opportunities must be offset, but tax cuts are always free. tax cuts like everything else have a cost. and if we fail to pay for them, we'll once again increase deficits and debt, which in turn will be used as a catalyst for another round of cuts to the very programs i believe are vital to our economy and to our

people. therefore, mr. speaker, i will oppose an unpaid-for tax extender package like this that's proposed, should it come to the floor. before going through my concerns about this deal in greater detail, let me say that the package being discussed has a number of tax preferences that i and many others support. these include making expansions of the child tax credit and the american opportunity tax credit launched under the recovery act in 2009. it would also provide incentives to businesses and individual filers for investment, research, charitable contributions and teachings expenses, among others. most of us support those efforts. in many ways, this would be a bill where everyone gets something they want. but, mr. speaker, our children

and grandchildren will get the bill. what concerns me most about this deal is that it further entrenches the false notion that offsets only matter when it comes to spending priorities. the direct consequences will be providing republicans with the ammunition they need to propose even deeper cuts to the very investments that help grow the economy and create jobs, both in the short term and in the long term. frankly, i'm surprised that we haven't heard more of an outcry that the roughly $00 billion in lost revenue from the d.c. $800 billion in lost revenue from the package is the same amount as the $813 billion in discretionary cuts republicans insisted upon in in the skeft. -- in the sequester. it would appear we're sitting ourselves up for republicans demanding the next round of severe cuts that harm our

economy and our people. both on the nondefense side and on the national security side. frankly, mr. speaker, we must move away from this dangerous pattern. republicans who continue to argue that tax cuts pay for themselves, by spurring economic growth. a theory that has been proven wrong and, sadly, as i said, our children will pay the price for the deficits that have resulted. others will argue that the affect on our deficits and debt of another $700 billion in unpaid-for tax expenditures over the next 10 years can be ignored. because we would extend them every year anyway. while convenient, neither of these is a responsible position for governing. in a "wall street journal" piece last monday, a good friend of mine and president of

the committee for responsible federal budget, the committee for a responsible federal budget, asked, and i quote, how do we explain to our children that we borrowed more than $1 trillion, that counts interest, not because it was a national emergency, or to make critical investments in the future, but because we just don't like paying our bills? she closed quote. our answer has to be not to justify the irresponsible behavior, but to correct it. and this tax extender package will make that much more difficult. first, this package undermines congress' ability to invest in creating jobs and opportunities that make the american dream possible for millions of families. when we cut taxes without paying for them, there are

consequences. every dollar in lost revenue is a dollar that must be made up somewhere else in the budget. as i said earlier, these unpaid-for tax extendsers will set the table for further republican attempts to slash critical investments in our nation's future. secondly, mr. speaker, it will hinder our ability to restore fiscal stability by making it less likely that we'll be able to protect the future sustainability of entitlement programs like medicare and social security. in order to appear balanced, recent republican budgets proposed trillions of dollars in cuts to health programs for seniors and the most vulnerable in our society. worsening our deficit's outlook by passing this bill invites them to continue that task.

while we face a challenge to our most critical retirement and health programs, a challenge driven by the retirement of the baby boom generation and the looming affect of compound interest on our debt, my republican friends continue to offer budget proposals that severely cut benefits for seniors and the most vulnerable americans. and they try to justify doing so because our deficits are too high. their proposal would exacerbate that by about $1 trillion. here we are, though, about to consider proposals to raise the deficits even higher. and thirdly, mr. speaker, this type of unpaid-for permanent extension will undercut our economic competitiveness by making comprehensive tax reform more difficult. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] cheers and applause]

>> thank you, everybody. today it's my pleasure to introduce hillary clinton. you may have heard of her. [laughter] she's running for president of the united states. cheers and applause] hillary's running for president to make the economy work for everyone. not just those at the top. she's running to make our democracy work for everyone, not just the special interests. she's also running to be commander in chief, to keep america strong and american families safe and secure. as we all know, maybe too well,

there are a lot of people running for president this year. [laughter] but hillary is the only candidate who has the strength, wisdom and experience to be commander in chief. the recent attacks in paris and san bernardino reminded us that we find ourselves at a very dangerous and complicated world. we're in a global fight against extremist forces who use advanced technology and communications to orchestrate terror attacks and strike fear in free and peaceful people. so, as we all know, the stakes are high. and we need a president who's up to the job. hillary won't need on the job d training. as secretary of state, she led the charge to restore america's leadership of the world. she spearheaded a global

sanctions coalition, and she -- excuse me. she did more here. [laughter] she spearheaded a global sanctions coalition against iran that spurred the agreement that will prevent iran from getting in a nuclear weapon, she brokered a ceasefire between israel and hamas, while championing human rights around the world. and she recommended to president obama, in the situation room, that he authorized the mission to bring osama bin laden to justice. she has been the only candidate in the race to lay out a specific and comprehensive plan to defeat isis in every place that it presents a threat. in the middle east, around the world, and, yes, here at home. now she comes to minnesota, and may i thank her for coming to this wonderful university of

ours -- cheers and applause] -- she's here to give more details on the last part of her plan, protecting america's homes, schools, houses of worship and businesses from domestic radicalization and foreign extremists. i have known hillary for a long time. there is no one i trust more to sit in the oval office. so please join me in welcoming the next president of the united states, hillary clinton. cheers and applause] good luck. mrs. clinton: thank you, thank you. thank you. thank you all very much.

thank you. thank you. i'm delighted, delighted to be here at this great university. one of the premier public institutionses of higher education in our entire country. yes. indeed. [applause] just, you know, one of those statements of fact that deserves a response. i want to thank my long-time friend, vice president mondale, for his kind words. his support in this campaign means a great deal to me personally, because i admire so much his service to our country . he is a great minnesotan and a great american and we're so privileged to have him with us today. applause]

mrs. clinton: i want to acknowledge a few of the other elected officials who are here. i am, of course, to be joined by ormer colleagues and friends amy klobuchar and al franken who are the dynamic duo for your state and i'm thankful to them for their support. i thank tina smith and steve simon, your secretary of state. [applause] mrs. clinton: and i understand betsy hodges is here, mayor of minneapolis. [applause] mrs. clinton: i also want to

acknowledge the dean of the humphrey school, eric schwartz. [cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: eric was my top adviser on refugee issues at the state department. i also had the great privilege of working with him when he was on the national security council during my husband's administration. you know, he brings a mix of expertise and empathy that has been missing from much of our public debate. and i'm grateful that he is here today, but i'm also a little jealous that all of you here at the university get to have the benefit of his experience. over the past several months, i have listened to the problems that keep american families up at night. most people don't expect life to

be easy, but they want more thatity, a good-paying job lets you afford a middle-class lifestyle, health care you can count on, a little bit put away for your retirement. being secure also means being safe, safe at home, at school, at work. and today, i want to talk about how we keep our country safe fl a threat that's on everyone's mind, the threat of terrorism. but i want to begin by saying, we cannot give in to fear. we can't let it stop us from doing what is right and necessary to make us safe and doing it in a way that is consistent with our values. [applause] mrs. clinton: we cannot let fear push us into reckless action

that ends up making us less safe. americans are going to have to act with both courage and clarity. now, as we all know, on december peopleshooters killed 14 at a holiday party in san bernandino, california. sadly, in america, in 2015, turning on the news and hearing about a mass shooting is not unusual. but this one turned out to be different. because these killers were a husband and wife inspired by isis. americans have experienced terrorism before. on 9/11, we learned that terrorists in afghanistan could strike our homeland from fort

hood to chattanooga to the boston marathon, we saw people radicalized here carrying out deadly attacks. but san bernandino felt different. maybe it was the timing coming so soon after the paris attacks. maybe it was how random it seemed. a terrorist attack in a suburban office park, not a high-profile target or symbol of american power. it made us all feel it could ave been anywhere at any time. the phrase, active shooter should not be one we have to teach our children. but it is. [applause] mrs. clinton: now we are all grappling with what this means

for our future, our safety, our sense of well-being and our trust and connections with our neighbors. we want to be open-hearted. and we want to celebrate america's diversity, not fear it. and while we know the overwhelming majority of people here and around the world hate isis and love peace, we do have to be prepared for more terrorists plotting attacks. just yesterday, a man in maryland was charged with receiving thousands of dollars from isis for use in planning an attack. and here in minnesota, authorities have charged 10 men with conspiring to provide material support to isis. but in the twin cities, you have

also seen firsthand how communities come together to resist radicalization. cal imam much h s condemning terrorists and local activists pushing back against propaganda. i met with a group of community leaders who told me about some of the work and the challenges that they are dealing with. as the sirs somali police sergeant in minnesota and probably in the country, said recently, safety is a shared responsibility, so we have to work together. [applause] mrs. clinton: the threat we face is daunting, but america has overcome big challenges many

times before. throughout our history, we've stared into the face of evil and refuse to blink. we beat facism, won the cold war, brought osama bin laden to justice. so no one should underestimate the determination of the american people. and i'm confident we will once again choose resolve over fear. [applause] mrs. clinton: and we will defeat these new enemies just as we have defeated those who have threatened us in the past because it is not enough to contain isis, we must defeat isis, and not just isis, but the broader radical jihadist movement that also includes al qaeda and offshoots like

al-shabaab in somalia. waging and winning this fight will require serious leadership. but fortunately, our political debate has been anything but serious. we can't afford another major ground war in the middle east. that's exactly what isis wants from us. shallow slogans don't add up to a strategy. [applause] mrs. clinton: promising to carpet-bomb until the desert glows doesn't make you sound strong, it makes you sound like you are in over your head. cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: bluster and bigotry are not credentials for

becoming commander in chief and it is hard to take seriously snars who talk tough but then hold up key national security nominations, including the top official at the treasury department responsible for isrupting terrorist financing. [applause] every day that's wasted on partisan gridlock could put americans in danger. so, yes, we need a serious discussion and that's why in a speech last month before the council on foreign relations, i laid out a three-part plan to defeat isis and the broader extremist movement. one, defeat isis in the middle east by smashing its strong hold by killing its leaders and infrastructure from the air and

intensifying support for local forces who can pursue them on the ground. second, defeat them around the world by dismantling the global network of terror that supplies radical jihaddists with money, arms, propaganda and fighters. and third, defeat them here at home by foiling plots, disrupting radicalization and hardening our defenses. now these three lines of effort reinforce one another. so we need to pursue them all at once using every pillar of american power. it will require skillful diplomacy to continue secretary kerry's efforts to encourage political reconciliation in iraq and political transition in syria, enabling the sunnis and kurdish fighters to take on isis on both sides of the border and

get our arab and turkish partners to step up and do their part. it will require u.s. and allied air pour by strikes biplanes and drones with proper safeguards. it will require special operations units to advise and train local forces and conduct key counterterrorism missions. what it will not require is tens of thousands of american combat troops. that is not the right action for us to take in this situation. so there is a lot to do. and today, i want to focus on the third part of my plan, how we defend our country and prevent radicalization here at home. we need a comprehensive strategy to counter each step in the process that can lead to an attack like the one in san

bernandino. first, we have to shut down isis' recruitment in the united states, especially online. second, stop would-be jihaddists from getting training overseas and stop foreign terrorists from coming here. third, discover and disrupt plots before they can be carried out. fourth, support law law enforcement officers who risk their lives to prevent and respond to attacks. and fifth, empower our muslim-american communities who are on the front lines of the fight against radicalization. [applause] mrs. clinton: this is a 360-degree strategy to keep america safe. and i want to walk through each

of the elements from recruitment to training, to planning, to execution. first, shutting down recruitment. we have to stop jihaddists from radicalizing new recruits in social media and chat rooms and what's called the dark web. to do that, we need stronger relationships between washington, silicon valley and all of our great tech companies and entrepreneurs. american innovation is a powerful force and we have to put it to work defeating isis. that starts with understanding where and how recruitment happens. our security professionals need to more effectively track and analyze ayesis' social posts and map networks and they need help from the tech community. companies should redouble their

efforts to maintain and enforce their own service agreements and other necessary policies to police their networks, identifying extremist content and removing it. now, many are already doing this and sharing those best practices more widely is important. at the state department, i started an interagency center to mbat violence jihadist messages to have a better way to communicate on behalf of our values and to give young people drawn to those messages an alternative narrative. e recruited special lifts, fluent in irdue and somali to wage online battles with the extremists. these efforts have not kept pace

with the threat, so we need to step up our game in partnership with the private sector and credible moderate voices outside of government. that is just somewhat what we have to do. experts from the f.b.i., the intelligence community, state department and the technology industry should work together to develop a unified national strategy to defeat isis in cyberspace using all of our capabilities to denny jihaddists virtual territory just as we work to denny them actual territory. at the same time, we have to do more to address the challenge of radicalization, whatever form it takes. it's imperative that the saudis, the kuwaitis and others stop their citizens from supporting madrassags and mosques around

the world once and for all. and that should be the top priority in all of our discussions with these countries. second, we have to prevent isis recruits from training abroad and prevent foreign jihaddists from coming here. most urgent is stemming the flow from fighters from europe and iraq and syria and then back home again. the united states and our allies needs to know the identities of every fighter who makes that trip and then share information with each other in real-time. right now, european nations don't always alert each other when they turn away a suspected extremist at the border or when a passport is stolen. they have to dramatically improve intelligence sharing and counterterrorism cooperation. and we're ready to help them do that. we also need to take down the

network of enablers who help jihaddists finance and facilitate their travel, forge documents and evade detection. and the united states and our allies should commit to revoke the passports and visas of jihaddists who have gone to join isis or other groups and bring the full force of the law against them. as i have said before, united states has to take a close look at our visa programs and i'm glad the administration and congress are stepping up scrutiny in the wake of san bernandino. and that should include scrutinizing applicants' social media postings. we also should dispatch more homeland security agents to high-risk countries to better investigate visa applicants. or many years, america has waived visa requirktse with

reliable procedures, including key allies in europe and asia. that makes sense, but we also have to be smart. except for limited exceptions like diplomats and aid workers, anyone who has traveled in the past five years to a country facing serious problems with terrorism and foreign fighters should have to go through a full visa investigation no matter where they're from. we also have to be vigilant in screening and vetting refugees from syria, guided by the best judgment of our security and diplomatic professionals. rigorous vetting already takes place while refugees are still overseas. and it's a process that historically takes 18-24 months. but congress needs to provide enough resources to ensure we

have sufficient personnel deployed to run the most thorough possible process. and just as importantly, we cannot allow terrorists to intimidate us into abandonning our values and our humanitarian obligations. [applause] mrs. clinton: turning away orphans, applying a religious test that discriminates against muslims, slamming the door on every single syrian refugee, that is not who we are as americans. we are better than that. cheers and applause]

mrs. clinton: it would be a cool irony indeed if isis can force families from their homes and also prevent them from finding new ones. so after rigorous screening, we should welcome families fleeing syria, just as the twin cities and this state have welcomed previous generations of refugees , exiles and immigrants. [cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: of course the key is to prevent terrorists from exploiting our compassion and

endangering our security, but we can do this. and i think we must. third, we have to discover and disrupt jihaddists' plots before they can be carried out. this is going to take better intelligence, collection analysis and sharing. i proposed an intelligence surge against isis that includes more operations officers andling gift s. enhancing our surveillance of overseas' targets, flying more republic con aceance missions to track terrorist movements and developing closer partnerships with other intelligence services. president obama recently signed the u.s.a. freedom act which was passed by a bipartisan majority in congress. it proper jeblingts civil liberties while maintaining

capabilities that our intelligence and law enforcement officers need to keep us safe. however, the new law is under attack from presidential candidates on the left and right. some would strip away counterterrorism tools even with appropriate judicial and congressional oversight and others seem to go back to discredited practices of the past. i don't think we can afford to let either view prevail. now, encryption of mobile devices and communications does present a particularly tough problem with important implications for security and civil liberties. law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals warned that impen trenable encryption may make it harder to prevent future attacks. on the other hand, there are

very legitimate worries about privacy, network security and creating new vulnerabilities that bad actors can exploit. i know there is no magic fix to this dilemma that will satisfy all these concerns, but we can't just throw up our hands. the tech community and the government have to stop seeing each other as adverse sears and start working together to keep us safe from terrorists. and even as we make sure law enforcement officials get the tools they need to prevent attacks, it's essential that we also make sure that jihaddists don't get the tools they need to carry out attacks. it defies common sense that republicans in congress refuse to make it harder for potential terrorists to buy guns. cheers and applause]

mrs. clinton: if you are too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun. and we should insist -- [cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: we should insist on comprehensive background checks and close loopholes that allow potential terrorists to buy online or at gun shows and i ink it's time to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines! cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: i know that this will drive some of our republican friends a little crazy. you'll probably hear it tonight. they will say that guns are a

totally separate issue. i have news for them. terrorists use guns to kill americans and i think we should make it a lot harder for them to do that ever again! cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: and there's a question they should be asked, why don't the republican candidates want to do that? you see, i have this old-fashioned idea that we elect a president in part, in large part, to keep us safe from terrorists, from gun violence, from whatever threatens our families and communities and i'm not going to let the gun lobby or anyone else tell me that that's not the right path for us to go down! [cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: the fourth element in my strategy is supporting law

enforcement officers who risk their lives to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. in san bernandino, city, county, state and federal authorities acted with speed and courage to prevent even more loss of life. no, a 15-year police veteran assured terrified civilians, i'll take a bullet before you do. there is no limit to the gratitude we owe to law enforcement professionals like that detective who run toward danger to try to save lives. and not just in the immediate wake of an attack, emergency responders will keep putting their lives on the line long after the cameras move on.

it is disgraceful that congress has failed to keep faith with feelingsponders who are 9/11.e lasting effects of many of them were men and women i was so proud to represent as a senator from new york. adrogea 9/11 health act. it looks like majority leader mcconnell may have dropped his opposition. and i hope the american people will hold him to that and we will continue to honor the service and sacrifice of those who responded to the worst terrorist attack in our history. we have to make sure that local law enforcement has the resources and training they need to keep us safe. and they should be more closely

synced with national counterterrorism experts like fusion centers that serve as clearinghouses for intelligence and coordination. and we need to strengthen our defenses and wherever we are vulnerable whether it is shopping malls or higher profile targets like railways or airports. we have to build on the progress of the obama administration in locking down loose nuclear materials and other w.m.d. so they never fall into the hands of terrorists who seek them actively around the world. so we can be providing the department of homeland security with the resources it needs to stay one step ahead, not trying to privatize key functions like t.s.a., as some republicans have proposed. and it's important for us to

recognize that when we talk about law enforcement, we have made progress in being sure that our federal authorities share information with our state and local authorities, but that was an issue i tackled after 9/11, and we have to stay really vigilant so that information is in the hands where it needs to be. finally, the fifth element in e strategy is empowering muslim american communities on are on the front linings in the fight against radicalization. there are millions of peace-loving american muslims living, working, raising families, paying taxes in our country. [applause] mrs. clinton: these americans may be our first, last and best defense against home-grown

radicalization and terrorism. they are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects of radicalization before it's too late, intervene to help set a young person straight. they are the best position to block anything going forward. that's why law enforcement has worked so hard since 9/11 to buildup trust and strong relationships within muslim-american communities. here in the twin cities, you have an innovative partnership that brings together, parents, teachers, imams with law enforcement, nonprofits, local businesses, mental health professionals and others, to intervene with young people who are at risk. it's called the building community resilience pilot program and it deserves increased support. it has not gotten the financial

resources that it needs to do everything that the people involved in it know they can do and we have got to do a better job of supporting it. [applause] mrs. clinton: i know that like many places across the country there is more work to do to increase trust between communities and law enforcement. just last month, i know here, adown african-american man was fatally shot by a police officer and i understand an investigation is under way. whatever the outcome, tragedies like this raise hard questions about racial justice in america and put at risk efforts to build the community relationships that help keep us safe from crime and from terrorism. when people see that respect and they are two-way streets,

are more likely to work hand in-in hand with law enforcement. one of the mothers of the 10 men recently charged with conspiring , the terrorists said, we have to stop the denial, she told other parents that. we have to talk to our kids and work with the f.b.i. that's a message we need to hear from leaders within muslim-american communities across our country. but we also want to highlight the successes in muslim-american communities, and there are so many of them. just met with the first somali-american member of the ity council here -- [applause] mrs. clinton: he was proudly telling me how much change somali immigrants, now

muslim-americans have made in parts of the city and neighborhoods that have been pretty much hallowed out. let's look at the successes. we are going to fully integrate everyone in america, we need to be seeing all their chiropractics, too. and that is one of the many reasons why we must all stand up against offensive, inflammatory, hateful anti--muslim rhetoric. cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: you know, not only do these comments cut against everything we stand for as

americans, they are also dangerous. as the director of the f.b.i. told congress recently, anything that erodes trust with muslim-americans makes the job of law enforcement more difficult. we need every community invested in this fight, not alienated and sitting on the sidelines. one of the community leaders i met with told me that a lot of the children in the community are now afraid to go to school. they're not only afraid of being perceived as a threat, they are afraid of being threatened because of who they are. this is such a open-hearted and generous community, i hope there will be even more efforts perhaps under the egis of the

university and governor dayton and others to bring people together to reassure members of the community, particularly children and teenagers that they are welcome, invited and valued here in this city and state. [applause] mrs. clinton: now dodged trump's proposal to ban all muslims from entering the united states has rightly sparked outrage across our country and around the world, even some of the other republican candidates are saying he's gone too far. but the truth is, many of those same candidates have also said, disgraceful things about muslims. and this kind of divisive

rhetoric actually plays into the hands of terrorists. it alienates partners and undermines moderates. we need around the world in this fight against isis. you know, you hear a lot of talk from some of the other candidates about coalitions. everyone seems to want one. [laughter] mrs. clinton: but there isn't early as much talk as it is to build a coalition and make it work. i know how hard it is. insulating potential allies doesn't make it any easier. [cheers and applause] -- insulting potential allies doesn't make it any easier. [cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: demonizing muslims makes it that much harder.

the united states is at war with islam. as both the pentagon and the f.b.i. have said in the past week, we cannot in any way lend credence to that twisted idea. this is not a clash of civilizations. this is a clash between civilizations and barbarism and that's how it must be seen and fought. [applause] mrs. clinton: some will tell you that our open society is a vulnerability in the struggle against terrorism. i disagree. i believe our tolerance and diversity are at the cor of our strengths. at a national tralization ceremony for new citizens today in washington, president obama noted the tension throughout our history between welcoming or

rejecting the stranger, it is, he said, about the meaning of america, what kind of country do we want to be. and it's about the capacity of ch generation to honor the creed as old as our founding, out of many, we are one. president obama's right. and it matters. it's no coincidence that american muslims have long been better integrated and less susceptible to radicalization than muslims in less welcoming nations. and we cannot give in to dema gog who play on our basic instincts and rely on the principles written into our american d.n.a., freedom, equality, opportunity. america is strongest when all our people believe they have a stake in our country and our future, no matter where they're

from, what they look like, who they worship or who they love. our country was founded by people fleeing religious persecution. as george washington put it. the united states gives to bigotry no sanctions, to persecution, no assistance. so to all of our muslim american brothers and sisters, this is your country, too. and i'm proud to be your fellow american. [applause] mrs. clinton: and i want to remind us, particularly our republican friends that george

bush was right. six days after 9/11, he went to a muslim community center and here's what he said. those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of america, they represent the worst of humankind and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior. [applause] so if you want to see the best of america, you need look no further than army captain khan. he was born in the united arab emirates and moved to maryland as a small child. he later graduated from the university of virginia before enlisting in the united states

army. in june, 2004, he was serving in iraq. one day while his infantry unit was guarding the gates of their base, a suspicious vehicle appeared. captain khan told his troops to get back, but he went forward. he took 10 steps towards the car before it exploded. captain khan was killed, but his unit was saved by his courageous act. captain khan was awarded the bronze star and purple heart. he was just 27 years old. we still wonder what made him take those 10 steps, khan's father said in a recent interview. maybe that's the point he went on, where all the values, all

the service to country, all the things he learned in this country kicked in. it was those values that made him take those 10 steps, those 10 steps told us we did not make a mistake in moving to this country, his father finished. as hard as this is, it is time to move from fear to resolve. it's time to stand up and say we are americans. we are the greatest nation on earth, not in spite of the challenges we face, but because of them. americans will not buckle or break. we will not turn on each other or turn on our principles. we will pursue our enemies with unyielding power and purpose. we will crush their would-be caliphate and encounter radical

jihadism wherever it tax root. we are in it for the long haul and we will stand taller and stronger. that's what we do here. that's who we are. that's how we will win, by looking at one another with espect, with concern, with commitment. that's the america that i know makes us all so proud to be a part of. thank you all very much. cheers and applause] mrs. clinton: thank you. thank you.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org

>> hillary clinton in minnesota. the republican candidates in las vegas for tonight's cnn debate. and back on capitol hill, house republican leaders will be meeting on the funding bill during the g.o.p. debate. the house rules committee chairman pete sessions says the omnibus text will be posted after 9:00 p.m. republican

conference meeting he estimates 10:00 p.m. eastern. fox was told that speaker ryan on the y pelosi are phone. back on the floor of the house, they will gavel back in at 6:30 eastern for votes on a couple of bills including one that would prevent terrorists from using social media to recruit members as discussions continue off the floor on the omnibus spending bill and long-term spending for 2016. we will have live coverage at 6:30 p.m. eastern. and until then, today's "washington journal." the the presidf arab-american institute to talk about muslim americans in this isis strategy. i want to begin with your group, who do you represent? guest: we represent the

arab-american community which is -- 4 2.5 million to three million going back over a century of being in this country. about two thirds or more our christian. about one third are muslim. our work covers a range of issues to domestic civil liberties issues and promoting better understanding of the community and dealing with problems of backlash like the ones we experience after 9/11 and more recently in the current environment. we also did a lot of foreign policy with issues involving american policy in the middle east are of great concern to us. muslim,ere are less arab americans in this country than christians? guest: yes.

general a sense in the public that we do a sense of the lay of the land. americans conflate arab and muslim. all arab-americans are muslim or all muslims are arab -- it is not the case. the largest group of muslim americans are african-american muslims and after that probably south asian, with arabs being done the line. among arab-americans, the majority are christian, will more than two thirds. within the community, there is not a sense of i am this or that -- it is a question of arab ethnicity and sometimes the question of origin ethnicity. palestinian-american, egyptian american -- that kind of thing. host: where do christian arab americans come from? most arab-americans,

christian and muslim come from lebanon. immigration is like an avalanche. as the rocks are tumbling down everything piles up behind it. we have concentrations. people would of come from a village in lebanon and they would say this is a great place to live and everybody flocks to that place. arab immigrants went to south america, many went to africa, but the u.s. became the home of mostly lebanese and syrian immigrants at the turn-of-the-century through after -- i and immigration was frozen for about 30 years and after it eased up and the flock on arab immigrants tended, there were much more diverse components. today there is a large number of

egyptian americans and you many emenicans -- yo americans. you also have moroccans and nigerians coming in in large numbers and interestingly, it is a success story. and all of the data we have income is higher than the national average, ownership of business higher than the national average. yemenis, they went from a short period of time from dockworkers to business owners and their children are in the professional class. doctors, lawyers, and engineers. syrian refugees fleeing the situation in your country them, or thoseof seeking refugee status have that family tie here? >> many of them do.

they have a village tie or some kind of connection with the church or the mosque. it is familiar with them and their background. the scare about this is unfortunate and i think quite destructive. there is a large syrian american community or they would embrace refugees and i would tell you that within short order, the community of refugees coming out will be productive members of american society. i remembered your born, michigan when you had a whole group of people coming in from south lebanon in occupied south lebanon and the guy who ran for mayor said, the problem with dearborn is they are dirty and do not speak our language -- today the president of the city council is an arab-american. four of the members of the city

council are arab-american. americans own most of the business you see and are buying property to revitalize detroit. have become a success story in three decades. that is the way that arab-american refugees and immigrants have operated in this country. host: we have divided the lines between republicans and immigrants as we do but we do have a line for muslim americans. we would like to get your thoughts on this whole debate about islam and muslim americans. i want to show you this poll from abc. the majority of republicans back the muslim been proposed by donald trump. >> we are coming out with it later this week and the numbers are frightening. in some ways attitudes toward muslims are like attitudes toward gay marriage 15 years ago.

you have a red state-blue state republican divide. democrats are far more open and inclusive, republicans reflecting a much more nativist and xenophobic attitude on a range of issues affecting muslims. >> you said there are more christian arab americans than muslim arab-americans in this country. how many arab american voters energize and will this the populace to get out and vote? ask the simple answer is yes. a couple million registered voters, -- concentrated in states that are swing states in andigan and ohio increasingly in florida. the numbers do and up making a difference. orn arab-american christians

muslims here the rhetoric they whack's indignant. they know what xenophobia means they know what intolerance towards arabs means. even if i am an arab-american christian it scares me and turns me off and what has happened is the community which was divided, almost an even split edging democratic in the

mosque being put up in southern manhattan or the civil liberties issues or the profiling aagenda ave of john cash kroft when they as we torney generals, ot into the national campaigns and presidential scared people even more. we have christian and muslims edging towards the democratic party and it's because of the rhetoric. host: we are going to get to your poll. bob is in legitimate le hem, pennsylvania. a democrat. o ahead.

about do you ever hear cooperation? united states and russia, 1994 to 1998 used drills up in russia and down in hawaii. our marines went in russian and helped the russians and they came down into hawaii. guest: i do not know about that. host: bob, what's your point? caller: how many arab nations got hit with those earthquakes. and if we had those drills continued, we could have saved a lot of muslim lives. guest: there has been a lot of cooperation. united arab emirates went into

kosovo they supported our efforts there . a lot of work went into .arthquakes in pakistan a lot of help going to countries in africa. i remember speaking to president jimmy carter at one point, telling me that the diseases are he helped cure that determined to his work in africa are possible because of the financial support he got from arab leaders -- the uae for example, extraordinarily generous. i think there are levels of cooperation that we do not know about. we talk about the problems, when they occur, involving america in the middle east. we do not talk about the ways that the middle east and americans cooperate. there is a lot of stuff that goes on that does not make headlines because it is not

sexy. five months is an cooperation isn't. host: what about dealing with ideology of islam that isis has taken, specifically the radical islam and what leaders can do? twitter, someone asked, where is the condemnation of p? -- of isis? guest: the fact is, we condemn it all the time. obviously we do because it is a tremendous movement. and, it has done more horrible things to arabs then it has to anyone else. the christians in the middle east are being removed from their ancestral homes. other minorities. sunni muslims who do not adhere to the ideology of isis are being tormented and persecuted,

and killed. .f course, we condemn it the fact is that is not the issue. the issue is what are we doing about stopping it. what you have in the arab world is a growing consensus. , an overwhelming majority denouncing the movement, and looking for ways to deal with it, saying, we have endand corruption -- corruption and deal with extremist preachers, and deal with the social problems in the countries where isis grows. becauseowing in iraq sunni muslims feel excluded from governance. it is growing in syria because the regime has not made a place for sunnis. spread from iraq into syria. coming fromremists europe. there are two migration flows in

the world today. one is from syria to iraq and europe. young from alienated muslims in europe to syria. .e have to ask the question why why are kids living in slums of paris for three decades -- why are they so alienated from french society that they're going to join the suicide colts in syria. that is the issue that people have to look at. host: that brings up this headline from "usa today" that modern muslim families are vital in the anti-terror fight. there is a picture of a mother raising a young teenage boy. guest: here is the issue. certainly, they are. the problem is not as grave of a problem in america as it is in europe. so young be 100 or people here who have actually joined or tried to join -- more

likely, tried to join, and were blocked from joining. in problem is a bigger issue europe, in belgium and france, in particular, where thousands have gone to join isis. the reason is because they are alienated from their own society. they're are not alienated from american society. the problem of what donald trump and company are doing is they may, if they are successful, and up creating the very conditions off which isis breeds. if donald trump idea that america should be hostile to american's takes hold, and the movement grows, we will get a generation of young muslims growing up saying, you do not want us, well, here is what you get. that is the scary part of all of this. we have to have a different we include,ow incorporate, absorb, and welcome people into our culture. walter in new jersey, and

independent. you are next. caller: how are you doing? announced my question for you -- how can you convince someone like donald trump how dangers what he is doing is? look, i cannot get inside donald trump's head. is hiser sometimes -- narcissism so great that when he hears the crowds cheering, he just keeps going with it? look, he has destroyed the trunk mp brand. people across the middle east to were doing business with him are no longer doing business with him. i would be dowamned if i go to a trump hotel. it is really a bad business decision on his part. i think he will end up paying for it.

probablyonvince them -- at the pocketbook. i cannot think of another way. reallyto get beaten badly. i think republican leaders have to do what former labor secretary b did the other day which is a strong denunciation. the more that he is isolated, defeated, and the more his businesses suffer will i think bring him down and to some sense of reality here. from we probably will hear the republican candidates tonight, trying to differentiate themselves from donald trump. guest: i hope so. host: i want to have you react to donald trump on state of the union on sunday. [video clip] many friends who are muslims, and they are so happy that i did this. they know there is a problem.

i have partners that are muslim. said it is about time that somebody spoke up as to radicalism. you have radicalism in this country. it is here and trying to come through. i just read where isis has gotten a hold of a printing migrants to get them into the united states. maybe that is true, maybe it is not. it is an early report. how crazy are week, allowing ourselves to be subject to this kind of terror. >> i don't think anybody doubts that radical islam is a problem, but the question is is your proposed solution the appropriate one or not? >> it is a temporary solution until we get our hands around the problem. we have a real problem. host: his muslim friends tell

him it is good that he is bringing up this debate and the solution would be temporary. guest: i take, with a grain of salt, most of what donald trump says because frankly, way too is whates what he says he fabricates in his own mind. there is very little connection between assertions he makes an reality. if i were to say that donald your hair looks really weird, he would say, people commented on my hair today. he hears what he wants to hear. that elevatorve leadership in the region is supportive. i have been to the middle east, very recently, and have spoken to people, major business partners of his who are suspending their relationship and canceling contracts. i do not think this is the case at all. maybe somebody said it is really good that you are attacking radical islam, but you have gone

overboard, and made crazy assertions. he only here's the first part that he wants to hear. he does not have support. host: john, florida, good morning. your question or comment. back from 1995 to about 2000, there was a man and woman, who i believe was from saudi itbia that was talking about , a process. know if you are familiar with this process. i believe they spell it fitna. this was a process where elite muslims, doctors, would go around the world and get into elite positions in order to take over the world, especially in america and the west. i was wondering if he was familiar with this process. guest: i have familiar with the

concept, but that is not a process that exists. reality.ply not a there is no islamic content to take over the world. it is a religion, like christianity that is a religion based on conversion. of course, they believe that their faith is true and christians believe that faith is true. we have missionaries that attempt and work particular people. says, there is no compulsion in religion. have aa that you would secret society, kind of like the anti-mason movement that existed, the scare stuff, trying to take over by sleight of hand or devilish tactics, it is part

of the islamophobia, the scare fear muslims in general. no, there are muslim doctors here saving lives every day. they are in our hospitals, and thank god they are there. they are helping. is afe's pulmonologist remarkable man. they got he is doing what he is doing. owe act is that we 0 debt to these folks who are part of our society, just as we have other ethnic and religious groups that came to america and were rejected when they came. we rejected jews, italians, the irish, etc. where would america be without them today? t some day, we had arabs and muslims come to america. we could say, where would we be without danny thomas and the st. jude's hospital?

back when my father was coming, nny and my dad's generation came from syria. we had a serious exclusion act passed by senator david reed from pennsylvania who said we do not need any more syrian trash from america. for threere excluded decades. thank god danny came before that because we have kids being saved every day. you know, let's get real here. this is america. this is not the place where we are afraid of welcoming new people. it is a place where we embrace new people because they make us better. ustaffa, a muslim american, you are on the air. caller: i support donald trump in his plan.

the idea comes from saudi arabia hiding is what they are behind. they believe in jihad. where the extremist come from, saudi arabia. him, where are you from? -- i would stop him. number two, i would stop muslim here.ans from coming i think you need to stop it for a minute, and figure out a way.

host: where are you from? caller: i am from sudan. god thatsten, think folks in the government do not have the approach. i think donald trump is wrong for promoting it. let me be clear. this crisis was started as a concept when president obama announced we would take 10,000 refugees. donald trump inflated it. i do not know where they joined up the numbers. the president said 10,000 per year. that is actually too little. most of the immigrant and be settlement refugee groups wanted to do 65,000-70,000. martin o'malley has said that many. hillary clinton has said the same. the refugee process is so totally different than the immigration process that it really needs to be understood.

if you look on our twitter feed, the arab-american institute, and look at the vetting process, the level of screenings you have to go through, the scare that we are going to be flooded by syrian refugees by isis -- this is not just europe where people walk across the border and come in your country. you have to get on a plane, and before you get on the plane, you onnd two years being vetted multiple levels of investigation that make it clear who we are getting and who we are not getting. there is nothing to be afraid of. . if the saudi's are not taking these refugees in because they use them as security risks, why should we? guest: that is not the case at all. the saudis do have a couple thousand that have come in.

lebanon has 1.3 or 1.4 million. jordan has over a million. arabs are doing a lot. egypt has 100,000 or more syrians in the country. everyone in the region is helping. thesect is that a lot of refugees do not want to go to the gulf. they want to go to europe and come to america. the united nations high commission has actually logged those who have applied to come to america. they have gone through a vetting process. those whosorted out they think would be better suited for america or elsewhere. us a list, and we go through a separate vetting process here. to say that arabs are not doing it is wrong. actually, it is the choice of the refugee. they prefer to go this way or that way. some refugees would prefer to stay in the arab world, and that is where they are going.

host: you mentioned a poll coming out later this week. who do you poll? let me show our viewers one of the questions. this is on u.s. policy on syrian refugees. accept into u.s., 30% say resettle 10,000 after say resettle only christians. was an online survey. the numbers are interesting because of the demographic split between democrats and republicans with republicans overwhelmingly opposed and democrats favoring the president's proposal. you also have an internal split. the partisan split. older americans, less educated americans, white americans having one view, and minorities and younger people and college

educated people having the view that becomes what is the more global view of supporting n.inging refugees i on almost every issue, we get a huge divide coming out. host: another question that they asked is your view of muslim americans -- 30% had a favorable view while 37% had an unfavorable view. guest: that has been trending for a few years largely because of the media. look, san bernardino happened, and was a horrific massacre. the backlash of muslims afterwards was unconscionable. the way the media focused on it was unconscionable. after the shootings in colorado, we did not go after antiabortion advocates in the same way where everyone of them was targeted as somehow a danger to the country.

after the massacre in charleston , south carolina, we did not go after everybody with the confederate flag on their car and assume they would be murderers. we did that, on the other hand, with muslims. by focusing on one kind of domestic terror and not another kind, you would think that muslim terror" is the only asblem facing america where acts of terror are happening everywhere we blink. a cartoon i saw in the paper that was tragic -- after the colorado shooting. it was a husband and wife watching tv. guy on tv set, don't panic, it was not a muslim who did it. that is the attitude that unfortunately exists.

if the terrorist is not a muslim, we do not worry about it, we let it happen. if the terrorist is a muslim, we want to ban people coming in the country and to face mosque -- .eface mosques that attitude that you see reflected on the screen is 60% republicans saying they have an unfavorable view of muslims, whereas almost 50% of democrats had a favorable view. again, almost the gay marriage split that we had 15 years ago. just showing the overall percentage. we will go to nathan in pennsylvania, a democrat. caller: hi. i wanted to say that the first step to fight terrorism is be honest and truthful. if we are honest and truthful, then we will move forward in the fight. anything have not seen -- there is some

.ruth in a letter as long as there are good ,errorist and bad terrorists and as long as our interest are can go toble than we look forward to the roots of violence. that is the truth. terrorist -- they are funded by us. guest: there is a problem. i'm not taking my cues from the ayatollah.

that exists.ncern encouragedtan, we and supported as a way to defeat the soviet occupation and after abandoneds left, we the country. it broke up into several competing groups. the taliban came in, and when these weren, students who said, we have to unify the country and stop the civil war, all these different groups competing with each other. we looked at that as an initially positive sign. we thought, these guys might be extremist, but they will stop all of the internal killing in the country so we gave it a wink and a nod. we certainly encouraged it.

in iraq, look, if george bush had not done this foolish invasion of iraq, a lot of what we are dealing with in the region would not be occurring. america's prestige would be higher. our military is overstretched, our prestige is too low. we learned from trying to remake both afghanistan and iraq that america's capacity to make this kind of change was not capable. say, weear politicians have to bomb them back to the stone age or level the country, or do this or do that, they are not thinking straight. it sounds great as a one-liner that gets cheers from people, but they do not know what it .eans concretely at the end of the day, we have many more extremists and we have right now. host: do you think that is a problem that russia is

presenting for itself? the front page of "the washington post," russian airstrikes in syria halt aid. over 20 facilities have been hit since russia launched air war. guest: russia is digging a hole in itself. there is no military solution to this conflict. no one seems to get it yet. there has to be a political solution and compromise. people have to stop funding the different competing groups, and there has to be a political resolution that will ultimately create internal unity that can deal with isis threat. host: what does a diplomatic solution look like when it comes to bashar al-assad? guest: pretty much what we talked about in geneva. setting a precondition that he must go is a nonstarter for

negotiations. bashar al-assad be the head of syria is also a nonstarter. thatnsitional period creates unity and also away from his leadership is absolutely critical. it cannot be done in one swoop. host: eric from california, independent. caller: i would just like to say, as far as people reacting as to the california event, the reason is 9/11 was done by muslim terrorist. there has been terrorism domestically ever since people could go out to the post office. the reason people are afraid is because of 9/11. host: can you respond to that? guest: there is no question that 9/11 created a fear, a justifiable fear about domestic terrorism.

you are absolutely right, at the same time, there is domestic terrorism that comes in different strides. law enforcement says the biggest in the with groups fringe of the right wing. we have to have a holistic approach to this and deal with it in a way that displays arsons of security and stability, and not in a way that has is wildly striking out and saying outrageous things that the candidates have done. as i said, when you do that, you exacerbate the problem. you create security resulting in muslims feeling they d are not

wanted here, which ultimately can become a larger problem to deal with. we cannot end up alienating a generation of young people who will ultimately become american, make a contribution to our country, we do not want to turn them away, which is what unfortunately is being done. making their lives really difficult. i have young kids who work for me. . who are muslim sometimes the parents are afraid to let them come out of the house because they are afraid of kids getting -- death threats. 16-year-old kid should not get messages on their phone threatening their lives because of their religion. that is not america, that is not who we ought to be. that is ultimately, i think, -- it is just wrong. it should not happen. host: the front page of "the new york times" delves into this -- young muslim americans are feeling the strain of suspicion.

good morning mark. caller: good morning. isten, all i hear from you blame america. europe and america have opened their doors to immigrants from all over the world. we have become embroiled in this cauldron that is the middle east -- competing cultures and shades of religious intensity. all i hear from you is blame us because we are not holding hands . you want us to hold your hand, but when we hold your hand and try to be vehicle, you tell us we're trying to be overly parental. i do not hear you blaming the arabs themselves. the arab cultures are at war constantly over my new shop -- my neinutae. mariahere is a tweet from -- are you pretending that

turkey does not support isil or daesh? done: certainly turkey has more than a wink and a nod. they have left a porous border look, there is a-- number of groups all of which have gotten support, either direct or indirect, from turkey. turkey has its own interest in syria. there is an interest in blocking kurdish independence. they have territory that they want for themselves. they have an ethnic community in turkey -- in syria that they feel protective of. there is no question about that. arabs have made horrible in turkey, and syria as well. iran is involved -- look, the region is involved. this is a conflict in syria that has become a playground.

host: a proxy war? guest: a proxy war that started as one thing and has become a regional proxy war. is if america were to play the proper role and russia were to play its proper role, it would be playing the role of convening all of these parties which is what secretary kerry is doing right now in an effort to come up with a negotiated settlement. that is the only way forward. host: those negotiations continued this week with a meeting in new york where the secretary of state wants al-assad to attend that meeting. let us go to the democratic line. caller: i would like to ask what he would do, first of all. i don't want the answer now, but what i want to know is all of these millions of people that over, and we have

whytake a chance and end -- could they not fight for their own country. why do they said their wives, children, and elderly people? some of them died on the way. is is going to take us in everybody else takes over america? nobody. we will have to fight for our own country. host: i will leave it there. guest: i would like to know where she comes from, what part of the world. here came from somewhere, and often times fleeing the same kind of persecution and hardship, and making that kind of difficult choice. 's story was a harrowing one, fleeing first the ottomans and then leaving to come to america. host: what was syria? syria lebanon, but called

at the time. i hear the stories from eastern europeans during the cold war. i hear the same story from the irish during the famine where one third of the country died of starvation, one third fled to come to america, and one third was left. same story. this st interestingly enough, when each of those groups came, they experienced the same thing. the ukrainians, we were told were going to destroy our country. the times were anarchists -- every group was met with the same thing. it is not our story. it is not who we are. look, they are not millions coming to america. there are millions fleeing their country. the president was to taken

10,000. that is it. it will take 2-3 years to go through the vetting process. i think that is to o onerous. he is trying to be as clear about the process so people do not get confused. muriel says millions are coming. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> follow today's "washington journal" live on c-span.org. back to the house floor for a couple of votes. announce. . the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman is recognized. mr. sessions: today the rules committee issued three dear colleague letters, outlining the amendment processes for two packages. the sunshine for regulatory and regulatory decrees and settlements act of 2015, and the fairness in class action litigation and furthering

asbestos claim transparency act of 2015, as well as h.r. 1155, the scrub act of 2015. these bills are likely to come before the house the first week back in january, 2016. amendment deadlines have been set for next tuesday, december 22. bill text and more detailed information can be found on the rules committee website. please contact me or the staff if we can be of any assistance or if you have any questions. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed. votes will be taken in the following order. suspending the rules and agreeing to house resolution 536, and agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal if ordered. the first electronic vote will be a 15-minute vote. remaining electronic votes will be five-minute votes.

the unfinished business is the vote on the motion of the gentleman from california, mr. royce, to suspend the rules and agree to house resolution 536 as amended, on which the yeas and nays were ordered. the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 536, supporting freedom of the press in latin america and the caribbean and condemning violations of prees freedom and violence against journalists, bloggers, and individuals intersing chair -- exercising require right to freedom of speech. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and agree to the resolution as amended. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]