medical records are supposed to leave the dod system and be picked up by the v.a. hospital network. that seems like something that could be done electronically. that was largely done and still is. that mandate for interoperable medical records is several years old. it was met so far by the dod that mandate for interoperable medical records is several years old. it was met so far by the dod taking their one file box average paper records per veteran, having a contractor scanned them and sending them as a pdf. it is still mostly that way. we have made it somewhat better but there is a long way to go on medical records. the nutshell version of what there is to do and we are in the

middle of it. john: there was somebody else working from google on that? matthew weaver? mikey: i think he is in san francisco. john: they get to pick their own job piles. [laughter] anyway, matthew's handle within the v.a. is rogue leader. if you are a "star wars" fan, you will understand. go ahead. mikey: he has been a big part of the v.a. effort. the short version of dhs is the process by which you enter the united states on either in immigrant visa or not immigrant visa.

either way, particularly for those trying to become american citizens, the process is incredibly difficult. it involves interacting with a lot of different bureaus of the u.s. government, all of whom have acted like they have never heard of each other before when you interact with them. you get something from one place and you physically carry it to the next government office when you give it to them. sometimes you have to carry a package of papers in a sealed bag you are not allowed to open. it is like the border crossing. you have to pay fees at a half-dozen places. each of those fees will be a different amount to figure out to interact with a different payment system. you might be able to use a credit card or might not. you have create a new login and password each time. all of this is all true of the

process. we came along to the side of an existing initiative at the agency called u.s. citizenship and immigration service which is part of the homeland security. it has been there for years working on this problem and we kind of picked up an accelerated some pieces of it. we did put online in a new form what is called the item menu process which is how you get a replacement green card and you lose it. this is your piece of paper, your documentation that gives you the right to work in the united states and also not be deported. losing it and not being without it is stressful. it used to be six to nine months if you were lucky after you mailed it in when you got your replacement back. is on the order of a few weeks now. we started with that because it is a relatively simple process as these things go. is only a couple of forms and fees. it is really high volume when it affects a lot of people. there are 70,000 transactions a year. haley: the immigration one is

really fascinating of an example for a couple of reasons. we cannot say there is a new idea in government because of you thought of it, somebody already did way before it. this was not a new idea. it was tried more than a decade before. it has been underway for a long time. we will not go through the numbers -- billions that has been spent on trying to digitize the immigration system before that. [laughter] yeah, as a taxpayer, it hurts my soul. this process has been underway for over a decade. it was three months in when we were able to drop in and a very small team of five people -- when they showed up and got it out the door.

what that means is the folks who are out of the boundary working on this inside the agency were also the people that fixed it. you can actually change the context and the environment and have different results without a huge amount of risk. you have to strategically place all the right pressures on the system and he could shift faster than you think which is why i like the immigration example so much. john: for decades, we have been hearing presidential candidates, politicians use this phrase -- waste, fraud and abuse. if it ever got uncovered. i don't want to be the one to suggest fraud and abuses going on but the stories you have been talking about, telling for the last hour or so are certainly stories in this day and age in 2016 of waste. not for any intentional purposes or anything else, it is just simply functioning. mikey: haley, got added a second

ago in the beginning. back to your first question which was hard -- what is the problem? a big many. a big part of it is the normalization of failure, by which i mean we have arrived at a state where the status quo way of doing something, which is put out for an rpi, wait for three or four months, go through the process, do all that stuff. hire a huge government, hire a business who does almost all of its business with the government to do the waterfall plan that

you are used to, spend seven years and a couple billion dollars. it is easier to spend a couple of billion dollars than it is to spent $1 million and hire two people. that is true. all of these things, this is all guaranteed not to succeed. there is a group study we cite a lot that says 94% of government i.t. efforts come significantly over budget or behind schedule or deficient. that is the outcome 94% of the time. >> never even see the light of day or ship functioning. mikey: this happens all the time. i say the normalization of that -- what i mean is nothing bad will happen to any of the people involved in the contracting decisions which makes it the safest thing for them to do.

when we say that, haley said the riskiest way to do a project. it is in the sense that the project will not succeed, but least risky in the perspective of the people in the government who are responding to a different set of incentives. if a project does not work, nothing will happen to you. what will get you in trouble is if you try something new and dangerous, if that goes anything less than smashingly well, then there will be a lot of attention on you. then, all of the oversight and accountability mechanisms of government like congress conducting investigations, the government accountability office conducts investigations. your internal inspector general -- it will be all bad.

if we only did one thing, we mostly talk about -- this is what has shifted over the last year -- it seemed year ago the real special sauce we were bringing into the government were these new ways of approaching problems and knew this and that. that is true, but probably an even more important an ingredient in the special recipe is we are way too outsourced of risk by the perspective of the agency. we are term limited appointments. nobody on this stage has in mind the my own career security as forefront. it is hopeless by the way. it is a misunderstanding and a failure to understand to blame

the government employees for putting their career stability first -- everybody puts their stability first everywhere. taking care of themselves and their family is just about the most important thing for anybody working a job. to be there as somebody that will not be there five years from now, and having somebody else to blame, that is a huge value-added. lisa: i think you touched on it with the incentives of what success looks like is just different. i don't necessarily know it is making sure to have a job in a year or five years, i think the definition of what win is and how i did my job is not something of what they perceive as risk. we know risk is continuing the status quo. john: the statistic you mentioned earlier, it is 94% of all projects coming in late,

over budget or behind schedule. 40% never see the light of day. that is the norm. everybody is just working to the norm. i want to talk for a minute -- we have such great questions from the audience -- there are other subjects i wanted to talk about. you are doing this with a relatively small team. 113 members of the u.s. digital service which span out across almost every agency in the government. 185 people within 18f. the want to talk about the kind of person that it takes to be in this team and to do what you do. it surely cannot be a good thing to walk in and say him from silicon valley, get out of the way. i will show you how to do things around here. [laughter]

what kind of person is successful on your teams? haley: you raise a fantastic point. we are looking for -- they find us -- an incredible combination of skill sets. it is not that anybody in our team can be the most technically competent person in the room at a moment, but also have an eq, an ability to communicate well to win over the people in the room. we actually had our first full year a day or so ago where we had an online application available. we now have our first full year of data. in that year, we have had almost 4500 people apply. to give you a bit of context, our acceptance rate is way more competitive than harvard because we are really looking for the best of the best. i cannot tell you how incredibly thrilled i am to work with such a talented team because the people of the united states digital service are phenomenal. we have is really interesting collection of leaders across the industry. everything from people like mikey who sets up the classes of engineers inside google. the founding members of amazon. people that took twitter's infrastructure to what it is now. it is an incredible collection of the smartest, genuinely incredibe people i could have ever imagined working with and it is inside the government which is mindbending. i think that is a differentiating factor between the folks on our teams and any other team. they are coming in to do this not because they get to put the white house on the business card where they get to make tons of money because they are usually taking a pay cut to come into government, but they are not shabby salaries. they are coming because they want to make a difference in the lives of americans and want to work on things that matter. those of the type of people we are looking for. they tend to find us because of your looking to have an impact, there is no better place to be working than the united states federal government. hillary: we are really looking for people that can have empathy. and that they for the people they are building the services for, the people working across from them.

18f, we really screen for that sense of mission driven, impact driven person. absolutely, we are screening for a certain skill set and certain level of skill, but really almost more than anything is that eq side of it. are you here for the correct reasons? if you are not, once you hit that first bureaucratic wall, you will not want to hop over it. you will have to be willing to bash your head into the wall and figure your way around it. lisa: so many that came straight from the private sector, in terms of the scale and impact of what it means.

i worked on shockwave a little while ago which was basically the advent of animation on the web. i helped launch hulu. my code and my products have shipped to nearly hundreds of millions of people. i have been really fortunate to kind of affect the way people consume media in a significant way. nothing compares to what i'm doing now. the ability -- if i could just affect one person's life in terms of helping them go to college and make a better life for themselves, this would be worth it. i'm getting the opportunity to affect more people's lives and have real significant impacts. this scale is enormous and different from the private sector.

mikey: i will be quick. i would say you have to be pretty good at whatever is your particular field of expertise. you have to be reasonably confident in yourself in that field of expertise because you will be in a lot of rooms where you will be the only one who has done an agile spread before and you need to explain how it is done and be convincing. a lot of times, you need to be very patient and very resilient. and, ready to let, ready to be

ok with it when you let other people take credit for the stuff that you have done. if you are all that stuff, you're ideal for us. haley mentioned we are very selective. that is true. i would remind everybody who is listening that there is no correlation between how good people are and what they do and how good they think they are and what they do. [laughter] so, please do not hear that and think this is not for me. you may be exactly that person whether you think you are or not. john: fantastic. one more question and then we will go to the audience. some ideas that come from this president are not always the most popular in washington, especially from people on the other side of the aisle. especially since he had such a high profile in leading the

effort, how is this being received in washington? is a bipartisan? what kind of support are you getting? haley: this is one of my favorite parts about the digital service. in the midst of the political rhetoric, we hear about them not working together. this has managed to thread through both sides of the aisle. it is the most fantastic example of a bipartisan agenda we can see today in washington. it is this incredible thing that is happening that in the process of delivering processes to people and give care and access to the people that needed, we are also saving tons of taxpayer dollars and making government more efficient and effective at the same time which is both parts of what the aisle wants. we as a result are getting tons of support all over d.c. one of the recent developments we are very excited about was a

couple of weeks ago, congress came out with our fy16 budget. we received almost our entire funding request from a predominantly republican hill which leaves a very strong bipartisan support of what we are doing. we have a criteria that is mostly focused on how many users are going to benefit from the service. and it is truly providing a service. what is the opportunity cost for not doing something differently? the president and the gao, the government accountability office which are independent and works closely with the hill, they are almost exactly the same. the biggest problems that need to be solved everyone agrees with because no one thinks that veterans should be waiting longer to get access to the

benefits. no one thinks government should be wasting taxpayer dollars on things that can be much less expensive and work simply. it is an incredible coming together of both sides. mikey: the budget thing is super surprising. we will not tell you the half-hour version of it. but, people who do follow these things closely were dumbfounded because not only were we funded -- not only are we a project that the president is very personally invested in, asking congress for money, this congress for money, but our appropriations land inside the white house. if there is one thing this congress does not want to add more money to -- there is a few of them, but the white house is high on the list.

this is a very surprising outcome. haley and other people helped. i didn't know what i was doing and still don't. we go in talked to the appropriations committee and make our sales pitch and we say this is what we are here to do and please give us money. they are very stonefaced and don't give much of a reaction. we find out when the spending bill comes out just like everybody else. we don't get any special insider access. john: this is a good segue into these questions. given this is the president's last year, what are the goals for 2016? can you talk about those? hillary? hillary: from our agency, two big goals are to expand consulting services so we can help with the agency embedded teams that is getting into the agencies and we can help go in

and be a startup team. we are expanding on that. we are also going around the acquisition space. entering the marketplaces. what we are experiencing right now is micro purchasing. it is very easy to purchase something with a credit card, but the spending limit is $3500. we are building an auction platform. if you are a developer and never participated, we are sort of doing that. the code is open source. we develop quickly out in the open. we pitch tasks, issues that have been written for certain

projects. we are going to put this one up for auction. it is interesting because we have done it twice. two different batches. the first time, the task got bid down to one dollar. the person was trying to make a statement. i'm an open source developer but pay me a dollar. the second time, we want to be spurring business, participating in the community. so, we made a few tweaks. it turns out that didn't happen this time, but another interesting plot twist but all of the final bids were around $350. some was 18 lines of code which shipped in about 24 hours. we are changing the game on how services can be delivered and how we can scale our efforts. the plot twist was actually -- it was not one dollar, but somebody actually fixed the thing that we put out to auction before it was over. [laughter]

john: what about usds? mikey: it is obvious enough there is a presidential election this year. it is almost a guarantee -- i know some of you have heard me say this. it is almost a guarantee that the next president and the next person in my job will not spend as much time together. unless the next administration has their own healthcare.gov and this becomes front and center which could happen.

will not spend as much time together. unless, healthcare.gov becomes front and center in the agenda. it could happen. we have to figure out if we assume that we'll we are doing is worth preserving. we have to do enough for our own reputation and relationships with the agencies and the layers of people who will still be there. we will continue on into the next term. this is the institutionalization of the conversation that started and will go through all the way to the end. it means a lot of different things to people in washington. what we are betting on is flat out delivering enough stuff of enough value that it is worth continuing.

i do not mind. the criticism of the model is that we depend on appropriations. if they do not want to fund it next year, they do not have to. we, like wise, depend on executive power from the top of the agencies in the top-down support. if we do not continually earn the right to continue to exist, we will not. i am at peace with that. it causes a certain amount of stress. in order to make the work worth continuing, we need to shift some things and we will talk about the appeals process we are working on right now.

we need to produce a new system for doing social security, disability claims adjudications, the immigration stuff you talked about that is ongoing. we have to improve the refugee admission process. a new one that we are on to is, if you follow closely, the white house talks about executive actions on improving criminal background checks before you can buy a gun. we have worked with the fbi on that system. that is what we needed to show real results this year. >> there are a lot of unknowns. the thing that is clear is that his techni -- is that technology

is only going to become more important. one of the incredible transformations happening right now is that it is exceedingly clear that, as president or ceo of the country, you can have the background in policy, law, and economics. another leg of the stool is tech. it empowers. you can do the same thing -- you

cannot do the same thing with the country anymore. that trend will not change, for sure. >> i have a question. not about 2016. it is important. some, this was the first time they had heard of "college scorecard." what have you been doing? millions have created user accounts. there are more who could potentially benefit. >> absolutely. the target audience is underserved communities. the students are over 24 years old.

it is important. we have this viable product and i am glad that it falls into what we are doing in 2016. again, it builds, iterates, a culture of continuous improvement. part of that includes outreach and figuring out how to get the message out there and doing outreach to guidance counselors who are actually reaching the students. how do we continue partnering with organizations who are in communities and how do we get them to be enticed to use the data?

we will continue to iterate from the future perspective and from an outreach perspective. >> part of the beauty of it is that you do not need to have to go to a .gov website and that is the whole point. the data is where users are, on different education websites. not every person things about going to a .gov. we want to make that ok and push the information to where people

are, instead of forcing them to come to us. >> two more questions and i have a final. what about the pushback from the contractors engaged in developing software the old way? you are so few in number and they are making a lot of money. >> those are facts. [laughter] >> you know, as i mentioned, we are very much trying to work with the community and enable and empower businesses and small businesses to do work. that is part of what the general services administration does. we are taking on the mantle on the technology side of things. all of the things that we do are in service of that. all of the marketplace is trying to get new business in and do business with government for the

first time. you have to be registered at this thing as a registered business owner. these people are doing business with the government for the first time and it gives them a window into the experience. yes, they are absolutely companies all over the country doing business with the government and making a lot of money. what we are doing and we have said this in various ways, we are trying to fundamentally change these things getting done so that it can be faster, better, cheaper. and, when you show that that can be done with a lean, mean group of people inside of the government, you show good faith that -- it is an $80 billion industry to do i.t. with the government. you cannot even see the dot we are in that. we cannot do this on our own.

we have to rely on vendors out there. what we can do is give a new experience so that they go through the design, agile, iterative cycle and expect that from the next people they work with and look for those qualities with the people they work with, so that the whole system gradually begins to change. >> a great answer. >> we have thought this and talk this through. -- talked this through. everybody has different ideas. the first point i would make is that it is not -- we do not have to change every project in the entire government and hit the $84 billion a year in i.t. for this to be worth doing. the project i described in questions, if we affected those, i would feel like what we did is worth doing. the second point is that there is an and or miss industry that will continue and be mostly contractor-driven. bringing all of the work inside of the federal government would be a staggering expansion with hundreds of thousands of federal employees and an agency bigger than the v.a. to take this

inside the federal government and we do not intend for that to happen and are not making any effort to make that happen. in every event like this, and it never gets printed, picked up, amplified, we are not here to kill the industry. i don't care. that is great. i do not care if the same companies exist. we have to fix the ecosystem so that it is more healthy. the one thing i predict is that the government will continue to spend a shitload of money doing stuff. >> that will get quoted. >> so, that will continue to happen and people will make a lot of money. making a lot of money is not, a priori, on the face of it, a bad thing. if we continue to spend the amount that we do and the thing works when we are done, if we do not have the 40% that never saw the light of day, if everything worked, that would be an improvement, even if we did not save a dime. if we do never got anything to work better, but we save money, that would be an improvement. >> we could not do it without contractors. they do not want to build shitty services, either. they do not want to work that way. that is the hypothesis we are working on. i think that our government is propping up a failing industry. who else does waterfall except for us? >> they do what we hire them to. if we get smarter about direct in them, no doubt. they submitted bids two new experimental stuff we are doing with making competition more competitive and they will adapt. it is up to us to set the direct shins because we write the

contracts. -- the directions because we write the contracts. >> are you looking at people who do biz dev? i see you shaking your head. >> absolutely. we need a diverse range of skill set because -- skill sets. we need the best project managers, researchers, policy experts, and people who are good at getting shit done. i guarantee you there is no less hospitable government than the government to getting stuff done. you need to have a specialty of bureaucracy-hacking. please apply. >> that is a real thing. >> the final question, make it personal. you talk about a shift in coach or, not just services. -- shift in culture, and not just services. how have you changed? how has the experience changed you? what will you take away, when you look back? >> to be honest, this change me for the rest of my life and i probably still have not learned all of the ways.

my biggest fear is that i will never be as satisfied working on a project again because the impact of the federal government is so large and so meaningful in people's lives. we will probably spend the rest of our lives trying to find something as impactful. >> for me, i have only been doing this for months. having worked at a large corporation and several before, the way government works and the bureaucracy, having to get stuff done, it is not that foreign to me. the thing i have learned and has

struck me the most is, i knew that, when i was joining, my team members were going to be super-passionate, engaged, excited about what we were doing. what i did not know is that, as an outsider of government, i was blown away by the folks i am partnered with their. they show up and all they want to do is make the world a better place for students, education, making it easier to get and more equal across the country. i expected resistance and you hear about how government is and

how hard it is to get anything done and nobody wants to and it is just a bunch of bureaucrats. you are on the ground and all anybody wants to do is fix things. >> for me, you centered a question of around culture, and that has resonated the most. when you -- i was a designer doing web services in the private sector and mostly around and for government, from the outside. i was doing marketing, sales, at the end of my stint. i have been preaching user-centered design for a long time and focusing on the user before the stakeholder.

the thing that has stuck with me is that my job has not necessarily been about delivering projects. it is incredible to me what you can do when you put your focus on people and on culture. the number of people that, when you asked them what is the best thing, across the board, the first thing out of their mouth is, "people." when you scream for that, put a focus on people, diversity, wanting to hear from everybody, it is incredible what a team can do and it will change how i approach everything. host: mikey.

>> i had the most time to prepare. i'm ready to answer this question. i-8 knowledge -- i acknowledge that none of our lives are ever going to be the same. a good number of people will come and have done a limited tour of duty, like we have done and have gone back to something resembling normalcy for what they are used to. i most likely will not and i can see that. i have no idea what will become of any of us. we talk about this, not just because we are -- we have no idea what will become of us in a year.

the human cost is high and the sacrifices people make is high. there are depths, too. i will spare you. the specific job i do, being a backstop to a lot of people who come to work in the government, it turns out to be tougher. you mentioned to me that there is a speech he loves to do about

"there is no possible informed consent here because it does not matter." people say, i have to tell you how hard it is going to be and you are not going to believe me. it will be the hardest thing you can imagine and harder than that, when you get here. that is what i do. my question was, how has this changed you? my frame of reference has

changed a lot. a year ago, if you talk to me about fixing the government, i would talk you about agile design process. i do not think about that hardly at all anymore. i think about the problems of managing a norm is organizations

of people where communication becomes difficult and coordination becomes difficult. it is not sufficient that they want to get something good done. they all believe that they want to make service better for veterans. that is a thing you have to come to terms with fast and it will make the first couple of weeks hard. you meet people and they all want to do the same thing. we are building an organization where a couple hundred of people, which is enough to have the organizational dynamic, are having to face the fact that we are not magically different from the people in the government. all of the same incentives that lead it to be difficult to run a group and reach consensus apply to us. it is likely that, whatever i go to do after this, i have no idea, i will be thinking about these problems. [applause] >> the group of america takes a look at higher education quality

, standardized testing, and how it is used to measure accountability among colleges and universities. that is live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. day, a forum on the iran nuclear agreement and how implementation of the deal compares to other nuclear agreements from the past. that is live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> technology, equipment, privacy, surveillance, and .-mail >> encryption is a good and important thing. we have got to find our way through it by continuing the strength of it and you only need haveok at the problem we

on foreign governments between hackers stealing millions of governmentrom agencies, credit card records from retail establishments and toancial establishments, know we need to be moving toward stronger encryption. communicators at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> vice president biden is calling for the nomination of a supreme court nominee named by president obama earlier this .onth, merrick garland at georgetown university law school, the vice president spoke about comments he made regarding the nomination process that senate republicans said is one reason they would not consider the nomination. we will show you his speech this past week in a moment.

first, a portion of his remarks from 1982 followed by recent comments from senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> it is my view is a supreme court justice resigns tomorrow or in the next several weeks, will resign at the end of the president bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his and not name a nominee until action -- after the november nomination is completed. the senate must consider how they should respond to a supreme court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. it is my view if a president goes the way of fillmore and an electionpresses nomination, the senate judiciary

committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmations on hearings for thenomination until after political campaign season is over. >> as reiterated, the senate will continue to observe the biden rule so the american people have a voice. the american people may well elect a president who decides to nominate merrick garland for senate consideration. the next president may also nominate somebody very different. either way, our view is this. if the people -- give the people a voice in filling this vacancy. [applause] [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. 2016] vice president biden: how are you all? thank you. please sit down. thank you. my name's joe biden, i work for victoria nurse for a long time. and i mean a long time. i told the dean of students when i met him, i almost decided not to do the speech here. my son went to georgetown and my staff went to georgetown and my son did his first year of law school here at georgetown. he ended up graduating from yale. long story, but that's what he did. he did his first year and transferred to yale. feel a real intense loyalty to georgetown. five bidens have gone to georgetown. i went to a good school, i went to delaware. but -- i almost decided not to do it at georgetown and do it at g.w. because you stole victoria nurse from me. i thought she had to go back to

minnesota. that's why i agreed to let her go, but, victoria, thank you. you have been a great friend and brilliant mind. you have helped me negotiate an awful lot of very tough terrain. and i want to thank you for that. it's great to be back here. look, last week in the rose garden i stood by president obama as he fulfilled his constitutional responsibility to nominate the supreme court of the united states judge, chief judge, merrick garland. someone eminently qualified. if you noticed, you heard no one, no one question his integrity. you have heard no one question

his scholarship. you have heard no one question his open-mindedness. you found no one to find any substantive criticism of chief judge merrick garland. i have known him for 21 years. i'm telling you, you will have a great difficulty finding anyone. which makes this all the more perplexing. as the president said, chief judge garland deserves a hearing. just as a simple matter of fairness before we talk about the constitution. but it's also a matter of the senate fulfilling its constitutional responsibility. yet weeks ago my friends, they are my friends, republican senators, announced that whomever the nominee might be, they intended to abdicate their responsibility completely. that's what they say today. that's what they said then. what republican senators say they will do, in my view, can lead to a genuine constitutional crisis. born out of the dysfunction of washington. i have been here a long time. i have been in the majority, minority, majority, minority, i

have been on both sides. i understand, if you read, most people say i have very good relations with the republican party as well as the democratic party. but i have never seen it like this. washington right now, congress, is dysfunctional. and they are undermining the norms. that govern how we conduct ourselves. they are threatening what we value most, undercutting in the world what we stand for. i traveled over a million miles since being vice president of the united states. i'm not exaggerating. i usually go because when i go to meet with world leaders, most

of whom i have known before, they know when i speak, i speak for the president. because of our relationship. so i spend a lot of time, i promise you, this is what i hear. whether i'm in beijing, whether i'm in bogota, whether i'm in the u.a.e. in dubai, i'll try to convince them of a position we have and they'll say, ok. and we'll shake hands. but i give you my word they'll look at me and say, but can you deliver? let me say that again, when the president of the united states speaks or i speak for him, world leaders will look at me and say, can you deliver? those of you who travel around the world or from other parts of the world, you know that the world looks at this city right now as dysfunctional. that's a problem. going to be even more of a problem if it spreads beyond the congress.

the great justice robert jackson once wrote, while the constitution defuses power, the better to secure liberty, it also contemplates that practice will integrate and disperse powers into a workable government. here's the important sentence, it says, it enjoins branches -- it enjoins upon its branches, separateness but interdependence. autonomy but reciprocity. separateness but independence, autonomy but reciprocity. my entire career, seven years as vice president, 36 years in the united states senate, half of those years as either the ranking member or chairman of the senate judiciary committee, i have never seen the spirit of interdependence and reciprocity

at a lower ebb. not among our people but our government. the bonds that held our diverse republic together for the last 229 years are being frayed. and you-all know it. whether you are democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, everybody knows it. the world knows it. it limits our peoples and other governments' trust in us. our trust in each other. this is not hyperbole to suggest without trust we are lost. without trust and give between the branches and within the branches, we are lost. back in 1992, in the aftermath of a bruising and polarizing

confirmation process, involving clarence thomas, who had been nominated by president bush with no consultation, just four days after the great their good marshall had retired, i took to the senate floor to speak about the supreme court nominating process. senate majority leader, he's my friend, mitch mcconnell, and other republicans, today, have been quoting selectively from the remarks that i made in an attempt to justify refusing chief judge garland a fair hearing and a vote on the floor of the senate. they completely ignore the fact that at the time i was speaking of the dangers of nominating an extreme candidate without proper senate consultation. they completely neglected to quote my unequivocal bottom line. so let me set the record straight, as they say. i said, and i quote, if the

president consult and cooperates with the senate, or moderates his selections, then his nominees may enjoy my support as did justice kennedy and justice sutter. end of quote. i made it absolutely clear that i would go forward with the confirmation process as chairman, even a few months before presidential election. if the nominee were chosen with the advice and not merely the consent of the senate. just as the constitution requires. my consistent advice to presidents of both parties, including this president, has been that we should engage fully in the constitutional process of advice and consent. and my consistent understanding

of the constitution has been the senate must do so as well. period. they have an obligation to do so. because there is no vacancy after the thomas confirmation, we can't know what the president and senate might have done. but here's what we do know. every time as the ranking member or chairman of the judiciary committee i was responsible for eight justices and nine total nominees to the supreme court. more than, i hate to say this, anyone alive. i can't be that old. some i supported. a few i voted against. but in all that time every nominee was greeted by committee members.

every nominee got a committee hearing. every nominee got out of the committee even if they didn't have sufficient votes to pass within the committee, because i believe the senate says, the senate must advise and consent.

and every nominee, including justice kennedy in an election year, got an up and down vote. not much at the time. not most of the time. every single, solitary time. so now you hear this talk about the biden rule. frankly ridiculous. there is no biden rule. it doesn't exist. there is only one rule i ever followed in the judiciary committee. that was the constitution's clear rule of advice and consent. article 2 of the constitution clearly states whenever there is a vacancy in one of the courts created by the constitution itself, the supreme court of the united states, the president shall -- not may, the president shall appoint someone to fill the vacancy with the advice and consent of the united states senate. and advice and consent includes consulting and voting. nobody is suggesting individual senators have to vote yes on any particular presidential nominee. voting no is always an option and it is their option. but saying nothing, seeing

nothing, reading nothing, hearing nothing and deciding in advance simply to turn your back before the president even names a nominee is not an option the constitution leaves open. it's a plain abdication of the senate's solemn constitutional duty. it's an abdication, quite frankly, that has never occurred before in our history. now i'm able to square their unprecedented conduct with the constitution, my friend, mitch mcconnell, and the chairman of the committee, he's my friend, the senator from iowa, senator grassley, they are now trying another tact. they ask, what's the difference?

what difference does it make if the court has eight or nine members? i'm serious. remember, they said they weren't going to fill any vacancies on the circuit court of appeals for the district for four years. remember that's what they said? that's not a constitutionally created court. the supreme court is. let me make clear for folks who may be listening at home. what happens, and you students all know this, but what happens at the supreme court makes a significant difference in the everyday life of the american people. article 1 gives the power to congress to fix the number of justices. from 1789 to 1866, the number waxed and waned between five and 10.

but in 1869 the congress passed a law setting the court size at nine. and that law has not been changed since. as recently as 1992, i said on the floor of the senate, as pointed out to me, for me, that it was no big deal for the court to go through a period of 4-4 splits partly because the period wouldn't last very long. the exact number of justices was of less urgent concern. but i don't believe anybody in their right mind would propose permanently returning the court to a body of eight. or leaving one seat vacant not just for the rest of this year, but for potentially and likely the next 400 days. that option wouldn't be much

better. this is all the more true in a year where congress has become almost entirely dysfunctional. none other than the deceased justice scalia wrote, quote, if you have eight justices on a case, it raises, quote, the possibility that by reason of a tie vote the court will find itself unable to resolve significant legal issues presented by the case, end of quote. if that possibility backs a reality in any given case, the justices would have to announce that they cannot decide either way. they would be left clear clearing the case from their docket or kicking it down the road to be argued under a new court, when a justice is finally confirmed. pressing controversies, the that

prompted the court to grant review in the first place, many cases because of different decisions in different circuit courts, would remain unresolved. the issues the court believes were too important to leave in limbo are going to remain in limbo. suspended in midair. more than two centuries ago, justice john marshall, famously declared that the court, quote, has a duty to say what the law is. not an option, a duty. a solemn duty. when the senate refuses to even consider a nominee, it prevents the court from discharging that constitutional duty and so clear divided court.

we are saving the court by keeping the seat vacant for hundreds of days matters not just because -- certainly it perpetuates. because of the way it fractures our country. the framers designed our system to one supreme court responsibility to resolve conflicts in the lower courts. if those conflicts were allowed to stand, we end up with a patchwork constitution inconsistent with equal justice and the rule of law. federal laws that apply to the

whole country will be constitutional in some parts of the country but unconstitutional in others. i don't have to go through the cases you know that are pending appeal. and how controversial they are. the extent of your federal constitution, constitutional rights, freedom of speech, freedom to follow the teachings much your faith, determine what constitutes teaching of your faith. the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. all could depend on where you happen to live. i think most people in this country would think that's unfair and unacceptable. we are, after all, the united states of america. either the constitution protects

rights across the united states or it doesn't. a patchwork constitution is hardly a national constitution at all. in a divided supreme court, we would be unable to establish uniform federal law. that could mean, as you students well know, and you professors, claims of race or sex discrimination could come out one way in california and arizona, another way next door in utah and colorado. claims of government interference with religion could have one fate in ohio and iowa, and another nearby in illinois and wisconsin. look at the cases. claims of unlawful policing

might be resolved by one standard in nebraska and totally different standard next door in kansas. there's nothing implausible about these scenarios. the american people deserve a fully staffed supreme court of nine. not one disabled and divided. one that's able to rule on the great issues of the day. race discrimination, separation of church and state. whether there is a right to an abortion, if so, safe and legal abortion. police searches. these are all actual cases before the supreme court of the united states. before the courts. we have to make sure that a fully functioning court, supreme

court, is in the position to address these significant issues. and a geographic happenchance cannot fragment our national unity. lest you think this is exaggeration, when you studied brown vs. board, remember chief justice warren had the votes to decide that case, but they waited to get one southern justice to rule with the majority because he knew what it would do in dividing the country. if that were not the case. extrapolate that to today. the same principle about one constitution. why it's important these laws be applied and the constitution be applied the same way everywhere in the united states. i realize it's not exactly analogous, but think of what it says. about how important it is. alexander hamilton had the foresight to warn that such fragmented judicial power would, quote, create a government from which nothing but contradiction and confusion can proceed, end of quote. even worse, a patchwork constitution could deepen the gulf between the haves and have-nots. under a system of laws, national in name only, the rich, the powerful can use it to their advantage the geographical differences and game the system. not available to ordinary people. look, our democracy rests upon

the twin pillars of basic fairness and justice under the law. being law students you're going to be asked to write essays and exams about what both those things mean, but every american knows in their gut what they mean. they understand it. it's intuitive. both these pillars demand that we not trap ordinary americans in whatever lower court's fate has chosen for them, while letting other more powerful selectively choose lower courts that best fit their needs. i know there is forum shopping now. look, the longer this high court vacancy remains unfilled, the more serious the problem we'll face. a problem compounded by turbulence, confusion, and uncertainty, about our safety, security, liberty, our privacy, the future of our children and grandchildren. in times like these we need more than ever a fully functioning court. a court that can resolve diverse

issues peacefully, even when they resolve them in directions i didn't like. dysfunction and partisanship are bad enough on capitol hill, but we can't let the senate spread that dysfunction to another branch of the government. to the court of the united states. we must not let it fester until the vital organs of our body politic are too crippled to perform their basic functions they are designed to perform. and i think you probably think i'm exaggerating, but think of all the things that have not been acted on now unrelated to the court on the hill that are profoundly important to the functioning of our foreign

policy, our democratic policy. just left unattended. no action. we can't afford that to spread to another branch of government. contrary to what my senate republican friends want you to believe, the president and i are former senators and we take advice and consent very seriously, and we did when we served. we do so not just because it's our constitutional duty, but because we care deeply about getting past the gridlock that left our people understandably frustrated and angry with government in washington. i wonder how many have been kidded when you go home, you go to school in washington? not a joke. they know georgetown's one of the great universities in the world. but i'm not joking. go home. i live in washington. serious. think about it.

think about how we even laugh about it like, you know, yeah, we all know it's true. pretty sad. look, we, you, we all care deeply about making this government work again. the president and i care about the letter of the advice and consent as well as the spirit of advice and consent. that spirit, that spirit of accommodation and forbearance

not a spirit of intransigence. that's why both of us, why our administration, spent countless hours meeting with, soliciting the views of senators of both parties, i sat there with the majority and the chairman of the judiciary committee in the oval office. the president and i spent hours together admittedly we sit down like the three other two nominees, and we are the last two in the room. but it hasn't been a closed process. we reached out. who do you want? who do you think? what type of person should we nominate? we did our duty. the president did his duty. we sought advice. and we ultimately chose the course of moderation because the government is divided. the president did not go out and

find another brennan. merrick garland intellectually, as capable as any justice, but he has a reputation for moderation. i think that's a responsibility to the administration in a divided government. some of my liberal friends don't agree with me, but i do. it's about the government functioning. it's about the admonition of justice jackson. the president has fully discharged his constitutional obligation. so it's a really simple proposition, in my view. now it's up to the senate to do the same. as i might add, the polling data shows the american people expect him to do. we owe it to the american people

to consider his nomination and to give him an up and down vote. look, the american people are decent and inclusive at heart. it's not our nation -- it's not our nature as a nation to shut our minds and treat those with whom we disagree as enemies instead of the opposition. it's not the american people who are going to blame for this dysfunction. it's our politics, our politics are broken. there's no secret the congress is broken. again, regardless of your political persuasion, i would love to hear one of you in class -- i'll come back if you invite me -- tell me how the system is functioning. \[laughter] even the most serious, persistent national crises haven't motivated the current

congress to find a middle ground. we just moved to the side. we haven't addressed them -- they just moved them to the side. we haven't addressed them. end where i began. we're watching a constitutional crisis in the making, born out of dysfunction in washington. it's got to stop. it really does, for the sake of both parties, for the sake of the country, for the sake of our ability to govern. it's got to stop. the defining difference of our great democracy has always been, no matter how difficult the issue, we've always been ultimately able to reason our way through to what ails us and to act as citizens, voters and public servants to go fix it. this requires that we act in good faith in the spirit of conciliation, not confrontation. with some modicum of mutual good will.

for the sake of our country, the country we love, because of what we value. i mean, that's who we are. we can't let one branch of government threaten the equality and rule of law in the name of a patchwork constitution. we must not let justice be delayed or denied as a matter of fundamental rights, and we must not let the rule of law collapse in our highest court because it's being denied as full compliment of judges as they accept the refusal of a presidential nominee. i still believe in the supreme court of delivering equal rights under the law. but it requires nine now. i still believe in the voice the people if we follow a constitutional path.

the path of advice and consent. the path of collaboration in search of a common ground. for obstructionism is dangerous and it's selfindulgent. in the greatest constitutional republic in the history of the world, it's a simple proposition, folks, not a joke. think of this last statement. unless we can find common ground, how can the system designed by our founders function? not a joke. how can we govern -- if he doesn't turn off that phone -- [laughter] if it's my staff, you're fired. but all kidding aside, just

think about it. how can we govern without being able to find common ground? that's how the system is designed. designed. it's worked pretty darn well for the last 200-plus years. one of the reasons i came to law school, the great law school to deliver these remarks was i want you when you go back to class , challenge what i've said. look at it closely. take a look and see whether the argument i'm making is right or wrong. make your voices heard. make your voices heard. i want to thank y'all. god bless the united states of america, and most of all, may god protect our troops. thank you so much. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> england the supreme court historyat shaped our come to life with the c-span series landmark cases, historic supreme court decision we explore real-life stories and constitutional draw less behind some of the most decisions in american history. >> john marshall said the constitution is a political document, it sets off the political structures, but it is also a lot. if we have a law, weekly course to tell what the. that we have the court to tell what it means. >> who should make the decisions about those debate, and the

supreme court should make decisions about those debates. onlandmark cases begins c-span and c-span.org on monday night. ♪ >> when i tune in on the weekends, usually does authors sharing their new releases. watching the nonfiction authors on the cd is the best television for series readers. >> they can delve into their subjects. book tv weekends, and they bring you author after author after arthur that spotlight the work of fascinating people. to eat i have a c-span fan. >> next a look at the recent terror attacks and ultimate how europe is dealing with terrorism and refugees. constitutionalom addressed the world affairs council of dollars for worth. this is an hour. >> good afternoon, i imprisoned the world affairs council of dallas-fort worth.

thank you for joining us for international perspective series. focused on education with high school students, and today we have students from war in high school, version fiscal school and uplift for parachurch -- uplift williams preparatory school. [applause] our program today could not be more timely or relevant to just two days after the tragic terrorist attacks in brussels and in a time when thousands of refugees are fleeing syria and the wider middle east we recently had elections in where chancellor

merkel's democratic party suffered defeat in two out of three states. and the leading newspaper called the results black sunday for conservatives. parties saw bigger i nout with refugee crisis bringing more voter turnout. expert on a renowned trains european and atlantic policy. she earned her master's in public administration at harvard's kennedy school of government and her doctorate from the school of on. she is truly someone who has a

footprint thinking of continents. her essays and articles have been published in both german and english, and have appeared in a wide range of publications including foreign affairs, and the financial times. she has also been a journalist and editor. director and fellow george marshall, any governor of the digitally foundation as well as a fellow or the swedish society for war scientists. would you give a warm welcome to dr. constance stelzenmuller? [applause] thank you forler: this fabulously warm welcome in this beautiful state of texas. my second or third visit to texas in my lifetime, as always, far too short. i can only say i am thrilled to

get out of the beltway. by way of warning, one of my life streams is to spend a summer on a branch. [laughter] now that i have moved to america, and slightly say i am o get out of the beltway. by way of warning, one of my life closer to the. so if you have any recommendations, i'm happy to take you up. host, dear ladies and gentlemen, dear students. students, i do not know what you have done to merit this punishment, i hope that this makes up for it. [laughter] talk i'mpected to the going to give you is not what i'm planning to get even a day ago. the site argue our host was the storm over europe, which was theatrical and to the search engine at broad enough to cover many issues. talk i'm going to give

near the european parliament. on wednesday, the state department issued a blanket warning for americans traveling in europe and a candidate is suggesting that none of this would've happened if the right people were warned at the right time. i rewrote my talk and i'm going to take this terrible incident as my starting point and i will discuss for questions before i take your questions, which i am sure there will be many. this is truly one of the most complicated public policy issues in europe. my four questions are, what happened on tuesday in brussels, why did it happen, what needs to be done to fix the problem of

terrorism in europe and what does it mean for america and for relations between united states and europe? yes, i have 25 minutes so i'm going to have to, you will find that i will sort of make a certain stark assertions which you should feel free to question during the q&a. say, i havegoing to no easy answers and i can guarantee you that none of them involve water boarding. these really are complex issues that cut to the most serious problems of international and national governments of our time. anyone who suggest otherwise is very probably a person playing to our worst fears to get something, money, of votes, pin number, whatever. i do hope that i can set up some propositions for further questions and discussion at the

end. let me start with the first question, what happened this tuesday? three days ago, bombs were detonated within an hour of each other during the morning rush hour of the busy airport in --ital of brussels as policy belgium and the metro station, maalbeek. the wreckage, police found additional unexploded bombs as well as something that looks like the will of one of the perpetrators. died today, 31 people have including two of the bombers, the third, i mean the fourth still seems to be on the run. more than 140 people were left orured and the perpetrators men, belgium citizens, muslims and a second generation african descendent. the irs, as the islamic state -- , the islamic state as

it is often called, has taken responsibility. four men have carried out the attacks, three of whom are dead and there appears to be a connection with the paris attacks of november 2015, the most recent case in which a european capital city and its centralas in fact the attack location. because of the size and scale of the location, it appears increasingly likely that there was a larger jihadi cell and network behind the four men that is likely to transcend national borders. while the islamic state is taking responsibility, it could be quite a while before we learned of the motivation of these individuals. it seems likely that these particular acts were already planned but brought forth because of the arrest of one of the paris suspects on the friday of last week. these attacks were brought forward in retaliation or two

preempt detection. brussels has more than 3 million inhabitants and is home to substantial muslim minorities originated from northern african countries like algeria, morocco, and further in the middle east including turkey. it also has a large sub-saharan majority, mostly from elgin -- belgium and congo and burundi. it is the seed of many embassies, universities, think tanks, 27 member states work in that there and it thousands of americans. the state department has a large mission to the european union

with people of deep expertise in the work of the european union. that theyften joke feel like a minority in their own capital, and that is probably true. as a city, brussels is an acquired taste. i have been there many times. not because of its chaotic urban planning, which defies all logic and rules. services, public and it's remarkable busyness. it also has these quirky charms that envelop you slowly with a warm embrace. a vibrant culture, friendly inhabitants, attractive housing, excellent food, the latter being something that belgians take extremely seriously. much like the big apple, people defended fiercely. to call it a hellhole as some is done is quite a remark. some think of it as your's beating heart. s- something give it as

europe's beating heart. i was at a conference there last weekend and i flew out to the international airport, less than 48 hours for the attack. and of my crickets as friends are from out of states, as far as i know but to close friends were in a taxi when the bombs went off. this tragedy was not an obstruction for me and others, it is about our loved ones, friends, acquaintances, neighborhoods and city. it is about europe as a civilization, policy and the project. the attacks of tuesday morning left the previous attacks in europe, are an attack on all of europe and all of europeans. that brings me to my second question, why did this happen? why in brussels? as i said, it will be a while

before we learn about the individual motivation that the four guys, who carried the suitcases and made them detonate , with the larger question is of course, why do so many european muslims, delta muslims at -- belgium muslims appear to be so easily recruited. after all, the brussels attack follows a pattern of bomb attacks by al qaeda and i.s. affiliated groups. 2004, london, 2005, paris, 2015. to read some of the analysis published in recent debates, most of europe's muslims are underemployed and get a wise. i would beg to disagree -- zed.toise

i would disagree. they need to seek a better life for their own children and despise organizations like al qaeda and the islamic state. such equally true that self alienated communities do exist in europe and they are a problem. the reason why they exist very broadly from one country to another and they should not be generalized. there are current factors, which are often combined, postcolonial resentment, citizenship without education or social inclusion or economic opportunity, or guesswork status meant to only last -- guest work status meant only to last for a few years. of illegalityife

lived in daily fear of being picked up and refer to a more oppressive life. the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings are willing to endure this for decades space to the abject misery of the conditions they left behind but it is also a european failure. add to this, more than one million refugees coming to europe from syria and afghanistan or chaos, poverty and oppression in places like libya and you have a truly potent mix for trouble. my guess is that the great majority of these refugees are bent only on sanctuary, not creating harm, but they are easily abused as cover, no doubt some of them are former bowl as potential tools and some may be terrorists and this is something we have to be aware of. the situation is heightened by of varying full abilities

the countries -- vulnerabilities of the countries these people migrate from. all of this, of course was exacerbated in the last half decade by the divisions created by the global financial crisis in 2008. some countries are seeing a recovery, but others are still grasping with the hardships they created. belgium unfortunately is something of a special case. daniel benjamin, a colleague of of the german marshall's fund, who now teaches at dartmouth had a recent political piece a couple days ago where he said 470 belgium muslims began

to fight in syria out of a population of 60,000, making it the top supplier of militants in western europe. he points out that belgium's deep functionality dust dysfunctionality between the two ethnic groups, one speaks flemish, the other french and paralyzed a domestic political crisis from 2007 two 2011. not only developed to not have the government to set up integration policies, or stronger security services, for 541 days it did not even have a government. that was longer than it took to form a government in iraq. offers who have more , have saidhan i do about the state

of belgium intelligence in police work. i honestly cannot presume to judge their analysis, but i do suspect there are no quick fixes and no fixes at all that will owork unless the address of belgium's domestic issues. europe, including my own country of germany are looking at all of this and wondering whether we having dodged the bullet this time, when will be the date when we do not? that leaves me organically to my third question, what needs to be done to fix the problem of islamic terrorism? toi had the perfect answer this, i would not be standing here, i would be working hard in beavering away in some european capital, but i do have a couple ideas based on the conversations that i have had in the work that i do. start, a bleak critique,

if you will. a lot of this discussion has to or the discussion always has an element of the hypothetical when you listen to people writing up that's now in the paper about what needs to be done. governmente intelligence services have been able to employ more surveillance on what was a brewing jihadi threat. if only obama had bombed the syrian dictator, if only europeans have taken more responsibility in the middle east. if only all muslims could be sent out of the country until we figure out what the hell is going on. onlys"k many of these "if are not helpful as singular policy subscriptions. and by not helpful, i am being polite. they have a kernel of truth but

the roots are far more complex and i think we do them, and ourselves and injustice if we pretend there are simple solutions. a start ifis already we understand that any approach to containing, managing in minimizing the problem, and that may be as good as it gets has to simultaneously occur at three levels, nationstate, europe and europe is a relation with its neighborhood and the rest of the world. ,f that something a tall order of course it is. the national level, it is easy for me as a german to center in texas and say, belgium needs to address it security problems and we would do better at integrating minorities. it does. but as we often know, all of us, and certainly germany ought to know, from our experience with developing nation building elsewhere, or in my case nationbuilding or democracy building at home, which we had to do a lot of after 1945,

throwing money at what is a governance problem, a problem of political culture will not only not solve the problem, it'll often make it worse. as shocking as this may sound, i think what we have to understand in the west and face is that we thatmistakingly assumed western democracies are essentially stable, that rules of law represent different institutions and a social contracts are things we can take for granted. dent from time to time. i have to say, one of the most compelling and moving analysis

that i heard of this problem so far is george packer's the unwinding, a book of 2014, which chronicles the lives of a dozen or so americans over half a decade and describes how their lives are affected by things like the subprime mortgage crisis, deindustrialization and a host of other factors. the common theme of all their lives is the cheapening of representative institutions and politics, the widening gap between the rich and the four individuals losing control over their livelihood in lives despite their best efforts. this could have been written about any country in europe, including my own and i hope that it will be. the problem that packer describes our problems we are going to have to deal with, and that for the first time in my life as a foreign and security policy analyst, not as a constitutional lawyer, but my

life thinking about external security and foreign policy, i have come to understand our essential preconditions and limitations on the ability of government to make ineffective foreign policy. this is where we are at and it is deeply serious. it is the first time really for people that think about the paternal -- internal affairs of the country are coming together. fact, let me give you another avenue at this. the case of belgium is uncomfortably like the case of greece. the reason the german government was and is worried about the dire state of the greek economy and the financial crisis was something financial experts describe as contagion. there is some of that on the transatlantic level because of the deep integration of the american european economy. it was much worse in europe.

the financial crisis was a huge external shock to the system, and because of the deep mutual integration of the european economy, the vulnerability of one statement the vulnerability of all. germany was accused of forcing its way out. i did not like the style of germany's finances, but he did have one valid point, and it is what i'm try to get out here, throwing money at an economy has profoundly dysfunctional as greece was unlikely to lead to lasting reforms that would benefit normal greek citizens. is that almost all nations in europe, including my own are struggling on one level or another to preserve the functionality of the state and its constitutional order for the smaller, poor and weaker states, it is not clear this is a contest they can win. to give you an idea from your

own backyard, think about puerto rico. it is heading toward a default. this is possible. it is possible and other places as well and it is a result of to thingsling apart we have not paid enough attention to. that leads me to the european level which is often invoked when people want to solve problems they cannot solve at the national level, and the dilemma of all of belgium's neighbors is that while terrorists are remotely connected, security is a national prerogative. , which ishe eu treaty the fundamental document, the unifying document for europe, sees an important goal for european corporation with security, foreign affairs has been kept out of the views of the european union. i do not want to give you the impression that europeans in the

european union have remained inactive. that was a wake-up call, and a lot of. upgraded theire intelligence and police abilities as well as their intelligence sharing among each other and the united states, by the way. security has been upgraded so we are far away from where we were 50 years ago. still, there remains serious to acles within europe full spectrum across the board, national sovereignty concerns, different cultures and preferences, different balances between security and freedom, threat perceptions and a very different technical human and institutional capabilities. if this seems weird to you, think of the difference between texas and vermont.

you will at least have the same line which, although i wonder sometimes. [laughter] it is, innmuller: fact, i sometimes think that given the fact that we have such different historical experiences that we have different lineages. it is astounding how much we have been able to -- languages. it is astounding how much we have been able to a comp us together, and one is the sharing of war and poverty, and the shared memory that some of all cultures, spain, greece and portugal, right-wing, fascist dictatorships have become successfully democracies in the course of being members of the european union. these are remarkable achievements and they are what gives life to the project still. it is easy to stand here, or like an italy, and stay, we need

more european integration. we need more european intelligence. euneed a you and security -- security union. it would be a very good thing, and i personally and for the pragmatic integration. i deeply believe that if we want to preserve the european project under the conditions of globalization and the external shocks that we are seeing, financial and refugees and wars and others, we are going to have to have a deeper integration, a combination of policy and rules on fiscal policy, energy, managing immigration, refugees, defense and domestic security and we will need this in order to preside over the project. anyone who champions this cause or tells europeans this is what they should do, must also be aware that such ideas have opponents within europe. for example, in poland or hungry, which did not escape

communism in their thinking to become part of another whichatural enterprise, for good or bad reasons, some people think of not that much different than the pact. understand that if we do go ahead with this, this could add impetus to the forces that want to break out of the eu who want to hold a referendum in the summer or who want the eu itself to break up and there are people that want that, too. there are serious discussions and some of the older western european countries such as belgium, the netherlands, luxembourg, some people in germany, the north, the baltic states who are wondering in case of a breakthrough they should not just formed a smaller,

tighter union where cultures and attitudes and perceptions are closer for us to forge ahead with deeper integration. i worry deeply about this because i think this belief other poor, more vulnerable countries behind in a makes it difficult for them to catch up. i am personally not a big fan of this, but this kind of thinking shows you just how complicated these questions are. to competition at once promote this kind of thing, deeper corporation or integration is going to have to make the case very swiftly. now, a couple words on europe and its neighborhood. it is also, i think, self-evident that europe can help to resolve the issue in the stability and security of northern africa. to some degree, this is happening already. several european countries are participating in the global coalition to deny territory to

syria and iraq. germany has been training and arming the kurds. klyt is a truly star development. this is not the time to engage in a competence of critique, of do not worry, of who is doing what wrong and right. our efforts to hit hard at i.s. in the same time come to a peaceful settlement in syria, to take the pressure off the refugee from the other end, from its origin, have forced us, the u.s. but also europe into bed with some problematic partners. turkey, russia. we are making compromises with some uncertain people and that undermines our legitimacy, let there be no mistake. arguably, one of the reasons we are dealing with in increased

group of fighters in europe is because they have been successful at establishing itself as a force against the irs and territory gain -- i.s. and territory gain. what does this mean for the u.s.? this is my final question. i have written done a lot of points that i think it will spare you because i am aware of the passage of time. i was going to try to be short and sustained. .f for any -- sus

america is far better integrated. there has been work on building trust between muslim communities and government and local communities, and there is of course uncontrolled immigration. our problem is not quite your problem. we do not share the same issues in the same way. , this is some thing i thought of a long time, you are entitled to stop the free riding, to test the shoulder on protection of european union'. that said, let me add one final

point, you also have legitimate security interest elsewhere in the world and an interest in saying, you europeans take care of your own neighborhoods, we have other things to do elsewhere, and we cannot expect you to help us. all of that is fair. i also have complete sympathy for ordinary americans who are tired of war and wary of the entanglements. i would also say, and i suspect that is not in defense of proposition to anyone -- and offensive proposition to anyone in this room, unless you pull e entirely, there are reasons for america to stay engaged in europe because many of our concerns are your concerns as well. stability, stability of energy supply, stability of northern africa, relationships with russia, all of these are first order strategic concerns for america.

that,ility to deal with our ability to share the burden, to take on a greater responsibility for all of that is not just an interest for us, it is for you as well. it is where we have significant overlap and, since one of the host of this talk is a jewish american committee, i would add that it is a concern we share, burning concern and one where we would want to work together. business of you who do , i do not need to remind you that the american and european economies are deeply integrated through investment, jobs, plants, factories, you name it. what happens in europe has an impact on the american economy and indeed, vice versa. finally, this does not need to be set but i will say it anyway, we share important values. values ise sharing of

bounding us -- binding us at the hip. having a good allies who share the same values and who can handle and resolve problems effectively is a good thing to have even for america. particularly for regions that are a concern to you. there is a great deal we have to talk about and cooperate about and to be worried about together. i think there is a great deal we can ask you for advice about that we can use your help on. one thing is certain. if and only if europe resolves its own security dynamic one we be able to join the united states in providing stability and security on a global level.