the last call for this morning. you to a, we take panel for him discussing the future of afghanistan. we take you there live. [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]

>> good morning, everyone. welcome to brookings. we are here today to discuss afghanistan, as you know. in one sense, it is still a time of year. hopeful.l 15 years into the afghanistan 9/11,n and 15 years after we know there is an ongoing very struggle throughout the broader middle east and in .fghanistan is itself we are glad you came to join in this discussion. there are couple of words i want to say before introducing the panelists. the approach here is to have a broad discussion framed by each of them. we will talk amidst ourselves and then go to you for our question. all want to commemorate and and the victims of 9/11, this -- the families,

soldiers and marines. in the and everyone else intelligence community who have worked so hard, offered a great sacrifice. it is just a day and moment to reflect and honor them since we are approaching 9/11. second, in the way of commemorating big event, i want -- my colleague who has been the communications director who is leaving brookings after today. we collected a few of the statistics that give a small indication that you can ever use metrics. time at brookings of .udget has more than doubled organize 1500 to

events like this one. she has supervised and orchestrated some 5000 or hervision radio spots by scholars. is going off to work on the important issue of refugees in the future. we greatly respect her policy andto public what she has done for all of us. i want to thank her and her team that have worked so closely with her over the years. a big day for brookings. [applause] as you know, we have outstanding panel.on this it is really a treat to not only gail but to recognize who we have appear. just to my left, one of the most diligent and intrepid and brilliant field researchers that met and been going to afghanistan for over a decade

back to dissertation days. wrote a book called shooting up afghanistan.out this remains a big issue there. to this day continues to travel and wrote onean of the best books on the subject, aspiration and , which i recommend to anyone who is not read it yet. speaking of the mission, next to allen, thel john brookings senior fellow, commander of the international force in afghanistan from the summer 2011 into the 2013, a 19 month stretch, which was crucial. i want to let you all know this marine who did a lot of other things in the

marine corps, beginning with create the infantry officer course at quantico, the event for training in the u.s.infantry marine corps, which did not exist prior to his role in that. then we know the marines trusted him. the navy then trusted him and -- admittedly he was a graduate of an annapolis but mid-shipmentjob of . the first time a marine was ever be responsible for sailors and that institution and capacity. muchtells you about how the navy had a high regard for general allen. time working on east issues at the pentagon in early 2000 before deploying. then from that point on, many

other jobs in the central command theater, including general to try us deputy, acting there, and ultimately, stepping down from government fall in a civilian role as a court nader for the president kerry in the campaign against isis. afghanistan, he was there during the initial downtime. by comparison, he had it easy. s in as the pete, general petraeus left and general allen was asked to implement the drive down. the good news for today's discussion, that meant general china -- involved in transferring security. this is the main fighting force at a time when the united states and down tod by 90%

roughly 10,000 u.s. military personnel in the country. coordinating the initial 2009 policy review on afghanistan and pakistan, a role that he played holbrook andchard produce the initial obama thinking about what to do with the entire region. that was after a number of years yet spent at brookings where he today.nior fellow he was a 30 year veteran of the cia. he played a key role on latesing crisis in the 1990's. also, very involved in the process.st peace bruce, in his time here, has received booksll related to the pakistan question. the other one is avoiding armageddon.

him -- his role to pakistan.ing thank you for your and old gents. now i am finally going to pose questions. we will start with general allen .nd then go to rhonda and bruce i want to as general allen for his overall take on the security knowtion and also let you that in a minute i will ask our newly arrived army colonel. this is analyst going back to their agency and spending a year with us. the eastern part of the country until last fall. very close contact them since then.

recentgive us a fairly update. first, we will get started. general alan, thank you for your service for what you did in afghanistan. back threeoking years later tracking yourself when there have been numerous acts of violence. how you see the situation, the good and the bad and the ugly? how do you feel about the profanation of- the past going forward? panelat to be back on the with you. this is a very important subject up on the anniversary. i remember it very well. being on the ship that day as they were trying to

figure out where life was going them.e i knew where life was going to take them and i knew it was to take me leading the war effort in afghanistan. you can do part afghanistan but never really leave it. at that moment when i took in july 20 11, it has been a special place to me. i will take a moment and recall all of our troops and allied troops who parish stiffness but to recall the sacrifices of the forces, the enormous sacrifices of the afghan forces and afghan civilians as well. we said before on this stage and places that the long-term success will show that. whether it is a political economic success is

be a function of the security environment and capacity of the afghan national security forces to provide the security over long time. we can go back and do the ports -- and postmortem on all the recommendations on the numbers and how they were implemented and where they are. numbers do not really tell the story. aftermath and the closing down of the mission and the establishment of support, we had 13,000 nato forces in theater. u.s. atso have been some point. 2800 or so our special operators and advisers. the situation on the ground in changed fromas time to time. there is a lot of debate

for how you would articulate the situation on the ground. termld definitely use the challenging. becomeuation has in fact more challenging. perhaps even worrisome in the months.eral it is not something that i think beyond the capacity of the afghan forces to hold over time and deal with overtime. having been very close to those forces for the better part of a and having seen afghan troops in combat, many of the leaders leave their troops credibly, not just that the level, but increasingly at larger level. regular brigade size operations, confidenceill have that afghan national security forces can pull this out over time. said, we have seen the

taliban resurgence be problematic in the past year or so. taliban in the north have become a challenge. moment, nearief humiliation for the afghan ultimatelyrces, but they were able to take back crisis significant human and the disaster of the friendly still, for hospital theh we all still regret casualties. we have seen a resurgence in security.iban a loss of the number of forced thehat has american commander in conjunction with the leadership to put additional american forces on the ground to at least capital.district that we will see that negative trend reversed, largely because the leadership

core, the area of hellman, just , has beenndahar replaced, and i think we will see improvement in the relatively near future. wasprevious commander largely incompetent. the challenge we face going forward is stabilizing of our to continue to affect relationships that we need to have with the afghans , not just a training world but include role to providing additional air support to the afghan national security in ways that we were unable to do before. will be of a lot of assistance to secure the environment, maintain the centers and not give up the district. at this point a number of

districts have gone into the hands of the taliban more than we would certainly want. i do believe over time they will be able to take them back. talk briefly about the u.s. decision-making. the number we originally recommended and ultimately were buried to somend extent. varied to some extent. number was both probably short of timetoo in terms of the initial obligation of those forces. as june of this sheer, all of the former afghan former american commanders in as late as june of this year. writing a letter asking to seize the draw down forces in afghanistan until such time as the new president after the

election can have the time to study the situation and determine whether additional drawdown requirements should be stabilizeer we should , or whether we should even go up in numbers. my conversations that continued with my life partners still on 40 u.s.nd, about partners on the ground today, go up ine need to numbers over time. in june of this year we asked that we stop the drawdown to president who will own the outcome in afghanistan the opportunity to study the thetionship between security environment, political economicnt, and environment because they are all linked. study the relationship between the three of those to determine whether the nato commitment is

satisfactory, both in numbers timelineility and in to support the continued training and operational of the afghan .ational security forces we will see papers coming out of brookings that continue to be the result of the combined general's and ambassadors and scholars who are attentive. the security environment is essential as a platform. forward politically and economically. the security platform is challenged today. i do believe a resurgent taliban and, believing that we were that down to a number could permit them to affect the tipping point with the afghans, foiled that have plan. by staying at the number we are around 8500,ere and even with the next president changing theare capabilities mix and increasing .he firepower

i believe what we will hold what momentum,ght, change and i am pragmatic on the subject. if we get our decision-making right in the afghans are inficiently discriminating who may permit to leave the and 200 first and strong. are pretty they are in the east and north where the pretty big bite is. that is a pretty big outfits. the kandahar region has strongly had a very outfits. the holman area is the heart and soul of the taliban. -- the hellman area. that has always been a tough fight. they have fired more than 70 officers from the afghan security forces and police. start, but we

have a lot more to do. command inrship in afghanistan is truly determined .n patriotic it is not uncommon for that part of the world to have the challenge. we recognize this by stabilizing our numbers, ensuring capabilities are the best suited for the needs of the act and forces, and iity think we will be ok. thank you. thank you general allen. because of the security situation that is so paramount and on our mind today with the recent attacks, i want to give comment -- time to comment well.t you are seeing as i wanted to ask you to add your perspective. >> good morning. i would underscore general comments that the security is challenging, very

challenging. challenging most 2002.any time since certainly challenging from the perspective of afghan people and also from international civilian. it will very much enable or assist for economic growth. afghanistan has become a difficult environment with few being who live in kabul able to travel outside of kabul. it is not just international. just traveling is a major risk. going up north has essentially become an permissible for afghanistan's. what we see today is a that is cut off from

country.ts of the casualtiesf civilian is the greatest it has ever been. it cannot bemeans reversed. but nonetheless, the security deeply intend to and undermines many elements of the economic elements and economic elements much a stage of insecurity in the country. i have been communicating intensely over the past 24 hours. quite disturbing to see the reactions from the attacks. just the level of going about every day issues has been at the

challenges and problems. it is becoming a major issue for people. there arerse different situations. it is not just about the taliban. it is also very much about and politics. indeed, a very significant elements of the security life, anddaily taliban cane exploit is the number of kidnapping going on in the country. those target international, but also afghanistan businessman.

what we are seeing is something that at one point happens and the height of the crisis when the number of people targeted for kidnapping, the type of people targeted for kidnapping down from very rich businessmen to white middle-class people would be quite vulnerable. probably imperative the government takes on the kidnapping, the pervasive criminality. this debilitate every day life. linked to politics and is interesting and challenging situation in afghanistan. the initial configuration of the

government was the last two years. then there was to be consideration of the arrangement at various points and consolidation. believe there would be a longer-term resolution of .he relationship that has not happened. a look tour of reform has been stark for over a year. now they are saying the government should come to an is no longer a .pace it was believed by now he would be appointed prime minister and

system would be changed to a parliamentary system. something he ever bought into. misunderstanding. they are now being compounded by voices inside the government. karzai has been called for the government. that it would be unconstitutional and many fear would not be helpful to the political process. so we are in the state of weeksng for the next few how this agreement will be resolved and whether the government will stay in this constellation or whether there will be changes. certainly there will not be

for at least half a year, likely more than that. meanwhile, there are other outside in kabul and kabul. fire but connthey have tried to have not been able to accomplish that. some of this gameplay friday to actual firefight between supporters of the president and a northern group. i think that because it although it has no lasting impact of the or how security works

in afghanistan, but at the same time, the firefight again stimulated a sense that this may for disintegration. this raised recent memories of the 1990's. i believe there is an in these difficult elements for the afghanistan government and afghan politicians and people. for too long, there was a sense among afghanistan politicians can work the ship of state as much as possible to milk greater political forms ofnts and other payouts and politics can be constant brinksmanship and crisis making. thatnistan cannot afford

anymore. it has to be about governance. very long time afghan politicians would say it could disintegrate to the 1990's, it can never go back to war or maybe the firefight is a wake-up call that politics needs to fundamentally governmentwant the gets out of the current crisis, monthr it is later this or even later, and there is a new government and the new opportunity toan work with other political power brokers and politicians to deliver in a more robust and has notrupt way that been the case so far. i think the state of or -- isan politics is better or worse than ours. that one. i will get bruce engaged as

well. ask your take on the pakistani angle. anything that you want to talk about. i know that when you did your , you had a certain pakistan.ing of a certain history. i would be curious if things have gone more or less as you expected. is the how much pakistani role this central duck go much is it more of a secondary factor? >> thank you for organizing this. a pleasure to be here with all of you. let me start with a piece of good news. when president obama announced his strategy in march 2009, it very clear about what the top goals and priorities of and party was.

that was to disrupt, dismantle, and effete al qaeda and afghanistan and practice and. in 2009 that meant primarily in pakistan. this essentially moved al qaeda from one side of the line to the other side. by 2000 and eight and 2009 al by 2008 and 2009, was robust andre fully recovered and engaged in a global terrorist operation. in 2003 we had the madrid attack , the deadliest terror attack in since therope beginning of the nine/11 era. in 2005.n attack 2006 tod an attack in

simultaneously blowup jumbo planes over the atlantic. we now know in 2009 al qaeda was planning a massive attack on the u.s. -- new york city subway , which was foiled. al qaeda was the proper goal of 2009.ited states in 7.5 years later al qaeda in does -- has not been destroyed but substantially and put on the back foot. continuedquires monitoring and surveillance, but improvedtion is much from what it was in 2008 and 2009. i think there are significant lessons to be learned. one of them is the united states has to be offense of as well as thinks of in how it the problems. characterize the

.ituation as largely defensive we have been trying to shore up afghan government to shore up the afghan national security forces. that is difficult to do when you basically secede they will have permanent sanctuary in a -- in pakistan. taliban for at least 14 of the past 15 years have been able to operate out with impunity but patron ship of the army.ani this goes beyond simply and safe a sanctuary haven for the taliban and their families but active patronage support. we know the pakistani army and service actively engaged in training, helping fund the operations and , includinge attacks

those inside kabul. learn somehave to lessons about this when the next president thinks about going forward. in may of this share president has authorized a drone operation as head of the afghanistan taliban. that's mission is very controversial. hear people say it killed the peace process and others say there was no peace process to kill. modelk it should become a . i think the next president should consider this and look back on how we develop this for we progressed against the taliban.

we do not need to have the tempo of operations that we had against al qaeda. we are not going to destroy the taliban through drone operations, nor should we try to . thehould try to disrupt sanctuary safe haven. in essence, we should take the haven.out of the safe this provides a good starting point for talking about this. there was a pakistani passport pakistanio him by the army. it was under a false name. making -- shows he is to defy overtrips

the past five years and several other trips to bahrain and probably other gulf states. what was the purpose of 18 trips to defy? to fund raise. after 254 repeated moves for fundraising. sympathetic audiences in the gulf state. i think we need to target that well. i think we need an aggressive move by the department of statery working with gulf heart nurse to prevent that kind of fundraising from happening in the future. we're not going to destroy the -- taliban-band through that but we should bring fundraising isre as difficult to do as al qaeda fundraising is as difficult to do. significant progress over the past 15 years.

getting out of the business of letting private individual support al qaeda. we need to do the same thing afghan taliban. we of course have other objectives and goals as well. one of the most important is to support the entrenchment of democracy. there is goodsay news 15 years after september 11. thrivingtoday has a free press. responsible but thriving free press. questionnded of your about whether their free press is as responsible about our free press. the transitionen from one democratically elected government to another democratic elected government. that is a milestone in the history of pakistan's democracy.

it should not be overlooked. them address their own pakistan and go after it in a way which we have never seen or. pakistan today is a unique country. a country that is a victim of terrorism. there is a her rent this act of being carried out almost every day. pakistaniely, the army continues to be a victim of terrorism and other parts of the world. that calculation was going to be difficult to do, but i think that is one of the priorities the next president will have to focus on when he or she thinks that in a to do with fan of pakistan situation. afghan and pakistan situation. mike: thank you. for those of you that do not study this thing full-time, let me remind you of the different

numbers we are talking about. basically the afghan army is organized into six main core. these each have a geographic zone. if you can imagine doing a clock wise circle in your head and northeast.f in the border.ortheast 201st core. then we come down south to the or over to kandahar in 205. hellman was added as a separate court later. 215.t its own number as there is 207 and 209 coming back around. lead u.s. mentor in 700 americans deploying. he will codirect whenever i get a second.ust these were the largest formations the u.s. still had in the field. most of the others were

counterterrorism that were available on demand or central intelligences or for another kind of institution building mentor in the city. he was essentially in the most forward units the united states had. that is what makes up the 10,000 strong force general allen was mentioning. so with that, i want to see if he would like to add to the discussion with his sense of the security situation in the ease and the progress of afghanistan army. -- security in the east. -- i am anen infantry officer. i am an infantry officer. the early days to

the surge to where i left the country in october of last year, all different missions. formed the perspective that call rationally optimistic about the afghan national security forces and the , muchment in afghanistan to what general allen already alluded to. this is my first day working as fellow withecutive my peers. i hope i am not graded too harshly. afghanistan is hard, and it is hard all the time. things the panel has mentioned, the physical of coldy, issues change, endemic corruption, illicit trade, etc., etc.. just as to be more than graveyard of empires. things that change have to happen over very long amounts of time. so evolutionary changes my perspective for the past 12 years.

infantry task force commander and then my year,e experience last different expense -- experience. we were there to partner with afghan security forces in a counterinsurgency to help the makes whenreach and the reach to its people as a level.t and also, to help provide sufficient and effective fieldng forces in the with our efforts as a model on missions and operations throughout the country. lots of experiences during the search. people contacted the government, took a lot of effort. cups of tea in that country, it is three .allons that discussion and dialogue was very important. i learned a couple of lessons that year. one, there is no better instrument for counterinsurgency

in that country than their own afghan security forces. in the meeting with governors, officials the afghan could leave the discussion, participate that discussion in a supportive role to the elected government. that was impressive. a lot of the problem-solving happens between security forces and their government without coalition intervention. that was pretty good. however, i noticed the particularly troubling problem belt without coalition involvement, coalition , afghan national security forces were very troubled. hard to get into the field and fight. combat with kind of you cannot want it more than they do. leadershipo have the , systems, support, but there will be a requirement for plan, prepares to and ss operations and transition

next campaign. i left thinking that would never happen. we spent a long time in western world -- ande after world war ii. we were not on that path in a can a stand. in january i deployed with about a third of my brigade. to the east again. i had been at bagram and our brigade commander in the east. we did not think they would be able to fix this on their own with just us advising and offices. level.ed at the court -- core level.

that is about on par with the height of the surge forces the coalition had in the country in the first place. so now they owned the problem. then hellman happened. the district centers start getting overrun. there is a resurgent taliban effort. , which was a good thing because now the taliban is competing in warfare village to village with the same population. the people who picked up on that request for the afghan national security forces. the comment from the g2 is this thing that can happen to us. we can sit back and watch them fight. so these forces had a problem holding checkpoint and problem holding district centers without . coalition effort after the setbacks and

supportant national from the government and reorganization of the national apparatus, they were the objectivese and places that were taken with difficulty. i looked around in the east were in manga hard, and all the other provinces in the east where the terrain is contentious and population has compliant and the border sanctuary, very contentious area. why weren't the checkpoints being overrun? why wasn't large terrain being taken by the taliban and held in perpetuity? i got to talk to a brigade commander in the summer of last year. after pleading for assets for the coalition to get airpower, which they are still trying to capability, he

said we can do it without you. , thistoo much ownership is our country, and regardless, we are not going to leave. between 2011 when general allen came on board in 2015 all of the national afghanistan security forces op -- occupied all of the outposts. case, theyicular doubled down on that. more.ade for example, the tesh river ar, veryn kuhn a contentious place. when the afghan security forces took ownership of the problem, they saw a different strategy light, and they built more outposts tocombat connect the provinces together government would start having some security where it never had it before. they wanted that. we told him not to do that from .ur experiences

they had the initiative and wanted that to happen. lastly, in the east, course get cores get paid to protect key terrain and population. the population center in towns people from and the having absolute chaos going on. they were afforded an opportunity to plan campaigns country starting hellman, and then afghani this on a vtc, and said what would you like to do his answer was i want to clear terrain and make sure it safe from the taliban coming up from the southwest, because jalalabad has had several car and -- pressures on the population. states did not plan

this. the coalition did not plan this. there -- this was their effort. bit bute them a little this was their effort. the corps commander and a small staff set up a base and had grade -- three maneuver into that isis that was contested by and the taliban. the first operation, clearing 167 ied's by themselves with no fatalities. >> the spring or summer of 2015 go >> the spring of last year. the perspective in leaving of 2011 when they needed us to go with them on every mission just about to afghan security forces leading a in thed tactical effort field without much coalition assistance. there were using their own d30 howitzers and clearing terrain succeed theo

terrain objectives away from the enemy and holding that with checkpoints, with police to follow on the end and governance of the district level to reach out to the people. that is counterinsurgency their way. left october of last year with we have gotten a lot further along than i would have thought possible. to echo this comment, i would rationally optimistic. it would take international , commitment to keep the effort going. i think we will all be surprised with the outcome. it will take president khani and abdullah. so let me now do a final quick go to you.hen i want to ask one question to each of our panelists, following about goingou said after the safe areas, as we all just northare not

and south and the remote, record terrain. this is where people think now taliban leadership is located as well. is there any way to go after them there? >> there is. it is difficult. not easy by any means. the may operation demonstrated stand. operate in beluga fiction put out by the obama administration to make it easier for the government of respond.to we were actually quite deep. drone operations will not be a feasible alternative in a major urban area like karachi. the good news from the standpoint of thinking about how the safe havens and sanctuaries , you cannot run them

efficiently with the top leadership all the time hiding safe house. so not only do they have to go field, they have to go out and visit commanders and see their troops, and that is ability.e is full the we do not need the temple of operations for the cia drones we in using against al qaeda 2009 and 2010 and 2011. that would be an unnecessary effort. periodic, maybe once a quarter or three or four year, operations against senior afghanistan leadership operating in the safe havens and sanctuaries to make it more difficult for them to do as usual. if we let them operate and do haveess as usual as they for the past 14 or 15 years, i do not see how this operation tilt in the direction we want it to tilt.

general allen mentioned the peace process and the afghan assessment for peace process. i think he got it absolutely right. the process has been why should we engage in a peace process echo the enemy is leaving. later the americans are be gone, and when they all gone, time will be on our side. we have to change that copulation. i think the president's decision to leave the troops and was the decision. i think now showing them the safe havens and sanctuaries are not as a as they have been also tips the calculation. it also helps to tip the balance of power within the pakistani system. pakistan is an unusual country and a lot of ways. it has a civil military balance that is not imbalanced. the military runs the afghanistan war. elected officials do not run the war. we saw that in the peace

process. it is pretty clear the chief of army staff was not a supporter of that. and in the end, his vote matters matters more than the prime minister. if we save the sanctuary i think we will in the long run help the prime minister and civilian government for making the case we cannot go on this way and we will not secure victory, we need process.or a military >> excellent. was wanting you to take up on , and let us angle know your assessment as to whether we can be successful in absence of a very big shift in pakistani behavior or our out andto reach influence the events through natoer use of drone or forces, and secondly, because you worked with dr. connie and questionwould be

whether they are likely to make this thing work. seen the discussion of the difficulties in their , the long-standing challenge of the government overtake created to differences, do you think the gentlemen are likely to make it work, or do you said it is starting to fall apart? both of those questions if you willing. general allen: the frontier pakistan and pakistan is very complex. when i was commander, i thought good relationship who was chief of the army staff. well the day i spent in his office looking at the border with the intent that while i still had tens of thousands of maneuver troops to include the great italian commander at the time in

ar we had options to run operations along the border to an effect that had been achieved in previous opportunities. the next morning, roughly the 25th or so of november 2011, and one of my unit hasperations basically devastated to pakistani border post. that did two things. it shut down the relationship of the spec commander. the groundt down line of communications, over which 80% of my support came. we never during the time i commanded have the opportunity achieve the potential energy of combined operations along the border that could have made the difference that we had hope to. pakistanrence with the

taliban and assisting pakistanis to deal with their own taliban problem in north and south. we did not have that opportunity. we did have something we have yet this morning, and i think more needs to be done. we did have something called the trilateral commission. periodically i and until pakistan went silent and then came back up later on my and chief ofe i staff of the afghan national security forces and chief of the meet for a dayld periodically, and our keyrdinate leaders at locations and ranks would all meet together. was -- my hope is, and the colonel said it very moment -- that it very well a moment ago, my great ambition is that some link there will only be two chairs at this .able

in other words, we can create the cooperation of relationships between pakistan where eventually as we will do what will happen, which is to go to a very small number or zero balance. the relationship is sufficiently bust -- robust so they can sustain the security of the frontier. that was not allowed to happen during my command for a variety , and i wish we had, because i had the maneuver forces i think to do that. today inct is absent the relationship. , we go through the motion of afghanistan attempting to have a relationship with pakistan, of staff of the afghanistan army attempting to with sharif,sation but it is not where would have

been had we been able to conduct 2012 andate it from 2013 and on. wally provide for the security as we need to in the eastern sections of afghanistan and federally administered areas, it will only occur if we are able to create a relationship between the national security forces and their counterparts across the border. bruce,ree entirely with as we begin the process of to first stabilize our presence to increase support , conceivably with the new tosident doing even more with natoto forces secretary-general, having a relationship with the pakistani military and being able to leadershipe taliban and the afghan pakistan to be able to strike on both sides of the border with precision will a great deal.k

with respect to the current configuration and afghanistan, i we are stumbling along. just don't see over the long time under presidential system that we can have a relationship between the president and chief executive officer. it was a band-aid to keep the outcome of the election. we may now be seeing the cracks in thehe process that will either if we do not pay close attention and something to try to reinforce cassation oreal shifted from the current system it is today, we are liable to see the cracks widen and could conflict. i do not think we are there yet, think there are indicators factwould point to the that we will have to see a fall in political revolution.

this was never intended to be a permanent solution. interim solution under constant pressure and increasing pressure from the taliban naked difficult to the country, difficult to get the economy on its feet and certainly difficult to command and control and afghan national force, which is still being trained and brought up to time. situationy difficult and was not intended to be permanent. we need to look to getting to a permanent outcome. have would beon i your view of the state of the economy, which is obviously not great, but the production of opium, which is not a great situation either. is there anything useful besides dealing with these broader security questions to help the afghans mitigate the economics and drug reduction realms? start by saying this

moment, afghanistan and the opportunity with the u.s. elections and a new president is kenme to perhaps asking what extent the effort in afghanistan is not a military break and defeat an enemy and to what extent is it about a political process and political evolution in the country? i believe it is the latter and even any conceivable increase in u.s. military engagement in afghanistan in the next year will not be sufficient to operate on the basis that this war can be simply about wiping out the taliban. hard or takeery nation of how u.s. forces are

engaged. but engaging in afghanistan through the prism of politics and government. themselves need to come to the understanding and when afghano security forces say it is ok if killingban and isis are each other and we just sit back and watch, that has profound political implications. it discredited already very contestable government in jalalabad and the government was not able to stay. we just watched the fighting take place. a key problem for the afghan government has in for it the

decade and a half, governments and local aids. it is a brutals, and thuggish entity, but they provide more stable and predictable governance than governance that is constantly istestable, governance that alc,and handed over to the or governance that is outright discriminatory. half, it wasand a one of the most politically places inc, vicious afghanistan and it has not been difficult and the city has been taken from the taliban.

the issue of pakistan is very usedtant, but it is almost as an excuse to not improve politics and government that they need to improve themselves. convenient distraction on both sides for perpetuating needses that -- targeting to become a political. while it makes perfectly good sense to try to take away the central safety from the telnet and pakistan, we need to be asking about the political implications of that. ask about if we kill this taliban commander, whether on the afghan side or pakistani side, what are the repercussions within the movement? rise to ag to give more vicious element within the taliban?

raising some of these questions. although line is and overlapsinches everything, security is political. our thinking about the strategy in afghanistan needs to be about politics and governance. , to come back to your question on the economy, the economy is in good shape. it was bound to be and is. a is vastly inadequate for country on the level of and poverty that afghanistan faces. it might be what japan and other countries would like to have, but it is not sufficient with massive economic shrinkage and

contraction, there's no way out of it. sadly, that is one of the reason there continue to be retention losses. news, namelygood ministryfinance managed to raise tax revenues, very important economically and politically, sending some signal that not everything can simply be stolen and hopefully the trend continues. breakis no easy way to from the job shortage we are seeing. and some of the refugees go to europe and those who have been fighting under iran sponsorship

in syria, this is the level of options that people take. , there are limited that are very bad and disastrous options, mainly to up thewrap -- to ramp poppy crops. yes, the taliban and makes money on poppies, but so do very many , and it is not surprising. this is the economic lifeline of the country. inevitably, if anyone wants minimal political support, they sponsor orminimum deeply engage with the opium poppy economy. there are two options available

in the current context of security. politicallyink about interdiction targeting and think about who are the haverous actors that access to the poppy economy. it is about who should have access or who absolutely shouldn't have access and who is less dangerous in having access. not just the stakeholders and a telegram. there are a variety of political actors that might become problematic. interdiction should really be about enforcing the stability of a government rather than operating under the illusion that it can alter flows and

financing. element is toial start seriously boosting treatment options for afghans. the vast link is in afghanistan and the treatment center is very and there are simple steps that can be done on prevention and more robust treatment options. >> thank you very much. have too much time and we have a lot of you and a lot of expertise in the room. i want to ask my colleagues to take notes and choose one question to answer from each lounge -- from each round. let's start with the woman in

the second row and then the woman in the fourth row. >> i'm a correspondent from afghanistan. thank you for your hard job in afghanistan, the time you have been in afghanistan was very sensitive. policy never gets changed toward afghanistan and there are high expectations from the u.s. authority. stateslicy is the united supposed to take to get policy toward afghanistan? expectationsyour from the upcoming brussels conference? thank you for a very thoughtful discussion.

as people do not remember, we have been engaged in afghanistan since 1980 when jimmy carter issued a finding. i would like to ask the question david petraeus famously asked -- tell me how this ends? donald trump, listening to one of his key military advisers -- i use that phrase loosely. he says he's getting out of afghanistan if elected. hillary clinton said she is going to double down and put more forces into afghanistan. tell me what is right and what is wrong with both positions. morning. i go to american university. afghanwork for an nonprofit. i have a question regarding opium. reports opium survey poppy cultivation is down by

19%, the first client since 2009 and potential production is down by 48%. what do you think caused such a decline in what factors threaten afghangress of limiting -- afghanistan's opium-based economy? framere is no short-term in which the opium poppy economy could end. if our goal or baseline is when we will end it, you will be bitterly disappointed as we have been many times over the past decade. several countries that successfully ended opium poppy cultivation. one of them is thailand. countries, weer

succeeded in eliminating opium poppy cultivation only to be shifted to another country. as long as this conflict is on, there will be opium poppies. production down by 19% does not mean very much. it has been fluctuating up and down and is driven by factors and overproduction, disease is oversupplied by the level of production. those numbers, we can discuss the way you are measured without the problem.

that is what really matters in the economic spillover issues. there are places opium poppy doesn't have to be, but there are other viable alternatives. others have returned to opium they are trying to generate assets that sell quickly. the fundamental question is how does it end? at the risk of sounding funny, it will have to answer to political process. it can't just simply eliminate or wipe out the taliban.

they are treating a lot of their soldiers as cannon fodder. fast numbers of those soldiers do not come back, so there are real limits to the policy. one slow and, a very, very slow and is one where we hold long enough in the afghan government until theyenough suffer from their own mistake. hoping that your enemy will make enough mistakes is a risky proposition. negotiationssimply

and we're going to come online, but it is about politics in afghanistan. ending constant brinksmanship once and for all before and all falls down. what we do with pakistan or what we do with the taliban, as long as government continues to be pernicious, the conflict will not end. >> thank you. >> pakistan is a very complex place. afghanistan has multiple layers in the individual actors involved in pakistan's policies toward

afghanistan have complicated layers. i want to complement harlan -- i've been looking for months to find out what mr. trump's posture is on afghanistan. he has not indicated the u.s. is going to all out. i thought his policy was to make afghanistan great again by building a large wall on its southern border. now i have found out that is not indeed the case. politics is how this ends. politics inside afghanistan, politics between afghanistan and pakistan, regional politics more broadly. one of the parts of this strategy was that this was not a southeast asian strategy. we did not try to incorporate the views of central asia in any serious way.

the new american strategy needs to do all of those things. i have laid out some specifics -- we need to be willing to engage in more operations. decisiveo be much more in trying to go after afghan funding and a lot of that goes through pakistan at the end of the day. at the same time, we have to reengage the pakistanis. i would hope whoever is the next president of the united states would invite nawaz sharif to states and inited would hope the next president of the united states will travel to pakistan on his or her watch and engage with them while they're there. clinton as secretary of state went to pakistan on numerous occasions and was very blunt.

she said somebody in the pakistani establishment new where osama bin laden was living and i think in retrospect, she turns out to have been very prescient on that. we also have to realize the next administration is not going to have some of the options the obama administration had. in the first two weeks of obama he sentnto office, somewhere index as of 20,000 troops into afghanistan. i think that is almost inconceivable that the next president would be able to do that. almost is the caveat because trump has proven to be unpredictable in so many ways, who knows? he might even be able to pull off something like that but i think it would be very hard. that option i think is much off the table. i think you could make changes in the composition of american forces and change mission

requirements, but you are not going to spend -- going to send 20,000 or have the magnitude president obama has unless the situation deteriorates remarkably. something else the next president is not going to be a do is send substantial military assistance to pakistan. when president obama came into office, he was an enthusiastic supporter of increasing economic assistance to pakistan. and president obama, over the course of the last 15 years, have provided pakistan with in excess of 25 ilion dollars of military assistance. but it just not possible today. the mood on hill about pakistan has changed traumatically and has changed against providing

assistance to pakistan, so that option will be off the table. maybe you can get some increases in aid in the economic field but i don't think you're going to be able to do it in any significant way and i think he will be hard to sway this conference to provide substantial military assistance for anything in that order. i think it's going to be a complicated action and i think we need to willie -- be willing to be on the offense and we have to engage hard with the pakistani leadership, and that is going to be a difficult and complicated situation. >> i could not agree more that the solution is a political solution and never were our recommendations with respect to the residual nato force intended to give the capacity to wipe out the telegram. our hope had been to give the afghan national security forces

and the police, to give them the capacity to control the taliban and render their operational threat and potential existential threat to a level where it could be handled over a long time by standing afghan forces and i that with the right configuration of allied capabilities and nato capabilities, for the right time and right resources, i believe that security platform can be theained, upon which medical stability can move forward. the security platform is irrelevant except in so far as it creates the environment where political progress and stability can move forward and economic stability and progress can also take hold.

the other two legs of that stool can only flourish if we have a security stability that can only be sustained by a long-term nato presence in that country, well beyond 2020. and i think2020 many of us recognize we did not get to the point where the armed forces of the republic of korea or philippinees forces or colombian forces were able to achieve a level of stability or capability they could have by being there for three years with numbers that were irrelevant. the only way we are going to be there with capabilities that are relevant that gives us the capacity to push them up while they are able to build their security platform for stability and economic progress. i don't know what that number

is. my suggestion would be the next president, as i said before, take the time to do the kind of to look atcessary the situation in the government and security platform so that they are all looked at holistic way and we can take the steps necessary to put in several thousand more or changed the combination of forces to ultimately achieve that stability. pakistan, i used to get congressional delegations that would come through in afghanistan and it seemed to me that taking an implication from bruce's comments, invariably after they would get the brief from me, the intent was to go to islamabad and give them a piece of their mind or move into the normal american punitive reflex with respect to pakistan.

i reject that and i advise against it because we needed to engage in pakistan. it needed to not be a punitive relationship because there's only so far we can push until there is something we can lose control of and i don't think the pakistanis even know how far that could go. there have been help will political developments -- helpful political development that we've seen the change from one civilian government to another, but we have not seen the military abilities brought to bear. but, to be fair, the pakistani military maintains a large component of its strength in the expeditionaryser component in the west. that is generally not well resourced and they live in difficult circumstances. in many respects, those troops are punjabi and are viewed as a

foreign occupying power as much as we would be if we were there. we can make the greatest contribution is to try to facilitate the kind of dialogue and conversation between afghanistan and pakistan that can move us in a direction where they can have a relationship necessary to get a relatively effective piece process going. >> we have time for one final lightning round. take threel questions. the two gentlemen here in the seventh row and then the woman here in the fifth row. question about the funding --m middle eastern countries how significant is it, who is doing it, and what is their motivation?

>> thank you very much. i'm with the pakistan american league. afghanistanntion in -- when anything goes wrong, they place the blame on pakistan . in spite of having communication those forces 2011, killed 37 people, including the commanding officer. they financed the taliban in afghanistan. could they tell us what is the incentive to finance the telegram? -- the taliban. be ank there should

approach at all stakeholders should be included in that negotiation. >> i'm a founding board member group inrgest women's afghanistan called afghanistan women for women and i have in a dod contractor supporting that. there seems to be an agreement that a political solution needs to happen. there's a large to satisfaction with the national unity government and there are talks of new elections. this is what i have heard from my afghan colleagues -- they say if there was a loya jirga today, they would scrap it entirely or call for new elections. i wanted to get your thoughts on that. what other solutions might work politically? if the u.s.say leaves us alone, we might create a new government, but if the

a newnsists on government, it might continue. i went to get your thoughts on that. the misperceptions commonly repeated in afghanistan is a national unity government was foisted on afghanistan by the united states. we have to remember that there to resolve prior highly contested presidential elections and by the time the united states was engaging with afghanistan on how to end the crisis, the country might have ethnic strifee of with forces mobilizing around

kabul. there was talk of a military military by miserable governance, corruption, it alsotic politicians, in pakistan there are military fortunately in afghanistan we have not had one. there is a chance the military. apart on ethnic lines ending our ability to maintain the current level of counterinsurgency. it is politicians and not just and a variety of key other powerbrokers result what to do about the unity movement.

calls for elections are infeasible. there is no security in progress for that. calls for that fuel political tension but are not realistic. there will have to be some sort of negotiations tween the key actors. jirga cannot be constitutionally held because of parliamentary elections. a royal jirga will lack credibility. there is nothing inevitable that

the government needs to stay in its current configuration. there nothing inevitable that it needs to be renegotiated. what is needed is for afghan politicians to recognize how to andy us their country is instead of just engaging in infighting agree to support a government whose purpose will be to deliver better governance and increase security. afghans often say they don't want the u.s. to be involved and yet all the time that many politicians run to the u.s. to negotiate among the sandbox fights that are taking place. view the u.s. should be less engaged in holding the afghans by hand. i say that having previously

called for the most difficult development is managing the political processes in the many pernicious political processes. although i say that afghans often use pakistan as an excuse pakistanis often use afghanistan as an excuse and the country is equally troubled by poor government -- governance and very nefarious policies that sponsor the taliban. >> thank you. >> a couple of brief comments. when i came back and did my final briefs around washington i talked about what i believed to be the future of afghanistan. with the righted combination of sustained support by nato the a nsf could over time to be able to take care of

themselves. to deal with the threat of the taliban. hasink the next president the opportunity to improve on that. i also believe with the continued sustainment of the afghan national security forces we could handle the safe havens in pakistan. they would always be a means by which the taliban could replenish themselves and repurpose their capabilities. i believe over time with the right kind of nato presence to deal with the taliban and in the country particularly in the east that the afghans could handle the security situation and deal with the safe havens in pakistan. i believe that the existential

threat to afghanistan is not the taliban or pakistan. it is corruption. willing tons are shed their self-interest until we are able to deal with the institutionsure of both at the national level and very importantly which makes until we areicult able to deal with the pernicious nature of corruption which is corrosive of democracy and an impediment to building real capabilities within the institutions of a government. afghanistan is going to be stuck where it is today. poverty scale of poorest country in the world. this third or fourth at point. in terms of corruption it ranks

slightly above somalia and north korea. to see realer progress in afghanistan and has to be at the point where the ted fromions can be wres the criminal capture of organized crime and the willingness of afghans to do right for each other and their country. i spent a lot of time with our intelligence services. trying to pinpoint the exact origins of funding for the taliban is very difficult. large amounts of money come out of the gulf. i don't believe it is state-sponsored. i didn't believe it when i was the commander. i do believe there are key individuals in the gulf that are providing funding. it iser to solve that

about getting after the financial system that makes it difficult for that to occur and cooperating with the national governments in the gulf to put pressure on those individuals. i watched with great interest in the summer of 12 as syria exploded in a civil war. i watched the funding be diverted from the gulf into syria and the funding for the taliban plummeted. it he came very difficult to field the kinds of ied's. the operational balance. it is not insignificant the funding that is going into the gulf. with regard to the border incident i will have to talk to you separately. it was an unfortunate it's been. i am still in prayer over the lives of the lost pakistani military troops. the shooting did not start on our side.

it did not start on our side. it got beyond both sides. it was a matter of trust on both sides. we been better organized we probably could have solved it before the really heavy shooting started. theould have prevented outcome we ultimately had. it lost us nine months of cooperation with pack is and which could have been quite valuable to the progress of the war. we regret those losses by the pakistani military. >> i will be brief. next president of the united states inherits the longest war in american history. debates it ising incumbent on these people to tell us what they are going to do about this war. we need something serious. a real debate about what the united states is going to do. the issue remains very serious

for many reasons you have already heard. al qaeda has been disrupted and dismantled significantly in pakistan the one fact we know about it is its resilience. on altake off pressure qaeda you will see that resilience once again. the second point is about funding. general allen addressed that issue very carefully. it is a murky area. a substantial amount of talent and funding comes from rich private donors in the gulf states. divide because it is one of the least governed spaces in the gulf states. the united arab emirates is supposed to be a single country. anyone who has ever visited knows it is seven countries.

we need to put considerable effort into working with the governments of the gulf states in order to persuade them to take the kind of aggressive actions against funding for the afghan taliban and they have already taken against funding for al qaeda and the islamic state. >> in addition to what you have heard today we are producing this paper with a lot of the former commanders. a number of us in the scholarly ranks that we hope will be of use to the next president as well. let me thank all of you for being here. please join me in thanking the panel. [applause]

>> a look at the underground subway at the u.s. capitol. one of the ways lawmakers get around.

lots of people heading back to school and back to work including members of congress returning after a seven-week recess. comes to us from c-span producer craig caplan who was on the senate subway this morning. legislation to allow certain firms to bypass stock sales rules. today the house is the first to gavel in starting at 2:00 eastern. will be considering 13 bills today including one to let the library of congress collection oral histories from and anothermily's dealing with exports of c origins and the cucumbers. funding for zika virus prevention and research. you can watch that on c-span2. donald trump in greenville, north carolina.

he released an open letter saying a course correction is urgently needed in america's national security policy. focus on security issues as he campaigns today. you can join us live tonight at 7:00 eastern on c-span 2. c-span continues on the road to the white house. >> i will be a president for democrats, republicans and independents. >> we're going to win with education. >> ahead, coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates. monday, september 26 is the first debate live from hofstra university. tuesday, october 4 vice presidential candidates debate at longwood university in

farmville, virginia. sunday, october 9 washington university in st. louis posts the second debate. takesird and final debate place at the university of nevada las vegas on october 19. live coverage of the debates on c-span. listen live on the free c-span on-demandor watch c-span.org. in laosdent obama is today. willnounced the u.s. double its funding to the country to expand work removing bombs dropped during the vietnam war. the u.s. dropped more than 2 many ofcomes of bombs which did not explode. the president also talked about the importance of the transpacific partnership. his comments were about half an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, the

president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you. to the government and the people of laos, thank you for the kind welcome you have extended to me and my delegation. i am very honored to be the first american president to visit laos. [applause] thank you. told this hall is where you come together for the national singing contest. i know that you celebrate your musical traditions. i'm not going to sing today. so you should not worry.

as you host leaders from across southeast asia and beyond i want to thank laos for your leadership. today the eyes of the world are on laos. i know that that maybe a little unusual because laos is a small nation next to larger neighbors. the result too often richness of your culture has not been fully appreciated. as part of my visit i am grateful for the opportunity to know laos better and share your story with the world. i know you cherish the beauty of the land from the mist covered mountains and sunsets over the mekong, the achievements of ancient civilizations that echo in the ruins, manuscripts preserved at your temples. tomorrow i will experience some of this heritage myself.

i only regret that i know this is called the land of a million elephants but secret service will not let me ride an elephant. maybe i will come back when i am no longer president. in your daily lives we see the strength that draws so many of you from your buddhist faith. faith that tells you you have a moral duty to each other to live with kindness and honesty and that we can help and suffering if we embrace the right mindset and actions. we see the values that define the people of laos. modesty, compassion, resilience and hope. i was treated to the best of lao culture and cuisine.

in all of you here today we see the diversity that is the strength of this nation. a tapestry of proud ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. you are truly a people of the heart and i thank you for welcoming me with such generosity. realize that having a u.s. president in laos would have once been unimaginable her. six decades ago this country fell into the civil war. neighbors and foreign powers including the united states intervened. as a result of that conflict and its aftermath many people fled or were driven from their homes. u.s. government

did not acknowledge america's role. it was a secret war. for years the american people did not know. now many americans are not fully aware of this chapter in our history and it's important that we remember today. from 1964 tors 1973 united states dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs. laos. more than we dropped on germany japan combined during all of world war ii. laos is the most heavily bombed country in history. the bombs fell like rain. villages and entire valleys were obliterated. ancient plain of jars was devastated. countless civilians were killed. that conflict was another reminder that whatever the cause, whatever our intentions,

war inflicts a terrible toll especially on innocent men, women and children. stand with you in egg knowledge and the suffering and sacrifices on all sides of that conflict. and from the anguish of war there came an unlikely bond between our peoples. today the united states is home to many proud laotian americans. many have made a hard journey to refugee camps and relocation building it's in a new country. become they have americans they have held onto their heritage war shipping in their temples, honoring their elders. even now they remember a beloved song that if we depart from our homeland and flee far away from her we will always have you as our true friend as long as we live. as a new generation has come of

age more laotian americans have made their way here to their ancestral homeland. one of them said, our heart and home have always been in laos. in the spirit of reconciliation is what brings me here today. our governments will continue to have differences. that is true with many nations. states will continue to speak up on behalf of four we considered universal human rights including the rights of the people of laos to express yourselves freely and decide your own future. even as our governments deal candidly with our differences i believe as we have shown the best way to deliver progress for all of our people is by closer cooperation between our countries. that's why today the united states and laos have agreed to a new comprehensive partnership to

guide and deepen our relationship for years to come. thatartnership recognize the lao people's democratic republic is an independent sovereign nation. we do not seek to impose our will on laos. we seek a relationship based on mutual respect including respect for your independence and sovereignty. will continue to deal with the painful legacy of war. on behalf of the american people especially our veterans and military families are thank the government and people of laos for your humanitarian cooperation as we have worked together to account for americans missing in action. result ofed that as a this visit we will increase our efforts and bring more of our missing home to their families in america. i also know that the remnants of war continue to shattered lives here in laos. many of the bombs that were

dropped were never exploded. thousands of lotions have been killed or injured. farmers tending their fields, children playing. the wounds, a missing leg or arm, last a lifetime. as president i have dramatically increased funding to help remove these unexploded bombs. laos is clearing laotianss, and fewer are being injured or killed and we are saving lives. there is still more work to do. i am proud to announce a historic increase in these efforts. the u.s. will double our annual funding to help laos expand its work. [applause] this will help laos expand its work to remove even more bombs, allow laotians to farm morland and increase support for victims.

i will bear witness to this work tomorrow when i meet with survivors. given our history i believe the united states has a moral obligation to help laos heal. as we continue to do with the past our new partnership is focused on the future. we want to be your partners as you invest in the well-being of your people and especially her children. i believe when any child anywhere goes hungry and their that is astunted profound injustice. we are promoting nutrition and bringing more healthy meals to children in school so they can grow strong, focus in class and realize their full potential. partner inbe your improving education. i'm told there is a saying here, a tray full of silver is not worth a mindful of knowledge. he will help more children learn how to read. we will bring more american teachers to help teach english.

i'm proud to announce an initiative that's very important to me and to my wife michelle. called let girls learn. it is common to laos and nepal. [applause] we believe the daughters of laos have just as much talent and potential as your sons. [applause] none of their countries anywhere in the world can truly succeed unless our girls and women have every opportunity to succeed. the same opportunities as boys and men do. [applause] we want to be your partner with the young people of laos as you strengthen your community and use businesses and facebook to raise awareness for the rights and dignity of all people.

that's why as part of our young southeast asian leaders initiative we are helping men and women across laos develop the skills you need to succeed. companies,top microsoft and general electric, are helping to increase training in engineering and technology. young people in laos shouldn't have to move someplace else in order to prosper. you should be able to work and build a better life right here in laos. partner in trade and commerce with the world. when a countries invest here it should create jobs here for the people of laos. as laos pursues economic and labor reforms we will work to encourage more trade and investment between our countries and the rest of the region. i hope more americans come here as well. to experience your country and the beautiful culture and forge new friendships between our people.

as laos throws we want to be your partner in protecting the natural beauty of your country from your forest to your rivers. as laos meets the growing need for energy i want to work with you to pursue clean renewable energy like solar. and let's help farmers protect their crops and villages adapt to a changing climate. we should work together so development is sustainable especially along the mekong. upon which millions of people depend for their livelihood. the mekong is a treasure that has to be protected for future generations and we want to be your partner in that process. this is a future and our countries can build together. i'm optimistic that we can do it. i'm confident because my part of a -- visit is broader agenda. a key priority of my foreign

policy has been to deepen our engagement with the peoples of asia. last visit as president i want to discuss why the commitment of the united states urethis region will end for the long term. america's interest in asia-pacific is not new. it is not a passing fad. it reflects fundamental national interests. states across the political spectrum there is widespread recognition that asia will become even more important in the century ahead both to america and the world. region we see hundreds of millions of young people with high expectations for their lives. tradingour major partners in most the world's growing middle class. growth here can mean more jobs and opportunity in all countries. region is home to five of their treaty allies and some of the world most capable military

which means asia will shape the course of global security. and this region is home to more than half the humanity. who will be central in the fight against challenges like climate change. so for all these reasons i have work to rebalance our foreign policies so the united states is playing a larger and long-term role in the asia pacific region. we strengthen our alliances with our new defense guidelines, japan and the united states will do even more together to uphold regional security. we have expanded our collaboration with the republic of korea, including on missile defense to counter north korean threats. today i'll meet with president pot to insist that the international community remain united so that north korea understands its provocation also overwhelm continue to deepen its isolation. with our u.s. marines now rotating through australia, we can respond even faster to regional challenges. with our new access agreement

with the philippines, our militaries are closer than they have been in decades. to keep the peace and deter aggression, we have employed more of our most advanced capability to the region including ships to to singapore. and our allies and partners of collaborating more with each other as well. so our alliances and defense capabilities in the asia pacific are as strong as they have ever been. we have also forged deeper ties with emerging economies and powers. with indonesia and malaysia, we're opposing violent extremism and addressing environmental degradation w my recent visit to hanoi and ho chi minh city, we have shown our commitment to it our relationship with vietnam. we welcome india's growing role in the asia pasifpblgt we have deepened our cooperation with regional institutions,

especially here in southeast asia. as part of our new strategy partnership, we have agreed to key principals including they'll remain central to peace, prosperity in the asia pacific. the united states is now part of the east asia summit and together we have made it the leading forum in the region for addressing political and security challenges, including maritime security. we have increased the trade and investment that create jobs and opportunity on both sides of the pacific. since i took office, we boosted u.s. exports to the asia pacific by 50%. our young leaders initiative is helping for than 100,000 young men and women across this region start new companies and ventures so we're connecting entrepreneurs and investors and businesses in america and in asian with each other. and thanks to our sustained leadership, 12 of our nations have come together in the transpacific partnership to establish the rules of trade for nearly 40% of the global

economy. we have also stood with sitens on democracy and human rights. we have expanded our support for civil society groups and open government. we saw another democratic election and transition in indonesia. and as the first u.s. president to visit mian march, i'm proud the united states is now supporting a historic transition toward democracy and i look forward to welcoming the stale counselor to the white house next week as we stand with the people of myanmar and their journey towards pluralism and peace. alongside all these efforts we have worked to build a constructive relationship with china. our two governments continue to have serious differences in important areas. the united states will remain unwavering in our support for universal human rights, but at the same time we have shown that we can work together to advance mutual interests. the united states and china are engaged across more areas than ever before. around preventing iran from

obtaining a nuclear weapon to our shared commitment to denuclearizing the korean peninsula, to our historic leadership together on climate change. so will i say it again, the united states welcomes the rise of a china that is peaceful and stable and prosperous and responsible player in global affairs because we believe that that will benefit all of us. in other words, the united states is more deeply engaged across the asia pacific than we have been in decades. our position is stronger and we have sent a clear message that as a pacific nation we're here to stay. in good times and bad, you can count on the united states of america. and the question going forward is, what will the future hold for this region? will disagreements be resolved peacefully or lead the conflict? will economies continue to intergreat or succumb to protectionism? will human dignity be upheld or

denied? will the international rules and norms that have enabled progress in region be maintained or will they erode? with the time i have left allow me to share our commission, the values that guide us and the future we're working toward. our basic principles for peace and progress here in this region, including laos and across the asia pacific. first, we believe that all nations and peoples deserve to live in security and peace. we believe that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every nation must be upheld, and we believe every nation matters. no matter their size. we believe the bigger nations should not dictate to smaller nations and that all nations should play by the same rules. america's treaty allies must know our commitment to your defense is a solemn obligation that will never waiver and across the region, including in the east and south china seas, the united states will continue to fly and sail and operate

wherever international law allows and support the right of all countries to do the same. we will stand with our allies and partners in upholding fundamental interests, among them freedom of navigation and overflight. lawful commerce that's not impeded. and peaceful resolution of disputes. that's the security that we seek. we also believe that just as nations have rights, nations also have responsibilities. including the responsibility to work together to address problems no nation can solve alone. so many of today's threats transcend borders and every country has a role to play. we will have to cooperate better together to stop terrorist attacks and to prevent the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons. we will have to work together to avoid the worst effects of climate change. we have to work together to stop the horror of human trafficking and end the outrage of modern day slavery. these are areas where we seek

deeper cooperation. we believe in prosperity that is shared and reduces poverty and inequality by livelifting up the many and not just a few wealthy people at the top. rather than simply extracting another country's natural resources, we believe development has to invest in people in their education and in their skills. we believe trade should be free and truly fair. and that workers and the environment should be protected. we believe the government should not conduct or knowingly support cyberenabled threat of intellectual property for commercial gain. we believe that there needs to be good governs -- governance because people should not have to pay a bribe to sell their goods. that's the kind of development and trade we seek. that's why the transpacific partnership is so important.

not only because t.p.p. countries including the united states will be able to sell more goods to each other, but it also has important strategic benefits. t.p.p. is a core pillar of america's rebalance to the asia pacific. and the trade and growth it supports will reinforce america's security alliances and partnerships. it will build trust across this region. i have said before and i will say again, failure to move ahead with t.p.p. will not just have economic consequences but call into question america's leadership in this vital region. so as difficult as the politics are back home, i will continue to push hard on the u.s. congress to approve t.p.p. before i leave office because i think it is important for this entire region and it is important for the united states. i believe that nations are stronger and more successful when they uphold human rights. we speak out for these rights not because we think our own country is perfect, no nation

is, but not because we think every country should do as we do, because each nation has to follow its own path, but we will speak up on behalf of human rights because we believe they are the birthright of every human being. and we know that democracy can flourish in asia because we have seen it thrive from japan and south korea to taiwan. across this region we see citizens reaching to shape their own futures, and freedom of speech and assembly and right to organize peacefully in civil society without harassment or pier of arrest or disappearing, we think makes the country stronger. a free press that can expose abuse and injustice, makes a country stronger. and access to information and open internet where people can learn and share ideas. makes a country stronger. an independent judiciary that uphold the rule of law. and free and fair elections so that citizens can choose their

own leaders. these are all the rights that we seek for all people. we believe that societies are more stable and just when they recognize the inherent dignity of every human being. the dignity of being able to live and pray as you choose so that muslims know they are a part of myanmar's future and christians and buddhists have the right to worship freely in china. the dig nist being treated equally under the law so that no matter where you come from or who you love or what you look like you are respected. and the dignity of a healthy life because no child should ever die from hunger or mosquito bite or the poison of dirty water. this is the justice that we seek in the world. finally, we believe that the ties between our nations must be rooted in friendship and trust between our peoples. i think of several lou shan

americans whose families came to the united states as refugees. our nations are connected not just by policies but also by people like john da whose family settled in our state of nebraska and after high school joined our military, served with our elite special forces, and ultimately gave his life for our nation. his mother said he is the son of the lao people and he sacrificed for us and we honor him. a girl who ted by came to america when she was 7 and is back here today. for years she urged the united states to do more to help remove unexploded bombs here in laos. there are many problems in this world that might not be able to be solved in a lifetime, she said, but this is one we can fix. so we thank you for working to fix this problem.

and we're connected by stacey who is here as well and who i met earlier. her parents came to america and stressed the importance of education. today this proud laotian american serves in our embassy here in laos. i feel a sense of home, she says, as if i have known this country before through my parents. it feels like we have come full circle. so, stacey, on behalf of all of us, thank you for helping to bring our countries closer together. [applause] so these are the values that guide us, and this is the partnership that america offers here in laos and across the asia pacific. respect for your sovereignty, security and peace through cooperation, investment in the health of children, education for students, support for entrepreneurs, development and trade that creates jobs for all

of us and protects our environment, a commitment to rights and dignity that is born out of our common humanity. this is our vision, this is the future we can realize together. and based on my visit to laos and the proud work of the past eight years, i believe that americans and the peoples of the asia pacific will be able to say to each other, as the song goes, we will always have you as our true friend as long as we live. thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> on the presidential campaign trail here in the u.s., donald trumpp is in greenville, north carolina, today after releasing an open letter this morning by 88 retired generals and admirals who say a course correction is urgently needed in america's national security policy. he's expected to focus on security issues as he campaigns today. join us live for coverage from greenville tonight at 7:00 eastern time. it's going to be over on c-span2. nd a look inside his opponent, hillary clinton unveiling her plane anti-press corps who will travel with her yesterday. hillary clinton traveling in a plane now large enough to accommodate the press corps to travel with her. this is just a look as she greeted the press on her plane this morning before taking off for tampa, florida. back in d.c., unveiling a

recently restored capitol dome in the rotunda of the u.s. compole. this is a look courtesy of c-span's craig kaplan at what members of congress will be coming back to as they return from their summer recess today. the house the first to gavel in today starting at 2:00 eastern time, 11:00 pacific, and starting debate at around 4:00 eastern. members considering 13 bills today, including one to let the lie brare riff congress collect or ral histories from he gold star families and another measure dealing with exports. the senate gaveling in at 3:00 eastern resuming work on defense spanned spending and funding for zika virus prevention and research. you can watch the senate on c-span2. >> at c 1357b.org you can watch our public affairs and political programming any time at your

convenience, on your desktop, laptop, or mobe device. goes to our homepage and click on the video library search bar. here type in the name of a speaker, sponsor of a bill, or event topic. review the list of search results and click on the program you'd like to watch or refine your search with our many search tools. if you're looking for our most current programs and don't want to search the video lie brarery, our homepage has many current programs ready for your immediate viewing such as today's "washington journal" or the events we covered that day. c span.org is aub politic service of our cable or satellite provider. if you are a c-span watcher, heck it out at c-span.org. >> democratic and republican analysts discuss this year's election at the annual steamboat springs freedom conference talking about the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates, the possible effect of undecided voters, and the few tufere two party system. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

[applause] kellyly: i'm going toint dues nigh panelists. first i want to go through kind of what we're trying to do. so this is a very divisive election year. a lot of strong feelings about both candidates right now. so we have a diversity of opinions. i think all three of these people have something to add to the conversation. the goal is not change who you vote for, it's to let you understand the discussions going on right now. with that we have ted trimpa, president of the trimpa group, national consulting company. he served on the board of a ton of nonprofits, including democracy alliance, progress now, third way, an engagement laboratory. the atlantic has called him colorado's alternative to karl rove. if that's not enough i hear he's an incredible rooftop gardner and has a knack for growing

things that don't normally grow in colorado. next to him we have james taranto, editor of opinion journal.oon. you probably read his best of the web today column. i think he is one of the only people i know who makes his entire living based on critical thinking. and he has good taste in cigars and is probably single-handedly responsible for the resurgence of the word kur if you havele. we have kelly maher, republican commentator for nine news denver. executive director of compass colorado, a free market organization. and she has a pet wallaby. it's the cutest thing ever. it's on instagram. i'm a little obsessed. i thought we would kick this off first by giving each of the panelists an opportunity to kind of lay out what they think about this election. let's start with you, ted. ted: first off i want to say

thank you to jennifer and rick for having me here. a special thank you goes out to bob and claudia in our resident coloradoans on the steamboat institute board. i have to tell you being the avowed resident liberal i feel a little bit like a circus animal. but i'm happy to be here and this is something i was definitely looking forward to and appreciate kelly including me for it. when i look at this 2016 election, i think that it's important to frame it in the context of what i think is happening in terms of the evolution of how we do politics and also what's happening in terms of the evolution of our parties. i think there is such a level of disenfranchisement and distrust that it's more than i have ever seen in the 30-some odd years i have been doing political work. it's definitely more than anybody has seen in the last 10 or 15 years.

that's why in part i think we ended up with trump on the republican side. that is definitely why in part given i have been doing democratic politics for so long that we had bernie sanders on the democratic side. to all my democratic friends i say, listen, we have to pay attention to our far left because what happened in the republican party will happen to us if we don't figure out how to address it. given that, the next problem i see is we now have a process where our -- way we do electoral politics has now become the way we do policy politics. and i'm the first person to say as long as it's legal i'll do it in order to win a race. in order to exercise power you have to have t that's what we have been doing in colorado for a number of years and that's why we have a resurgence of democrats that are here, but the one thing that we do do here is when it comes time to do policy, we do it together. because what i find really frustrating is it's easier to poison a well than dig one.

we have too many people handing out poison and not enough people handing out shovels. the is particular election bottom line for me is, it is far too soon to say hillary is going to win. we're one terrorist incident away. and we really should be watching the rise of gary, gary johnson, that number in some states, in colorado it's north of 15. when you push these votes, they vote trump. so i think this could end up being a very competitive race, particularly given the unfavoribility ratings with had hillary and her other troubles that she has. i want come back to the economic numbers that steve did earlier, by the way the economy has been much better with democratic presidents than republicans. we'll get to that. jillian: kelly? kelly: first off, thank you to the steamboat institute. i think we all attend a lot of

these conferences, i see a lot of familiar faces in the room. i think one of the things that we do often is that we will sit in a room and surround ourselves with people who think like us. and we will all agree. and we'll all nod. talk about the fact it's the apocalypse and the liberals are the worst, yet we haven't taken time to have real in-depth, honest, tough conversations with our liberal counterparts. ted is an evil genius. there's no other way to put it. he is really largely the -- has anybody in here read the blueprint how democrats won colorado and why republicans should care? it's a great book if you haven't read it about long-term political infrastructure and why it's so important. and largely that was created and pushed and the architect of that

was ted trimpa. i think that having this conversation, especially this year, where we're all coming forward, although disagreeing, but in good faith, to talk about really what is an unprecedentedly ugly election. it's something that we all have to face. we have never in the course of what i remember in politics, and i know i do look like i'm 20 but i'm not any longer and have been working in politics a while. i've never had a year where both candidates are so hated by everyone. and frankly, the trump people will say, hillary sucks. and the hillary people will sayle trump suction. and both of them think that the other one is going to bring on

the apocalypse and that is the argument. and i haven't yet heard -- a really good and coherent and consistent forward thinking positive argument. based on voters disengagement, that tells me that it's time for us to rethink how we do politics as a business moving forward. if we continue the way we have done so far, people will continue to disengage and continue to be -- one of the things for this panel is that we can be forward thinking and we can think about what a shining city on the hill for democrats and republicans could look like. jillian: james? james: i thought i was going to be the one taking a contrary view here because most of the pundits who analyze the election are arguing about whether hillary clinton is going to win n a lyndon johnson landside or

saddam hussein size landslide. so i guess i assumed everyone would be the same view. i agree with ted, i don't -- i reject the premise that the election has been decided. august is awfully early to declare a winner. that said i do acknowledge that hillary clinton is the favorite based on current poll numbers and events so far. but to put that in perspective, you go to a website called election betting odds dot-com, you'll find probabilities based on bets people are making in betting markets. these are people risking their money on the outcome of the election. it's an irish betting market because there is no state in the united states that allows betting on political events. these things aren't always right, brexit was something like four to one under dog in the betting markets and it passed. the figure for trump is just about 20%. sounds like not very much. sounds like a very small chance.

on the other hand, put that in perspective if i were to roll a pair of dice and ask you what i'm going to roll, your best guess would be seven because that's the most common combination. the odds of rolling a seven are about one in six -- they are exactly one in six, which is a little under 17%. if i were rolling a pair of dice you wouldn't say to me no way -- there's no way you're going to roll a seven. give it up. based on that probability, trump i think has a shot. now, of course the comparison isn't -- doesn't exactly work because a pair of dice, the probabilities a matter of pure math. a simplecies tefment you know where the randomness is. with politics much more complicated system. what you're measuring there is uncertainty. let's talk about some of the sources of uncertainty. one is simply time. we have 74 days somebody said until the election.

a lot can happen in 74 days. ted raised the possibility of events like terrorist attacks, other things like if there is another attack on police. or things that we may not even anticipate. a known unknown is the debates. one may have assumptions about how the debates are going to go. remember, trump is a very unpredictable guy. sometimes assumptions even how trump has to be in a debate don't pan out. i remember reading an analyses of the first republican debate which said everyone did well except for trump. he clearly lost. rubio was the big winner. they did focus groups and surveys of voters and the voters said trump won. it may be that pundits are not -- don't always anticipate either what trump is going to do or how people are going to respond to him. also the polls, you mentioned gary johnson. a lot of these polls they

consistently show mrs. clinton in the lead, but quite a few of them show a very large number of people undecided or voting for one of the third party options, gary johnson or jill stein and i guess maybe they'll start including this guy, mcmuffin, whatever his name is, the quoif curve alternative -- conservative alternative. third party candidates tend not to do anywhere near as well in he actual voting as they do in polls. john anderson, for example, in 1980 was polling 26% and ended up getting less than 7%. the one exception to that is ross perot who got almost 19% in 1992. think billion ross perot, he was a businessman, a political am tue, had a tendency to say crazy things, he was running on a platform of september --

skepticism about trade deals and immigration, a lot like donald trumpp. aybe what we have this year is 92 if perot would have gotten the nomination. who knows how that would have worked out. if perot run as a republican and got the republican nomination. that's why can't go on the election the way things stand now. jillian: let's dive right in. it's well-known these are two of the most hated candidates in american history. real clear politics average, 53% of americans had an unfavorable view of clinton. and 61% had an unfavorable view of trump. so i want to know from you guys how did we get here? do you think that american voters get the politicians that they deserve? nd are they really that bad? ted: first off to talk about hillary, if you had spent your

entire life having dumpster diving going on in your alleys because people are trying to dig up dirt on you, innumerable books written about you trying to tear down your character and make you out into something you're not, and for a while a media machine going after her as well, of course your numbers are going to be down and somebody who is going to be defensive. now i can't sit up here at the same time and say that how she's handled the situation was necessarily the right decision in the first place. and then how they have handled it since then. it is what it is. on donald trumpp i think he is more of an example of the distrust and disenfrance chiesment. people are pissed. if we don't start paying attention to the fact that they are, we're going to continue seeing something like that happen. i think that that's driving more the negative numbers on hillary than may be on questions about

her, herself or her character. james: i don't think her numbers were all that great in 2008 when she was also the inevitable democratic nominee. 2008 was a little different because you had an extraordinarily talented young politician come in and actually beat her. anyone but hillary vote on the democratic side this year was a grumpy old 74-year-old socialist. nobody thought bernie sanders was going to be serious. i would echo your point earlier about the -- how this is going on in both parties. i attended both conventions and i was struck that ted cruz at the republican convention got booed for declining to endorse the party nominee. and it was my understanding -- i didn't do any reporting to confirm this, it was my understanding some of the people booing were his own supporters because they wanted the party to unify. bernie sanders got booed for endorsing his party's nominee.

the sanders people i think might actually have been more bitter about the outcome than the trump people. i think there was -- i was in the hall for both trump's acceptance speech and mrs. clinton. mrs. clinton was interrupted by hecklers at least a dozen times. i heard some of them and other times you could tell they were across the hall but you could tell because there were these seemingly random chants of hill-a-ry. ted: they were to cover up. james: they were trying to drown out the hecklers. republicans typically get hecklers, too, but they are outsiders. they are not people who are delegates to the convention or whatever. i recall trump being interrupted once by hecklers. and he actually handled it very well. he said that it's the moment i remember most of what was actually rather forgettable

acceptance speech on his part, but he said instead of, as he had done at some of his earlier rallies encouraging people to go after him, he just said, isn't cleveland wonderful? isn't the cleveland police department wonderful? i thought that was -- he's perhaps learning. ted: it's an example of where the level of disenfrance chiesment and distrust, that fire took off later on the democratic side than i did on the republican side. and had that -- had that started two or three months earlier and had the sanders campaign been more aggressive. it would have been a much more competitive primary because when you think about it, this is someone who i think passed one bill his entire career. spent most of his career not as a registered democrat. describes himself as a socialist, yet doesn't get what that means. and then ignited a base of people that really outside of his rhetoric don't have any real connection with him.

so what that says to me is it's less about the policies that he's talking about and more about the rhetoric and the passion that he was giving and people were attracted to that. i think that's the same type of dynamic we saw happening with trump. james: before this year, like trump, he had never run for office under the banner of the party whose presidential nomination he was seeking. jillian: this goes back to a theory i have, which is i think the democratic party is two to three cycles behind the republican party. lly: because i remember 2006 caucus, 2008 caucus, i was working for congressman bob. but i remember like -- i was setting up the caucus. and i had gone through historical data trying to figure out what is the highest number of people who would show up to this caucus. and we were blown out of the

water. like absolutely wall to wall --ple who really had kind of these new like libertarian, ron paul revolution -- just came in, took over frankly our party structure, kicked out all the establishment, including me at the time, and took over in kind of this resurgence. it was a little bit before the tea party, but we thought exactly the same thing in the caucuses this year in colorado with bernie sanders people. just absolutely came in, blew the doors off democrat caucuses, absolutely like beat hillary at the caucus. then took over at the precinct level, at the county level. and frankly we'll see what happens at the state level. but i think the actual core of the democratic machine in

colorado is fundamentally very different than what we saw a year ago. jillian: what i'm hearing from all three of you is there is a lot of division within the parties, but it's also important that they unify. what does that path look like? how concerned are you that they'll unify by going more polarized? ted: speaking as a democrat i think we're having a better shot at getting some of that unification. i don't think folks are going to run left. my concern is will they go out to vote? particularly with younger voters. just making sure we figure out some type of connection. i do want to take off on one point that kelly made. this will be controversial, but i think a lot of what the republican party and what you guys are facing today is a result of seeds that you sewed -- sowed, with the tea party movement and some of the larger funders fueling that thinking this could be a way to reform

the party, that thing took off way more than i think. so people who initially made that investment thought they were going to do it. now, if i were you, i would be somewhat upset because we saw this in colorado, a lot of the people who funded this effort are now hands off, trump's not our problem, we're not going to do anything about it. and if i were you i would be ticked off because you are getting the pay to clean it up. james: hi a column earlier this week asking if the republican party can survive a trump loss? the argument is as follows. a basic function of a little party is to after the competition is over, after a nominee has been chosen, to unify behind the nominee. and the republicans made a big deal about this at first. you remember in the first debate in august, 2015, the first question asked, everyone remembers the rosie o'donnell moment, but the first question sked, is there anyone who will

not pledge to support the party's nominee and foresake any possible independent candidacy? he's asking for a show of hands on a negative quefment only trump's hand goes up. -- negative question. only trump's hand goes up. this made republicans nervous. so they went out, i assume it came from within the top ranks of the r.n.c., all of the candidates including trump, i believe in september of last year, were induced to sign a pledge to support the party nominee. fast forward to march when it's down to trump, kasich, and cruz and cnn town hall all three of them say they no longer peal bound by the pledge. -- feel bound by the pledge. kasich said it was silly to sign it in the first place. cruz said i'm not in the habit insultorting people that my family. trump says i don't support

people who are mean to me. cruz and kasich both refused to endorse him, and mitt romney, and jeb bush, and other elder statesmen of the party. it seems to me if trump had been the one to lose the nomination and then refuse to endorse the nominee, even if he had run an independent and spoiled the election for the republicans, i think the party could have recovered from that easily enough because they would have said this guy was never a republican. this proves it. we real republicans can get back together and rebuild. but at this point trump was the choice of the republican party under the rules that the party set up. nd is people who are indisputably real republicans, jeb bush, ted cruz, john kasich did not support the nominee, does this not set a precedent so if ted cruz and john kasich have a bitter nomination battle in 2020, assuming again that trump loses, that why should either

one of them feel compelled to support the nominee? let's say it's some young firebrand who challenges kasich and comes in a close second. and sees ambitions for himself in 2024 and thinks it better suits his purposes if the party remains divided. so i wonder and maybe kelly will have something to say about this, how account party possibly continue to function if they can't unify behind a nominee, regardless of how repugnant some republicans might find the nominee. kelly: two points, i want to respond to ted's frankly controversial comments earlier. he a.s.p. and infrastructure shout out by way on the executive director, you can donate online, much of that has been a direct response to,

frankly, stuff that you make in the state of colorado and franchise all over the contry. very successfully by the way. nd so it is -- i tend to think that a lot of this is a function of-dirnl' going to get real nerdy, a function of campaign finance reform and a function of the fact that three campaign finance reform money has moved from the candidates themselves to pieces of infrastructure. like progress now. like a.s.p. and so voters can no longer be -- can no longer hold the candidates themselves responsible for speech. because they can say, oh, no, i didn't say that. a.s.p. said that. or progress now said that. so without that voter accountability, without somebody looking at a ballot and checking the box and saying, oh, no, that

guy was a super jerk, i did not like that, that has removed a lot of the responsibility and therefore i think has made the rhetoric worse. i want to start there because also if you want to talk about holding your nose and voting for somebody -- i think john mccain is a great guy. i'm very grateful for his fabulous service to this country. i think mccain-feingold was one of the biggest affronts to the first amendment in the last 50 years. we don't talk about it a lot because it's nerdy and campaign finance reform, but it is changing our political landscape. when i think about donald trumpp and the fact that many people in leadership are choosing not to endorse him, i actually look back to colorado politics because colorado tends to be this microcosm of things that happen nationally. everybody in here remember dan

maze? anybody? no. really? ok. dan got the nomination, republican party here in colorado, lots of people once they learned more about him decided that that was really not the path for them. and so another guy comes, tancredo, former congressman, he joined the american constitution party and ran third party. he created almost a crisis in the state by creating a different balance with what was considered a major party in the state or not, but i would like to remind everybody in this room that after dan maze, we got corey gardner. we have the ability to pull tofplgt maybe not on trump. i -- pull together. maybe not on trump. i still think there is a path to trump and we should be continuing to have those conversations and be pushing back on those people.

our polling says about 20% of republicans, whoever the chairman is, said his numbers show about 5% of republicans haven't yet decided how they are going to vote and probably won't until october. and that is a base that if donald trumpp wants to win must turn out for him. so i think there is a path there, but there is also, if the incoming apocalypse does happen, there is also hope on the horizon. james: i want to challenge your analogy, though, dan maze was his name. 2010. and you said people learned about him and decided after learning about him that he wasn't really their cup of tea. kelly: fair analysis. james: you didn't say that's with trump. jeb bush and john kasich and ted cruz and some other minor ones

including the guy with the name from south carolina, all signed that pledge. after having gone through at least one, probably two debates with trump. everyone knew what they were pledging to. so they sign this pledge on the theory, well, trump -- whole idea is crazy. can't possibly win. we had kasich in for a meeting last december and he said, i don't take donald trumpp seriously. -- trump seriously. they signed this pledge knowing that what they were pledging was among other things to support donald trumpp if he became the nominee. you can't say they didn't do it with their eyes open. kelly: it is not a perfect analogy. but i am trying to be a little bit forward thinking in terms of say, ok, we have in this state suffered really pretty close to an implosion at the top of the ticket.

there was actually a senate candidate at the time. but close to an analagous situation -- james: host the in the house now. kelly: yes, he was running for the senate at the time. but it is a similar situation where there were a lot of unhappy people and yet we anaged to pull it together and put somebody on the ballot later that a lot of people got behind and eventually we prevailed despite the fact that colorado has been, unfortunately, swinging more and more to the deep dark blue purple side. ted: i have to say one thing, and i probably shouldn't be saying this, people will be watching this, keep your month shut. a large part of the reason why dan maze lost is we played in that primary. and we played heavily to go after scott because we didn't want scott mcginnis, former congressman, the lead candidate

for governor, to be the one running for the first time. kelly: that actually raises an interesting question which is. the left came in and played in a race where they tried to help handpick the gubernatorial candidate they thought was the weakest, but then turned around and did it this last time as well running pro-tancredo ads. and then we turned around and highlighted it and turned it nto a liability. i think the question is, and this goes back -- super boring but it's campaign finance. campaign finance reform means that it is much harder to track the money and it's much harder to track who is responsible for hat message. jillian: i'm also hearing there are a large percentage of voters

that are undecided and that's where this is going to be fought out. i have a question specifically for james, you can guys can chip in since you have done a lot of analysis of this. for the voters that are uncomfortable with trum, what is the strongest argument you have heard so far for not voting for trump? what would your answer to it be? best answer to it, perhaps? james: strongest argument for not voting for trump. it's the argument that democrats made at their convention which is he's a unstable lunatic who is going to start a nuclear war. ted: that's pretty much it. james: i think the strongest argument against is that it's not that easy to start a nuclear war. there's really no indication he's mentally unstable or a lunatic. he's had considerable success in business over the years. he's never been known to engage in physical violence at least as an adult. and so this image that people

are painting of him is probably a false one. jillian: i want to ask the same question of you about clinton. ted: sure. one of the arguments to not vote for her? jillian: what is the strongest argument you have heard not to vote for her if you are an undecided voters and what is the best answer to it? ted: i think it's worry for undecided voters. and determining whether they are going to vote for hillary or not is the trust issue. i'd love to say that that's not the issue, but it is. and as much as the -- our side can go after character and trust, it's difficult because the email situation, it's not going to end. because there are so many of them. just statistically there is going to be at least a couple issues a week, we might as well hold on and get used to it. i think when you do a comparison of qualification, of trump and hillary, i know this room is

going to disagree with me, but i think it's going to be a very strong argument for undecided voters, and i think it comes back to very similar to what l.b.j. did with barry goldwater and mushroom cloud. i don't think we should go that far because i think that's probably overstating the case. all you have to do is show a clip of donald trumpp talking and that pretty much takes care of it. the other thing i want to make a note about donald trumpp, this is what i find very frightening about his candidacy and very frightening about their strategy . the only way he can win is to drive up blue collar white vote. he has to drive up blue collar white vote in pennsylvania, ohio, michigan, wisconsin, basically the russ belt states. and hopefully have some shot with florida which i don't think will happen because of the hispanic and latino vote. in order to do that, the things he has to say -- when you listen to -- for me as an avowed, very proud liberal, listening to trump speech at the convention,

i was fascinated and horrified how he took the police shooting incidents, turned those into law and order, and then accused the president being the one doing the race baiting. that is very, very -- i know. you're all going to disagree with me. i'm going to try to crank this up a little bit. kelly: to that point. the blue collar vote is really important. jillian: how do you think the democratic party has faltered that divide by embracing the environmental agenda. i see that as one of the major fall ins. the labor, environmental side, the pro-and anti-trump largely -- i guess a division based on tone in addition to immigration and some of the other issues he's brought to the forefront. i guess is there an issue you see it gels on and how could the democratic party handle that

differently? ted: i think there are two responses to that. one, you look at hillary's numbers for non-whites and they are extraordinarily high. and in -- we're starting to see numbers now, they are higher than they were for the president. the second piece is i have to be careful to make this simple correlation or to say that blue collar voters are going to be more inclined to vote no for hillary because of, as you phrased it, the environmental agenda. because when you poll, even poll and some of the more trade oriented, more blue collar-like union members, they don't necessarily make that connection. there are going to be pockets of that, particularly in pennsylvania, i don't think overall you can make that assumption. kelly: one point.

don't think that hillary clinton is doing a good job, when you talk about her liability, i don't think she is doing a good job of allaying those fears with anyone. the great newspaper this week, the "wall street journal," there was an article about the fact that hillary clinton, although they announced early on with the clinton foundation, that bill and chelsea would be leading, they would no longer take international donations, corporate donations, actually changed their stance on that and, oh, now that hillary is polling up, it looks like chelsea can stay. we can take international and corporate donations for the health initiative because we're clintons. so that really doesn't help when they are telegraphing that there are going to be these new rules following clintons and walk that back as soon as it becomes

convenient. it becomes really hard for people to feel like they are rule followers, and/or grow that trust that is so desperately needed from her. it doesn't seem like they really care very much. ted: this is my frustration on this issue. we should be emfrasing -- i know you are not like this, either, for those of us on the left, we need to embrace the great things the clinton foundation has done. hiv-aids in -- after cafment and -- africa. so what if they took a political approach to fundraising and space tot into the c-3 do good. you know what i say? thank god, somebody finally took that approach into this space and we have an r.o.y. on the money we're spending out of foundations. what i find frustrating overall in terms of public policy change is if you look at the amount of money that's in foundations the

c-3 available, that number keeps going up and up and up, when you look at the type of what we refer to as wicked problems, ones that literally are just a function of money, they continue to prevail. and a lot of that is that we don't think about having foundation money, c-3 money spent with the return on investment type of perspective. jillian: do you disagree that creates the conflict of interest or appearance? ted: first of all, chelsea clinton, i think, can remain at the clinton foundation given the places and health initiatives where the corporate money comes in. i think there are good arguments to be made. does that optically look bad? of course. i have to be honest. have they handled it really well in terms of the press? one day they are not going to be on the board. the next day above the fold.

the column in the "wall street journal" newspaper, which i subscribe to daily, by the way, of course it's going to look bad. james: i almost think that they do themselves a service by muddling it up as much as possible because the simpler it is the worst it looks. they announced last week we're no longer going to take foreign and corporate donations if mrs. clinton is elected president. so what does that tell you? if you haven't been following this, you learn that the clinton foundation has been taking foreign and corporate donations. by the way there's something wrong with it because they are going to stop it if she becomes president. and then mrs. clinton comes out -- i love this. [applause] james: mrs. clinton says in an interview this week, there is a lot of smoke here but there isn't any fire. what in the hell kind of thing is that to say? the express is where there's smoke there's fire. what does it mean?

there's a lot of smoke here but there isn't fire. what it really means is, mrs. clinton not very good at this. she has a certain lack of political skills. and that's what happens when you become the presidential nominee through nepotism. by being married to a former president who is a political natural. i think one big disadvantage that comes in she does not have a lot of natural political talent. and trump weirdly enough does. jillian: that raises a larger -- kelly: that raises a larger issue which we all have to confront which is i think if poll numbers were tighter, if hillary were less comfortable, they wouldn't have walked that gun trophy and walked that on foreign and corporate donations. we're seeing the same thing here in colorado. we have michael bennett telling the "denver post" that he doesn't know if despite the fact the white house admitted that they paid a $400 million ransom

for hostages in iran, doesn't know whether it was a ransom, although the white house said it was leverage. which i'm pretty sure is another word for ransom. so when these races aren't tight, when people feel too comfortable, the people that lose out are the american people, frankly. because when races are tight and when they are competitive, that is , when i think, that we get the best outcomes as citizens. and it is -- i feel like this is my horse, back to campaign finance refomplet we're in a position right now where these races, at least right now i'm polling, they are not as tight as the american people deserve. jillian: let's get back to the issue of the american people. going to the democratic national

convention i heard an extraordinary a frustration with the democratic party from lifelong democrats and from minority communities. all of my millennial friends right leaning are frustrated with the republican party right now. and everyone who doesn't like these two candidates is upset with the voters. what are the voters trying to tell us? hould we have -- ted: one, what it says is the way we do political parties and how political parties operate are going to have to change. jillian: is it an opening for a third party? ted: sure. absolutely. i think a third party would be great. it would add additional competition. but the challenge is the way the system is set up today, particularly in caucus states, will be very difficult, very, very difficult to do. in terms of how people we're talking about the d.n.c. at the convention was there, it's true.

you look back and you see what debi wasserman schultz did and the kind of rhetoric that she did, she use, i can't sit here and defend that. . when you see that in your party's institution, if you are not upset about that, then you either have a problem about being a democrat or being in the party that you're in or you're just blind and don't have, you know, a soul. seriously. >> on the third-party question, we have had a two party system in this country basically since 1828 when the democratic republican party split up. there was the national republicans and the wigs and andrew jackson formed the democrats. i don't think it's a three-party system or more than three-party system has the possibility of being stable in our system because there's so uch power in the presidency

that if you had three parties, unless they were exquisitely well-balanced, one would emerge as the dominant party. there is a need for two parties in order to have any sort of competition. even if a third party emerges, the result would either be quickly rereceived or one of the existing parties would within a few election cycles. i suspect. that is a broader political science point. on the question of whether we should have contempt for the voters, if you want to have contempt for the voters, jillian, in your role as a journalist and commentator you're entitled to it. am entitled to in my role. i tend not to. try not to have contempt for people with whom there is a

significant overlap among the people i count on for my livelihood. i think for my fellow panelists here working in politics and politicians and people who are nterested in persuading voters though they should not have contempt for voters, they should try to have an empathetic understanding, the better to persuade voters to do things their way. jillian: so with that, do you think -- i guess what we're seeing in both of the parties is a deep, deep dissatisfaction from a significant contingent. what do these parties need to do to, i guess, fix that? are we seeing a fundamental shift in what the parties' platforms are? is the party being redefined? what iruse or what changes do ou think this election is telling us that has not been a feature in other past elections? ted: on the democratic side, i

would say that a lot of what these folks are saying is you can be liberal, you can be proud to be a liberal, you can talk about it loudly and it still win elections. it will be in competition and in disagreement with 90-some-odd percent of what folks in steamboat in this room believe. the more vigorous debate we have, the better policies we get in the end, and power is going to go back and forth. on the democratic side, the voters are getting frustrated ishave a damn position. wishy-washiness. shoved it up your back side and get a spine. james: that would be consistent with my observations of republicans. i did not take trump seriously at first for about the first two months or so. i started taking him seriously earlier than most of my fellow conservative journalists because i had occasion to talk with trump supporters. two conversations stand out. one was the night of the first debate in early august of last

year. i was asked to provide commentary on the debate at the women's national republican club in new york, and i really -- and i really didn't have anything to say about a debate that hadn't happened yet. instead, i started to act as a discussion facilitator or whatever the jargon term would be. first, i asked for a show of hands to see who supported which andidates. too much of my surprise, trump was the most popular candidate in the room. i said, well, why do you support trump the lady in the back of the room said because i'm in favor of freedom of speech. what do you mean by that? he is not politically correct. then a few months later, a young woman i know, i was talking with her and she turned out to be a trump supporter and she said, none of these other guys really excite me. i think it is time for someone who fights. it's very much the same spirit. we're tired of being pushed around. we want to fight or somebody to

take a stand and so forth. i think the other thing that we have learned from the republican primaries is that conservative ideology as it has een traditionally defined is not as powerful as -- it does not have as wide appeal to voters as perhaps conservative thinkers and commentators and -- had thought it did. thought it had. a lot of that helps explain the bitterness of the never-trump conservatives. ted: and i think the inverse is true on the democratic side. james: but i would just add to that, we sort of should have figured that out. neither john mccain nor mitt romney was anything like a movement conservative. somehow the conservative

opinion leaders were able to more or less for the most part to get behind them. i think the difference there was one of attitude. trump really didn't care about whether he was consistent with movement conservatism. he showed that contempt and that was perhaps part of why republicans who were movement -- who weren't movement conservatives found him appealing. if he will fight with ted cruz, then he'll fight with mrs. clinton. kelly: well, i differ a lot with ted but we're still good friends. think that what we are seeing particularly with young people and in swing states like colorado and many others is that more and more people are kind of backing away from any type of label, whether it is republican or democrat. we are seeing all kinds of

polling and focus grouping that everybody does not want to identify one way or the other. i agree with james' analysis that it ultimately has to be a two-party system unless we figure out how to divest a whole bunch of power back out of the executive branch. that was taken through executive order which i think that is a constitutional crisis, but i digress. the thing is that we have more and more people who just say i'm not a democrat, i'm not a republican. don't put a donkey or elephant on me. and so, i agree that, yes, we eed people who will stand up and are not wishy-washy. o are going to get said rebar. but also, we need to figure out how to nominate people who take a strong stand, but can appeal to people who are in the middle. the ever-growing majority of people who now don't identify as republicans or democrats.

frankly, like donald trump has managed to tap into this river of frustration that i think has started with the crazy p.c. culture and all safe spaces that have been identified and written about. people are just feeling more and more oppressed and controlled. that is one of the things about donald trump, maybe he doesn't speak for me on all the issues is what voters are saying, but i like the fact that he says things. whatever he means is not really scripted and he is out there in front of people. in a society where people are more and more scripted, more nd more buttoned up, are afraid of making any kinds of declarative statements. like, i like chocolate ice cream. then all the vanilla people will not vote for you. you can't say anything anymore

-- anything in politics anymore without turning somebody off and donald trump is like, i will turn everyone off and they will like me. it has worked. it has worked. so we are in this very bizarre place in our society. frankly, there is a lot of opportunity. jillian: at both of the conventions, one of the things that that was interesting was the appeal to patriotism. democrats bringing out the parents of a fallen soldier, bringing out generals. having more of an emphasis on that component in past conventions. then again on the other side, the resonance of trump's make america great again. this is the context of an lks where there's been discussion about patriotism and nationalism and that being a potentially dangerous thing. do you think there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism? and if so, what is the -- what is it and how concerned

should we be or happy that element in both parties? kelly: oh, dang. yes, i think there is a difference. one is pride in self, and the other is pride in self to the exclusion of others. i think we can all say that america is exceptional. i hope we can all say that. i think we can all say that. i think this is a unique and exciting and awesome place to be. i think that even though we are sad, we are at a unique and awesome and precipice of so many technological advances. pull out your phones. those things are like magic. can you imagine 10 years ago, 15 years ago, having a smart phone where you can video call your family? there are so many things i'm so excited about that america has rought us.

and yet, i think frankly a lot of the discussions about concerns of nationalism and to the exclusion of others and saying well, saying america is exceptional doesn't mean that you have -- that you dislike or are hating on anybody else. i feel like that is what emocrats are trying to telegraph onto american exceptionalism. ted: i say there could not be a more stark difference between donald trump and hillary clinton. it is in part because in my mind there is a huge difference between patriotism and nationalism. nationalism, you can be a patriotic nationalist of course, but the sense of patriotism that i think our culture is embedded and how we hink about

it is very different in my mind than a lot of the nationalistic rhetoric that you start hearing from trump. i think it is very dangerous. this kind of isolationist, let's withdraw from the world, yet when we want something, and then talk about the world, to even say that he is anything like ronald reagan is such an offense to reagan's legacy. i have a lot of things to say about what came out of reagan that i thought was bad, but there are a lot of good things that came out of him. probably one of the most important was restoring this kind of sense of pride and patriotism in the united states and a sense of pride and patriotism for the united states around the world. i am fearful that this nationalistic rhetoric, he will say he is patriotic, this nationalistic rhetoric is going to undermine that legacy that eagan left us.

james: i'm not sure about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. i was reading an article somewhere a month or so ago which was trying to draw the distinction. i think the distinction this article was drawing was a patriot is someone who believes in the goodness of his country. a nationalist is someone who wants to, who not only thinks his country is good, but wants to to impose his ways on others outside of his country. you just defined nationalism as meaning in part isolationism, the opposite of what this piece was arguing. i guess i kind of think nationalism and patriotism are roughly the same thing, but one of them has a positive balance and one has a negative balance. i'm not sure how useful it is to get into the question of definitions. this does lead me to think of something, an observation that occurred to me during a

senator's speech earlier. i assume you remember his comments about president obama's question, do you believe in american exceptionalism and he said, yeah, but brits believe in british exceptionalism and greeks believe in greek exceptionalism. and the senator said, he completely missed the point. he obviously doesn't believe in american exceptionalism. i think there is a more charitable reading of obama's answer. if you ask what countries in world history or western civilization have made a contribution comparable to america's to political philosophy, the list would probably be limited to britain and greece. so it is possible that he chose those countries advisedly. finally, one more related point. i was at both conventions also and one thing that was very impressive about the democrats, on monday, the first day of the convention, people pointed out on twitter and elsewhere, there

are no american flags. they don't even have an american flag on stage. by thursday, they had adjusted. when mrs. clinton came out, i took a picture of this, it's amazing. the whole floor of the convention was a sea of american flags. there were some other adjustments. ted: i still have mine. james: i only got the michelle sign because my sister's name is michelle. i'm trying to figure out a way o ship it to california. another example is they had the mothers whose children had been killed by police on monday. i think david axelrod tweeted, it might be nice if they had some widows of fallen policeman. and on thursday, they had some widows of fallen policeman. i think that had been added to the program. so the democrats were very -- they showed a good deal of flexibility in their scheduling and they learned quickly from their mistakes. this is where they have a big advantage this year in terms of the professionalism of their

political machine. it's better than the republicans is in a typical year, never mind this year. jillian: all right. with that, i would like to open it up to questions with two caveats. i won't ask -- have anyone who will ask my panelist who they're voting for. when i was in college and we went to speeches like this, we would like something called speaker bingo. one of the central ones we would cross off is when people asked a question that wasn't a question, it was a lengthy speech. don't give me a chance to x hat off. >> i don't think this is -- there we go. one of the things i have been saying for years that is wrong with our politics was something that just happened here the last hour is that we talk so much about the individuals and we don't talk very much about the policies. i personally hate politics. but i'm really into the

political structure because i care about what happens with policy. i think most people in this room are that way. and i believe the reason that so many of us be voting for trump is because we are scared to death of hillary. we know that she's going to follow the policies that barack obama put in place, and he has been a disaster, an absolute disaster in almost every way. [applause] this is no small thing for me. i don't really have a question other than -- [laughter] >> bingo. if anyone wants to common on the fact that we should be talking about policies rather than individuals. james: you should have come to the earlier panel. kelly: who has b-22? i do want to address that.

this is a panel about politics and this election. that is why i felt boring bring it up over again, i think one of the policies that is creating the political environment we are in is campaign finance reform. sorry, i did it again. that is a specific policy point that has changed how we do environment we are in is politics in this country over the last decade, 15-20 years. the better we get at circumventing -- i am a proponent and i know many of my counterparts are of 100% disclosure within 24 hours but limitless contributions. because the thing is, money and politics, people on the left will say, money is the thing that makes politics so bad, but every attempt to pull money out of politics is like water in a river. you throw a rock into it and it would just divert and go around. money will never be pulled out of politics.

the only solution i believe is for people to be able to hold candidates accountable for their speech. ted: so two things. one, i want to address that and go back to your statement, which i think is about a question. it is part of what i opened up with. i think it is really unfortunate that how we do electoral politics is not how we do policy politics. we have got to get back in the day where it is different. we know how to reach across the aisle and find common ground. that 5%, 10%. i think that a couple things keeping us from doing that is the political system rewards running to your base. not necessarily to extremes but to your base because you want to stay elected and you feel like that is what you need to do. we have to figure out a way to fix that. i'm not for sure what it is, but it is really corrosive. related to that, i also think

we have a problem with, this is a little bit of a criticism of my own profession, there are so many people like me that are in the middle and i still believe hat if we had more conversations, principle to principle, you know, because we have people on the left that are very ideological, that believe in the betterness of america and want to do something, and i think the more we have those principles talking with principals like yourselves and we take the us out, we should be facilitating those conversations, not making money off the fact that there is conflict with those conversations. [applause] ted: the other point -- on money and politics. the one thing -- this is where kelly and i agree, but i want to make one point. as long as spending money is free speech and no matter whether corporations are people and we have a free market system which, god, i hope we

keep which is -- kelly: wait. can you say that one more time? [laughter] ted: a free market that is controlled by regulations and laws by people we elect to adopt or influence, money will find its way in. to say you are going to take money out of politics is like saying santa claus really is real and he's going to start delivering toys in july. it just isn't the case. what this says to me is that on the right, the republican side, the chamber of commerce and those folks have got to be willing to say how much money they actually spent. if we are going to have disclosure, disclosure means everybody. kelly: and unions. i'm with you. i absolutely agree with you. it's not like chambers of ommerce are the only donors to this problem. you've got union interests.

you've got the -- and then you have the infrastructure. you can't simultaneously knock a.f.p. and not have some kind of self-awareness to think about progress now. this is a large, very difficult thing for all of us to get our hands on. that's why i advocate for limitless donations and 100% disclosure because -- [applause] kelly: there's no other way to hold people accountable for their own speech. ed: yep. kelly: oh, come on. go ahead. >> bob, steamboat board member. a two-part question. i read with interest charlie cooks' column this week. a lot of us have been wondering who is going to show up and vote this year. is it going to be a depressed

turnout? is it going to be a normal turnout? charlie makes the case that it will be a normal turnout but for a different reason. his reason is that instead of the typical passion for your candidate of choice, it is that i hate the other one so much. that is going to drive people to the polls, at least charlie think so. the first part of my question, who do you think, what kind of turnout will we get, who will show up and vote? the second part kind of follows from charlie's reasoning, and all of you have spoken about t, especially james and ted. at both conventions, the palpable anger at those conventions historically, and this is what troubles me the most, historically you go to a a national party convention and there's a sense of euphoria and we are all happy. we are behind our candidate. we love our mat form. we know why we're here. let's go get them. this year, the tension,

anxiety, the all-out anger on both sides. charlie talks about that. we hate the other guy so much and don't like ours, that's why we will show up and vote. we are not appealing to our better angels. when do we get beyond that as a nation? 2016 is going to be in the books here pretty quick. the question i have is, what do we have left afterwards? regardless of who wins this election, where do we go next and had we get back to the kind of america -- and i think both democrats and republicans who love this great nation have clung to for so long. yes, we've had our ideology differences, but the anger that frankly i think both candidates are trying to tap into right now, a sense of frustration, they are both sometimes for -- fomenting, when do we get beyond that and get back again, as i said, to the better angels

of our nature? ted: there's a "politico" piece that came up this morning that alked about what would happen or what do we see happening, i am just doing this as an example so we can talk about t, so don't throw glasses at me, hillary wins and there is this belief by some that there are so many folks -- not so many but a number of republicans that are crossing the aisle to publicly support hillary? and the article goes on to talk about, you know, you need to be really careful what that means just after the election because a lot of these folks are just going to go back into their camps. and are we then just going to see -- because this will be the first -- if hillary wins, she'll be the first democratic

president elected -- like 30 years, maybe -- in her first term she doesn't have a democratic, you know, congress of the same party because if republicans retain control of the u.s. senate, which i think is less likely today than it could be the o, swinging seat, but if you have republicans in both chambers, what happens? how do we cross that aisle? and bob, i don't know. i'm an operative and you know in electoral politics i like to -- it's about winning, but i care about this country a lot. and when it comes to the policymaking -- i mean, i have a record in colorado of always reaching across and trying to find unlikely people and bringing them together to do good. i pray that there are leaders that step up to do that and that needs to happen at the state level and it needs to happen at the federal level. that encouragement is going to have to come from people like

you and from people on the left. and this goes back to my point where i wish there were more, you know, principled conversations, principal-to-principal who aren't part of the machine who makes money off of the process. and because you know, you go into d.c., it's stunning the amount of money that's made in the lobbying community no matter who you represent, and that in and of itself becomes self-fulfilling in terms of how the town operates and they don't get a reward if something really big happens. and so we got -- we have to figure out a way to get at that. i wish i had an answer, bob. i wish i did. kelly: you know, in response to that, i think colorado actually made a fair amount of national ews during our convention. after the next 75 days, i think the key to pulling together --

which is why you have the dan example, is going to have to be a lot of self-analysis, who are we as republicans, what do we actually stand for as americans? is it free market? is it family? all of these like fundamental questions i think are now kind of up in the air. but i think the number one biggest issue we're going to have regardless of how this all plays out is forgiveness. like, i think there is -- there's going to be resentment if he wins, if trump wins. i think there's going to be resentment if this loses and this fizzure, this constant fizzure of republicans is going to create the type of situation where we can't prevail again until we can look each other in the eye and say, you know what, i disagreed with you on that person, on that principle, on at idea but politics and our

ability to put forth good policies that actually help people is a function of addition and not subtraction. and it's going to be hard. it's going to be really, really hard. no matter what happens on november 9, somebody's going to be really mad. and it is going to be the role of whomever prevails and whatever camp in the republican party prevails to reach out, forgive and start those really critical discussions. because i don't want to go the way of the wigs. i think we have better ideas. i think that freedom and free market are exciting and awesome and i think we can prevail and i think we can start selling freedom over free stuff to young people but we can't do it if we're sitting here yelling at each other all day long.

like, we have to reach across, put our hand out and number one, forgive. james: regarding your second question. it seems to me that negativism in politics is nothing particularly new. you go back to john adams versus thomas jefferson or lynn can versus dugs a -- lincoln versus douglas. republicans said terrible things about barack obama. democrats said terrible things about george w. bush. republicans said terribly things about bill clinton. democrats said terrible things about ronald reagan. i remember a friend who was going to u.c.-berkeley and we were going to a local park and they were holding the anti-reagan festival just to show how much they hated the president of the united states. that's nothing new. what's a little unusual here is the level of distaste for both candidates within their own parties for different reasons.

and so i suppose that will probably continue regardless of who's elected. although on the republican side i concluded my column by saying if trump wins, most of the party probably unites behind him, at least for a while. although if he comes to be seen as a failed president, the divisions come back. in response to your question about turnout, that is one of the great unknowns. one of the uncertain factors that make it impossible to know what's going to happen now. and each poll incorporates their own theory who will turn out and in what proportion. charlie's theory that people will turn out in more or less normal numbers but will be -- ll have more hatred than anything is number one. and people say trump will do well because most democrats and

republicans can't stand him. his supporters. that's not true for mrs. clinton or people passionate out him say middle-aged to feminists will vote out so she will get the turnout boost who were passionate about him in 2008. but who knows. it's a big question and, you know, we'll know when we begin to see the exit polls after november 9. ted: i think the turnout will be higher, one. the unfortunate -- i think the unfortunate reality that people get more excited about being negative and bitter and fighting than they do about being positive and i think that's really unfortunate but i think it's true. one thing -- the second thing we should note in colorado something we should watch, bob, with all-male ballot, the election could be very, very different. in 2014, we saw only a 44%

turnout from unafailiated voting. yet, there were 200,000 more than we modeled for. we had the third highest turnout rate in the country. and so i think in colorado we're going to see a much higher unaffiliated turnout rate which means i think some of the polling that both sides are doing could be very wrong. i actually think that potentially is more of the thing worse for us on the d side. kelly: because republicans, we keep our stance in our drawers. we're those people in a mail ballot, who will have a stamp in the drawer, republicans or democrats? it's the republicans. ted: we don't even know what stamps are. kelly: exactly. exactly. jillian: on that note, i know we're about to start the next one. so let's thank our wonderful panelists. [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] >> out on the campaign trail,

donald trump in greenville, north carolina, today, after releasing an open letter from retired generals and admiral who is say a course correction is needed in america's national security. expecting the candidate to focus on those issues at the campaigns today. you can watch donald trump's remarks live from greenville today at 7:00 eastern, 4:00 pacific over on c-span2. and hillary clinton unveiled her campaign plane large enough to accommodate the press corps. here is a look from dan merica. she spoke with them for about half an hour and took some questions as she made her way to tampa, florida. back in washington, d.c., the recently restored capitol dome was unveiled in the rotunda of the u.s. capitol. here's some video from c-span's craig caplan as a tour assembled. architect of the capitol, steven ayers greeting people. just reopened after a summer of repairs as lawmakers come back for their first day on capitol hill. the house -- the first to gavel

in today in about 25 minutes. the senate an hour later. the house will be considering 13 bills today, including one to let the library of congress collect oral histories from gold star families. and another measure dealing with exports. the senate gaveling in at 3:00 eastern. they'll be resuming work on defense spending and funding for the zika virus funding and prevention. you can watch the senate over on c-span2. here's a prevay what to expect from the -- preview what to expect from the senate. this is from "washington journal." and the senate correspondent talking about campaign 2016 with a look at the senate races. now, what isright the potential of the senate changing political hands? guest: pretty good. it is a tough map for republicans with a lot of opportunities for democrats. host: as far as numbers are

concerned, how many seats have to be given up in order for that change to happen? guest: assuming hillary clinton wins the white house, democrats need four seats. the question is how many can they get on top of that? they had a good chance at illinois and wisconsin. you are saying overall, there are enough numbers to make that change happen? why do you think that is happening? guest: the map is in favor of republic -- of democrats and republicans are defending seats that were won in 2010. a lot of states like ohio, -- you expect double the turnout than when rob portman won his seat in 2010. host: as far as specific races, top the list, the specific race you are most interested in? guest: ohio takes the cake. rob portman is kind of our

bellwether for whether the balkans -- for whether republicans can withstand donald trump or hillary clinton. this is somebody in a state where hillary clinton is winning but still pulling ahead of his democratic challenger. host: what has his strategy been? guest: run it like a very localized race. how can you prove your independence from the party and how can you pick up those moderates who will decide the race, who did not come out the last time. host: overshadowed by all of this is donald trump. how does he factor in? guest: it is kind of a game of gymnastics for rob porter. turned out a whole bunch of new republicans people had never seen before. rob portman also needs moderates who may have shown up to vote for john kasich in the primary, people who rejected donald

trump. he needs people across the board, people who like donald trump and people who don't. the question is, how can you court your entire base while also bringing in the moderates? host: our guest joining us to talk about the senate races, but if you have questions about any specific races or what might happen after november when it comes to the power of the forte, (202)-748-8000 democrats. (202)-748-8001 four republicans -- for republicans and (202)-748-8002 for independents. how much money are they spending, and what are they concentrating on? guest: the committees have shelled out a lot for the ads, this fall. if you have that money in the bank and you can put down that

money in june, you will get a better price, come november and october. the committees are doing everything they can. on the republican side, that means trying to define all these challengers. the game for republicans is to define these folks early before the folks get to know them. host: what is going on with the race in new hampshire? guest: one of the most competitive races this cycle. some folks would say that is the number three pick of opportunity it is newats because hampshire and a presidential year. it is going to be tough, it has been tied. had from then't senator talking about her approach to washington.

solutions, ik for don't start in washington, and i don't assume one party has all the answers. i find commonsense ideas right here in new hampshire. we are out fighting for good paying jobs to strengthen the economy. i worked to make child care more affordable. i work across party lines on clean air and energy efficiency efforts and to strengthen social security and medicare. together, we are making new hampshire and america stronger. host: a college, social programs, very approachable and long list of ideas. guest: you see this across the board in swing states, how can you prove independence from your party and went over the moderates -- and win over the moderates? candidates running as moms, as new hampshire residents, they're

not talking about the presidential race at all. host: when you say independence from your party, do you mean from the presidential ticket or from others? guest: all these swing state republicans have issues across the aisle that they want the highlight -- want to highlight. she was to make sure that people know they are voting for her, not a republican senator. host: and the governor of the state, who is also the competitor, he will see her ad in a second. first call is from james in tennessee. i believe that donald trump has done everything to alienate the candidate rob portman and that he has alienated all the people that we

need to be voted for in order for rob portman to regain the senate. guest: that is a struggle for all of these guys. the question really is how far can they run about donald trump when it comes to the ticket. for some of these folks like rob portman and pat toomey, a lot of them have known they will have to run above the presidential , especially in pennsylvania for pat toomey. they have focused on how they will run above the presidential ticket. say it tough, democrats does not happen like it used to. host: from connecticut, republican, alan. guest: hello -- caller: hello. i am a never trumper. i have known since he got the

nomination, that the white house chances would be gone and that ourould be a major drag on weaker republican candidates in the senate like kelly ayotte. our best chance is for them to be encouraged to vote for a third party. i'm going to vote for and mcmullen -- for mcmullen. it is our only chance to say the down ballot races. -- save the down ballot races. some have said they will support the nominee, the range for answers is huge for these republican incumbents, but they also have to court their base and for kelly ayotte, it is a primary that has not happened yet. you can't afford to alienate donald trump supporters, either. host: the governor has an ad out as well. taking a look at her race. >> her priorities are working for new hampshire. she understands we need good

highway systems. >> an advocate for public safety. >> she has kept spending under control. >> how does she get these things done? ,> by balancing the budget creating a surplus and working with anyone and everyone to create a better environment for business innovation. >> a new senator, making fiscal responsibility work for you. is being a governor and benefit automatically? guest: absolutely. they have already won statewide offices. you come in with millions of dollars of value in your name idea alone. knowing this race is going to be close, republicans have been attacking her long before she was even in the race. they were attacking her on policy issues as governor. the state legislature was

debating the budget for the majority of the summer, and she was hit with millions of dollars of ads aimed at her as a governor, knowing she would be the best possible opponent for kelly ayotte. as far as sensor kelly ayotte, what has been her plan of attack? guest: these religions are testing the water with tying them to hillary clinton. -- ie hassan they are testing the waters to see if they can also drag down the democrats by tying them to their own political nominee. host: south carolina, we hear from clark on our independent line. this is a question for andrea. i wonder how you are going to stop this president from looting -- continuing to lift the treasury for the time he has left with our republican senate

and house. how do we stop them from continuing to ship billions of dollars to our enemies? guest: i guess the agenda in andington -- as democrats publicans consider what the senate is going to look like, next year. host: alabama, democrats line, catherine. caller: good morning. i really am upset about this election. i have called and written letters and done my civic duty, out preaching to everybody. i don't understand why these people are not forced to take an american history test and a civics test before they run for office. this is very disturbing to me that they don't even seem to understand how our government works. they just want to play games and tried to break it. that is very upsetting. the second point is, that the republican party has a perverted

of session with trying to legislate people's private parts. i am a female, they can keep their hands off of females. we are tired of being second-class citizens. i think that any female that votes for a republican has really has a -- got a problem because she does not understand that they will not pass equal pay for equal work and many things that cause women to have a much harder term -- time functioning in society. i have been married and unmarried. i have lived on my own and had my own business and had all the difficulties that go along with being female of trying to get credit and live a middle-class life. it has been very hard. the female of this country need to wake up. donald trump is a danger and the senate is acting crazy and not doing their job by voting on a

supreme court justice. they are trying to break our government. host: we will our guest go with it. guest: the fact that the trunk is unpopular with women is on the forefront of all of these republican senators' minds right now. the first ad that we have seen talking about that was about women's issues. it was ted strickland trying to tie the issues and forced the issues of pay. and i'm sure we will see more. in terms of these folks who want to prove their independence from , social issues are going to fray from the party. host: talk about the current state of pat toomey. was lucky and have to

get out with pat toomey on the trail several months ago. before the opponent won the primary. and the focus has always been running above the top of the ticket. endorsed several presidential nominees before donald trump and he probably has kept the most distance from donald trump in any of the incumbents. it is pennsylvania in a presidential year and he knows that his state has voted for democrats in the last six election so he will do whatever prove -- it is the gun issue for him. he is having help from the bloomberg group. this is one of the key issues of his reelection. katie mcginty is his challenger. she finished fourth in the last race. a late addition to this race.

for a long time, we thought it would be a 29 . committee democrats spent millions of dollars to help her through the primary believing she was the better candidate. host: has she gotten help from hillary clinton or the white house? guest: she was with tim kaine last week. host: (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8002, independent line. in the senate race, social issues are being made an issue -- an arm of the senate majority pact. senator toomey over the abortion records. here is the ad. cracks it is a simple question. is pat toomey's agenda your agenda. he tried to shut down the federal government in order to eliminate funding for planned parenthood. and he is against a woman's right to choose.

he supports allowing states to criminalize abortion. pat toomey focuses on his own agenda and not us. host: what do we take away from that ad? it is a rough ad for pat toomey. it relates a lot to donald trump. this will be a big issue in the race. katie mcginty helps to highlight the difference on these issues very clearly. issue inthis the major pennsylvania? thet: absolutely not but social issues are a great place for the democrats to try to draw the line. do this.ies it is a way for pat toomey to cross the aisle and a way for katie mcginty to say no, she is not like donald trump. host: surely, good morning. caller: good morning.

i just wanted to make a comment and ask a question. everybody says ok, i am a republican regardless of whether i like this person or not, each i think is crazy. why don't you vote for your leaves? if they don't have what you think in their mind and heart, don't vote for them. just because you're a doesn't mean you have to vote for him. reason donald trump beat everybody on the stage is because he exposed everybody on the stage. he said about them what they couldn't say. he told everybody where everybody stands. he's telling the truth. he is just exposing them and that is the only reason he is up there now. anythingdn't say because they know he is telling the truth. to stand back sometimes and say ok. if we vote and we do what we

know is right, because have had a lot of things done but everybody follows the leader. we will not do what obama says because we don't want him to look good. so you cut off your own hand to spite him. guest: a couple of points on that. isan't pretend to know what on the mind of the republican senators as they make decisions but for one, most of these folks know that for the reelection, they can't allow donald trump to lose in their state by much. they can out run the top of the theyt for a few points but cannot overcome a ticket in which donald trump loses by 10 points in their state. so they need donald trump to win or to do well. hand, you do incur questions about who you will vote for. mark kirk has already faced this, he said he wouldn't vote for donald trump. mark kirk drew people out there

as possibilities. he said general betray us or colin powell -- who do you vote for? kirk -- talk about the race and the main issues in the race? who is leading? guest: this race is pulled closely but it is largely thought of as the most likely to flip the seat for the republicans. mark kirk is running in illinois in a presidential year. tammy is a worthy opponent. i think the biggest indicator of how the race is going is the lack of republican spending. mark kirk has not gotten help from the outside groups. when you're not getting help from your party, it is not a good sign. host: west changed this time around? guest: 2016 was just going to be a big year. they have so many seats to defend, illinois at the top of the list -- it is one that they

have made the calculation that the resources have to go elsewhere. they have to go to pennsylvania, ohio, new hampshire. one,linois is number wisconsin comes in close at number two. you have seen groups cancel ads. but public polling here is rough. host: what does this mean as far as senator mitch mcconnell is concerned? what activity is he doing to keep the seats in republican hands? uest: it is a game of mole for the republicans. i won't speculate on how marco rubio got back into the race. if you can get marco rubio to run for reelection and move toward a down on the list of states that are targets for democrats, it is important. the protection of the senators

-- he has a lot of work to do as far as allocating resources. the map is rough. from ron inhear montana. on the line for democrats. caller: i am calling because i think people are forgetting what paul ryan said here not too long that the president does not write the laws. congress writes the laws. that was one of the main reasons that people were wondering why obama wasn't doing so well. i said good lord, look at who is writing the laws. it isn't the president. everything that obama wants to do, the 246 republicans voted "no" for planned parenthood and all of the bills. the 188 democrats voted "yes" but donald trump has to realize

that all the stuff that he is saying has to go through the senate. and i know the democrats will and if you add ted cruz, marco rubio, rand paul, huckabee and lindsey graham -- notknow the republicans are going to be too nice to him at all. thank you. guest: it's true. this is one of the most bizarre things we have seen when donald trump refused to endorse john mccain in arizona. he needs a senate. senators upendorse for reelection was bizarre. barry from florida on the independent line. caller: good morning. the only thing i want to say is that i am a retired military, 25 years. i used to be a diehard republican. the problem is not donald trump.

problem is within the party. the party is destroying itself. that's all i can say about it. it turned me off. i get into the community as a military member and the feeling is the same wherever i go. to go are starting because republicans can't stick up for themselves. i hope you have a good day. guest: it's interesting that you mention that because national security is a place where publicans feel they have the lead. have focused on the iran deal at they believe this is an issue that they can win on. that republican senators are better at keeping them safe. host: from georgia, frank is up next. frank, hello? caller: yes, hello. hello. i wanted to make a comment on the talk about the senate races. in the past few weeks, i have heard over and over that donald

trump has so much catching up to do because he was so far behind that dictatednd how the senate races were going. i'm wondering how this young lady feels now that donald trump is actually taking a lead on the cnn poll this morning? is that going to have the same se,ct against hillary, per that if she is losing in the -- how election then about the senate seats? would they follow her as a loser and the democrats -- i think it is 20-25 republican seats up, i'm not sure how many, and only a handful of democratic seats. -- now that the polls have switched, i haven't heard one person say hillary clinton has to do some catching up. and i also saw today that donald

trump was ahead in independents by 20 points. anyway, i just want to hear what her, it is on that. host: we will show you the cnn poll that just came across. 45%, hillaryat clinton, 43%. guest: >> you can watch of the rest of the conversation online. let's take you live to the floor of the house gaveling in after a seven-week recess. order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. september 6, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable jeff denham to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy.