department is the job of a traffic enforcement officer and we have a substantial number of those resources also assigned to this area to assist with congestion as well as 56th street will be closed for all vehicular traffic between fifth avenue and madison avenue. this is where we placed those delta barriers to control access to vehicles. however, pedestrians that reside in the area, that work on the street, want to shop on the street, or want to cross 56th street down to madison or up to fifth, they will be allowed to do so on the south side of 56th street, but after being screened by us and the secret service. buses, passenger vehicles, will continue to utilize fifth avenue. but understand that presently two of the five traffic lanes

are being restricted due to barriers we have in place. we also have dedicated plans to implement when we have demonstrations at trump plaza. we have identified locations that are within sight and sound of the entrance of trump tower, and we will establish protest areas at those locations. small groups of protesters will be allowed to be on the sidewalks so that traffic will not be impeded on fifth avenue. however, when larger numbers of protesters -- we may have to shut down traffic on fifth avenue. we saw that occur late saturday when we had over 20,000 protesters in front of trump tower. so far, we have closed fifth avenue on three occasions in the last 10 days due to demonstrations. when this occurs, we bring in more police officers from other parts of the city to assist us. we closed fifth avenue for safety concerns. for the safety of the demonstrators as well as the safety of motorists. the field commander at the scene makes that call. i made that call last week.

we will always choose safety over convenience. once again, this is the security plan that we presently have in place. we are doing this for over a week now. operationally, every day it is getting more and more fluid. we are working more efficiently. we will work closely with the secret service, and certainly we can modify this plan as situations change. thank you very much. >> thanks, carlos. for the second time, i would like to introduce the commissioner of transportation. >> thank you, commissioner o'neill. as you heard, obviously security will be the priority for this area, but at new york city dot we will be working hand in hand with nypd to do what we can to ease travel conditions. it is an extraordinary pedestrian area. historically, volumes on fifth avenue are some of the highest

in the western world, and we will do everything we can to ease movement on the sidewalks. it is an extraordinary bus corridor. there are 140 buses in morning peak that run along fifth avenue. we will be working closely with pd to keep buses moving and other vehicles moving. i will reiterate what the mayor said, which is we would say this anyway during holiday times. to the extent that you can come to this area by foot or by mass transit, obviously that would help us. thank you. >> we will open it up to questions about security. >> vice president-elect mike pence spoke to reporters upon his arrival at trump tower. made brief remarks about the presidential transition. >> we have made great progress. theing with president-elect, he is a man of action.

we have a great number of men and women with great qualifications who have come forward to serve this new administration. i'm humbled to be a part of it. out agency teams have begun to arrive in d.c. this morning beginning but we are very confident will be a smooth transition that will serve to move this country forward and make america great again. >> also visiting trump tower, former arkansas governor and republican presidential candidate mike huckabee. he spoke briefly with reporters after talking with donald trump. mr. huckabee: i had an excellent meeting. mr. trump, i think, is doing a terrific job of looking for the best talent taken find, but beyond that, i don't really have anything to report to you because it is not my job to report.

reporter: [inaudible] mr. huckabee: i'm happy with what i'm doing. my job right now is to listen to the president-elect. it is his job to make the decisions, whatever those are. >> [inaudible] mr. huckabee: again, that's not for me to disclose. the only person giving out jobs in this building is donald trump, not me. i would respect that any information about our meeting should come from him. >> [inaudible] mr. huckabee: concerned with it? >> [inaudible] mr. huckabee: i feel like i am going to serve my country whether i am inside or outside of government. i will be loyal to donald trump because i believed him as a candidate, stood by him throughout. i did not come here looking for a job. i did not campaign for him because i was needing work.

>> any reaction to the [inaudible] mr. huckabee: absolutely wonderful appointment. jeff sessions is one of the stalwart conservatives in the senate. he has also been a loyal, faithful ally to donald trump throughout this campaign. i have always considered him one of my favorite senators, and i appreciate the clarity with which he brought, especially to the tpp debate when it was going on, and i think that was a great choice. >> how long did you meet with president-elect trump? mr. huckabee: three hours. i'm kidding. long enough, and just appropriate. i've got to go. i've got another meeting. >> thank you. >> follow the transition on

c-span as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the u.s. and republicans take control of both the house and senate. watch live on c-span, watch on-demand at c-span.org or listen on our freeseas band free c-span our radio app. >> president obama is in peru this weekend the last stop on his final overseas trip. today, he will hold a town hall meeting with students in lima live at 2:20 p.m. eastern on c-span. on sunday, the president holds a closing news conference at the apex economic summit before heading back to the u.s. that is live at 6:30 p.m. eastern also on thes c-span. former white house officials and scholars discuss the presidential transition.

speakers included josh bolten, former chief of staff to president george w. bush, lisa brown, who worked on the obama transition, and martha kumar, white house transition project director. this is just over an hour. >> good morning, everybody. it's a beautiful morning. there has never been a better time to discuss a presidential transition than now. for over 40 years, the washington center for internships and academic seminars has welcomed college students from across the country and around the globe. in washington, d.c., our students immerse themselves in professional academic internships and become empowered to become citizens in our global

society. become citizens in our global society. havevents of last week reminded us of the important work that we do here to falter civic engagement and active are just a patient -- active dissipation in civil discourse -- participation in civil discourse. our discussion today will cover campaign to governing, the white house transition process. our panelists include lisa brown, who served as codirector of the obama transition project, and josh bolten, who served as the white house chief of staff for the george w. bush administration. both have an intimate knowledge of the transition process from the vantage point of both democratic and republican administrations, including the hiring of an estimated 4000 political appointees in the executive branch. theha kumar is director of white house transition project and has written a study

extensively about the transition process. our moderator will be nancy is coveringrrently the transition process for politico. i might add that all four of these folks are in big demand right now. so we welcome them during their busy schedules, and we look forward to a great discussion. let's get started. [applause] thanks so much. we have a lot to talk about. we were talking our ears off in the green room, so let's keep doing that. the lightning round crest -- lightning round question, i would be interesting to know how you would grade the trump transition team. how do you think it is going? go for it, josh. mr. bolten: incomplete. nancy: ok. thatolten: this is a group

is mostly really new to this , and the typical transition is, at this point would be much further along, but really ranroup that without the republican apparatus, so they don't have the built-in institutional memory and personnel around them that would make it possible for them to hit the ground running. nancy: lisa, what do you think? ms. brown: i agree with josh. this is a campaign that ran a lot on the president-elect's personality and ideas. he did not have a big structure around him. where you have to transition. the transition from campaigning to governing will be an even bigger challenge for him as a result. it is turning ideas into policies and actual steps that you are going to take.

the government is a big bureaucracy. for them to get their hands around it is a major endeavor. they are not as far along as we were with the obama transition. >> i think they clearly had one thing that was different besides having a candidate that's not in elective office, but they changed leadership of their transition. from chris christie the mike pence. pence -- to mike pence. that's a jarring transition. one of the benefits of it is the we can see the republicans control the house, the senate, and the presidency, and therefore having mike pence is a real benefit because he has the relationships. he was in the house leadership

and deals well with mitch mcconnell. in addition, he was a governor, and as a governor he would be able to tap into a base of appointees through knowing other heernors and seeing who could bring up from the state level, because they want to reach beyond the usual crowd and he has the contacts to do that. last 24 hours, we are starting to see trump's cabinet picks take shape. morning, it was announced he picked senator jeff sessions to be attorney general. last night, it broke that lieutenant general mike flynn would be the national security advisor. what do these early picks tell us about the way he is assembling a, and what do they say about his own priorities in the administration?

ms. brown: loyalty, and connection to the campaign. loyalty is very important to him. -- martha: loyalty, and connection to the campaign. loyalty is very important to him. they went out day after day like jeff sessions and flynn did and in what sometimes seemed to be hostile settings. he wants those people around him that he trusts. has to reachnt becausehat, especially he does not have elected experience. he has to bring in people who compensate for his lack of experience in particular areas, and that's something he will have to do. obviously: loyalty is the key word, trust and confidence. that's not surprising.

but it should be noted that they ,ave made five appointments five people so far. reince priebus is chief of staff, steve bannon is senior counselor in the white house, general flynn is the national security advisor, senator jeff sessions is the attorney general. these were announced this morning. and congressman mike pompeo is the cia director. , now are the only five nine days in, more than that, i guess. we are nine days in and they have only made five appointments , and of those five, four of those people were among the closest six or eight people in the trump organization and the campaign organization. that not surprising president-elect trump would pick

people who have been very loyal to him through his campaign. right.tha is exactly now the need to reach beyond. the people who were close to president-elect trump in the campaign number only about a dozen. you lose a lot more people than that in some very senior positions, hopefully with a lot experience, to fill out the government. lisa, i want to talk to you about how you go about building a. so far, all of these posts have in white men. i'm trying to look ahead and see, how are they going to build a more diverse cabinet? trump's spokesperson said yesterday on cnn that diversity was important. how do youomen area go -- including women. how do you go about thinking

about the cabinet from a broad perspective? you have any since the trump transition team will do that? anybrown: i can't speak in way to how the trump transition team is thinking about it. it's something president obama thought about. you think about it as a group. variety of different perspectives in your cabinet, and you need to think about it holistically in that sense. now that you have chosen your attorney general, thinking aout, ok, i have this type of person's year, what are the other skills that i need, what are the other perspectives that i need? i hope he is thinking about that in terms of how it will represent the country, but you really do need to consciously think about it as you are a pointing people. apa pointing people -- pointing people. nancy: the vetting process, how

has that changed over the years? i was looking recently at the questionnaire that president obama used, and it had things like social media questions. it was not like, did you fail to pay your taxes or did you fail -- or did you get a dui? any insight about what it would look like in the current environment? ms. brown: it is becoming increasingly onerous area i think it is one of the frustrations of government. nominated, the amount of paperwork you have to fill out. it asks everyplace you have traveled for a period of time, which is crazy today. two, they want to see everything you have written. most of us do not even have everything we have written. i think that is an area where we need to bring a morts -- bring a little more sanity to that, but

these are people being put into the highest positions of government, so you do want to know who this person is and what their values are and what their views are, so what is going to be ultimately a question of finding balance. get if you look at: how far back it goes, the office of government ethics was created in the carter administration. really began with the reagan administration. it does not really go back that far. has become an increasingly important aspect of nominations, because what you don't want is to have a nomination blow up on you, because if it does, it can just be days of stories at a time when you want to develop a narrative of what your administration is about, and you don't want to have nominations that are not working be part of the narrative. you wanted to be positive and talk about those things that you are going to be doing. is the confirmation

process going to look different this time? republicans also control the senate, which seems like a huge trump. so how does that change the process? mr. bolten: it makes it a little easier and nicer. [laughter] mr. bolten: but i expect that the senate will still get a serious and probing look at all of the nominees. bearing in mind that the senate does not get to look at a number of the key appointments the .resident will make of the five positions i announced, only the attorney general and the cia director will end up being subject to review and advise and consent from the senate.

the folks you are inside the -- who are, they inside the white house, the president gets to pick those. having picked a controversial person like steve bannon to be the counselor, that's done. nobody else gets to have a say. if they do go before the senate, i think we will have a serious look. it would be kinder than it otherwise would be, because republicans are in the majority, but democrats are still there. they get to ask the same questions. hopefully there is -- hopefully be senate will continue be pretty strong tradition, unless there is a real problem. histhe president have picks. you probe where you need to probe. you ask questions of the nominee to ensure that the senators are

comfortable with this as someone who is confident to fill the role. thisy hope would be that time, as in most previous times, outset of anhe administration, the senate would be deferential to the president's picks. he won the election. it is his prerogative to fill out the candidates who are reflective of the views that he wants to bring into government. i am: the one thing curious about is you cochaired the agency team, which is a huge process of this transition. the trump people are just starting to go to the agencies now. there was a little bit of delay because of that shakeup of leadership on the transition team. what does that process look like? i think this is one

of the places where they are behind. our agency review teams were in a large number of agencies monday after the election. this is a massive management endeavor. if you think about all the federal agencies, the goal of onentially is that inauguration day when the president starts governing and newe is potentially a cabinet secretary, they can start governing. you don't want on the day after inauguration for someone to walk in the door and say, where is the bathroom? you want to learn as much as you can before then so you can actually start governing. there are two key pieces. one is defense, one is offense. on the offensive side, you want , what are the opportunities for and limiting the president's priorities?

did waswhat we candidate obama had made a number of promises during the campaign, and one of the things you do is map those out to the agencies so that when you come into office, ok, how did we go about it limiting those promises with regard to that agency? the other piece is defense, which is when i walk in the door, what is going to hit me in the face? is there pending litigation? are the regulations? is there a big authorization coming? you will know what you need to react to. with a change of party, that is particularly important, because there may be things where you want to change direction, and you need to get your hands around that. i think a point to add that is different this year is the legislation that was signed by president obama in march white houset a transition coordinating council the created six months before on election, and they did so

may 6. he issued an executive order cil, which hascounse senior white house staff. and then they set policy on transition. and then an agency transition director's counsel which has 20 people on it representing the 15 departments in the five largest agencies. they are to implement the policies. that is composed of career staff. they have worked for that whole time period figuring out what kinds of things that the agencies should be gathering, so that they gather information on whatudget, on programs, on .roblems they may be having positions, what are the descriptions of their positions?

who are holding them now? there is a lot of information that has already been gathered, and schedules of what kinds of meetings that are going to be taking place that the cabinet startary might have to traveling very soon after they get into office. the government is a moving train, so the president and his team are jumping on a train. the government does not stop because the president stops. so the idea that legislation is that it is asn smooth as possible to get on that train. if they are behind when they do go win, they will have more information than previously. and part of it is thinking during the trip -- ms. brown: part of it is thinking during the transition, you want to focus on what is --lly a, and you don't have really important, and you don't

have to boil the ocean. over the last several transitions, people have realized that you want to be gathering and creating useful information. that when somebody comes in, they can rely on it. and that's what they need to know for that early period of time, because when the appointees come in, there is a lot that keeps going on in the government. some of that can wait, but what you want to focus on is the most important items, both affirmatively and defensively. the other thing that came up this week was that the trump transition team has a new lobbying ban in place, where they are saying that you can come into the transition, there is no cooling off period. you just need to de-register as a lobbyist immediately. bethe other hand, you won't able to lobby for five years after you leave the administration. what sort of effect will that have? mr. bolten:

mr. bolten: it will chill some people going into the administration, which i think is

a shame. i have a view of this that is not particularly fashionable at the moment, but i think we have overdone it on the restrictions. we need good people willing to serve in government. the fact that somebody has been or will be a lobbyist, there's nothing wrong with lobbying. it's a dirty word in our public discourse today, but lobbyists actually serve a useful function here in government. they represent clients who have a point of view that they want known to the government, and lobbying in its best form is actually informing the government about the positions of important economic interests, important interest groups, and so on. and lobbying is not done just by corporations, by big corporations to oppress the little man. lobbying is done by the small business association. it is done by the children's defense fund. it is done by all sorts of entities. we actually ought to welcome effective lobbying in government, because it helps government be informed and make good judgments based on the interests of a wide variety of stakeholders. i thought the obama administration over did it when they came in. they recognized they ever did it because they put in very strange rules and started waiving them for dozens of people. i think the trump folks are at risk as well, making it

atump folks are risk as well, making it difficult for people who have the knowledge and experience to serve in government. josh.own: i agree with i think we have overdone it. you are excluding people with a tremendous amount of expertise. in a true that a lobbyist democratic administration will be different than a lobbyist in a republican one, but there are a lot of folks in nonprofits, and they are fighting hard for policies that they believed in, and they are experts in those policies. to not bring some of those administration has a real price. martha: can i think one of the areas where that price is paid is in the legislative affairs operation of the white house. you need people with lobbying experience, because they are going to be involved with putting together coalitions, and they had the knowledge. mr. bolten: this is a great

point. the white house itself needs lobbyists. that's what the legislative affairs office is. if you are precluding lobbyists from being lobbyists, who are your lobbyists going to be? they are people who don't know the craft they are being asked to perform. so, yeah. none of us is a lobbyist, by the way. nows part of the atmosphere surrounding this election. sitting near ground zero of the swamp. and the president won this election in part on a promise to drain the swamp. emblematic stuff needs to be , and some stuff will go down the drain that actually will be helpful in governing,

but that's the way politics works. particularon a platform with a mandate, you probably ought to do at least a few of the things you have promised the people. ms. brown: president clinton recognized that he had disinfect -- clintonpresident recognized that he had disadvantaged people. hehink just after christmas, rescinded that ban. if you think about people who are coming in who have made large amounts of money, and then they come in and they are making a small percentage of what they themake, then to prohibit from going back to the life they had, there are a lot of people who are not going to do that. to a differentrn

topic and talk about the role of family members in the trump administration potentially. to figureen trying out what jared kushner is going to do in the politico newsroom at least. know howous to unprecedented that would be to have a family member served in a senior white house role. martha? [laughter] martha: bobby kennedy. of course there was legislation passed after that, but bobby kennedy was very important as he was the attorney general, but he was at the white house all the time and had very much been a part of the campaign, and he was very important to him. generally have houseen part of the white through the decision-making structure.

that was an unusual circumstance. but if you remember in this campaign, it was a campaign with a very small coterie of people. his family was integral to that. you saw that every time there was a big event, it was his family that was there. his -- ksioner and ushner and his sons and daughters were all very much a part of that loyalist group, and he wants his people around him that he trust. -- trusts. worries me more is the conflict of interest issue with regard to his businesses. it is too close having the family and businesses and governing. that's the part of it that i would want to see him separate, and have the business is run by , and thehey are president himself is actually not subject to conflict of interest.

take any official action that is going to benefit you or your family members personally. that is something that every government official commits to. i think it is a statute. that is the piece that worries me more. add?: josh, anything to mr. bolten: no. martha: the other thing when you think about family members, you worry about -- they worry about their family members getting in trouble, and what problems they can cause, whether it is billy carter and his connection with the libyans, or richard nixon, who was worried about his he had takenan from howard hughes. that's usually where family members come in. nancy: if we could ask you, josh, about what the white house will look like -- we know that

reince priebus will be the chief of staff, steve bannon will be a strategist. those are two very different personalities that bring different things to the table. how is that going to work out? mr. bolten: i hope it works out the structure that has been suggested by the think, could be a serious mistake. here's why i say that. very first personnel announcement of the trump transition was writes preakness as white house chief of staff -- reince priebus as white house chief of staff, and steve bannon as the senior counselor title, good those are two announcements to make very early on. that, it seemed to me, was

smart. thee are probably two of people you want to pick first, along with your national security advisor. all of that was smart. but in the announcement of and bannon,priebus the press said they would be co-equals. actually ban and got top elling, which as a former chief of staff was painful -- bannon. top billing,-- got top which as a former chief of staff was painful. if by: equal they mean that those two people will have equal access to the presidency, that's fine. the president can listen to as many voices as he wants to. it is actually a benefit to the president to have disparate voices, which i think you would bus and bannon,

priebus being somebody well steeped in the ways of washington. he has been chair of the republican national committee for some time. he is more in the mainstream of republican politics and governance. bannon is a disruptor. he is the former head of breitbart. he is provocative. he has been a promoter of what's called the alt-right. i don't think there is anything wrong with having a different voice in the white house, but the problem arises when you try andun the white house, through the white house run the government. if there is a lack of clarity as to who is in charge and who speaks for the president, that , and in ald be successful white house, i believe, must be the chief of staff.

if there is a question about what the president decides, the u.s. two people now and get two versions? ,f there is a question about what will the president be reviewing today? whatu have a fight about is going to be on the agenda, who gets to be in the meeting? is there a dispute the president has to resolve about going to chicago or detroit to give a speech? you need a chief of staff to thecally the the -- be person who sits at the top of the pyramid and who manages the flow into the president and interprets for everybody else in government the flow out. i was chief of staff for the last three years of the bush administration. while i was there, the senior adviser in the comparable strategist position to president

bush was karl rove. better,s no closer, more intimate advisor on the staff to president bush than karl rove, who was an extraordinarily astute, sophisticated, brilliant political and policy strategist. so i was chief of staff with a senior advisor whose advice even i thought was more important to be president than my own, but the system worked, i thought, extremely well, because both of give our advice to the president, but only one of us was actually in charge of running the staff and acting as the voice of the president to the rest of the government. iswhat they mean by coequal they both get to talk to the president, great. no problem with that.

but if what they mean is that there is lack of clarity as to who runs the operation on behalf of the president, i think they are in for some real trouble. nancy: the other thing i want to ask about is trump has in holding all these meetings as potential cabinet picks -- with digital cabinet picks at trump tower. martha, from a historical perspective, is it common to do that outside of washington? martha: absolutely. they do stay outside of washington. what they want to do is keep out of public view, because they want to make that shift from being a candidate of a particular party to being president of all the people. that's not something you could do in washington. they have allstate wherever -- they have stayed wherever they were, whether it was reagan in california -- and when reagan did come to washington, what he

did was he had a party, and at he had tip o'neill, speaker of the house, and he had the democrats throughout washington like robert strauss, of the a bulwark democratic organization and head , and had others in the washington community, not just republicans, because he wanted to show that when he came as president, he needed everybody in order to govern, so that really was an important state. it was not something you could have done immediately after the election. he did all of his work in california. bush did his in crawford. and obama was in chicago. but you still have an operation that is working here on transition, in addition to the

operation that is wherever the president is. we are going to go to the audience for questions in one minute. if you want to start thinking about those. one question i would like for each of you to answer, what are the challenges for the trump transition team over the next few weeks? what do they need to focus on? the big challenges personnel. you mentioned 4000 people. you don't need to fill all 4000 are white, over 1200 of them subject to senate confirmation. are, what, over 1200 of them subject to senate confirmation. but if they don't come in with the traditional republican apparatus, they have a real challenge. every transition has a real challenge with filling the key jobs that you want to have in place on or near january 20 when

you actually take over. this transition has a real challenge with that, and so i is to figureocus out who the right people are to put in place in these important jobs. nancy: just a follow-up, so many werelishment republicans hesitant to support trump during the campaign. do you see people changing their mind on that and being more open to serve in the administration now that he is resident elect? mr. bolten: i do see people changing their mind. make no mistake, the trump campaign was a remarkable, hostile takeover of the republican party. supportid not have the ofa very large portion

traditional republican policy people. the was especially true in foreign policy area, where a byple of letters were signed well over 100 of the most experienced republican policy officials, the letter expressly saying this man is unfit to be president. those people have probably disqualify themselves by their fromture on that letter being drawn into a trump if i amration, because president elect donald trump, i am not that keen to bring on my team somebody who publicly said unfit to serve as president. of challenge is that most the senior republican foreign-policy experts signed that letter, so i don't think

there is actually a problem with people being willing to serve, primaryin the heat of a , there is a real battle that goes on, but in the end almost everybody i know that has been or wants to be a public servant as a -- is a patriot and wants the country to succeed and wants to help contribute. so i don't think there is a problem with people being willing to serve. i think there is a problem in the foreign and national security policy area of a lot of the best people having disqualify themselves from serving. nancy: lisa? ms. brown: i completely agree with josh on personnel. the other thing i would say is a new president has a honeymoon area bank, and he will -- a honeymoon period, and he wants to take advantage of that. that means thinking carefully about what his first third in the 60 days will look like, what the priorities will be. thinking carefully about that will set the tone for his

administration. given the way the campaign was run, and given some of the republican opposition to him, what kind of a president is he going to be? i think what he does in the first weeks of office will be more important for him than for previous presidents. i would hope that is also part -- what is the tone they want to set, and what are they going to do to demonstrate that? i hope they think about that. i think a challenge they have right now is, before you make up a lot of your appointments, setting up a decision-making structure. what information do you want to gather? who do you want to talk to? what groups do you want to take into account? what is important for the president? it is a different decision-making system them running your business -- them than g your business --

running your business, because in running your business you can decide who you want to talk to and not bother with those you don't. when you are president, you are going to have to take into account the congress, for example, so you can't just make decisions on your own. you have to think about, what is a mature decision-making structure? that is going to be important in how you set up your white house. nancy: let's take some questions. if the people asking just want to state your name and where you are from, and let's keep the questions as brief as possible. do you want to go first? >> i am from florida state university. the question i have is, when it comes to agreements made from the previous presidency and transferred to the donald trump as opposed to the deal with iran. will this be wrought up during

the presidency? mr. bolten: absolutely. that's among the toughest issues that the president-elect and the transition team faces. the campaign trail he wants to tear up the iran agreement. he wants to withdraw the united states from the paris climate agreement. president obama did those agreements as executive agreements. for theot submit them advice and consent of the senate. having done them as executive agreements rather than treaties, which would then have the force of law, which would then there would be a probably collocated test complicated legal procedure to withdraw the united states, a probably those -- complicated legal procedure to

withdraw the united states, those will probably be legal agreements. on january 20, he will have the withdraw the united states from the iran nuclear deal, from the paris climate deal, and a number of other things. but particularly with respect to the iran nuclear deal, it is a very complicated and dangerous situation, and i imagine that one of the key issues on the agenda of the new national security advisor general plan be, -- general flynn will ok, what did we mean by that, how do we implement that, do we really need to tear up the agreement on day one? situation theyt are dealing with. it is not uncommon for presidents.

presidents often say stuff on the campaign trail that turns out to be awkward when you are governing. but this one is consequential in -- y that nancy: go ahead. you, ladies and serve, for sharing your insight. i'm from the university of central florida. -- my question is regarding the devices that were used during the campaign, the sound is -- the soundbites and , and making sure the candidate presents the views you wish to protect. how do you evaluate the soundbites? do you think he is going to back away from them, or have the choices he has made made it clear that he is pushing through with the promises?

the second question is, with regards to some of the letters that people wrote: trump unfit , do young trump unfit think in the future people will be more cautious and fight from senators and otherwise? ms. brown: when you are talking tout divisive, do you refer things like twitter? >> his promises. ms. brown: oh. one of the challenges of president-elect is getting rid of some of the bad ideas. they were good rhetorically, but would not make for good policy. challenge.always a but every president has faced that in some way. in his case, there are going to

be a lot, because he took such hard positions like the wall, building the wall and having mexico pay for it. do, ismer, which you can redefine. a lot of it is redefine things. redefine what constitutes a wall. maybe a fence. [laughter] , becausend maybe you've got drones, that's as good as a wall. it does not necessarily mean bricks. but i have not figured out how he will get out of the commitment that mexico is going to pay for it. we have already seen some of this. on 60 minutes, he talked about his priorities on immigration and that he would be deporting criminals. he also did not have a love of

specifics -- a lots of specifics with many of his ideas, so in some ways that gives him more room in terms of figuring out what he is going to do. i think what we hope is that, as on immigration, he starts with criminals. he starts to prioritize in a , as he actually has to move forward and figure out what some of those ideas are going to mean in reality. your questionlike on whether people will sign letters in the future. first of all, i think most of the people who sign those expectation that donald trump could possibly be elected president of the united states. something that probably will happen and should happen is that the political class in both parties have a little more about their

expectations of what they know will happen. the people have their own voice, and they sometimes speak in ways that is surprising to the deletes. -- elites. one senior person in the foreign policy and national security community who did not signed that letter was steve hadley, your national security advisor. nancy: go ahead. there's a lot of negativity about the transition process. it is probably impacting some donald trump voters in a negative way. do you think it will slow down with the transition team to preserve their integrity? ms. brown: i think there are a lot of people in government who believe in a deeply and wanted to work. -- want it to work.

i think there are individuals who are going to join because they want to make sure the government is going to continue to run well. i also think that a lot of government is career employees who are incredibly knowledgeable. incoming administration is smart, part of what they do is, will they take advantage of those employees? the more recent changes have been as martha was saying, you have material that has been prepared, you have designated career employees who are ready to step into political positions , theey are not filled people who are going to be working with incoming administration. there is a lot of capacity there , and any incoming president should take advantage as well. nancy: go ahead. >> good morning. i am a student at emerson college. what is a chance that there will

still be vacancies come inauguration day? 100 percent chance. no matter how organized you are, there is no way those positions are all filled area it -- all filled. it's one of the challenges. fill the non-senate-confirmed ones quickly. our transition was very organized and even we had a number of vacancies in important agencies. secretary geithner was one of the only political appointees in the treasury for a period of time. mr. bolten: it does not mean stillction it there are many vacancies on inauguration day. it's just incrementally harder for the president-elect to manage the government if he does

not have his people in those places. lisa and martha emphasized a very important point. how many people work in government, martha? 4 million total? martha: yes. 4000olten: so there are political appointees, but there mostly capable, dedicated people who keep the train going that martha was talking about on a daily basis. to get as many people as you can promptly into the cab of the train so that the president-elect has the opportunity to take it where he thinks it ought to go. a goal is to have 400 people confirmed by the august of congressional recess. to do, because you know everybody can't get confirmed, is you think through your priorities.

for example, when president reagan came in, it was a tough economic situation, and the same thing with president obama. on, you do is you focus what positions are there throughout the government that are going to be important for your issue? 87reagan's case, they chose positions that dealt with the economy. in all the agencies and departments. and that's where they put their attention. i would expect that they are going to deuce -- going to do the same thing. not to do that, you have to think through all the things you have said. what are the conditions now? what are your priorities as far as those positions? the obama administration, they started their transition early, but in september the

financial meltdown was occurring, so they had to switch to a different set of issues to focus on when they came into office. getting that focus is going to be key to getting the appointments set up in their priority line. ms. brown: i think you will see a focus on national security appointments and economic appointments. those are the first one you focus on. but a transition in power is a period of vulnerability, so you want to make sure that on the national security front you have your people in. the new legislation that passed, part of what it requires is you one the two tabletops national security, which is something josh actually instituted when we were coming in.

essence, and, in he worked with some of the people who are going to be in those positions so you are ready. there was actually a national security inauguration day -- national security threat on inauguration day when president obama was inaugurated. incoming secretary napolitano was at an off-site. ,egardless of your party whenever there is a change of party and the administration, it shows that everybody is dedicated to our country and the system and they wanted to work. they are now built on a lot of the best practices in the past that president bush and incoming president obama started. martha: and the government under the new law is also required to submit the list of vulnerabilities of the intelligence community. the intelligence community gathers vulnerabilities so that people will know coming in what the issues are.

in 2008 in the bush administration, steve hadley prepared memoranda that looked through what the issues are that were important for them to deal with in the national security area, and what countries also. you needed to know what the before theyd been came in, how it has developed, and what was the situation at the end. there is a lot of work that is done to the point of national security being key. nancy: go ahead. on from the university of puerto rico. related to what my colleague just asked. thatpeople have said

trump's transition team is incomplete. that is because he and his team were not expected to win, and others are actually [indiscernible] do you think this is affecting it in some way? what is your take on this? [indiscernible] mr. bolten: nobody else? look, this was an insurgent campaign. with them a bring whole cap array of longtime republican establishment government figures and think tankers.

in fact, they trump campaign was predicated on running against those people. it's not at all surprising that when it comes time to put , theyer a transition team people who have experience in putting a government together. the other thing is, and this is a challenge for transitions in every election cycle, the candidate is focused on winning the damn election. and it's really hard to get the candidate to focus and devote brainpowerces or from someone the candidate trusts. it is hard to get them to focus on preparing to govern when they are still trying to win the election. every ounce of their time and effort and money is going into that. that was not the point of the

legislation, the two sets of legislation passed promoted substantially by martha kumar on my left, so that there is a legal structure in place that a sickly -- that's basically -- that basically forces the two to startdates planning, and it gives them gsa office space to start putting a transition together. the legal structure is there. getchallenge is to try to the campaign and the candidate to focus on something that is nowhere near their priority. they just want to win, and worry about governing later. the problem is there is a lot of work. if you are going to have a smooth transition, it needs to be done early on, and that is a

particularly big challenge for an insurgent campaign like the trump campaign. and they did not gather a lot of information done in this campaign under chris thestie, and then when leadership changed, you are going to have different people coming in, but there is a lot of information that they gathered, and that information will stay. a funny aspect is that there are a lot of candidates who believe in the jinx. they don't want to jinx themselves by working on transition. i was reading something yesterday that trump believed in the jinx. "don't jinx me." i think clinton as well. they did not want to think about those things beforehand. ms. brown: the way to handle that is, what candidate obama

did is he chose john podesta to run his transition. they were totally separate pre-election, as they should be. keepampaign needs to campaigning, and the candidate needs to win, and that's exactly where his or her attention should be. but if there is someone you trust, you can say, go set this up. then there is a structure that you can walk into and take advantage of once you do when. win.ce you do >> i'm a student>> at texas christian university. my question is, our constitution was written in such a way that the office of the presidency was not supposed to the an ultra-powerful branch. some people are acting like a trump presidency is the end of the world. if they are afraid of the wrong person being president, doesn't that mean that the office of the president has too much power? there hast that mean

been an overreach of authority in current and past administrations? president is the only official we had that is nationally elected. one of the things that has happened over time is that you have had a nationalization of problems. so the only official that really has the total perspective is the president. if you ask presidents whether they had teed up much power, i think they would all agree that they did not have a sufficient amount, because they think of themselves as representing the people, and congress is a district in the , andests of the district in the senate, just their state. they feel that they should have a lot more authority than they have. you often have battles over what kind of authority a president

should have. of thisthe battle administration over trade promotion authority, whether they president should have that, which he ultimately god, but it was a big battle -- he ultimately got, but it was a big battle. >> i'm from the university of central florida. john.stion is for to what extent would you say 9/11 impacted you? mr. bolten: hugely. i was the chief of staff for the transition out of the bush the bushation, so transition out of government after 9/11. it was, i think, with 9/11 in mind that president bush called me into his office a year before

the inauguration of the new president, in fact, more than a year before, and said that regardless of who wins this election, he wants to make sure the we attempt to execute best, most efficient, most useful transition in american because thiscially will be the first transition in modern american history during which the american homeland is known to be under threat. he was very concerned about the period of vulnerability that our country goes through at that moment of transition. bothll would be, i think, killed and impressed -- chilled and impressed with what the white house looks like on january 19 and january 20. i have been in the white house twice on january 19.

i was in the white house on onuary 19, 1993, and again january 19 in the morning of january 20, 2001. and the white house is empty. there is nothing on the walls. there was nothing on the shelves. the computers are there, but the hard drives are wiped clean. there are no people there. but it is a complete blank slate. the only people in the west wing are in the situation room. there are a few cia and state department junior level people there to handle communications. and there are the navy people who serve the food in the mess. and that's it.

we always worry about the decapitation of government. when we have a transition, we self decapitate. we clean the place out. it is a moment of real vulnerability for the country, and president bush had very much had a 9/11 type episode in mind when he directed me to direct the staff to do our best to make the transition into the obama administration as smooth as possible. it has improved dramatically. the legal structure and expectations have improved dramatically since then, so we now have a built-in agenda to make that transition goes smoothly, but a lot of people to givedo a lot of work the country the kind of reassurance it deserves that we are not unnecessarily vulnerable as we go through this extraordinary process of the peaceful transfer of power.

i actually was there -- i worked for vice president gore, and when he lost i was there on the last day. i had work, had come back to the white house, and my world was actually to work -- my role was to actually make sure everybody was doing what they were supposed to be doing. i think there is reassurance that everybody should take from the dedication of individuals who are in office to making sure that the transition is as smooth as possible, and it has only become stronger over recent transitions both because of 9/11 and because of legislation. but you really do have a lot of dedicated individuals that want to make sure that it works. fortunately, president obama had set the right tone from the top. martha: the terrorism prevention act was passed in 2004, and it brought into legislation recommendation of the 9/11

commission. they were very concerned about that vulnerability, so they wanted to make sure there were going to be people during the transition who were going to have their security clearances early, and so they provided for that early security clearance so that there would be people who were well informed and in place early. one group you did not mention that actually is in the white house is the press. nancy: thank you so much to everyone. thank you so much to our panelists. we know how busy you are. [applause]

>> followed the transitional government on c-span as all trump becomes the 45th president of the united states, and republicans maintain control of the u.s. house and senate. key events as they happen without him for -- without interruption, watch on-demand on c-span.org or listen on our free c-span radio app. >> welcome to congress. c-span topped with some of the newly elected members of congress while they were on capitol hill this week for orientation. here is a look. congressman elect paul mitchell joins us, from michigan's 10th district, a republican filling the shoes of congresswoman candice miller, who is running orientation here as the chairwoman of the house organization committee. does that give you extra insight into the orientation process?

mr. mitchell: high expectations are part of my district, that is for certain. i spent 45 years in workforce development, helping adults retrain for jobs. the last 27 years with a company, became ceo, retired in 2011, and decided it was time to do something more -- serving. >> how you feel about making the decisions and running things to now being in a legislative body? mr. mitchell: i believe a good ceo works with the people around him. you can issue orders all you want, you may not get them well done. but to get everyone committed, you can move things forward. i think the same approach works in congress. see if you can get a consensus that will move the ball forward. years in in 35 business, there are very few perfect decisions.

make want to the best you can and continue working on it. thes you go through orientation process -- i know it just started, but what six how to use of our? mr. mitchell: -- but what sticks out to you so far? mr. mitchell: i got a text message from kevin about saving room for my family, serving in congress, it is a huge responsibility. very few people get to do this, and to treat that with respect and honor. about hows a debate long members of congress should stay in washington, d.c. during the week. should they sleep in their office, or should they get a house in the city? how are you dealing with that? how are you dealing with the dcs but of this? this?. aspect of mr. mitchell: i will commute, i will have an apartment. they will be here a few times a

month to get the washington experience. my home is in michigan. we have 50 acres, chickens, goats, and i cannot just say, "i am going to move to washington." that is not represent the district, either. you build the way consensus and gives no fellow members and move legislation at times when there is so much gridlock, do you think that? mr. mitchell: we can do both. will will be many weeks i be here, and dinners will be with those members. it is not to neglect those, but it is remembering that home-based is home-based here are inple who elected me michigan. my family will be there. it can be overwhelming here. i figured that out already. the demands are already high. >> what committees do you want to work on? mr. mitchell: as you know, that is not a decision unit to make yourself. i want to work on transportation infrastructure and education

workforce. helping adults develop skills and the challenges related to that. if i can have an impact there, life is good. >> congressman paul mitchell, thank you so much. we are with congresswoman elect val demis. former orlando police department chief. how does that job repair your for congress? you forre congress? demings: i have seen the results of good government and bad government. i'm excited about this opportunity to serve them in a very special but different way. >> what did you campaign on? ms. demings: our national security, even down to neighborhood security, is a top priority for me. it is the foundation of the

american dream that we love to talk about. police-community relations, criminal justice reform a top priority. making sure we keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have the, which has nothing to do with the second amendment but has to do with evil who are mentally ill, criminals, -- people who are mentally ill, criminals, domestic abusers. education and making sure that every child, regardless of their zip code, has access to quality education. whoecting the men and women protect us, our veterans as well as protecting our seniors and making sure they can retire with dignity and respect. youn the guns issue that brought up, how do you think the orlando shooting, the worst mass shooting in u.s. history, how do you think that has impacted the debate in this country on guns? ms. demings: crime is adam an-time high -- is at all-time high. removing crime guns from our

streets is a second priority. we looked at home invasions -- occurring with firearms. the pulse shooting to now have the title were the deadliest mass shooting took place is unbelievable. but i really believe it has provided an opportunity, just like all the other mass shootings in our country, for both sides of the aisle to come together, and let's get to work on this issue so we can better protect those we represent. it works are you feeling that from your new fellow colleagues? -- >> are you feeling that from your new fellow colleagues? ms. demings: this is a tough come station because it has been hijacked from our second amendment rights to your i am a gun owner. i carried one professionally for 27 years. i get that. it has nothing to do with second amendment rights. even though this is a tough conversation historically, we have seen some movement on both sides of the aisle after the pulse shooting, and we just need

to work hard to keep that momentum up. >> on police community relations, you said you want to make it a priority. what advice would you get to this new administration if you can talk to the president-elect about dealing with that issue that has become such a thorny issue in recent years? ms. demings: there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the men and women who protect and serve us do it well. they would risk their lives for strangers. they do it everyday. but we've had some issues that need to be addressed. of course there are. as we continue to have the bright as an investment in women to do the job, make sure they have the best training, technology, and equipment to do their job. as we talk about training, let's introduce sensitivity training as well. make it mandatory so that every man and woman, regardless of what they believe outside of their agency, will be better equipped to police more diverse communities. >> before you go, have you thought about what committees you want to serve on? ms. demings: that is still a work in progress.

what i do know is protection, the safety of our nation is a top concern of mine as well as making sure that we keep america moving, you know. have 66 million people who visit central florida every year. transportation is certainly a key concern to me. but we're still trying to work through that process. >> congresswoman elect demings, thank you so much. we are with john faso of the 19th district from a republican who won that swing seat. what is it like representing a swing seat, one that is likely to be targeted again? is it more different for you then other freshmen members who come from various states, republican or democratic seat? faso: i have said all along that not all the wisdom lies on the republican side or the democratic side. there are good point at each

brings, and one of the reasons that motivated my candidacy is that i am frustrated at washington's inability to get things done, and often it is msnbc, the left is on the right is on fox, and we talk past each other. the are all americans. we have serious problems with assault in this country. there is no one democratic or republican solution to it. i bring my own. we -- i bring my own philosophy. i am a more limited government person, but we have got to work together and work across partisan lines. i am hopeful that we can do that. to see us grow this economy. that is the biggest issue we face. we have to get more economic growth. that really response to the economic anxiety that people feel. >> people often say they want to get people to talk more and stop talking past each other. what is your suggestion to your colleagues as we get to know each other? that we show a

willingness to work across party lines. there are a lot of issues, i think, where there is an ability, like on tax reform. corporate tax reform. it makes no sense for our corporations who are doing business abroad to then bring profit sum and the double tax. i think most democrats and republicans would agree with that. anble taxation is not incentive. we wanted dollars home to be invested here. areas on theot of corporate tax i -- we know obamacare is falling apart by its own weight, so we have got to come up with a consensus on what comes next. these are areas where i want to work across party lines to get things done. >> the 19th district contest was watched nationally. oft should be the lesson campaign 2016 for party leaders as they are reflecting on what happened a week ago? lesson ini think the

my district is the most important thing is local. i responded and i talked about issues that were local oriented. >> what are some examples? mr. faso: just in terms of job growth. we have the new york city watershed, but the bluestone mining industry is being regulated to death by new york city, department of environmental protection. we can protect the environment but encourage a vital industry in our area. i focus on local issues in a different areas of the district, whether it is lyme disease, bluestone mining, hospital reimbursement rates in one part of the district. i think people want a representative to be down here to work on a national issues, but i think there is a real con -- a real contrast and our campaign in that regard. >> you started in local government in the 1970's -- mr. faso: no, i actually started

in the state legislature in 1980. bring from state government to the federal government? certain issues, not every problem is a federal problem, and not every problem is a federal solution. common or is it example. that was an issue, the way it was handled, because of the state being attracted by the federal money in the obama stimulus. >> congressman faso, thank you for your time. we are with congressman elect charlie crist, the former governor, are you the man in the rain who has no political experience char?lie

- experience? mr. crist: i don't know, but i know we all want to work hard and we do not separate by a republican, democrat, independent, i realized our all-american. we have a duty to bring this country together, and people are counting on it. here on capitol hill, can you describe the feeling? is it like the worst day of school? mr. crist: very much so. you are learning where your office might be, who your staff might be, it is a very exciting time, it really is. everything is new. dealing with the press, the political pressures of being in office, if you could give one or two uses of advice, what would it be? mr. crist: be true to yourself. if you speak from the heart, you do not have to worry about what you are saying. just be honest. >> david jolly ran on issues of

reforming money and politics. is that an important issue for you? is this something that you feel like you can make changes on capitol hill now? mr. crist: it is a very important issue. overturning citizens united is important, dark, corporate money in politics, we have got to get that out of here. we have to return the house of representatives to the people and make sure they are the ones who are represented, they are the ones we are fighting for, and we understand they are the bosses. >> speaking of being the boss, are you prepared to be one of 435 instead of the bus in the state of florida? mr. crist: absolutely. i am an old football player. it's clear to me that being part of a team is a lot of fun, and whether your governor, chief executive, it can be a little lonely sometimes. this is a lot of fun. i am enjoying my new colleagues. >> congressman chris, thank you so much. peru ondent obama is in

his last trip before leaving office. today, he will hold a town hall in lima, peru live on 2:20 p.m. eastern on c-span. he holds a closing news conference on the apex closing news conference before heading back to the u.s. that is live at 6:30 p.m. eastern also on sees him -- on c-span. feature ofure c-span2's book tv as our coverage of book fairs and festivals. book tv will be live from the 33rd annual miami book fair. today's coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. here is some of what you will see. onw york times" pamela paul by the book. the "washington post" leslie lowery with his book "they cannot kill us all: ferguson, baltimore, and a new era in american racial justice movement." senator bernie sanders takes

talks about his book, "our revolution." heray, dana perino with latest book "let me tell you about jasper: how my best friend became america's dog." national book award finalist colson whitehead with "the underground railroad." then mitchell kaplan. live coverage of the miami book fair this morning at 10:00 eastern and sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. eastern. ooktv.org for a complete schedule. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, tonight at 8:00 eastern, lectures and history -- >> the only essential difference between a nazi mob hunting down jews in central europe and down black menng

in mississippi is that one is encouraged by its national government and one is just tolerated riots national government -- by its national government. a then on "reel america," film on the national panthers. >> the police and our community are not for our security but the security of the business owners in the community, and also to see that the status quo is kept intact. >> sunday afternoon at about 4:30 eastern, archaeologist dean snow on the battlefield saratoga in new york and the inspiration for his book "1777: tipping point at saratoga." >> what on earth was a little old lady doing out there? she was about five feet tall, at least 60 years old, and she was a battle casualty at saratoga.

>> and german artifacts. >> the french method, they put you in a little bowl area with the wings cut down. your second training flight gave you more wing and a little more engine, and you would literally hopped down the field. then when you were ready for the big day, you would talk with your structure -- your instructor, you get in an airplane and make your first real solo play all by yourself. powellt robert "boom" takes us on a tour of the military aviation museum in virginia to learn about advances n aviation technology during the wars. for more information, go to c-span.org. president-elect donald trump has announced his choice for several more national security positions. the president-elect says alabama senator jeff sessions is his choice for attorney general. retired lieutenant general

michael flynn will service as national security advisor. and mike pompeo has been selected to become the next cia director. the attorney general and cia director must be confirmed by the senate. early next year, you will be able to watch live, i interrupted coverage -- on interrupted coverage on c-span, c-span.org, or listen free on the the c-span radio app. nebraska senator ben sasse constitution.he >> nebraska senator ben sasse outlined his thoughts on the constitution. from the federalist society, this is 45 minutes. i want to welcome everyone to

the 15th annual lecture. i'm the president of the society. the memorial lecture series started ted olson's inaugural election. it reminded us how to be an american and how legal tradition is a critical part of our identities. barbara understood this connection. towant the lecture series foster principles that expand freedom and the rule of law. include the man who this convention is honoring, star,e scalia, judges can edith jones, former attorney general michael mukasey, peter teal, and that brings us to

today's lecture. it will be my honor to introduce senator ben sasse. after graduating from harvard college, he went on a wrestling scholarship and earned a history phd at yale. he worked for private equity firms before he to president of midland university which he pulled out of difficult financial straits. then he ran for the senate. since he has been elected done a, he has not only couple of things that i will mention quickly, but he is also moonlighted. uber andriven for my understanding is he has a five-star rating. [laughter] [applause]

>> in addition to his bio and his driving, i would add that asse, despite his youth, exemplifies the idea our founders had for the senate. some wise heads will be focused on the good of the country and who would look towards the ways in which our republic needed to meet the ever adjusting challenges of governing a free people. i think the senator may have a little to say about that and i am honored to welcome him. sen. sasse? [applause] sen. sasse: when he mentioned

the driving, i imagine some of you were sucking up as you are trying to get out here. we never had a press strategy around it. that was a mistake. i have a brand that has been tied to the presidential nominee a lot for the last nine months, not something i have been seeking. if i had known that i could just drive uber, i would've gotten out of the doghouse. that would have been a helpful step to take. for those of you who don't know, i want to talk about how we shouldn't have republican and democratic categories on a whole bunch in the execution of law in the article to branch -- two branch. we shouldn't have them in judging. there are whole bunch of places we should not have those categories, and i don't want to assume all of you are as oriented as i am, but i assume that most of you are. one of the great things i

learned driving this weekend, one of them is that town halls were not always totally representative of the public at large. the people who come to them tend to be more obsessively focused on politics and policies than the public in general. if you do a work to her bang -- tour, youa worwork are in a service posture and you learn about different industries, but you also just talk to people in day-to-day life and you learn things that are different than just town hall meetings. i do town halls, but i also do them because i have three children, two daughters and a son. i had never been a politician before. as was mentioned, that might be a good thing. i'm the only guy in the senate who does the family commute. if you're the only one doing something, it probably means you are a naive rookie and probably a fool. i don't want to be away from my

kids, but i don't know what they would do in washington. when i come to washington, i bring with me whichever kid mom's most sick of [laughter] . sen. sasse: this week, i have my five-year-old son and that is a new bag of worms to have running around the senate. he is not bashful about asking questions during my committee hearings. when i do work tours at home, it is a chance to make my children suffer. we feed cattle at 5:00 in the morning and i want them to have that work ethic experience of having to get up and get out and do something when it is cold and you don't feel like doing it. when i drove this weekend, it was hardly because i am a nerd interested in the disintermediation for parts of the service economy, and i wanted to talk to the kinds of consumers, that also the people who were driving for uber, and little did i know that if you drive on game day in lincoln,

you find out they have a market oriented lever to make sure they have enough supply-side of the bar district. if you throw up in an uber, you will be fined $150. this is because the contractor is driving his or her own vehicle. i have learned a lot that may not seem like it is directly relevant, but in certain ways i think it is relevant to what we want to talk about tonight. before we do that, i want to say directly in front of 600 of his closest friends, what a privilege it is to follow ted olson in this lecture by 15 years and to be here celebrating barbara. [applause] sen. sasse: she was an incredibly special woman, and even if you are like me and do

not really know her, i met her in social circles and passing and do not really know where it all, but knew her larger-than-life personality and convictions and commitment to try and persuade other people about the american idea. she is an impressive person and to build on her legacy and speak tonight is a true honor. i began to write some notes about her, and then frankly i realized that what i was going to say probably was not as meaningful as being able to give you all a reminder of what you heard last year. i've read some of the lectures that preceded tonight, and last year when tom cotton gave his lecture, he talked about this guy he referred to as "susan davis" for a while, which is the stage name of anna cotten. it is one of the largest cattle counties in nebraska. nebraska is the largest cattle

state in the nation, take that you texans. [laughter] sen. sasse: when she got to the university, she founded the federalist society. there was a chapter there that made a big impact on her life. tom is married to a woman, and she was formidably shaped because of things and investments people have made before, and those people, or you all, there are now 60,000 alumni of chapters -- what would our mass be now? 36 years? anna benefited from the fact that barbara had been the founder of that chapter. tom said this, he gave a lot of personal details in the teeth discussed character -- and then

he discussed character. he gave a beautiful, long paragraph, and he said this about someone like barbara. aristotle, the first great teacher of character, wrote a lot about character formation, and the only way to develop character is the hard way. the way of making each twice each day for 1000 days and is for another 1000 days, the way of listening to one's conscience when pleasure beckons or paint repels, and to see the good in both the circumstances immediately present and in eternal truths. aristotle teaches the true virtue is not only knowing good but doing it, also, for he says that we are not studying to know what virtue is but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in this. the key to character development for aristotle is practical wisdom, the ability to observe

circumstances combined with knowledge and right principles to reach sound judgment and moral matters. it is the exercise of practical wisdom in every situation that leads to virtue. he said this as well, to do this to the right person at the right extent at the right time with the right motive in the right way, this is not for everyone nor is it always easy, therefore goodness is both rare and laudable and notable. let us applaud the fact that that character was barbara's. [applause] sen. sasse: there are a whole bunch of reasons why it is daunting to stand in front of a group as auguste and learned as this, not least of which is that i am not an attorney. i join with you because of what the federalist society has been fighting for, but i do not have

your training, and so there are a whole bunch of places i can step in plot holes -- potholes. i am a historian by training and was a college president for five years before running for office, for most of my 25 years as an adult, i have worked for a consulting group, a consulting firm, and i have gone into organizations that were a mess, and apart from helping leaders and boards asking questions about whether their institution is accomplishing what it set out to accomplish. maybe it's should be retired. maybe your philanthropy project succeeded. maybe was written 10 years ago and did not succeed but it doesn't make sense anymore. institutions need to die and cultural pluralism allows the experiment of a voluntary organizations and that is a good thing. i came here tonight to speak

primarily about successes and some adjacent problems that are not a criticism of the federal stock, but a crisis that i would called -- the fact that we have been raising a couple of generations of american orphans in the sense that president reagan used to warn that in any free republic you are only one generation from the extinction of freedom. if you do not pass on the meaning of america to the people who will be ruling america, because we don't believe in a professional incoming class, if the people who are supposed to rule america in 10, 20 and 30 years do not understand what america is, if they do not understand the american idea, freedom will slip away. we have, for nearly half a century, stopped discussing who

we are as a people. we don't have a shared understanding of these things, and that is not precisely the federalist society's mission. i was going to give you a brief history of the federalist society and celebrate some of the high moments, partly as a way to laud you, but also to focus in my preparation and learn more, and as a former professor, i learned selfishly and then i have the excuse as an audience. [laughter] sen. sasse: i was heading into this to remind you of it, and then i was going to have an analogy of religion in the early modern period. i say that because i am a historian and my mom believes i wasted all my years in new haven. i have to prove her wrong once a year. i also think there are probably a whole bunch of cultural and religious pluralism jokes i can make as a protestant at a time when the supreme court has a vacancy and my people are unrepresented on the court. [laughter] [applause]

sen. sasse: i had a disparate impact joke and an affirmative action joke but i will spare you all. there is a really important thing that happened in the 10 years after the reformation. it starts as an intellectual debate about how people are saved and theologians are debating in latin and in a specialized institution of a hierarchal church. by the 1580's, there is a reformation movement and a countermovement that are heavily involved with laity. how you went from an intellectual debate from clergy in latin to a mass movement relates to a moment in the

1527-1528 period, when that is martin luther assumed that the debates he was having were surely reaching the people. martin luther left and went out into saxony and started interviewing pastors and mothers and dads and 14-year-old kids and he came to the conclusion that they don't have any idea what we are talking about. this movement is not actually penetrating, it is having political implications, and the world was being turned upside down in a whole bunch of ways, but it was not reaching the masses. the catechism movement starts in 1528 and 1529, and what i had come to originally speak about was that. i was going to talk about the

difference between the movement you have been so successful at, the fact that before 1981 at yale and at the conference, and 1982 in 1985 when general lee's addresses the aba and talks about original intent and the debates that followed for the next 4-5 years that went from original intent to original public meaning and all the jokes we have about history doesn't matter. you go through this moment where you get to a place to think how stunning it is when justice kagan is at her confirmation and she proclaims we disagree with her about what she thinks she means when she says it, but it is a pretty stunning thing about the success, the founders, the nurturers and investors in this movement that justice kagan would say, we're all originalists now. we don't think she really gets

it. [laughter] sen. sasse: and yet, you cannot just say the texts are irrelevant. that is a fascinating thing. when thinking about what it was going to say, i admit, my skepticism about the nominees of both of the parties over the course of the last 6-9 months to not have to do with speculation about how the election would turn out. the concerns i had about executive restraint in both parties. i admit, i was surprised by the outcome last tuesday night, and i realized there are all sorts of new moments of opportunity from this not just because there are policy preferences that will be advanced by president-elect trump that i appreciate more than the policy preferences that would be advanced by secretary clinton, and not just because i think it is highly likely that his first nominee for the court will come from that list of 21. those are really great things. but i think there might be a new moment of opportunity, and i

would like to explore the own little bit tonight about what the opportunity for american citizenship might be in the strange time we are now entering. i did not pivot what i am going to talk about because i thought of it on my own. i will admit a little bit of butterflies to say this. i am pivoting what i'm going to talk about because of how many of you in this audience reached out to me recently concerned about your own organization. what is it like to be the nonattorney given the barbara olson lecture and then tell you that you need introspection. you have two big and important projects on the agenda. your talked about the article one project and you have talked about regulatory reform, and you have a standing mission to serve

as gatekeepers of the kind of people who should be on the federal bench. and all sorts of fundamental ways, you are about advancing an organization that teaches at law schools across the country, were not a lot of other people are advancing this vision, the founders understanding of separation of powers, of limited government, of checks and balances. these are beautiful things that our people do not understand. right now, current polling data shows that 41% of americans under age 35, 41% of americans under age 35 think the first amendment is dangerous. because you might use your freedom of speech to say something that would hurt someone else's feelings. that is actually quite the point of america. [laughter] [applause]

sen. sasse: for those of you who need a trigger warning or want to flee to a safe space, let me forewarn you, our founders -- in virginia, there were a bunch of materialist, commercial folks. so we will ignore those. by large, the american founding was led by a whole bunch of people who differed about the nature of god and heaven and hell and how salvation might be achieved, and they came from a continent where people had been thinking for about 100 years that you should kill each other if you disagreed about those things. you should spill blood over those questions. hear me clearly, i think those questions are critically important. i think those questions are more important than policy and politics. i also think the american experiment is the most glorious experiment in the history of the world because it takes seriously

the human soul, it takes seriously conscience it takes , seriously persuasion and the idea that if you differ about big and important things, you can't solve that by bodily violence. instead, we have this crazy idea that we will come together in a community, we will expand the domain or the reach, as madison would have said, to incorporate more and more people with more and more disagreements so we can get to a place where everybody understands themselves to be a minority. and if everybody -- every american understands themselves to be a credo minority, and less honey, if you're watching on c-span, i don't mean you -- [laughter] sen. sasse: the founders were scared to death about the tyranny of the majority, said they wanted to create a minority consciousness for all of us.

the first amendment -- our constitution is glorious because freedom comes first, net for rights comes first, god gives us with dignity, and we come together as a people to form a government as a secular tool to secure those rights and our constitution says the rights of the people are limitless. that is what the bill of rights is trying to tell us. it is outside the document. on some of the most important things and we will run into the ninth and 10th amendment which, powers which work expressly government, only locals can exercise them. and if there are a bunch of rights we haven't talked about here, people have all those rights too. we will start the bill of rights

,ith the most important topline freedom. what is the most important freedom? religion,amendment is freedom of speech, press, assembly, redress of grievances. that means all of you who became an important still part of our first amendment. [laughter] sen. sasse: let's hear it for the lobbyists. [laughter] [applause] sen. sasse: those freedoms are what the first amendment amendment is about and the idea that any american to think the first amendment might go too far means that we as a people have not done the first things of teaching it. the data is much worse than just something you might think emanates from the campuses right now, the 41% of americans under age 35 who think the first amendment goes too far.

if you ask the general voting public, can you name some of the freedoms in the first amendment, what is the bill of rights about, what can you name? 57% can name freedom of speech. 57%. 19% name freedom of religion as a freedom that exists, and none of the other three freedoms in the first amendment break 10%. think about it. when you think of benjamin franklin ambling out of constitution hall in philadelphia in 1788 and the little old lady and the maybe apocryphal story where she comes up and says mr. franklin, what kind of government did you give us? what kind of government have you built? and he said, it is a republic if you can keep it. i would hazard to guess that most of our founders in philadelphia, if they knew the state of civic understanding today, they may have made another run at george washington about accepting that monarchy.

[laughter] there are fundamental things that we are not getting done and they are a crisis. i thought i might be standing in front of you talking about this at a time when we were about to fill justice scalia's seat with some horrible super legislator who wanted a job that didn't require them to run for reelection. and i say as someone who lived on a campaign bus with three small children for 16 months, i did 1000 events, nearly 400 town and four-year-old throw up on the seat no one paid me , the $150 ubercharge. it is not fair for some democratic nominee -- [applause] [laughter] -- to go and try and make law on the court without having to

stand before the people for reelection. the real reason it is not fair is because the people are supposed to rule and policy is supposed to be made by the people through their elected representatives. and 435 of the 535 people that i work with are able to be fired ireable within 23 months and 29 days. it is a glorious thing. we also have a six-year term. [laughter] policy should be made in the article one branch. policy should not be made by unelected judges. policy, except in the case of foreign policy emergency are not , to be made by the article two branch regardless of what color jersey the person is wearing who inhabits that branch. [applause] some of you know the waters of the u.s. role of the epa and

essentially, it is a bunch of postmodern mumbo-jumbo that says in the clean water act, when it says there is an inter-intra-state distinction, we at the epa would like to have more powers so we will obliterate that distinction. in the county in which i live in nebraska, my county supervisors cannot make their own decisions about road widening project along a two lane county road that has a man-made ditch next to it that is usually dry and when it has water, it comes from an irrigation system that the farmer has erected there. that is supposedly a interstate navigable waterway and the epa's reach now extends there. that is laughably absurd. i want to take a crane and put a speedboat in that ditch and have my kids stand behind it and i

want to film a youtube video of them crying that the skiing is not working so well and i want to talk to the epa administrator about how she can fix my problem. [laughter] i was traveling nebraska last summer and met a rancher who is a larger-than-life marlborough man and he was angry about the waters of the u.s. rule and i was in line with him on the issue and yet i still thought i might die from this encounter. [laughter] finally, he goes from anger to resignation and then he pivots and he says -- i am not just mad about this rule. do you know what i am really mad about? i am mad about my memory because i keep racking my brain, but no matter how hard i try, i cannot remember who i voted for at epa. [applause] aughter] sen. sasse: i have heard readouts from some of your panel today.

and i think that king richard should be fired. that is my personal view. [applause] sen. sasse: because these regulatory agencies are not in any way ultimately accountable to the people. and you all have two projects. you have an article one project about the restoration of balance between the legislature and the executive branch. these are equal branches but they are listed in an order, article one, article two, article three for a reason. because they move from where policymaking and more democratically accountable to less policymaking and less democratically accountable. again -- [applause] the 435 of the 535 people can be fired every 24 months and most policy is to be made by statue . in the executive branch, the president has really important commander-in-chief

responsibilities, especially in an emergency. but his job is less democratically accountable because there is only one time that he or she stands for election. and the courts are to be making new policy and therefore they have lifetime tenure. but if they were going to be a legislative, super legislator body, they should have to stand before the people. we need to teach that again if we are going to, as benjamin franklin enjoined us, if we are going to succeed at keeping the republic. and many of you in this room, even though you don't talk to it much in polite company, are currently worried that the caricature of the left, of those of us who say that originalism is not because of our policy preferences, it is not because of our preferred outcomes, it is because of our constitutionalism. it is because of our oaths of office. its because of our belief in the fact that policymaking should ultimately be accountable to the

people. we say that we are not driven by outcomes. and yet, many of you, i think, have said to me, that you are actually worried that the article one project and the regulatory reform project might get a momentum that does not -- but it might become a new power not just to destroy things that were wrong they built up but to become a new policymaking tool. and the article one project, for all of our supposed sincerity about having policymaking go back to a legislature, might have actually been because of a blue wall. and the fact that there was a belief that republicans who had won one quadrennial election since 1988, think about that at a popular vote level, since

1988, we were at a place where had secretary clinton won this election, we would get to 2020 and you would have americans in their 30's, you would have americans in their 30's who would have seen one time when the republicans won a popular vote since the cold war. one time in their lifetime and that was when the democrats nominated a quasi-frenchman in the aftermath of 9/11. that was a mistake. [laughter] i didn't plan that. note to self. call secretary kerry to apologize. if we are sincere about what we believe, it needs to be the case that we again remember what we thought two weeks ago. which was that we need checks and balances. that we need a separation of powers. that we need cultural catechesis

for the next generation. that we need everyone: democrat, republican, or independent, to know why it is a troubling speech for a president of the united states who has taken an oath of office to say that it does not matter if the legislature passes the laws that i want them to pass. i have a pen and a phone. that was troubling when the man who said it was a democrat. and it will be troubling regardless of the partisan label of the person who occupies 1600 pennsylvania avenue. [applause] sen. sasse: here is the opportunity of the moment though. the opportunity of the moment is -- just as madison envisioned a time when every american should think of themselves as a creedal minority and should go and want to defend the creedal minorities.

no american should naturally aspire to be a part of some majoriatarian coalition that wants to grow washington and shrink the centers of america where life is actually lived. american impulse is to want to see those and to see their families and to see the rotary clubs and to see the churches and the synagogues and as tocqueville thought of it, as the rotary club as the center of american life. when tocqueville came here, he was coming in the 1830's as a travel reporter. our kids know the birthdate of america as july 4, 1776 and we all think of this republic as being inaugurated in 1788 or 1789 but europeans at that time saw us as religious zealots on the frontier of the earth and the british had just been distracted by having a drunk, crazy king, prussian soldiers that did not want to fight, and distraction with battle with

france. it was not until the war of 1812 that brits and europeans come to think of us as truly independent. and so we win our independence in the 18-teens, for ideological reasons, for ideological regions -- reasons for intellectual , reasons, for philosophical reasons. think about margaret thatcher's great line that european nations are born of history but america is the only nation born of a philosophy. by the 1830's, there is a thriving economy here. there is a market revolution. a putting out revolution. the ways goods are being produced in more specialized ways. there is a canal revolution. a railroad revolution. and europeans cannot make any sense about why this is happening. and so tocqueville comes here as a travel reporter to write back and explain to europeans why this is such a glorious, dynamic place. not just with religious and

cultural liberties, but economic vitality. he says -- if you have a better economy than our countries in europe, it must be because you have better bureaucrats. so he comes to washington, d.c. because he is going to find the meaning of american dynamism. he is sure that it exists in the centers of power. it must exist in the capital. and he gets here and he says -- actually, washington, d.c. is a swamp with a bunch of people that are not that creative. [laughter] not a lot has changed. [applause] sen. sasse: i know that we have 10,000 current members of fedsoc and 10,000 alums. but when you are clapped and you are at the mayflower hotel in washington, i feel like we should do the drain the swamp chant. tocqueville says the america that he found, he went to where

there were then 25 states. and he goes to 17 of the states. and he says, i have found the meaning of america. it is the rotary clubs. we europeans have the that -- the idea that there is a is a continuation between isolated individualism and state run collectivism. these americans believe this crazy, glorious thing. these americans actually believe in community. it isn't the case, barney frank that government is just another , word for those things we choose to do together. government is another word for coercion. there is some coercion that is necessary. [applause] government has important responsibilities, we are not anarchists. but community is the word for things we choose to do together. voluntarism and persuasion are the words that show how american community is formed. because if you want to persuade someone to marry you, if you want them to join your synagogue or your church, if you want them to buy your product, you do not supplicate at the king and his

court to get a charter and be the monopoly provider of that service. you go and build a better mousetrap and you learn how to sell it. you go on "shark tank." [applause] and when we say the first institutions of american life are in the private sector and not in the public sector, we are not just talking about capitalism. we are talking about not-for-profit adventures. we are talking about social philanthropy. and tocqueville says we are talking about the rotary club, we are talking about blood, sweat, and tears of neighbors. people who are living out a life of gratitude by serving those people who live next door to them who might actually give their lives. all of the things that actually define happiness are driven by your family and your friends and your work and your belief system that you wrestle through with the people you actually know.

washington exists, this is the american idea, washington exists to provide a framework for ordered liberty. not to root out dissent and disagreement. not to try to squash down on the difference of opinion that we have, but rather to allow 1000 flowers to bloom and to allow people to try to persuade their neighbors. and if we believe those things, then we want to do everything possible to take any occasion to teach the next generation that we aren't really about power. we are about a framework for ordered liberty so that love and persuasion in their communities is where they can live lives that truly flourish. and if we believe those things, we'd look for any opportunity to do that teaching. and we were scared that we were going to have to do that teaching at a time of the political culture and the balance on the court would have drifted more and more toward a

washington-centric view of the world. we have a new opportunity. and many of you in this room will have special opportunities. because many of you are about to go and serve our president-elect , and you will be trying to do the very important work of helping him ably and dutifully pass the laws that have been passed by the congress and to be , prepared to be commander in chief all of the time but especially in times of crisis and emergency. and you will be raising your hands and swearing-in of to limited government. when you swear that oath, you are about the project of continuing to depoliticize american life. because that is what originalism was really about. we were trying to depoliticize the policy preferences of those who were unelected and serving in the administration of justice on the courts. regularly -- regulatory reform is about about depoliticizing in the execution of many complicated statues.

the attack on political correctness that did get a big vote of confidence in this election is about the politicizing conversation so that people can wrestle through real ideas, instead of always fearful. be federalism that we would like to see recovered is about the politicizing the fact that many government decisions should be made across 50 laboratories of democracy so that it can be closer to the people. so that you can have an experiment with what works and what does not work. nebraska and vermont have different values and people and different problems. we have different topography. we will feed the world and they are going to make some really good ice cream. [laughter] sen. sasse: but we should not try -- and everyone from burlington, i would love to buy

you a steak afterwards. [laughter] there are important interstate environmental issues that need to be solved in washington. but every decision that should be solved in washington should not be driven back to the states. i wanted to think about when , tocqueville was coming here, what public discourse looked like in the form of schoolbooks and in the form of public art to make sure that kids understood what came next. think about -- for those of you that have spent any time in annapolis. think about what it meant when general washington, in december of 1783, resigned his commission in maryland at the maryland senate because the continental congress had been meeting there. and he came and he resigned his commission and that famous painting that still sits in

annapolis of president, then general washington resigning his commission. that came out in 1824. right up the street in baltimore , the monument -- the washington monument of baltimore, when we hear washington monument, we think of the one just one mile from us here. the 550 foot tower that exists here. but the one in baltimore is quite a bit more interesting. because -- what did he say? what is on the top? for those of you have been to the 180 foot tower and a 15 foot george washington at the top. what is the artist trying to say with that piece of art? he has washington wearing a roman toga. and he is laying down his commission. it is the scene that happened in annapolis when washington resigned his commission in 1783 and he is handing back the

scroll but he is wearing a roman toga. why? because they knew the story of cincinnatus. they knew the dangers of caesarism. they knew this guy whose term of counsel was over and he went back to growing cabbage and whatever forsaken vegetable it was, and they came to get him and they asked him if he would be dictator. this was a legitimate calling. he accepted the calling. he came back and he took up near limitless power. ostensibly for six months. they won the battle in two weeks. and cincinnatus resigns his commission and tries to go back home. and the people say -- no, you should become dictator. and he says -- no, that is not the law. but they say, no, no one would oppose it. you just have this glorious military victory. you did it in two weeks.

no one would oppose you. and he says -- no, we are a republic and in a republic, we follow laws. and he goes back home. and american schoolkids in the 1820's and 1830's would've understood what that toga meant on that statue. the most vivid picture, the most vivid symbol of freedom and of natural rights and of individual liberty that exists in iconic form anywhere on this globe is the dome of the capital. and when you are in the dome of the capital, there are three famous paintings. yet there are usually only two that we talk about. there is the declaration, the committee drafting the declaration of independence and there is the surrender of the british at yorktown. and both of these paintings are filled with drama. you can hear the trumpets and the drumbeat as you look at them. the world has been turned upside down. they are filled with drama.

and yet, there is a third painting. and it is ridiculously humble and boring. it is a hand with a scroll. and that hand with the scroll is to shout out to the american people -- that it is not about this city. it isn't about the power pole. -- the powerful. it is about the fact that we believe in a republic of law and of limited government where those who serve in power want to embrace restraint. they want to embrace judicial restraint. they need and want to embrace executive restraint. because the laying down of that scroll is another way of saying the center of the world is not here. and it cannot be fixed here. it will be fixed in the communities where our people come from and where the meaning of america is passed on to the next generation and if all of

, you who will soon have the chance to go back into government and those of us who will be cheering you on the outside as you take on that important executive branch calling, your jobs are not chiefly about the policy outcomes when you serve your new president. your job is about the administration of justice because the checks and balances that you believed in two weeks ago and that fedsoc was founded about 35 years ago are not just your new callings when you take the oath, but you have a special new opportunity. when people stand up against power and they disagreed with that power, no one is surprised. they all expected that. what is glorious is when people believe in limited government and restraint, when we are the ones in power. and we now have the opportunity -- [applause] -- to model that restraint. >> next, south carolina governor

nikki haley talking about the election, the future of the republican party, the donald trump presidency and republican , majority in congress. she spoke at the federalist society's national lawyers convention. this is 40 minutes. [applause] convention. this is 40 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. it is absolutely great to be here. i first want to -- i had a great chance chatting with leonard. i want to congratulate him, wherever he went, on being with the federalist society for 25 years. that is pretty amazing and i think everyone owes him a round of applause. [applause] gov. haley: also want to thank alan and carrie. they have been dear friends and just very great supporters.

if you ever want to have a good, conservative sparring fight and not feel like you are the only lone souls, he is your guy. fantastic to work with. thank you for having me. i want to start by saying, hyperbole is something that has become all too common in the world of politics. that is not a particularly bold statement. we all follow the news, we all know that it is true, and we all know that it can have a poisonous effect on our political system and on our society at large. i say that to say this. exaggeration is something i try to avoid at all costs. keeping that in mind, we are currently living through what may be the most interesting time in american political history. [laughter] gov. haley: and i want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you

about it today. where we are, how we got here, where we are going. these are all questions being asked around the nation, and frankly, around the world. there is no single answer, but a theme you will hear from me consistently, today and going forward, is the need for honesty. in an effort to practice what i preach, i have to admit, i am a little or a lot intimidated to be here. i have turned down this invitation in the past, not because i don't have a tremendous amount of respect for the federalist society, but because i'm not a lawyer. i am an accountant by trade. accountants believe in actsrpretations come from f through numbers. those numbers tell a story. that story is meant to be used to create a better way of doing things. so the goal is to take the numbers that are backed, create a vision, which creates more

opportunity and more stability without causing harm. by implementing that vision, constantly checking its progress against real, meaningful benchmarks, we can create a better life. there is always a solution if we are creative enough to find it. that is my education. that is my life experience. it is what i know. my experience with attorneys did not always line up with that. [laughter] the lawyers in my life have seemed to have been taught to say no. to everything. for a while i was convinced you took a class in law school that simply was how to say no. so i can tell you, we have always had that issue in our office. i was never a fan of lawyers because i always felt like their instincts led them to stop everything, irrespective of whether it was positive or negative, but my opinion has

evolved. first, i had no idea how much i would be sued as governor. [laughter] gov. haley: so i have learned it is nice to have you guys around. second and more seriously, as a governor, as the head of a branch of government that is supposedly constitutionally coequal, i have come to truly respect the value of attorneys and judges who see, use, and interpret the law as it was intended. because we all know that doesn't always happen. america, not just the supreme court, not just the legal community, but our nation as a whole, lost an icon this year with the passing of justice scalia. putting aside the immediate affect his decisions had on american law, he inspired millions of americans to think right about the law, and by

right, i certainly do not mean in the political or socially acceptable sense, but as the word itself was intended to be used, correctly. when i think about justice scalia, what i appreciate the most is that he never looked at the law or the constitution through the eyes of a man who wanted to be a legislator. while his rhetorical skills and love of life make the word simple, one that few who would use to describe the justice, his judicial philosophy strikes me as so significant, precisely because of its simplicity. the constitution is the constitution. the law is the law. the outcome is the outcome. legislators make the law, executors execute the laws, and judiciaries interpret the laws, period. i have always seen the role of government through similar eyes. government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people.

it was never intended to be all things to all people. sadly, we have strayed away from that course in america today. before we go down that path, i want to say this, while i will not pretend to have always been president-elect's biggest cheerleader, i did vote for him. and i was absolutely thrilled to see him win. [applause] gov. haley: there are so many opportunities in front of us because of his victory. at the forefront, the opportunity for president trump is to ensure justice scalia's legacy of judicial restraint is not just preserved, but expanded on the supreme court. [applause] gov. haley: president trump will

likely have the opportunity to shape the future of the court for a generation, and thanks in large part to the people in this room, america should be a much better, much more just nation because of it. this election brought with it countless things we never thought we would see. there is no need to run through all of them here other than to say that there are important lessons to outcomes, both in the primary, democrat and republican, and in the general election. lessons that we must acknowledge, honestly, and problems we must fix. the after-the-fact dissection of a presidential candidate almost always focuses on the losing side, that is understandable. but if we as republicans are going to lead effectively and have staying power as a governing party, we must accept that donald trump's election was

not an affirmation of the way republicans have conducted themselves. the president-elect deserves tremendous credit for the way he was able to connect with the electorate, but he did not do it by celebrating the republican party. and the american people did not vote for him because he had an r next to his name. he ran against both parties, against the political system at large, a system he argued was fundamentally broken, an argument that the voters subscribed to in massive numbers. they rejected the political class of all stripes, republicans included. and we had no one to blame but ourselves. there have been broken promises at every level of government. we need to go back to the basics and remember that we are the party of limited government, the party committed to creating

opportunities for all people, the party of inclusivity. we pulled away from that over the past decade. we saw a republican congress that kept levels of spending completely out of control. we saw a republican elected officials moved to expand medicaid instead of working to find real solutions to our health care problems. we so republicans start to move toward big government instead of away from it with things like common core. republicans lost our way. we were told that if we elected a republican house and republican senate, everything would change. millions of people worked hard to give republicans that chance, yet we never saw action. spending continued to climb, health insurance premiums continue to go up, the federal government continued to make it harder to do business in america.

we expected stacks of bills to be put on president obama's desk so the public could truly understand where he wanted to take the country, and where we did. that never happened. instead, republicans ignore the -- ignored the growing anger and frustrations that was building among the american people. they were walking their paychecks shrink, their student loans grow, their daily lives become more difficult, and all they saw was washington, d.c. with republicans continuing to blame democrats. about a year ago i was given the opportunity to speak to the country following president obama's state of the union. i do not make a habit of quoting myself, but i want to repeat a part of my speech because i believe it is even more important today than it was in january. "at the outset i will say this,

you have paid attention to what has been happening in washington in recent times, and you are not naive, neither am i. i see what you see, and many of your frustrations are my frustrations. a frustration with a government that has grown day after day, year after year, yet never serves us any better. a frustration with the same endless conversations we hear over and over again, a frustration with promises made and not kept. we need to be honest with each other and with ourselves. while democrats in washington bear much responsibility for the problems facing america today, they do not bear it alone. there is more than enough blame to go around. we as republicans need to own that truth. we need to recognize our contributions to the erosion of the public trust in america's elected leadership. we need to accept that we played

a role in how and why our government is broken, and then we need to fix it." that is what i said last january. now, with a unified republican government in washington, with 34 republican governors, more republican-controlled state legislatures than ever before, we have the chance to do that. it is an exciting time in our history, a time to look in the mirror, remember who we are, and what we believe in, a time to stop the talk and start the action. the opportunity is there. we now have a chance to work on meaningful solutions to change the way we communicate, to remind people that the gop is the party that will deliver freedom and possibility to all citizens, regardless of their race, gender, or where they were born and raised.

that, after all, is what drew me to the republican party in the first place. and, what drew my parents to america. i am the proud daughter of indian immigrants who reminded my brothers and sisters and me every day how blessed we were to live in this country. they left a wealthy lifestyle in india with just eight dollars in their pockets to come to america and start completely over. why would they do that? because even in 1969, they understood that no amount of money, no lifestyle can compare with the opportunities we have in america. only here can you be anything you want to be if you are willing to work hard for it. only here do the circumstances of your birth not define your future. only here is anything truly possible.

and that is the promise of america. that is the promise of my republican party. and that is the promise we have tried to deliver in south carolina. when i took office in january of 2011, south carolina was struggling. like many other states, the great recession was hanging over us like a dark cloud. jobs were scarce, economic anxiety was real. the american dream felt out of reach for way too many. our state government was in shambles. we had short-term deficits and long-term debt. our public schools were failing too many of our students. faith in our system had bottomed out. it was dawning the collection of challenges we faced. -- it was daunting, the collection of challenges we faced. i remember not knowing quite where to start. then i came across a quotation from one of my favorite predecessors, governor carroll campbell who used to say that if you can find a person a job, you

can take care of a family. i have always believed in controlling what i can control, and while governors do not create jobs, there is a lot we can do, and that starts with taking care of the businesses we already have. we got to work. we cut business taxes, we passed tort reform which capped damages on lawsuits. we invested in infrastructure without raising taxes. we stripped all of our regulatory boards and replaced the chairman of our largest and most bureaucratic permitting board with the president of a construction company. we knew that if you are costing a person or business time, then you are costing them money, and that was no longer acceptable in the state of south carolina. we cut our debt in half and we doubled our reserves. look at us now. we build planes with boeing. we build cars with bmw, mercedes-benz, and now volvo.

we now have five international tire companies. first american flatscreen television, you will find them in rural winnsboro, south carolina with element electronics. for those who said bicycles would never again be made in the united states, look no further than kent international, a new jersey bike manufacturer we brought back from china to rural manning, south carolina. they now refer to us, and i love this, as the beast of the southeast. [laughter] [applause] gov. haley: more than 80,000 new jobs and $20 billion invested has been announced in south carolina over the last five years in every single one of our 46 counties. we had moved 40,000 people from

welfare to work. we have now started an inmate to work program which allows us to team up with our inmates, match them up with the skills they need, and they are now able to leave with a job and not just a bus ticket. unemployment has been cut by more than half from 11.1% in 2011 to 4.9% today. more south carolinians are working today than ever before in our state's history. and you have one of your members here that i have to thank for that, my director of employment and workforce, cheryl stanton. if you would please stand. [applause] gov. haley: rockstar, just saying.

over the last few years, i have been asked often about what has taken place in south carolina, as if there is a secret formula that spurred our transformation from a state crushed by the collapse of the american textile companies to the fastest-growing economy on east coast. my answer is that most things in government, it is not as complicated as it's made out to be. what we accomplished in south carolina was not rocket science, it was always about common sense and about a willingness to get creative, challenge norms, and a belief that all things were possible. look at education, for instance. south carolina has lagged behind in education for a very long time, and yes, we are still behind, but we will not be for much longer. my first year in office i received a letter from an eighth-grade girl who was being bullied at school. she was contemplating suicide and didn't know where to turn.

i am grateful i got her letter. i was able to talk to this young lady. she was full of potential and we , struck up a friendship. but i realized she was not alone. so i started going to schools and around the state talking about bullying. it was a wake-up call. but not for the reasons you might think. my daughter recently graduated from a brand-new public high school in lexington where every classroom has a flatscreen tv and every child has a tablet. it would be easy to mistake the high school for a small college. yet, when i went back to my hometown to give an anti-bullying speech, they did not even have the equipment to play a video. that is wrong. it is immoral. and it is changing. more than four years ago, i started a conversation about education in south carolina. i met with principals and teachers, superintendents and

university deans, business leaders and legislators, republicans and democrats. i listened, i learned, and i realized the biggest challenge facing south carolina's education system was our failure -- ourre knowledge failure to a knowledge that it simply costs more to educate a child who lives in poverty. we changed our funding formula to send additional state dollars to children on medicaid or free and reduced lunch. we now provide reading coaches for every elementary school in south carolina, and we have ended social promotions because we know if a child cannot read by the end of the third grade, they are four times less likely to graduate from high school on time. we are investing in technology, internet to the schools, internet inside the schools, and the tools, computers, tablet, instructional materials, to get every south carolina child up to

speed with the world as it is today, not as it was three decades ago. we are aggressively recruiting teachers to rural areas and challenging districts, and just as aggressively incentivizing teachers to stay there. we are doing all of this with accountability. we are doing all of this without raising taxes. and we are already seeing that work. we have made immense changes to the way we teach our kids in south carolina, changes that will be as impactful as they are uncomplicated. these changes are happening because of two simple things, both of which are quite uncommon in politics today. a willingness to acknowledge a problem and a willingness to move outside of our comfort zone in order to find a solution. it was out of the ordinary for a republican governor to go to the teachers and principals and superintendents to talk about education reform.

that was the democrats' territory. so it remains unexplored in a state dominated by republicans. but those conversations helped me understand where they were coming from and how and why actions government took made things worse rather than making them better. and it helped them begin to trust me and my intentions, helped us build a relationship that comes in the end, enabled us to together push these changes through our legislature. everyone wants to feel heard, and in this nation, everyone deserves to be heard. for too long, leadership of both political parties have written off large groups of our fellow americans. angst, the unrest, the distrust of our institutions, these are all very real. very honest responses to a

system that has not worked for so many different people in so many different ways. but just as our political leadership's willful ignorance of the public's desire for government that at the very least attempts to serve them has brought us to a time of distrust and stagnation, outreach, and honest communication can have the opposite effect. it can lead to policy successes as it did with education in my state, and it can lead to even more expansive heartfelt change, as also has happened in south carolina just 18 months ago. i speak of the mother emmanuel tragedy that happened in charleston and the removal of the confederate flag. when i first got word of the shootings, i knew this was going to be unbearably painful for our state. nine shooting deaths in a church on a wednesday night at bible study. a state senator and a leading

figure in the local black ministry shot to death. we never imagined anything this horrifying. each new piece of information was another kick in the gut. the next morning, we captured the killer, and it immediately became clear that this was the act of a racist motivated not by mental illness but by pure hate. our state suffered a devastating wound, the first thing we need to do was lift up those families and celebrate the lives of the victims. i decided to attend each funeral. i met the families. i heard the stories, and through it all, i had the privilege of meeting nine amazing souls. after each funeral, i would take the program with a person's picture on it to my two kids,

and i would introduce them to the person that i met that day. i introduced them to ethel lantz, who despite losing her daughter to cancer two years prior, was a woman of love and joy who constantly saying her favorite song, "one day at a time, sweet jesus, that's all i'm asking of you. give me the strength to do every day what i have to do." i introduced them to our youngest victim, a 26-year-old budding entrepreneur, anxious to open his own barbershop, who on that night, stood in front of his 87-year-old aunt susie, and spoke his last words to the murderer. you don't have to do this. we mean no harm to you. i introduced them to cynthia heard, whose life motto was to be kinder than necessary. that is now my life motto.

every opportunity i have i mentioned the nine we lost and the three survivors, the emmanuel 12. i do not want it to be just their families who knows of the love and compassion, the greatness of those people. i want the whole world to know them, as my children do, and as i do. the second thing that needed to happen was removing the confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. there are many wonderful, decent, honorable people in our state who revere the flag. they are not racist. they are the same people who twice elected an african-american u.s. senator and twice selected an indian-american governor. as i said what i announced my intention to bring down the flag, this was a debate that did not need to have winners and losers. those who revere the flag for reasons of ancestry or heritage retain every right to do so, but

what happened in charleston shed a different light on an issue in a state that we had long struggled with. what we saw in that extraordinary action in charleston was people of all races coming together. we did not have riots. we had vigils. we do not have protests, we had hugs. the statehouse belongs to all people. and it needed to be welcoming to all people. that was not possible with the flag flying. when it came to the removal debate, we had legislators who truly listened to each other. they walked in each other's shoes, and that made all the difference. that willingness to listen allowed all of us to see each other in a way that does not always happen, with love and grace and compassion. it is a love that we learn from the emmanuel 12 who took in someone that fateful night who

did not look like them, did not sound like them, did not act like them, and instead of calling the cops, or instead of throwing him out, they pulled up a chair and prayed with him for an hour. the grace we learn from their families who incredibly stood in front of the murderer just two days later and offered him forgiveness. it is the compassion we learn from the people of south carolina who wrapped their arms around those families, that community, and each other in a way that we have never seen before. the flag came down and south carolina has moved forward. [applause] our nation has just been through an election as contentious as any most can remember.

we are deeply divided nation. of that, there is no question. but i am an optimist at heart. how can i not be? blessed as i am to be the governor of a state that time and again has pulled through tragedies stronger than when we started. this is the lesson i will take from my time in office. a lesson taught to me by the gracious faithful people of south carolina, a lesson that i will continue to share with people across this nation. that through our challenges we find our strength. it is my hope that our new unified government embraces our challenges and finds our strength. for if we do, if we listen to the will of the people, if we learn from the mistakes of the past, embrace the opportunities of the future and govern with honesty and integrity, there is

no limit to where the republican government can take our nation. thank you very much. god bless. [applause] gov. haley: i think we have time to take a couple of questions. >> governor haley, thank you so much for your leadership. >> thank you so much for your leadership.

and to the 34 republican governors who now have a way of may be taking power out of washington. i was newt gingrich's first committee council 25 years ago, i am with a group called the madison coalition. most of the people in this room think the last administration has usurped the article one power of congress and is rewriting laws through the regulatory process. we would like to end that. there is a proposal out there called the regulation freedom amendment which has been endorsed by the republican national committee, in the republican platform, and 19 state legislative chambers around the country and six governors have urged congress to propose it. it would require congress approve major new federal regulations and defines major as any regulation that is objected to by a quarter of the house or senate.

the idea is in the same way that states persuaded congress to propose the bill of rights and more recently president of term limits, pressure from two thirds of the states, including south carolina and others, could persuade congress to propose the amendment without the risk of a constitutional convention. my question is do you think that , is the kind of approach that might work to start taking power out of washington and curbing the administrative state? gov. haley: i don't know enough about what you are talking about, but what i can tell you is -- [laughter] gov. haley: i did say i was an accountant, right? what i can tell you is, our focus is to first of all, rollback as many regulations as possible. whether it is the overtime rule, the epa, all of those things. [applause] gov. haley: the importance of repealing obamacare is extremely important, and i have heard of both from president-elect trump as well as from vice president-elect mike pence.

so i know that is going to happen. what i can tell you is, the governors have been talking about, with the administration, is that it is extremely important now to move as much back to the states as we can. we see this as a huge opportunity, whether it is education, dealing with medicaid, working on block grants, there are a lot of opportunities to do that. what we have decided as the republican governors association is that, first of all, mike pence, who was a congressman, was also a governor, but he felt it firsthand. he has offered to be our conduit to make sure we get all of those things done. the second thing i will tell you is we are also going to be meeting with speaker ryan and leadership in the senate to make sure that we are not just governors sitting back in those states. if we have this whole plate, we are going back to the top to

make sure everything that has been done over the last eight years, and prior, is rolled back, so we can get more control in the states so we can take care of our people in the best way we know how. [applause] >> for those who don't know me, i am her attorney general. [laughter] gov. haley: either he is telling me to get off stage real quick -- >> i was actually going to make a joke. in your remarks, you said you were not too warm to lawyers, and that took me back. so happy to learn that you have become warm to us. i did want to say this publicly. i have never felt anything but warmth from you and your administration and your commitment and your staff's commitment to the rule of law has been instrumental in our

ability to fight the rollbacks of the administration, executive overreaches. thank you for setting the model for the ag-governor relationship which is not always what it should be in other states. but south carolina, we are the beast of the east, you and i. i also want to say, i was speaking to my dear friend outside before you give your speech, and we were talking about the mother emmanuel massacre as well as the police shooting in charleston three months prior to that. when you look around the country and you see these police officer involved shootings that have a racial overtone to it, you see the riots, the mayhem, the discord that goes on between various communities, in south carolina, two tragedies happened within three months of another and in south carolina did not happen. the reason is because of the tone from leadership set up a top and from our religious leaders, african-american leaders, leadership in government, which started with you. i wanted to thank you for your support in that regard.

[applause] ok. one more question. make it a good one. >> first of all, thank you for your speech. i represent the disraeli society at the university of oxford, united kingdom. thank you for your lovely hospitality in your country, great. i do not want to be a spoil sport, but i have a question going forward. in the u.k., with our campaign to leave the european union, one thing we saw was at the pollsters got it completely wrong. we saw similar things over here where the pollsters got it wrong in relation to the presidential election. do you think there is the possibility that -- in politics you have the pendulum swing. do you think, going forward, there could be a potential that that confidence cannot be gained

by people in polling, giving their opinions, and it may be a case potentially that in a few years down the line, when the republicans may not see it coming, they have an issue similar to the democrats? or going forward, do you think the republicans can unify the people and bring that confidence in polling, expressing what you think to the government? gov. haley: i think i understood your accent. [laughter] gov. haley: i appreciate it very much, we are glad to have you here. i think the people spoke. they felt frustration, they trusted their government. they trusted their elected officials. and nothing came of it. we saw frustration like we have never seen before. and republicans were as much to blame for that as democrats. what happens from here, i think we have to seize an opportunity.

the opportunity is not waiting until the next election. the opportunity is we need to see something in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, and we don't stop. because that is what the american people have demanded. i always side with the american people. i always side with the decisions they make and i always think it is up to us to make the opportunity out of those decisions. so i'm looking for it to be a bright day in america. you will see everyone is very excited. we don't know exactly what president-elect trump is planning as he goes forward, but we owe it to him to give him the support and strength that he needs so that we can all work together to be successful. [applause] gov. haley: thank you again very much. god bless. >> texas senator and former

presidential candidate ted cruz also spoke discussing late justice antonin scalia and the role of the judicial branch. this is about an hour. about one hour. >> people can take their seats, we are going to begin the next session. an unusually obedient crowd, thank you. it is my pleasure and privilege to welcome our next speaker, a man who really is known to all of us, u.s. senator ted cruz. please. [applause]

>> i should probably stop right there, let me continue. what you might not know about senator cruz is what an impressive life and career he had even before he was elected to the united states senate. i will tell you about that. he is a princeton and harvard law school grad with honors. he was involved in the federal society student chapter at law school. had there been no harvard chapter, he probably would have created one. after law school, he served in first the judicial branch, where he clerked on the third circuit. next he became the first , hispanic to clerk for the u.s. supreme court justice for chief justice rhein quist. switching branches, he served as an associate deputy attorney general of u.s. department of justice and then as a domestic policy advisor to president george w. bush on the bush cheney campaign. and then as a director of policy planning at the federal trade commission.

moving to state government in he 2003, was appointed as the youngest and first hispanic solicitor general in texas and became that states longest-serving solicitor general. in private practice, he spent five years leading his appellate and supreme court practice. amassing a stellar record before the high court, including many landmark victories. now in the legislative branch, senator cruz serves on the judiciary committees on many committees. my math adding up all that experience, i calculate you are approaching your 80th birthday. [laughter] >> a truly impressive resume. he has been incredibly engaged and influential lawyer at every branch of government. throughout it all he has stood , formally for limited constitutional government, individual liberty, and the rule

of law. the federal society is very pleased to welcome our longtime friend, senator ted cruz. [applause] sen. cruz: thank you. thank you for highlighting my persistent inability to hold a job. although in many manifestations, i have always been able to say, i am from the government and i am here to help you. it is wonderful to be back at the federalist society lawyers convention. like many of you i have been to this convention many, many times. this is one of the first years in a while that at thursday night i was not up on the second floor playing poker at 2:00 in the morning as many of us have done. this gathering of friends and

passionate leaders is an extraordinary gathering. as i was observing to dean and leonard and jean a few moments ago, the timing of this convention is always interesting. [laughter] sen. cruz: the timing of this convention, we could have been here in mourning, wondering what might become of the republic, or we could have been here in celebration, many with resumes in your pockets. [laughter] or, in the year 2000, nobody could have been here because everybody would have been here in florida in the middle of the recounts. [laughter] sen. cruz: it is always interesting. now is certainly interesting as well. we stand on the cusp of great change. an astounding election occurred just over a week ago.

an election that was a mandate for change. an election in which the voters entrusted republicans with control the white house, control of every federal agency, and control of the senate and the house. that is rare. that does not come along often. it provides an incredible opportunity for real and meaningful change, and also responsibility. responsibility that i believe we have to deliver. we have got to actually deliver the change, the fidelity to the constitution and the defense of liberty that was promised to the voters. i will say i stand here filled , with great hope that we're going to do exactly that. i am pleased to offer words of congratulations to my colleague and good friend jeff sessions who will make an extraordinary attorney general of the united

states. [applause] sen. cruz: he is a committed and deeply principled conservative. if those who serve in this administration have even a fraction of his integrity and commitment to principle, we will see an administration that does remarkable things for the people of this country. [applause] [applause] sen. cruz: this gathering is also a celebration and remembrance of our friend, justice antonin scalia. many of us knew him personally. he was one-of-a-kind. his legacy will it -- will endure forever.

one of my favorite stories about justice scalia was back when he was a judge in the d.c. circuit. he was one of two leading conservative justices. ronald reagan was in the white house and everyone knew that one or the other was likely get the next supreme court seat. justice scalia was walking through the parking garage of the court, and two u.s. marshals stopped him at the elevator. they said, i am sorry sir, we are holding this elevator for the attorney general of the united states. scalia pushed past them, stepped into the elevator, jammed the button, and as the door was closing, he said, you tell him, bob corker doesn't wait for anyone. [laughter] [applause] sen. cruz: that is a true story.

the rest, as they say was history. shortly after justice scalia's passing, members of the senate were invited to submit into the congressional record statements commemorating his remarkable career. i am sure that the federalist society crowd here can see the irony in a request to supplement the congressional record, of all things, with praise for justice scalia. given his sterling sense of humor, i suspect he would have rather enjoyed learning about that request. we're talking about a man who waged a 30 year war against legislative history. the idea that the congressional record was something more than the public musings of self-important legislators who like to hear themselves talk, well, he would have been amused

by that. i must say that i am very glad personally that that is not a failing i suffered. [laughter] sen. cruz: i can almost see the justice scalia leaning back, grinning ear to ear, saying that is some request. how about if they really care, they just stop passing unconstitutional laws. [applause] sen. cruz: irony aside, i was pleased to comply with the request. i will share a little bit of what i submitted. antonin scalia was one of the greatest supreme court justices in the history of our country. a lion of the law. he spent his tenure on the bench championing federalism, the separation of powers, and are fundamental liberties. he was a passionate defender of the constitution. not the constitution as it has

been contorted and revised by generations of activist jurists, but as it was understood by the people who ratified it and made it the law of the land. he understood that if the constitution's meaning was not grounded in its text, history, and structure, but could instead be revised by judicial fiat, then the people were no longer sovereign. no longer with the nation be governed by law, which expresses the will of the people, it would be governed by, as he put it, "an unelected committee of nine. this robs the people of the most important liberty the people asserted in the declaration of won in thee and revolution of 1776, the freedom to govern themselves." the laws of justice scalia helped shape the recent presidential election. as a referendum on his ideas.

would americans choose to be ruled by the constitution as written, or would they be ruled instead by unelected activist justices with life tenure? that was the question put to the american people. i would note, it was not a question that we the people would have been able to answer if the senate had confirmed president obama's replacement. the senate, mitch mcconnell, together stood up and rightly said, in exercising our constitutional advice and consent, our advice is that the people will determine who replaces this seat. [applause] sen. cruz: that is how our democratic republic is supposed to work. the referendum that the voters

expressed on election day was stunning. the stakes, had hillary clinton been elected and nominated an activist judge to replace justice scalia, we would have seen the very contours of the constitution and bill of rights altered for generations. they surely would have rolled back basic protections on free speech and the first amendment, including, as she promised, overturning the citizens united decision. the case, i might note where the , government was seeking to ban a movie critical of hillary clinton. i cannot imagine anyone wanting to be critical of hillary clinton. [laughter] sen. cruz: they also would have narrowly interpreted religious liberty, stripping away the right to free exercise, to follow your faith, and instead giving government the power to

force you to choose between abandoning your faith and principle or face the coercive power of the government. they would have reversed the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, the individual rights upheld in heller, justice scalia's most consequential decision. they likely would have banned the death penalty and struck down a federal ban on partial-birth abortion. all that was on the ballot just over a week ago. instead and in contrast, president-elect trump assured the american people that if elected he would nominate constitutionalists in the mold of justice scalia. in a very real respect, justice scalia was on the ballot as well. thanks to the historic victory

we saw last week, it gives me immense pleasure to say the people have spoken and justice scalia has won as well. [applause] sen. cruz: that is fitting because justice scalia never lost faith in the american people. never lost faith in the goodness and the ability of americans to govern ourselves. we now have an historic opportunity to return to the constitution, an historic opportunity to restore integrity to the federal government. one of the most shameful aspects of the last eight years was the obama administration's unprecedented assault on the rule of law.

a repeating willingness to defy the law, over and over and over again. obamacare changed unilaterally over and over again by an executive branch unwilling to comply with statutes and united states code. immigration law welfare reform. ,an administration that would routinely ignore or attempt to unilaterally change the law. then of course there was the abuse of power of the irs targeting individual citizens for exercising free speech rights inconsistent with the political desires of the administration. we must not forget that the law is a real manifestation of the voice of the people. if we ignore the law, we ignore the people. if we change the law without authority, we supplant the voice of the people. if we abuse the law, we abuse the people.

the people are sovereign only so long as law is sovereign. as no man or woman is above the law, but rather we are all one nation. governed by rule of law. because of the election we in this room have an enormous opportunity to help revive and restore our nation. if you look around at this gathering, this gathering may well be the single largest collection of individuals or -- who are likely to serve in the new administration. if you look down the aisles at your friends and neighbors and colleagues, i have great confidence that we are collectively looking at scores of federal judges. that we're looking at many men and women in this room who will choose to go to work in the department of justice, working

to restore the integrity to that department which it has had under both republicans and democrats for centuries, and in integrity that has been badly shaken. we have men and women who may be serving in every federal agency, independent agencies, going to serve our nation. that is a remarkable opportunity. it is a remarkable responsibility. that also means that in doing so, for those who choose to serve, who have the opportunity to serve, we cannot do better. than to follow the example that was blazed by justice scalia. [applause] senator cruz: it is important to remember that before he was our beloved justice, well before he was even a judge, he was

general counsel of the office of telecommunications policy. he was chairman of the administrative conference of the united states, and assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel. it was in positions like these where he met leviathans face to face while honing his skills. for each of us, i look forward to continuing to work hard in the senate, to fight for the principles this country was founded on, and for many in this room it will be our opportunity once again to do our part and serve, for some a new, for others another time serving our nation. i would note the mission of public service particularly in these times is not for the fainthearted.

the federal government can be overwhelming, almost to massive to comprehend. the challenges are daunting. the established interests are entrenched. as they say in politics, it is not beanbag. we need all hands on deck. i'm so grateful for an institution like the federalist society, one that is devoted to ideas, not a partisan organization, a gathering of individuals who cherish and value freedom and the constitution. those ideas and a fidelity to them desperately need to be returned to the federal government. before i close, i would like to share a few guiding principles for those of you thinking about taking the opportunity to serve. first and simply, be honest and

trustworthy. if we are to be good stewards of the law, we must be good stewards of our souls. do not follow the example of the previous administration. the practice of law is or should be deeply moral undertaking. to faithfully interpret and apply the law, especially in service of the people, requires the utmost integrity. the people, after all, have every right to expect the government officials reached their conclusions in good faith. if the citizenry believes that the law is being subverted to illegitimate ends, they will lose faith in the government, in the rule of law, the idea of justice itself when faith in these things is lost, all that is left is cynicism. that is a breach of trust that is not easily repaired.

we await it to our fellow citizens and to our cause not to let that happen. second, always remember that you serve they cause far greater than yourself. pride comes before the fall. be humble. i know that is an unusual admonition from a politician, we are not generally known for our excessive humility. history is littered with examples of worthy causes that failed because of infighting, because of petty grievances and selfishness. ignore the petty politics. don't bicker agency to agency, office to office, official to official. if we are to succeed in turning the leviathan, we must overcome those impulses. we must work together to accomplish the job.

third, the constitution must be our lodestar. restoring the rule of law must begin with restoring the constitution. to do that, we must be peerless at the gets of the proposition best expressed by justice joseph story, that the constitution has a fixed meaning and is not dependent on the passions or parties of particular times, but the same yesterday, today, and forever. no constitution is worth the paper it is written on if it can be ignored or revised on a whim by judicial or executive fiat. just ask the soviet union as so many totalitarian regimes we have seen through history. we must rebuild our legal culture so that both the legal profession and the people he embraced the people implicit in a written constitution that the

law is not something to be shaped as a potter molds clay, rather it is to be dispassionately applied. the judge's task is to apply the law, not to invent it. fourth, we should continue focusing on law students and young people, just like justice scalia to. as i described in my remarks to the congressional record, justice scalia understood that changing the languishing legal culture would take drastic measures. he wrote his dissent with a specific target in mind -- law students. his aim was to delight their senses and engage their brains. to this end, he liberally employed colorful metaphors,

pithy criticisms, biting logic. he mercilessly and playfully exposed the abundant flaws in the writing and reasoning of other justices. pure applesauce. jiggery pokery. arglebargle. if you squinted hard enough, you could almost convince yourself that gk chesterton had taken up a seat on the supreme court. [applause] senator cruz: this election may help save the day for now, but to prevail in the long run, we must capture the hearts and minds of young people and impress on them the same fidelity to law and devotion to liberty that built our nation. finally, in the battles to come over the rule of law and our

nation, there will be bitter disappointments and setbacks that are inevitable in any worthwhile and difficult endeavor. i was told that yesterday at this conference justice alito gave very good advice. when those times come, we should always ask yourselves, what would scalia do? perhaps we should even get wristbands made. after all, justice scalia was always the academy of the happy warrior. always hopeful, always good-natured, even when the republic was hanging in the balance. his joy for life was evident for all. everyone of us could do very, very well to find inspiration in his worthy example. above all, we must keep up the fight and never ever, ever give

in. our nation, our people, our constitution is worthy of our utmost devotion. thank you. [applause] senator cruz: now i am happy to answer or dodge any question you like. [laughter] >> thank you very much. i would like to thank the federalist party for posting

this wonderful convention. and to your comments during the referendum campaign, indeed you mentioned referendum, we had one earlier this year to leave the european union, and historic vote. i wondered what your thoughts were now that you all have a new president for the new year and we have a new prime minister about the special relationship between our nations? senator cruz: i think that relationship is vital. i think a sad aspect of the last eight years is how poorly it has been treated. starting at the outset of the obama administration with returning the bust of winston churchill. it is my hope that the churchill bust will return. [applause]

senator cruz: the brexit vote was historic. it was more than a little curious that president obama before that both thought it was somehow helpful to cross the atlantic and condescendingly lecture of the british that they should not dare exercise their own sovereignty. perhaps the most puzzling thing was why he thought that would somehow helpful in moving the vote in the direction we wanted it to go. i think brexit poses a tremendous opportunity, an opportunity to strengthen the free trade relationship between the united states and the united kingdom, unlike what obama said about getting to the back of the queue. i believe we should strengthen it and demonstrate what actual free trade means, not a backdoor for a multinational regulator trying to oppose stifling regulations on everything, but rather an agreement that lowers tariffs and opens trade and commerce and benefits friends

and allies, and i think that poses a remarkable opportunity. i hope also it provides real and meaningful economic competition for europe to improve all involved. [applause] >> good morning, sir. i'm from tallahassee via jamaica. i don't have a question. i want to say thank you. thank you for everything you have done. i am a fellow immigrants. i want you to know how much we appreciate you and how many people in jamaica, as you know, really appreciate you. thank you so much. thank you for leading us in the right direction. we appreciate you. [applause]

senator cruz: thank you very much for those kind and generous comments. yes, sir. >> thank you for your wonderful speech and for being with us. i am also from -- i am from the university of oxford in england. i was raised in the countryside. i know what it is like to be told that you are stupid because of how you speak, to be think that you are forgotten by your government. they say it is not affordable to bring the services to where you live. you don't really matter. with the presidential election, we saw that rural americans who thought they were left behind stood up and expressed their voice in such large numbers, what sorts of words of encouragement to you have for those people who feel that they have been left behind?

senator cruz: i think the election was an incredible vindication for the american people across this country. especially those you mentioned in rural america in what elites on both coasts considered to be flyover country. this election could be well understood as the revenge of flyover country. [applause] senator cruz: one of the things that was most striking was the utter astonishment of the hillary clinton campaign, of the press, of democrats. i am reminded of an earlier election, a question from manhattan. how could richard nixon have won? i don't know anyone who voted for him.

i think the clinton campaign on themselves flabbergasted. i don't think they contemplated the fact they might not prevail. i think that is a direct result of not listening to and not hearing the american people, the voices of frustration, the voices that have been ignored, the voices that were crying out more than anything else, we've us alone. those voices have not been heard in washington. by democrats and far too often by republicans either. i think this election poses an opportunity for us to listen to the voices of the american people, to hear them and to come together and actually solve the problems of this country. when you are given control of the executive and legislature, it is time to put up or shut up. there are no excuses. we have got to deliver. that is what the voters across the country expect. that is what i very much hope we will give them. [applause]

>> thank you, senator. i am from across the ocean in europe. we're wishing you all the luck. >> could you talk about the problems -- now that we finally have across-the-board red, how do we start at? most of the public knows that something is wrong. they don't know what it is. now we can finally start. how would you suggest we start? senator cruz: that is a fabulous question. one of the things men and women here understand is that the growth of leviathan has no greater manifestation than the regulatory state, the army of unelected bureaucrats who often believe they answer to no political authority higher than themselves, they do not answer to the people.

we see these regulations growing and growing and stifling freedom, stifling job creation, stifling wages. we have an opportunity to fix that. indeed, i would turn that argument that venue and encourage everyone here -- back on you and encourage everyone here to use your training to think about how we can ratchet back the regulatory state. i brought my entire senate office together and i said i want all of us to start working hard and creatively, to pull out a notepad and think about what can and should be done to stop stifling job creators, what can be done with executive authority. the one silver lining of obama's abuse of executive power,

everything he did can be undone through executive power. [applause] senator cruz: i have spent some time visiting with the president-elect, the transition team, and very much encouraging that team to use executive authority not only to turn back the abuses of the obama era, but also to use it in legitimate ways to reduce the burdens of government. when it comes to the regulatory state, what obama has done wrong with executive power is he has intruded into the article one legislative authority of congress. it is congress that makes the law, and the president cannot change the law or ignore the law. in article two, the president has robust executive authority. the executive authority is vested in one president of the united states, and the entire

regulatory state represents congress over the decades trying to tie the hands of the president of the executive. it is my hope this administration takes on the vigorous regulatory reform, not in the past as it has been a oneway ratchet. we have seen democrats regulate like crazy, and republicans continuing to regulate a little more slowly. i had a friend of mine suggested bumper sticker, "republicans, we waste less." [laughter] senator cruz: i hope that at the end of this administration, we will not be saying that. instead we will be saying that we used this mandate from the people to take on the regulatory state, to rescind regulations, to fire regulators who were abusing their power, to retake liberty. [applause]

senator cruz: last question. >> thank you. i am from new york. the suburbs of westchester county. senator cruz: wonderful. >> i do have a thought. during the course of the campaign, particularly the primaries, i did imagine you in another capacity. senator cruz: so did i. [laughter] >> i am wondering now if perhaps that ninth seat, any possibility? [applause] senator cruz: well, thank you for the kind encouragement. what i will say is that history is long and can take unexpected paths.

i think it is absolutely vital that in seat and every other seat that comes vacant on the court be filled by principal constitutionalists who will be faithful to the law and checked their own policy preferences at the door and simply honor their oath. right now i have the privilege of serving in the united states senate and representing 20 million texans. that is a privilege and responsibility i take seriously. i look forward to continuing to carry out the responsibility and continuing to fight for the principles of freedom and principles embodied in the constitution and bill of rights. they are very much in jeopardy right now. i, like many of you, and very excited by the historic opportunity we have been given. i look forward to working very hard to make the most of this opportunity to make the biggest difference for our country. thank you. [applause]

>> senator cruz. thank you so much for being with us today, senator cruz. we appreciate it.

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>> next, live, your calls and comments on washington journal. after that, kelly conway and

rudy giuliani discuss the incoming administration's policies. talksen bernie sanders about the future of the democratic party. >> a signature feature of c-span2's book tv is our coverage of book fairs and festivals. this coming weekend, look to be will be at the miami book fair. today's coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. here are some of what you will see. pamela paul on purchase the book, writers on literature and the literary life. the washington post leslie .owery they cannot kill us all. and former democratic presidential candidate senator bernie sanders takes your phone . they cannot kill us all. calls and talks about his book "our revolution: a future to believe in." dananday, we feature perino with her latest book "let

me tell you about jasper: how might best friend became america's dr. co. and susan, and her new book the dark room." and cofounder of the miami book fair and the owner of the bookstore, image kaplan. live coverage of the miami book fair this morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern and sunday at 10:30 a.m. eastern. go >> the health staff wider timothy cama is at the top 14 obama administration regulations that donald trump could undo and then west wing reports founder and white house bureau chief paul brandis examines the challenges facing president-elect donald trump in selecting his team and managing public expectations. educator, former associate to george w. bush talks about the possible conflict of interest racing a donald trump a demonstration. and we will take your calls and

you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. [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] ♪ today is saturday, november 19. donald trump has named three top national security officials to his team, alabama senator jeff sessions nominated for attorney general, mike pompeo, for cia director, and michael flynn for national security advisor. trump university's recent $25 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging it defrauded its students. high school students have walked out of the classroom to protect the election of donald trump. that is where we start