you afraid in terms of political survival and that is why you were not willing to go ahead and stand up to the occasion and try to promote historic compromise? the other question i have given that you know where the problems are and given you have invested so much time and effort and political capital in this conflict, is there anything you would've done differently? mr. goldberg: you would have done differently? >> do you think -- sec. kerry: there are a few things. i will not discuss them now, i might write about them in the future. [laughter] kerry: inevitably we all make a mistake here or there. by and large i think we did the right thing and i think we approached it effectively. we had very, very difficult

dynamics that were developing. you asked about libya, yemen, daish, egypt, there is a lot of turmoil. turmoil is frightening and unsettling. there are a lot of reasons for people to feel, whoa, this is so uncertain. unfortunately fear plays as an effective political tool sometimes. there is been a lot of fear in the way of people being able to feel comfortable moving forward with other kinds of choices. i do believe what i said before. i am not sitting here pessimistic about the long-term of the region providing we the united states and the developed world make the decisions we need to make to address this moment -- this foment that exists in south-central asia, the middle east, north africa and elsewhere.

what you have is an unparalleled rise of a number of different factors simultaneously that are different from anything any other generation dealt with. technology, communications, the rise of very young populations. 60% and 65% of many populations in the region are 30 years or younger. 50% under the age of 21. 18.under the age of they don't have jobs. there are 1.5 billion kids in the world under the age of 15. 400 million of whom will not go to school. if many of those are in these countries and they are ripe for the picking of extremists and lying to people about their future and what happens and life on earth versus dying, exploding yourself and taking a lot of

people with you, we will have a problem. an enormous problem. we had a marshall plan after world war ii which put $13 billion into the redevelopment of countries we fought against. we were redeveloping developed countries, specifically japan and germany and europe. our challenge now, and it has a bad name out there in the public. people don't like the idea of why would we spend a dime over there? it is all about our security and about the alliances we have with the security of our allies. if we don't face this, there is no over there anymore. it is everywhere is here. and here is everywhere. if you don't realize that, you are missing the biggest change. a whole bunch of people running around with smartphones who can see what everybody else in the world has, which means they can see what they don't have.

if those folks -- i will tell you a story quickly. foreign minister of a country in north africa which is a fairly large muslim population, not a majority, i asked how do you deal with this? you were trying to develop and create opportunities for people. he said we are scared. he said the extremists will spend money grabbing 13, 14, 15-year-old kids. proselytize to them. after they have won them over they don't have to pay them anything. they send them out as the next wave of recruiters. they go out and bring in the next wave of young people. he said these guys have a 35 year plan. we don't even have a five-year plan. now we do. with what we have begun to do with daish, what we are doing in libya. we fought back against

al-shabab. we made progress in somalia. we fought back against boko haram. we have done the same with daish in libya. in yemen if we can quiet it down. we are trying to deal with the proxy aspects of that war which are complicated. syria is even more complicated. there are about six wars in syria. saudi arabia in iran. you have israel and hezbollah. kurd vs turk vs kurd, suni, shia, oppositionists against assad. it is extraordinarily complicated in the proxyism. you have got differences between

egypt and kuwait and the emirates versus saudi, emerate and turk. it is hard to declare we will go in and bomb and do this or that. but i do believe in being strong. i believe it is important for us. i know the cost of the president's decision when he decided not to enforce the redline through the bombing. but that is greatly misinterpreted. it had an impact. people have interpreted it as his decision not to, when in fact he never made a decision not to bomb. he did make the decision to bomb. gosimply decided he had to congress because tony blair -- not tony blair, david cameron lost the vote in the parliament

on a thursday and on friday president obama felt hearing from congress he has to go to them to get the decision. the decision was not forthcoming and in the meantime i have to deal to get all the chemical weapons out of the country. we got a better results out of not doing it, but it was the threat of doing it that brought about the result and the lack of doing it perception wise cost us significantly in the region and i know that. and so does the president. as much as we think it is a misinterpretation, it does not matter. it costs. perception often beats the reality. i think we are on the right course. i think we will stem the tide providing we do not retreat from the region, not just militarily with our presence in our potential use of force, but more importantly right now our ability to try to deal with

these countries' governance and their ability to address these young people and the possibilities of the future. if we don't do that, we will be inviting a lot of other problems as a consequence. mr. goldberg: mr. secretary, it has been a real pleasure for me to cover you these past years. i don't know if it was a pleasure for you, but i want to say thank you and we thank you for your -- [applause] [indiscernible chatter] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the 2016 -- we invite you to join us. thank you.

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announcer: tomorrow, and look at how the new administration plans to covered. later in the evening, the cochairs of the commission on presidential debates joins chris wallace and martha raddatz to talk about the 2016 presidential debates and potential changes to help future debates are structured. easternall it 8:00 p.m. . announcer: followed the transition of government on c-span as president-elect donald trump selects his cabinet. we will take you to key events as they happen without interruption. watch live on c-span. watch on demand at c-span.org or

listen on our c-span radio up. >> at our sunday roundtable , after therelations inauguration. good morning. who is withorger "the guardian" newspaper. this is a great piece from "the washington post," -- "the peril of an angry minority," and she -- es

host: your comments? guest: just about right. there is a certain element of thaos now because of the brexi vote because the people campaigning for it did not figure out what it would mean, and now, this government, that has emerged from the wreckage, is trying to work it out, but there is a dearth of ideas about how to make this work that is not incredibly damaging for all sectors of the u.k. economy. host: where does this leave the british prime minister and president donald trump? guest: in a way, it is the one european capital where there would be an element of relief about the trump collection. with the brexit vote, we were at

the back of the line when it came to trade relations with the u.s. with donald trump selection and the prospect for the transatlantic trade partnership, , with them- ttip thedon, we are no longer in back of the line finding their place in the new order. as an element in london and feels that we are no longer -- or there is another country that has messed up the in aing order in a way, more damaging way than ours. we are no longer the back of the classroom. host: host: in one other sidebar note, this is from "the new york times," looking at how donald trump will deal with world leaders a couple of days after he was elected, after brushing

out the u.k., mr. trump offers a casual invitation to the prime minister saying "if you travel to the u.s., you should let me know." guest: it caused some amusement straight off, but it is something they are taking quite seriously in the u.k. because of what they were saying, no rules anymore. it is our job to get close to the new administration and anything is possible. they are not ruling out a meeting between president-elect trump and theresa may, even before the inauguration. they don't know what is possible, but they want to make sure that britain stays close to the administration of the day. host: prime minister may was the ninth person in touch with donald trump after making calls and talking about world leaders and some in britain say that in and of itself is a slap to the u.k. guest: and british diplomats say, well, if all the rules that have been thrown out, there was no rhyme or reason to the way the calls were made and that

does seem to be true. they do not think about in order protocols, so they try to play that down as a snub. as it was taken in the u.k. press. host: let's turn to germany, because with this president, barack obama has had a close, tense relationship with angela merkel. is she going to run for another term? guest: yes, she is. she just announced it and she has a good chance to be reelected in the fall. host: what will the relationship be like between this new president and the german chancellor, who has played a pivotal role in european politics? guest: well germany played a , decisive role when it came to almost all major conflicts with respect to europe over the last years. chancellor merkel was the go to guy when it came to russia and the ukraine conflict. she was the one who tried to be something like a mediator between the united states and

that amir putin, as they did not putin as they did not go along well, so this is all at stake now. there is a huge question mark around the future of the transatlantic relationship itself because donald trump is challenging everything we know. he challenged nato, the european union, coming with the concept of america first, and the european concept of having the union of states, and acting as solidarity. this is a solid-state because of the united kingdom and it is hard to get out of the european union. the question is, will you walk alone as a state, what is best for your state or try to be something bigger like a union of values and ideas? this is something that has to be sorted out between germany and the united states in the upcoming years. host: how important was it that in his final overseas visit that one of the stops was berlin? guest: i think for president obama, it was a main decision to emphasize the strong

relationships, especially between him and chancellor angela merkel. he decided to go to berlin to point that out and encourage her. they met for twice, three hours, twice dinner and a private , session. this has never happened before in that extent between barack obama and another head of state, so he really wants her to stand -- you could say, last man standing -- he would not be a woman -- but he sees her as the defender democracy in europe when it comes to this chain of elections. remember, we have france going to the election in april, the netherlands, austria voting so , there might be a long chain of questions were populism might rise and obama sees angela merkel as a defender of the free world. host: when you look at austria and italy, we have a line for those watching outside the united states, this program carried on the bbc parliament channel, also on the armed services network and streamed on a website, www.c-span.org.

(202)748-8003. here is what you wrote based on an interview that you conducted with barack obama last month in germany -- "it was certainly striking how quickly president obama was able to come to terms with donald trump's election victory. prior, he had said trump was dangerous and unfit to be president. after the election, obama received trump in the white house and said the transition would be seamless, as though nothing had happened. trump was a demagogue? racist? no, business as usual. just one president passing the baton to the next. guest: it was surprising, given what obama said during the election. i think he tries to preserve his dignity and of the white house, and he tries to pull him into that aura of influence and as long as possible. i think he still sticks to what he has said during the election, but he tries to maintain the

dignity of the presidency. host: and julian borger wrote the following for the guardian. "it seems more likely that he means what he said all along with u.s. relations with the rest of the world and turned the -- and intends to turn his ideas into policy under his personal leadership. the transpacific partnership and the transatlantic trade and investment partnership with europe will be the first to be halted. opposition to those deals where a cornerstone of the trump campaign." guest: that is right. i think that is a consistent theme of his campaign, against multilateral trade deals, in which he saw the u.s. getting in the words, and his view of trade, but also international relations is a long series of bilateral relationships. he does not see the world in multilateral settings. he is going to make when he sees -- what he sees as the best deal

for the u.s. from his point of view, one capital at a time, but clearly, that is going to run into problems because for example, if he was to walk out of the nuclear deal with iran, that would definitely anger european allies, but also, russia and china, who was hoping to have or better hoping to have better relations with moscow, and hoping to get a better trade deals with china. every step of the way, everything he does in one bilateral setting will affect another, so life that comes at him at the oval office will prove far more complicated than it seemed on the campaign. host: julian borger, editor for "the guardian" in washington, d.c., and holger stark. washington bureau chief. (202)748-8000 for democrats. our phone lines are open.

(202)748-8001 for republicans. good afternoon. go ahead. caller: good afternoon. host: go ahead, john. caller: i am here but i think i am on hold. host: we can hear you, go ahead. caller: my question is, with the decisiveness and the close election in the united states and with the brexit vote, do they see this posted by causing something in the future? usually, there is a 60-40 or larger percentage, but because in both of these elections, both of the device in the countries are so close, for example, does the british commentator see this evolving into more controversy? does the german commentator see this as a harder challenge for germany in dealing with the

united states and in britain? host: your follow-up, john? caller: yes my question is, do moving outthis towards other countries like austria, italy with their elections and the netherlands? this sort of close divide with the left and right? host: john, thank you for the call. guest: in the way, that is how democracy works. even in the close range, you -- race you have type calls and , majority and minority. you have to argue very well if , you are the winner for your policy and you have to try to convince people, but it also shows how deeply divided many societies are right now and how divided the united kingdom has been over the brexit decision. i think it is a hard thing to say that you are going to recast a vote again and say like let's ask people again about brexit. i think if there is a decision,

, as a politician you have to go , forward and go for it. in germany, we don't have these electorates like in the united states, so we probably will have a much clearer result in the coalition in germany that doesn't apply to much. if there is a vote, go for it. host: the caller brought up what is happening in italy and austria, but the headline this morning from "the washington post" in austria, and the other and "italyan run, reckoning with populism," the potential power and attention new prime minister in italy. what is going on? guest: you can see these dominoes, where they have an established liberal world order postwar continues to collapse at one at a time as this populist wave brings in a new leaders who reject that order, reject the

eu and transatlantic. host: a caller in new jersey, pronounce your name, please. caller: [indiscernible] host: good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. my question is to mr. stark. i would like to know how he feels toward terms comments -- trump's comments during the debate that he would disregard the american military code of conduct and the geneva convention? and how would it fare with american military presence in germany? host: thanks. thank you. first, trump said a lot on the campaign, and this one is definitely [indiscernible] and an overwhelming majority of germans would consider this [indiscernible] germany had its problems when it came to the iraq war where there

has been a huge opposition in germany, and germany has also been -- had a complicated dealing with the situation of waterboarding, enhanced interrogation techniques and different stuff. the rule of law and germany -- in germany would for bid bid germans to march at sign of the americans, so as trump sticks to that position, it will challenge the line, but on the other hand, he has stepped back on a lot of things. has said and what will be policy in the white house would be a different thing. host: this is a tweet from a viewer, as germany and britain act to propose terms efforts, if necessary. if so how? by you could parse the words angela merkel the day after trump was proposed the winner. guest: i think no one is

actively opposing donald trump right now. angela merkel has used a very smart language. she said the morning after the election that she is willing to work for the united states, willing to work with donald trump on the basis of the values available democracy including , -- a liberal democracy, including freedom of speech, a division of power, and based on those, she is very much welcoming donald trump, which means if you are abandoning freedom of press, abandoning freedom of religion, abandoning the division of power, you are not our partner anymore. me go to "the new york times," with brexit the issue of an donald trump. for seven decades, the right, the u.s. and britain define and defend it the vision of democracy and freedom that profoundly shape the global order. what happens when their own citizens opt out of it? guest: we are about to find out. we are about to answer that question.

we're entering uncharted waters. we have a new political order in britain. we are about to leave the eu and we don't know what that means, and we don't know what a trump administration will look like. there is hope in the european capitals that when everything settles down, appointments are made, cabinet positions, things will look more or less like the status quo with a slight push to the right. but it might not go that way. no one really knows. there is a lot of wishful thinking going on in western european capitals that the status quo more or less, of liberal order, however you like to praise it, will remain intact under this strain. but that is not a given. host: you will have more than enough to write about in washington, d.c. guest: that is the upside. host: and you are traveling back to your home country of germany after the now gratian to

do what? guest: covering the next election, the german prime minister will be elected next year, so there will be a lot of things with a similar tone. we have the french election in april where marine le pen and the front national are on the rise, a very similar phenomenon. she's coming from a position, where she says like france, similar to a donald trump says to america first, and we have are far right party in germany, which is on the rise, so we see them having a dominant effect potentially that will challenge the overall idea of the european union as a solidarity of states. there will be the same issue. host: we will have both of you on sunday morning. let's go to pat from michigan, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. caller my comment is simple, ba. i hope i can say it right. when our founding fathers worked out the form of government they were going to have in this country, the people in europe

and other countries thought this was stupid that this was , ridiculous, this is never going to work, people governing themselves was unheard of. well, it did work. so my thing is that i think the majority of people in this country do not like the idea of globalism, they don't like the idea of this country hopping go by roles of other countries, other nations who live differently from us. when it comes to trade agreements, i have heard it mentioned once in the last couple of months. why would we have to have trade agreements with all of these other countries? why can't america just trade with the countries that it wants to trade with and who want to trade with us? to me, that this keeping our individualism and being who we are. we will be friends with any country who wants to be friends with us. host: pat, we are to respond. thank you very much. guest: i think globalization is really difficult to avoid.

now products made nowadays will , have one component made in one country and another on the other side of the world. they are brought together and assembled in a third country, and that is why a nation of states has tended to go for multilateral trade deals because it is a simplifying process. what has failed in globalization, because we are now all much more prosperous societies than we were a few decades ago, before globalization really took out, but what has really failed with globalization is that there are winners and losers, and our societies have failed to compensate the losers for what they have lost by the fact that their jobs have gone overseas. that has been a problem in the u .k. and a problem here and that

the u.k., which used to be industrial powerhouses but now lie in ruins. and as democracies, we have failed to take the step s necessary to bring those people along with the process of good globalization and make them feel they are benefiting, too. the way i see it is it has been more a failure of democracies than of globalization. host: let me turn from trade to syria, an issue you wrote about. remind our audience that they are dealing with the situation in syria, feeling that there will be a vacuum that will push fighting towards al qaeda. headline at washingtonpost.com, they fear the u.s., but fear betrayal. donald trump will be facing this as our 45th president. the weaknesses of president

obama's foreign-policy became abundantly apparent in syria where the use of force, the last resort against harris, obama highestlect america's ideals and convictions, but in a civil war, like the one raging in syria, where there is no clear dividing line between good and evil and no clear allies, this principle reaches its limits. guest: that is something we can certainly observe in syria right now. and the obama administration is hesitantly arming the rebels. hesitantly. what they are doing it. there is still kind of a coalition around aleppo where the rebels are supported by the united states and fight back the assad regime and the russians. now he says we should focus on a isis, which is, on one side, on one hand, understandable,

because isis is the other hand, it would leave a huge vacuum. the rebels might turn to al qaeda and isis because it are looking for new alliances. what donald trump said, let us out of isis, it is not as easy as he is saying it. it is not easy, carpet bombing the areas where a lot of civilians live in and isis is ruling still, but we need to come up with the strategy of how to deal with the assad regime and the rebels. trump is in office, he will see a lot of tough questions are not as easy as a quick statement on one of those tv debates. roundtableunday focusing on u.s.-european relations, what to expect in a trump administration. his work is also available online. the outgoing washington people

chief for their spiegel. >> i am trying to figure out why on mr. so much hard trump. he is not the president yet. you need to give mr. trump a chance to get his stuff together. guest: well, and away, that is what the european capitals are doing. they are waiting to see who your points and what his policies once you take office, but of course, it is impossible to ignore what he said during the campaign. these were campaign promises, supposedly, so there is an expectation that having said he yz, there is a x chance he will actually do it, so there is concern right now

about the things he said about nato. important incredibly thing for the east european states and donald trump, during if campaign, suggested that the countries of nato did not contribute enough, the u.s. may not come to their defense. he would be undermining the very core of what nato stands for, and so, although there is a pause, waiting for him to take office and make appointments, there is a great deal of anxiety that the security we have known for the past half-century may be put in jeopardy if the u.s. takes a radically different course. what there is is uncertainty and anxiety. guest: you have about friends with ms. le pen and president

sarkozy, will be french elections be a bellwether in all of this, do you think? >> it might be if from fluffy on -- it might be if francois fee fillon winds. equidistantn has with the united states and russia and france somewhere in the middle. she will challenge the european union. she already announced that france would pull out and exit the european union, similar to the brits. if she winds this election, we will see a threat to all conventional wisdom with a totally uncertain outcome. host: jane, republican line. welcome to the conversation. caller: good morning. how does the fact that trump owes money to foreign banks

assess the policy of those governments? follow the money here. i am very concerned about that. they have a leverage over him. that is a very good question. i think everybody is concerned about that and i was one of the reasons trump received a delegation from japan in the under one of those foreign politicians who were first to congratulate him and andhe asked his daughter son to join the conversation because he has a private interests besides the policy interest. i think the first good step is the he reject things from business side but he is entangled in the network of business relations that it is our most impossible to divide that from his policies. that is something we have to watch very carefully. >> he said he will withdraw.

he is going to give a press conference in the coming days but it seems, first of all, that unless he completely divests himself of all ownership of businesses in 20 countries, unless that money is put in a blind trust, meaning he has no idea where his money has been invested, kept completely separate from him, then it will be impossible for him to avoid conflict of interest. host: one of the big challenges is that it is not just investments or stock portfolios. these are buildings, hotels, and properties. >> with the constitution, the famous clause of the constitution is that those banks or diplomats staying in his hotel are paid by the state, he is receiving income. what does that mean in terms of constitutional positions? it is a huge mess unless he is

able somehow to separate himself entirely from his business empire. sincea couple of months theresa may became the british prime minister. how is she doing? >> she has been given the impossible hand to play. voted for brexit. the people who lead that campaign have now dispersed. nigel farage, who became an icon , at therexit campaign european parliament right now, he has announced intentions to move to the states and leave the mess behind. she has been left holding the guideline,ere is no no roadmap of how to do it. and so, the british government over the next couple of years, british diplomacy in the next , allears will be focused

of the energy will be taken up on how to extricate ourselves from this very deep and wide entanglement we have with the european union. it will be difficult to find the energy to do anything else in the world. host: democrats line. thank you for waiting. good morning. ifler: i'm calling to ask the people in the u.k. and the people in europe blame the leadership of the united states for their own economic problems in terms of some of our leadership and globalization, especially our financial institutions and banks. the bad behavior caused our crash and is threatening crashes in europe. host: an interesting question. we will get a response. thank you. think so.on't everybody is connected with everybody. that is for sure. the banking crisis in 2008 certainly has been triggered in the united states, but remember, the euro crisis, which started a couple of years ago is a very

homemade crisis in europe. look at greece, look at spain, look at italy, those southern european countries. they failed when it came to their budget and the budget's constraints, so the currency questions are very much european questions and not so much related to the united states. i think the point that julian made earlier is a valuable point that every western democracy failed to restrict globalization and apply rules, which applied apply that you don't only have on one hand the wonders of globalization, which other companies trading overseas, but on the other hand, you deal with people losing something in those -- and those are usually the workers, people losing their jobs, people who were in charge of producing something that is not produced in mexico or the philippines or somewhere else. this is something that certainly is a task for everybody in europe and the united states but

i don't see that much of the blame game here. host: holger stark is on a radio podcast once a week, check it out on our website at www.c-span.org and go to c-span radio. it is free and available on all devices. one thing that struck me is that you were in iowa 18 months ago covering donald trump early on. and my question is, your general thoughts about america's political process? guest: it is too long for everybody. it is exhausting. and i think at the end, it does not support much of a democratic process in terms of figuring out things. there was an interesting event in january a freedom summit 2015, related to the tea party, and almost everybody on the republican side stood up and presented his or her ideas, and donald trump came as one of the outlaws, if you want to say so , he did not declare his

candidacy at that time and he was testing the water, clearly, having his candidacy in mind already, and he suddenly figured out things would work well, but it is exhausting and we have seen over that long process of how deep the division in the country became because they over and over again attacked each other. i think the european model of having a compressed election campaign of six weeks to eight weeks, maybe three months, where you compete and go to the idea that at the end is more fruitful. host: what do you think? guest: i think the difficulty with the length of the campaign is how much it costs and because of the length of the campaign, it cost billions of dollars, and therefore, money becomes a key issue in politics and congressman and senators and president, to some extent, are

focused along the lines of the reelection, which involved in fundraising, said the amount of time spent governing diminishes compared to the amount of time that needs to be spent raising funds for the next election. and so that is a huge burden that american democracy carries and that other european democracies don't carry for having very short, much more affordable collections. host: two european publications represented. the guardian. joe is joining us from west virginia. republican mine. -- line. good morning. caller: morning. the german made the thing a while ago, saying they will wait to see if trump, whether or not he is going to go by the freedom of the press and freedom of speech and things we have. he will go by that. you look at obama, he tried to

stop fox news -- he tried to get them off the air, and he has done everything he can to get around our constitution. he tries to let immigrants go, 5 million people here without applying for citizenship or anything. and that is our laws. host: we'll get a response. guest: thank you ray much, joe. interesting point. when it comes to donald trump, it is pretty easy. when it comes to donald trump, he either sticks to the freedom of press and speech or he doesn't. i can only say that i have been to 15 or 20 of his rallies during the campaign, and one of the very bitter moments, all of this came to the situation when donald trump interrupted his speech and turned to the journalists in the middle of the room in a cage behind fences, and he stopped his speech and pointed a finger to the journalists and said, "those

guys over there are the most miserable guys i have ever seen, the most dishonest people i know." everybody turned around and was screaming at the journalists. i think that was a situation where there was a lot of pressure and anger and a lot of violence in the air. if this is something that shows support of freedom of the press, i think donald trump is failing. i hope he is changing his behavior and taking a different course when in the white house. so far, i have not seen much of appreciation of freedom of press from his side. host: one of the key moments last summer, one year ago, and when vice president biden announced he would not be running for the democratic nomination. you wrote in your most recent case, "after a black president, conservative white america has struck back and elected the only white men on the ballot. it is also true that they advised joe biden running against because he wanted a clear path for hillary clinton, partly because he wanted to put

help the fill her dream of becoming president. the president ignored the fact that she had too many blemishes from the beginning." guest: in hindsight, i think there was a huge mistake by the whole democratic party. i think joe biden would have been the one candidate that who would have come out strongly against donald trump. he is appealing to the electorate in pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin when it comes to the rust belt states so , he knows the challenges in those regions and he could come up with a stronger position on that van hillary clinton -- than hillary clinton did. in hindsight, she was a week weak candidate and joe biden would have performed much better. host: let's go to michael from new jersey. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span and having me on your show. i joined a little late, so i'm not sure you touched on this subject. as a globalist there is an

, election going on in italy as we speak regarding the constitution and change of government. i am wondering if that is one of the countries that trump has investments in and how it will affect not only u.s. relationships, but the european relationships. host: michael, thanks. this headline from "the washington post," today's referendum on constitutional changes that could impact the italian prime minister and that country also reckoning with populism. guest: we were talking about how this is possibly one of the dominoes to go down in terms of the existing liberal, international order, transatlantic relations, and also russian influence in europe. i think all of these elections, weathervanes that will tell us which way europe is going now, i think it is a critical moment in european history. host: you said that the unexpected president-elect has

threatened to tear up the flagship diplomatic achievement of the obama administration. last year's diplomatic deal to curb iran's nuclear deal program, which trump called disastrous. in response, iran's supreme leader said that if the u.s. tore up the agreement, iran would "set it on fire." the other theme of the term -- trump campaign was a foreign policy that was on his personality. he said he would bring his skills as a businessman to get bilateral deals with other world leaders. guest: it is the complete refusal to make any criticism of moscow, putin what russia is , doing in ukraine, and what russia is doing in syria. no one i talked to wanted to figure this out, why was that for him the third rail where you

could not go there or criticize russia? even though there's no reason to think it would cost him support among a u.s. electorate and it would have reassured traditional, conservative, republicans, but for me, there is a mystery there, why for him russia is all most untouchable. the campaign was going on when people were being slaughtered in aleppo. there is no doubt that the annexation of crimea was a violation of the national law -- of international law and get he would not go there. for me, that is maybe the number one big mystery about trump. host: we like to spend time in history, so i would like to take you back to the late 1940's, when president harry truman find the nato agreement, a direct aftermath of world war ii and here's what happened. [video clip] ♪ >> for us, war is not inevitable. we do not believe that there are blind sides of history, which

change men one way or the other. in our own time, we have seen brave men will overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable and courses that seem overwhelming. men with courage and vision can still determine our own destiny. they can choose slavery or freedom, war or peace. i have no doubt which they will choose. the treaty we were signing here today is evident of the path they will follow. if there is anything certain today if there is anything , inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for our freedom and for our peace. host: from 1949, president harry truman signing the north atlantic treaty organization known as nato. , my question, what is the future of nato? guest: that is a good question

many people are asking in europe as well. there should have been a nato summit this winter, which has been postponed. remember, there is article five of the nato. if one country is going to be attacked, everyone is going to be attacked. everyone is defending that country. this is the principle of nato. it says in other words, the , baltic states, for example, will be under threat and everybody will stand up and defend them against vladimir putin and russia for instance. ,if donald trump is reaching out to russia what does it mean for , the baltic states and states like georgia and other countries, who feel under threat by vladimir putin? trump said he would be willing to pull out of nato and i had the pleasure of spending a day during the summit with trump's new national security advisor. he was lowering the water and said we are not considering of pulling out of nato, but we want other countries to have more

responsibility and other countries to spend more money on the military budget, so i think there will be tough negotiation over the upcoming months. on one hand increasing the , military budget on one hand and the overall question of how to deal with russia and it trump -- if trump is in solidarity with the nato states against russia or breaking up that solidarity? guest: in eastern europe, when he hired general mattis for his secretary of defense. mattis lives and breathes nato, the alliance and article five. he is an orthodox general from that point of view. i think that has come as great reassurance to europe, eastern europe, but there are decisions that have to be made. will the u.s. go ahead with the position of the battalion in poland, which is very important for reassuring poland and the

eastern europe that the u.s. is keeping skin in the game and will put their troops on that eastern border. everything, every step that that the new administration takes closely watched, and as others said more in the , baltics than anywhere because this may not come in terms of what putin does next. it may not come in terms of a big movement of troops over a border. it may come quietly, stealthily a hybrid war of small incursions, small interventions in baltic politics. the u.s. reaction the nato , reaction will be very closely scrutinized in eastern europe to see how he responds to what putin does. host: how important is the

secretary of state pick? guest: very important with the relationship with the world. whether it is interested in sticking with treaties, multilateral agreements, who he picks for that job will be an incredibly important signal and western european capitals are really holding their breath right now to see who it will be. guest: can i weigh in on that? i think it is a watershed coming up with rudy giuliani on one hand or david petraeus on the other hand, i think dealing with someone like rudy giuliani, who is even more aggressive them donald trump used to be that , would be hard for many europeans. if you deal with someone like mitt romney and general petraeus, that would be a different game and you could , start developing step-by-step.

host: "the hill" reporting that jon huntsman, former utah governor and former presidential candidate, now also in the running. guest: again, i think it is a watershed moment for donald trump. jon huntsman probably would be an interesting pick as well. not know how much foreign-policy expertise he has an unwritten guy for the , europeans, definitely. host: holger stark and julian borger, their work available online. we have another 10 minutes to 15 minutes as we talk about u.s.-european relations. what to expect in the trump administration. bruce, republican, california. good morning. caller: good morning. host: please, turn the volume down and go ahead with your question. caller: i have a lot of questions. host: we will take them one at a time but turn the volume down. , there is a delay.

caller: all right. host: [laughter] your question. caller: so we have all these countries saying that mr. trump should not be president, and i do not know if he should or should not be. meanwhile, i voted, but i think that we have an internal question for the united states. is, we have to rebuild america, they are trying to have ships come in here, what other countries have charged them 10 times more to ship them out to go to the country? host: thanks for the call. er, that goes to

what you wrote about earlier. host: that goes to the trade issue from earlier. the thing about globalization is if you cut off trade with other nations to protect domestic industry, you will find that those nations will retaliate and stop buying your goods, so industries that build for exports will collapse in their turn and they will collapse much faster than possible to build up industries for domestic markets, so the retreat into trade isolation would be catastrophic for economies like the u.k. economy, like the u.s. economy, which for decades has been dovetailed with the global economy, so although it is satisfying to say, "let's stop buying goods from other

countries so our domestic industry can bounce back," the impact of other countries retaliating would be devastating. host: how different to the -- will the european union look in five years? guest: that is a very good question. you could earn a lot of money if you would bet on that. in europe, there are two big questions. one, how close will the european union stay together as the union of solidarity of states? that is one question about france already. will france pullout as the next one, yes or no? the question of how close europe will stay together, that is a good one. the second is, how strong will the european union be, given that the united states is withdrawing and pulling out of many conflicts, and trump is enforcing that. so if america is withdrawing from many conflicts and is no longer the policeman of the world, there is the need for

someone to step up and that role could be something europe has to take over. probably, the different states in the european union will have to invest more in military budgets but also diplomatic solutions, but that might empower the european union on the other hand. so that is an unclear situation. host: let's go to nikki in pennsylvania, republican line. caller: good morning. they were talking about trump and all of his companies, or whatever hotels and that. , presidents are allowed to have businesses before they -- this is not unconstitutional. he doesn't even have to walk away from his hotels or his businesses. i don't know how many kids he has, and he is allowed to have children and pass it on to them. i don't know what the piece is is about a man who made his own money without getting handouts by moveon.org or whatever the republican side is. host: we'll get a response. guest: every president since the

their wealth in whatever form it may be into a blind trust, which guarantees you don't know or how the decisions you make as president of the united states affect your own personal wealth because it is blind and you don't know where your money is. so this pressure on donald trump to do the same thing, not just to give it to his children, because obviously, what is good for his children, he may see as good for himself and his family and there would still be a conflict of interest. i think it is important from the point of view from a chief executive of a country that the only interest that is in his mind is the national interest. that is impossible if you own companies around the world, to completely separate your own personal interest in the

decisions you make from the national interest so every , previous president in the modern era has put their money into a blind trust and there is good reason to argue that donald trump should follow suit. host: kelly in rome, georgia, independent line. good morning. kelly you with us? , we will go on to john from lowell, massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i want to put this out there that we should consider giving donald trump breathing room. the guy is not even in office, yet. wait until st. patrick's day to pick on the guy. i would really like to ask you, how do they like the food in america? [laughter] guest: well the burgers are , great and a lot of other dishes, but honestly, we can judge donald trump on what he said during the campaign. i agree that he needs some breathing room. we will see where this goes, but

so far, he did not retreat really. he is still tweeting and coming up with proposals like people who are demonstrators, burning the flag should go to jail and lose constitutional rights. he needs to show he's getting more mature and filling out the shoes in the white house. host: will we see more financial assistance provided to nato by european nations? guest: his campaign and threats on nato could be the kind of threats necessary to make european nations, who most of them have not been paying a share in gdp that they said they would put into the fence they , agreed to do it in the nato summit in wales, and they have not done it. only a couple of european countries have done it. so definitely, donald trump has a the agreements that were made point. at nato summit have not been fulfilled by the european side,

and the advent of trump may be the pressure the european states need to fulfill that commitment, but what has caused anxiety is the threat, not just in playing, but explicit threat that the -- not just implying but , explicit threat that the u.s. might not come to the defense of the countries because they have not paid their way. to europe, that sounds like a protection racket. host: we have not talked about vladimir putin. what is the biggest concern in europe with at least friendly words that president-elect trump has had about vladimir putin in the past? guest: vladimir putin is the elephant in the room, at least in the european room. he is undermining a lot of liberal democracies, spending a lot of money undermining the process when it comes to the election. i think the biggest fear at the end to have two autocrats who are running a nationalistic campaign on both sides of europe , in the united states on one

hand and russia on the other hand and they try to build a bridge between them and europe is left behind, the greatest fear. guest: my greatest fear is that he miscalculates, sees european weakness, sees america changing direction, and he makes a grab to expand russian influence in what he calls his near abroad. if the miscalculates or overreaches, there is wide opportunity for there to be a miscalculation, to be a collision, to be an incident that spirals out of control. that, for me, is the greatest fear, the uncertainty about east -- about where east and west now stand and vladimir putin's ambitions and the possibility he may miscalculate. host: and i realize that did not give equal time on that last caller. favorite food.

guest: ribs and my son agrees. host: on that note, holger stark the outgoing publishing chief, and julian borger, thank you for being with us. fascinating hour. we hope to have you come back. safe travels back to your home country of germany. we appreciate it. guest: thank you so much. >> c-span's washington journal, and every day with news policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, "the hill" senior reporter will discuss the future of the house democrat caucus and the expectations of house republicans and the trump administration. then, former mideast advisor to president carter will discuss the challenges facing the trump administration and counteracting isis-inspired attacks at home like the ohio state university attacks. and governing magazine staff reporter liz farmer will examine the amount of federal grant money given to urban areas.

the sure to watch c-span's 7:00ngton journal, live at a.m. eastern monday morning. join the discussion. >> a look at the future of facebook messenger from the annual techcrunch disrupt conference in san francisco. this portion of the event includes a conversation with the founder and ceo of the fantasy sports site draft kings. it is 45 minutes. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your disrupt mc and techcrunch senior writer, jordan crook. guys?t's up, so happy to be back here. this is a favorite thing for me in san francisco. it, literally, so you guys live in a great city. congratulations. i want to welcome you to the 75th annual hunger games. we will have a blast.

i'm just kidding. it is early and you guys are never going to laugh at my jokes anyway so i will give up on that. we have an amazing lineup. a couple of things before we get started. we will use the #d.c.disrupt. press theter.com and follow button. that will get you directly into that conversation. go ahead and do that now. without further a do, i will bring up our first guest, at facebookcus from messenger and moderator, john constine. host: thank you for joining us today. messenger has always strived to be different from as a mess. eventually it embraced stickers, animated giff and payments. s -- animated gifs and payments.

david: we really like real-time communication. recently, we have opened up this view thing that we called "instant video" that basically enables you to have ambient video. you can start streaming in that little window while the other person can be in a meeting and still type and see you or what you want to show them. we will continue investing more and more in real-time to medications and one of the things we have not talked about previously is that we have over 300 million monthly active users of video and voice calling and so that makes messenger one of the biggest real-time apps in the world right now. john: that is incredible. you guys have not even had video calling for very long. it only started a year ago. david: that is right. get: audio and video helps messenger to one billion users

but many of your critics feel like that was only because you force people to download messenger and leave the main facebook app. does that feel like a hollow victory? not really. we do not feel it is a victory or not a victory. david: it is a lot of users. this is not down votes. it is people using the app on a monthly basis. the vast majority of them on a daily basis. it is people communicating with one another and using the app to stay in touch and build groups and do a bunch of different things and so, it does not feel that way to us. it just feels like we have such a great opportunity to serve one billion people and we come to work every morning, energized by, you know, the notion that we can build things that shifted and the full billion people on the platform will get to use it, so it is energizing. john: there is surely benefits from having messenger be its own app. there is a lot more room for

extra features, but you are cramming conversation into a one-size-fits-all and recently, you started to remove the ability to message from the mobile website. don't users deserve a bit more choice about how they communicate in messenger? david: do you know any other mobile messaging app that has a mobile web experience? john: i guess that is a good point but you are also facebook, the biggest thing on the planet. you must be held to a different standard than everyone else. david: the whole point of having a separate app is to create an ecosystem. messaging apps do not work if push notifications are not enabled for everyone. on facebook, not everyone has push notifications. on messenger, everyone has push notifications. we want to make sure that if you use messenger, you can actually get people to respond faster, and it works because now, when we survey our users, they actually tell us that they feel people will respond faster on messenger than even text, and

so, that is great because the first thing you want the messaging app to be is reliable, fast, and know that people will respond quickly. situations has to be where people might only be able to use a mobile website and do not actually have the time or stamina to download an app. what do you have visited those users? david: we have been very careful not to remove access for people who are on older android devices that might not have memory to network the app or conditions to download the app addison point in time, so like app atual, you know, -- that point in time, so the actual markets we look at, not other markets. thinks it is in their eventual benefit but those things typically benefit facebook as well. a fast, efficient reliable messenger is good for people and

facebook. how do you guys balance facebook's agenda with user benefit? david: i do not think we ever think about it that way. build aknow, when you product, like no matter whether if you are a startup or large company, it does not matter. when you build a product, you want the vast majority of people out there to use it, to like it, and to engage with it. that is why you come to work. you build things about our actually solving real problems and daily lives of people, and that is how we think about things. we don't think about, let us do that because we are going to bake a bunch of money on the other side. that is not how we think about things. facebook makes its money on the news things and you guys work on bringing people together. but still, you must make decisions of thinking about the long road about whether that is data you are pulling from users o, boxing out other competitors in terms of the newest capabilities like the audio and

video calling. when you work with mark zuckerberg on these features, how do you guys make top-level strategic decisions about where to go with messenger? is that mostly your job or is he doing that? david: we are doing that together and it is really great to work with mark because he has his unbelievable ability to execute really well in the short and medium term and have a long-term vision as well. it has been great to work with so, themessenger and way we are thinking about things is pretty simple. what are the fundamental things that people want to do when they talk to one another? they have one-on-one conversations, group conversation, they interact with businesses and services, and we need to make sure that we build the right experiences so that people use the product and find more utility in the products. we have invested in a lot of things

>> a o'leary you launch the platform. it seemed half-baked. what did you think was missing? >> we wanted to build and the eco-system. same time, reinvent the experience and the interaction

model at that scale. it is not easy and it takes time. what we wanted to do was put to the stake in the ground and enable all of the enablers, all of the companies out there to like, come in and start building capabilities. from that standpoint, it has been successful. they are building actually capabilities for third parties or actually experiences. the problem was it got a really overhyped very, very quickly. the basic capabilities we provided at that time were not like good enough to replace like traditional apps and interfaces and experiences and so what we have done in the past couple of months is we have invested and build more and more capabilities and we have also provided a lot guidance on how to build a successful experience. what we have seen as a number of vertical working really, really well.

so, like a news is working really well. engagement on news boxes is really good and techcrunch is like actually one of the best ones. cnn is another one in a bunch of others. what we have seen is that other companies are able to build experiences that covert users to paid users for their services in higher conversion then redirecting to a mobile website or app. maps.com in europe has experience in messenger and they are converting to pay subscribers recently directed to a mobile site. there are other experiences like -- in india that does bill pay and all of these things. they are converting 10x the direct into mobile sites. we are seeing more and more of these things. we are releasing a brand-new

update to the platform. messenger platform. it brings a whole lot of new capabilities, even more engaging experience. jason: one of the things i thought was the most lacking from the platform at the time of launch was to make a native payments. i was going to grill you about the that. it turns out to have actually built that now, right? david: yes. jason: you are working with payment networks to build that, it is not all infrastructure. you used to work with paypal. is paypal who you're working with? david: we are working with almost everyone on the solution. we are working with paypal, strike, mastercard, visa, american express. what we have done, the two main announcements we have on this new update to the platform is one, we are releasing a new enhanced web view capability. you can basically draw ui

instead of the thread and determine the height of the window so you could have the proper ui in context of the thread. and native payments. those are the two main updates. more to this new platform release. we think that with that we have the best of both worlds, right? because inside of the thread, you have identity, transactional capability, the ability to draw ui, ability to draw native buttons and interfaces and basically different physics to those different spaces. imagine you are trying to book an airline ticket. you go into a thread, the actual intent capture is great in a conversational way. i want to go to paris tomorrow. and then you basically have results that can come up a web view, it is really fast.

you have native payments and then you can get it reposted back in the thread which is meant to stay a you can check in and do all of these things have customer support. we believe bringing all of these type of mobile experiences together is what ultimately is going to make a platform successful. josh: many of those were not there when you first launched. honestly, what happened is a lot of developers do not feel like that enough time for the final functionality to build a good bot. facebook will always be the news. everything you guys do seems to be important to people because you have so many users that two developers, they may only got that one chance to make a splash and they do not necessarily have the capability. how long i had of the launch did you give developers? knowing the final functionality? david: a couple of weeks only.

think that is enough time to build a great experience? david: probably not. josh: it seemed a little short. you are focusing more on the set to launch date. did you guys end up prioritizing secrecy and making a big/about putting that stake and the ground over being able to launch a fully baked platform? david: i think the problem is you can look at this in different ways. i choose to look at it is a long journey. you need to start somewhere. it is a great opportunity to get developers' atttention. we have a lot from the conference and starting to build. it has been six months-ish since we launched and welfare to 4000 developers on the platform. with a lot of middleware that have built -- we have a lot a middleware that built conductivity. today, there is a really good book that is launching. it was actually get you a free drink in new york and other cities are in it is probably too early. and the way it works is really cool. you get from news feed to messenger which is something we are releasing today which is destination ads.

you can get people straight to messenger and connect with people directly. you combined intent connection and with the case, it tells you where to go to get a free drink on absolut. you get a code and you give the cold to the bartender and he gives you your free drink. you get a notification inside a thread that offers a lyft ride back home. when you think about it in the sense of an app, that is not an app. it is such a great opportunity for brands to engage their users in a brand-new way in those type of things are really working well. josh: i am sure bartenders will

love for me to show their code and then having to figure out how to make it all work. when you think about the platform, a lot of people are saying bots are a fad, what you think we will use them? why is facebook so committed to bots are note sure just a fad? david: it is not about bots but how can you get an experience like so. we interact with people and with services and we interact with brands and with businesses. if there are a bunch of different things that the capabilities with opened up that are really selling. at the basic, basic stage like customer service on messenger

based on the api's that was released in april is really flourishing and a number of large companies. rogers in canada which is the largest in canada's providing customer support on messenger and seeing a lift and customer satisfaction. news also a messenger and is working really well and has hypertension. as in all of these different experiences which brands are building that enables them to connect directly to their customers. if you are a cpg company like the ability for you to target a demographic and then get one on one with your customer is brand-new. you would never been to do that before. when you combine all of these capabilities that we are announcing today, you see companies that are going to launch soon an updated version of their bots where you will be able tell book airline tickets and hotels in a really fast, really easy way that i think will be pretty close to having a

native app. and it definitely better the young mobile web. josh: i am interest and not having to talk to humans about getting a plane taken. where do you see the future of the navigation and dictation and voice for facebook messenger? david: this is not something were actively working on now. we have the ability if you want to use voice, you can leverage voice quips and process these. it is an ok experience. i do not feel like it is great. at some point, it is obvious as we develop more capabilities and interactions within messenger, we will work with voice interfaces. josh: i would love to be the switch between threads by saying "go to" and switch around especially if i am to use hands-free while i am working. not necessarily while i am driving. but you can imagine that it

would be a sweet deal. that is why echo and alexa a big hit. do you think you are waiting to long? if you are not actively working on this boy stuff first? david: maybe. josh: looking further the future, you guys how bots, you got a working more with businesses. what does messenger look like five years from now? david: when you look at all of these entities that you interact with, bringing it all together. like, can you bring your daily life onto messenger in a more organized way and actually have like the best high quality, high fidelity interactions with people, groups of people, businesses, services? and get an opportunity for developers to get distribution. we are driving did not only -- has messenger got over to one billion monthly users that engagement as measured has grown tremendously in the last couple of years. we want to continue accelerating that trend and making it a more central part of daily life.

of our billion plus users. josh: is group video going to be a part of it? david: if you look at what we launched to date, have nothing to announce, it is a pretty logical thing to build a one point. josh: i feel a little smile. but thinking about this in the next view years, what is messenger going to do to kill is --s final 50 which final foe which is sms. david: it is a question of reach in messaging. messaging is all about the ability for you to reach all of the people you want to reach. not like 95% of the people you want to reach. and so gradually we are increasing our reach and penetration in smartphone users and we just need to grow it. as we grow its, people will continue using it.

if you look at sms of versus messenger, no-brainer to use messenger on android because experience is so much better, you can do so much more. not only with the ability to also get your text messages inside messenger, you get all of one -- you get all-in-one messaging in one place. so gradually building more and more capabilities is the way we're going to make this happen. josh: you're making great strides. you have 300 million people using audio and video at you are bringing mobile payments for messenger bots. you admit maybe you would have like to have given messenger developers more time to make something more great. the ideas to bring it all together in one app. you could do your whole day life

in messenger. thank you. [applause] >> unlike josh who looks dapper, i decided to dress down. start-up chic.k i did i know if you know but i have something to swisher. -- i call this the start up chic. if you think i am standing up in hawking t-shirts, you're wrong, it is the swisher. but not right now. we have an amazing panel. please welcome our next guest, jason robins from draftkings. and our moderator. >> thank you for coming. are you excited talk about sports and roomful of nerds, including myself? >> as i've said many times, i am a nerd. i am at home in her.

we all are. >> let's start with, who has played on draftkings before? draftkings is a daily fantasy sports app, what is daily fantasy sports? >> a segment on the overall game where basically instead of playing for an entire season, or a subset of that, you play for a day or in the case of football, a weekend. otherwise it is pretty much the same of what typical sports fans are accustomed to. you pick a player as if you are the general manager and those players get points and then you play against people. and whoever scores the most fantasy points wins. fitz: and it is over. josh: you the plague and if you want. fitz: why do people like a more? josh: and brings was season-long fantasy sports and bring and eliminate some the things people do not like. so everyone loves the draft and picking players for it you get

to do it every day or as often as you like. people love the scoring and playing with their friends. what sometimes people, including me was placed season-long fantasy complain about, you get an injury and you are out of it. some of the daily sports, especially -- it is more engaging. you do not have the baggage of carrying players that maybe you thought they were good when you drafted and then they got injured. for some the daily sports, it is important to have flexibility. so if you do not want to play literally every single day, you cannot play season-long. with that you can play what you want. fitz: yesterday was the first-ever nfl season. a big day. espn fantasy was down all day. josh: yes. fitz: how many people use yours? josh: what was most exciting is we have a big push. with talked a lot about moving more towards getting people who like to play with their friends and social play and that was the focus of we rallied the whole company around and driving that.

social play was up 3x year over year. which is really exciting. fitz: a ballpark number to get and idea. millions of people playing? jason: on a given sunday, we usually have millions of people caught -- across free and paid play. yesterday, we ran a huge free contest and we had about 500,000 people enter. fitz: what was the price? jason: $100,000 total. the top prize was 15k. and we had one that was almost 2 million entrants. fitz: what did the winner when?

jason: about $1 million. fitz: why is it to this gambling? jason: there is a distinction between games of skill and the law. it is a game of skill. it is really the way the law distinguishes between games of skill and games of chance. fitz: if there is chance in there, if it rains, my team is going to be affected. jason: that is every game. if you're playing golf, the wind can pick up. there is a lot of things in any game of skill some chance. but overall, it is a game of skill. fitz: i have tried a few times and i come in the last. i attest to it being a game of skill. let's talk about the company history and you personally. four years ago, you worked at the vistaprint as a marketing manager. four years later, you are the ceo of a billion dollar company. how? how does it happen? jason: i've always had a passion

for sports, fantasy sports. i used to play chess and played in tournaments. this was kind of the dream for me to start something in a field unloved. -- in a field i loved. and it worked in the tech industry before and i had a lot of friends interested in this really have the entrepreneurial spirit. i was wanted to do it. i graduated from school right after the bubble burst the traditional route -- fitz: i was not slamming you. it is amazing. you did not invent the daily fantasy sports. what was your official pitch to vc's? jason: emphasizing our backgrounds. we love to the game. we felt that that was born be where we could differentiate a look of the general market at the time and no one was really putting it all together with test products and analytics. we felt we could bring it to the

table and our backgrounds and our history would allow us to be advantaged in this space. backgrounds at our histories would allow us to be competitively advantaged in this stage, combined with the fact that we knew the consumer and we had a feel for what we thought we would want. in the beginning it is very hard. in the beginning, fundraising was brutal. we ended up raising from an investor in boston, and it was really hard. we brought in a board member who was here, san francisco-based, helping on the west coast. also, i have to give two more shout outs. i'm sorry. one is my wife, who let me come to this, which i appreciate. secondly as to jeremy who over the last eight months, helped us go from a tech company that did not know a lot about regulation to really being sophisticated there. david: we will talk all about that. so it was hard to raise money.

jason: probably around 50-60 people said no until i got to my first yes. , probablyries a another 50 said no before i got to yes. i mentioned, bring on the new board member. i knew a little more by then. i had never done this before. i was taking kind of a shotgun approach, a big piece of advice for people, this target. what really made a difference is i prequalified investors. i said, is this something that will ever be of interest to you? a lot of people do not tell you up front. they will just take the meeting. of it ends up being a waste your time. i did it thinking i was traveling and wanted to limit my meetings. i should have done that on the east coast fundraising. by the time i got out here, i had a great qualified pipeline. so then from there it was the right time and the right places b round happened very

quickly as a result. fitz: you have raised a lot since then. is that the number? over 600 million. you have some really impressive investments now. major league baseball, major league soccer as a league, the nhl as a league, and the patriots -- jason: jerry jones, the yankees, president. david: any entrepreneur would like kill to have one of those people invest in the company. jason: the most recent round was revolution, ted lyons, one of the founding members, owns the washington capitals, the washington wizards. we are fortunate. what is cool is people in the sports world get it. it is part of what is fun about having a sports company. it is also just practically,

those are the people who understand what the product is and what it means and they are the people who can help us get introduced to the right relationships and help us understand how to continue to make the product better. like, how does it help you guys? jason: it brings credibility to our brand, belief in our brand and our company is huge. there is also a lot we have done with the money on the integration side. you can seamlessly integrate. if your player comes up to bat, siri will announce to you tap a button. if you are a subscriber, you watch that and can seamlessly link right back to draftkings. fitz: when you got that investment, that was the first

major league, were you like wow? jason: i thought it would take more time. something small and cool to follow but we will see how it goes. the fact that major league baseball took interest in other sports leagues followed suit, it showed me they were ready for this and they knew it was something that would be huge and transformational for their product and their content. itz: what benefit do you bring to them? jason: when people play this, they significantly increase content. something like 80% report they consume more content. almost half of our customers say they started following a new sport since they started playing on draftkings. those are powerful effects that drive our industries. part of the i love about draftkings is that it is this cool industry. we are lifting these other industries. it is different when you are trying to take something from someone then when you are

boosting other industries. uniquews you to create partnerships and alliances you otherwise could not create. fitz: i want to get into the legislative stuff. it seems like it has been smooth sailing. but it was not really like that. the series of events that guys come up with in the course of a month or two, the first thing was one of your employees one 350,000 and in the next day or two, the department of justice opened an investigation. then the nevada gaming control board said it was gambling and banned you in the state and then that new york attorney general issued a cease and desist. were you like, holy shit, this is over? jason: it was a tough time and a lot was coming at once. we were prepared for it mentally.

i think we were required to get a crash course in understanding how to navigate those things. mentally, we were prepared. i remember the earliest days, when we could not raise capital and we were running out of money and it felt like it would be the end, i remember an amazing run where it seemed like every major sports league and team owner, wanted to invest in draftkings and capital was -- this was before. i remember i stood up in front of the company and said that the numbers were skyrocketing, over 10 user growth year after year. everything was through the roof. it was like we were a darling, really.

it was all good. i remember feeling like, just 2.5 years ago, i was not sure we would be able to raise this to get to the next level. that was the most stressful i have ever felt. i spoke with the company september of last year and i said, this feels great right now. we should celebrate and enjoy it. but building a big company is about ups and downs. you cannot get too high, you cannot get too low. it will not always be this way. it can go to either extreme. and low and behold, a month and a half later, everything you described happened and i remember thinking back to that and thinking back to the early days and all right, this will be challenging and i think we have the right people here in the right mental makeup to get through it. but it is going to be challenging. i am geared up. the team is geared up.

let's address the issues out there. no one ever took their eyes off the ball. the mission was always central to it. the passion we felt for it, in some ways it helped rally the company, like it is us against the world and i think that helped a lot in terms of pulling everyone together. and we had below average attrition for the next months. the metrics are remarkable for a company that went through a trying time. it rallied everyone together because people are so passionate about the product and the mission and what we were doing. fitz: you had some help. you hired lobbyists and world-class expensive lawyers. i do not want to see your lawyers. jason: orrick did a fantastic job. it was amazing to see the response. from the legislative community

and listening to their constituents that were sending them emails. in new york alone 100,000. that alone is just one state. if you look across the country, it was close to one million plus they were dealing with the heroin epidemic and other tough things. he said to me, i have never gotten in my entire 25 years, as much outreach and support of something as i did for this. that meant a ton to me that people cared enough and wanted enough and that is the difference. a great team in support of our customers and everyone wants to see us successful. david: the media was having a

field day and there were rumors of you merging with the biggest competitor, if anyone does not know. were there talks between you? jason: there have always been talks. i have gone on record saying it is an interesting discussion. mergers are always tough. it has to be something that you think is better than just an idea that can be executed on. there are always talks. where that leads and when, we will see. we have been talking on and off for the last year and a half or so. the devil is in the details. it is complicated to put two companies together. when the time is right, there is potential for something like that, but it has to be right. i think everyone knows right

now, it is a really important time of year for us. it is important to focus on the nfl season. fitz: what would the benefit of these two that merger? jason: we would have a company with more liquidity in our marketplace, which is the most important value to customer. i also think the fact that there is a lot of synergy on the legislative side and the legal side, everything you just talked about we were double paying for for the most part. there is a lot of synergy there. fitz: you got the mlb to invest in you. was there a rush to stake your claim in the sports world between you and them? jason: you know, i think maybe there is some of that but i also think for us at least, it is more focused on we are creating a new industry, we are trying to grow that industry, we are

trying to expand markets. it is important to have relationships with the league. they control the content. if they do not have a good relationship with us, it limits what they can do with the content. this app i know i will be showing later on the facebook live feed and a lot of people ask me how you get video highlights and stuff like that in there. if we want to be able to get those things in there, it is important we have a close relationship. fitz: let's talk about dk life. the app. a lot of people say it is like a stab at espn and you are trying to become a media company. are you? jason: i do not think anyone does anything as a stab at espn. i love espn. we think of things less about who the competition might he and more about what is our customer want and what do we need and what is a natural expansion for us. there are a lot of apps out there and espn is one of them.

nothing really caters specifically to the the fantasy sports fan the way the red zone channel caters to that. it shows just highlights of key place and it is so clearly designed for a fantasy audience. a lot of scoring apps are out there and they are useful for anyone but how do we create an experience for the fantasy fan that is every bit as good digitally as the scoring at and that was the goal. i think nolan has really done that. it is not about trying to compete as trying to provide for customers that we are well situated to provide. fitz: if you could create an app for people who are not in the fantasy but huge sport fans, would you? jason: eventually, yes. but the focus is fantasy fans and we have about 7 million

customers there 50,000 people in north america alone play fantasy sports. our current customers are a natural point to promote to for us, it is about reaching that audience. then we will see if it makes sense to expand. if there is no other at out there the way this is. fitz: thank you for sitting down with us. we are excited to see where you go next. jason: thank you so much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]

click on the view only to see all arguments covered by c-span. in addition, you can find recent appearances by supreme court justices in their own words, including one-on-one interviews in the past few months with justices taken and ginsburg. there is also a list of all current justices with links to their appearances on c-span as well as many other supreme court videos available on demand. www.c-span.org follow the transition of government on c-span as president-elect donald trump selective cabinets. we will take you to key events as they happen without interruption. or listen on c-span

on our free c-span radio app. leo shane joins us. he is the capital bureau chief for military times. he joins us to discuss the forident-elect's take defense secretary. tell us a little bit about the general. >> a very popular figure within the marine corps known for colorful language and being a real warrior style. some someone who is well respected in congress and not expected to face too much opposition but there is the problem of the national security act which says if you serve in the military you have to wait seven years to be eligible for secretary of defense. the general retired only a few years ago. he'll be at four years by the time this comes around.

he'll need a special waiver to get through and a few lawmakers have already raised an eyebrow. >> how long has that restriction been in place of a member of the military serving a civilian role? >> this has been a law since the 1940's and as soon as congress passed it they almost immediately granted a waiver for former secretary of defense marshall. when it was first passed the original restriction was 10 years back in the 1980's they shortened that to seven years. in this case, it is still a problem and a couple more hoops for folks to jump through. senator mccain has already said he fully supports the mattis nomination and thinks he as great pick and is willing to shepherd the legislation through needed to take care of this. but we did hear objection from

senator jill brand right after the mattis announcement happened yesterday saying she has concerns this is supposed to be a civilian not a military post and that is why the law is in effect so she'll put up some resistance, at least make sure that the senate has to go through the normal procedure for passing legislation and not allow unanimous consent or sail through without conversation about why the law is here and what it means to have somebody who was in the military take over this role. >> let's go through some of those hoops. which committees would the waiver need to go through? would it need to pass in the house and the senate before he is confirmed? what kind of threshold of votes are we talking about? >> we're still trying to figure out all the details here because this isn't something that comes up on a regular basis but this is going to go through the senate armed services committee and as i said senator mccain who is the chairman of that committee has said he's already at work trying to draft appropriate legislation and make sure this sails through as easily as possible. since it is legislation it has to go through both chambers and is subject to the same rules and vote totals a normal piece of legislation would be.

there is going to need to be 60 senators to sign off to get it through as opposed to the normal nomination process where they need a simple majority. it should be a little complicated and interesting to see how it all unfolds but as i said, there's pretty widespread support for him in this pick. he is a very popular figure within the military, within congress. a lot of folks are happy to see president-elect trump has picked someone very familiar with foreign policy and with these issues. so i imagine something that is going to take extra paperwork but in the end not be a real obstacle. >> here is a look at what the chair of the senate armed services committee has been saying about him. pleased that the president-elect has selected general jim mattis for secretary of defense one of the finest military officers of his generation. what has senator mccain said specifically about getting the waiver through congress? >> just that he's willing to work on it and is already at work to go through this. he doesn't see the nomination as any sort of real concern, real obstacle.

on the democratic side, the few democrats who have brought this up, senator jill brand is the only one who officially said she'll oppose his nomination. we've heard from a few democrats who say, look, this is worth looking into. we don't have any problem with general mattis, but there is a reason this law is on the books and we need to take serious consideration of that. >> here is a look, of course senator jill brand from new york tweeted as well, while i respect general mattis' service i'll oppose a waiver civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of american democracy. you said you're really not hearing any more than what you've heard from her about senators wanting to block this nomination. >> you know, congressman schiff on the house side has said he has some of the same concerns. adam smith a ranking member of the house armed services committee, he said he has the same concerns. again, it's concerns with this idea of do we have a civilian

controlled military or military controlled military? no one is saying anything against general mattis at this point. he has had as i said some colorful language and controversial positions that got him forced out of the obama administration. he was openly fighting with them about their stance toward iran. but at least on the hill right now it's a theoretical discussion about military civilian control and not so much a discussion about general mattis' credentials. >> so if the waiver is passed you see pretty smooth sailing as far as confirmation is concerned? >> you know, for the number of questionable or possibly controversial nominations we're seeing this doesn't seem to be one of them. this seems to be one where a lot of folks are going to say a lot of the right things and maybe we'll see some nice, scholarly conversations be the what it means to have a civilian controlled military on the hill instead of attacks on general mattis' past. >> all right. we'll keep following you on twitter. leo shane is your handle.

we'll look for your writing in the military times. militarytimes.com. thanks so much. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> navy officials were on capitol hill thursday testifying on the deployment of combat ships designed to be close to shore. initial estimates of $228 million have doubled for each ship. this hearing is just over two hours. >> the list of 2384 military nominations. of those nominations, six nominations are short of the

requirement. i recommend the committee waived the seven-day rule in order to permit the nomination of these officers before the senate returns. is there a motion to favorably report these 2385 military nominations? >> so moved. >> all in favor, say aye. >> aye. thee meet today to look at deployment of the littoral combat ship and programs. those who are in charge of overseeing these programs. navintackley has been the -- navy acquisitions expert since 2008.

forces is responsible for the honorable j michael gilmore has been the senior advisor testing and evaluation of weapons systems since 2009 and mr. paul francis energy director of acquisition and source management at the government accountability office his 40 year career with gao is focused most on this than major weapons acquisitions especially shipbuilding. lcs is an important yet all too common example of defense acquisition gone awry. since the early stages of this program have been critical of fundamental lcs shortcomings in here we are 15 years later with an alleged warship that according to dr. gilmore's assessment can't survive a hostile combat environment and has yet to demonstrate its most important warfighting auctions