i am incredibly fortunate to be your colleague. thank you. and finally, to the people of north carolina, thank you for putting your trust in me. having taken my own of office, i am profoundly aware of my solemn response ability to support, maintain and defend the laws of the united states and the state of north carolina, and to faithfully discharge my duties as governor. i pledge to the people of north carolina that i will do just that to the best of my abilities. the work ahead will surely be challenging, but the time is now to build a safer, stronger north carolina, where our economy continues to grow and works for more people, where our public schools are excellent and our teachers are well-paid. where our neighborhoods are safe and our personal freedoms are protected.

and of course we must act with urgency to help the people of western north carolina recover from hurricane helene. we must help rebuild housing, support small businesses, and restore broken infrastructure. we can only accomplish these goals by reaching across the aisle and working together. so we must reject the politics of division, fear, and hate that keep us from finding common ground, because we will go further when we go together. not as democrats, not as republicans, not as independents, but as north carolina and -- as north carolinians. i love north carolina. it is home. it is where my parents raised my brother, my sister and me. it is where anna and i raised our three kids.

i pray that together we built a state where your kids and grandkids also want to call home. i am confident that we will, because we are north carolina strong. today i stand before you humbled by this response ability, grateful for this opportunity, and ready to get to work for you , the people of north carolina. thank you and may god bless you and the state of north carolina. [applause]

>> again, a live picture from the roosevelt room of the white house this evening, where we are awaiting remarks from president biden on today's jobs report and the state of the u.s. economy. this is his last jobs report while serving as president. the unemployment rate ticked down from 4.2% to 4.1% last month. live coverage of the president when he starts here on c-span. waiting for remarks from president biden on the latest jobs report. while we wait we will show you a recent discussion on washington

journal. welcome to the program. in talking about this attack in new orleans, the fbi had said the attacker is 100% inspired by ices. tell us how they reached that conclusion. >> the most obvious piece of evidence we have is he put an sis -- an isis flag on the back of his truck that he drove into bourbon street, killing 14 people. beyond that we know that over the course of the last year he posted a number of things on social media indicating his allegiance to isis, iicating his concerns with music and western culre and the like. that is what was made clear to us. in particular, he actually

mentioned in one of his posts right before he connected the attack that he was thinking about killing his own family, but decided that would not get his cause enough attention, and that was part of his concern, which is why he conducted the particular horrific attack in new orleans. >> the u.s. i believe has largely defeated isis in iraq and syria. what is the current state of isis? do they currently hold any territory? how much influence and power do they have right now? >> we conducted a strong series of operations over nearly a decade now against isis, but they do continue to hold small pockets of territory. in the last few days, u.s. forces along with iraqi forces conducted strikes in syria and iran against isis targets. on december 20, we killed a

senior isis leader. we continue to conduct strikes against isis because they pose a threat in the region but internationally as well because they are trying to plot longer-term attacks against our allies. they are continuing to trader -- are continuing to try to inspire attacks in the united states or europe as well. >> how are they inspiring those attacks? through what medium? >> it is unfortunate, but it is online. they are posting videos that talk about the jihad, they talk about training turris -- turris -- they talk about they are not the versioni of islam that most muslims practice. he had issues in his family, acculturated after the military. they take those vulnerable

people and convert them into killers by giving them something to believe in, something that explains why they are having problems that aren't the actual reason for their problems. >> i will play you a short portion of the tick on deputy suppressed -- deputy press secretary talking about the threat level of isis today. >> isis retains capabilities as we have seen in iraq and syria, and that is why we have our forces in both of those countries to ensure that isis can never surge back to what it was a decade ago. the entire mission of our force presence is to ensure the enduring defeat of isis. that is why we partnered with the syria and, credit forces -- syrian democratic forces over the past few years.

isis remains a threat, but they certainly are not the same threat they were a decade ago. >> what do you make of that? and the concept of military defeat of isis, given this is more of an ideology that inspires other people to make attacks on their fellow citizens. >> there is no doubt it is hard to combat an ideology, but isis is also a group of fighters and planters who are plotting attacks -- planners who are plotting attacks overseas, communicating over encrypted apps, trying to get these attacks conducted. there are facilities, there are training camps, there are capabilities. just look in syria with the fall of which are all assat -- of bashar all assad, but the

people coming into power, the new leader of syria, he is a former member of elkind -- of al qaeda. they now control real territory with real weaponry. the truth is that is a real challenge. these terrorists are not going away, whether we think they are defeated or not. they continue to conduct these attacks. if we take our eye off the ball, they will achieve success not just like in new orleans, but in bigger and more spectacular attacks, which is their goal. >> we will take your calls. we are talking about the threat that isis poses to the united states. we are taking your calls by party.

president electron has said he wants to scale back -- elect trump has said he wants to scale back the u.s. presence in the middle east. the u.s. has about 2000 troops in iraq, about 900 in syria. they are there to counter isis. what impact do you think that will have, the more isolationist or america first agenda? >> we had three presidents in a row, all of whom have wanted to reduce our force posture overseas, focus here at home. at times when we have done that we saw the disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan. pres. biden: thanks for your patience. been a long day.