of the atlantic council is frederick kemp formerly a high profile journalist with the wall street journal. brant scowcroft served as national security adviser to u.s. presidents gerald ford and george bush sr today he's the council's chairman emeritus and is also a member of the advisory board serving the secretaries of state defense and energy . i would like to think that my work had some role in informing u.s. officials about the possible responses and may have had some role and flow in saying the final nuclear posture review. washington has a dozens of think tanks vying for money and influence many of them operate on a global scale. and their staff juggle positions in government ministries and political circles with their jobs in the think tanks among them is elbridge called . blue star mr colby with with you. in january 2019 colby was summoned to appear before the u.s. senate armed services committee he had been in charge of the national defense strategy at the pentagon under then secretary of defense john mattis also making him one of the chief architects of the new nuclear strategy

>> live coverage from the atlantic council on energy policy and the 2020 campaign. also today in washington, d.c., the chair of the house intelligence committee,

from the atlantic council. >>> afternoon, everyone. my name is randy bell, the director of the global energy center here at the atlantic council. thank you for joining us today for this discussion, assessing democratic presidential candidates climate and energy policies. i don't think this could be anymore timely given today is the first day that president trump can formally begin withdrawal from the paris agreement. and a year ago -- a year ago yesterday is the election. so we have a whole another year of this. president trump's animosity towards climate policy is at least part of the reason climate change has become a top priority for democratic candidates in the presidential race. it's also the result of increased media coverage, climate induced flooding and wildfires, calls to action in the green new deal and the global climate strikes and voter demands for candidates to formalize demands for energy plans. the september townhall was unprecedented in the seriousness that candidates and at least part of the electorate had in addressi

and a guest on the atlantic council. we are just going to get into it. we are just going to get into it because i know that you all have a lot of questions i don't ask. you are all smart people and i want to give you a chance. this is climate and energy in 2020. i will start with christie here to my left. the green new deal would require massive energy infrastructure. used to be on the council of environmental quality. so i know that you are game to answer this. both parties have complained that permitting for energy projects takes too long. can candidates accomplish the green new deal infrastructure goals with our current laws? which clients have a viable plan for dealing with these realities? >> thank you. i want to say when you say the green new deal, it's hard to know what you were talking about. there is a resolution in congress. there is senator sanders's plan. we should be specific and we are talking about plans who has a green new deal and which proposal. your question about permitting and how we will achieve the extraordinary goal every one of t

atlantic council president and ceo fred kemp. thanks for joining us both here in the room and virtually for our conversation. if you want to use social media, use #ac iraq. #aciraq. >> you know it's an important event when the ambassador is here and when key members of our board are here and it's always such a pleasure to have our international advisory board member jafar here. thank you for crescent petroleum support for this, for the iraq initiative, global energy center. i've been stealing ideas from a long period of time, he happens to be one of the best thinkers and actors as an analyst in the region and also a pleasure to have him here as well. today's event was organized by the council's iraq initiative and global energy center. our iraq initiative is led by dr. and abbas working with us. he's one of the rare individuals who understands the workings of the country he's covering, iraq, so intimately and also the workings of washington which in many respects is more difficult to follow. the discussion is timely. iraq is faci

[applause] we also have folks from the atlantic council here. [applause] robinson is here from the barbara bush literacy foundation. [applause] we also have the e.u. deputy head of delegation here. michael curtis. [applause] and, the german deputy chief of missions is here. [applause] this is a remarkable day because we are remembering a truly remarkable event. i'm about to introduce someone who i have the greatest respect for. above all, i know three absolutes about the speaker i will introduce. first, the world changed profoundly when he was secretary of state under president george h. w. bush. as freedom and democracy spread, the cold war ended peacefully. germany was reunited as a member of the north atlantic treaty organization, and the soviet union imploded. at the same time, today's speaker assembled the international coalition that ejected saddam hussein's troops from kuwait, orchestrated the madrid conference where israel and all its arab neighbors discussed peace for the first time, and negotiating nuclear arms reduction treaties with

he has ties to the burisma atlantic council.irks sco is the second intel committee staffer with ties to the atlantic council, other is robert ager. they announced a partnership with burisma the day before president trump was inaugurated. serving on the burisma board at the time one hunter biden. joining us, christian whiton. good to have you with us. let's start with, what in the world is going on with lopez obrador saying he would not accept a designation by the united states of the cartels as terrorist organizations? >> it's important to remember that amlo is a big-time left winger. and has this policy all hugs not bullets he's use on the cartels. as you can imagine the cartels are not reacting to hugs not bullets in the way you would hope. they are taking advantage of it. lou: the cartel is using bullets on the people he wants to hug. i think there is a risk in his strategy. >> it's just not working. the fact is mexico has a recurring problem. previously the policy of use more aggression toward cartels has deficiencies as wel

is it consistently >> a panel of middle east experts discuss iraq's political outlook at the atlantic counciln washington, d.c. they also weighed in on the current relations between the u.s. and iraq under the trump administration. >> good morning and thank you all for joining us today also our live stream audience, atlantic council president c.e.o. fred kemp. thanks for joining us both here in the room and virtually for our conversation if you want to #aciraq.l media, i use you know, it's an important event when the ambassador is here when key members of our board are here. and it's always such a pleasure to have our international

>> live coverage from the atlantic council on energy policy and the 2020 campaign. also today in washington, d.c., the chair of the house intelligence committee, announces he will release transcripts of interviews from the impeachment inquiry. state department special assistant mike mckinley also. have posted the transcripts on our website, c-span.org. chairmanship spoke to reporters spoke toan shiff reporters. good morning. today we had additional scheduled depositions with the top lawyer for national security mr. blair well as from the office of management and budget and someone working close with mick mulvaney. >> they both refused to appear. this adds to the potential obstruction of congress charge against the president. in the nixon impeachment, there was an article of impeachment based on the obstruction of congress that itemized each of the subpoenas that the white house had defied. today we have four additional ofpoenas to add to the list the potential charge involving the president of the united states and his obstruction of our constitutional duties. these

at noon, we will be at the atlantic council for a discussion about energy policy and the 2010 campaign. and later, a look at potential threats to the 2020 election at eastern. live this evening, president trump will be holding a campaign rally in lexington, kentucky. will take you there live at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. a reminder, you can watch all our programs online at c-span.org, or listen to them on the free c-span radio app. joe, former vice president biden talking to supporters in des moines on saturday. [crowd cheering] [applause] >> good morning, everybody. for those who aren't from south side, welcome to the south side of des moines, or as the rest of us like to call it, god's country. [laughter] you are part of a family when you are in the south side, because we on the south side are really a working class family. we are a working-class family who believes that if you work hard for a living, if you play by the rules, do what is right, you deserve a little dignity in your life. >> absolutely. [applause] >> we are a diverse family, with italians living next irish living nex

atlantic council president and ceo fred kemp. thanks for joining us both here in the room and virtually for our conversation. if you want to use social media, use #ac iraq. #aciraq. you know it's an important event when the ambassador is here and when key members of our board are here and it's always such a pleasure to have our international advisory board member jafar here. thank you for crescent petroleum support for this, for the iraq initiative, global energy center. i've been stealing ideas from a long period of time, he happens to be one of the best thinkers and actors as an analyst in the region and also a pleasure to have him here as well. today's event was organized by the council's iraq initiative and global energy center. our iraq initiative is led by dr. and abbas working with us. he's one of the rare individuals who understands the workings of the country he's covering, iraq, so intimately and also the workings of washington which in many respects is more difficult to follow. the discussion is timely. iraq is facing

atlantic council president and ceo fred kemp.anks for joining us both here in the room and virtually for our conversation. if you want to use social media, use #ac iraq. #aciraq.

experts discuss iraq's political outlook at the atlantic council in washington, d.c. they also weighed in on the current relations between the u.s. and iraq under the trump administration. >> good morning and thank you all for joining us today also our live stream audience, atlantic council president c.e.o. fred kemp. thanks for joining us both here in the room and virtually for our conversation if you want to #aciraq.l media, i use you know, it's an important event when the ambassador is here when key members of our board are here. and it's always such a pleasure to have our international advisory board member maji jafar here. thank you for crescent petroleum and for the global energy center. maji has been a person i've been stealing ideas from for a long period of time. he happens to be one of the best thinkers and actors and an analysts of the region. it's always a pleasure to have him here. so thank you so much for being here. today's event was organized by the council's global energy center. our iraq initiative is led by has been our who moderator today. it's bee

one such think tank happens to be the atlantic council. think tank reportedly backed by none other than burisma. see how it all starts to get sketchy? meanwhile, it gets worse. there are reports that the alleged whistleblower worked with one of adam schiff team members at the national security council. while there, became friendly with the person we now know as the whistleblower, shortly after the schiff staffer left the nsc to work for adam schiff, what do you know, the whistleblower report was filed. interesting timing. adam schiff totally denied his team had ever met the whistleblower. >> we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. we would like to. trish: that's actually wrong. he lied. he flat out lied. his staff issued a statement saying they hadn't met the whistleblower. his staff is friend with the whistleblower per the reports and the staff members used to work at this think tank backed by the ukrainian company burisma. it just gets worse and worse for the dems as all of this stuff comes out. this entire thing is looking t

we don't espn a lot of time on individual bi-lateral operations in the atlantic council across our 13 programs and that act on issues in all regions of the world. what we do is we focus on the bilateral relations that we think have outsized importance and there's no doubt that that's the case in iraq and therefore our iraq initiative. today our expert panel will help us understand these dynamics and more. before i turn the floor over to moderate with our panelists, i would like to briefly introduce we are always happy when someone can break loose of their government offices. we know how demanding your jobs are. he is the principal deputy in the state department euro of near eastern affairs. he spent much of his career working in the middle east and particularly the arabian peninsula. he has served as step he of chief in iraq, kuwait, as well as a principal officer in saudi arabia. of crescentceo petroleum and the vice chairman of the crescent group of companies. he serves on the trusty on the arab form for development and the iraq energy institute. he also sits on the board of fellows

for more, let's welcome the atlantic council senior fellow and "saudi inc." author. thank you for joining us is the phone. tell us how invest -- how significant this would be. >> this would be a very investment. we are talking about a combined $5 billion spread between different chinese state entities , like the chinese sovereign wealth fund. even though this wouldn't bring china anywhere near a significant enough share to actually us -- affect things on the board of voting, what it does do is give china a measure of leverage over the saudi government. for example, what could happen is that china would be able to sell shares quickly, even at a take af they wanted to loss, causing a aramco shares to fall. china, with a $5 billion loss, if it needs it leverage -- it could mean leverage for something they really want. aramco, there won't be a lot of liquidity here because saudi investors are being encouraged not to sell shares. in china, in a big way, they could send the price of aramco shares way down by liquidating their own stake. something they could hold over the s

on c-span2 at 9:00 a.m., the atlantic council host a discussion on iraq's political and energy outlookat 8:00 p.m., president trump is holding a campaign rally. and on c-span3 at 9:30 a.m., april runways to adapt to the effects of -- a report on ways to adapt to the effects of climate change. that blood trail, it ended here. >> it is a place of public land, extracted energy, oil, gas, and coal, in particular. isthe c-span's cities tour on the road, exploring the american cities stories. this week, we go to laramie, wyoming. >> it is surrounded by mountains. this became a railroad town until it became a university town. it is an important part of our history. there's all different kinds of history that comes into the laramie outflow. >> join us on saturday at noon eastern apple tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history to be a is our c-span cities tour looks at the history and literary life of laramie, wyoming. >> before the house adjourned for the week, outgoing california congresswoman katie speech fromr final the house floor after intimate , photos of her were released without h

from the atlantic council. >>> afternoon, everyone. my name is randy bell, the director of the global energy center here at the atlantic council. thank you for joining us today for this discussion, assessing democratic

laura: four more, i spoke with the director of the atlantic council latin american center. does this horrifitragedy tell us about the power of organized crime in mexico? >> i think this brings to light that organized crime has for quite me time had a significant amount of power in mexico. different mexican presidents have taken varied approaches to combat organized crime, but you have a number of powerful cartels in mexico who continue to have unabated power, and the mexican government has taken consistent steps to try to reduce the violence. but it is very difficult when you are up against a-f weded, well-resourced enemy. you see the results from this horrible incident. laura: president lÓpez obrador says he doesot want a war against the cartels. but what other options does he have? >> a war against the cartels, the challenge there n you go after the cartels, other people will rise to power, and p thmotes even more instability. it is a matter otaking down the cartels from the bottom up and the midpoint. just going after the kingpins allows for more kingpins to come into po

christopher hunter with us now senior fellow at the atlantic council and a former federal prosecutor at the u.s. justice department nice to see you christopher we've got all of that closed door testimony now we've got everything that mary evanovich said for 6 or 7 hours today it's all starting to mount up but as the republicans say it's all still 2nd and 3rd hand is that going to be a problem going forward. well let's step back and look at the big picture here the the big picture is that the president engaged him in pretty much one of the few in numerated impeachable offenses in the united states constitution which is bribery this is not even a close call and the testimony that we've heard this week is merely an amplification of evidence that's already been in the public record now for quite some time so big picture the president engaged in bribery which is a specifically enumerated impeachable offense in the constitution whether or not the senate ultimately convicted him in a trial is a completely different question than whether or not he's committed the conduct that's impeachable h

the georgia barbara bush foundation, reagan institute and atlantic council.ritical moments. grievance open up and possibilities for fundamental change in the world. that these critical moments, the importance of leadership and diplomacy of intelligence and careful analysis become essential to shaping outcomes. and these are then moments that are the essence of what we do here at the school foreign service and what we have been doing now for a hundred years and the oldest school of foreign service in international affairs and united states out is in the spirit that i am excited that we have a chance to look into the history of such a critical and global moment and now we have a chance to pivot on the current importance and where it's in the fall of the berlin wall where has that lift us. in critical issues, of the shape of the world we are going forward. for that i am please to have a wonderful panel of experts to talk through those issues. start by introducing eric aleman, his distinguished practitioner in residence at size a career foreign service officer wh

research are focusing on religious freedom and civil liberties and benjamin had a director at the atlantic counciland the former d.c. representative of president emanuel mccrum presidential campaign thank you both for joining me in the arena reman you heard the president of this regional assembly who belongs to marine le pen's for a party when you heard of this verbal attack that he made on a muslim mother wearing his job on a school trip accompanying her kid demanding she take it off in the name of french secularism before he and others from his party stormed out of the chamber what was your reaction how surprised were you. i was not surprised but at the same time i realized that we have again and maybe even more reach a point of no return. when you see the reaction of this person in how we amplify a problem that actually is not really a problem when i so this kid crying this mother was with her kid some 10 to her son was there. she was just literally giving her free time to help our understaffed underpaid teacher to go with kids and helping the staff and being treated that way my 1st reaction wa

valentyn assad is with the atlantic council's latin america center and she says despite lula being barredrom running for office he is likely to use his strong base of support that he continues to have his supporters are still very much engaged with him and see in him a central figure for the life that he is definitely someone that is bringing a changing point to a deal left in brazil this is a inflection point for the left in brazil and they would take less release and is this just momentum to actually unify themselves in this industry. fight that they have for social causes and inequality in brazil and i think that this is also a year of lay's definitely not going to be able to engage in public in politics not going to be able to be a politician himself again or run for anything political but he's definitely going to be a vocal voice in the political scene in brazil let's talk more about this now to raise a bar in são paulo to raise a fur defied figure still a very popular figure how is this going to play in brazil. well that's what many people here are wondering about what happened toda

elections but was barred from running after his conviction and imprisonment valentino is with the atlantic council's latin america center she says despite being barred from running for public office is likely to use this drawing base of support he continues to have. his supporters are still very much engaged with him and see in him a central figure for their life too he is definitely someone that is bringing a changing point to a deal last in brazil this is a in selection point for the left in brazil and they would take who was released as this this momentum to actually unify themselves in this in this fight that they have for his social causes and inequality in brazil and i think that this is also a year of lay's definitely not going to be able to engage in politics in politics not going to be able to be a politician himself again or run for anything political but he's definitely going to be a vocal voice in the political scene in brazil. well in the coming hours india's top court is expected to rule on the ownership of a religious site both hindus and muslims claim the land where an ancient mosque

barbara slavin is the director of the future of iran initiative at the atlantic council.ay see a harsh crackdown on the protesters. potentially very damaging but it is early days, and we have to see whether the protest continue, whether the protest continue, whether they get worse. iran has had spasms of protests like this, really, throughout its history obviously they had a revolution a0 yea rs obviously they had a revolution a0 years ago but even after the creation of the islamic republic we have seen this kind of protest periodically, and in late 2017— early 2018 there were very serious protest about economic issues. tell us more protest about economic issues. tell us more about the economic situation. we don't know everything that goes on, obviously, within the country, but how significant other sanctions? how badly other hitting ordinary people? the sanctions have caused a run's economy to contract sharply. estimates range from 9%, 6%, some say about 12% over two yea rs, 6%, some say about 12% over two years, so 6%, some say about 12% over two years, so it has been a

joining me now from dubai is ellen wald, atlantic council senior fellow. great to see you.kind of valuations you think the crown prince can actually live with versus what is realistic? ellen: we've been hearing reports that he could live with a valuation of maybe $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion, but even that is suspect at this point because we are seeing valuations that could be as low as $1.2 trillion or lower. apparently, a lot of this does depend on the price of oil. right now, the price of oil is not looking good. alix: that was the rhetoric that they needed a higher oil price. now i am hearing the conversation is a bit different. now it is about showing the market that there is stability, that there won't be sprite -- there won't be price spikes or falls. ellen: exactly. i don't think they would be particularly successful if they try to push oil prices up by cutting production. what is probably best for the ip about this point is to go with that slightly lower valuation for the present and keep producing at a steady rate, particularly since we've seen those attacks on

is home to the signature segment of the berlin wall, we think the atlantic council who is constantly reminded of successful diplomatic efforts. and thank you ambassador for joining us tonight to express the sentiments from germany. ofthe national museum diplomacy, we highlight the diplomats who work tirelessly to protect american citizens abroad, support increased trade, workforce stability in developing nations and provoke democratic practices around the world. and now we will have a presentation by deputy assistant secretary for countermeasures and diplomatic security, john fitz williams. very donating a interesting artifact to the -- to theexam diplomacy museum. john: thank you very much. i can the cover nothing better than the slides of the first attempt to construct a new embassy in moscow. this is a column slice for ,oaxial cable embedded in it courtesy of the russians. [laughter] john: i am not sure if that was a diplomacy success, that whole episode, but we started construction of that building in 1979. most ofians constructed the building elements off-site. we let them do th

two of adam schiff's team members worked at the atlantic council according to breitbart which breitbartd by burisma. a couple of the schiff team members worked at a think tank and the company funded bid burisma. and one of schiff team members worked at the national security council. as soon as schiff's team member went to capitol hill from the nsc. somehow that report from the whistleblower got filed. brad blakeman, good to see you. let's dissect this. the select council, breitbart is saying this is funded in part bid burisma, the ukrainian company. do you have foreign companies that are deliberately funding think tanks so they can effectively get their points of view across in washington, d.c.? >> no doubt. that's part of the swamp. washington which an insaidous place where it's very incestuous. it's a circle that never ends. i will say we are complicit. our enemies know that. our democracy and laws allow them to do this through 501c4s. they don't have to displease donors. shame on us because we allow this to occur. trish: burisma and hunt are bind and ukraine. it turns out two schiff