want to begin by asking hyten. when you were lieutenant colonel, you wrote that war in just a matter of time. now that you've grown all of shoulder, don your that to be theve case? >> it's good to see you again, david. expected to grow stars on my shoulders. one thing, when you write a lot colonel you never expect to grow up and be a general. what you write as a lot colonel. i believe any domain that humans be subject to conflict. when i looked at it 20 years ago it seemed obvious to me and also obvious to the chinese that i studying at the time conflict would move into space and if conflict will move into be the same will as it is in every other domain, to deter that conflict, to make that conflict never happens but if it does happen to figure when.w to fight it and so it's just another problem but same way i ly the looked at it 20 years ago. >> is the u.s. prepared to fight space?in >> the u.s. is prepared to prepared to 's not fight in the future. so the strength we have today is on the mass and sheer numbers of

testifying to this committee earlier this year, general hyten advocated fueling capabilities by the mid-2020s. i believe the navy has a vital role to play in that. is that a probliority for the department? if so, why? >> yes, i see it as a priority. in fact, there are two key programs going on within darpa and osd that are moving along. i would be more than happy to come and have the technical lead brief you on those. >> if you could provide us an update where you are with this effort. >> yes. >> senator, could i add one thing to that? >> surely. absolutely. >> on hypersonics, there are two demonstrators where the air force and the navy is working with darpa and at a promote type and experimentation effort that we're using the authorities you all gave us for experimentation and testing. so we didn't wait for extensive requirements kinds of things. we're moving forward on an experiment for hypersonics and through the authorities you gave us. >> secretary guertz, i want to talk about the role our defense labs play in the acquisition process. i've been struck by how integrated they are in

in july the president appointed hyten kelly as his -- general john kelly as his chief of staff, and thehas one goal and that is to achieve success. things calmed down relatively in the last six months, and that's the period in which the trump of accomplishments emerged. you've got an economy now that has consumer confidence at a 17-year high, unemployment at a 17-year low. it's as though we just jumped over the obama presidency in terms of economic performance. charles: right. going into next year because, to your point, there are even some so-called never trumpers, for instance, who are starting to say we were wrong about our assumptions, but their resentment or pushback against the president still revolves around that twitter trump, the president twitter that you talked about, and that hasn't completely gone away. >> it hasn't. but what we've seen here is the emergence of remember all those wonderful appointees the president was making in january and february, betsy devos in education, scott pruitt, epa, scott gottlieb, fda, those people have been going to work and doing their jobs, a