mr. desantis: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes mr. massie from kentucky for five minutes. mr. massie: thank you, mr. sopko, for your work in this capacity and i appreciate your matter of fact answers. can you give us the total tab so far for afghan reconstruction since we started in roughly 2012? -- sopko: mr. massie: if you want to round it off to the nearest billion? mr. sopko: it's $120.7 billion for reconstruction and that's through september 30, 2017. but that doesn't include the $7.42 billion that's in the pipeline. that means it's been authorized, appropriated but not yet spent. mr. massie: so the last time you were here 18 months ago it was $113 billion roughly and now we're up to $120 billion and you say there's $7.4 billion in the pipeline. the reason i ask that question is, it stands in contrast to something we heard our president say that we were fighting terrorism, we're not nation building in afghanistan. sounds like another $7.4 billion in the pipeline might go to nation building. i noticed in our own budget we're not c

mr. desantis. mr. desaulnier; thank you for your -- mr. desantis: cries church of america is removing amon meant honoring george washington. just made me think what is this worldcoming to? christ church is free to do but we can criticize. if we can't honor the father of our country, then we truly are drowning in a sea of knee-jerk political correctness. washington was one of the few truly great men, an american original without whom we would not be standing here today as free people. i want to tick off a few things before i yield back to my colleague. his stewardship during the american revolution brought america victory that we had no right to win against the most powerful army on earth. he had a third of the country and against all odds, washington led our country to victory. having won, what does washington do? when you win a military victory at commanding general seizes power for himself and creates a society. that's not what washington did. he surrendered his sword to the continental congress and gave up power voluntarily because he wa

mr. sopko: going on six years. rep. desantis: how has afghanistan improved or worsened in your time as being special inspector general for afghanistan? mr. sopko: it is mixed. the security situation has deteriorated dramatically over the six years. on the other hand, we have had some positive results. think in particular, the afghan military, despite the loss of more casualties, is doing a better job. but they are up against serious opponents. it is a mix. i think the problem with the new strategy is we do not know what state and eight are supposed to do as part of the strategy. we are still observing and hoping we can get a better idea on the new strategy going forward. rep. desantis: you recently returned from afghanistan. got to meet a lot of the folks on the ground. werethe average american to come up to you and say, what is going on in afghanistan, what is the elevator speech you would give them? mr. sopko: it is a stalemate. is it aquestion is, stalemate going down or going up? and i do not have a good answer for that, sir

mr. chairman, not now too often means not ever. we should reject that counsel and move the american embassy to israel's capital city. thank you. >> thank you, ambassador bolton. ambassador dore gold, you are up. >> chairman desantis, ranking member lynch, and members of the subcommittee, i commend you for holding this hearing. it is my view that president donald trump has made a commitment regarding the transfer of the use embassy to jerusalem. and i believe he will stand by what he has said. indeed, june 1 the white house released a statement stressing that with regard to moving the embassy quote, the question is not if that move happens, but only when, unquote. the u.s. of course want to consider many factors in making that decision. what is often overlooked in the debate about the location of use embassy is why it matters. the embassy question is a subset of a much more important issue, the need for western recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital. that recognition is vital for several reasons. what i'd like to discuss is the international interest. that interest concerns the protection of holy sites and assuring complete freedom of access to them. religious freedom and pluralism our core values which both