thornberry: mr., i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and xtend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thornberry: mr. speaker, i yield myself four minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for four minutes. mr. thornberry: thank you, mr. speaker. first, let me say i very much value and appreciate the partnership that i have on the armed services committee with the gentleman from washington, mr. smith. i also very much value and appreciate the work of our staff on both sides of the aisle during what has been something of a roller coaster year. but let me take just a moment to review where we are and how we got here. mr. speaker, the armed services committee reported out the fiscal year 2016 defense authorization act on april 29, 2015, by a vote of 60-2. during full committee markup, 211 amendments were adopted. about evenly divided between

mack thornberry will be here why he joined nearly 300 colleagues, democrats and republicans, to pass a bill that would put new restrictions on how we would acce accept syrian refugees. a striking contrast today in the democratic primary between hillary clinton and bernie sanders. we'll explain later in the show. >>> let's start with what just happened in washington at department of justice. a day after a new icy video featured footage of times square, america's top law enforcement officials seeking to reassure a nervous public here at home. attorney general loretta lynch, fbi director james comey, held a briefing signed to calm fears that a paris-style attack is somehow imminent. >> we are not aware of any credible threat here of a paris-type attack and we have seen no connection at all between the paris attackers and the united states. the threat here focuses primarily on troubled soles in america who are being inspired or enabled online to do something violent for isil. >> while it may not be entirely reassuring to hear that the isis-inspired lone wolf remains biggest threat, comey

we're back with republican congressman matt thornberry of texas. have a big hearing tomorrow chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that s-400 anti-missile system the russians are putting in latakia right now potentially that could endanger u.s. warplanes flying over syria going after isis targets, not just turkish or french or other planes, u.s. aircraft potentially could be in danger. >> exactly right. it has a wide range. and it could include the u.s. air base inside turkey as well as other aircraft that we fly in that region. so i agree with the point that it is a major escalation. and that's part of what we're going to ask the secretary of defense about tomorrow. >> what do you want to hear from him? >> i want to hear a path forward towards successfully degrading isis. >> how do you do that? >> well, the president has said that was his goal, but at the same time the president says, well, they're contained and we think things are going pretty well. i don't know if many folks would agree with that assessment. so one example is we have more air s

thank chairman mccain, chairman thornberry, ranking member smith, but more particularly the staffs. we who have the privilege of serving on the armed services committee understand the extraordinary hours, the efforts, the insight, the total commitment of not only the committee staff members but the staffs of the individual members. their efforts are reflected in this bill. it will not bear their names but more importantly bear their work, and for that i thank them very, very much. let me urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, to join senator mccain and others so that for the 54th straight year we will have a national defense authorization bill that will become the law of the united states. and with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. mr. mccain: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. kirk: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kirk: madam presid

chairman, thanks very much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> max thornberry of texas. we'll have more coverage of the russian plane crash coming up. we're taking a closer look at the so-called chatter u.s. intelligence agencies have been looking at. just how reliable is this chatter snr and later we'll talk to politics here in the united states and the two sides of the presidential candidate, dr. ben carson. he says he went through a violent phase as a teenager. cnn spoke with a number of people who knew ben cars be back then in michigan. we're going to hear what they have to say. americans. we're living longer than ever. as we age, certain nutrients... ...become especially important. from the makers of one a day fifty-plus. new one a day proactive sixty-five plus. with high potency vitamin b12... ...and more vitamin d. at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like ordering wine equals pretending to know wine. pinot noir, which means peanut of the night. you totalled your brand new car. nobody's hurt,but there will still be pain. it comes when

. >> all right, texas republican congressman mac thornberry joins me now, chairman of the house armed services committee. thank you for being with me. >> you're welcome. >> you've spoken a lot about your concern about the u.s. strategy against isis and i want to get to that in a moment. i'm interested in whether or not given what has precipitated in the last week, you would feel comfortable with a commercial flight taking off from sharm el sheikh airport and landing here at jfk. that flight does not exist now, but would you feel comfortable if it did? >> well, i would feel comfortable if our homeland security folks were there where the flight originated and made sure that the procedures were as careful as they need to be. and, you know, that's what has to happen all over the world. we're focused on this particular point of origin in egypt because egypt has been the subject of a number of terrorist groups, but the rest of the story is, we know since 9/11 terrorist groups, not just isis, but various branches of al qaeda, are focused on aviation. and they keep adapting and changing their

guest: representative thornberry was in favor of it. congressman smith, the ranking member, last time he had opposition over those budget issues. he didn't like the use of the overseas contingency fund he just said today he had some lingering concerns about some of the guantanamo language, but he did support it and just like most of his democratic colleagues. host: the white house also had concerns over the guantanamo language. thing to sort of lead the president to veto this second measure? guest: some of my colleagues at the white house press corps were pressing the white house secretary of that yesterday. they wouldn't commit to another full thing to ead the president veto threat. they were talking about demanding a plan from the white house. we've heard that from the president in the past. his is not the first year he's hinned to veto for his displeasure at the guantanamo language. so far he hasn't followed hrough on just that. the consensus is, with the budget stuff out of the way this is smooth sailing. host: how does this tie int

here of course with congressman mac thornberry.f an introduction to chairman of the house armed services committee. we will dive in, between my speaking to quickly and you're -- we can come to a happy medium incorporated cover a lot of ground. i want to talk about friday's announcement at the white house about the deployment of u.s. special operators to syria, your response to use some phrases long overdue, absent a larger strategy, may be too little too late. while the president runs out the clock. i want to dig into this. we have heard a lot of criticism particular coming out of congress that the president lacks strategy in overall national security strategy in particular when it comes to the war against islamic state. what specific recommendations do you have for the white house? what should be done differently in the isis by to much of that strategy look like? >> the thing that crossed my mind when the announcement was made was a talk that churchill gave him i think about 35 and basically the point he made was, when measures co

emily thornberry: has the prime minister ever heard of shaquan sammy-plummer, alan cartwright, stefanappleton, or vaso kakko? they are all teenagers stabbed to death on the streets of islington in the past year. vaso was murdered just two days ago. given the growing culture of drugs, gangs and violence in my borough and many boroughs like it, does the prime minister really think it is in the interests of the safety and security of my constituents to cut the metropolitan police? pm cameron: first, every life lost in the way that the hon. lady talks about is of course a tragedy, and many of these lives have been lost because of drugs, gangs and knife crime. overall, knife crime has come down over the past few years, which is welcome, but there are still too many people carrying a knife and not recognising that it is not only against the law but an enormous danger to themselves as well as to others. we will continue with our tough approach on knife crime and with the work that we are doing to disband and break up gangs and to try to deal with the problems. of drugs. in london we have act

russian airliner disaster, chairman of the house armed services committee, texas congressman mack thornberryght. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to start with the investigation. you're chairman of the house armed services committee. what can you tell us? what do you know? >> i think the difference intelligence organizations of various countries are trying to pull together the threads of intelligence and put them together to figure out what happened. you want to be pretty sure before you reach a conclusion. my guess is once they have the threads together they'll find there was an explosion on this plane and then, the challenge is to find who did it. and go from there. >> you we have not heard of any specific evidence of this explosion. have you? >> well, the plane was going at a relatively high altitude. something catastrophic happened to cause it to descend quickly. and hit the ground. so i think that as i say, different intelligence organizations, pulling together pieces to find out okay, can we see an explosion? what happened? is there signals intelligence? imager

russian airliner disaster, chairman of the house armed services committee, texas congressman mack thornberryth us tonight. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to start with the investigation. you're chairman of the house armed services committee. what can you tell us? what do you know? >> i think the difference intelligence organizations of various countries are trying to pull together the threads of intelligence and put them together to figure out what happened. you want to be pretty sure before you reach a conclusion. my guess is once they have the threads together they'll find there was an explosion on this plane and then, the challenge is to find who did it. and go from there. >> you we have not heard of any specific evidence of this explosion. have you? >> well, the plane was going at a relatively high altitude. something catastrophic happened to cause it to descend quickly. and hit the ground. so i think that as i say, different intelligence organizations, pulling together pieces to find out okay, can we see an explosion? what happened? is there signals intelligen

house armed services committee, represented mac thornberry, and "defense one" pulls reporter, mali o'toolelause] -- mali o'toole. >> record thank you for joining us. here we are course with congressman mack for but that doesn't mean much of an introduction protection of house armed service committee, so we will dive right in between my speaking too quickly and your texas drawl, hopefully we can come to a happy medium and cover a lot of ground. i want to start with the friday announcement out of the white house about the deployment of your special operators to syria, your response. he used some phrases long overdue, absent a larger strategy, maybe too little, too late, perhaps looking to avoid a disaster while the president runs out the clock. i want to dig into this. we've heard a lot of criticism particularly coming out of congress that the president lacks a strategy and overall national security gadget a specific when it comes to the war against the islamic state. so what specific recommendations do you have for the white house? was to be done carefully in the isis fight? what you that s

>> obviously congressman thornberry and chairman of the house armed services committee he was in favor of it last time and overwhelmingly in favor of it last time. chairman smith didn't like the use of the overseas contingency fund. he said today he had some lingering concerns about some of the guantanamo language and a few other provisions in here but he did support it just like most of his other democratic colleague. >> the white house also had some concerns over that guantanamo language. is that the sort of thing that would lead the president again to veto this second measure? >> you know, some of my colleagues up at the white house press corps were pressing the press secretary on that yesterday. and they couldn't commit to another full veto threat. obviously the language in there would prohibit president obama's plans to close guantanamo. put in some new restrictions and demand a plan from the white house. right now we've heard that from the president in the past. this is not the first year that he's hinted at a veto at his displeasure at the guantanamo language but so far he hasn'

i refer you to the legislation and mac thornberry for any further answer on that. >> how important do you think it is that planned parenthood could be in an omnibus and the government won't shut down in ecember? mr. ryan: i'm not going to predetermine the outcome of negotiations that haven't taken place yet. i don't think planned parenthood should get one red cent from the taxpayers. that's been my position for a listening time even before i saw the gruesome videos. that's point number one. point number two. we also have reconciliation process under way. and we have defunded planned parenthood through the reconciliation process which is our best chance and opportunity of actually getting a bill on he president's desk. so we are moving on planned parenthood on multiple fronts, not to mention the fact that we have a select committee through the commerce committee that's being assembled to look into these issues. >> mr. speaker, how did your relationship with leader cconnell, we've seen this year sometimes the house working pretty separately from the senate, curious if you want to change

there is an effort to include this provision in the fiscal year 16 and the aa but both congressman thornberrya that according to the navy and i quote, the provision will harm current readiness at the navy base and other installations that are similarly situated near domestic aggregate reserve. the mission that naval base requires acoustic and characteristics that are not consistent, nor compatible with certain types of lands, or maritime development. the navy's concerned with encroachment on the base but there is also major concern is the easement the navy enter into it is still actually in litigation which is being pursued by the gravel company that wants this easement. i don't believe congress should be legislating on this issue when this is in the court system and undergoing legal proceedings. for these reasons, they repose the position and i believe the house committee should also do the same, mr. chairman and i yelled back. >> thank you. with that, i recognize mr. conley for an opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman and mr. fazio, and senators for your leadership. all of the member

senator mccain and congressman thornberry, chairman of both committees, have said this was their openingnd but that next year they're going to double down on defense acquisition reform. of course my question is, what else is there to do, not being andrew hunter, the expert on this. so the focus next year will be on implementation and oversight. those are the key areas of focus. in some regards, congress is admitting something rare, which they typically do not do, which is that the things that are going to take effect over the next 12 to 24 months will need to be periodically revisited, updated, tweaked, and possibly changed, as they take effect. one of the biggest ones that we all know, of course, is the additional authorities provided back to the service chiefs, somewhat. that provision doesn't really take effect for almost a year now, the major defense acquisition portfolio programs are basically grandfathered under the at&l office for the next year, give or take. it's still something the many 149 other provisions are all going to be enacted and followed closely. so they want the defen

but congressman thornberry and smith objected to it. the department of navy has clearly indicated they do not support this provision. according to the navy, and i quote, the provision will harm current readiness at the navy base and other installations that are similarly situated near domestic aggregate reserves. the mission that navy base requires a acoustic and security characteristics that aren't consistent nor compatible with certain types of land or maritime development. the navy's concern with encroachment on the base and the easement the navy entered into is still actually in litigation, which is being pursued by the gravel company that wants this easement. i don't believe that congress should be ledge slating on this issue when this is in the court system and undergoing legal proceedings. for these reasons, the task opposed this provision. and i believe that the house committee on transportation and infrastructure and the subcommittee on public and environment works should also do the same, mr. chairman. and i yield back. >> tha

thornberry: mr. speaker, notwithstanding the order of the house of october 21, 2015, i ask unanimous consent that the veto message of the president on the bill h.r. 1735 together with the accompanying bill be referred to the committee on armed services. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. shuster, seek recognition? mr. shuster: mr. speaker, pursuant to house resolution .12, i offer a motion the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill and report the motion. the clerk: an act to authorize funds for federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and for other purposes. mr. shuster of pennsylvania moves that the house take from the speaker's table the bill h.r. 22, the house amendment to the senate amendment thereto, insist on the house amendment, and request a conference with the senate thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized for one hour.