Iz, thank you for being here. You have lived through the Nuclear Threats of the cold war, can you compare that to the potential threats that we are aware of today in the world of iran, north korea, and other areas . Guest at the end of the cold war in the early 19 90s, a lot of people were hoping that the specter of Nuclear Weapons use was behind us. Unfortunately today, i would have to say that the possibility of a Nuclear Weapon being used is probably higher than at any time other than the cuban missile crisis. Our concern is less on the intentional use as opposed to an accident, miscalculation, or blunder that provides faulty information to the president of the United States or the president of russia and leads to nuclear use. Host is is the feeling you are feeling when you were Energy Secretary . Guest yes, indeed, though i think it has gotten worse. For example, russia, lets face it our relationship is very poor at the moment. Much less communication going on even then at the height of the cold war. That is what leads to the idea munication and that a miscommunication could lead to a bad outcome. Organization the doing to mitigate Nuclear Threats . Guest it has been in place since early 2000 one and was established by turner and nunn. Would allow me to move into the ceo role, is that it is a think tank, and more than that it operationalize his programs. It helped to move very Dangerous Nuclear organization material oa during the hostilities there. Last year, we cut the ribbon on the lowenriched uranium bank that provides security of supply to discourage countries from having enrichment technology. Host when you look at the and of the cold war on the nuclear issue, where there are opportunities to cut back the threat that is now further developing in countries . Guest in the 1990s there were strong efforts done to control and eliminate Nuclear Materials and weapons. It is not nuclear directly, but indirectly, issues with russia began to build. The nato expansion is something that russia had problems with, mildly. T these things have been building, but clearly the issues around ukraine in 2014 exacerbated the relationship. Now, we are in a situation that is very dangerous in not having sufficient communications, including between our military leaders, so that we know what we are doing and we understand what each is doing and we do not blunder into a nuclear confrontation. Host in the wake of the Trump Administrations release of their Nuclear Posture review, what is that conference all about . Guest the security conference is a legendary annual event that brings together leaders, literally president said prime ministers, defense ministers, foreign ministers, and others from the private sector once year to discuss a range of security issues. You mentioned the Nuclear Posture review , that certainly got a lot of attention in munich. To be honest, there was a lot of concern. I think the first thing about the Nuclear Posture review is that it does have a lot of continuity with the past. It does endorse continuing moratorium on nuclear testing. It maintains the deterrent posture nuclear like. S and the the two areas of concern that were raised where that on the one hand it seems to expand the field of use of Nuclear Weapons, including nonnuclear attacks. It appears to include things like cyber attacks. Secondly, it talks about putting a new class of weapons on submarines that most of us think would move us in the wrong direction in terms of miscalculation. Host erased concerns along with former senator sam nunn, it will no nuclear and arms expert, writing that the negative political dynamic between nato includes regular. Osture the u. S. s defensive nato stands with the uncertainty that has engulfed the Trump Administrations relationships with nato and russia. You write that Forward DeployedNuclear Weapons in russia possibility of blunders. The trump Administrations NationalSecurity Strategy of goes to analysis that would emerge from a hard look. Do you think those Forward Deployed weapon should not be there . Guest what were calling for is a reexamination. Lets get it on the table. I think that there is a consensus, including among the military, that these weapons do not satisfy any military objective. We have a capable and flexible Nuclear Deterrent without them. To imagine ahard u. S. President imagining that the first use of a Nuclear Weapon would come by us having a plane and pilot from another country being the delivery vehicle. Ofrth we have a new world terrorism and instability on the southern flank of nato, turkey and syria for example. At the minimum, a serious analysis of what the risks are matched up. No military benefit that we can see is there. We recognize that at a time of difficult relationships with russia, it would be difficult to address political, geopolitical, reasons for deployment. It is time to do serious analysis and a v balance the serious analysis and balance the risks. Making it clear our absolute commitment to nato and nuclear commitment to nato. Is this something you raised in the Nuclear Posture of the Obama Administration, and what is the role of the Energy Department in overall Nuclear Strategy when it concerns the military . Nuclear posture was done in 2010 before i was in the administration. President obama had a very comprehensive, and i think forwardlooking, view on the Nuclear Deterrent. Let me make it clear that the president always said as long as we have Nuclear Weapons they have to be safe, secure, and reliable. The president did put forward the Modernization Program in terms of saying we are relying on a Nuclear Enterprise that has facilities that are 50, 60, 70 years old. We will have to reinvest to have a reliable deterrent. The president was for that, but at the same time put forward the correct approach saying we have to keep working to reduce the role of Nuclear Weapons in our military strategy while never losing our absolute deterrent to prevent use. The department of energy especially through our national laboratories, are responsible for the design and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. That is not a policy role, but the secretary of energy is on the National Security council and we Nuclear Issues are discussed the president has a seat at the table, as i did, and my predecessors, and my successor. Host lets open the phone lines. , republicans. Democrats. 000, all others, 202 7488002. First caller, robert, go ahead. Caller can you explain how the asked germanyent to build a nuclear sub for them . Second question is [indiscernible] host the relationship of israel and germany in the terms of Nuclear Weapons . Of all, germany does not have Nuclear Weapons, though they as a member of nato are part of our integrated defense of europe in the umbrella. To my knowledge, there is no specific relationship between germany and israel with regard to the Nuclear Deterrent of the United States, the united kingdom, and france supply for european defense. Obviously east, i worked in the administration and continue to work to enforce nonproliferation norms. We dont want to see Nuclear Weapons spreading anymore than they have, unfortunately, over the last couple of decades. Host travis, cold chester, vermont. Caller good morning first of all i wanted to thank you and commend you for your work in negotiating and securing the iran nuclear deal. Secondly, my question has to do with your former role of Energy Secretary. I was wondering if you could speak to the risk to the electrical grid that solar flares pose. Im sure you are familiar with the carrington event. Do you feel that hardening our electrical grid to solar events should be a priority . Guest let me say broadly that i think hardening the grid, making it more resilient against a youof threats mentioned solar flares and in extreme circumstances those are an issue. Frankly, i would say that Cyber Threats are probably a greater present danger. In general, we need to get a much more resilient system. We need to continue the deployment we started nearly 10 years ago in terms of more able sensors that can detect disturbances, lead to ways of isolating parts of the grid that have problems. It is not only on the highvoltage transmission systems, but also when you get to the distribution systems, the lines that go to peoples houses and hook up your internet addressable appliances in your home, we create the possibility of tremendous services for consumers. At the same time we are elevating things like cyber risks. It is an integrated view of looking at the whole spectrum of issues. The electric grid is the lifeline of all lifelines. Every other infrastructure, financial and more, depend upon reliable, high quality electricity delivery. This is an area that is critical. Put forward ation couple of weeks ago a framework for addressing american infrastructure. I think that program, many of us we see every day how we need new infrastructure, but i would elevate very much in those discussions the Energy Infrastructure and especially the electricity infrastructure ourur teeth my flight key lifeline networks. Host i want to show you this tweet from President Trump in the wake of the administrations oppositions to that to undo that deal. Never got over the fact that president obama sent 1. 7 billion in cash to iran and no one in congress, the fbi or justice called for an investigation. What do you think the Trump Administration is trying to do in its view of the iran deal. Guest i dont want go into detail the issue of that statement. That was the payment of a Court Ordered settlement of resources appropriated by the United States in the iranian revolution time. Lets go to the agreement, that is more relevant. I think that there has been a misconception from the beginning in 2015 in terms of the agreement. The principal criticism was not of the agreement, but what the agreement is not. Neverver attended intended to a dress, yemen, hezbollah, or human rights. We had a lot of problems in the region, and now syria is in there as well. Believe we of us should be pushing back hard with our allies and friends on these issues. Very concerned about the security of israel with hezbollah and iran supporters of lah. Ol in the Obama Administration, after the iran deal, additional sanctions were placed on a on iran that were not related to nuclear. Does not relieve the need to address the other issues. Now we hear a lot about the sunset of the agreement. I want to make it clear that this agreement does not fundset. There are restraints on Irans Nuclear activity that do go away, however to core of the agreement, the most important thing are the verification measure put in place. What are we most concerned about . Irane end it is not what is telling us what they are doing, it is covert activity. Transparency, the ability to go anywhere in the country in a short timeframe to look at anything suspicious is what is critical. That never sunsets. This is a permanent, unique, verification measure. That is the strength of the agreement. If we break the agreement while to be incknowledged compliance we would never get that back, and that would be a terrible blow to ours and our allies security needs. Host massachusetts. Caller good morning. You are doing a great job, guys. I would like to say, you were part of the Worst Administration that ever governed our country. That, evenl record though right now the democrats live in denial of what you people did to our country. You were the Worst Administration ever. Q aftere who died in ira obama told them they could create isis, that blood is on his hands. He could have stepped in and the arab spring and stopped the syrians from being slaughtered by assad. Then the russians landed. You have the very Worst International things going on that i have ever seen in my life. Would take a long time to answer all of these assertions. If you would like to talk about foreignpolicy issues, i would like to go back to 2003 and talk about what a great year that was for u. S. Diplomacy. Host louisiana, the republican line. 28 years in the United States air force, 26 i was a pilot in the Strategic Air command. Point of the end of the spear that would wage Global Nuclear war with the soviet union. We were trained for it, equipped for it, and were going to do it. There is a little bit of humor that comes with the job, because it would drive you crazy if it didnt. We wondered why the department of energy was the Department Store for Nuclear Weapons. We would conjure up that we have this Nuclear Weapons that we got from the Grocery Store and we would use it. Im sure that there was a hand when we were done i wondered if we would have to account where we put that. On the series fame the Nuclear Deterrents worked. The job that i was doing kept the United States and soviet union out of war. China and north korea were involved in a proliferaal proliferal way. A lot of people, for whatever reason in the early 1990s want to forget that like it never happened. There are lessons that can be learned and used today because nuclear war is nuclear war. It is nasty and will be horrific, but is something that the United States and the soviet union were willing to engage in, and we would have won it. I wanted to toss that out as donene who been there, that, got the tshirt on the pointed end of the sphere. Of the spear. Guest i dont know if you were a b52 pilot, but i did fly in one on a training run and it was interesting. The professionalism of the crew was showing. I want to thank you for all of that. It is absolutely the case. War statement about nuclear , i hope it doesnt come to pass. We need to maintain a strong deterrent to avoid that from happening. Then your experience, Strategic Bomber fleet, which is not only bombs but cruise to ours, remains core deterrent. N,ank you for that, and agai the Obama Administration and the current administration, every administration, has been committed to a strong Nuclear Deterrent. Host how can we Deter North Korea and learn lessons that our caller talked about with russia versus the u. S. In a different situation with north korea . The North Koreans had a very effective deterrent before they did a nuclear test in the s hostageholding seoul with traditional artillery. Now they have demonstrated Nuclear Weapons and some degree of missile expertise. The reality is that we have to maintain our commitment to a nuclearfree korea, but also be realistic that that is not going to happen very fast. Deterrence is part of that. Not only thetary, nuclear military, but the conventional forces, we have a lot of deterrence for north korea. A war there would be horribly destructive. I believe, and we have written about this, that frankly we need to have a broader discussion of of entire security needs north korea, south korea, china, japan, the United States military posture, russia has some involvement, but it to ato broaden security context and not simply Nuclear Weapons focus. Host on the context of north context, how concerned are you at how quickly they develop nuclear and how far can they go . Guest there might be a misconception that this happened in the last few years. This has been a Systematic Program going on for a quarter century in terms of developing Nuclear Weapons and missile technology. Hide our heads in the sand. It is a reality. They have Nuclear Weapons. I doubt that they have the ability now to deliver a weapon to the United States homeland, that we should not forget that we have commitments to our allies and south korea and japan. We have enormous numbers of American Military personnel deployed there. We are in a deterrent situation and we need to work at it with china, japan, and south korea to ultimately get to a the nuclear ized northenuclear korea. Did a wonderful job with everything you did to help us deal with iran. With the current administration, look to they replaced it with. Rick perry. They are on the wrong track. You did a wonderful job, congratulations. Thank you. Guest thank you. Host republican line, good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to know the difference between the agreements we made with north korea over the last 25 years, how it differs with the deal with iran. At the most all we did was slow them down. They are still testing missiles. To think they are not studying the Nuclear Program i think is ridiculous. I would like to ask, why did we sell uranium to russia . All im hearing about russia is how bad, evil, and mafialike they are. Guest let me first comment on the koreairan juxtaposition. Totally different. Iran does not have a Nuclear Weapon, number one. Number two, the agreement is not about missiles. It is not about yemen. It is about taking the existential issue of a Nuclear Weapon verifiably off the table. The word verifiable is the most important part of the agreement. That will go on forever. Have, frankly, the most intrusive verification regime of anywhere in the world. North korea is the opposite. A very closed society. One of the problems with previous deals is that it did not provide the kind of verification tools that the International Inspectors could use to find out what was going on any place in north korea other than the places where north korea wanted them to look. The iran agreement is an enormous step forward, in terms of the verification to make sure they are in fact not developing a Nuclear Weapons program. Host he asked about selling uranium to russia. President trump has tweeted about the role of the administration in favoring this group, uranium one. What actually happened . Guest im not terribly familiar with this. This happened before i was in the government. I have to be honest there is not a security risk. Sia has a of natural uranium. My understanding is that not an enormous amount. I dont know the details. Welldeveloped process in which the government looks at Foreign Ownership deals that could jeopardize our National Security. It is very thorough. The department of energy plays a big role in that. Time sure that the department of energy would have been involved l raisedtime if the sel any National Security flags. That is all that i can say about it. Host what about the Nuclear Posture review over the administration they write that the Nuclear Weapons infrastructure has suffered the effects of age and underfunding. Half of the nsa of the structure is over 40 years old and half dates back to the manhattan projectera. A half ofa page and projects, new and renewed, for infrastructure in the u. S. In general, do support that effort . Going backme start to the issue raised by the air force pilot in the nuclear service. He raised the issue of what he called the Grocery Store of getting weapons from the department of energy. May be it is worth saying that the reason it is so critical, frankly, that the department of energy continue in that stewardship role is because fundamentally the job of sustaining those weapons is a science job. Is the threehat big socalled Nuclear Weapons laboratories. And franklynce job, i think that those laboratories, working in the science and Technology Culture of the department of energy, is why they can do such a good job of that. We also run the production sites. These are half a centuryyearold, plus or minus. I, as the secretary of energy, had a big concern about the safety of our workforce. Is our high hazard operations. , we haveot classified things like ceilings falling hazardside of high operations at the socalled production sites. There are the 3 three labs and the sites i do the work on the weapons themselves. In tennessee, in texas, in South Carolina there are major parts of the Production Enterprise for these weapons. We cannot have people working in ancient facilities. Therongly supported probably 80 billion to one 80 billion to 100 billion for the facilities. Caller it is an honor to speak with you. Iember when we had remember when george w. Bush first took office. The South Koreans and North Koreans had a very friendly meeting they were looking forward to. It was something under the sunshine law. George w. Bush came out, i think he was only president for a month. Powell on one side and dick cheney on the other, hand he said dont trust the North Koreans. And theyalled it off started their Nuclear Program because they were called the axis of evil. Trump doing a sword dance with the saudis. How fast people forget that 3000 americans died a horrible death. 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudis. They had safe passage that day on 9 11. There were some official saudi officials and george bush gave them safe passage out of the country. Host a little offtopic, but thank you. Robert, republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to thank you for your program. Youre the only thing that i trust for verification. Regarde of questions in to a couple of guest that made the example that north korea and the iran agreement are different. I tend to differ with you that when clinton negotiated with north korea it was similar to what obama has done with iran i believe. I could be wrong. He said that the iran verification of Nuclear Weapons is undeniable. How can it be undeniable when we dont have access to the military sites . I await your answer. Guest on the second part of your question, we do have access to military sites. Any site in the country for which there is a legitimate suspicion is open to the International Inspectors. I might add that the same thing was said, lack of access to military sites, before the agreement was implemented. It was signed in july and implemented in january. In that intervening period, access to a military site was required. Otherwise, iran would not have had the deal implemented. This is not correct that military sites are on the table. If you talk to someone like jim clapper, and absolute straight inoter, head of intelligence the Obama Administration, director of national intelligence. What he said with the iran agreement is, as an intelligence professional, im never going to tell you there is find guarantee we will anything iran is doing outside the agreement. What he said is this agreement is so strong in terms of its verification measures that the bar is raised incredibly high. The risk to iran is raised incredibly high if they try to cheat on this agreement. Going back to north korea, you are right in going back to the 1990s when the framework was put into place. Cheat. , north korea did there is no question. That was possible precisely because there were not the kind of verification measures we now have in place with iran. Personally, i think that if we are going to make progress with north korea, as i said, we need a broader security discussion than we have been having. 2, we have to make clear up front that the International Community is not going to trust north korea. There are going to have to be extraordinary verification measures if there is to be any agreement ultimately with north korea. You are dr. Moniz of theoretical physics at stanford and m. I. T. Were floodedatures by extremely mild air on both sides with record warmth in the nations capital. How closely do you watch Climate Science . Guest very closely. Half of my time is on Nuclear Threats, half of it is on Global Warming and Clean Energy Solutions to that. It has been predicted for a long time. As we have Global Warming, and that is a fact not a scientific speculation, the world is warming, it has been known and predicted, and observed, that the arctic warms twice as fast as the temperate zones. We are seeing, in front of our eyes and satellite eyes, tremendous changes in the arctic. Some say, isnt that wonderful . We will have a Northern Passage for ships. That might have some benefit, but the reality is it is extraordinarily dangerous for those living there. Villageseen whole already compromised with the Global Warming today. The arctic is at tremendous risk. Of course, a lot of what they do in the arctic depends upon having things like a frozen tundra, etc. Canhose begin to change, it have a runaway effect in terms of Global Warming by releasing more Greenhouse Gases out of the tundra. Kalamazoo, michigan, democrats line. Go ahead. Caller i have a question i would like to have people look into. If clinton would have forced saddam to allow weapons inspections, which he did not for the last two years of his presidency, would bush have been able to get the vote to start a war in iraq . I could see no way he could have weapons expections through the last two years of clintons administration. There has been Global Warming a long time ago way up high. That is one of the last things that melted going through illinois. Guest let me say on the global all knowart, first we that over the history of the earth we have had extremes and major ice ages and warmths and the like. The point is that the earth has never seen, certainly since humans have been on earth, we have never seen these kinds of changes. Hat is the change that we are seeing in terms of putting Carbon Dioxide into the rapidlyre occurring compared to the previous geological time scales. Frankly, our Earth Systems dont have time to adjust. We are seeing Something Like zika virus. Those the skin does have a range much further north than was ever the case. Droughts. All of these patterns. The extreme impasse of hurricanes in the gulf and florida. These are long predicted patterns playing out in front of our eyes. Through their reality is that we need to balance mitigation by cutting down Greenhouse Gas emissions against the very expensive adaptation that we are already doing in many parts of the country. Right you are absolutely in terms of the longago earth history, but in the last decades we are seeing changes at a pace that the earth has never, never seen. That is what the risk is. Thefirst question, iraq, e go to 2003,en w 20022003, the reality is that the experts in Nuclear Intelligence were quite strong in saying that there were no Nuclear Weapons. No Nuclear Weapon program in ira q. Unfortunately, as they did not have the last word in terms of the Intelligence Community and political aspects of how that intelligence was looked at. Host theres a lot more that we could talk about, hopefully we can get you back. Ernest moniz, announcer sees dance washington journal, live every day with news and policy cspans washington journal. Live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. A discussion on health and terminally ill patients at experimental drugs that would not be available to the fda. Also, cpac on tax reform. And, Vice President of the National Education association on the recent School Shooting and President Trumps proposal to arm teachers and school staff as a way to prevent mass shootings. Be sure to watch live at 7 a. M. Eastern on friday morning. Join the discussion. The nations governors are in washington dc this weekend. John kasich on friday, colorado governor and others will unveil their plan to improve the Nations Health care system to read you can watch the Conference Live at 10 a. M. Eastern on the stand to. On cspan two. Jobs, thenel on Opioid Crisis and the future of agriculture and food availability live at 10 a. M. Eastern on the span. Sunday night on afterwards. Author, Tara Westover talks about going up with survivalist parents. She is interviewed by author and journalist, susanna to halen. A lot of people have taken to heart the idea that you you have to have a degree and have a whole institution and face to teach it to you. I am grateful that mike parents did not that my power and did not raise me to think like that. When i went to college, it felt like it was something that i could do. I need to learn out gibran, i will do it. I did not do an amazing job that i cap ongoing with that. I think my parents took it too far. Ive arrived underprepared university. Arrived to university underprepared. So i would not say that it was the ideal education, i would not say that. Announcer watch that on and the night at 9 p. M. Eastern on book tv. The annual conservative Political Action conference is taking his this week in maryland. Next, Vice President mike tends talks Vice President mike for the next 35 minutes. [applause] mrs. Pence thank you