Alanna feldman who joined us this morning, its my pleasure to introduce and welcome before us today ambassador william taylor, junior. Ambassador, within the world of foreignpolicy and National Security, is very well known and his reputation long preceded him. Ive had the pleasure of working and knowing ambassador taylor, my friend bill for a good 30 years. And one of the benefits of a very difficult situation that our country faces a few months ago and this bill taylor faced, given his subpoena and testimony, led to the fact that the nation at large got to see a magnificent servant. And thats why we are bringing him here today. Because he has served the country superbly across his career. He graduated from west point, he was the Cadet Company commander. He served in vietnam, he stayed an extra six months. Served in vietnam for 18 months when he could have left after 12. He served in a Rifle Company and then commanded, served in a rifle platoon and then commanded a company. He received a bronze star and an air medal for valor. When he returned to the United States he worked for a while in the department of energy and served senator bill bradley on his staff for 5 years. After that he went to the department of defense, worked in the think tank and served once again as an advisor to the Us Ambassador to nato, william taft. And then build again along service, period of service at the department of state area was a coordinator for assistance to the former soviet union, after the collapse of the soviet union and the beginning of the Us Assistance Program he worked a lot in congressional relations. Thats where he and i met and we had many vigorous discussions, not always in agreement at all about the nature of those programs. And but then and now of course ive developed the highest admiration for him. He has been the go to guy for hard problems across the us government. He served in afghanistan as a coordinator of assistance programs. Once again, he did the same in iraq. He worked for the middle east quartet and former world bank he worked for the middle east quartet and former World Bank PresidentJames Wolfenson on programs on behalf of what all parties at that time hoped would be middle east peace. He was called to service as ambassador to ukraine in the Bush Administration in 2006, served there for 3 years and he most recently in his career served as the executive Vice President at the u. S. Institute of peace where bill and i again had occasion to work together. And of course, as all of you know he was asked to serve yet again as interim meeting acting ambassador in ukraine. So the point of asking bill to come here today is to reflect on this marvelous career of public service, exemplary leadership throughout ad to provide for all of us gathered here, at example of what constitutes good leadership, what constitutes able model for public service. Inhout further ado, jointly welcoming ambassador bill taylor. [applause] mr. Taylor they told me i should turn this on. Now you can probably hear me. That you very much. That is a kind introduction. You said people in the Foreign Policy world know me, they did not until about a couple months ago. It is a great opportunity for me to be here, thank you for inviting me and all of you for coming to have this conversation. I look forward to having the conversation with you about the topics chris talked about. , we all of being known get our 15 minutes of fame and i am on minute 14 and i will be glad when the 15 are done. But it is an opportunity, this 15 minutes is an opportunity for outo get a couple messages that if i did not have this 15 minutes, people would not listen to me. I will take advantage of you, take advantage of this opportunity to say a couple things about our u. S. Policy towards ukraine and that leads into the topics that we can further discuss. Messages about ukraine. Ukrained support because it is on the frontline of our freedom. Attack thene of the russians are mounting. Because the sians [inaudible] ukraine is on each of the battlefield on this war. The military invasion i mention is the obvious one. There is the occupation of crimea and the occupation continues. Electionter interference. The russians have interfered in figuring out what worked and what does not work. That interfering in european elections. 2016. W they interfered in many Government Agencies have given us all the help we could ask for on that. , the russians have begun to interfere. This is the kind of thing some of you have read professor tim unfers book, the road to reedom. This is an important book. , where theyussia are not free at the elections are not free at a then move through ukraine, europe, the United States. Election interference, another example, a battlefield where ukraine is on the front line is on energy as a weapon. The russians have designed, built, almost completed but not quite, a pipeline from russia into germany that would bypass as well as europeans on russian gas. Russians have hijacked you create infrastructure but not just ukrainian infrastructure. And europe and they have done it in the United States to a lesser degree. Talk into this . The other one seems to work. I am not starting over . If i did not get any of that there ago. Want to take this . All set . Sorry. It is the russians. [laughter] so i was making this defense a robust against the russian aggression in this hybrid war. Focusing on ukraine, but others. I was making these arguments at the United States institute of peace from the crawford of u. S. Ib, i was able to observe and make these points from the sidelines. Then about not quite a year ago,. Ast may, i got a phone call the first was from the state department. A friend of mine said, theyll, bill, would you be willing to go back out to ukraine . You know i did this. It is not clear at the time. Hypothetically, sure. Day, same guy calls up, its not hypothetical anymore. He says, would you be willing to go out, and i said, then i need to do some consulting, some checking to see if people that i know would have some advice. One person i know is my wife, and i checked with her and her advice was, dont go. I heard recently that there is, that there is a hashtag and its for wives whose husbands dont listen to them. And that hashtag is wereallmrstaylor. I didnt realize this is a thing what it is as i was told. So i got her advice. I also went to a mentor and we will talk maybe about mentorship later on. Well respected. I certainly respect him a lot and he said, look, if your country asks you to do something, you do it. If you can be effective. Thats an important caveat. Its important these days, because if you cant be effective, then you shouldnt do this. However, he said, you should find out if you can be effective and he said, the only way, bill, youre going to know if youre going to have the support of the u. S. Government for you out in ukraine is to talk to the secretary of state. And i did and i talked to secretary pompeo before i went out there and we had a very frank conversation and he assured me that the strong support for ukraine would continue. I was concerned about that and people in this room understand why someone might be concerned about the support for ukraine coming from the administration but he was very clear and convincing, so with that assurance i agreed to go out , there. So i go out to the ukraine, i went there in june. Got there last june. The embassy was, turmoil is too strong, but it was unsettled. It was concerned, was upset. Their ambassador, ambassador yovanovitch, had been suddenly and abruptly, without explanation pulled out of ukraine. Heres the boss leading the country and the full Embassy Mission all of a sudden was not there. And without much convincing indication of why, what the problem was, what the issues were. So when i got there, i had a little bit of information, but not much. But what i could do was sit, stand, talk in a meeting kind of like this, a little bit bigger, the embassy out there is big as there are 900 people at the embassy. 300 americans and 600 ukrainians , and i had a meeting with them soon as i got there to try to both get a sense from them in a conversation, but also give them a sense that what they are doing is important, so i had three messages for them. The first was, what we are doing, what we the u. S. Embassy in ukraine are doing is a very important time in the history of the ukraine. You will remember, there was an election in ukraine, where a comedian was elected. Zelensky a lot volodomirnsky zelensky was very well known as the star of a tv series in which he played the president of the ukraine. And he was very well known by the ukrainians. It turns out, ill come back to this, but it turns out he was very well known by russians because this tv show is called servant of the people. It was widely viewed and in the show, president jolobaradko played a president going after corruption and going after oligarchs and defending ukrainian autonomy from even corruption, but also from places like the imf or the world bank and these are oligarchs, corruption, even imf are the institutions that the ukrainians love to hate. So president jolobaradko was going after them in the show and he appealed to ukrainians sense of justice. A respect for the rule of law. It was a very smart tv show and it turned out that it got him elected and he was just taking office when i arrived and when masha was pulled out and i arrived and it was an important time to be working with this new administration. A month after i got there was the parliamentary election and again, president zelensky and his party, by the way, is named the same thing as his tv show so his party is servant of the people. And servant of the people won 60 percent of the seats in the parliament so he could do things with the parliament and with the Prime Minister and with government and with the cabinet. So he was able to move some things along, in particular in the fight against corruption but also in the attempt to end the war that i talked about a minute ago. Those were his two top priorities, end the war on honorable ukrainian terms but also fight the corrupt oligarchs that were threatening both the ukraines future and his presidency. So i made the point to the embassy that that mission is really important. Second point i made to them was that there was strong support for what we are doing. What we, the u. S. Embassy, is doing in kiev right now and in forwarding, pushing forward on a strong u. S. Ukrainian relationship. It turns out we had a great opportunity with this new strong u. S. Ukrainian government and so its important time for the u. S. Government to be working with the ukrainian government, the new ukrainian government, and i was able to say to them based on my conversation with secretary pompeo that weve got strong support. I could point out to them that the congress, republicans and democrats, house and senate, strong support, bilateral support. Chris mentioned when we were working together in the 1990s on support for all 15 of the former soviet states, strong support, but with but chris will remember, on the other side, the senate side, the senator mcconnell, would put money aside for ukraine. And people would push back on senator mcconnell for this earmark. But it turns out in retrospect, that that was a good investment. We invested a long time in that, but my point is bipartisan, that bipartisan support continues to this day. You see sanctions built, passing the senate. 98 to 2. You see increased support on Security Assistance in the National Defense authorization act from 250 million to 300 million this year, passing 86 to 8. So the bipartisan support is there. We know about the ranker. We know about the partisan fighting on the other thing, on impeachment and whistleblowers, thats a different story. What i was able to say had yet to be told of course when i got there, but i was able to tell the embassy that we have bipartisan support, strong support, house and senate, also the Defense Department, state department, Treasury Department, u. S. Id, so we could do our jobs out there and be confident that we had the support of washington. The third thing i told them was , lets just focus on what we are trying to do. I talked about the mission, we got support, focus on that and not let politics or any other of the swirl of other issues, political issues, domestic get in the way. Keep our focus, and that helped , so we all moved forward. Thats certainly what i was interested in doing and were able to do that, so we began. And as i went through the summer, last summer it is now, it became clear to me that there were two channels of policymaking and policy execution. Ill call the First Channel the regular channel, and this is the institutional channel, and i will talk a little bit about institutions and the importance of institutions, but the regular channel of policy making and policy implementation for ukraine was the embassy. The ukraine desk at the state department, Deputy Assistant secretary of state, and the secretary of state. People like alex vindman and fiona hill, famous names now, more famous thankfully than mine. They may not think so. But more famous. But thats the regular channel. And most, this is important. Most of the policy and the implementation of that policy goes through the regular channel even now. So the Security Assistance that i mentioned. Regular channel. Political assistance where we try to support the ukrainians as they are negotiating with the russians with some support from the germans and the french and we have been there. Weve been supporting that area that, and we should do more. But thats part of the regular channel. Usaid has a great program, state department has a good program on rule of law. Those kinds of assistance programs, support for technical assistance, thats the regular channel, and its supported by and as i mentioned earlier, overwhelmingly the congress has been passing those funds, so that kind of the regular channel, but i figured out slowly, i should have figured this out more quickly, but it became clear to me that there was a small part of the u. S. Policy towards ukraine that was Going Forward in an irregular channel. And this irregular channel was the product of and led by a private lawyer. Probably everybody in this room knows who im talking about. And he was able to get the assistance, excuse me, of a couple of wellmeaning diplomats in this. You guys are good . Thank you very much. So this irregular channel tried to have an effect on one small part of the u. S. Policy towards ukraine and you all know the story, i dont have to tell the story, and if anybody doesnt know it, i can refer you to some congressional testimony where i lay it out in great detail. But the punch line here is, in the end, the regular channel prevailed. In the end, the regular channel kind of reasserted itself. It was uncomfortable and unusual, thats why i call it irregular, but the pressure reasserted itself. The assistance went forward. Our two president s got together, president zelensky, President Trump got together in new york. The bipartisan support for ukraine continues. That is still on track. So what i wanted to do, and chris is right, this is my punch line, so this is the bottom line on this institution, the regular channel is the institutional conscience of the u. S. Government. This regular channel is the institution that forms policy in this case for the ukraine but more broadly it includes professionals. It includes people who have been in the government for a long time and people who have not been in the government for a long time. Probably some people here have worked in this professional institution, an institution that forms u. S. Foreign policy and there are probably people in this room who will go into that institution, that regular channel. Thats an important, thats a very Important Institution and its a very important component in of our government and it provides the norms and it kind of keeps us on track. Sometimes its burdensome and sometimes its cumbersome, but nonetheless its designed with all of its intricacies, with all the support from the congress, and input from the congress, theres not always support as chris indicated, sometimes there are disagreements, but that disagreement and that support from the congress is important input into that foreignpolicy institutional arrangement plus what the Treasury Department thinks and what the Defense Department thinks and what state thinks and how it gets integrated into the National Security council, that institution is important and there are a lot of institutions. And i made a pitch for tim snyders earlier book, the road to unfreedom, hes also got a book on tyranny which i recommend as well, and one of the things he points out in that book is the importance of institutions and strengthening institutions. What do they mean . They may be George Washington university is an institution. Higher education more broadly. The u. S. Foreignpolicy structure is an institution. The private sector, these are all pieces that kind of provide guidelines and provide direction and provide a conscience for what we are all trying to do in our different ways, so let me stop there and hope that something i said there prompted some disagreement or some other arguments. I would love to have the opportunity to talk with chris and you about this so thank you very much. [applause] ill turn this back on and thank you very much, bill. Phil ended up where i had hoped. Ended up where i had hoped. How institutions are so very important. Andur system of government institutions all the vehicle by which the voices of all get heard. And as someone who, like bill, working government often with very great frustration, we would complain about the interagency process. Where all the agencies have to seek agreement. And the joke i like to tell is that theres only one thing worse than working in the interagency process and thats a country that doesnt have one. So we its cumbersome. But it serves us well over the longterm. So i will take the liberty of asking the first question of bill taylor today, and that would be from the standpoint of his career today. From the standpoint of your career today and the very many different posts that you have held. As you look back, what advice would you give to your former self and to the young people in this room with respect to leadership and ethics . Mr. Taylor chris, thank you. This is working now, im never sure which ok. What would i tell my younger self . One thing, looking back. Chris mentioned that i started off at the military academy. Thinking that i would make a career in the military. Thats why you go there. And thats what i started out. I did serve, had opportunity to think about that experience and as i did, i thought about where i could make the best contribution. And i concluded, maybe right, maybe wrong, outside of the military, i might be able to have more effect than from inside, and i had Great Respect, still do, the job the military is doing, and i also had Great Respect for the direction the military takes being guided by the institutions that chris has just talked about. And that i talk about, the institution of foreignpolicy, of National Security policy, of defense policy. Institution and guided the military and doing what it did in vietnam and in other places and i thought that institutions are important. I did not have that thought at the time, but i would tell myself, to Pay Attention to institutions. I would also tell myself, when i started, thinking i was going to stay in this career and rise up in the ranks, thats one way people can structure a career. Is look to see where you want to be after five years, 10 years, 15 years. You want to be a general officer, you want to be an ambassador, you want to head up a company, you want to be a congressman or a senator. People do that and people think through what they need to do, what they need to learn, what school they need to go to what classes they need to take what jobs to be trying for an over in order to grow up, that was what i had in mind and i would tell myself now if i had the opportunity think about little differently. Think where you can make the biggest contribution. It may not be in this career path you start out thinking about, and chris went through a little bit of my bouncing around in different jobs and in different organizations. And it was, i took an opportunity, the opportunity a couple times to change directions. From the military and to National Security policy, from the legislature into executive, from the Energy Department into interNational Security again. In different countries, so take advantage of opportunities. And dont be afraid to switch. Because times change, you change, and opportunities arise. The institutions, let me come back to that. Chris mentioned that too. Institutions are really a boring subject. Think about it, institutions. I am amazed that here we are talking in front of a large group of people about institutions. But this is really important. Think of it as a conscience, the institution of National Security is a conscience of the u. S. Government in developing a National Security. That, i think, is an important concept for us to take away. Thank you, bill, and just one question, one more question for you and then we will definitely open it up to the audience here. Who stands out for you as a role model in your career . And why . And personal mentor, if thats appropriate. Mr. Taylor mentor, so i mentioned earlier that before i agreed to go into this administration, i wanted some advice. So i went to a man who had a senior position in previous republican administrations and asked him for this advice. This is the one who said if your , country asks you to do if you can beit effective. The reason he is so influential for me is that he is very well respected across the spectrum. Hes very wellrespected republicans, and democrats, and in the house and senate. Within the broad range of party, they all still consult with him, so that kind of respect, coming from a moderation, the respect for him comes from his respect for the institutions. When he was in office, as the National Security advisor, he was able to pull ideas, information, options from people sitting around the National Security the interagency that i never thought possible. He was inclusive, he was engaged, he was detailed, she he understood but you also was able to see the big picture itself that was a person i would go to for advice. Bill, so lets open it up, im sure there are questions out here. I will call the questions, i will look first to this side. To the young woman here, thank you. Hi ambassador taylor, im a graduate student at George Washington university and i just have a question on what you think the effects are on the backlash towards ambassador yovanovitch from the president has towards the countrys institutional conscience like you mentioned just now. They do. Thank you. Mr. Taylor thank you, so i have known ambassador yet on average for a long time. Ovanovitch. For a long time. Great respect for her. As does the entire International Affairs community. Even more so now. She has demonstrated the kind of toughness, the kind of honesty, the kind of bravery in what shes done. In particular in ukraine. She is attacked because she stood up for our strong support for anticorruption efforts in ukraine. And whenever you go against corrupt officials, you get pushback and you get threats, which she has gotten. So Great Respect for masha. Colonel vindman, here is a Lieutenant Colonel in the army doing his job. Doing his important job in the National Security council. Not getting out of his lane, focusing on what hes supposed to be doing and doing it well. I did not know him before i was kiev this last time but i interacted with him whole lot during the time that i was out there and hes always professional and he supported fiona hill, another hero. And was able to provide her with the kind of information that she needed. So those two people that you asked about i think are going to do fine. I think theyre going to be fine. Ambassador yovanovitch has now retired. She gave a speech at georgetown a couple of weeks ago and it was great to see. Because here, ambassador yovanovitch had really been on the receiving end of some really tough things, not just from the ukraine but also as you indicated from here. And to see her, she had just retired and to see her up there on the stage making this very good set of remarks and then the reception from all of the people in the crowd, there were students like in this room, but there were also a lot of her colleagues and iconic diplomats, so Tom Pickering and bill burns. Were all there. And three standing ovations, so she just soaked it in and she was clearly reaffirmed in what she had hes going to be fine. Colonel vindman is back in the army, the army has given him an assignment, theyre going to send him to school, is going to be fine as well. They did the right thing and i think they will be fine for doing the right thing. Yes, please. Thank you for your time. I am a junior at the elliott intern with the American Academy of diplomacy. Lots of thanks for your work on their part. My question is, how can we as americans and students best support our diplomats and Foreign Service . Thank you. Mr. Taylor so there are probably in this room, there are probably some diplomats and probably some prospective diplomats, people thinking about going into the Foreign Service, which i encourage. Its an honorable profession and its an important profession. Masha jovanovich came up through the ranks in the Foreign Service. One thing in answer to your question, think about that as a career path. Think about it as a profession. The other thing is to support them in this institutional arrangement where they are, so the Foreign Service is one component, not the only, but one component of this National Security policy Development Institution that we talked about in foreignpolicy and they play a big role so that kind of support, understanding what they do, so diplomats, and i can say it having some military background as about as as well as diplomatic background, military because they get shot at are the heroes and they are the heroes. Theres no doubt about that but diplomats are right there. They are right there often not visible and often dont get the credit for being right there and often they are there to reduce that shooting and address that fight and try to resolve those conflicts. We are seeing that right now in afghanistan. We might be on the cusp of ending that war in a negotiated way which we had to do and i spent a little bit of time in afghanistan and my own view is that we are close to being able to solve that problem, to come to an agreement to stop that war on reasonable terms, because our military and the International Militaries that were fighting there finally came to the conclusion about two years ago that we are not going to win it militarily. We will not kill all the taliban. Around tory came where the diplomats have been trying to say we are not going , to kill them all. We are going to have to come up with a negotiated settlement and hopefully, we will see, that support for that function i think is something that we can all do. Thank you. Ok. The gentlemen here. Hello. I am from ukraine. I study here at George Washington university. I grew up in the soviet union in russia and i came back to ukraine, where i studied, and i in the bosnian area, supporting genderbased survivors over there and now im here. I have insider knowledge about whats going on. First of all, i would like to thank ambassador taylor for all his support that he and his team are providing to ukraine and even though there are different opinions about how that support should be provided within the United States, i think your approach is the best and thank you very much for your continued support. My question would be on the other side, in ukraine, its very connected to russia in many ways, and when you speak about corruption and when you speak about the strong institutions, students which study here at the in thoseill be institutions, 90 or so will be working in International Affairs. So how to maintain the balance with honest, straightforward words and working with corrupt people, and in top positions. Speaking of the russian government, which is extremely corrupt and they have a background in that kgb, which is different background. How can you maintain your balance . Thank you. Mr. Taylor alex, thank you. Thank you for your work in your country. Ukrainians are fighting these battles that i mentioned, ukrainians are on the frontline and people like alex are the soldiers on the frontline so thank you for that. Dealing with corrupt people, you are right, its a challenge, and its also a challenge to see where people are in their trajectory. For example, when i was in ukraine the first time from 2006 to 2009, i dealt with this lutsenko, who at the time when i was there he was the minister of interior and not a bad one. My understanding or my perception and my information, not corrupt at the time. Maybe he had some rough edges, but when i came back this time, he was a different person, different person. He had been named as the prosecutor general and had not prosecuted criminals who killed ukrainians, criminals who had ripped off ukrainians and stolen money out of banks. And for corrupt reasons. Other people in your country and the country that i know and respect in ukraine have turned the page the other way. Im prepared to believe nko may have earned her money earlier on that was totally above board but i believe she is now her time in may happy den she may have come down, but i think she turned the page and was able to make contributions as the Prime Minister and she ran for president , others have turned a page, i mentioned oligarchs. I would say there are corrupt oligarchs and there are noncorrupt oligarchs and not all of them are corrupt but theres that intersection. There are people who im convinced earned their money in a very corrupt way who are trying to change and become part of ukraine, so the answer to your question is you have to keep an open mind as to who these people are. Sometimes you have to deal with them, but i would say ambassadors and political directors and deputies and people in the field, we are going to deal with the range of ukrainians in this case, the range of people in government in order to get our job done. Our jobs are to present u. S. The use, make policy recommendations to ukrainians and how we would think and listen to them and to understand the good ones and the bad ones, the corrupt and not corrupt. The president of the United States doesnt have to deal with corrupt other president s. He doesnt have to do that. You can have a lowerlevel do that and i think that balance is one that is hard to strike. But its a tricky question. Question here, the young lady here. Thank you for being here today. I am a first semester student here. You is, youfor mentioned your mentor said if your country asked you to do something, do it only if youre effective, so in your opinion what are some ways that you developed effectiveness . Mr. Taylor so his guidance, his quote was if your country asked you to do it you do it if you can be effective and that is exactly your question. There were a couple of things. I needed to be sure that i was going to be supported in pushing a strong support for ukraine policy. I was frankly a little worried that other considerations might present themselves and that a deal could be struck by which we would reduce their support for ukraine, in which case i told the secretary i couldnt support it and i would have to come home and resign. So, to answer your question, i made it clear that i could support a policy that i believed in and i believed was important for the u. S. Foreignpolicy interests and it was part of this policy that had been developed by the institution we are talking about, the conscious of the u. S. Government in developing a strong support for ukraine, bipartisan, long period of time, two decades worth and i was convinced that was the right policy to pursue and if that was going to change then i had to indicate to the secretary and id have to come back and he ushered me. He said nope we are going to keep that. That is one. The second thing in order to be effective is to have a conversation and have information and the flow of understanding between kyiv and washington. If we are just out there doing our work on assistance programs and trying to help them, i went to the front frequently to see how their military was doing and how our Security System was doing. You cant just do it out there. It has to flowback, those considerations and recommendations have to flowback to washington so having that channel, this is what is supposed to happen. This is how we are trained to do it. You give direction policy direction from washington and you send that policy recommendations, so setting the conditions, in my case, conditions for going out there but also then trying to make it effective by improving the information flow. Thank you. The back, in in think the gentleman here. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I will join the Foreign Service in july. I want to thank you for demonstrating to us out couple mats are supposed to behave but also advocating for the Foreign Service. My question is about the irregular channel. As Young Professionals when , should we speak out when we see this kind of irregular channel that you described in our careers . How should we do it and when should we follow the status quo . This is a very good question. So there are ways to express policy, concern about and you saw alex vindman on the military side, most obviously when he listened in to the famous phonecall on july 25 between the two president s he was troubled. He was very much troubled and the first thing to do, he went to his boss who had not been on the phone call nt told her what he heard. And expressed his concern. The chain of command is important. In the first instance, he did the right thing. Thing is he wrote it down and made a record so that it was contemporaneously written down so he had it in his mind and on paper what he heard and what the concern was. His boss told him to do this he talked to the lawyers. There are legal channels in every organization and certainly in the Foreign Service, and take advantage of those. He made it clear that that was a problem for the lawyers and the Inspector General and that of course came up in the whistleblower because the whistleblower was a different part of the organization at nsc and the cia and theres a channel for that. So the chain of command and established methods. There is something called the dissent channel. As a Foreign Service officer, you can write a cable with your embassy and colleagues or your own concerns, and that will go back in a special channel and it will be read and people will listen to that. So you have to do that, but that chain of command is important, but its important that you have that. Its important that that shade of command exists and you take advantage of that. Congratulations on going into the Foreign Service. We have time for one last quick question. She has been very patient. Please. I am a graduate student in the International Developing studies program and i will be joining the Foreign Service in september. I am very excited. I just wanted to thank you for your leadership especially looking to join the Foreign Service. Its been inspiring to observe how youve conducted yourself in the last few months and carried yourself with integrity. My question is, i guess just about what has happened over the past year and it seems like throughout the occurrence in ukraine you are one of the few principles who stood up from the beginning and spoke out when he noticed something was off. Other people in washington and highlevel officials who knew about it didnt speak up, so im wondering what does that say about the moral compass of our foreignpolicy leaders and what are the implications for that in Foreign Policy . Mr. Taylor thank you. Standing up i mentioned earlier when i began to see this irregular channel and when i began to see the implications of that irregular channel when it was looking like for some reason Security Assistance to ukraine was being held up. Not figure out why. There were no explanations. Even washington, there were no explanations, the state department, omb, who have the responsibility to put the pause , and goingnot clear questionhe earlier about dissent, i made phone ,alls, in my chain of command to ask, what is going on . I hope that this pause in Security Assistance was a mistake, a misunderstanding. Through the summer, i got more and more worried that something was going on. It was not just chaos, there was some conspiracy here to hold up the assistance. Ivorys attire and sent out a cable to the secretary making a case for the Security Assistance. And in the end, an answer to your question, the system worked. The foreignpolicy experts, leaders, principles recognized the importance of Security Assistance for ukraine. Heres a country at war with russia and we were holding up security for some reason we could not figure out and the system eventually pushed it forward and got it resolved. With some help from the congress and help from the whistleblower for that matter. But in the end, the senior levels made the change and push it forward. I think it can be selfcorrecting. That has all of these checks and balances , sometimes to our frustration, can support the right answer. You are going into a good organization. You both are and others in this room are and i congratulate you for that. Im going to ask ambassador taylor to join me at the podium. First, please join me in thanking him. [applause] what i would like to do is presented to ambassador taylor the first time the school has , ever awarded to leadership and ethics award and i will read the citation here. Two william taylor, previously ambassador to ukraine, in recognition of his exemplary actions demonstrating leadership and the commitment to ethical practice in the field of International Affairs. Thank you. Mr. Taylor thank you. [applause] lets get a pictures or. Mr. Taylor thank you all very much for being here. Go. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Monday morning, we will talk about the beat ahead in washington and campaign 2020. U. S. A discussion of the and Global Response to the coronavirus with a former fda commissioner. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal. Join the discussion. Campaign 2020ve super tuesday coverage of the president ial primaries and caucuses. Utah, vermont, and virginia with speeches and results. Coverage begins tuesday, nine a copy in eastern on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen from wherever you are on the free cspan radio app. Defense secretary mark esper in joint chiefs of staff chair mark milley talk about the president s 2021 budget request. They were questioned by members on the reprogrammed of congress appropriated funds for the border wall and coronavirus response. Committee to order. Good mor chm. Smith we will go ahead and call the committee to order. Good morning, everyone. We are gathered this morning to hear from the secretary of defense, dr. Mark esper, the chairman of the joint of the joint chiefs of staff, general milley, to hear about the president s fy21 Budget Proposal for the department of defense. I will start with some good news