Transcripts For CSPAN Former Ambassador William Taylor Remarks At George Washington University 20240713

Morning, all. Thank you for joining us this morning. My name is chris, i direct the leadership and practice initiatives here at the Elliott School of International Affairs. And on behalf of the brigadier, and on behalf of vice dean 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 President James Wolfenson on programs on behalf of what all parties at that time hoped would be middle east peace. He worked for the middle east quartet and former World Bank President James 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. Without further ado, jointly in welcoming ambassador bill taylor. [applause] mr. Taylor they told me i should turn this on. Now you can probably hear me. Thank 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. In terms of being known, we all 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 me to get a couple messages out 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. I have a couple messages about ukraine. We should support ukraine because it is on the frontline of our freedom. The frontline of the attack the russians are mounting. [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. Six years after election interference. The russians have interfered in elections, figuring out what worked and what does not work. That interfering in european elections. We know they interfered in 2016. Many Government Agencies have given us all the help we could ask for on that. And we know, the russians have begun to interfere. This is the kind of thing some of you have read professor tim snyders book, the road to unfreedom. This is an important book. It started russia, where they 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 ukraine as well as europeans on russian gas. Russians have hijacked you and hacked into ukrainian infrastructure but not just ukrainian infrastructure. They did it 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 we ago. Want to take this . All set . Sorry. It is the russians. [laughter] mr. Taylor so i was making this case for a robust defense 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. Come comfort of u. S. Ib, i was able to observe and make these points from the sidelines. Then about not quite a year ago, last may, i got a phone call. The first was from the state department. A friend of mine said, 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. The next 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 , but apparently 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. Volodymyr 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 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 chris will remember, on the other side, the senate side, 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, 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 the congress, 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. 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 institutional bit. 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. The regular channel. Thats an important, thats a very Important Institution and its a very important component 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. That are important. Jim steiners earlier book the road to unfreedom, he also has a book on. He. One thing he points out is important of institutions and strengthening institutions. What may they be, they may be George Washington university as an institution. Higher education more broadly. The u. S. Foreignpolicy structure is an institution. The private sector, these are all pieces that provide guidelines and provide direction and provided conscience for what were all trying to do. Let me stop there and hope that something i said was prompted some disagreement or other arguments, i would love to have the opportunity to talk with chris and you about this. Thank you all very much. [applause] i will turn this back on, thank you very much bill. Institutions are so very important. In our system of government, institutions of the vehicle by which the voices of all get her. As someone, who like the work to government often with very great frustration we would complain about the interagency process. Where all the agencies have to seek agreement. In the joke i like to talk, there is only one thing worse than working in the interagency process and thats a country that does not have one. So its cumbersome but serves us well over the longterm. I will take the liberty of asking the first question of bill taylor today and that would be, from the standpoint of his crew today, from the standpoint of your career today and very many different post that youve held, if you look back, what advice would you give to your former self into the young people in this room . With respect to leadership and ethics. Chris, thank you. This is working out. What would i tell my old herself, one thing looking back, chris mentioned that i started off at the military academy thinking that i would make a career in the military, that is where you go there. And thats what i started out, i did serve as chris indicated, had opportunity to think about that experience. As i did i thought about where i could make the best contribution. And i concluded, maybe right, may be wrong that outside of the military, i might be able to have more effect than inside. I had Great Respect and still do for the job the military is doing. I also Great Respect for the direction the military takes being guided by the institution that he just talked about. The institution of Foreign Policy and National Security policy, that institution guided the military into doing what it did and i thought that institution is important Pay Attention to institutions, i would also tell myself it will stay in this career and writes up to the ranks, that is one way that people can structure a career, look to see where you want to be after five year, tenure, 15 years hitting up a company, do you want to be congressman or senator. People do that and people kind of thinker what they need to do in what they need to learn, what schools they need to go to, what classes they need to take, what jobs they should try for an order to go up there. I would tell myself, now if i had the opportunity, think about it a little differently. Think about where you can make the biggest contribution and it may not be in the career path you started thinking about. And chris went through a little bit of my bouncing around and different jobs and for organizations. I took an opportunity a couple of times to change directions from the military interNational Security policy, from the legislature into the executive, from the Energy Department into interNational Security again. In different countries. Take advantage of opportunities and dont be afraid to switch. Because times change, you will change, and opportunities arise. The institutions, let me come back to that. They are really a boring subject. To think about institutions, im amazed that here we are talking 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 National Security. That is an important concept for us to know. Thank you bill, one question for you and them will definitely open up to the audience. Who stands out for you as a role model in your career . And why . Impersonal mentor if thats appropriate. Mentor, i mentioned earlier that before to going to this administration i wanted some advice so i went to a man who had senior position in previous Republican Administration and asked for this advice. By the way you said if your country asked you to do something, you do it. He is very well respected across the spectrum, hes very well respected but the republican and democrats and house of the senate within the broad range of the Republican Party at this point they all still consult with him, so that respect coming from a moderation, and his respect for the institutions when he was in office as a National Security advisor, he was able to pull ideas, information from option sitting around the interagency table that chris talked about in ways of conversing possible. So he was inclusive, engage, detail, he understood but also able to see the big picture. That was a person that i would go to for the advice. Thank you bill. Lets open it up. Im sure there are questions. I will call the questions. All look the other two to the side and then the other side. The young woman over here. Hi im a graduate student at George Washington university and i have a question, what do you think the effects on the backlash on Marie Yovanovitch in lieutenant vindman towards institutional conscience like you mentioned just now. I have known Marie Yovanovitch 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 honesty, the bravery and what she owe has do. Especially in ukraine. She is attacked and stood up for our strong support of anticorruption networks in ukraine. Whenever you go against corrupt officials, you get pushback and lashed back into even get threats which she has gotten. Great respect for her, colone cl vindman, heres 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 he supposed to be doing and doing it well. I had not known him before i was after this last time, i interacted with him a whole lot during the time i was out there and hes always professional and supportive fiona hill, another hero and was able to provide her with information that she needed. So those two people that you asked about are going to do fine. I think they will be fine Marie Yovanovitch is now retired, she gave a speech at georgetown a couple of weeks ago and it was great to see. So here she had been on the receiving end of some really tough things, not just from ukraine but as you indicated from here. And she had just retired and to see her up there on the stage making this a very good set of remarks and then the reception from all of the people in the crowds. Students i this room bought a lot of her colleagues and iconic diplomats. So bill burns, were all there in three standing ovations. She soaked it in and shes clearly reaffirmed and what she will be fine, colonel vindman is not the Security Council anymore, hes back in the army. I think he will be fine as well. I think they will be fine for doing the right thing. Yes please. I am a junior at the Elliott School and also an intern with the American Academy of diplomacy. Lots of thanks for your work on their part. My question is, how can we as americans into student best support of diplomats and Foreign Service . Thank you. So there are probably some diplomats and probably perspective diplomats, people who are thinking of going into the Armed Service which i encourage. Its an honorable profession, weve seen how its an important profession. So Marie Yovanovitch who we just described came up through the ranks in the Foreign Service. So one thing to into question, think about that is accrued path as a profession. The other thing is to support them in this institutional arrangement where they are, one component of the National Security Development Institution that we talked about. That kind of support to understand what they do, diplomats i say having military background, a lot of time diplomats see that the military because they get shot at our heroes, theres no doubt about that. But the diplomats are right there and they are often not visible and often do not get the credit for being right there and often there there to reduce the shooting and to resolve the conflict. We see that right now in afghanistan. We might be on the cusp of indian that were in a negotiated way which we had to do and i spent a little bit of time on afghanistan in my own view, were close to being able to solve that income to an agreement and stop the war our military in the International Military that we are fighting, finally two years ago came to the conclusion we will not win it momentarily. We will not kill all the tall band. But up until a few years ago, they would hit them a little harder and our military came around to where the diplomats have been trying. We will make a negotiated settlement and hopefully we will see, support for that function is something we can all do. Thank you. Okay, the gentleman here. Hello i am alex, im from ukraine, i study here at George Washington university, a group in the soviet union and russia and then i came back to ukraine where i subsided and then i worked over one and a half year in human hearing response. So supporting genderbased violence supporters so that i worked at the red cross and nine here. So i have an insider knowledge about whats going on. First of all i would like to think ambassador taylor for all of the support that he and his team is providing to ukraine. Even though there are different opinions of 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. And my question would be on the other side, and ukraine it is very connected to russia in many ways, good and bad. They will be in those institutions, 90 will be working with International Affairs, so how to maintain the balance with honest straightforward work like having your line in working with corrupt people in a very tough position, sometimes much harder, speaking of the russian government which is extremely corrupt and also the background, how can you maintain your balance. Thank you. Thank you for your work in your country. Ukrainians are fighting these battles that all the bottles i mentioned it ukrainians on the frontline and people like alex are the soldiers in the frontline. So thank you for that. Dealing with corrupt people, this is a challenge. Its also a challenge to see where people are in their project tree, for example, when i was in ukraine the first time, 2006 2009, i dealt with think oh at the time, he was a minister of interior. My information, not corrupt at the time. May be some rough edges but when i came back this time, a different person, he was being named as a prosecutor general. Criminals killed ukrainians and criminals who ripped off and stolen money out of banks. He was not doing that and for corrupt reasons and a corrupt background. There are other people in your country in the country know and respect in ukraine who have turned the page other way. I am prepared to believe that she may have earned her money early on. I believe she is now i think she turned the page and was able to make contribution as a Prime Minister and she ran for office. Others who have turned the page, i think as i mentioned, not all are corrupt and not all corrupt or old guards, but theres a intersection and there are people i am trying to become part of ukraine. The interview question, you have to keep in over mine as to who these people are, sometimes you have to deal with them. , i would say ambassadors and political directors and deputy chief, we will deal with the range of ukrainians but also the range argued or done. Our jobs are to present u. S. Policy recommendations to ukraine and how we would think that they would like and to also listeand not crab. You do not have to come in the present or the United States does not have to deal with corrupt other president s, he does not have to do that. You can have the lower level, the people in the field do that and i think that balance is hard to strike but its a tricky question that you ask. Okay, question here the young lady here. Thank you for being here today, i am a first semester student here at the mia program in my question for you, you mentioned your mentor your country asked you to do it only if youre effective, in your opinion what are some ways you develop defectiveness . His guidance, his quote if your country asked you to do it if you could be effective, thats exactly your question. So there were a couple 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 to deal could be struck which we would reduce our support for ukraine. In which case it told the secretary which i could not support. And i would have to come home and resign. , so i undertaking a question, i made it clear that i could support a policy that i believed in and i believe was important for the u. S. Foreign policy interest and it was part of, this policy had been developed by this institution we are talking about, the content of the u. S. Government on developing a strong support for ukraine, bipartisan, 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 that i would have to resign and come back if that ever change prehearing herd me we will keep that strong policy. The second thing in order to be effective is to have a conversation, have information, the flow of understanding between washington because if we are out there doing our work on the assistance program, and trying to help them, i went to the front frequently to see how their military was doing and how our military support and security was, you cannot just do it after, it has to flow back, the information in the considerations and recommendations have to flow back to washington. So having that channel is a regular channel, its whats supposed to happen, this is the way we are all trained. The flow goes both ways, you get direction and policy direction from washington and you send back policy recommendation and how to implement. Both setting the condition in my case for going out there to be effective but also then trying to make it effective by improving the information flow. Thank you. A question in the back, the gentleman here. Thank you ambassador tailored to speak with us. I am a graduate student at the Elliott School and will join the Foreign Service in july. Think of her much. I wanted to first thank you for demonstrating how diplomats are supposed to behave by advocating for the Foreign Service during your testimony. My question is about the regular channel you mentioned. 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 to we follow the status quo . This is a very good question. There are ways to express dissent. There are ways to express concern about policy. And you saw alex vindman on the military side, most obviously when he listened into the phone call, the famous phone call on july 25 between the two president s. He was troubled, very much troubled by what he heard. The first thing to do, he went to his boss who had not been on the phone call and he told her what he had heard and expressed his concern, so the chain of command is important. In the first instance, the second thing, he wrote it down, he made a record so was contemporaneously written down both in his mind and on a piece of paper what he heard and what the concern was. He also then and his boss told him to do this, he talked to the lawyers and there are legal channels in every organization, certainly in the Foreign Service where youre headed and take advantage of those. He made it clear that that was a problem to the lawyers and the inspector general. That of course came up in the whistleblower because the whistleblower was in a different part of the organization at the gia and theres a channel for that. So the chain of command and the established methods of dissent. There is something called the dissent channel, you can also as a Foreign Service officer can write a cable with your embassy and your colleagues or with your own concerns and that will go back in a special channel and will be read and people will listen to that so you have to do that but the chain of command is important but its important that you have that and its important that channel exist and that people take advantage of it. Congratulations on going on the Foreign Service. Time for one last quit quick question. She has been very patient appeared. Please. Thank you. I am a graduate student in the International Development studies program ill be joining the Foreign Service in september so im very excited. I just want to thank you for your leadership especially looking to join the Foreign Service its been inspiring to observe how you conducted yourself these past few months encourage herself with integrity. My question is about what happened over the past year and it seems like throughout the occurrence of ukraine, you are one of the few principals who really stood out from the beginning and spoke out when you notice something was off. And other people in washington and other highlevel officials knew about it but did not speak up. Im wondering what does that say about the ethical and moral of our Foreign Policy leaders. Thank you. Standing out i mentioned earlier, when i began to see this irregular channel and when i began to see the implications and the real implication of the irregular channel of when it was looking like for some reason Security Assistance to ukraine was being held up. Out there in ukraine we cannot figure out why. There were no explanations. Even washington there were no explanations. The state department, nsc, 1b, to hold and put the pause on. And going back to the earlier question, i wrote back, i made phone calls in my chain of command and to ask what is going on because i thought and hoped that this pause in Security Assistance was a mistake, misunderstanding and through the summer i got more and more worried that something was going on, it was not just chaos, there was conspiracy to hold up the assistance so i raised a higher and higher and sent a cable to the secretary making the case for the Security Assistance. And in the end, in answer to your question, the system worked. The Foreign Policy experts, leaders, principles recognized the importance of this Security Assistance for ukraine, heres a country at war with russia and were holding up at the we cannot figure it out, the system eventually pushed it forward. And got it resolved with help on the congress and help from the whistleblower for that matter. But in the end the senior levels made the change and pushed them forward. I think it can be selfcorrecting, thats an institution, the institution that has all the checks and balances sometimes true frustration can support the right answer in the end. So youre going into good organization, you both are and others in this room are as well and i congratulate you for doing that. In a moment i will ask ambassador tailored to join me at the podium but before we do that please join me in thanking him. [applause] what i would like to do is to present to ambassador taylor, the first time the school has ever awarded the leadership and ethics award and i will read the citation here. To william b taylor, u. S. Embassy, and previously United States ambassador to ukraine. In recognition of his exemplary actions, demonstrating leadership and a commitment to practice in the field of International Affairs. Thank you. [applause] theres another picture here. Thank you all for being here in this honor. Here we go. Okay thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversatio cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, we will talk about weekend head in washington and campaign 2020, with Julia Manchester and erika warner. Of the globalion response to the coronavirus outbreak with the former fda commissioner. Be sure to watch she spends washington journal come alive at 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. Education secretary betsy devos testified on the president s 2021 budget request for her department. She appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee where members asked about public chartern resources, schools, nondiscrimination policies, and support for minority students