I am a fan of this director and worked on the transition. Mr. Director, welcome. Its great to see you again. It all worked out. Thank you. The director is a soldier, lawyer, entrepreneur, congressman and is doing great work at the cia. I think what we want to do today with those joining in the audience and why extremist talk about the issues not just in the newspaper but some of the newspapers for the director of the cia and the Intelligence Community. We often get captured by the media and you have to not only deal with the facts of how we are thinking about the National Security five, ten, 15 or 20 years now so we need to talk about some of those issues. There is a sense of dislocation in the world and that power itself is a shifting including the role of nonstate actors. Theres lots going on in the world so lets get into it. Mr. Director, the president gave his speech on october 13 reshaping u. S. Policy on iran to. Is iran in violation or what is the animating principle behind the shift thank you for inviting me this morning. I look forward to a great conversation. Certainly including this topic, the threat of the Islamic Republic presented to the United States and that is the right way to answer the question. We often focus a lot. The president has come to view so much of the turmoil whether it is in hezbollah represents to israel or if it is the shia militia you can see the impact they are having today in northern iraq. The transgressions are long and i think he concluded that we needed to reconfigure our relationships not only with iran but with the gulf states and israel to ensure we are addressing the threats to the United States in a comprehensive way. Theres been a lot of focus on the certification under the u. S. Law that requires the president to certify every 90 days. What is your sense of where we are headed because theres been so much focus especially from our european allies on the centrality and the context with the relationship of iran. They seem to be shifting that in the policy and i think the administration seems to be pushing not on th off on the det around the deal so how do you explain to your view is solved and the role it plays in the policy . Commission the president laid out was to ensure that there was nothing t to achieving a Nuclear Capability, to not put a president and the same place with respect to north korea. To close down the various avenues for there are many pieces from the intelligence perspective. We need even more intrusive inspections. The deal puts us in a better place but the iranians have on multiple occasions been capable of presenting a continued threat to the efforts to develop a Nuclear Program along malta for dimensions. The missile dimension, the Nuclear Component itself. So we need to make sure from the intelligence perspective that we are able to do that and the president s have given us the resources to achieve that in the various tools that we have so when they asked us what this meant from a proliferation perspective in spite of iran, two years, three years across a handful of months, it didnt seem satisfactory to him. To hell he might present a more comprehensive efforts to push back against the force more broadly in the regime itself. The notion and the analytical side of the notion that the entry would curtail their Terror Threat or malignant behavior has now proven to be fundamentally false. Has the opposite happened . It depends which dimension. I in terms of testing about the same as where they were but the desire to put guided rocketry and attempting these are new and aggressive and showed no signs of having been curtailed by the increased commerce that they have achieved through having europeans back in the game. When we talk about pushing back, what does that mean in your perspective in the revolutionary guard corps showing up in all the wrong places in all the wrong times i will do we push back they seem to be pushing on all of the pressure points. And what does that mean for us to be able to come up and push back . All of the tools available in u. S. Power. I will begin with a handful. Its been far too inexpensive to conduct this adventure and we should raise the cost of that incredibly Important Role providing the intelligence pieces for us to help not only the United States but partners in the region. They mentioned the israelis and they are important partners and we need them all working against treasury. The secretary is keenly aware of the tools that are in his arsenal as well. Think about this today. Imagine that you are, they havent seen the economic benefits. It was struggling to figure out which companies are controlled in the force. It is a difficult, complex undertaking to sort out which are controlled by the force and which ones have shareholders. It is intentionally overtake but as much as 20 is controlled by them. Deciding whether it is appropriate to take that risk were not in the return is for the company. I think we can make it even more difficult and i think in order to push back against all of these activities, put aside the Nuclear Issues in the deal. Let me ask a couple more questions because i think the debate internationally is the window for other trends and factors i cant share a whole lot other than to say there is consensus of the iranian threat. Not to diminish the paramount objective is to keep them from achieving a Nuclear Capability to launch weapons but there is an enormous global consensus to push back against the iranians and ive heard that in conversations with my counterpart. We can give the best information so that they can decide which ones they want to pull to the policy objectives. I have not heard a single one of them deny the core of what the president said in the speech on friday threatening the west as large as well. A segue to a couple of issues on the speech that went unnoticed. One is the discussion of support to terrorism and the proxies in iraq that the president mentioned al qaeda and the taliban. I thought that was interesting because we knew all along there had been links between the two into there were designated actors whod been in iran and ad supportive. The 9 11 commission raised the question that was unanswered with respect to the well on 9 11 and the president actually raised it quite openly. Can you talk about that link the president mentioned . Theyve worked alongside al qaeda and its going to release in the next handful of days a series of documents that may prove interesting to those looking to take a look at this issue a little bit further but thereve been connections where at the least debate cant do deals. They view the west as a threat within the ideological lines and weve been talking about this an awful long time to. We have al qaeda folks up in the north and we are watching to see if there are places where they worked together for a Common Threat against the united stat states. It also raises the question of the scramble for territory and with american interests and even presents looks like as it is hopefully more easily defeated. What is your sense of where the influence goes now that isis ths seems to be on its way out in the less controlled territory . I prefer to leave the policy piece and lets be clear we have one policy that is clear with respect to south asia and the threats not only the network of al qaeda and isis in afghanist afghanistan. It is the threats to the west for afghanistan im confident that they will continue to deliver and understand so she can shape the policies to follow the to ensure that the government is successful as well. From the directors perch, what is the ideal scenario in terms of the ability to operate in these places. It was without a timeline. What does that look like in the contact especially when we are not committed to the nationbuilding. What does that look like from this prospective . We benefit when there are larger u. S. Footprint to try to collect intelligence there is no doubt about that but theres a bunch of places we operate even as we sit here this morning in the confines of a nicely airconditioned hotel. A whole little help from american support giving good dod support to get information. We would have to figure out a way to achieve that regardless of what they do this posture is in any of those particular places. You mentioned the policy in south asia going to give a speech yesterday talking about the importance of the partnership. The chairman and the joint chiefs weeks ago talked about pakistan and some of the difficulties weve had been part of the Intelligence Services and relationships. Thinking about that part of the world, what is the right state for pakistan at the time that we obviously doubled down in afghanistan, committing to india but seemed to be compounding pakistan a bit more sober these days. I think history would indicate High Expectations for the pakistanis willingness to help us in the fight against radical islamic terrorism should be set at a very low level. Our intelligence would indicate the same that is i think we should have a real conversation about what it is that they were doing and what it is that they could do and the american expectations on how they will behave. The secretary i think is right about our desire to have a constructive relationship with the pakistanis but equally the president has made very clear we are going to do everything we can, the United States will do everything we can to bring to the negotiating table with the taliban having zero hope they can win this on the battlefields. To do you cant have a safe haven in pakistan. There is to achieve the objectives the president set forth in afghanistan, the capacity to cross the border and hide is prohibited to do that so i hope that we can count on the pakistanis for the help of achieving that. We had a great outcome last week when we were able to get back more u. S. Citizens who have been helhad beenheld for five years e pakistan. Thats great news and i, what is the right descriptor . Im hopeful that it will deliver to us the things that america has our vital interest in that religion. Lets talk about a window into north korea there is another interesting thing the president shindig in largely on remarks was the concern about the potential links not just on the missile programs tha but ots between iran and north korea and in the speech he said he was going to ask the Intelligence Community to look into this and report back to him. What are your concerns about the link between iran and north korea and the proliferation of large complex there is a long tie between north korea and iran. Sometimes they have to learn how to pay their bills but i digre digress. Theres a long history of deep conventional tires between the two countries. These are two nation states that dont have export controls so we will make sure that we account for that in the Intelligence Committee and do our best efforts to make sure we do not have the capabilities and transition between the two. It could be the case. I cant say much, but you can imagine that each would have relative expertise and technology and capacities that there wouldnt even be dollars extremes that technology exchanged a smil for the Nuclear Devices as well and so the president s comments were a. We are hard at work to do that. Are you concerned we are in a state of greater risk to the Global Community of proliferation given both the lack of government in parts of the world, concerns over who will acquire the nuclear capabilities, are being exported and a coupon moment with the proliferation . Proliferation . s gimmick is at th . s it is at the top of the president s mind and he urges us to think about this proliferation issues and ever even you, not just north korea and iran but pakistan and every place that risk is there. Theres the intention of all proliferation and the risk that will take place of their own activities, so we are conscientious of both. When you stare needing just as asia and watch as it grows ever closer to having its capability perfected coming you can imagine others thinking that they may need that capability to protect themselves. So we are aware of the proliferation risk and working double gently to put the incentives for that and the harder side of things ensuring that we are watching the proliferation activity and communications began to take down the network. You talked about the capability and we all watched the tests and read the newspapers around the quickening of the missile capabilities. Weve obviously heard of their bellicose threats. What are the remaining markers or the capability is it simply reentry of an icbm or the Nuclear Device . Are we close to them protecting all elements of the ability to hit with a new Nuclear Capability . I cant give the details but if there is an accurate statement, they are closer now than they were five years ago and i expect they will be closer than five months than they are today absent the global effort to push back against them. That is each test is successfulr unsuccessful as defined in the west on the knowledgebase. They are intent upon that to be and it is the case they are close enough now in their capability from the u. S. Policy perspective we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving that objective. There is a risk that places like north korea will be off by months or years. We have done good work. This was before my time but when we are talking about months into the capacity to understand that at a detailed level is irrelevant whether it happens on tuesday or a month from tuesday, we are at time the president has concluded that we need a global effort to ensure that he does have that capacity. This raises an interesting question for the community because it raises the question of how definitive you need to be for when they reach that capability and that begins to shift the policy options and goals. Its one of the things our team is incredibly mindful of when i took over as the director and created the commission sent her to attack this broadly speaking of Korean Nuclear problem and we are trying to to find the answers so that we can give to the policymakers a shorter window to make the conundrum that they have to assume they are all the way there. It is a challenging target and one that weve spent an awful lot of energy on and will each take a. The. Its what they are willing to do or not do. Do you that a change is fundamentally at the moment that there is a consensus that theyve reached that capability and then we imagine what that looks like. Given where we find ourselves today we are so far along and its now a matter of thinking about. How do we stop the final step and its one thing to be able to deliver a single missile. To deliver the Missile Systems, technology, guidance, all the pieces to develop a truly robust capability to deliver those types of weapons. We should be mindful we talk an awful lot about the Missile Systems that can reach denver and los angeles and new york. We shouldnt just focus solely on this thread for th but the es conventional Weapons Systems and the other elements of the Nuclear Programs and other delivery technologies of the systems. They tend to focus on this missile trajectory issue to make sure they we are still staring at every tree to make the forest and not just in the north korean threat of force. Can i ask about a separate growth . Im loving this, by the way. The New York Times had an interesting and important article the other day about the Cyber Capabilities and how those have increased over time. They are forced to 6,000 cyber analysts and how theyve embedded in the chinese infrastructure to spread them around in Southeast Asia and other places. Theyve attacked south korean banks in 2013 and obviously been implicated in other attacks such as the bangladesh heist etc. How serious should we take the cyber threat along with these others . If he thinks about how to deliver his entity, it is continuing the capacity to go to sleep in a nice bed in pyongyang every night, so it is another tool in his bank hes shown a willingness to use it. There is an over response, but there is a response that is perceived and hes trying to measure and figure out where the lines of the boundaries are from not only u. S. Policy but policy for the other states that have been attacked as well. We are very mindful of it and it is cheap if you compare the amount invested in the Cyber Program and compare it to the amount of moneinvested in the cl weapons or the Nuclear Program is pennies on the dollar and its effect on this would generate if you were looking at it from a business perspective, an and incredibly high amount relatively. It gives them the ability to profit obviously and also the ability to reach out beyond their borders and described. The actions theyve taken have had some impact on the Global Community as well. We havent talked much about this yet but the chinese actions have been most welcomed and frankly, when i came into my new role in january of this year if you do with the Intelligence Community that we could have expected the chinese to do all the things they have today, there would have been great skepticism and certainly skepticism around the world, so theres progress there and i think a lot more economically and diplomatically that we can all do. The team that i lead is working double gently to help identify the places we can help debt leverage against. We put a major amount of stock. Can you get a couple of examples of what china has done differently or in a way that is helpful and do you think they made a fundamental shift in the policy or is there more to come . They spoke in a way that asserted the chinese prominence to take this opportunity to demonstrate that they truly are going to be globally important players in reducing a Global Threats like a Nuclear Weapon system into the behaviors weve seen they signed on to the Security Council resolutions far in excess of what had been done in the previous administrations. The trade has been greatly reduced. We are working to help identify so we get the peace tighter but they also communicated around the world but they are intent on helping us resolve this in a way that we all want to resolve without resort to a military activity. The president is intent on that as well and we will throw every arrow out until we concluded there is no alternative at that point. With china, north korea is potentially one of them, he is their own cyber activity and this is something the president pushed back on and greatest raid obviously at the highest levels. Has the behavior in the cyber domain altered or changed in the last nine months tax i dont know if i know the answer to that one. If they have along with the iranians and the russians the premier Cyber Capabilities, defensive cyber kick abilities as well as the capacity to conduct offensive Cyber Operations as well. They are all so also, the chinee also incredibly active with what i will call cyber theft. That is there is a trail of tears about the intellectual property thats been stolen by the chinese much to the benefit of the Chinese Military and the chinese commercial capacity as well. They are clear about this a aboe citizens acceptable to those that have a role certainly in the Intelligence Community with a piece of that to do our best to push back against it. I dont know about the timeline they still have a robust capacitcapacity and they are oue working the problems that are very hard. A final question with the party of congress happening. Is there anything you are looking for to come out of this congress that either signals greater or lesser power on the part that would signal Something Different about the trajectory of china and u. S. China relations, is there something you would anticipate coming out of this . We are watching the runup to it as well. It has openly made clear with incredible capacity to do good around the world. I want to draw back to these issues but before that, i want to talk about intelligence capabilities because the first speech you talked about the role of wikileaks and of the dangers and the need to preserve capability like section 702 of the patriot act. Do you want to talk about first of all 70 702 it 702 disc set t, do you want to talk about the importance of that and then i want to ask questions on whether or not we are falling behind given what everyone else is doing. I came into this debate when i first joined the Intelligence Agency a of the u. S. Intelligene authorities so around the patriot act and how that all came to be from going back to the mindset in terms of how we conduct our intelligence sharing across the inner Agency Processed you will recall the deep criticism of the committee. Section 702 was designed to knock down those walls. The concern seems to be the data that is collected but this is information collected as part of a Court Program but it is wholly constitutional and thoughtful and so now the question is do you want to raise the barrier for the officers to go in the units use the data effectively ive seen it in my time thats when it was created for but its very important stopping the shipment. Our capacity to interdict the ships at sea is tied to section 702 to take this information is collected and share it across all the agencies that are involved in that type of undertaking. I am hopeful congress will renew it and i wanted it in a way that is consistent with the threat environment. It is a pillar of the collection and we need it. Do you think that whole thing has been skewed by the fact that it seemed so much for the counterterrorism and doesnt look at all these other threats that are implicated by section 702 . I think that it was skewed by Edward Snowden and that somehow this information was being used by the Intelligence Community whether that was agency or the fbi or others in a way that was unlawful and simply not true if there is enormous oversight not only from the role that i have where there was a Quarterly Report that i read with great interest, but by the courts as well. There is enormous oversight for disinformation. Im happy about that and i think it is appropriate that oversight remains in place, but the tools to tie together various threats dreams is essential and i hope we dont walk back to this understanding of how it is that we created the risk of thats so if we ever have another day, so we never have another day like that. There seems to be a torrent of weeks including from the Intelligence Committee where people are able to take them a steal, distribute, publish terabytes worth of data. Are you worried that there is a sort of momentum to this and in that regard that we cannot keep secrets anymore and that our adversary not just seeing what we know and understand that getting to the sort of secret sauce or keep wha of argybargyt against us . Since the first day i became a director at the center of the missions to make sure that the secrets we stole were not based on a o war worse yet, given away by someone who worked for us either formerly as an officer of the cia or contract or anyone else that had access to the information that we worked off to collect and was so vital and unique to not be shared with the rest of the world. I worry about it an awful lot of the Technology Barriers that have been beneficial to so much in the world makes this a incredibly complex problem that we are good. We will promote the resources to it and we wont make sure the people that are working for the agency have an understanding of what that means and what their obligations are. Far beyond her time as a cia officer theres an awful lot of talking heads on tv. I urge everyone to ensure that it are asked in his beyond the day that you turn in your badge. It is so central if we do not do this well, we will deny an american policymakers the enormous unfair advantage that it was designed to provide them. This issue you also blends into what appears to be an age of asymmetrical information warfare. We are learning more and more about the biting of ads in facebook and twitter. Are the in a new era hard to manage and compete in that space . The first rule in competing is that youve got to try. Youve got to get in the game. We have some disadvantages there. We operate in a democracy that is far easier for isis or the russians or other actors that do not operate in a democratic environment to exercise these active measures. We have deep important rules about how we ought to use them and we need to make sure that they are current and they fit the model that exists today. Your point is an important point. Its not just onrushing coops. I talk about these nonstate actors and its not just wikileaks. We are working to take down the threats to the United States as well to produce the threat, that hezbollah, isis, al qaeda. None of them said that the un. The competitors, state competitors have done for decades and decades adopted by these nonstate agencies. The rules we have in place today do not reflect this change. We are modeled on the nationstate model as we develop our collection of rarities and so, we are well along the line of refining that so that we have the policies and understanding about these nonstate threats so we can apply the same could work against them that we do against our stated intelligence adversaries as well. We have to make sure we move at the same speed and against it as well. Are we able to keep up technically do you think we can stay ahead of the curve given all these attempts to expose with capabilities are and what very sophisticated actors are trying to do to us . You talked about one of the challenges on the Small Businesses before i did this. Theres always a crisis of the day and a demand for resources. Continue to invest in the piece of technology that will deliver five, ten years from now or the director after the director of the occupied the incredibly privileged role that i have today. We are making sure that we have to andone and we are every bit e equal, but weve got to make sure today we are not equal and there is nothing satisfactory being the competitor of anyone. It not in our tradition. We have always been a leader, the most robust and most capable to deliver that. We will continue to do that. Weve got lots of incredible technology, homeground u. S. Technology that will help us to deliver that and great partners across the country, businesses that are very helpful figuring out how to stay at the cutting edge to move at the speed of the adversaries and i am intent on making sure we use that skill set and all the people we deliver here in the United States in a way that can simply never be matched. Let me ask one more question about the sort of Information Age and where we find ourselves. There is a lot of talk about fake news and the sort of forward advantage of the obfuscation of truth, aut autocs like putin when confronted with accusations often say prove it. In this world especially with intelligence being seen as a proxy for evidence, are the truths and credibility now strategic assets for the country . Absolutely. The event or the president chose to take out a target as a result of the use of chemical weapons, that use of chemical weapons against his own citizens and i think to this day they deny it. The folks that have as one of the charges, but they are going to conclude the same thing that the officers concluded. In about 70 hours, we had in our hand solid evidence that not only were they chemical weapons of those at the point that we did not know which chemical had been used, but we knew where they had been delivered. We were on firm footing with respect to who delivered them and we were able to deliver truth to the president of the unitepresident of theunited stae taken place. All of the stories and denials from the team, we knew. We have to make sure we have the capacity to do that every place of the world. Relying on twitter feeds and news reports will prove wholly insufficient when policymakers have to make some of the most difficult decisions. Going back to terrorism and nonstate actors. Let me ask about the state of isis because certainly the caliphate in that part of the world is diminished, but they have been able to reach beyond their borders into europe obviously with attacks. The members o were proclaimed members have taken over the southern philippines, which has taken a lot of blood and treasure and tension. So, isis has moved beyond iraq and syria. How do you perceive this threat and even if we are able to diminished in any part of the middle east, what comes next . It seems he would be betting against the historical fact. But they call themselves the isis or 2. 0, whatever you want to call the name, this threat is real and remains the fall of the caliphate. It is good news and a historical achievement to be sure, but it is partial at best. They still have the capacity to control and influence citizens all around the world and a desire to even do these smallscale attacks. I spend a lot of time with my british counterparts and they suffetheysuffer this more than , smallscale attacks directed from afar motivated, take a tour of. I often hear folks talk about movable. The ideology that drove them was driven by someone that had a great intent to deliver that idea into their head. It is an incredibly difficult adversary. They have a shorter lead time. The tools weve developed on the networks are less likely to be successful over when many cases, they have achieved the end of taking down particular thoughts that i think we would be foolish to believe the comman command pd the thousands of folks operating out of the particular geographies is no longer a possibility for isis at least in those places threats to the United States. This goes back to a question i was asking earlier. Do we have to have physical presence in soma physicalpresens to ensure isis doesnt go back or something doesnt replace it and that it will be just as menacing five years down the road . I do not think that there is a singular answer to that. There are places where a robust presence matters an awful lot. But there are other places i think we can achieve the end despite asking our part or us to take up the mantle. They do not need to be a significant u. S. Presence but we can provide tools for all the things to provide them and hope that our partners can take down the threats where it resides such the capacity has diminished from the region in which the threat is being launched and diminished. I want to talk about partners because i think it raises several interesting questions. First, you spent a lot of time traveling with your counterpar counterparts. Have relationship relationshipsr or are there in new relationships to try to forge, is there anything interesting that you can talk about whether it is from your trip to turkey or the middle east or down to mexico, are there things of interest that you would want the public to know . The fact that you know my travel schedule so well. That you didnt catch them all. Try to keep some quiet. [laughter] i dont know how to answer that other than to say i am meeting with my intelligence counterparts for the most part and theyve welcomed our agencies pre engagement. We are prepared to achieve payoff returns so we can deliver the important information. We ask our partners to support the increased level of activity, the traditional espionage but they must do to keep america safe. So every place ive gone and talk about what is i want my ity team to do to help the United States and in turn to help security in their country we have been incredibly welcomed and its something that theyve noticed an absence of and they are thrilled to return to its understanding of being at the cutting edge out on the freedoms frontier collecting the right information to deliver the u. S. Policymakers and more appropriately, the host nations and policymakers got we can collectively takedown threats all across the world do you think that we are aligned on the bigticket items that seem to be concerning the administration with iran, north korea, russia, terrorism do you have the right coalition and partner capabilities outlined . With respect to iran, we have to build that. He had a different view without getting into right or wrong it was a different view and so the posture with respect to our allies in the region had to change as well. With respect to north korea, we focused a lot of the worlds attention on that issue. President trump caused others to reengage and i do not mean just in the region, but those around the world are helping us against the targets, so i think it varies by country lets be clear we dont do policy that we respond to the president s priorities, he lays out the priority framework and we organize our resources and talent and skills against those priorities so we can deliver to the policymakers what it is that the media. Are we good enough dealing with nonstate partners and this raises the question of how we deal with a situation in the Kurdish North and iraq. Are we able to balance our need for both state and nonstate partners especially difficult parts of the world that we need intelligence . One of the glories of what i do is that these intelligence relationships often survive even very bad political situations between two countries. And indeed if we have a poorer intelligence relationship, diplomatic relationship is great and glorious cant folks who do security and intelligence understand that we have to be there every day and whether there is a trade spat or economic dispute or something that is taking place, between the two countries politically, we still have this obligation to deliver security for the countries and so, even in places where we talk about the complex situation our officers understand that the want to develop things for our foreign liaison agencies remains. A couple more questions and then im going to open up to a couple questions weve got time for. When thinking about your role as director when you came in, there were a couple of big fanatics. One was that the morel was low and the president was exacerbating. Do you organize with your predecessor put in place and what does the cia look like moving into the future, so those interested in the Intelligence Community, can you give folks an insight into where you are taking things and your first few months lead you to think of the organization and morale of the cia . For those of you that are more interested in finding a patriotic place to spend your time, cia. Gov is the place to go. We continue to meet and have been blessed for an awfully long time. Some of americas most talented people come join this mission. To validate our work or to correct it and ive watched the president support agency and countless other ways. A good strategy without resources is just Wishful Thinking so we now have laid out a strategy for how we are going to execute our mission with incredible vigor. We are going to become a much more vicious agency in ensuring that we are delivering in the hardest places with some of the hardest organizations and when we do that the president has promised that he will have our backs and he will resource us. Resources than just money. Its the authority we need to execute that so an understanding of the policy process that delivers this work and so the president has put an enormous burden on us and im confident that hes going to give us everything we need to do it in our team will in fact execute that mission and the finest mission of the in central and cogent agency. There was much talk about how the previous director had made these changes. When i came in my deputy and i concluded that much of was there made sense but pieces of it did not. We find those that didnt. I think about mission and i told her team does. The finest companies in the world are restructuring their team every day. They find a customer and they find a problem set and they find the resources to match it and they slammed those resources against the problem so they either achieve the objective or conclude that they cannot. I ask of every office or organization or section or Mission Center whatever we call it if its not working. Down rebuild start with mission not with work chart. The organization of the team will fill itself out if everyone is focused on the mission and i think we have transitioned that culture to worry less about who was sitting in what position on the old chart and a whole hell of a lot more about how the bad guys are going to regret that they ever challenge the United States of america. A great recruiting message. Thats awesome. Lets open it up for questions. I think we have david clark from afp please. Start with david. Thank you im david from afp. David can you stand up . Its been suggested in the press particularly in reference to the Bigger Picture there has been concentration so hard in the battle of isis which is going quite well and nothing well positioned for the rivalries in the region the neighbors of the area seem to have traded isis and advancing their own agendas. Totally understand where we are visavis baghdad government i ran and nonstate actors. Thank you. I appreciate the question. Let me answer that from an intelligence perspective from my agencys perspective. We have not lost sight of any of those threats. We have the capability of walking and chewing gum. Incredibly focused on the ct mission more broadly not just isis. I talked about the other Terror Threats and we have spent a lot of resources on that, make no mistake about it but we have not lost sight of any of the other risks imposed on United States of america. We have robust collection against each of the threats that you identified their and they think are well positioned to deliver the United States government and National Security council the information they need as a sound footing upon which to base their policy. I dont think they took their eye off of any of that. Hi thank you so much for doing this. I have two questions if thats possible. I am from nbc news. You can try to questions. I appreciate it. We have a broad intelligence assessment that russia most likely interfered in the selection there hasnt been a lot of doubt about that but in the past month we have learned about some extraordinary actions taken by russia for advise on facebook and Twitter Former dni James Clapper has said he has doubts that on the legitimacy of president trumps victory in last years election due to a lot of these developments so i wanted to ask you can you say with absolute certainty that the Election Results were not skewed as a result of russian interference especially given what we have learned in just the past few weeks and more importantly are we vulnerable in 2018 . I can imagine theres anything more important than that. Conducting an election that has integrity. Yes the Intelligence Community says the russian meddling that place did not affect the outcome of the election. I made comments about formers. But are we vulnerable in 2018 and 2020 . Yes. We have talked about this a great deal but not just from the russians but lets make no mistake about it. We focus on the 2016 election and im happy to spend plenty of time looking at it. The russians have been at this and off a long time. Go back and read the history of the nixon election. This is not new. The world is stunned that the russians are trying to poke their hand into u. S. Elections this is not a new phenomenon. The technology is different, the tools that they use are different but this was a threat in 2016. It will be a threat in the midterm elections in 2018 and it will be a threat and 2020. Until theres a new leader in russia i suspect it will be a threat to the United States for an awfully long time. All of the United States government has an obligation to understand that as their primary task and to deliver that understanding to the president of the United States and the team and for us to find ways to push back. Where intended on doing it and we have a lot of resources devoted to that and im optimistic that we will continue to reduce the capacity of anyone the chinese the iranians al Qaeda Wikileaks and the russians and impacting our election. A simple followup is the diplomatic completely cos at this point . Secretary tillerson and his team are hard at work. C thank you. Thank you. I am demetrius chief of a financial times. I have two quick questions on north korea. Deterrence is work with north korea that it weighed that did in the cold war. Can you tell us from office in north korea is a hard intelligence target. What do you think would happen if kim jong un to use an irish friend kicked the bucket forward of her recent . I didnt realize that was irish. Im italian and we say it. [laughter] with respect to the question of deterrence i guess it depends how you are thinking about deterrence. Intelligence is kim jong uns mission is to stay in power and to the extent that its a singular objective that is that thats your only goal and hes used his only tool to continue to have the world at risk with a Nuclear Weapon that so long as hes got that tool you cant deter him from continuing down that path because he is a singular goal in a singular tool so you cant deter him by conventional means. That is, you couldnt build a weapons system that would threaten him because he would view getting to the finish line as the sole tool he needs. Rightly or wrongly he has concluded that so there is no external to entity that can be undertaken to convince him to stop that until such time as he concludes that there is another way or a better way or a greater risk to him from continuing down that path. Thats what you see through the diplomatic effort if you see an effort to convince them that its not in his best interest to continue down that path can didnt continue to have a nuclearized north korea something that we are working diligently to change his mind. Call it diplomacy, call it deterrents call it what you will for him to head down at a different path. [inaudible] im not sure and just in the question. The Mission Statement for the present is very clear and i talked about it earlier. This to prevent him from having the capacity to hold the United States or risk with a Nuclear Weapon. With respect it to if kim jong un should vanish in no given the history im just not going to talk about that. Someone might think there was a coincidence that there was an accident. [laughter] its just not fruitful. We have a clear u. S. Policy. Its an effort to diplomatic and automatically challenge the north korean regime in such a way that they wont get to that. C1 last quick question. Catherine please. Catherine herridge on the chief intelligence correspondent fox news and i wanted to pick up on the thread about isis that one race. The secretary of Homeland Security was in london and said that she believed isis had its eye on a major plot in the lines of 9 11. How severe is the threat facing the United States right now packs how would dance is the development of explosive devices to bring down jets heading to the United States and have we disrupted any plots in their final phase is . Those are such brilliant questions but im prevented to answer them in any level of detail. Let me take a run at it and we can both agree if thats the case. Isis capacity conduct an external operations remains that i wouldnt put isis, think he started a question with isis. I wouldnt put them in a singular bucket. Aqap for a long time is that this Mission Statement which includes the taking down of a commercial airliner bound for a western country certainly amongst those in the United States. Yasseen Homeland Security take actions on security measures surrounding those in response to perceived threats. I think they were measured appropriately but make no mistake about it the intent still remains. The capability remains we worry that there is capability that we just dont see. We talk about the things that we know and i always remind everyone to remember the things that we simply may not see. Call them an intelligence failure if you will but its difficult stuff in faraway places in the capacity to put things on line and for a bombmaker in asia to learn something for my bombmaker and the sahell you never have to get on the phone or communicate is a challenge for the Intelligence Community to figure out how that Technology May have transferred. I dont want to get into the particular tools and techniques that they merit a but suffice it to say we are very focused on it and its clearly the case there are terrorists around the world that are intent upon using commercial aviation as their vector to present a threat to the west. Thats going to be it. Thank you for your time. Please join me in thanking the director. [applause]