Adapt to our troubled times, im glad were doing this evening for nonaspirin, i wish we were all there obviously, thank you for joining me and taking the time, congratulations to you on taking over the Hoover Institution, i hope congratulations is the right way to look at it. I cant imagine how you will squeeze in figure skating in the golfing with all of that but if anybody can, i know itll be you but thank you and nick for helping without book on james baker, you are both generous with your time and recollection to help us make there we got that right, i just wanted to throw that in there too. So im going to start off with some pretty big stuff, this is a tumultuous time in our history, here at home and around the world, big things are happening and maybe its a cliche but it feels like a hinged point and i want to get to talking about that, we remember the claddagh closely covenant when you and president bush and how you responded to the challenge, in terms of american fatalities, we are now experiencing a new 9 11 every two and half days. Others have had flareups lately but its on a different scale, i look at the numbers august 1, france had 11 deaths, australia had seven, japan had one, spain and germany had 0, we had 1244. What are we doing wrong, more portly what is the street american leaders, where is is going to lead us in terms of our place in the world, normally a leader in moments like this as we were after 9 11, how do you see is right now . Thank you for taking the time to do this, im looking forward to our conversation and im really looking forward to your book, james is one of the great figures in american diplomacy and i very much look forward to that. This is really a challenging time, some of us were old enough, i will say weve been through other challenging times, i was a child in 1968, we had two political assassinations, we had riots, we had all kinds of trouble in crisis and i think its important to look back with perspective that we survived other crises before but why is this one different, it is different because this unseen enemy, this unseen threat of the virus is so ubiquitous among the population and its very difficult for government to get control of the habits of 330 Million People, the fact is what we are asking here is because were very individualistic people, we are society that is not that easy to govern, we are actually asking individual americans to make good decisions, i think we sometimes forget, whatever organization of government that we might have, it really does come down to the responsibility of individuals making good decisions, not just the half themselves but on behalf of others. One of the things that has made it more difficult and here i do think we couldve done better in terms of National Leadership is that we have had from the Health Community and from her leadership sometimes mixed messages about what the Good Behavior auto look like. At a time like this, you dont want mixed messages. But i will tell you as somebody who has been in those circumstances under difficult times, i try not to be too hard on those who are trying to manage a circumstance like this. This has been an unfolding sto story, we did not know much about the virus of the start, many of the questions of how a pandemic would have behaved would have said children wouldve been among the most vulnerable. It turns out there among the least vulnerable. We have been learning on the j job, if you put this together, the fact that we are still learning about the virus, the fact that we are very decentralized governing structure, governors had been more important to the story and the federal government, and he looked at the mixed messages in the fact that all americans have to make good decisions, this is much tougher than anything weve ever had to manage. What do you think this is going to do in terms of our longterm, we were already seen a great debate unfolding here and around the world, globalism and isolationism in internationalism versus America First and now were seeing our country and others shutting down borders, trade is falling, travel is limited, we were talking beforehand, you nor i have traveled anywhere outside of this country in four months which would not be normal. International summits have been canceled, nationalism feels like its on a rise. When this is over or received on some level which it will, what are the longterm consequent is do you think . The longterm consequences, i hope are still in our control, let me talk about what it looks like in the short term. I dont think of everything the reader revenge of sovereignty. Let me call it that. And after 9 11, we got Greater International Cooperation on law enforcement, on intelligence cooperation, the un very early passed away to track terrorist financing, we got the Security Initiative to track suspicious cargo across borders, 90 countries participated in the ultimately. After the financial crisis in 2008 2009, the g20 met in washington in november inset guard rails about what policies might make the recession shorter and less fundamental. So they agreed that they would not have bigger trading policies. Did people break some of those roles, of course. There is a sense that the International System new that you cannot control terrorism or the financial crisis within your border. This time around, it has been my protective equipment, my travel being, my citizens, in the early stages of this crisis, it was get my citizens home, i dont care what happens two years, we will leave them on the cruise ship, just get my citizens home. Its been a very nationalist response, maybe thats to be expected when you have Something Like this that people revert to wanting the governance that is closest to them in the internationals interest to should in the International Cooperation largely. There is one exception to that, that is the Scientific Community has continued to operate in a borderless way so the sharing information, sharing data but for the most part, this has been a very national response. The question i would have, but how do we make sure overtime colum,the policy question, how e make sure Going Forward that that is not the permanent state of affairs. In other words we reinvigorate International Cooperation and that we invigorate the national institutions. And i think we have a big moment coming up with the g20 meetings in november and we will either approve International Institutions can have an important impact or we wont. If they do not have an impact, then i think were in for a long period of Just National policy. Can the world come together around issues like what would travel standards look like around the world. When we walk into an airport for an international flight, the procedures arent exactly the same but they are familiar. And they come out of the 9 11. Of trying to deal with terrorists. Is it possible to think about Something Like that that will allow people to feel comfortable traveling again, what do we do about the vaccine, if we are so fortunate and blessed to have a vaccine, we dont want it to be the hunger games in terms of every person, every country for themselves, we would like to think that a pandemic saving vaccine can be distributed on the basis of need across the borders. What are we going to do about trying to reboot a economic growth. Is there a way to do that collectively. This is going to be a big test for the International System and for its institutions but i think we need to focus right now on what kind of response can demonstrate those institutions can have a say in how we move forward. One specific institution, what about the World Health Organization, hes withdrawing us saying the captive of the chinese, it does feel like theres questions that the chinese ought to be asked about how they handle this, is that the right response, should we be leading the World Health Organization . We still have a little bit of time, there is a notification. In a period where we will continue to pay dues. Maybe there is still time, i have to tell you i think the World Health Organization needs reformed, i was National Security advisor doing sars, i dont think it actually reacted very effectively, i think it was very effective during a bullet, that was a responsive of the country doing something. It needs reformed but im personally one that believes in reforming institution and he cant really reform, i dont believe unless the United States is involved in that reform. I do think that there is a reckoning for china in the way that it dealt with the early stages of the pandemic, we also had problem during sars in the same way, we knew something was going on but we did not know what and we could not get answers. One broke test for the International SystemGoing Forward, for the next time, there will be a next time, how could we have better early warnings when something breaks out, how can we share data better, earlier so nations can get ahead of the curve because this time we now know that the chinese new even before they shut down International Travel which is kind of a problem. I do think we have a reckoning but one way to deal with that would be to go to the chinese privately, quietly and say okay, we know what you did, it was wrong, lets fix it next time. You talk about mixed messages, thick about president bush who read john barrys great book about the 1918 pandemic and he ordered the administration to think seriously with a crisis like that in our current president sent mixed messages and said this would disappear on its own, the cases would go down to 0, it was like the regular flu, the country should reopen, processors should liberate, states, you should not wear a mask until recently and tell now. Doesnt matter, seem to be the president ial leadership that matters. I wonder how we should assess the leadership. This is very hard, part of the reason is a story kept changing even from health officials. Once you tell people masks dont help, dont do it, i know they were trying to keep the focus on protective equipment for frontline workers to fully understand that, all we heard is americans was masks dont help. And then all of a sudden, everybody has to wear masks. Lets just say the mixed messages were coming out of 1600 pennsylvania, they were coming in a lot of ways. I believe personally that president s can speak too much. One of the suggestions that i wouldve made early on in this crisis was that the president speaks infrequently, he has something important to say when he speaks and he leads the Daily Briefing to doctor berkson dr. Fauci and maybe the hh secretary and so forth. Because we live in th learned te hard way, you dont want to make the president of the United States. We learn that and iraq frankly. You dont want the president to be the one who is talking about the raw data, its not a good role. So this president is singular and likes to tweet and talk every morning, i understand that. In a crisis like this, message discipline is so key and frankly president s when theyre asked something they will answer it. Even if the not quite certain what the answer should be, that is not just President Trump, that is president s. I think one of the problems in the way that this is structured is too often and commenting on everything. You might remember the mad cow disease breakout over christmas week. Import and at the time who was agriculture secretary was sent out there two or three times a day to talk about mad cow. The president said very little about mad cow, you want the president to be a reassuring figure but i dont think you want to make him an witness. We talk about internationalism inner leadership, what message are we sending right now to our allies the drawdown of the troops from germany. He said a lot of time, what message are we sending to allies around the world . I do believe, there is some truth in the idea that our posture still reflects the cold war. I remember when i became secretary, we had more Foreign Service officers in germany with 8 Million People than we had in india with a billion people. Why was that reflected, its the epicenter of the cold war. It is entirely possible, not inside the analysis but its entirely possible that its time to think about a reduction of troops in germany. But i do think that you do that, first in quiet conversation with the germans and nato about what that might look like, you decide and there is now some talk that theyre not coming back to the United States, they might go to poland given russian behavior particular towards the Baltic States and whats going on and so forth. So this may turn out to be the right thing to do but again in terms of the process, it is helpful to do it in a way that your lives feel not just consulted but a part of the decision. Probably relatively unknown, we did a major restructuring of our presence in south korea in the Bush Administration and he was talking to office of the secretary, he said we needed to rebalance, he was absolutely right, we had troops really close, that was a problem for our relations with the population, we were sitting on the most valuable land in south korea and we found when we braces question the south koreans were very much wanted us to restructure our presence there, very often you can find common ground, it just takes some time to do it and this is where i do think some of the turbulence and turnover Administration Officials is problematic. There has been a lot of people in the various key roles and i think sometimes you get things off between them. We will be taking questions from the audience soon, there is a raised hand function, dont do it yet wait till we get started but this is new for me, will figure it out, i think thisll be fun, one or two more in the mosque about things at home. We have reports that the russians may have been paying bounties or offering bounties to kill americans. And we know in my reporting there is not a complete agreement, they have Different Levels of confidence. , you are very experienced with intelligence that is not necessarily 100 and very little intelligence is 100 , should it be brought to present even if theres not 100 conclusion on this, if so what should you do even if it might not be he is talk to president putin eight or nine times, primly never addressed, how do you look at that . Whether the president should rate as a foreign leader depends on how much confidence there is in the intelligence. Here i think theres a little unfairness. Before you go to the russian president we think youre trying to kill our soldiers, you probably want to have confidence. And maybe this couldve been raised at the level of defense secretary or secretary of state or whatever when the russians but i think you want to be very careful about raising something that then later on turns out not to be true. And from your reporting, this intelligence did not seem terribly rocksolid from reading between the lines. I remember between the hierarch intelligence issues, people were saying, you had one agency that said those were not for that, you shouldve gone for the one agency. Here you have several agencies saying you dont know about this. I do think you need to be very careful in what you raise with foreign leaders about intelligence. I dont know what the intelligence really looks like, i probably would not have done at the level of the president president putin i wouldve done at a lower level and how good the intelligence was and how low the level, you dont want to be embarrassed every Intelligence Agency is a nevermind. You mentioned the rock thing, robert has an intervie book oute decision to go to i war in iraq, he looks at a granular way, very interesting book, we often think of the failure of intelligence into imagine Saddam Hussein did not have weapons, seemed inconceivable to many people, republicans and democrats. They did not have weapons, he think that the other way around that it was the opposite. Imagination rather than facts is policy and we had concluded something and try to look for the things improve what we had already assumed were true. What lessons you take from that . If we had learned that the japanese were buying large amounts of chlorine, we wouldve said they had a lot of swimming pools. But soon on hussein by the large amount of coring, but the active agent in their guests, he does it through military front companies, that piece of data looks very different. So yes the context matters, the fact that he had weapons of mass destruction, yes the fact that he tried to hide everything from inspectors in the Clinton Administration had to have it removed because they were not getting anywhere. So yes, all of that mattered to how you read pieces of data. Because as you just said in regard to the russian bounty issue, you never have something that says here we have 100 confident that this is for that, youre painting a picture and frankly after he told we did not connect the dots with 9 11, i tell you those stocks were pretty scattered too. Too not then connect the dots on a serial a person who serially sought weapons of mass destruction into dom hussein who would actually use them in war, yes, unfortunately from our point of view, the intelligence did not add up to what we thought added up to. But did we have some preconceived notion about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass instruction, of course. Anybody who dealt with Saddam Hussein with ten years since the end of the call for wouldve had preconception notion about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. Lets talk about in our own country a polarized time, a time of struggle over issues of race and justice and president trum trump i know you wrote by the way a moving book about growing up in birmingham and the bombing of the church when you were a young girl and i recommend if anybody wants to read about our own history with civil rights and jim crow, you should read about your experiences. You wrote an oped in the Washington Post or a few weeks ago, President Trump they dont think theres systemic racism and in fact are saying its about apple situation. Is there systemic racism, is it something we should conclude that there is systemic racism involved. I would like to have a better definition of systemic racism so we can address it. We have a tendency to throw terms around and we dont really know what they mean. If by that we mean that there is something in the system that is part of the explanation for the persistent, stubborn achievement gap between black students and white students, even when you patrol for economic conditions, something is in the system that is causing that, i dont actually believe that black kids are inherent gently less intelligent. So something in the system is causing that. We know that in certain neighborhoods policing looks different than it looks in other neighborhoods. And because of economic circumstances, those neighborhoods tend to be more minority than not. Is that something in the system . Yes, that is something in the system. But i think we have to break it down because im someone who believes very much that we had a birth defect, slavery was a birth defect and is the hudson impact. When i hear people say i dont want us to be colorblind, i dont care for colorblind but i would like to get to the place when you see somebody who is black, you dont have preconceived notions of what theyre capable of, who they are, by the way what they think which i think is the problem of the left, you look at somebody who is black and you think you know what they think and you know what they ought to think, i think that yes, these are issues that continue from a long history with racism and they do get builtin to systems in ways that have negative impacts. But i am not one that believes you can take on systemic racism, i dont even know how to start. I do think that you can take on the impact of an educational system for minority kid that leaves most of them behind. I think you can take that on the people might not like my answer. My answer is, lets do School Choice on a big way. Why, part of the systemic issue here is that we have an opt k1. You will move to the district where the schools are good, the houses will be extensive and the schools will be good. Fairfax county, you name it, you know where it is. If youre really wealthy, you send your kids to private school. So who is stuck in failing neighborhood schools, poor kids, mostly minority. I would say to people if you want to address this, tell me that having charter schools, having vouchers for poor parents to be able to move their kids, having interdistrict mobility within states, tell me this, that is bad, the because that is not good for the Public School system. If youre going to write the editorial, send your kids to school and thatll cost you. Dont send him there and then write the editorial. So my answer on the systemic racism, does not actually accord with the agenda that many people who claim to want to undo systemic racism have laid up. You said you wanted President Trump to speak in the language of unity in the language of empathy, i think about john lewis funeral the other day, and move so many people around the world, president bush was there and he said he believed in america where he can disagree with john lewis and reminder him and respect him and speak at his funeral. And he said i dont know john lewis he chose not to come to my inauguration. Is it really conceivable that President Trump can speak in the language of unity or have we learned that is not possible in the last four years . I have heard it speaking unity, i would like to hear more frankly and i actually thought john lewis situation was an opportunity. We all have disagreements that we try to put aside as certain point in time. I believe, i may be wrong but john lewis may not have gone to george w. Bush first inaugural either. That did not stop george w. Bush from coming to his funeral pain respect. Sometimes you need to overcome but again, part of the issue, the next president is going to do this too. President s are communicating in ways that i would never have imagined when i was National Security advisor. You did not get up in the morning and say what it is say overnight, because there was no night way to do it. So i really hoped that the president would step back, none of us should say the first thing that comes to mind. And thats what twitter has a tendency to make with all due respect to my friend jack dorsey who i know well. Thats what it tends to make us do. And i would like to hear more unifying messages. I will just take this on plot, i dont know why anybody wants to defend the confederacy and confederate monuments. I also dont know why anyone wants to tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln and slaves which is actually funded by free slaves. So this is gotten a little out of control frankly and i dont want to be the soviet union were trying to raise history but the glorification of the federal see which came after reconstruction and the response to the fact that Abraham Lincoln did not make the confederacy pay because he wanted to reunite the country quickly. This glorification of people with military bases name doctor offices who tried to destroy the country, i dont get it. Let me open it up for questions, one last question, in october 2016 use and President Trump didnt have the dignity to be president , your former colleague has recently said that said hes not fit for office, are you open to voting for President Trump or is that something you could tell us your not going to do. Lets just remember that. When i went to macon statement about american politics, you will be the first. I think you told Margaret Brennan that. Were doing alphabetically, becomes before. I assume that was going to be the answer, im going to open this up for questions, our questions will be asked by using the raise hand function located near the section bar, thats what im told, hope this is correct. And if somebody can tell me how i pick them. Do i pick them . Okay, sorry about this, im looking to see if hands are raised, i dont see where i see that. Peter, will look for the questions, im not sure people have asked them yet, why dont you continue and will get you covered. We will go a little longer why we get the questions queued up, i was curious, have you ever actually been contacted by President Trump looking for advice. Ive talked to the president on a couple of occasions, early on when he was elected and after he was elected was march of 17, im actually much more in touch with the Vice President who ive known for quite a long time and speak to him, i was on a call with the president to see how to reopen the economy but i dont know that he really had much to help with on that. But i feel that ive connections to the administration particularly in talk relatively frequently to secretary pompeo and so i am one who believes, you can overvalue your advice once you are out. Because i was in once and i know the people that are out can overvalue their advice and i tried to be when i give it. I think we have our questio questions, i think i see people asking questions. Im going to ask ambassador sanders, do a quick on that . I think that is in queue. Be with you momentarily. We have a slight lag in the ca call. Can you hear me . Yes. Hi, good to see you again. I wanted to ask you, which countries do you think today we can work the most with were the best with and why . In the south. In the south south country. I think that we have to be able to deal with all countries that are trying to do the right thing in terms of governance and in terms for providing for their people, its why i like very much the way that we went about the Millennium Challenge Corporation which incentive countries to come to us with ideas for improving governance and improving their economies, middle Income Countries were not eligible but i think we were able to even help in Getting Better loss, ill give you one interesting example, lets go to one and the compact, they had some ideas about the development but they had in their constitution or in their laws along the women could not own property or businesses in their name. So we said, that either goes or youre out of this contact competition. I think we can work with the most any country that is going to make that commitment, obviously i think the countries that are owned in mr. Or extremely important now and i worry about some of the backsliding in some of the countries of latin america and i hope we have a more active role there and of course as i said in africa we have a long history, the Bush Administration did a lot of work, there are number of countries but i would make the criteria not a named country but are you really trying to provide for your people who governed democratically. We have a question, if i pronounce that correctly, i hope i have. You should be on in a second period. Hello, madam secretary, its so good to see you and so good to hear you, i hope you can hear me. So nice to see you. This saturday august 8 marked the 12 anniversary of the russian invasion of georgia. And you played a very critical instrumental role in stopping russias advancement. Since then we saw both military and other types of populations by russia including including taking over crimea, even u. S. Elections, you name it. So all of this seems like it has origins in georgia. And now we know to at least 20. What is your advice to georgia how should the world deal with the present. Georgia, the me just say as i said to georges at the time, the International Circumstances may not be very propitious but you have to build your own country, to build on democracy and economy, you have to have the right rules and laws for Economic Development in the International System can help edit start to Good Government at home in georgian democracy had its ups and downs but it survived. I think thats a good time. When it comes to the russians, i have two parallel notions, the first is where putin needs to be deterred, you have to deter him. One of the reasons for going to move forces out of germany and move them into further east is a good idea because the truth of the matter is weve never been dependent on what the president says to deter even the soviet union, was the american soldiers who is in harms way in germany. That deterred the soviet union. I believe we can do more in nato to deter, i think we can do more to help the countries that are in russias path if you will, the ukrainians is a very important step, cooperation with the eastern, the new interest into nato, the not so new anymore, the checks and others, i think thats another way to send strong signals to the russians, we had sanctions on the russians and i largely agree with those. I want to think about the other parallel pack, eventually there will be a different russia, lot is happened almost 30 years in the collapse of the soviet union, during that period when i was a student the soviet union, they did not travel, they did not know the outside world. Now russians travel, the russian middleclass spoils the kids at mcdonalds and has a mortgage on an apartment, they want Different Things and its not clear to me that Vladimir Putin is going to make it all the way, i dont know if you been following the protest in the far east, theres a lot of anger at putin, we need to play to the long game and part of my concern, and some of the sanctions were starting to sweep up people who we ought to be cooperating within the future, im a former student is a very major player in russias effort to build a knowledgebased economy, its hard for those people to get to the United States because of the web of sanctions. We want those people to come to the United States we need more nuance encouraging those who want a different kind of russia and maybe we have to wait out Vladimir Putin but i would not take it as a given hes going to stay as long as he might want to. Both tend to be more brittle. We have a question, were running out of time, we have a question and while we put her in queue, i want to clarify under previous question on the confederacy, would you urge the president to sign the mba which requires the naming of the base. Absolutely. Absolutely because its part of the inmate aa and secondly i think about her names and a general basis. Thank you, madam secretary, even after two summits between President Trump in the extreme leader kim jongun they continue the development and the missiles to reach america, where should the United States go from here, why do you think its a approach, talk down . I actually think the administration has done as well as you can on north korea, i certainly try, everybodys trade with north koreans. I think that the first one to kim jongun turns out has been a good one from the president. I now believe that we are seeing that this is going to be a long haul, there is not good to be denuclearization in the way that we had hoped or i had hoped, thats where i think we probably need to start formulating a multilateral response, the United States can still be at the center, i have no objection to it being at the center. But you really do need a coordinated policy between south korea which has the most at stake, japan which has issues with north koreans, china which has some leverage in north korea although sometimes not as much as we attribute to it, even the russians, even though we dont agree about much, i dont think the russians want to see nuclear on north korea either. I think the multilateral approach brings the country together, its why we have the Six Party Talks because you want to keep them in mind so that north korea cannot kick off one at a time and play one side against the other. Thats whites wanting to have a multilateral approach even if you use the United States at the center which i dont quarrel with the administration about that. Okay. I think we are running out of time, i want to thank you for taking so much time with us, its a great way to kick off the forum, i think there will be a lot of great panels and discussions all day, im looking forward to any number and especially looking forward to an explication of hope, hope would not be a bad thing right now. Secretary you are saying just the indent before we go back. One word about where we are as a country, ive had a lot of people say the United States looks so broken now that weve lost respect in the world, i understand the argument. But when it comes down to it, around the racial issues, i am actually grateful for the fact that we are able as a country to address these issues in an open way that people are able to speak their minds and that people want to solve the issue, i was growing up in birmingham, alabama, black man being killed by a policeman would not have made a footnote in the newspaper. And now you have people who want to do something about that. So one piece of hope, america is always reinvesting itself and weve got a lot to live down in the past but i think we have a tremendous future and ill tell you as a university professor, this is the most public minded generation students ive ever taught and i want to say to any of the young people who are here, keep trying, democracy or get is a democracy work for, that is my hope. Thats a great way to indent, thank you for taking the time, it was great to talk to you, good luck with all your many other zoom calls, good luck to you and as you take over the Hoover Institution in just a few days