Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Schoolteacher. We are waiting for a few more people to sit down and then we will start. Thank you for coming. As you know, a new executive order untroubled and immigration to the United States was signed. The order replaces the january 27 executive order whose implementation was halted in multiple federal courts. The new executive order is titled protecting the nation rom foreign terrorist. The new order is similar to the original but it contains revisions and clarifications. It was drafted far more carefully. The new executive order still the hands travel for 90 days for muslim majority countries but now we have only six countries. Iraq has been taken off the list. Toexpands admission programs 120 days and it still imposes a cap of 50,000 refugees for 2017 when the refugee admission programs resume. Is stalled in courts. With hearings due in may, in the fourth and the 19th Circuit Court of appeals. But the issues surrounding the executive order are not just legal of whether it is constitutional under the establishment clause of the constitution but there are also fairness. This is executive order address that National Security threat . Does it make us safer . Is is the treatment of refugees fair and just and consistent with American Values . These are just some of the issues that arise when we ponder the complications and the directives of the new executive order. We have with us today a very distinguished panel. We have alex aleinikoff, who was a former deputy high commissioner for unhcr and is now with the institution at a school. We have George Biddle, chairman of world connect and a former executive Vice President of a rescue committee. We have James Carafano of the heritage foundation, and we have danielle pletka, and we have the very knowledgeable and capable moderator, our friend, margaret warner. I turn it over to you, margaret. Margaret thank you, maureen. Thank you. Welcome to everybody am thank you to the panel for being here. As maureen said, there are a lot of legal issues, but we are not looking deeply into the legal issues here. What we are really looking at are the Security Issues, the humanitarian issue, and also, i think, the issue of americas responsibility, or do we have one, in just the World Community . And i would like to start out probably with a question to all of you. Maybe i will start out with alex. I just decided that, because this issue came up consistently in both legal cases. It was a basis for the judges overturning this, or at least blocking it. Is this a muslim ban . Alex do you want my legal conclusion . Margaret no, not legal, just do you think that is really what its aim is . Alex yes, i think the president made that very clear during the campaign. I think he repeated it in other comments, and i think it was dressed up to try to make the case that it was not, but he said he wanted to ban all muslim immigrants from the United States. And he tried to do that. He knew he could not do it by simply banning muslims, so we tried to put it into a security context. May ultimatelyit succeed is there are Security Issues here. There may be particular countries you want to scrutinize more closely because of possible security interests, but i do not see any change in the president s view on this from what he announced at the very start. The question is whether the initial taint of the first order, which the courts all concluded was there most of the courts has been purged by the rewriting in the second, so it truly is about security, and that will be an issue that the courts will have to sort out as a legal matter, but i do not think there is any doubt that the president , during the campaign, stood up and said, i, donald j. Trump, once all muslims to stop coming to the United States, and he has never backed away from that. Margaret do you think it is a muslim ban at its essence, and if so, what are the implications of that . Jay i can categorically state that it is not a muslim ban. And the reason i know that is because i worked on the president s Transition Team. I did not work on that particular executive order, but i worked on the Transition Team from the convention through the inauguration, nonprofit, nonpartisan activities, and i worked on both the foreign and domestic side. I did the foreign side, because i ran the state department Transition Team up through the election, and then from the election through the inauguration, i ran the Homeland Security Transition Team. We are not supposed to talk about what the Transition Team actually did, but if you look at what was actually produced, what came out after the inauguration, you can pretty much see what the Transition Team focused on. An antimuslim discussion. Not reflected in any actual policy. I was in the room for lots and lots of things. Religion never came up. And what you see postinauguration reflects the work of the Transition Team, not necessarily the rhetoric on the campaign trail. We can have a discussion about Campaign Rhetoric, what candidates say, and candidates say lots of things. Woodrow wilson said he was going to keep us out of world war i. Fdr said he was going to keep us out of world war ii. And actually, mr. Trump, i am pretty sure, has withdrawn the statement that he wants to ban muslims from the United States, but that is all rhetoric. If you look at the actual functional policy, it is focused on now is six particular countries, and we all know there is a lot more muslim countries than six. There has been no effort at all to do any kind of religious test of any form of immigration, so there is no reflection here. The president just had the president of egypt here, which has Something Like 90,000 muslims. And the president declared his absolute support and friendship with egypt, which is a muslim country. And the president just actually ordered an attack on a government in syria because of a heinous, genocidal attack against people who are largely muslim,. And on top of that i actually met with a number of Foreign Ministers and leaders from countries in the middle east who not only do not find the president to be antimuslim but who actually think the president s policies are good for the region, so if you actually look at the substance of the policies, it is very, very difficult to argue that somehow this is a discriminatory practice based on religion. Margaret i want to get back to that, but let me jump to George Biddle on this question. And, if you would, address the point that jim made. George well, i think i cannot speak to the reality of what was intended, but there is the perception aspect, which is real. The perception. And i think you have to look at that pretty seriously, which, as fast which, just look at it from a refugee angle. Three of the countries have some of the largest refugee populations in the world, syria, sudan, and somalia. So if youre going to put a ban on the countries as well as the overarching stop to all refugee admissions, you are sending a signal to those populations who, know, refugeeswe are fleeing persecution and for their lives for a variety of reasons. And when you implement a ban like this, it sends a signal to the mobile community, whether it is intended or not. So there is a facet of that. To a certain extent is less than who arele for those suffering, many of them happen to be in majority muslim communities. You get into the Foreign Policy aspects of this margaret first, let me go to danielle pletka. Do you think it is a muslim ban . Think it no, i do not is a muslim ban. Ban is a way we have come to think about it. It is not a muslim ban technically. But we are sort of torn here, because on the one side, and we were all chatting about this before we came down, on the one side, you have a genuine challenge that you face, which is that there are 11 million displaced people, 4. 5 million of them refugees from the conflict in syria, and so the question then becomes what do you do about this . So that is a rational foreignpolicy question. It comes down to that there are a lot of issues that you raised, correctly. Issues, theral issue of American Leadership in the world, our reputation, but there is also our security, so you can have a pretty straightforward conversation about this and try and balance the need for our security, on the one hand, and you know, donald trump has a way with words. Whether you like them or not, he has a way with them. And the expression extreme vetting is meaningful to a lot of people. Is that the right thing to do . Yes, absolutely. I do not think there is anybody who thinks there is an entitlement to come into this country for anybody. I am an immigrant. My parents were refugees. There is no entitlement there. Do you have to go through a lot of screens . Yes, because the reward at the end of that is huge. To become an american. Ok, fine. So we need to deal with that security issue. On the other hand, there is the exigency of that Global Leadership question and helping address the problem. Now, you know, at the end of the day, we can go back and forth and forth and back. What they have done and put in place i do not think rises to the level of offensiveness that the rhetoric suggested. To remind everyone, we have attended you to talk about the world as if it started with donald trump. 2013, and now i am going to get it wrong, and somebody is going to correctly, but i think the United States took in, in 2013, 36 Syrian Refugees. Something like that. It was either 36 or 34. And, by the way, the numbers in the subsequent years were, by no means, a shining, golden light around the humanity of the Obama Administration. In 2015 to 2016, it was 10,000. And the total, total number, from the beginning of the conflict, was about 80,000. So we are really talking about a drop in the bucket, and that is under the Obama Administration. It was not nobody said anything, but it did not lead. These are the issues at hand. Nobody expects that we are going to take in 4 million refugees. What is the number that is reasonable that we can take in, that is between everybody who needs it and nothing at all, and that, somehow, is the balance to be struck, and that is the intelligent conversation to be side had. Trying to play a game of gotcha, is this a muslim ban or is is not a muslim ban and by the way it does not in any way serve , the people who need so much our compassion, our humanity, our help, which is the Syrian Refugees. Margaret alex . Alex actually want to agree with this. You asked the question. Margaret i wanted to provoke the conversation. Alex youre right. There does need to be a question about humanitarian needs balanced with security. Interestingly, the courts will decide if this is a muslim ban, because if the courts find the initial language by the candidate is enough to taint it, they will declare this violation of the constitution. But as a matter of policy, it has to be balanced. I think what we need to keep in mind here is as the administration goes through its 120 day plan, they will find there was already extreme vetting in place. Asterisk geez, it is extraordinary, and the proof of that is there has never been a single terrorist attack by any refugee that has come in. Never. Except for people who came in as very young kids and were radicalized inside the country, but certainly with Syrian Refugees, no recent cases. So the vetting is working pretty well, and the vetting should be there. What i am wondering about what the Current Administration is i was thinking about this in terms of cuban refugees. We took almost one million cuban refugees over a 10year period, and we took it as a political matter because we wanted to make a statement, whatever anyone things about that long political fire that i think we are now finally over. What im wondering about why does this administration see Syrian Refugees as cubans . What what i mean is that the president has now said mr. Assad is an enemy. He has said that isis is an enemy. These are people who are fleeing isis and assad, and why arent we embracing syrians like we did with the cubans . A politicaleeing enemy. That is what i would like to see, that this administration could make that statement. Danielle the last of ministers and did not do that either. Alex i agree with you on the last administrations efforts being inadequate. I fully agree with you. They got 10,000. It was not enough. Canada, when the new Prime Minister of canada came in, he brought in 25,000 syrians in a matter of six months. So i fully agree with you on that. Margaret do you want to jump in . Jay yes, i want to just back up and explain why the administration took the course, and it actually was not related to Campaign Rhetoric at all. And i am wondering if we will have a Supreme Court precedent based on what president s say during a campaign. We will have interesting governing in the 21st century. So here is the administrations thinking and to your point refugees being terrorists, youre absolutely right. The only numbers we have, and even though those are very very small numbers, it is people who are brought here as very young kids and who were radicalized later. So that is absolutely accurate. But it kind of misses the whole point. We have, actually such a tiny , radicalized population to begin with in the United States, and terrorists in america are a small data set of terrorists, other than other terrorists. So we are actually dealing with a very, very small population. Policy tocraft any keep out the terrorists you are , being inefficient, because you cannot pick a group that is going to sufficiently define terrorists for you. But here is some of the administrations thinking. One of the things we do at heritage is keep track of terror plots against the United States since 9 11, and it keeps changing. We are like in the 94 to 95 range. Overwhelmingly, in the last three years, almost all of them have been homegrown. And that was one of the criticisms. That you do not needed because it does not reflect the threat. But that misses the point. That is not the threat the administration is looking at. Rather than looking at the present threat and being reactive the administration is , actually can have a future threat, trying to be proactive. Looking at the future, what they were concerned with is this. You have tens of thousands of foreign fighters flowing into the conflict zone during the course of conflict, and as a base for isis shrinks, the remainder of them will likely outflow somewhere, and these countries were the ones where people believe they would most likely outflow to, and of course, you have iran, who is a state sponsor of terrorism. And the question is how do you keep the people who might outflow there from getting into a refugee line or immigration status . Even though the odds of that are relatively small, because we actually have seen people do that. Not to the next state, but we get people in refugee lines into western europe and other places. So that was a concern. And the idea was we want to make sure that the vetting we have is in place and adequate and appropriate to deal with that threat. And the administration is not the only one concerned about that. European countries are very concerned about people coming from these countries, the foreign fighters. Canada is. United states is, the past administration was. The Administration Wanted to go the extra mile. Here is the logic for that and you actually saw it reflected in what happened recently in syria. The day before the president decided to do the missile strike in syria, he was being widely roundly criticized by many people, including people in the administration, because you are doing nothing on syria. Ok, so the last administration had years to come up with a viable syrian policy. We have a president in 11 weeks or so, and all of a sudden, syria is all his fault, and bad things are happening, children are dying from gassing, it is the president s fault. Kind of valid, because it is on his watch. And i think one of the concerns of the administration, a day after he became president , he was going to be responsible if something happened at home, so if you had a refugee come into the country and have a terrorist attack, everyone would say it was his top. Fault. So this was an element of Due Diligence, an effort of risk mitigation, to make sure we have it right. That is why when we talk about these bands, they are not permanent and everlasting. Which raises the question. If the original ban, taking a pause for 120 days, making sure we have it right, by the time the court is finished with this, it might all be moot. Unless extended. Margaret i am turning to George Biddle, who is ready to say something. And i know you want to say something, but let me ask you this. Arent these countries, these six, countries that do not convey, do not share the kind of information about their passenger that the United States wants to know before we accept them . Isnt that a distinction that has some validity to it . George could i just did it for one second, and i will try to breach of this. Bridge this. Couple of facts. Alex mentioned 3 million refugees coming into this country since 1980 after the refugee act was passed. No terrorist attack on american soil by a refugee during that period. Granted, risks are heightened based on the Global Situation as it exists today, but i think one of the things that is really important to bear in mind is that after 9 11, there was a twomonth hiatus where refugee processing stopped, and the bush adventures and worked very hard to up the security protocol on that, because they recognized lives were on the line. That is the thing about refugees. We have to humanize them. You cannot think of them in one bulk mass. You have to individualize. If you get to the syrian border, which i have been to several times, in lebanon, turkey, and you meet with Syrian Refugees and meet with them who have fled horrific situations, your perspective on this is altered by the reality. I think if the president went out there, he would have a different opinion. If he was moved by the Chemical Attacks and there is a parallel type of sensitivity that i think needs to be brought to bear on this issue. The other two things is the Obama Administration spent time increasing the security vetting of refugees. In their case, they did the increased security vetting as the refugee process went forward. They did not stop it. They slowed it down, and it involved 17 agencies working intensively with each other, many Intelligence Agency from cia to the fbi. There are three interviews. Two fingerprint checks. There are biometric readings. It takes, on average, about two years to get here. So the process right now is very intense. It cannot be compared to what happened in europe, where people walked across two consonance and arrived as asylum seekers. They were not processed abroad, checked out for two years, and then brought here, so you cannot compare the security risks of europe and the United States. I think what you do have to bear in mind is one half of the resettled refugee population globally on average and, alex, you can correct me on this, it has been the United States. It has been our latest demonstration of our commitment to human rights. These people and individuals are the most vulnerable globally, and we have traditionally taken in one half of the globally resettled population. Maybe under that in certain times, but around 60,000 to 80,000 out of the 160,000. So a small percentage is resettled in general. And maintaining that commitment they are often the ones most on , the line and are the most honorable. They are often women, children, people with acute medical needs, etc. That we think and posit all of these people are terrorists because you come from a region with terrorists, you have to remember that immunity is diverse. Humanity is complicated, and it is also very vulnerable. I was also frustrated with the Obama Administration. To bring refugees from syria and, and we also have the security factors and that agencies came together. We do not want to lose that momentum. The fact is a 120 dayban can lead to other delays, because then medical clearances can run out and sometimes their , lives depend on it, so i think that humanitarian context and a couple of facts are something to land on. To talk feel free about the humanitarian aspect of that, but i want to dig deeper into that. Danielle . Danielle one thing i find anonymously frustrating is when we do end up talking about refugees as you say, first of all they are not humanized. , but, second of all, we do not really recognize or seem to care very much about what their actual needs are. You know, most refugees do not actually want to come to the United States. Are obviously awesome and a norm to everybody on the face of the earth. Most people like to be where their parents are buried, where their jobs were, where they actually speak the language. 90 of refugees, i am told by people who know this issue much better than i am, actually do generally go home postconflict. But this is the word we have to look at. Postconflict. Postconflict. At the end of the day, nobody is going to take all of syrias refugees. We have got 20 of jordan that is now refugees. We have got one quarter of lebanon that is now refugees. 2. 5 million in turkey, sitting on the border. These are not solutions for these people. And this is what i find frustrating is the notion that the United States shows leadership by taking in half of the worlds refugee population. It is not leadership. It is like telling people they cannot find jobs no, no, we want to up your unemployment, and you can go on welfare, and dont forget food stamps. People do not want that as a solution. People want to live their lives, not been the object of our charity or humanity. They actually want to be their own success. We understand that. The right solution is not to focus on whether or not we are taking 10,000 more or 10,000 less or whether the canadians are because their Prime Minister is so handsome. We need to show leadership in the region, and that is where actually i am much less let down by the fact that barack obama took in more refugees from the democratic republic of congo last year than he did from syria. And much more depressed about the fact that this conflict started in 2011, and we have been sitting on our hands, and, actually, the first government that is thinking about what to do, and we have to watch this space is the trump administration. I did not think it would be them. I will tell you that flat out. But godspeed. If this is something that they are going to bring strategy to, right thing is not to focus on the muslim ban. The focus should be on the middle east. Jay there are the original challenges that are driving the global refugee crisis and how we address them, which i think is the more important issue. But just to kind of wrap up the discussion on vetting and everything, going back to the notion that this is obviously a muslim ban. I think what really is very telling is the fact that when they reissued the list, iraq was dropped from the list, and the reasons why iraq was dropped was very telling. The iraqis came back after the first list and said, dude, how do we get off of the list . And the Administration Made some demands, certainly in terms of data sharing, but also about accepting and repatriating people we throw out of the country, and the administration said, great, that is exactly what we are looking for. You are off of the list. It is unlikely other countries could do similar, because they have a lack of governance that they can make these kinds of guarantees, but the fact that you took a country off of the list, and you took it off for reasons because your security situation is met. That undermines the notion that somehow this is designed to be punitive. I think we need to get past this notion, which i think is a political debate. That this is a punitive action against muslims. Ifcan have a debate about this is the most efficacious way to deal with the issue. But we have to get over the issue that this is about partisanship and about people hating muslims. Because i do not think it is about that. It is about what is the best way to deal with the tragic situation that we have going on. Alex a couple of fact checks here. 90 of refugees do not go home. And not clear they want to go home. The real problem today is that there are ongoing refugee situations. Very few went home, and the u. S. Does not take half of the worlds refugees and never has taken half. It is 5 or 10 of the overall amount. And also, margaret, just in terms lets keep things clear. There are two Different Things that happened in the executive order. One was a van for those seven, now six, countries of all visas. And i think jim might be right. It might be moot. The other is the pause in the refugee admissions. These were separate programs, and we are talking about them together. The problem for jim here is it is not clear he is right. Not all muslim countries were selected, but to a lawyer, that i am, it seems like these were chosen because they were previously chosen by obama and congress and were put on a visa waiver program, but when you look at where terrorists have actually come from, it is not these countries, and the countries that the terrorists come from were not on the list. So the courts will have to test whether this was actually irrational, even if the defense for security was that there was that kind of rationale check. Maybe they can prove that, and the standard is very low. My guess is, by the way, the administration will win these lawsuits in the end. But there is still the question of, if this was purely security why these countries were chosen. ,the administration has never that this forward. Last point i would raise on the refugee side there is a composition about how many refugees we should take in, but president obama, finally listened to danielle, and said we have to go up. 10,000 for this current fiscal year. The executive order reduced from admission 50,000 of of refugees with no explanation, none offered. To get or begin. It cannot be the security grounds, because we are already hypothesizing that extreme vetting is taking place. So what on earth is the justification with a lack of American Leadership, why would the United States cut refugee admissions by 50 . Jim i want to respond to both of those points, because i answered the first question already pay those of the countries where the concern is, which is not just a u. S. Concern. It is widely shared throughout the west. That those are the spaces where foreign fighters are most like you to flow to and why you are worried about them flowing out of. That is why the Obama Administration focused on them. That is why European Countries focus on them. You are right. They are not the number one terrorist places. If you look at our plot list, 20 of those plots have a connection to pakistan far and away the largest. Saudi arabia . Jim well, no, but pakistan, by and large, 20 , is the foreign country that has the most commissions to plots against the United States. So why is pakistan not on the list . Because it is not appropriate. Dealing with concerns out of pakistan. The foreign fighter one is you want to make sure that the visa and refugee flows are screening those out. That was the logic. But the second point is 50,000 is the number that is in the law. And lets be honest. We can have a moral argument. But from a quantitative standpoint whether the United States takes 50,000 or 100,000, that is not going to affect global refugee flows at all or solve any refugee crisis at all. Period. Now, it might affect the cases you take, and there might be a real humanitarian argument, but from a strategic standpoint, the difference between 50,000 and 100,000 is really a drop in the bucket. And from my limited understanding, because i do not want to claim i am an expert on this, but when we were doing the transition, it was our sense that we really had a system that was designed to process about 50,000, and it was straining to get to the higher numbers. And i think the question is where do you this administration seem to say lets go with a number that is them is designed to take care of as opposed to the maximum number that we can crank through. You shake your head, but the numbers have been consistently above that. Excuse me for jumping in, but it has been consistently above. When trudeau wanted to bring and 25,000 syrians, they brought them in. We have the capability of doing that. Danielle that is really i do not have an opinion between the two of you, because i do think it is a moral argument, but i think your suggestion about this, having been on the end of this previously is manifestly untrue, actually. Anyone who has been through tsa, just take that and extrapolate to how we manage to screen refugees. We do a lucky, crap job. We do a terrible job. From soup to nuts. Because we do not know what we are looking for. The reason we have not been attacked is mostly because we are lucky, not because our screening is a rigorous. Margaret lets get george in here. I want this to be lively, by want people to hear you. I will come right back to you, danny. Sorry. I could not hear you. I apologize. Jim if youre not done, i can wait. Margaret go ahead, danny. Danielle the point i am trying to make is we should not lie to ourselves about our capabilities. So Many Political decisions. There are not 500 brilliant arabic speaking people working for the canadian government, sitting on their hands, thinking to themselves i can watch a soap opera in the afternoon or go and work for the canadian government as a refugee, and know the back story well enough not to simply speak the arab language but to ask the correct questions. Understand the nature of providence. Go through their social media. To do all of the things that need to be done. Because at the end of the day, that is not true. We do not do a great job of this. Yes, there is extreme vetting in place, but the point that you make, that this is mostly luck, is, in fact, true. Most refugees we let in are people who want to be let in because they are fleeing and they had a justified fear of persecution. But lets not pretend to ourselves that this is a situation that is anything other than a political decision. That is what i wanted to say. Things,just a couple of and i want to get jims take. When the slowdown occurred in the Obama Administration when i was working at the International Refugee committee, we had discussions with dhs officials and others, what was the likelihood of the process moving quickly, collaboration among literally 17 u. S. Government agencies to vet an individual coming into the United States. These are not flybynight agencies. We are talking about the top of the various Intelligence Groups in the United States government. So i dont think it is quite as posit,night as you might danielle. But i do agree. There is a moral aspect. It is critical in a number of fronts as we lead in multiple forums. I think there is a National Security component to this, which is even though i like even though by only taking 50,000 more refugees and putting the number back about 100,000, it may not change the refugee flows globally, because we have not seen a situation where there are over 20 million refugees. Close to 65 million displaced people in the world right now, the most since world war ii. What it does show is americas commitment to be in solidarity with many of its allies around though world who are shouldering the burden of hosting these refugees. Kenya, ethiopia, the three neighboring countries to iraq, jordan, lebanon, and turkey. We are talking millions of refugees. If we say none for us, we are not taking them, what if kenya actually went through on its threat to expel all the somalis out of the camps . What would it mean to regional stability in the horn . What would it mean for what happens inside of kenya . We know the pressure points on jordan, lebanon, and turkey right now. They are profound and intense. Not to mention the syrians who are having a difficult time for obvious reasons. The parallel is a question as well. A different element, but cuts to foreign aid can have a huge impact as well. If we expect those refugeehosting governments to maintain their commitment to reach stability and humanitarian concern, we have to make sure those governments get major support from the United States. And not just temporary relief support. Most of these crises last for years and years, and it puts huge burdens on their infrastructure. Education, water supply, the ability to maintain an economy these extra people. The u. S. Has to match that with aggressive foreign aid strategies. That is not necessarily being linked with what we are reading in the budget. We will see how that turns out. So i do think there is not just a moral aspect here. There is a critical National Security component tied to this in sending both real signals and solidarity signals to allies around the world and maintaining regional stability as a result to that. Jim well i would like to agree , with everybody. [laughter] jim i think danny is right. The decision to go from 50,000 to 100,000 is a political decision, not a humanitarian decision. The issue of betting and actually this is one of the , great ironies. This executive order gets attacked for being mean and mean spirited and everything else. And actually, the criticism from people who know the system, which is more valid, is what more can they actually do . It is not that they will do terrible, horrible, additional things. This is much ado about nothing. They will probably end up in the same space. Administration bought it, they own it. I understand why they want to put their stamp on it. We are willing to live with the negative consequence of that. Margaret can i ask you on this , transition, what was the level of concern about people who have committed terrorist attacks in france and belgium and germany who can travel here visafree, is that right . Jim see, that is where you kind of need to understand the processes. We have what is called vwp, the visa waiver program. If you are a legitimate citizen of a country that has the visa waiver thing, you can come to the United States without a visa. That sounds a lot more risky than the refugees. Well, the reality is we do a lot of data sharing with visa waiver countries. Even though you get to come here visafree, you go through esta. You fill out a whole lot of information that gets to the government, which is quite honestly substantial. It is like do i want a hammer or a saw . The answer is i want the right tool at the right time. Margaret those tools are working . Jim it depends on the country. This is the thing. It is not about the geography. Its about terrorist travel. What you want to do is focus on the terrorist and how the terrorist might be trying to get from a to b. The answer is never just cut that off. Because if you try off every way a terrorist travels, nobody can ever come to america. Because terrorists have tried to come here through every way conceivable, including shipping containers. So the answer is not making a fortress wall around america. The answer is for the different ways you can travel to the United States, having done Due Diligence to make sure you have done the right costbenefit analysis and minimize risk of that terrorist traveling. And more importantly is have you introduced multiple points to intercept that terrorist . It is always a bad idea to say we will stop in at the border. You dont pick one spot along the process. You want to have multiple interdiction points, which is one of the things if youre doing refugee screening right, it is actually a pretty tough system to get through because you have to go through multiple screening points. And if you have good data, which is one of the challenges in the countries where we dont, and you go through multiple screening points, it gets a lot harder. Other than that refugee fraud is , a big problem. We have to know was that. We have seen lots of examples of refugee fraud. It is something we have to be concerned about. But can i lob my hand grenade into this . Margaret sure. Jim here is my concern. Over and above all this. Which is there is a movement that believes human migration is a human right. That people should have the right to anywhere in the world that they want. One of my concerns is some of the vitriol against this is trying to link the refugee to this larger notion of people have a right to move anywhere in the world they want. Because in many ways, and that public, is we are starting to deflate these things. H1bs like of their refugees, and they are not i think we are losing the argument. I think what we have done and i do blame the Obama Administration partly we have done great violence to the processing of refugees because it has been politicized by both sides for their own political agendas. I think people have tried to rise up the anger against this, because they said if people accept the notion that a refugee can go anywhere, thats one step to saying anybody can go anywhere. That is destructive, because what it is doing is undermining our confidence and our commitment to the Refugee Program. We are putting a program that has real value to the United States at risk because of a partisan debate that is wrapped around it and that is unhealthy. Margaret you are not in. Alex i am agreeing with jim. Jim let me rephrase. [laughter] alex the refugee circles i travel in, this is not in terms of a Broader Campaign a free movement. I go back to my point about why accepting this cut in refugee numbers is a political statement. I think the administration has a way to make a Strong Political statement by raising them up. Even if the admission or should wants to keep its very tough policies on the southwest border im not suggesting because agree with the policies on the southwest border, but on the refugee side, you can make a shock statement to raise these numbers, because we are taking victims in. One other there is something to point, be said about refugee mobility in the following way. We could have another discussion about what to do with these longstanding places and how we can help people oversees more. One could imagine a refugee regime, where you sign the refugee convention, and once you educated and you dictated adjudicated a refugee, the refugee can move to other countries in the regime. Maybe those countries have quotas and could allow them a bit more choice than locking them in the camps. The u. S. Will say, you will take 50,000 or 100,000. But right now the situation we have is protracted situations where people are stuck in countries for asylum. And there was not an adequate system of global sharing. Here i will agree with dani. It is not the u. S. s job. We are doing more than our share. There should be dozens of other countries that should join the global system of sharing the burden. Margaret i want to go to questions from the audience. Be thinking of your questions. I think we have a roving mic. Just a final question while everyone gets ready to ask questions. What are the humanitarian lets say nothing changes. Lets say the ban is upheld. Out in the field, where jordan is full to bursting lebanon is , full to bursting. The turks are taken in millions. Is that continuing indefinitely . What happens . Danielle thats the right question. At the end of the day, the refugee conversation is about us. And what lovely people we are, and arent we better than that . No, we are not better people than that. That is a hugely selfish way to think about that. But if you want to come back to the National Security argument, which i think, fundamentally, this is, no matter how you look at it, you have to understand we cant keep up. The number of countries that are now unstable, the number of countries that into which, over the last eight to 10 years, al qaeda forget Isis Al Qaeda has spread is staggering. Lets not even talk about keeping people from those countries out. Lets not talk about whether they are generating refugees. Lets just talk about the National Security risk to us from these places. We have been talking about travel bans and the rest. We did not talk about the ban on bringing Electronic Devices on to aircraft in certain countries. Where does that come from . That comes from the fact that al qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula is trying to develop something that will take down an aircraft. And these are the countries that do not have adequate screening or we do not feel confident about enough about their screening. Now multiply those countries. ,keep talking about those countries. Forget about refugees. Lets talk about the number of countries where this is going on. Where you have governments that do not have control over the entire territory, or you have warring groups providing space. This, at the end of the day, is what happens when you ignore Foreign Policy. This is what happens when you ignore American Leadership. It is not about 50,000 or 100,000 refugees. That is not leadership. That really is just politics. This this is leadership. That is what will pose a threat to us, not the one guy who slips through the net. Margaret lets go down the line. Alex . You are an expert on refugees. What do you think are is the number of countries taking them now, is that infinitely expandable or is there a breaking point . The world has never had so many from one region. Alex this is an entirely manageable problem. I resist using the word crisis. Even in europe. Europe is a country of 500 Million People. They hit the fence when one Million People showed up. Lebanon has one million refugees in a population of 4 Million People. Europe could have handled this problem if they had done i it earlier in a measured way. There are 50 million refugees in the world. A large number. That does not include Palestinian Refugees in the population of 7 billion. That is easily manageable if you have equal responsibility sharing. Can i just go to one little point . I will be really quick. You said what happens if the ban is upheld . I want to keep separating that out. The ban applies to all visas for six countries. The major hosting countries margaret i was basically trying to say immaterial of the outcome of this. George two points. I do think there is an important symbolic as well as critical humanitarian aspect to our commitment to what we do that a resettlement level. At the end of carter years, we brought over 200,000 refugees annually. Southeast asians, russian religious minorities, dissidents, a host of people that came, including a large number of afghans, because the war had just begun there. We have, at times, when there was a need, stepped up in a big way. It sent a signal to those hosting that. In terms of the solutions being discuss,ed, obviously the refugee population has swelled the last 10 years. There are new approaches to this. Not to burden sharing but the fact is you do need Development Assistance for these societies that are hosting them. Look at them not as burdens but as potential support mechanisms for the larger society. So job creation. There are new efforts in the private sector to think about actually investing in places where there are refugees where they can be used in concert with host populations to provide a viable good. Be it manufacturing czar other things. For example call centers are , being discussed among Syrian Refugees. Obviously, that takes time. But if these crises are so cyclical and are not going to resolve themselves quickly, these populations are going to be where they are, and the Global Community needs to think creatively how to manage that, and the u. S. Has to be an active player in foreign aid and direct assistance and resettlement, as well as ways the private sector can get involved at the same time. Jim i dont think america is morally superior for taking 100,000 as opposed to 50,000. Again, i talk to a lot of foreign officials from these countries. Nobody thinks because the Administration Want to take less numbers that it will lessen our commitment. Actually on the aid front i , think these countries understand there may be cuts in foreign aid, but it will not be to these countries. At the end of the day, the administrations strategy is to get a more peaceful middle east, and you do not do that by destabilizing jordan or lebanon. Or other large refugee states. I think those are areas where admission has to invest where the administration has to invest in, because they are not stupid. They are trying to stabilize the region. People run the numbers differently. It is 1 billionsomething to take care of. People make all kinds of numbers up. Lets say is 1. 5 billion or something, to take in another 50,000 refugees a year, to sustain them. Again who knows with the right , numbers are, but people argue in can support 10 refugees the region 4 from a u. S. Perspective, i would much rather see us take that 1. 5 billion and invest it and in places like lebanon and jordan instead of taking 50,000. I think for the United States can be a better example in terms of refugees by taking more numbers. I dont think the world it makes the difference. Its what we do with our refugees. We can do a lot more in making refugees better Human Capital than in making them dependents on the government. There are a lot of best practices in that area that we do not practice, and we should practice. We should be a light for how you turn refugees into Human Capital, not just make them a burden on society. I think there is a lot the u. S. Government can do. But i just think doubling numbers is not a it. Margaret i want to turn to the audience. A question right over here. And if you would just stand and state your name. Im a student. My question is for jim. You said it is not a muslim ban, and the ban was not based on religion. So why is it in the First Executive order there was a priority given to christians . Specifically one the numbers, actually, it in the u. S. States there are about 38,000 Christian Refugees and 40,000 muslims. There is not much of a difference. So why was there a priority . Jim that is a great question. So there was this concern that the Administration Wanted to be seen as catering to the most oppressed and endangered populations in the region. And i dont think anybody argues that christian minorities in the middle east have been increasingly persecuted. And they wanted to send a signal they were concerned about that. Now, from a practical perspective, i agree it does not make a lot of sense. The way we are implementing our refugee processing is not discriminating against christian minorities. We did a big analysis on that, and i think we have firmly concluded that. Part of the reason is in many cases, they do not need to come to United States. There are a lot of support groups in the region to take care of them. In some cases, it may be they are afraid to identify themselves as christian. For whatever reason, there are not masses of Christian Refugees trying to flood the pipeline and get into the pipeline from these countries. So there is an argument that that did not need to be there, which was why in the revised they they revised ban, dropped it. Margaret right back here. And then you, sir. Next to him. Either way. Hi. My question is for alex. Margaret just identify yourself please. My name is bill, im a student here. We hear all of the time its a muslim ban. And you hear it from some professors as well, and you opened up by saying its not a muslim ban. I take the points of the rhetoric and the rollout. It was not good. But if you look at the order itself, as to them of the panelists mentioned it is pretty , clear it is not a muslim ban. All these reasons. I am kind of confused why, if perceptions matter, and obviously they do, and we acknowledge that if it was a veritable muslim ban, how bad it would be for international relations, as a recruitment tool for jihadists. My question is if you acknowledge all these things, is,bad a real muslim ban why do you insist on calling something that is not a muslim ban a muslim ban . Alex i did not talk about it. I answered a question. [laughter] i agree with danny. This is not the issue. I think the president made it a muslim ban, and he never walked that back. He put it on the agenda, not me. That is not how i talk about it. But the fact it doesnt cover all muslim countries you can discriminatory policies that target people based on race, even if not all people of that race or of people with a religion are covered. The court has to decide if there is a legal issue in their mind. To me thats not the issue on the refugee side. Jim one of the things i did in the Transition Teams work on the confirmation process for secretary kelly, who i think is a great american. An outstanding individual and absolutely the best guy to run this department. Who is largely the reason for in fomenting this. If you read his testimony with the questions and answers, he was vociferous in stating he is not antimuslim. That he is not doing this based on religion. That he would not if there was a muslim ban he said it , like 1000 times. ,if the number one guy implementing this and i dont think anyone is undermining the integrity of general kelly. If he does not see it as a muslim ban, i think it is strange to see how you can argue it is a muslim ban. Margaret danielle wanted to jump in. Danielle i just want to answer straightforwardly. The reason people persist in calling it a muslim ban is political, ande they want to imply that this is a bigoted and antimuslim administration. While i think there are people in the administration who are antimuslim who shall go unnamed and i think the president was loose with his rhetoric, at the end of the day, the reason they persist in doing so, this fight the fact it is untrue is for solely political , reasons. Margaret the gentleman right there. Im with the Bloomberg School at johns hopkins. There seems to be agreement on the panel that the decrease from 110,000 to 50,000 is political. I would like you to unpack that. What does that mean . It seems to me it is based on animus towards foreigners. The governors who, a few years ago, no Syrian Refugees in our state. The hostility towards Somali Refugees in minnesota. What do we mean . What do you mean when you say it is political . And is there any kind of moral justification for that political decision . Margaret were you addressing it to anyone in particular . Danielle yeah, thanks. I was hoping you were going to say was for them. [laughter] the short answer, this sort of this, isanswer to every number you see issued by the u. S. Government is political. I hate to tell you. The budget, how much we spend on x you can build it and make the numbers look like anything you want. Trudeau, brings in a syrian when whats his name trudeau, brings in a Syrian Refugees, it is political. When they cut the number to 50,000, it is a political choice. Do they cut it the 75,000 or 42,000 . Or maybe not 42,000, because there is a statutory number in there that is how the decision , is made. Is it animus towards foreigners . That is such a huge, huge question. Because what you see in any cyclical period, like this one, is you see there are attitudes towards other people that are wrapped up with your economic wellbeing. And that is a big part of these questions. People dont think the refugees are stealing their jobs. But they feel insecure. Antitrade attitudes are wrapped up in all of this. I think if you try to tease one out and say its because, as some have said, republicans hate foreigners, xenophobes, bigots, that kind of thing, you are not really capturing what is happening in society as a whole. But also, you are not really capturing what happens behind it. They are trying to answer a question, which is we are concerned about refugees, you are concerned about refugees, we need to have a pause. Why did you pick the number . Of 100,000. S half is that a scientific, intelligent way of doing business . It is the way we do business in the u. S. Government. Alex i think the question was getting to is the huge impact. These are 50,000 human beings. They are living in terrible conditions in these hosting states. It is not as if they are choosing between paris and new york city. The settlements the refugees are living in around syria are awful. And around the world. When people go to these places when people as if go to pick the 500 syrians people are randomly taken. , they are talking about women and children and people who are obviously vulnerable and in need. People the unhr has turned over to them, people who have been victims of torture and jails and prisons. This is not a random situation. I agree entirely with jim. I do not buy this should teach it argument 50,000 to 100,000. I think you are right. I am talking purely humanitarian. 50,000 lives that barack obama said we want to help. And this administration, for no reason except for political gain for a particular part of the party, said they are not coming in. Photo op before that . Alex it went from 50,000 to 80,000 to 110,000. It took them time to get there, but we had reached that as a consensus in this country, and it is a shame that can i take one second more . George i just want to lament one thing. The Refugee Program historically has had more bipartisan support that any program that exists in the u. S. Government. I think its a real shame it has become so politicized. I dont know whether the 50,000 figure is a political number or not, but the fact is there are plenty of people across washington and across the united intes we got a surge volunteer applications when the irc was cut. People wanted to go out and help. I think if we can get beyond that and put a human face on this and get back to basics, because the president ial determination is approved by congress. It is a joint process. There is a collective decisionmaking element involved in this. And you used to have people on two sides of the aisle. We had a dinner years ago, and we had ted kennedy and we had sam brownback. They were up there supporting , the refugee cause. One of them is no longer with us, and the other has slightly altered his reception on this, and i feel that is a shame. I think we have to get back to the bipartisan aspect of this issue. Because it relates to human beings supporting one another in a global context that is complex, and there are risks associated with it, obviously. We dont want people who want to do harm in this country to come in, but we have a system where obviously, anything can be improved, that it needs to be done in a way that doesnt harm people that have a chance to live a life in this country. Jim i agree with that. I dont need to be disrespectful, but the tenor of the question is the equivalent of prove to me you are not beating your wife. There is no evidence the implementation of any of these programs is racist or xenophobic. There is no evidence there is i can say there is no evidence in the actual information of the policy that there is anything racist or xenophobic. The problem is we have taken this issue and turned it into a political, partisan issue. We have done exactly the wrong thing with it. Instead of accusing each other of being racist, we have to get back to policymakers who are sitting down and talking about what we can practically do in concert with our interests . But we forget is we have an absolute vital interest to see ddle east be at peace and stable. Ok, its never going to turn to the land of milk and honey. I get that. We may not have lestinian state in the next 10 minutes. I get that. But generally not having wars erupt in the region were , millions of people are displaced and people are running around the stabilizing destabilizing governments, we should be against that. That is not in our interest to do that. I agree with ted. The administration is investing in bringing peace and stability to the region, which is something we should all support. We cant have an objective discussion about that if we are just sitting around saying prove to me this administration isnt racist and xenophobic. [indiscernible] i actually did into that question, sir. This administration said what is a reasonable throughput we can support and a better allocation of those dollars and using them for the refugee system . I think your argument is 50,000 is a more sustainable number. If we are going to spend the next 100 billion, we should be supporting the refugees in the region instead of trying to bring another 50,000 here. And i echo partly what all of us have said . The way to get back to the consensus that did not exist during the Obama Administration, the way to get back to a time before that perhaps is not for one side to say, if you guys could just stop being racist and then we can get back to the consensus we used to have. That is not building a consensus. Hi. Im samira daniels. This is addressed to jim. You are using the word racist in context i think may not be appropriate. But be that as it may, the issue i see is the prejudice is complex. And you know i started in 2003 myself. You need to get to the question. Im sorry. The issue is that had we not made false assumptions on certain things, i think we would not be here. Im wondering what do you foresee as a possible one or two steps in the middle east that you think would help to bring stability to the region . I mean, you know, just specifically. One, i think it is a strategy beyond taking a black flag down flag down in raqqa and mosul. We have to come to go beyond that. I think it will be a more sustained engagement in iraq. We will be engaged in a sustained way to try to help keep that country together. Obviously there will be a lot of support for the refugee populations in the region. Keeping them stabilized and safe is vital. It will be a lot of support for lebanon and jordan. Reengaging egypt. Is the largest population in the middle east. Its an important country for the United States. Egypt is an important part of the process of bringing stability to the region. And then, look, i think syria is unsolvable. I get that. Will get aucky we frozen conflict. Everyone acknowledges we cant just ignore libya, somalia and yemen. Im semihopeful about libya. A lot of people want to see libya the a success. If we can agree on what we are doing, i think its a place where we can make some real progress. I would love to see a more kind of proactive u. S. Libya policy. We also need a somali policy and a yemen policy. Kinetic. At is just so that is something i am looking for. Question . Right here. If you just wait for the mic. If you would just say your name and affiliation what your question is, we have a lot out here. Hi. Human rights first. I want to shift gears. Refugee vetting. You hear wildly different claims about the system. Some say its nonexistent and others say its extreme. Is attacking the vetting system political or a goodfaith effort . And if you disagree that the system is working, what are the improvements . What conversations are being held around that . I hear no substantial points being made as to how that could be better or how they can be improved. I am at a loss. I unfortunately dont have a security clearance to know how those agencies operate. All i know is there was a concerted effort. Im giving you what i am told by the government under the Obama Administration that the intelligence agencies wanted to continue the program, wanted it to be robust. When you have an interdepartmental effort it becomes obligated. That behindthescenes effort, citizens outside the security process dont know. We know with the system was tightened under obama significantly due to an incident in bowling green, apparently there was Great Success in agreeing on a system that was tight and more secure. Beyond that i cant answer it. Do you have to shut the whole thing down in order to improve it . I dont think you do. I think you can continue to admit Vulnerable People and know they are not terrorists. The problem with answering that question is you have to go in behind the door and he cant do that. My sense is there was some marginal improvements that can be made in terms of training and information sharing that would make the process better. You have to shut the program done to do that . I think its a largely political decision. As i stated before, i think the administrations argument is something that happens and we are responsible for it. We think the risk of keeping somebody out is balanced with the risk of somebody waiting longer. You can disagree, but thats the logic. It makes for unsatisfying public debate. Asdoesnt matter because soon as you move to a new refugee population, you reset the whole thing. You might be great at getting the iraq down cold move into au whole new area. Allhave to invent the thing over again. Somebody sitting, near you the gentleman behind the. And then take the two together. I am matt wilkes with the u. S. Congress of catholic bishops. I have a brief statement, but i really appreciate the call for bipartisan support and also for comprehensive elements of the refugee Protection System overseas. The third for sure is a root cause of migration and trying to address that. My question goes back to one you asked earlier and i was about the countries, those six countries providing information for people who want to come into the United States. I guess one of the concerns is it becomes a blanket rule that certain countries are banned would be for refugees coming from those countries. Because from some of those countries, the countries themselves are the ones persecuting the refugees. I just wonder if that can be addressed in a way and how the first part of the executive order, the 90day ban is connected to the refugee ban. It is not a permanent ban. It is a review. People share your concerns. So thats why it wasnt a permanent ban. My name is ramon and im an intern at the embassy of ecuador. Talking about syria in middle eastern refugees, latin america is also suffering from conflicts. Sir. Can you say that again . Slow down a little. We are only talking about syria and the middle eastern refugees. Because that is the topic of todays discussion. Were not going into other parts of the world. Yeah but i would like to know if they can talk about it, like mobilization of people in the Latino American area. What can we do about them . That is mostly about asylum which is a different process. It is. Asylum is different. I think the u. S. Led by secretary kelly and secretary tillerson are interested in doing more in Central America to help bring stability in Central America. That is the real solution for our borders. I think you will find this administration will be really keenly interested in engaging in Central American countries to address some of those issues. That is my guess. Do we have others . We did. Over there and then that will be the last two. Im sorry, unless you want to ask a question and we can do all three. Hi. With the voice of america. You discussed the issue of migration, danny. Migration in the refugee flow is caused by larger issues than just actual migration. And taking in the migrants is not really a leadership the u. S. Should or should not have shown. How do you think the u. S. Should address this leadership issue . Both domestically and internationally . Domestically we see whats happening with congress. Internationally things are kind of shaky as well. How exactly do you see that establishment of that leadership . I will go ahead and have everybody who wanted to ask a question, if we can just get the mic to them. Somebody over here and we can take all three together. Im a student studying conflict management here. I have two questions in and brief. The first one is for mr. James. You said time and again rhetoric does not matter and there is a need to move beyond it. I dont understand what you mean rhetoric does not matter when its coming from the president of United States. Do you mean his statements that public arehe inconsequential . People connect intellectual discussions about how to break up policies, but what goes to the general public is a message and a signal. Could you please clarify what that is . I fail to see with that conveys. Number two is to danielle. Again, there were a lot of questions about how this administration is not doing enough. You went back to how the Obama Administration did not do as much as they should have. How was the Previous Administration not doing enough . Justification for administration . If you could throw some light on that. I was wondering you talk about getting bipartisan support and is being made into a political issue is not supposed to be a political issue. One its ingrained prejudices that do exist throughout the electorate and representatives. An advisor called islam a cancer. How can we overlook this prejudice ingrained in the party . There seems to be two very similar they seem to very similar. Which is how can public rhetoric of a candidate or his advisers be separated from this discussion . Every president and every presidency has a balance of rhetoric and action. I think president ial leadership is determined more by action than rhetoric. I dont think anybody would remember fdrs speech on december 7 if the United States had not actually gone out and fought world war ii. Everybody remembers obama gave a speech in cairo. Nobody remembers what he said. The reason is because there was very little connection between that speech and action. He did little to save the arab spring, very little to bring peace and stability to the region. And so we forget the rhetoric. The challenge i see is the living hyperpartisan political environment today, which is as toxic as its ever been. If all you do is focus on the rhetoric, then you will be swept up in this hyper toxic, hypercritical, hyper angry talk. You will never see the forest for the trees. This is me personally, you can do whatever you want, i tend to ignore the rhetoric. I focus on what the government is actually doing. I dont listen necessarily to peoples criticism of what they say about politics or their attitudes towards religion, i look at what they do. With the administration is doing is trying to find a way to defuse the middle east. And lower the temperature on some of these conflicts and stabilize the population. And to be honest i think bolster many of the countries in the region against the influence of iran. I think they are right. This is one of the destabilizing influences. Terrorism. Ored they are an aggressive country despite the iran deal. I think they are one of the problems. Getting rid of isis and al qaeda and ending conflicts in pushing back in iran, that is the administrations formula for peace and stability. Can you knit that together from listening to the president s Campaign Rhetoric . No. Is that my problem . No. Im not getting into rhetoric versus action. I think rhetoric has a profound impact and thats just the reality. It paints the situation. Lets talk about refugees. You want to get beyond the rhetoric, lets talk about the good things people never seem to discuss. One thing is they are not an economic burden. They do come in at 2000 per capita assistance, but they have to be employed within three or four months to survive. They become taxpayers immediately. They are Small Business owners. We resettled a refugee called andy who started a Little Company called intel. Have you heard of it . He founded one of the most successful countries and the United States. Celebrate refugees. Dont make them out to be that people. [applause] the action rhetoric is an interesting one. I think people are responsible for the implications of their rhetoric. Tim, i think you are not hearing you think anybody who says the rhetoric has hurt my community is saying the administration is racist. There are things that opened up the door to hateful speech and hateful actions that assaults that insults them as americans. The Latino Community has been terrorized by things that in set that have been said by the administration and by their actions, quite frankly. You have to hear that and realize you cant just say lets talk about action. These are real things people are feeling in their communities. As much as we have to look back one final thing. One way to merge rhetoric with action other countries have private sponsorship of refugees. This may be an idea whose time has come. You take your 1 billion and let people bring it in. Danny . Im still trying to reconcile whether latinos in this country are proud to be here or terrorized to be here. How do you address the problem of leadership . You do take in refugees. 100,000e should take in but im not the president. Im not eligible to be president either. How do you address the problem of leadership . There are lots of different ways of showing leadership. One of the biggest the services barack obama did is the notion there are only two ways of doing Foreign Policy. We have it on his federal government that has tons of expertise that enables us to do lots of things, to both preempt the kind of dissent in the violence and also to address those issues once they become a problem. We do need to resource our budget to do that. That is a legitimate question. On rhetoric, some people should just shut up. [laughter] there are things that should not be said. There is a special burden on you when you are the president of the United States. Anyone of us who says that is not recognize that, is frankly not understanding how momentous the office is. Upset why i was always so president failed to use the power of his office to send a for people who deserved to be stood up for and the power of this country to santa for people who deserve it. Goes both ways. Some people should shut up. I dont think recognizing the manifest failure of the Previous Administration is a justification for this administration, but i think the pretense it was a paragon of virtue on any issues and not help deliver us from the rotten situation we are in now is also wrong. By the way, islamic cancer. That . Question i asked a was educated to answer. I graduated from sykes. It is wrong to say islamic cancer, and pretend it has nothing to do with muslims. One of the biggest terrorist problems we have is called islamic state. Is islamic and have the pretenses of being a state. Those are real issues. We deny the facts on the ground for me dont suggest there is an issue related to islam that everyone of our arab allies would agree with. I wanted this to be lively and it was. I wanted thank my panelists. Thank you all. [applause] [indistinct chatter]
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