Transcripts For CSPAN Former 20240705

This is a little over one hour. A little more than a decade ago, when this wasedistricted, even libraries get redistricted. At the time, this was a chairman of the House Armed Services committee. One day, the conversation with our now director we all came up with andea. What iwe created something ending at library to advance president reagans legacy. Look how far we have come. Lets try something here. Every sitting secrary of defense has spoken at thReagan National form. The Republican Administration and democratic administration. For those members of congrs. We now have dozens of corporate partners. Much more has changed. Local powehas shift back and forth. There has been some tendcy toward isolationism. Wars of unspeakable brutality have erupted in europe, the middle east while conflict looms in asia as we are today. The free world has to contend with the excess of adversaries in china, russia and iran. We have not solved everything. We dont convene for the sake of convening. We have our northstar where we look f true rength as a means of realing true people. We also look forward to the way ronald reagakept his eye on the future. 20 years and then beyond. From where we have come from, we prepared a anniversary video. Enjoy. We cannot shirk the responsibility because we are the only one that can do it. Maintaining the peace falls on us. The Reagan National defense was an idea that was born between roger and myself. We started a decade ago because there is no convening of the National Defense committee. We were at war in iraq, afghanistan, big fiscal challenges at home and other constituent pieces of the National Defense committee are operating independently. We wanted to bring l those elements together on the u. S. National defense. The Defense Community was scared. You had various branches of the military that came together. But nothing brought everybody together. There was leadership on the vilian side. Military and congress that wanted to have a platform to talk about what they were doing to prioritize. But there wasnt a home for it. It was reagans legacy. It was advancing in the 21st century. He had a tremendous amount o firepower up on stage. Great panel discussions. We had a program that was second to none. The biggest challenge was getting there. They were instrumental in making this happen. He was inviting defense leaders. I believe strongly in what reagan sd. It jussounded like a good idea. The secretary of defense, military chiefs, members of congress all dided to attend. It worked out great. We wanted to create the place where smarteople from across the industry, to talk about americas defenses. I think it has to evolve over e years to be the defense. The genesis of this goes although it back to president reagans first days in office. When hbecame president , the reality was the military was on the decline. That was the underlying principle of the first Reagan Defense form. There is one, quality. Cabinet secretaries, chairman Armed Services committees. General officers. They all were leaders. The piece through strength advanced that principle of peace through strength. Quickly have seen them evolve over the last decade. We have also expanded it to not just American Companies and american representatives but the priest. The words of the secular defense are fundamentally different. We would not have this defense form. Without leadership who prioritizes this effort. Not without the leadership of fred ryan. Without the leadership of bob cochran who left the world of capital to build this form. Present reagan had some core values. One was peace through strength. One thing they sent i was stuck with me. When given the freedom to choose, People Choose freedom. And to protect that, you have to be strong. The only way you can be strong is making sure our military is always the very best in the world. Government must opportunity tohoose between providing the common defense. Reagan saithey are one and the same. It wapresidt reagans dream that it would be a place that is not just about the past. People would have points of view about where america should be going. I think he would be veryappy to do so much of what is important to americas Defense Strategy Going Forward happens at the president ial library. Are custom is to recognize two individuals ch year with the peace through strength award. It honors those who service has strengthened our National Defense. Those who have been presented to our nations most distinguished leaders, Vice President , the secretary secretary of defense, secretary of state, members of congress. Thisear, instead of presenting this, we want to honor our path through strength recipients. Please give a warm welcome to secretary leon panetta, chairman jack reeve, congressman adam smithnd congressman mac thornberry. Thank you. Thank you. These leaders demonstrate what it means we think the future generations and we think all of you for helping us build this consequential form. Before i give up the stairs, i have one other item onhe agenda. Indulge me for a couple of minutes. This event does not happen without the super model reagan foundation. I have the honor of lead the operation. It is really inspiring to see the west coast income together to deliver this topnotch event. This is because of this amazing professional team. Who has given this form everything weve enjoyed. From the california office, spearheading the effort thank you, joanne, thank you alyssa. And from the Reagan National defense form, i will work with bob cochran. Enter chief of staff in c. You ve all done a remarkable job. Thank you. One other individual deserves special mention is david julia. David succeed and has done a masterful job filling issues lead in the alm of making this into into the future. One last applause for the entire reagan foundation. You have done a masterful job. It is my pleasure to welcome and esteemed member of the model reagan foundation. It is my pleasure to introduce the final panel of the day. Quick thank you, roger. Good evening, everyone. I would ke to thank our sponr of the session. The tremendous generosity. I had the opportunity to serve president reagan for four years. I currently serve on his foundation board. He was a legendary under printer. They played a critic role on the 1984 campans. This is is disorder gerosity he played an enormous rolin plain undersring the strength the president and misses reagan shared with him over the years. This year, we are pleased to weome back the director and secretary of defense robe obrien and Stephen Hadley. Now would like to have you join me. Thank you so much. Good evening, everybody. We are so happy to see you. A lot of these topics have been chewed over. Maybe we will come at this through a different angl jennifer griffin, great job on your panel today. Great job, she is here. And our president of fox news, jay wallace. Jay is there. Jay really spearheaded o involvemen it is awesome to be here. Maybe we can try to figure this out. David, thank you for having us back here. It was good to see you as well. Fox news has bn a part of this for seven years. I dont know if we heard north koreas heard north korea today. I know that you know, Hypersonic Missilesere all the rage. We can do this, we can catch up. I want to frame following session when you consider are coming into an Election Year as yourself where the issues of the world land within our people. We are familiar with the phrase peace through strength. I say that in two ways. You must also show the dese to use it. If necesry. That was part of the magic of oregan. They let us through a whole new generation of peace. Lets start our first topics. Did not have a seating chart. We will fight it out. You got it. As i mentioned earlier, a lot has been chewed over today. I came from this with a little bit of a different angle. Some of these are hypotheticals. We want to get an understanding of how we can move this for america. We dont know if congress will give the suppo that President Biden is adjusting. To date, ukraine has not shown the desire to reach those bases. However, what if our european powers or the United States provided the weapons to reach those bases. If you want to win the war, do you consider that to be responsible . First of all, let me congratulate reagan onhe defense. You have done a great job in these programs. If we are ever to protect our National Security, bipartisanship is solutely essential to making sure we protect america for the future. My congratulations to everybody. I think it is very important for the United States and our nato allies to continue to buy whatevers by whatever assistance is necessary. This is a war that will determine not just democracy in ukraine, it will determine democracy in the 21st century. It is very important that we do that. I think the assistance we provide to ukraine needs to be tanks, f16s. The kind of weaponry that will help ukraine to not only be able to defend itself but be able to conduct this war. I think the key we aays provided in providing these weaponis to make sure tha they will not use those weapons. I think it probably mas sense as we ntinue to provide advanced weaponry. As we contue to provide weapons of war that we make sure it is up to ukraine to decide what is necessary in order to protect themselves. Nothe United States. Ukraine has to do that. I agree with that. I guess i would have a little bit of nuance on that. What we would not want to see is ukraine provided longrange missiles and then we see the kind of atcks in russia if russias forces attack ukraine from positis in crimea or russian, they should be fair game. Ukraine is to the best of their ability have bn willing to respond. I think we should be holding back longrange missiles. If the merchant attack ukraine, ukraine will be here again. Lets have you thought about this before . If bhutto were to make the accusation inside of his country it is not ukrainian made. Is there a danger there . Of escalation . Do you already have a conclusion for yourself . Because we have been restrained for fear of prudent escalation. I think what could be said in defense of the administrations proposing to move at line. I think you been with the ukrainians have alreadyone. That is fair game. I do not believe that will escalate the conflict. I think it is also terribly important. Targeting Russian Forces in crimea. Is it reckless . I am pretty happy we got the spirit ukraine would have succeeded and they would have taken ith. They were concerned about this idea of promoting put in. The idea that we will somehow deealate is ridiculous. The polls wanted to give all this to the ukrainians. The north vietnamese shutdown a lot of american pilots. I think the idea that somehow to provoke putin this is a weak argument. It goes beyond the weapons. I compliment them on what they have done. It was ukrainian solers that did the dying. I think we should a little bit more congratulatory. Oil and gas is refundable. The russian economy is doing just fine. With the higher oil and s prices. We let the russians finish keysne. Lets get serious. Lets give them the weapons they need to defend themselves. Ok. I ha six categories. Thats one of them. Mr. Hadley, on iran. Including one that was reported just threeours ago in iraq. We have responded on a few occasions. In january of 2020, and left wh nothing happened, how far should we be to take on tehran and what you see asesponsible or reckless . The secretary of defense gave a terrific speech here. I think the standard the senate was we are going to do enough in terms of providing protection. We are going to retaliate against those of any and forces. In an appropriate way in order to deter people. This is a judgment that hes going to make. I think the real question it will be really interesting to see as the israeli people decide after they work with this terrible tragedy on this terrible attack that hamas has done two they say it is time to go back to the two state solution . Do this on another thing which is they can no longer live with revolutionary iran . They have to go to the source of the problem. That is a big idea. I think that it shall come on the tae. I think used the phrase they called ira the ring of fire. I think most importantly is with the secretary said today. If they are attacking americans ashey have been, hezbollah, the proxy forces for event have been going after u. S. Forces like in iraq and syria. Th have go in and hit tse that are responsible. I would detmine where those are comi from and we have the capability to do that. Th want to make sure they dont do it again. I would be much mo aggressive about going after those that attacked our u. S. Forces. With regards to iran in many cases, this is anssue of whether iran wants to go to war and destroy itregime. I think iran mt use proxy hezbollah, ham. That doesnmean t United States should do everything we can do to protect because i think it has been a little too selective. We had some of the targets. And make sure th understand that when they fire a miile, they are goi to die. [applause] that leaves you asking the question whetherr not the u. S. On offense . Experience not on offense and the defenses is very poor as well. With the american troops in syria anorak targeted over 80 times. The toughest part of the job that i had, and i think leon and stephen agree with me, is having to go to the dignified transfer for the remains of our fallen heroes. Thats the wot day of the job. I we had to go to walter reed an see our wounded warriors. To think we are allowing the iranians we can call hezbollah hamas proxies, but they dont do a thing without approval from the force. They are 100 percent controlled, owned and operated. To think we let the iranians attack us 80 times and weve had a couple of pinprick responses that makes the attack in sedan with the invasion of normandy, and then things that we will give the iranians even a Second Thought of attacking our forces, they do it with impunity. We have to do that, but we have to recognize the hamas attacon israel was an iranian invasion of israel. Thats a fact. Hamas wouldnt of shot a bb gun over the border without their forces. The iranians ahorized this, they supported it, celebrated it, and we had the most gruesome to call hamas and what their operators did terrorism, gives terrorists a bad name. These are serial killers. They try to exterminate jews. Its more than just a dispute between gaza and israel. This is the most severe is antisemitism in genocide weve seen against the jewish people since the Second World War that was sponsored and celebrated by iran. We are not deterring hamas, that didnt work. We are not deterring the iranians from attacking our troops every day, every hour, and we are not deterring iran and others from taking our ships and harassing us about the region. We are on offense and have a ak defense. We here at reagans library talking about piece of string there it does anybody believe in their heart that we are projecting peace through strength in the middle east right now . Do you think the iranian ayatollais saying that is a Strong America and we will change our behavior because of their conduct because they are showing strength . Thats not happening. Look, i hope its a Biden Administration that does it. I hope President Biden and vice presidt harris in secretary austin and the whole team, tony blinken, j, they change their views and adopt the Ronald Reagan version to the middle east because that would be od for the country. Its good for america to go back to what was talked about helping Ronald Reagan with his policies. It will save american lives in the lives of r war fighter but also the lives oinnocent american citizens. Out keep it with yo on the middleast, israel has designs to take out hamas, how successful they will be remains to be seen. We can suspectbased on its history, that they will go after hamas leaders for years to come. That will be either in gaza or in qatar or in syria or lebanon or wherever they are living. This is a separate issue from the palestinians in the west bank. The United States, how far should we be in assisting israel at a time when many have already predicted that the terror will will be here in the u. S. , if its not here already . We know that there is hezbollah in america and iranian operators in america. The border has been wide open. Its not a political iue, its a fact. We had catch and release. We have to assume there are terrorists her we saw what they could do on october 7 in israel and the surrounding areas. It is a brutal people. We have the Second Amendment so citizens are armed. We have great, local law enforcement. God rest god blesshe israelis who bought back. I have two daughters in the armed forcesto talk about the idea of women who fought back and killed these terrorists is hetwarming, but we have to be concerned about an attack on the homeland. Theres nouestion about it. Weave to reauthorize the collection. My fellow nel would agree with. We have to do everything we can estop attacks and we have to be prepared we are not deterring the iranians are our adversaries. We have to get back to the posture where they understand that if you hit the america in the homeland, the loss will be devastating, think twice about it. It begins with we live in a dangerous world. There are more flashpoints in the world of 2023 then there were since world war ii, the end of world war ii. We are dealing withussia, particularly in the ukraine, and trying to give them what help they need to be able to defeat putin. We are dealing with china and the threat that china represents in taiwan. We are dealing with north korea, a nuclear armecountry that threatens the pacificnd threatens the United States. We are dealing with iraand we are dealinwith terrorism. Terrorism istill very real. 9 11 happens, and the United States went to war against terrorists, as we should have. Thats what israel is doing. Theyve been attacked by terrorists, ey have every right to defend themselves and go after terrorists. We did it successfully. We went after their leadership ande got them. Took a while, but we targeted them and we got them. Terrorism has metastasized. It metastasized into isis, its mestasized into the other areas of al qaeda and into hamas. It has metastasized into hezbollah, alshabaab, there are a lot of elements of terrorism. The United States our responsibility is to defend our country from attacks. And if there are terrorist attacks or those that threaten attacks on the United States, we have every responsibility to go after those terrorists. I think if i understood your question correctly, i think we should do everything we can, in terms of intelligence, to have israel go ter has leadership. Hamas is a terrorist orgazation as defined by the United States. It would be unwohy of us to withhold that support for fear that we, ourselves, might be attacked. Weve done a lot to protect ourselves against terrori, we st connue to do so a we must be clear that if hamas decides to undertake attack and hamas leadership to take attacks against United States, it will be the most foolish decision they have ever made. What Ronald Reagan said at the time, you can run, but you cant hide. We a so concerned about eslation and whamight happen in t middle east, hamas killed 20 to 30 americans and they are holding 10 america hostage. You hear very littlebout that. I like to hear Ronald Reagan, you can run, but you cannot hide and not be talking to the israeli and they have a limited amount of time and credit left in the bank to finish the job. We havent told sil and skin ukraine that they have a little limited amount of time t beat the russians. I believe with the we need to stand with israel shoulder to shoulder until they get the job done and give them time eliminate these terrorists. Be careful about opening the door for room service because they dont forget. The reagan survey we can put up for folks here abo american support for Global Military presence. It goes exactly with what you are talking about. The middle east is iran and hamas, east asia, china, taiwan, europe, thats ukraine at 17 . On china and taiwan, this is a bit of a guessing game. I dont know how we get to the nut of it, maybe we cannot. I will frame it this way, peace through strength and are you willinto use it . Wunderstood after the invasion of iraq hodifficult it is to fight a war, win a war, control a plan and control its people. The ssians are fighting that out in ukraine as we speak. China hasnt fought a signifant war in decades. Taiwan is an island of 23 million, would you expect presidt xi to make a move on taiwan or do you believe that question has been overplayed . I think that we have been through a time where both putin and our adversaries in the world, including china, have looked at the unit states as not being as strong as we should be in dealing with threats. I think the reason putinent into ukraine as he went into crimea and did not pay price. He went into syria and did not pay price. He went into libya and did not pay a price. He conducted a bold cyber attack against the United States of america, in terms of our election systems, did not pay a price. Ultimately that convinced him that, especially after afghanistan, he had the opportunity to go into ukraine and not be challenged. I think china is the same way, he faced a weakness on the part of the United States and has gotten much more aggressive about taiwan, about the South China Sea and about building up their military capability. I do believe that the ability of the United States and our nato allies, to take a stand on ukraine draw a, support ukraine, anprovide the weapons necessary for ukraine to be able to stothe russian invasion. I think thatets a very Important Message to she and regards to president xi in gards to taiwan. The reason he has probably hesitated to go into taiwan is because henvisions the same problem happening that russia is dealing with in ukraine. Let me just say this, i know there are some in the congress who basically say, we want to stop providing aid to uaine. If we do that and putin succeeds as a result of that, imagine the message that that sends to president xi with regards to china. You cannot be tough on china in week on the raine. Youve got to be able to do both. Pplause] quest gentlemen you want to weigh in on this . Igree with leo we havto deter china fm going after taiwan. We ought to do that by defeating putins strategic objectives and invasion of ukraine and we need to do at by showing up taiwans ability to defen itself iour posture to be able to defend taiwan if necessary, military by our own prence in the region. That is the deterrence message. I think we spend too much time focusing exclusively on the big threat thatrosses the invasion. I think we u underestimate the exten to whicpresident xi has an anonymous mber of tools to put extreme pressur on taan. Cyber attacks, interference with taiwan and the mainland, going after taiwanese businesses in china. The kind of things that president xi did after Nancy Pelosis visit to taiwan, closing off the air and sea space for a time to d exercises, thereby disrupting taiwans ability to trade, ising questions abouthe reliability of the supply chain, ineasing insurance rates. Theres a myriad of tools that president xi has at his disposal to put pressure on taiwan. Need to be thinking very deliberately, what they are, what are the strategies, how can we strengthen the resilience of taiwan to deal with them, and what can we do by way of assistance . You want to focus on the big war, of course. Buwe also have to spend time figuring out if we can help taiwan to counter lesser techniques that are availae to president xi to allow him to talk with and taiwanese. I agree that its a green light for president xi and i think hes watching whats happening with ukraine very carefully. Hes not just watching the military aspec hes watching the ship sanctions and has watched russia get away scott free with their sanctions for almost two years. And he is calculating that what he things if i attempt to take taiwan, what is the Economic Impact on china. And hes not seeing a deterrence. I agree with stephen. It may not be an analogy of the sicily style of invasion, amphibious and vision of taiwan, it could be the republic of china is cut off with a blockade. Taiwan has a 12 day supply of fuel. They just closed down their last nuclear plant. If president xi wants to squeeze taiwan, and a naval blockade, theres a Political Leadership here that will escort tankers past chinese warships into taipei. And offload oil for him. That would be a major step for the president to say i want to remain bipartisan, but i think it would be very hard for some president s to say we will break the blockade. If you do tt, you are risking war. The blockade is inactive for and breaking the blockade will be an active war, thats what gives us the huge clock quantitative vantage against the chinese. Today, half of our submarine fleet is out there. Im thrilled, i think it will be a great deal, but we cant convince the australians, and half of our virginia class are tied up alongside waiting for maintenance. If we can maintain, this goes to Stephen Hadleys point about peace through strength. I used to tell my staff, i grew up on Ronald Reagan, im from california, my first local rally was in 1976. My dad took me to see Ronald Reagan. I was with reagan in 1976 and he was in 1968. Im chairman of the library. But we had a staff meeting in Stephen Hadley gave me grt advice. He was one of the first people i went to. Henry and connie and stephen gave me good advice. At the senior staff meeting i would say peace through strength works. American weakness is provocative. Senior directors will say they thought it was but it was real. Ife dont get our submarine fleet maintained and out deployed, if we dont start having Hypersonic Missile deployments, its important today as it was two years ago, if we dont start acting, we can talk all we want, we could talk about democracy and national order, ive never known anybody who wants to fight and die for the oil space for international order. Until the free world gets its act together and show strength, we wont deteour adversaries and we will end up in a blockade or some gray zone tactics of assassination of taiwanese leaders in taipei. Then we will have a very hard time responding to it. We need to get our act together. Two more topics, about 10 minutes left. I know this is l very serious stuff. Guarantee it wont end this way. I want to loo domestically. One year from now we will have gone through another national ection. Baseon todays projections, either joe biden will win a cond term or based on todays projections, donald trump will return to the oval office. The summer of 2020 was active, shall we say, in american cities. The past two months have caught many people by rprise, given the reaction in protest to israel and College Campuses and in the streets in major cities, it could be another active summer of 2024. Since you are the last person is serving a white house, what is likely to be the biggest challenge for the next president . I used to get asked, and i think youre talking about domestic challenges for the popular protest, we deal with these protests recently. I think its despicable what we have seen on College Campuses and cities. I went to celebrate jim bakers 30th anniversary in houston a couple weeks ago. Hillary clinton made one of the last public appearances. As we walked in,here were students chanting and wing palestinian flags waving, burn, israel, burn. Was the sickest thing i ever heard and it was taking a lot of willpower not to confront them. But thats what we are facing. By the way, for the protesters who are here on student visas were are here illegally, my view just got pulled because you cannot come here and advocate the burning and killing of jews and stay in america. So as far as protest goes, we have to deal with it. Antisemitism cant be the last form of acceptable discrimination that takes place in america or threatens to kill and threatens genocide, which is not just referring to territory, buteferring to killing all the jews in israel, that cannot be acceptable in any party, republican, democrat, independent. If you are involved in that and e here as a guest, your guess past should be pulled. The threats our kids and grandkids, liberty and way of life, is china. We have to focus on that like a laser. The daily threat to our troops deployed overseas is where i am. Russia is a huge threat as well. But thats trying to restore an imperial russia. Chinese uldve dominated the world and change our life and that inians nt to kill us every opportunity they get. Thosare the big challenges. What would you st . The most important responsibility for the next presidt of the United States iso unify this country. Thats the most important reonsibility. [applause] we talked about ukraine, weve talked about taiwan, weve talked about israel and other issues. On the problem now, as we speak, is that, the cnces of passing a supplemental to provide aid isel, 18 ukraine, a to taiwan, all of the countries we have taed about that are important in terms of National Security, that supplemtal is having problems. Having problems on the senate side, having problems on the house side. Because, why . Because in congress right now, theres an inability of republicans and democrats to Work Together on National Security issues. And thats critical to our security. If a president wants to deal th protests, if a president wants to deal with issues in the country, he has got to be able to have a congress that is able to Work Together in order to protect our country. That means we have to unify our country, we have red states, we have blue states, weve got divisions, weve got pink polarization in the United States of america. The me has come for a presidt to speak to both sides and say, it is ti we focus not on tearing our country apart, but on unifying our country to deal with these issues. That, unfortunately, your president hasnt unify the country, he split the country. Biden has not, unfortunately unify this country, it still split. If the nex president wants to save our democracy, the better unify this country. [applause] the only thing i would say in response to that is President Biden is my president as well. Ive had two president s recently and they are both my president. You know the guy i was talking about. [laughter] resident trump is my president and President Biden is my president. I served a different president. [laughter] what i would adventure to offer domestic political advice, carl would say, hadley, stick to foreign poly, thasomething u knowomething about bui would say thi i agree with leon, but ihink its harder than that. We spent a wonderful day here, things are of the sponsors of this wonderful forum, talking out Foreign Policy challenges. I actually think we can manage all those challenges, as daunting as they are. We talked about the kinds of policies that we need, and all the rest to do that. Ihink we have to focus on our platform here at hom i think thats the problem. If we are gog to unify the country, the are things we ed to do for the americ people. We have to show that our politicasystem can work. I would submit that weve known for decades with the problem is wi entitlements and the border, and immigration, and fiscal stability, and all the rest. Just havent been able to come up with sustainable, bipartisan policies to addresthese issues. We have to sta doing that because americans are beginning to wonder whether our democratic system works. We ar goi to unify the country, we have to uny principlesnd we will showhat our political pcess can solve problems. We have a lot of americans who feel victimized by globalization, threatened by immigration and byrait and betrayed by politicians. That has to be addressed. We have to do that by having a polical system tha produces Sustainable Solutions to National Problems that are grievances of americans. We have to have an Economic System that prides growth, but inclusive growth doesnt leave people behind. If we do that, you can begin to pull the country back together, restore a americans faith in our institutions. At does two things. On it allows you tengage in the American People to say, we are addressing our problemthat own, at home, we ve to address problems overseas because they address peace and security here at home. It also gives us the effective platform we need if we are going to implement policies overseas to deal with challenges. Thaputs us perfectly in the last category. And i come out a listen to the conversation sometimes i leave it concerned. Sometimes i leave assured. I dont know what to feel just yet, or what to think. But lets take the sunny side of the street, as a Ronald Reagan would do. What makes you still believe in america and its destiny . The reason i always remain hopeful about this country is becaus this t real strength of this country is in in wasngton, the real strength is in the amerin people, is in their resilience, their common sense, their belief anbasic values. Ats really what the strength is. Ive seen that strength in the eyes of our men and women in uniform. Ive seen ung men and women who are prepared to put eir life on the line in order to fight and die for this country. If the elected leaders of this country just had a little bit of that courage to me that stash the tough disions about governing, wed be aetter country. So the real strength of our country lies in the erican people and i trust in the ameran people and i think that , ultimately, they will ke a decision that is important for their family, iortant for their clds education, important for their job, and important for their abilityo speak freely in this country. Those are the fundamental values. We need to return to the rule of law. We need to believe in the constitution. All of those things are what gives america that fundamental strength that gives me hope for the future. What kes you still believe in american destiny . [applause] a little bit of an elaboration of what he just said. This country was founded on a better set of principles of democracy, freedom, human rights, rule of law. Was founded on the assumption, and the belief that a society based on those principles ibetter able to provide to the prosperity and security ofhe people than systems based on any other set of principles. I still believe that, ihink Ronald Reagan believe that. I think one of thats one of the reasons the american peop were drawn to him. As we talked about today, we should develop our strategies fodealing with china, dealing with russia, to dealing with the middle east and all the rest. Underlying that, we should be confident that our principles are the right one, and they will win out, and tt the authoritarian state capitalism, which is being reflected in what russia, china and iran is doing, in the end of the day, that is not the future. We should be confident in our values, our people work like the devil to he the policies needed to deal with these challenges, but we should have some underlying confidence in our system and our peoples and the principles in whicour countries face. [applause] i agr with what i said, you are nice enough to have me on the show, it certainly morning on the west coast. Often time i will go on tv, fox, cnn or the other networks and my wife always tells me, youre always a debbie downer, so no good news there. And im glad you asked that last question because at the end of the day, i believe what Ronald Reagan says, we are the last hope of mankind on planet earth. We have free markets, we have ingenuity, innovation. Theres no one here, as bad as polarization is, no one is getting an aircraft at lax and try to get out of america. People are flooding here because they want a piece of what we have. Until a way of what Ronald Reagan talked about ending the cold war. Ronald reagan said, we went, they lose. I feel that way about china, russia, and iran and north korea. We win, the dictators, tyrants, terrorist, they lose. It will be tough between now and then and we need courage of the men and women of the aed forces. We will support the families to make sure that happens. At the end of the day, we will win,he bad guys will lose and we hava glorious future ahead of us. [applause] before we take a step forward, america, before we go forward, they have to make up. Gentlemen, thank you. Stephen hadley, thank you. Ladies, and gentlemen, this concludes the 10th annual Reagan National defse forum. Please conclude to the courtyard for our closing reception. Thank you. During our break dont forget to visit the media center. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house and senate have recessed for the holidays and will be back in the new year for the stt of the second session of the 118th congress, senate convenes on january 8 in the house on january 9, both face to upcoming federal deadlines to avoid a government shutdown. The first on january 19nd the her on february 2. The subcommittees in appropriations are ready to do the work but we are awaiting the other side, the other chamber to come forward with a number that we can agree upon. Leader mcconnell and i will figure out the best way to get this done quickly. Neither mcconnell nor iant a shutdown. Follow the proess and Congress Returns on cspan network, cspan now or anytime online at cspan. Org. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. If you ever miss any of cspan coverage, you can find it anyme online at cspan. Org videos of key hearings, debates feature markershat guide you to newsworthy highlights, points of intert markers appear on the righthand side of your screen when u hit play on select videos. This timeline makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. Scroll through and spendinutes on cspans points of interest. Friday night, watch cspan 2024 campaign trail, a round up of cspans camping coverage providing a onestop shop to discover where the candidates are traveling across the country and what ty are saying the voters. This with firsthand accounts from political reporters, updated poll numbers, and campaign acts. Watch cspans 2024 campaign trail friday nights at 7 00 eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or download it as a podcast on cspan now, the free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government funded by these Television Companies and more, including cox. This syndrome is extremely rare. The friends dont have to be. When you are connected, you are not alone. Cox suppos cspan as a puic service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Former democratic congresswoman of texas hats hasied at the age of 88. She entered congress in 1990 three, becoming the rst black woman elected to any seat in dallas. During her 30 year tenure you shld she served as the head of the Congressional Black Caucus in the chair of the science, space and technology committee. In 2022 congresswoman johnson sat down with cspan to reflect on her life and career in politics. This runs about 15 minutes