Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150321

Like equal pay, equal work, paid leave expanded child care it also good for our economy. [applause] sing is with me, people. When women succeed, america succeeds. [cheers and applause] but the most fundamental power, the most fundamental power our party and our country has is the power of our moral principles. Triangulatain is not a profile that will move our country forward. This day and each day we must be unashamed and unabashed defenders of that American Dream we share and the better choices necessary to pass it on to our kids. The dignity of every person tells us that the right to marry is not a state right. It is a human right. [applause] and when refugee children arrive on our doorstep fleeing starvation and death gangs, we do not turn them away. We act like the generous, compassionate people we have always been. [applause] the enduring symbol of our nation is not the barbedwire fence. It is the statue of liberty. This is what we believe, and this is who we are. [applause] we are americans and in god we trust. [applause] yes. You and i are proud to be members of the democratic party. And let the tea party measure their success by how many times they can shut down our government. We measure success in jobs, and opportunity for all. And let them speak for the sad yesterdays that were. We speak for the better tomorrows that can be. [applause] make no mistake about it. The American Dream is what makes america exceptional. Fear and anger never built a great nation. Our country is built by the compassionate choices that we that we make together to live lives guided by our better aingeles. We love our country. We love what our country is. And whats more, we love what our country can become. So take pride. Take pride. [applause] take pride in your work as diems democrats. Take pride in what you believe. The next time when somebody asks you after an election who you voted for, dont be shy. Tell them. I mean it. If a child asks you who you voted for, i want you to tell that child i voted for you. When you see someone sweating through another long shift and they ask you who you voted for i want you to tell them i voted for you. When you see someone with Health Insurance fantasy football now for their family who did not have it before, and they ask you who you voted for, i want you to tell them i voted for you. And when you see someone who wants nothing more than to have their family treated with dignity and respect under the law, i want you to tell them i voted for you. And when you see someone who hungers for opportunity and a good job i want you to tell them i voted for you. We are democrats for good reason. Because ours is the party of opportunity. Ours is the party of optimism. Ours is the party of the people. Ours is the party of the better future. And ours is the party of the American Dream. And together we will make that dream true again. Thank you, scott county. [cheers and applause] thanks a lot. It was fun. Thank you. That was fun. Nice people. Nice having you here. Thank you guys. You hit it out of the ballpark. Thank you. Here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the cspan networks. On cspan2s book tv, tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern, on after words, Pulitzer Prize win are historian, eric foner, and the formation of the underground railroad. Sunday night at 10 00, the rise of isis in the middle east starting at 9 00 eastern on cspan tv, auments at Abraham Lincoln symposium. And then a visit for the National Museum of health and medicine, it to view artifacts related to president lincolns assassination. Let us know what about you think about the programs you are watching. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. The house and Senate Return next week with the 2016 republican budget plans. One of the Top Priorities is increased defense spending, for more on that. We talked to a capital hill reporter. How much would they add to defense . They would both add about 40 billion to defense next year. The Senate Proposes to off set that increase by reducing defense spending later in the decade starting about 2022. The house has a different plan. The house would offset some of that increase, but it is possible that that plan will be changed and that they will remove the requirement to offset that. But this increase in the defense spending is all through this o. C. O. , this overseas contingent operations. Explain that a bit to us. Both budgets would stick with the sequester caps, the caps that are in law. That allows 523 billion of defense sticking next year. So they are sticking with these caps, but to provide more money for defense, they are using basically war fundsing, funding for the war against terrorism. They are increasing that. That funding is outside the caps. That is how they get around the caps. Cspan and the cspan networks covered the markups in the senate and house Budget Committees this week. Late in the session in the house markup, the majority leader came in to help them work out some difficulty over the defense spending. What was the issue, and how did they resolve it . Well, i am not sure they resolved it yet. The plan from house leaders was to add a couple of billion dollars more to defense spending and also to remove the requirement that the defense spending be offset. Some of the defense hawks in the house are concerned that if that money has to be offset it, it may be impossible to offset it, and then they wouldnt get it. It looks like they are looking at putting something in the rule to remove the offset requirement. You tweeted about the Supreme Court ruling, the ruling that may be ahead that the g. O. P. Wants. It could complicate the budget. How would it dough that . This is one of the interesting things about this. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in about june on this challenge to the Health Subsidies in the Affordable Care act. If the Supreme Court rules those Health Subsidies are illegal, then republicans are going to want to have a plan to temporarily replace those subsidies. One way they could pass that plan without democratic support is through the budget reconciliation process. So they wrote reconciliation instructions into these budgets which are very general and will give them the flexibility to write a replacement plan responding to the Supreme Court decision after the Supreme Court decision. More broadly, how do the senate and house plans answer the president s request for increased domestic spending . They dont. They dont. Both plans keep nondefense spending, domestic spending, at the statutory cap levels. The president proposed increasing both defense and nondefense and paying for it with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases or closing of tax breaks. The republican plans do not increase domestic spending. It seems there was a good deal of chafing over the spending caps. The appropriations chair who will rogers said he would absolutely like to see those caps lifted legislatively. Is that likely to happen . There is a good chance that could happen. I think what a lot of republicans foresee is that after these budget resolutions are passed, republicans, democrats and the president later in the year could reach greenbeckham on another budget deal similar to the one put together by paul ryan and patty murray which would actually raise the caps for defense and nondefense. And you would have to pass a law to do that. In a best case scenario, the house and senate finish their work on their budget resolutions by the end of the coming week. What is the deadline to get a final version out of congress . Well, the deadline is april 15 for the house and the senate to agree on a common budget resolution, and they are shooting to meet that deadline, but they dope have to because there is no penalty for not meeting the deadline. They could pass it after the deadline as well. Paul krawzak covers the budget for kg. Com. Thanks for the update. Thank you. The Republican National lawyers storks hosted its only policy conference yesterday in washington, d. C. Members of congress were a part of the event, including scunebrukes. We will bring you her remarks nems policied by rob portman and bob corker. The Republican National Lawyers Association held a policy conference in washington, d. C. They included indiana representative susan brooks. She is a former prosecutor. She talked about the committees work as well as some of the recent actions taking by the president regarding immigration and foreign affairs. This is 40 minutes. Let me start by welcoming our friends from cspan and noting that unlike stephan, my name is tom s edward wheeler. When the new fcc commissioner was appointed i receive a lot of congratulations. When you google my name you will get him. We have a panel with the republican commissioners. I may join them. When we talk about this program, it was important to us to discuss what we saw as a fundamental change in the relationship between the three branches of government. We are seeing that. There is a tension going on because of what this president is doing between the executive branch and the judicial branch. He is willing to bypass those branches and do it alone. As you see in the netanyahu speech. There is a tension going on. We want to address that with this program. And have the people in the midst of this speak today. Particularly, i like to do that starting with our first speaker. Our first speaker is no stranger to me. Congresswoman susan brooks. She is my congresswoman. It is an honor to introduce her. Im going to talk about introducing her by talking about someone else. For those of you who know me, my son is in the military. He is an officer in the navy. [applause] i wasnt doing that for class. Our mutual friend, my governor, mike pence, his son is being sworn in as a lieutenant in the notice states marine corps. We get it as parents of kids in the military that are risks that go along with that. The one thing when we think if god for bid something happens to our kids, what i want to know is it wasnt in vain. There was a reason for what happened. And, for me that is why it is so important that susan is also a member of the House Select Committee on benghazi. That committee, the press is playing it as a political witch hunt. That is not what it is about. It is about getting to the truth, getting answer for those parents, parents like me, what happened to their kids . Did they die in vain . That is all we are asking. We get that those things may happen. We just want to know that it wasnt in vain. For me, that is why having susan there is so great. She is the United States attorney Southern District of indiana. She knows how to get to the truth. She is not getting to the truth as part of a political witch hunt. She gets to the truth doing that for the parents. She is doing that as a trained attorney. Not somebody seeking the spotlight. A lot of you probably dont know susan yet. She served on that committee. I am confident her years as a u. S. Attorney will allow her to do what it takes to get to the truth and find out whether those people died in vain. I know for a fact that susan based on her experience as a u. S. Attorney, she is going to do everything that it takes to get to the truth even if that goes to Hillary Clintons private server. My congresswoman, my friend, susan brooks. [applause] rep. Brooks they are all leaving me. Thank you. Good morning everyone. Great to be here. I was just going to turn to my right and left, and think the Feller Hoosier the fellow hoosier, tom wheeler. And i wanted to thank randy your chair, and kim read, for hosting me this morning. I do have a quick announcement. Just because of what has happened. The executive committee has asked me to make an announcement. I know how important those are. They just wanted to me to make sure you know attendance may be taken this afternoon if you are not present because you are watching march madness. Dont worry, im kidding. If youre going to be watching the hoosiers like i might be watching them at the airport, we hope to see it at indianapolis at the final four for anyone joining us there. I do want to congratulate all of you for being a part of the 30th year, 30th anniversary as an organization, and to thank all of you for your efforts to ensure that we have fair, open and honest election process in our states. My own husband, david brooks does election laws well. Usually not at the federal level. He is involved in recounts and challenges. I know about the kind of work that you do. Certainly when i was in the Justice Department i learned of the work that you all do. It is often work that is done behind the scenes. It is often work only the candidates and their families and their teams know what you do. I just want to thank you for that work that you do to prepare our candidates, to make sure they are in the balance, and make sure we have an open and Fair Election process. It is critical to our constitutional system. I am grateful for what you do. I am not sure, are there any former u. S. Attorneys in the room . Can i see a show of hands . Outstanding. It is wonderful to have you here again. Attorney general ashcroft is going to be speaking with you today. We were with the attorney general and indiana. He was keynote speaker at an event i participated in. He is a treat. He is such a powerful speaker. You are in for truly a wonderful time listening. He is such a powerful messenger. I was proud to be on his Advisory Committee when i was a u. S. Attorney. Before i get to an overview about our work on the select committee on benghazi, i wanted to address the theme of your conference. I understand i am the only house member to be addressing you today. That is because we ended the session yesterday. As most of you may or may not know we are on the first planes out of town. To get back to be with our constituents, to be with families, to be in the district, i happen to have had an event last night. It was good fortune. When tom asked me to be here i thought this was a very Important Group to come and meet , and to talk with you about your topics, the theme of the day. I want to outline a little bit for you, touch on a few highlights of what the presidency looks like from a second term member. I am still a fairly new member of congress. However, if you are at home, you would say i am actually now part of washington establishment, so they say. Not too terribly long ago i was balancing the job, i was general counsel for our States Community college system. I was getting ready to send my son to college. Some of you may be able to do that this spring or in the fall. I had never run for office before. I had not worked on the hill. I had paid attention, and come here as the United States attorney for many meetings. I have never been a legislator. Id never served in the legislative body. But like you, i have been an attorney 30 years this year. Our first duty as a lawyer is to defend the rule of law. Im going to talk to you about the imperial presidency as a lawyer. Hopefully with facts, not too much rhetoric. And what to give you the facts and what we are dealing with. I do feel passionately about this issue. It is not what i thought it was going to be like when i got here. Like many members of congress. Both republican and democrat, we ran for office because we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to be a voice for our constituents. I have another reason to run. That is because of the time i was running, i am the mom of an 18 year old the time i was running, talking with them and a lot of their young friends young adults, high school and college kids, they truly have lost faith in our system. They had lost faith in government. I wanted to restore some faith in our government. Particularly, the faith that our young people are willing to restore for them. They certainly are our future and we always talk about them being our future. I thought something needed to be done. They shared with me and many of them did that they were tired of the gridlock in washington. They thought it was incredibly dysfunctional. They thought that we needed more bipartisanship. I talked with a lot of young people and i explained that i would give that my best shot, that i do give it my best shot. It was depressing, quite honestly, to talk with young people. If you talk with young people about what their views are of government you will find very much of the same type of opinions i found. A have given up. When i ran in 2012, it is the costimulus that had artie past. Post obamacare. When i was running in 2012, all of us, particularly those in this room, had hopes mitt romney was going to be our president. But i was going to be coming into a republican led house with a new leader in place. I knew even then that it was going to be tough. I even knew then that in order to get anything done we would have to reach across the aisle. I tell kids, there is an il in the house chamber. You do have to walk across the aisle to talk with people on the other side. People are surprised to see that. Of course, when i got to washington, the president was elected again. I was given an opportunity to work across the aisle early on. He in the Vice President push that they wanted to renew the violence against women act. That was one of my first votes that we worked on when we came into congress in 2013. For a lot of reasons there were jurisdictional reasons, some republicans were opposed to the rain and large because there was language that caused issues on jurisdiction. I wasnt one of those that necessarily agreed the most important part. I am a former deputy mayor, i had been on too many right alongs with Police Officers who were called on Domestic Violence calls. I know how serious a problem that is in the country. I felt strongly if we didnt pass the violence against women act that the republicans would be to blame. That could reverberate with Law Enforcement, with dictums groups , with many organizations. I worked hard to convince my republicans did on the bill. I changed a few minds. I was proud when it was brought up it did pass in a bipartisan way. I thought, ok, we didnt get all republicans on the bill, but i thought it was a way forward. It was a tough issue. There were tough issues to deal with. I thought it was a way to show we could govern. Over the next several months the white house really became closed off. White house legislative staff rarely reached out to members of congress. Still, rarely reaches out to individual members of Congress Unless they are in leadership. If you are not in leadership you dont get the call. We rarely get as past president s have a signed legislative folks to take different members, and to be our liaison. We may have one in name, but we rarely see or hear from the white house on any legislative matters. Most of my house colleagues have never spoken to the president in a meeting or otherwise. There are a few, or have been invited to the white house for hardly anything. I have been one time. It was incoming freshmen. Freshmen were invited to sit down with the chief of staff. To talk about syria. Other than the Holiday Party that we are all invited to, which is an important event for republicans and democrats to come together, and to be together during the holidays, it is truly the only conversation or time we see the president , which is very unfortunate. In his 2014 state of the union the resident came to congress, and on the floor of the house told us he would go it alone wherever and whenever i can take steps without legislation. In this year state of the union you probably heard despite the fact his party had been defeated in the polls, he made the same threat. I am not sure what would happen if i were ever invited to the oval office and accepted the invitation to go visit with the president , and to tell the president we were going to completely ignore him. I dont believe that that would endear us to a relationship or begin to create a relationship. Quite frankly, i was offended, and disappointed, quite frankly, the leader of our country, and the leader of someone who should be leading the house and senate, and bringing us together to work on our countrys most significant issues was telling us he was going to go it alone. We have seen that. Many colleagues, including some democrats, who have said to us privately they have had more interaction with the president and hiS Administration when they were members of statehouses and when they are in the house of representatives. In many ways while it might seem that maybe we shouldnt have a oneonone or regular dialogue with the president , if you think about it, he is not listening to us. He is not listening to our leadership. He has taken away our voice. It is not just my voice. It is not individual constituent voices. It is the voice of the 731,000 people that i represent. Most members of congress represent over 700,000 people. We have plenty of opportunities to have a voice. This is one of those places where we have a voice. We have a voice when we are at home, or when we are speaking. When you think about the white house not listening to the house, the house of representatives, he is taking away their voice. Taking away the millions of voices that quite frankly, there were nine states across the country who replaced democrat senators with republicans. Nine. Those are the voices of those states that need to be heard. One midwestern newspaper explain why the president s actions are wrong. Its editors wrote, there is no constitutional provision allowing a president to assume absolute power when he doesnt get his way. President obama points to his election as the source of his authority to act unilaterally. But, as the paper said, each member of congress won an election. The newspaper is right. The president s actions are wrong. He always points to elections as mandates. His election, and reelection was a mandate. Look at our majorities. We won the house resoundingly. We won the senate. We didnt want the house to be vetoproof, but we had mandates from those who elected us. A few of the things that i want to share with you as to how i think the president has overstepped his of 40, and ignored the house, we start with the Affordable Care act. Probably i have gotten more calls from constituents on any issue, the Affordable Care act. The white house, as you know, unilaterally change the law in ways that essentially rewrites it. Indeed, as you know, the administration has changed the law that was passed, 47 different times. In 2010, before i arrived, the democrat led Congress Passed the act on a partisan basis. They clearly stated businesses had to comply with the employer mandate by january 1 2014. Many employers cut jobs and cut hours. The white house saw what was happening, the white house moved the date back. Perhaps the law should have set up a much larger longer day. The date was specific in the law. That is not the provision the past. The provision the past was jim january of 2014. When you receive letters and calls from constituents, and we see them, the Zionsville School Corporation where tom lives wrote and told us they were forced to cut substitute teacher hours, teacher assistants for special needs kids, coaches, bus drivers, and all of these things to get under the 30 hours. They were parttime workers. One School Official said and asked whether or not the white house thought about those seventh and eighth grade basketball players, or the special needs kids, that needed those workers when it pushed through this law. That is just one little story among stories upon stories that we as members of congress all have heard and all have listened to. The challenge for us is that when the political wind shifts when the president has realized how the law is going to impact people, they have unilaterally changed it on their own. We believe that should be done through the legislative process. You all as lawyers know that better than most. If the law is wrong, if the law is not right, we need to change it. We were compelled to respond to the unilateral action. We voted to challenge his actions through a lawsuit. My first time, i hope my last. I voted for a lawsuit, and we voted the United States representatives versus burwell. It is moving with the courts. It is our duty in the u. S. House to defend the constitution. We take oath. The same oath to defend the constitution. Congress writes the loss. Write the laws. Another place for the president have exceeded authority through the rulemaking process. The house has voted multiple times, and im not going to go through all the times we have voted to overturn the white house rules. One regulation many of you have maybe heard about is the epa waters of the u. S. Rule. Sometimes referred to as wotus. It expands the federal powers of the epa. Both republicans and Many Democrats actually opposed this rule because the president said it is the biggest federal land grab we have seen to date. It literally gives the president the authority to regulate the puddles on farm fields across the country. One farmer in my district, a great farmer brought me a picture and showed me a picture of a big puddle in one of his farms, on his acres, after a flood. He said this is what the epa will need to get permits for. This is going to drain quickly. We had a spring rain. Now, they are very concerned as to how this is going to happen, and epa administrator Jenna Mccarthy apologize for her agencys failure to reach out to farmers at a National Farmers Union Conference and she said i really wish we had talked to you. Ok. They arent talking to constituents. They are talking to the people. We submitted many letters of opposition. Farmers mobilize. Shopping mall owners organize. Anyone that has a surface lot organized and wrote letters. They are not listening. I really wished they had talked to them as well. The president , this is one last area i am going to mention about overreach. This is one of the hottest issues now. The president has gone around congress when it comes to immigration. I understand his frustration with the Current System. The Current System is fro can broken. Why cant we secure our borders . Why cant we secure our borders and why cant washington get this done to start with . We need to start with that. There are other things that are wrong. We need to acknowledge that. It is up to congress to work through both sides of the aisle and figure that out. If we dont figure it out, we will be in the same place. That is what people have been saying. Signing executive orders like the president did is one part of the immigration problem, and the president sets us back. Speaker boehner share that with him. Dont do things like executive orders on immigration when we begin to have the dialogue and discussion of what parts we can fix piece by piece. So, it sends the wrong message. It said the congress i am not going to wait on you. I am not going to let you do what your constitutional duty is, to fix this. Im going to go around you. 26 states have challenge the president on what he did in his latest action. They have blocked his order. There is a victory. The president s latest action, there is an injunction and it will now be working through the courts. Not only does it send a bad signal it inflames both sides. That is what we have seen time and time again. When he signs an order, even as our leaders might want to work towards a resolution on difficult issues, the president has stepped in, has done something that inflames both sides, and pushes the body further apart. The last issue, i just want to mention, both sides were up in arms about, the president traded the taliban detainees for Sergeant Bowe bergdahl without notifying congress. Those discussions had actually earlier this year, you probably know that one of the five detainees has already reported to have returned to the battlefield with terrorists. In briefings, democrats and republicans angrily asked the administration why they did that. I will tell you, it was not a partisan issue. Both sides of the aisle were insisting to know what the president S Administration thought when they did that. How they could go around congress and not consult and talk with members of the appropriate committees before that swap was made. The u. S. Is less safe today because of this overreach. The country is less safe because of this swap. The president has taken all of these actions despite telling the American People he wouldnt do it. When i sat down to think about it, i was going to use his remarks as to how many times he said he wouldnt act like this, but frankly it would take me another halfhour to go through all of the times. You can google. There are so many times the president said to himself he wasnt going to be a king and would not write the laws himself. But i will tell that you he did when he ran in 2008, he actually said he was opposed to executive overreach very specifically but since being elected, when its politically convenient, he makes the changes through the executive action and that is exactly what he said he would not do throughout his First Campaign and even since that First Campaign. He once said democracy is hard but its right. He said, changing our laws means doing the hard work of changing minds and changing votes one by one. Now, let me tell you, from a lot of rank and file republicans, the president is not, as ive said earlier, changing our minds one by one. He is not picking up the phone or having his staff picking up the phone and trying to change our minds and trying to influence our votes. Our founders put in place the checks and balances just so this would not happen. Just so future leaders wouldnt have that temptation to grab too much power, but i think, unfortunately, president obama has forgotten that. He is on the path to grab more power and to exert that power. And but i have to tell you one place where he has, i think, given up the power, where he has abdicated power where we need Stronger Leadership is his rufusal to adhere to the red lines on syria, his refusal to meet with Prime Minister netanyahu when he came to visit us. His allowing iran to expand power in the middle east. Allowing russia to go unchecked in the ukraine. Failing to strike at isis when iraqi leaders asked for more support and now look what is happening with isis in iraq. And then the tragedy in benghazi. And the tragedy in benghazi, its obviously clear that there are too many Unanswered Questions, and aretop Unanswered Questions and im proud to be one of the seven republicans answering those questions. And there are five democrats also answering questions. Because there are still questions left to be answered. We are working hard to provide a comprehensive picture of what happened during before, during, and after the attacks and because, at the end of the day, as tom said, we need to make sure that when we have american personnel stationed in dangerous places all around the globe whether military whether our diplomatic corps we need to know we have all the plans in place possible to rescue them and to save them if they should come into harms way. We need to try to ensure that we dont have ambassadors die in the future. And that teams there to protect them and to work with them do not die in the future. So we have been working hard to that end and weve met with family members, like tom just mentioned. Weve met with family members of the deceased, of the four americans who died to see what we could learn from them. What they knew before their family members were so tragically killed. What questions they have about the incident. We didnt do this in front of the press. We didnt make it a big press event, because its not. It is something that is to horribly tragic in their lives that they are still experiencing that we wanted to honor and respect their privacy. We wanted to hear from them and ask those questions in a private setting. We are working. Were continuing. We helped classify briefings with the f. B. I. , who is overseeing obviously, the prosecution and the investigation of those who committed these crimes. We saw the Surveillance Footage of the attacks that night. We have requested rounds of sbuffles with toplevel officials at the state department who were never interviewed before. Never interviewed, not allowed, not interviewed by past committees, not that the other committees didnt ask but that they werent brought before other committees. Not interviewed by that accountability review board that the state department had within a couple of months right after the attack. Many top level officials were never interviewed so we plan to interview former chief of staff leon panetta. We plan to ask questions of National Security dwriesor susan wright and in other top officials. Were in the process of interviewing dropmatic Security Officers who were on the ground in libya for months before the attack and were were even talking to survive ayers of the attack. Many of these people have never been interviewed before. Were not doing that, again all out in the public eye because some of what theyre sharing with us is classified. Much is not clasped but eventually well bring those facts forth in a comprehensive report. Im encouraged, were getting access to new witnesses and weve obtained over 15,000 pages of documents that were never given to other committees in the past. Now, im sure youre wondering about the issue of the last couple of weeks and thats the email issue. Now, the email issue was uncovered by the select committee. And as i said in the Weekly Republican address this past week, emails regarding state department business, even if they were run through a private server at Hillary Clintons home rightfully belong to the American People. [applause] they dont belong to secretary clinton. Of course her personal emails do but not her state department emails, not her workrelated emails, not her governmentrelated e345eu8s and they dont belong to the obama administration. They belong to the American People. So in february, the state Department Revealed to us, the committee, for the first time that secretary clinton used only a personal email system during her time at the state department. Previous committees had not uncovered that. Not that they had not asked, ok work has been going on on this since 2012. Many committees did fine work and asked the state Department Many questions. At no point until then, despite extensive negotiation with the state department over the past eight months, because our committee was stood up last summer never did the state Department Reveal to us that the department was not in possession of the secretarys emails or that the secretary used only a private email to conduct agency business. Never. For all that period of time that we were negotiating with state Department Lawyers and we were talking about what we needed to move this investigation forward they never shared with us that they didnt have her emails. On march 4, the select committee issued prosecutor all of secretary clintons Communications Related to libya and then in the q a session six days later secretary clinton said she didnt want to be burdenened by two phones and that she chose not to keep thousands of emails. I worry about these deleted emails because i worry whether or not the committee had access to the information the American People deserve. I worry because it sets a very dangerous precedent for government officials. The rules should apply to all government officials, even if they dont want to be burdenened with two cell phones and as you know, many many people have two cell phones or many people use one cell phone and have two different accounts. Their. Gov account and their personal account. It happens all the time. The chairman of the Committee Representative gowdy said secretary clinton alone created this predicament but she alone does not get to determine its outcome and i think she would like that. Hes right. And in our view, secretary clinton should turn her server over to a neutral thirdparty arbiter who can adequately determine which emails were work related [applause] turn it over to a third party. The inspector general, who reports to the president , reports not to the secretary. Turn it over to a retired federal judge, but turn it over to an independent third party that i believe we could come to agreement with both parties as to who that should be, to determine which emails are work relatesed and which ones are personal. We believe its reasonable and the just thing to do. The select committee will continue to work to settle this matter and get to the bottom of what happened on september 11. Were going to work hard in the house of representatives to continue to preserve the balance of power our founders envisioned. Our constitutional system, what you all work on behalf of day in and day out is what makes this country safe and great and we must defend it at every turn and it will restore the young adults and the next generations faith in washington. We need the house to take the responsibility now more than ever. Im proud to be a part of the house that is doing that, but the president needs to give us our voice, the voice where most of us are representing over 700,000 and im hopeful that with a unified Republican House and senate, well have more of an opportunity to do so. What a perfect time for senator portman to come in as i talked about a unified Republican House and senate. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. I assume theres no time for q a. Its up to you guys. Want to take one or two . One or two . Any . We have a microphone in the back. Were waiting for our fike phone. Representative brooks i can repeat the question. Senator clinton [inaudible] she then took extra measures like the emails, supplying all of the rebel forces, good and bad rebels, we now know with heavy weapons from the taxpayers money in libya. Those same things killed our ambassador, but what about the idea that those emails and the arms shipments kind of portrayed an attitude of running her own secret wars . Representative brooks well, thank you for that question. The reason, and without getting into and the one thing that the committee has worked very, very hard to do and that is why we did not release, as soon as we found out that secretary clinton used a private email, we actually learned that several months ago but if youre conducting a thorough, fair investigation, which is what chairman gowdy and what the committee is trying to do, we are not leaking information. We are not putting information out to the public about anything that we are finding out during the investigation but i appreciate the question and we encourage questions to continue to come to us because those are the answers that we hope to provide in the expensive report when we finally get that forward. So those of all the types of questions that we are searching with answers for but with respect to what we are learning during the investigation im sorry, im not in a position to say and i think for those of you who have done longterm investigations, we have yet to have the questions of the secretary because, as you also know, in doing an investigation ive been involved in administration you dont bring in a witness for questioning until tough documents, until you it have emails and the communications upon which to ask questions from. So we have to obtain those and thats why we must have the state department and the secretarys cooperation and im sure shed like to talk to us as soon as they can. Im on a real tight schedule on cspan. Im the guy with the hook so i apologize. And thank you. [applause] thank you. Ohio senator rob portman was another speaker at the Republican National Lawyers Association policy conference. He talked about immigration, trade, and Foreign Policy. This is 20 minutes. Youre doing a heck of a job at the s. E. C. , by the way. I dont think what you were thinking on that. Its my great pleasure this morning to introduce and welcome senator portman. There are few people in this country better quipped to be a United States senator on day one than rob portman. He served for 12 years in the house of representatives. He was appointed by president bush to serve as u. S. Trade representative. A cabinet level position, responsible for implementing trade and enforcing u. S. Trade policy. Following his accomplishments at uscr. Rob was asked to serve in another cabinet post, this time as director of the office of management and budget. A deficit hawk, rob made his mark by proposing a balanced budget and putting in place new transparency measures for all federal spending in his four short years in the United States senate, rob has made a tremendous difference on countless frantz. He serve is as a member of the Senate Finance Committee Tax trade, health care financing. He serves on the energy and National Resources committee and the Budget Committee and importantly, he is chairman of the permanent subcommittee on investigations which is where i got my start at the capitol 25 years ago. Rob is a consummate professional hes a workhorse, a man of integrity and great heart. If we had 100 rob portmans in the United States senate, this country will be a lot better off. But theres only one rob portman and the people of ohio are fortunate to to claim him as their own and we are very fortunate to have rob with us today. Please help me give a warm welcome to u. S. Senator rob portman. [applause] senator portman j. C. , thanks very much. It certainly would be a lot easier to get closer in the United States senate and were having some of our difficultities there. I thank you for having me. J. C. Has been a longtime friend and i appreciate the work he does and tom, you do and others do to ensure that we have Fair Election around the country, including in my buckeye state. I appreciate the advice a lot of you have given me on policy issues and now with the p. S. I. Chairmanship helping us to work through some important investigations i was going to start off this morning by telling a couple of lawyer jokes and then i realized lawyers dont think theyre very funny and the nonlawyers in the room wont know that theyre jokes. That was a lawyers joke, ok . So let me instead talk about what you asked me to talk about today, which is the theme of this conference, which is the rise of the imperial presidency. I have a little different perspective than most of my colleagues on the hill because i have worked on both end of pennsylvania avenue and im dating myself. What j. C. Didnt say is i started my career, uh, in terms of Administration Work as associate counsel to the president in the first bush Administration Working for boyden gray, some of you know well. Ive kind of seen it from different perspectives. When you look at the history of your country, i think that what you will see is that particularly during the 20th century, the power of the presidency has grown and i think theres no question about that when you look at the arc of history but i think when youve seen in the last six years is truly extraordinary. I cant think of any time, certainly in modern times, where theres been really more of a power grab in terms of the power of the presidency and its not just that president obama has reached for some expanded authority for himself. I think hes done so in a way that really does threaten to undermine this careful balance that our founders intended in the constitution and when you look at the federalist papers, its interesting. Number 6, some of you are aware of. This is alexander hamilton, who himself was a lawyer, wrote when what he called the real character of the executive. In that nowfamous paper, among other things he discussed the take care clause of the constitution. Basically taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. He explained ha ha that as a cornerstone of the Founders Division of limited and divided government and in many ways, the chief exec offensive of our nation as president plays the most fundamental role. He is the one charged with ensuring that our laws and our constitution is honored respected, faux followed by those many thousands of Public Servants Law Enforcement personnel, executive officials who run the many arms of our government. I think this is a critical topic. Im glad youre taking it up. In my view president obama has too often failed to perform this crucial role laid out by alexander hamilton. He has not taken care that our laws are faithfully executed. In our law michigan like our daily laws, its easy to take the easy path and all of us do that from time to time, shortcuts. In the case of government, often shortsighted and illconceived and almost always leads to trouble. During this presidency when president obama has seen his policies questioned, when the road to political Common Ground has been rough or uncertain and it always is thats the way the foundest intended it. The president typically chooses an easier path and that in his case of course, is executive action. Using that famous pen and the phone. The hard road of real leadership is often not taken and i think thats what weve seen. Immigration is a great example. I think its fair to say that immigration is a divisive issue. I agree with that. Its an emotional issue. Its not easy but i also think we have a lot of Common Ground. I think people get it on both side of the aisle that our immigration system is broken. I think the American People get it. You need look no further than the recent chaos on our southern border to see whats going on in terms of the lack of a secure border. You need to look no further than whats happening with our exit examine entrance policies for viceas at a time of increased National Security dangerous to our country. This is obviously an issue we want to address. We all acknowledge that at the workplace we dont have an effective verification program, that people using false documents can get work and that continues to be a mag yet. Magnet. I guess what i would say is that the immigration system although fixing it is not easy is one where theres actually a lot of solid ground to start working on a bipartisan solution, one that secures the border and doesnt prove a streamline. I think president obama couch built on that, used that bully pull pit to create more consensus on Immigration Reform but that would have been hard. It involves engagement finding compromise, seeking consensus. It is the right thing to do because we do need to reform these laws but instead, the president with the stroke of a pen, i think essentially or peeled ode any realistic chance of us coming together, certainly this year to provide the kind of reforms that everybody acknowledges are needed. So people can disagree with whether or not the president S Immigration order was actually illegal or not. I think it is. It seems like more and more courts are agreeing with that, by the way. Whats happening with the District Court in texas and well see what the fifth circuit says but what we do know is that this has certainly created the kind of division here in washington where its going to be much tougher to come up with the decisions that are necessary. The president has used that flexibility to do something with unprecedented scope and impact. Hes not only undermind Immigration Reform but the essential balance the founders intended. The president may have great powers but through his exec 23if6 orders but by the way, that power also has an expiration date, something that is sometimes lost on the media. In this case its january 20, 2017. The president may think he can circumvent the constitution but we cant outrun and it thats the essential problem here. Its going to catch up to him and because he has been largely unwilling to work with republicans in congress, many of these accomplishments are simply going to disappear as the new president uses his pen or per her pen and phone to execute and exercise his or her own executive authority. I do think theres still time to get some things done this year and i hope that the president will see that instead of taking the easy way we should try the hard way on some important issues for our country. The two that im involved with and some of you are as well are reforming our outdated and antiquated tax code before we lose more and more American Companies and jobs and investment overseas. Its an obvious problem. It faces us every day. We recently had a farm cute cal company that was purchased by a Foreign Company. Whats interesting about that is that this Pharmaceutical Company tried to invert by going overseas. Was blocked by the Regulation Department so what happens instead, its taken over by a Foreign Company. Whats even worse is that that Foreign Company had recently inverted to canada to become a Foreign Company. Of the duesen suitors who attempted to buy this u. S. Company, 11 were foreign, one was american and that one is now in the process of inverting to the nether land. So its before our eyes. Were losing not just headquarters but jobs. And investment. And if we dont change our tax code over the next year or so under this presidency, we could wait until 2017, 2018, but we will lose more American Companies, more jocks, more investment, more opportunity. So this is one that is crying out for leadership from congress and the president to take that hard road. Its one where theres actually a lot of consensus. The second one i will mention is trade. Were sitting on the sidelines as a country while other countries continue to negotiate trailed opening agreements that gives them market share. And our work workers farmers, Service Providers are left out. This is the first president since Franklin Roosevelt not to have the authority to open markets for our workers. So the president says he wants it now, to have that authority the Congress Majority has said wed like to help the president to obtain that, not for him but for our country and for the next president as well and this is an opportunity. But it requires hard work, engagement. Consensus building. The kinds of things that constitute the hard road rather than the easy road. Im hopeful the president will take that hard road. Its too bad that the debate over up graduation reform i think is essentially more bundled over the next two years because of what i think was ultimately an overreach by this president on the executive order. But i will tell you i have hope for other policies, as ive said. But as bad as the immigration executive order is, far worse are the consequences of president obamas unilateral actions on Foreign Policy because those might have even more lasting and important effects. And im referring specifically to negotiations with iran. I think youre going to hear from some other colleagues of mine today on this topic but let me just say this the president seems to have decided to try to go it alone on iran to the point that the administration recently acknowledged that any agreement signed with iran would not be legally binding, as they say. I think thats unfortunate. I dont think longterm peace and stability can be built on those kinds of shifting sands. I think instead the president ought to work with the United States congress, ensure that this agreement is one that can supported by the representatives of the people and the United States congress. If the president wants to ensure that the agreement that he reached with iran is one that stands the test of time, i think he should do what i believe is required and that is to present it to the United States senate. Once again,ible thats what the founders intended. Lets go back to federalist paper 69. Alexander hampton wrote about the role of the senate in International Treaties he talked about the limitation on the treaty making power of the president and one that hamilton recognized as a distinction from the english monarch. He wrote the with the is to have power with the advice and power of the senate to make treatries f2 thirds of the senate concur. I can think of few negotiations where that kind of concurrence and unity of purpose is more important. Over the last 30 years, iran has thought to wage war against us. Through hezbollah it has undermind terrorist strikes murdered innocent civilians and hundreds of American Marines in lebanon. Their i. E. D. s have killed our soldiers in iraq and a. F. C. And an iranian guard who trains. And now this number one sponsor of International Terrorism the country that calls america the great satan and plans to push zrall into the sea is racing to obtain Nuclear Weapons. In its effort to stop that, the president and itS Administration should welcome all the leverage it can get. This is the kind of threat where we should be together as a country. Ive been at the table, as was mentionsed, on International Negotiations. I was the u. S. Trade representi. I had the honor of traveling the world representing our great country and sometimes those negotiations were pretty tense. There were times when talks threatened to break down, when voices grew heated, when testifiers flared. Thats what happens with International Negotiations and i know first hand the value of being able to tell negotiators, if you dont come up with a good agreement, one that is real and verifiable that actually makes goals then i cant take it back and get it approved by the United States congress because trailed agreements have to be approved by the cofpblgt that was leverage. That i was happy to have sometimes, to be able to get a better agreement. We need the same approach today. Interestingly, iranian negotiators have often cited their inability to be flexible at the bargaining table because of what they call hardliners in iran. You hear them say that. And our own administration has acknowledged that by saying they have to be sensitive to that concern at the bargaining table. How ironic that we are allowing the iranians to have that leverage if we dont use that same leverage ourselves to get the kind of agreement that can withstand the test of time. I would expect our administration to use the United States congress in that same way. So look, the president may have stopped our chances at real Immigration Reform over the next couple of years but i do think on iran, thats theres time for him to change course. He should recognize that sanctions can be used as both a carrot and a stick. It was lifting sanctions that got the iranians to the table. These or sanctions that congress insisted on. And its up to congress often that insists on taking this harder line on sanctions and president s often put those sanctions in place reluctantly. Lifting them brought iranians to the table at the first place. The threat of reimposing them can keep them at the table. This is why i support the kirkmenendez legislation that would reenact sanctions in a deal is not reached or if iran violates the terms of the agreement. Oriental must know were serious and were negotiating from a position of strength. This legislation in my view, kirkmenendez, would give the president more leverage again, to be able to find a good agreement. Second the president should insist that the final agreement be fully binding on the iranians and on the United States of america. That means submitting it to the senate for approval. You support the Nuclear Agreement act. Doing so would enable the president and his negotiators to insist that the final goal is ensuring that iran never possesses a Nuclear Weapon. Some have asked me when i go home whether i would prefer no agreement to a bad agreement. My answer is neither is acceptable. Because both would lead the iranians toward a Nuclear Weapon. Avoiding that outcome is the single most Important International challenge perhaps that we face anywhere today. We must not allow our eagerness in for any agreement to outweigh or willingness to hold out for the right agreement. I hope all of us recognize an acceptable groment with iran as a seminole accomplishment by obama during his term. But it must realize its goals and be binding with real consequences. I believe we can get there. It isnt going to be easy. Its the harmed road and were going to have to Work Together to accomplish it and i suppose that thought that we should be working together is the final thought i have on this issue of the imperial presidency youre talking about today. Yes, the president and the presidency carries with it tremendous power. But it is as ephemeral as it is at the present timing to abuse. The great president s in the history of our country did not abuse that power. They didnt make their mark on america by engaging in pitched ideological battles with their political adversaries. They didnt go do it with pence and in recent times, tell phones. They did it working with the congress and built successful legacies doing that. Theres a desk in the oval office called the resolute desk. Thats where the pen is and thats where the phone is. Its a really impressive desk but thats not where president s forge their most lasting accomplishments. They do it at the bargaining table, working with the executive branch. Good luck with your conference and thank you for having me here today. [applause] more now on Foreign Policy with bob corker. He spoke about the russiaukraine conflict. Corker. We spoke about the russiaukraine conflict. Nuclear glorks with iran and the u. S. Strategy for combating isis. This is 35 minutes. Turks tom. And it is my great privilege to entrust my senator this morning. A great tennessee congressman Davey Crockett once adopted as his slogan first be sure youre right then go ahead and i think that could apply to Bob Koch Corker because thats the way he approaches the issues. Checks his facts, thinks seriously about the underlying problems and doesnt act until hes convinced hes on the right path. Senator corker, ive had the privilege of watching senator corker move through the political process and he lived out the American Dream. He started with a pickup truck and 8,000 and formed a Construction Company that became a multimillion dollar business operating in 18 states. He then became commissioner of finance for the state of tennessee where he astounded the members of the legislature with his breathtaking candor and transparency. Apparently theyre easily astounded or apparently transparency and candor are a rare thing in finance. He was elected mayor of chattanooga where he presided over an incredible revitalization of that citys urban core and he was elected to the wave election of 2006, becoming a sole member of the republican freshman class of that year. He was reelected last cycle with 65 of the vote in tennessee. He is now [applause] he now represents us as the chairman of the Senate Foreign relations academy. Ladies and gentlemen, bob corker. [applause] john, thank you, and thank you for your longtime friendship i guess since 1994 and thank you for all of you do for our state and for your continued sound judgment. Ill thrilled to you be all of yall today. I spent most of my life in business and even if you are republican attorneys, i still get a little nervous around attorneys but i thank you for what you do on behalf of our country, to make sure we have fair and free election. I heard a little bit of the panel before i stepped to the podium and enjoyed that thank you. What id like to do this morning and just make a few opening comments and then id mutch rather hear from you relative to your questions about Foreign Policy or whatever else you want to talk about. John how long am i supposed to be here . Ok. Let me just start by saying that i came to the United States senate having been a person who built Shopping Centers around the country. Over time acquired real estate and did some development, loved my community with a was very involved civicically from a young age so edged up being mayor of our city really as a civic endeavor. It wasnt something that had anything to do with politics at all. Bill frist came down and recruited me to run for the seat he was occupying at the time. When he was leaving i had zero Foreign Policy experience. I had done some recruiting on behalf of our state and city where i went to japan or some place like that working on the liar trying to lure jobs on to our community but seriously, i had zero background in that regard. I was a business guy, spent almost no time in life on history. Since that time i came on the Foreign Relation Committee really just to broaden myself, to make myself a better senator. I camped on the committee very quickly realized how important it was to our nation and certainly to the world that the United States sleeled. Now i think ive been to 64 countries, many of them over and over and over. All of you understand in life you spend 80 of your time on the problems 25 on the other things so constantly ive been in the middle east and other places. I will tell that you without u. S. Leadership the world just isnt as good a place as it should be. It just isnt and you know, being u. S. Leadership does not mean, as some people sort of create these strawmen. It doesnt mean necessarily being the worlds policeman but being the leader of this world as we are and establishing, playing that role and actually leading is very, very important. Ill make a few comments about the last few years and my disappointment in that regard. We to me, one of the most disappointing moments in my service on the Foreign Relation Committee and here in the senate for the last eight years and three months was during that trial frame at the end of august and the beginning of september 2013 when the president s red line had been crossed and whether he should have said it or not he said it and in my opinion as a republican and as a democratic president that was something that needed to be backed. Aside from the fact that what assad was doing in iraq was totally wrong. We had planned a 10hour roughly military operation. And the Senate Foreign Relations Committee authorized it on a bipartisan basis. The president turned away from that effort and i really do i just want to tell you, to me that was the worst moment in the eight years that ive been here relative to our u. S. Credibility and our ability to demonstrate the leadership that i was referring to. It was a moment in time when the free Syrian Opposition had some momentum and had we gone ahead and conducted that 10hour operation we could have been could have enhanced that momentum and really pushed asod assad back. We have we could have shown that we were standing with them. Instead what we showed, we showed that very quickly we were willing to jump into putins lap, which is what we did. I know that sounds very personal active but its what we did. Putin gave us an out relative to the chemical weapons and i think putin learned a great deal from that. Remember, our ambassador, ambassador ford in syria was cheering on this opposition in the beginning, cheering them on and in their time of need we were not there. Later we were going to train and equip the freesyrian rebels, send them trucks. We didnt do any of those things. We left them hanging. Ive gotten to the point now seriously, i dont want to go back to the refugee camps in turkey or jordan because when im there i have to look people in the eye that i know we let down as a nation. Again, i think putin learned from that and when it came to ukraine remember, ukraine is a place where back in 1994 having been part of the soviet union had 1,240 nuclear warheads. We entered into an agreement with them that we would, you know respect their territorial sovereignty. So did russia, so did u. K. With the budapest memorandum. They gave them up and do you think russia would have invaded ukraine today had they had 1,240 warheads . I dont think so. But we also cheered ukraine on. We were the ones that urged them to come west and here again in their time of need do you know today that we still do not ukraine with crimea being gone with russian soldiers clearly being on their territory. Russian artillery and equipment. We still today do not provide them with operational intelligence. Realtime intelligence about where russians are in their own country. We still today have been unwilling, even though unanimously, the United States senate and the house, we passed a bill to provide them defensive legal support. We still today have been unwilling to do that. So you can understand why people in congress on both side of the aisle are very concerned about this negotiation with iran. Very concerned about where we might be going. And on a bipartisan basis, i know there was some discussion about what congress can do prior to me coming to the podium. Weve created a piece of legislation that basically says congress has the right to review the iranian deal prior to the congressly mandated sanctions being lifted. Since youre attorneys in the room and since you understand things like this in great detail, there are three sets of sanctions right now that we have against iran. There are the u. N. Security counsel sanctions and i know we have a lot of article two people in this room. Even though the title as i understand this is the imperial presidency. Understand that republicans have always sort of deferred to the administration to the executive branch for Foreign Policy issues. I agree with some of the speakers that on the other Hand Congress has its appropriate roam. Well administrations have negotiated the u. N. Security Council Sanctions and its my bleach that the administration does have the ability on your own accord to deal with those sanctions. The executive branching also has their own executive sanctions that they put in place against iran and i believe obviously they have the right to dole deal with those as they choose. On the other hand, there are congressly mandated sanctions that congress put in place. As a matter of fact, Congress Puts them in place with the administration in essence kicking and screaming all along the way, saying that somehow or another this was going to be damaging with our relationship with iran. I think most of you would believe that its those sinks that actually brought iran to the table. So i crafted a piece of legislation with significant bipartisan support which basically says if the administration comes to a final deal were by the way, the final deal would not happen until the end of june. Thats when you have all the details and annexes. We would just ask them to let that agreement lay before us for 60 days. Let us read all the classified annexes. Let us have the classified briefings that we would need to have and then let congress on the congressly mandated sanctions, the one we put in place. Have the right to either approve, disapprove or take no action. Now, if i was the white house i would embrace that. I would say i Want Congress to be with me. I want this agreement to stand the test of time. As a matter of fact, i would say instead of all this back and forth that youre seeing right now, if they said look, we agree. We agree that since you brought them to the table and since you proved provided us with a National Security waiver that we thought they would use, i think you know they plan to suspend those sanctions until way beyond the time theyre in office. So were saying we would like to be able to weigh in theyre pushing back some of my senator fans. Many of them are being lobbied heavily but the administration. Again, i look at this and say this is nasty in fact, the kind of role that congress routh ought to play especially on the mandated sanctions that we put in place. I believe, in spite of some of the drama that weve had over the last two weeks internally. I believe ultimately we will have a vetoproof majority to make that happen and to the previous speakers, i believe thats exactly the kind of role that Congress Needs to play. I want to close with this. I really do believe that we have an opportunity in congress especially in the United States senate, to move ourselves more closely to the place that people originally thought congress was going to play in our governance system. I have to say bob menendez, who has been the democratic leader, was chairman up until we won this last election. Hes done an outstanding job, in my opinion of elevating the Foreign Relation Committee. Im trying to build on that. I believe the Foreign Relation Committee in the senate has been the place, if you, will through decades, where respect has been given because of the sober, thoughtful way that we went about our business and i just want to tell you its a huge, huge privilege. I was at an event last week and with a lot of my old friends from college and you know how those things go. It was a lot of fun. Im glad there were no tweets. But they kept coming up to me. They kept coming up to me and saying thank you. Thank you so much. For what you do. They heard all weekend the things that were going back and forth between the white house and other senators and they just kept coming up and saying thank you. And i want to say to all of you and especially to john and linda and those from tennessee thank you. What a privilege it is to serve in the United States senate. To find myself after eight years and three months as chairman of the Foreign Relation Committee. And all i can say to all of you who put so much time and effort into making sure theres big isty in what we as a Republican Party do across our country, i wake up every day trying to make those kinds of decisions and conduct myself in a manner that will cause the respect that should be shown to the Foreign Relations committee but also to the United States in general to be there and to cause our citizens to have faith in the system that each of you wakes up each day and tries to defend so thank you and i look forward to your questions. [applause] thank you jim bob from indiana this president has been notorious in recent years in their willingness to enforce only those laws that they actually agreed with and not enforce those that they disagreed with. And it would be apparent that the legislation legislation that youre pursuing, as meritorious as it is, may very well fall into that category so even if it were passed and even if it were passed over the vote of the president , he can be expected regretfully, to not enforce those that he simply doesnt agree with. What do you think congresss role then is in making sure that the president actually obeys the law . Senator corker yeah, so first of all, i dont want to get i dont want to be counting our chickens before they hatch. My first job is to have a successful mark up and to get 67 votes and to get the house to pass it. This is something that theres time to make happen. Final deal again will not occur until at least the end of june. My guest is that this week, one of the reasons we moved our markup back until the first part of april, im pretty sure the administration, theyre already sending out signals is going to say we really didnt meanwhile march 24th, we meant the end of march. We have work to do but look, i cannot calculate our actions based on them not ware carrying out the laws that we create. We have to create the laws. As far as what we do on a host of issues, one of the things our base, if you will, to use a term thats thrown around here a lot. They expect us to somehow, if the president doesnt do things that we believe lawfully should be doing, they expect us to do things on the senate floor to affect that and especially when were in the minority thats quite a problem. If you raise an issue on the senate floor especially being in the minority that says we disapprove of this action and then were voted down because there are more democrats than republicans, you basically have built a case for them doing it. Theyll say the senate was on our side. So we had that problem. Now, of course, we can vote again look, the real way of dealing with this is through the court system, right . So you find an aggrieved party some place in the country, you figure out a way to support that aggrieved party, wherever they are in the country. You cause a case to come up through the system, which is exactly whats happening right now on the health care bill, right . Its actually whats happening right now on the immigration issue and its slow and its very unsatisfactory to the base, but theres really no other way to deal with it. If you have a suggestion, tell me but its that old, slow rule of law way that you deal with things. Its not very satisfying to the American People but it works. If you have some suggestion id love to hear it. Apparently you dont. Senator i have a client and friend who recently toured the kurdish areas of iraq and has come back to say that theyre in desperate need of arms so this can defend helps from i issues. Do you think thats going to move forward within the senate . Senator corker i was just in kurdistan with the president. Theyre wonderful friends of the United States. Have been from the very beginning and lets face it, theyre the people right now on the ground that we can most depend upon. When the oil field of occur kirk were taken and the iraqi army fled it was the pa pressure measuringia that peshmurga that came in and took it back. They now control a big part of the oil that used to be iraqys. Were going to debate over that. I dont think its quite as bad as this gentleman laid out, just for what its worth. They come see us often and when they came to see me here in washington, i was pretty upset about the delivery schedule of arms and equipment to them. As ive gotten there on the ground dealing with generals that i know well, ok. And generals who i know have an affinity towards talking to guys like me and telling us the truth, i dont think its quite as bad as people say it is. I think the deliveries are going into baghdad there were stories it was taking a month or so for that equipment to get to kurdistan. Im its not that way at all. Theres a movement to over time supply them directly. My guess is that will be the case. I will say we have to be a little concerned about things getting out of balance. When i say getting out of balance i think we still want iraq to be one country and a big part of our friends, the kurds, lobbying for the things that theyre lobbying for is they potentially could be building a case for separation, as you well know, which is problematic on the turkish side too. We have to be pretty judicious and thoughtful about the way we go about this ill Say Something a little more provocative, though. I stayed in our billiondollar embassy there because its the only place you can stay thats safe and i met with a body who certainly is a breath of fresh air from maliki, who was so terrible as a Prime Minister. By the way maliki was a Prime Minister that we helped put in place. We need to be honest about that. He was a terrible Prime Minister but every single thing that we are doing right now in iraq, everything is to irans benefit. Everything. And its and i support obviously what were doing to try to route isis out but every day we wake up in iraq with our 3,1 4, 3,100 folks that are there. Were making the country a better place for iran. The parliament is infiltrated. Salamani is truly a celebrity. Hes out with the shiah misha. Theyre doing the things theyre going to push out against isis. Its a pretty sad thing to know of all the limbs that arer that were dismemberered, the lives that were lost, people today that are dealing with the psychological issues they are. The huge amounts of treasury that were spent. Its sad to be there today and to understand that were again doing things that need to be done but were making the country every single day a better place for iran. Yes . Mr. Chairman, how can foreign states in our union turn red like tennessee . We need some good counsel here. Senator corker im sorry, what did you say . Tennessee is a wonderful red state. What can other states do to [inaudible] senator corker yeah. I dont that is more in your line of work. That is more in your line of work. [laughter] look, i think its i will get back to my line of work. I think for us to continue to be successful, we have to show that we can legislate responsibly and conduct ourselves in an appropriate way. To cause other states that may today be blue, to make them turn purple and red, it is our responsibility as people who are elected into positions of great responsibility in some cases to carry ourselves that causes the nation to look to us in a manner that says goodbye to that says they would like to have more people like us. As far as states turning in that direction, i will leave it to all of you who want a daily basis are a lot more involved than i am. Senator, ann gruner from virginia. Im wondering if you could shed any insight into the administrations refusal to provide weapons to the ukrainians. Im going to say this one more time. We passed a bill to do that unanimously in the senate. Unanimously. I think that that first of all first of all, i wake up every day not with the thought that im going to get a piece of hide of thiS Administration. I dont. That is not my thought. My thought is they act differently. They think differently, but the executive branch, lets face it, carries out Foreign Policy. What can i do to move in a positive direction . I dont say this to throw out names, but i talked yesterday with the Vice President. I talked yesterday with their secretary of state who is in the midst of negotiations taking place in europe. My point is i try to work with i them. I understand they are in charge today. Im disappointed often. Every now and then i have to send an email to the chief of staff, who i deal with a great deal, and just say you guys are just so hard to help. They just are. To your question, i think this president has never ever been comfortable being commanderinchief. Hes just not comfortable. I know the decisions you make as commanderinchief are heavy and more complicated than meets the eye. Theres a lot of things going on in the background. He has made decision memo after decision memo after decision memo sitting on the desk. I know they are there. I know they are there. And he just cannot bring himself to do it. In his mind and a few people around him, youve got to understand, his body of advisors is very small. It is not the people that the that have the titles you , understand. Very small group of people. What they have been concerned about since day one is if they take actions like that, you will cause russia to move ahead more forcefully when its just the opposite. It is psychology. By the way, thereve been some stories about how theyve been embarrassed that putin continues to do what they do because they keep talking nicely to him. [laughter] but it is just silly. They have such difficulties, such difficulties number one making a decision. And when they make a decision, it is very difficult to carry it out. I know we were going to deliver trucks to a general in syria that we decided would be the leader of the Free Syrian Army that we were going to support. It took months and months just to get trucks. They have great difficulty in making decisions and after they make them and try to execute, it is like a gang that cannot shoot straight. They cannot make it happen. It is very disappointing and hurts our credibility tremendously. Look i dont think any of us that ukraine, that if russia decides to take ukraine forcefully, they can decide to take ukraine. At least raise the price. At least show there is a degree of support. To me its something very important. Weve been unwilling to do it. Yesterday they finally shook loose a decision they agree to a long time ago and that is to train the National Guard finally, finally. So many times thiS Administration makes decisions after that point in time when it would have been effective. You understand . That window is closed. I will give you another the one. Other day we had chairman of the joint chiefs, ash carter and secretary kerry in. They set over they sent over an authorization to use military force scribble syria. You all know we have a train and syrians outside of the country and we will bring them back to tackle isis. We are going to train 5000 over time, which is a pittance. One of the things they are not going to do yet assad is barrelbombing. 220,000 people are dead in syria, partially. Some of the things we didnt do what we made a difference. A lot of dead people. So many millions displaced. You know what they have not asked for . They have not asked for the authorization when those people coming to come into syria after they have been trained, they do not have the authorization to protect them from the sods a ssads barrel bombs. Again, they are worried that his provocative and ill go back to the issue of fresh again. They dont be provocative. Can you address yemen . There is another bombing come a 120 dead in a mosque. Senator corker one of the things we had this agreement right now with the ron at is a shortterm agreement. We have alleviated some of the sanctions on iran as weve been going through this interim agreement, which allows them to get 770 million a month of their own money that is trapped overseas. In other words, they sell their oil, it stays in the country is selling to, and it has hurt their economy. They could do some kind of trade. Again, they have been relieved of a little bit of money. Theyve got a little bit of money coming in. As 130 billion there is 130 billion of distilled stuff. And so, the concern that many people like me have if we fail in these negotiations, in other words we dont do some things that keeps iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon by the way you all understand what the real premises right . We are going to do an agreement with iran that we hope holds them in abeyance. A great concern about covert activities, grave concern about research and development. A lot of concerns. As a matter of fact, our negotiators have told us their ago shooter scribble iran there negotiators in iran can pass a Lie Detector Test that you were no previous military dimensions to Irans Nuclear activities, which we all know is not true. We know they were involved in moving towards a Nuclear Weapon and up until 2003 when they became nervous about what were doing in iraq and maybe would do the same thing to them. Think about that. The negotiators we are negotiating with were totally unaware of the efforts because they were taking place through the rmg. Again, this is what make people nervous. I get back to the yemen issue. Not only have a continuing to develop missile delivery systems, some of the most sophisticated in the world not covered by this agreement, but they are the biggest exporter of terrorism. What we are concerned about is we get a bad deal. Either way, the deal is predicated on the fact that they will change their ways. We were hoping that during that 10year period, it will change the way they operate. It is my believe that they think in the next 10 years they may catch up in a weakened state they can carry on activities. To me that is bs and put the negotiation is all about. Back to the point of yemen. They obviously support of the newsies supported the huzis. They obviously supported hamas. They support hezbollah. They are destabilizing the region. So with being a screwdriver turn away from the Nuclear Weapon obviously proliferation by saudi arabia and other places that wont develop their own. They will bite off the shelf or another country that is willing to sell to them and so then youve created this proliferation. Let me get back to yemen. You have also released wondered 30 billion that is available to them for them to continue doing the destabilizing terrorist activities they are carrying out in the region. That is why the stakes are so high. If i was president of the United States and i was negotiating an agreement with iran that at this type of geopolitical impact, far more important candidly, that what is happening right now with isis, far more important, i would certainly want to make sure that i negotiated a deal that passed muster with congress, which is what they sit on the front end, and send it instead of stiff arming congress and keeping them out the way they are. Thank you very much. [applause] more now from the Republican National association. Former mayor bob ehrlich. He talked about a range of issues. [applause] thanks, everybody. I hate that term. It is actually accurate here. You want me to hit everyone up for dues and tell me to get more members, right . Im doing it right now. Pay your dues. Thank you very much for having me today. I have good news and bad news. It was advertised that my book will be here today and we will have a book signing afterwards. The bad news is the book is not here. The good news is we have p. B. Out and we have tracked the guy down. More bad news is the guys a democrat and it was ordered about two days ago. It will be a shortly. I will bring some politics into this policy conference. We lawyers love to talk about we republicans love to talk about balanced budgets and debt relief and federal counseling reform and the problems of obamacare and welfare fixes and immigration, entitlement reform, and weekend to like to talk about and we tend to like to talk about these types of issues. We listen to conservative radio we watch fox, we when the think tank battles, and we are pretty good at when he off your elections, we are pretty good at winning nonpresident ial election cycles because our base tends to show up in large numbers. And yet, not the case in president ial election years. Too often we lose the big ones. Too often we lose the electorate when it is more diverse. We know the numbers. I will get into it in a minute. Some of these numbers may be surprising to you, but we have lost five out of the last six president ial election cycles. When you add the numbers up, it is 26 million. The electorate in 2016 looks like it did in 2004 when president bush won, ethnicity, race, we lose this one. The country is changing. Its a fact. For those of us in denial unfortunately are on the dinosaur watch. It is a pretty serious election. I like to talk about serious elections. Every politician says this election is the most important election, ever ever, because that persons name is on the ballot and it is important to that person. We said that in 2012 with a great man named mitt romney was a nominee. Wonderful person, husband leader, and we saw what was done to him. These numbers are out there. It is 26 million. What is embarrassing to us as substantive people who like to talk about these issues and know that republicans generally are pretty out there with good ideas , and we look at the other side and what they sell, but they market. They are degrading wealth and spending endlessly. Practicing the politics of yes. Always more. Remember Vice President bidens quote on why the stimulus did not work too well. 1. 2 trillion. Why . It was not large enough. It is never large enough. There is never enough government. There is never enough spending. There is never enough federal preemption, ever. That is sort of what we deal with. We see the exploitation of class warfare and joe the plumber. You did not build that. We see the marginalization of independence, the belittling of sovereignty. Rumor the great speech from the president . Republicans want to build a mode on the southern border . Hahaha. One Political Party in this country, in fact, not every member of that party, tends to treat sovereignty as a somewhat benign issue. The main democrats in d. C. Preaching egalitarianism and preaching a war on women and retreating from our allies and placating our enemies and creating power vacuums and leading from behind and this win, this is a winning formula. As a party, as lawyers, as leaders, we need to understand this. We cannot just go in our little cocoon and celebrate 2014 when we had an agenda of we are not him. We are not them. Vote for us. And it works. Typically. We are not them works in off year election cycles when the incumbent party is taking. That was the case in 2014. Our challenge as lawyers, leaders is as follows in my view. We need to call them out and we need not to back down. That is easier said than done. We know we are right. It is the thing to do. We need to expose the playbook. Here is what we are really bad at as republicans. We tend to go out on principle and when we are successful, we forget to remind the people that we were successful. We dont take credit very well. The press typically is not going to help us do that. Welfare reform. I came in 1994 with gingrich and the contract of american and all the crazy majority makers and everyone turned the town upside down in the big experiment was federal welfare reform and by any measure bigtime. People forget that. People forget that. The are, lets go market orientation. Look at cbo numbers when we passed a bill and look what it costs today. Dramatically decreased because republicans drafted the bill as focused on market competition. Unemployment remember the big debate last year . Classic, classic class warfare. Those republicans wanted there was on the street, they hate poor people, the stuff we always hear, and we are going to go beyond two years and if you dont support us, you hate poor people is a party. And the republicans stood firm. They took all obese abu