Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150905

Changing as much as we would like to see them change. I think what we are liking to see apropos is i think were liking to see iran strengthen lynx with russia and china which may share an interest in challenging the International Order which the United States and the west have have led for some time. Obviously that challenge is playing out not just here in iran but its playing out in places like ukraine and the South China Sea and so forth. Iran is much more likely to corporate with that broader effort than it is to try to draw close to the United States which is a much more difficult lift in a sense within the iranian system. So i think that at the same time also we could bear in mind aside here that iran has Serious International challenges. This has been alluded to. But remember, lifting sanctions certainly is very helpful to iran. But in a sense its not the only problem that iran faces internationally. I think there are significant political divisions within the regime. There are significant economic go beyond the sanctions. Its hard to say what direction those things could go. That could be a fill up for a positive change for reform or it could be the reverse. Weve seen that in analogous situations around the world. As far as removing the threat, which arianna mentioned i think the regime are good at crafting the threats to maintain their own domestic security. None of this to say that we shouldnt try to improve the situation on all these fronts but it will be very challenging. I dont think we should be under any illusion. I done think to ambassadors byrds point that the u. N. Will be the obstacle. I dont think we have an antiiranian idology. Its gotten obscured in this debate but since 1979 every u. S. President has had their effort to reach out to the iranians whether its jimmy carter, bill clintop, george w. Bush and now president obama have pursued different earths along these lines. I dont expect that will be different in the future. The one thing which i think is different now in a very negative way is that were terribly regional positioned for all of this. Weve had obviously a difficult time in part because of regional events. I would say in part because of our own policy choices over the past 10 or 12 years with our alliances in the region with, you know, the support of the American People for doing ambitious things in the region. And this is this is a time where its going to be difficult to tackle the challenges that iran poses. And i think those challenges around going to go away as well as all the challenges we have like isis, the syrian civil war. Thats something the next president is going to really think hard not just about this issue but i think comprehensively about the region and how do we start to rebuild some of these alliances, how do we start to rebuild our power in these region. Great. Thank you very much and now to wrap this up were going to hear from kelsey. She has an academic and think tank background in the United States an in israel on many of these issues. And youre free to tell us what you like about the nonproliferation aspects or any other concluding remarks before i ask questions of all of you. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for the center to put on this event. I dont think i can synthesize all of the range of comments that we have today. I will offer a few ought tos on the nonproliferation of the deal. Here i have to respectfully disagree with dr. Cohen that this leaves the u. S. In a weakened position. Right now based on the current trajectory they could obtain enough material for a Nuclear Weapon in two to three months. T also blocks irans pathway using plutonium. And the monitoring and verification thats put on iran is the most intrusive that a country has ever voluntarily agreed to adhere to. Will be conuous monitoring. This is a strong deal and it serves the u. S. National security interest but where i share the concern is what happens after 15 years. At that point key restrictions will start to come off of Irans Nuclear program and as dr. Cohen said the timeline could decrease where iran could obtain the material for a Nuclear Weapon. There will be intrusive monitoring verification in place to give an Early Warning in that and while iran will still be prohibited from pursuing certain weaponization activities, it is without question a possibility that iran could ramp up its enrichment. But that is by no means a foregone conclusion. Nor sit a foregone conclusion that other countries in the region will choose to follow iran down the path of obtaining domestic enrichment. So i think the question becomes then whether or not you agree with this deal. And i believe that the deal ll be implemented. The question becomes what can we do to strengthen the agreement within the next 15 years to insure that when iran gets to that point, it does not have the incentive to ramp up its Nuclear Program and that other countries in the region do not feel like they have to achieve that level of parity. I think there are a number of options that the u. S. Government working with its International Partners both in the p 5 plus one in the region can explore and should explore within the next 15 years. For instance, iran has said it is willing to accept a permanent cap to reactor grade levels. That about 3. 67 as compared to weapon levels which are about 90 enrichment. They said they would accept that permanently if other countries were will be to accept that cap. Lets see if it is possible to put that kind of restriction in place. Iran has agreed to far more intrusive monitoring and verification from the International Atomic Energy Agency than any country has ever agreed to. Lets see if those restrictions including monitoring at key sites could be works into any country in the region that chooses to pursue a Nuclear Program. These areas i think, including certain u. S. Policies like guaranteed fuel supplies for countrys that want to pursue Nuclear Power could play a Critical Role in staving off an interest in any other country in the region, certainly turkey, saudi arabia, jordan, the u. A. E. All have considered Nuclear Power. Staving off them by insuring that they can fuel their reactors, these measures i think could be critical then in staving off an enrichment race and also insuring that when iran reaches that 15 years it has guaranteed fuel supplies and has no interest in dramatic increasing its enrichment. Thank you very much i think is has been a very enriching conversation so far. I would like to explore some comments. One of them that i would suggest not to go in detail is the deal. We can spend the next six weeks doing that. We know its going to be implemented. However there are there have been different views whether whether this deal the u. S. Is going to impede whether its going to kick off a regional arms race. I would like to invite different views on that theres a related question on whether this deal should be thought of as similar to one with the soviet union where there are still very deep complex of interest or similar to the one they had with china where there are a million disagreements but not fundamental conflicts of interest. Do we think the u. S. And iran have very deep conflicts of interest . Weve heard different views of that. Its been fascinating to hear that now we now now we think we know the congressional outcome of this deal. People are talking about what needs to be done by the next administration, next five years, next 10 years to make it happen. Also fascinatingly to me given the prominence of this theme and the u. S. Political debate weve had very little discussion of the u. S. Israel iran triangle which has been 80 of the discussion in the u. S. And smaller per portion here. Let me invite one round of discussion between Thomas Pickering and arial cohen on whether this is likely to produce more arms race arm stability in the region. You were suggesting no arial cohen was saying yes, what do you mick of the agreement he was making . And then youll the argument that he was making on what he hear from the turk. The turk said if iran gets a thue clear weapon we may go. And that may be true. The agreement is to prevent iran rom getting a Nuclear Weapon despite that netanyahu would like you to dont that the cility area facilitates that. Record of nonproliferation so far is that, in fact, what happens in nearby countries with respect to civil Nuclear Power es not drive the nearbicountries to a weapons posture. What happens after 10, 15, 25 years . A very important piece in addition to what kelsey said. She said a number of porn things is that iran has some interest in Nuclear Power. They have, in fact, bought a reactor twice, once from germany and secondly from russia. The russian policy is no reactor without a strong commitment to provide fuel and take back spent fuel. That ought to become the goal standard. And anybody who is selling reactors to iran should insist on that goal standard. That takes away this wonderful idea of iran that we have to produce all kinds of low enriched uranium and many centrifuges. The iranians havent got their enrichment or their money back. They want to have a domestic guarantee. By let them develop it to pile the fuel. Put them under iaea supervision from the fuel bank or the provider. This will begin to build some soldity in the region. Many other organizations that are working in the region and beyond should be important. Why the hell the United States dnt start itself with multinationalization . Right now were using black box centrifuges from urenco. So why dont we exploit that and say the new Gold Standard is all new enrichment has to be multinational and we will work our bhinds off to make that happen. So in effect we dont get this breakout capability. We dont get in a sense people saying well, we have some justification to pile up a lot of it. These are the followon things that can make a real difference in this problem. What in that do you disagree with . First of all, let me say that i agree that if iran ascribes to b cribes to a mull multinational supervised of low enriched uranium that would be the best for everybody. Unfortunately they didnt agree to that goal. They agreed to something thats not reachable. I cannot see how if a country pro claims that it is committed to a civilian Nuclear Program its on the path to expanding the bank of its centrifuges and is modernizing its bank of the centrifuges. Ith the opening of the low enriched uranium storage bank in kazakhstan. Here is a nonamerican, nonwestern source of l. E. U. For everybody including iran. Why not codify in the agreement and shut down the enrichment or at least scale it to the point ere it doesnt look like a military purpose facility or a facility of dual use. Because thats what it is. Its a dual use facility. Further more we discovered verification and colleagues here said that it is unprecedented. Im sorry, this verification process openly and grossry violates the Additional Protocol by having a 24day period in ich the the inspectors theres agreement on the 2446 day point. 24day point. 21, 24inspectors for days there is a debate on that. Lets move on. You raise the prospect of the regional arms race. Just address that for a moment. Race thenal arms evidence is strong. The egyptians and the saudis are talking about an Enrichment Program for themselves. And, by the way, one thing we did not address is the platforms and delivery vehicles. I run has built and is modernizing iran has built and is modernizing a fleet of shortrange missiles capable of delivering Nuclear Weapons. The explanation of having the uraniumf enrichment of and having the delivery vehicle prompts you to only one conclusion. This is a military program. Would anybody like to address, briefly . A few things. Just by saying that the evidence is strong doesnt make the evidence strong. There are a number of technical, legal, and political challenges to a Nuclear Arms Race in the middle east. Just remember we bring up this whole domino effect every time we are about to make poor Foreign Policy decisions. We have leverage in the region. All the countries we mentioned turkey, saudi arabia, everybody else egypt, depends on the u. S. And other suppliers for their Nuclear Programs. The onset, they can do it by themselves. Beyond that, they cant do it by themselves. They need technical experts from the west to go and help them build their program. What that means is it the burden on the shoulders of the suppliers. Lets make sure that the suppliers make these countries come up with guarantees before they build nuclear reactors. That said, i will emphasize again, there are a number of technical, legal first all of these countries are part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty. They are technical challenges because they depend on other countries to supply them with reactors and nuclear technology. Egypt has been going at it for decades. They still have a functioning Nuclear Program. They still dont have a Nuclear Program. One thing i have learned my short career in Foreign Policy, when you are asked about the future, the correct answer is, i dont know. Wise man. [laughter] i worked for powell, for colin powell, so that gave me some experience. Thinking about the future and preventing bad things from happening, and responding if they do. What we are seeing in china is an example. These crises are not unpredictable. This would not be a black swan if it happened. We can have an interesting debate whether it will happen. We cant ever claim to be surprised if suddenly now irans rivals pursue their own Nuclear Programs. The relevant policy questions are, how can we just incentivize sincentivizen we di it, and what will we do if it does happen . I agree with arielle, the only way to move this incentive strengthened the Nuclear Constraints on iran. That is why the next president will be thinking along those lines. We start january 2017. But how do we strengthen it . How do we address some of these glaring flaws, that even supporters have identified . Im not going to look into the future. I think it is worth taking a second to look into the past. When we consider where iran started with its richmond itgram over 15 years ago, was known to other countries in the region that iran was keeping was developing these abilities. The saudis have not taken fundamental steps to develop an Enrichment Program while Irans Nuclear program was going. I think that speaks somewhat to their intentions. Now that irans program is limited, that its under severe restrictions, why would they pursue that now when they didnt pursue it when irans program was growing . One thing that the saudis are cognizant of is that if they chose to pursue a new Enrichment Program, they would be under the microscope of the international community. Is that something that the saudis want . That level of monitoring, that level of verification and scrutiny, and perhaps sanctions that would go along with it . I dont see that within the saudi interest at this point. You have 90 seconds to respond. The funny thing that has happened with this process is that until this, we had a notion that a negotiated agreement on nonproliferation or Nuclear Issues is the end state. The iranian tradition is, if you have an agreement, then you start negotiating again, i think we have an iranization of this process. Now we are looking at disagreement as a base for future negotiations. The devil is in the details. How we are going to move forward. One other thing. Ran ion that after he after iran waltzed around the iaea and got itself to the threshold state position, somehow we, the u. S. And our allies, will stand there and tell the saudis and egyptians not to do that. I think that presumes a level of a u. S. Iranian alliance that is not developed yet. Just two things for ariel. Nine seconds. [laughter] dont tell us about the future with such confidence in such a miserable, despicable, downer way. Because the future is not chiseled in stone. To be something that is miserable, downer. Secondly, dont underestimate the commitment of the United States to nonproliferation in the region. And certainly with the other parties. 3rael is part of our 1, 2, approach, and something that you play games with as you describe it. We are going to get to audience questions in a moment. One issue i want to survey opinion on. Oversupplied two oversimplified ways of looking at the u. S. Iranian relationship. One of that they are inimical and thats the steel strengthens a force that is that this deal strengthens a force that is pernicious to us. The other is that the relationship has been absent over 30 years. Each is an open simple fight each is an over simple if id view. Im curious which of those th emes is more accurate. Opposedranians who are to closer relations with america have a grievance. Without endorsing the grievance, its important to know what it is, because it relates to real events. Cia,953 involvement of the installing a democratic leader. But there is more. Ining the iraniraq war, 1988, shortly after the revolution when Saddam Hussein invaded the country. America decided with Saddam Hussein, knowing that he was using chemical weapons. They know that we knew that, and we supported him anyway. It makes a lot of what the americans say about opposing the abuse of chemical weapons and mass weapons of destruction they hear is very cynically. Explained 20 seconds for those who have never heard of it. War, by theiraq time of 1994mike enzi five 5, there were many ships in the persian gulf. It shot down an iranian aircraft. It was a civilian aircraft with 290 civilians aboard. Within, men, children pilots, copilots. Everyone died. There was no apology. There was an admission is that it was a mistake. Shortly afterwards, the commander of that ship was promoted and given a medal of valor. The iranians noticed this. Americans dont because, by and large, we have a sense of innocence about their grievances. Part of addressing the relationship with iran is to begin to understand that this is what is on their grievance list. It would make a big difference. The other thing i want to say is that right now, looking forward with this relationship in the agreement appearing to go forward, there is a big battle taking place in iran between of those who see the agreement as a gateway to further engagement. Rohani is in this camp. He has given enough speeches and has been consistent enough that he sees this as a gateway to greater engagement on military cooperation, hopefully, on cultural, artistic cooperation engagement. Then you have what i call the deep space, who are set against it. Leader the Supreme Leader has called us to the Parliament Without negotiation. You will see a battle on the iranian side just as we have in the u. S. Wait until the americans see what we are about to do. Americans have a stake in how this turns out. Most americans would like this to be a gateway to human rights issues, to cultural issues. Right now, anything that the americans can do to create this agreement is a great way as a gateway to broader issue will be to the americans benefit and to the agreement itself. Let me ask my microphonebearers to go to the crowd. Would anyone like to address this question . With a premium on concision. I will be concise. Its important to bear in mind that the regime in iran, one of its core pillars is antiamericanism. I think that we need to change for there to be better relations between the u. S. And iran. I think that is quite simple. Again, one question has to be, how likely do we think there will be this transformation inside iran . That takes longer than nine seconds. Forget it. But i have written about this. One thing i can say is that if this regime is unusual for iranian history. One thing we dont know, when we think about the future, is what it is going to be. You can bet there are many people in the regime who are dedicated to its survival first and foremost, and will not be eager on this domestic debate to see this kind of agreement. On the basic of interest, we need to bear in mind that we have conflicting interests with iran. We are interested in freedom of access to navigation in the persian gulf. The iranians quite openly talk about wanting to deny us those things, and occasionally act to demonstrate that. They are not interested in regional stability, which is a core goal of the u. S. We would have said before isis that iranian proxy supports to bhezbollah would be primary threat to regional stability. There are deep problems here. Our queue is 1, 2, 3. Then we will go to the crowd. Not everything is black and white. Its not that all u. S. Interests are fundamentally opposed to iranian interests, for that interests align perfectly. It is neither of those things. We have interests aligned with iran, and those that diverge. More of a second category then the former, but there are interests that align. Including in afghanistan, where the u. S. Is likely to be stuck for the near future. The u. S. And iranian interests align there. And and iraqi iranian u. S. Interests align in iraq as well. Its important to look at the nuances and all the shades of gray in the. Not to say that we have no common interest. Things. 3 picking up on what has been said. This agreement, in my view, has to have been based, and i believe it is, on planned for the worst and work for the better. It is very much in the Ronald Reagan tradition trust, but verify. What i said about this agreement is that it is based on this trust based on distrust, but verify. It seems that anybody comes to you and says, this agreement is based on a presumption, that iran will certainly become an angelic dr. In the middle east, has got to be wrong. Angelic factor in the middle east. We have a varying number of Serious Problems to solve between the u. S. And iran. It isnt going to happen very quickly. All of those who have hopes that this agreement is going to make a remarkable shift, i would say, continue to pray. We needed all. We need it all. In will not it will not inevitably happen. Regime change is not our strong suit. We really havent done very well with it. The obvious concerns have played a huge role in the problem. Regime change is an internal question in iran. That is where i believe we should rest. The notion that this agreement has to produce regime change to be successful is again, another error. Nice to have, say your prayers, but dont count on it. Sayinge clear, im not that you said something should produce regime change, its on the record. I will not give mr. Prima the leftward on that. Ill take it, watch out. Buto be clear, its not me, president obama who has said that he hopes this deal will produce a moderation in iran. That is an error. All, i did not present a view of the future that is either despicable or miserable. With ambassador pickering. What i listed was a realistic future, and go back and realize our support for the arab spring, and what it resulted in. The realism of the middle east, yes, it justifies our conversions of interest with iran. The sunni radical threat to our interest in the middle east is just as huge as the shia extremist threat. In terms of the Iranian National interest, yes, the iranians would be interested in a realistic tradition of iranian policy. Iranian diplomacy. For that, they need to examine the extremist shia view that informs their antisemitism, antiamericanism, and antiwestern inclination and start acting the way we want them to act real polity players in the middle east. Unfortunately, i would argue there was a strong current against realpolitik in iran. Those at the microphone will be choosing the questioners. We will start back here. This question is for whichever the panelists wants to feel that. Wants to field it. U. S. Should be focusing on the longterm game, after 15 years, what do we do then . What specific policies can we years, ensure after 15 devoting a nonnuclear iran . Diplomacy, or further agreements for sanctions . Who has short answers to that . I would certainly agree with the comments made by ambassador pickering that the u. S. Should pursue a Gold Standard, ensuring that other countries do not pursue enrichment. Toshould certainly work strengthen the Nuclear Suppliers group, which includes the country that provide and sell nuclear reactors. I is a think there is a lot that can be done with multilateral control regimes to prevent the transfer of technology that are related to weapons of mass destruction development. There are areas in which Missile Technology control regimes can be strengthened. Areas where the liberation Security Initiative proliferation Security Initiative can be strengthened. There is a lot we can do on export controls. This combined targeted nonproliferation elements and a wider look at her multilateral regimes to focus on the region in combination to stem the transfer of these technologies and their further development. Thank you very much for a fascinating panel. Identical yourself please. Identify yourself please. If the minister netanyahu invited you for coffee for advice, what would you tell him . And ambassador pickering, what can you talk about the u. S. Iranian relationship Going Forward if the deal is voted on . Thank you very much. Prime minister netanyahu, i guess my advice would be very simple. I would advise them that when he views iraq, he should buy a Color Television set instead of a black and white one. That is so fundamental, i dont know what i would say after that. The presentation he is made up iran has done a disservice to him. I think there are others in israel in the security assessment who have some appreciation for that. That doesnt have anything to say against people who point out that the Supreme Leader in the states surrounding him are to being against the state of israel. At the same time, there are very real policies in pursuit of that goal. At the time iraq invaded iran in 1998, in 1988. They do have goals. The goals that they want are not the same goals as civil society. People should be aware of that tension. On u. S. Israeli relations, i would say recall ever between fourth, 2013. I would say recall november 4, 2013, when it promised her netanyahu said is the worst negotiation we could have made. He was almost on his knees to the president of the United States, keep this agreement in place. That was quite a shift in mr. Netanyahus outlook on life. One cant predict that it will be the same, but one can hope that. Hoping for that isnt necessarily going to make it possible. My own view is that israel will sooner or later have to learn to live with the agreement. The president s, but i would call on restraint commitments would call on restraint unrestrained commitments to defend themselves in light of a changing situation in the middle east has been the bedrock of keeping equality in the hands of israel. That should not change. I think mr. Netanyahu made a serious mistake in trying to polarize support for israel between the american political parties. Not a wise idea. Anybody who spent time inrelationship, and i certainly have in my time in service and israel, thinks that was not a wise or helpful issue. Supportingpening in the president , where we have come is interesting. It will be more interesting to see whether in fact the democrats will get enough votes to block closure. That too, would be very interesting. It will be a hard slog. The relationship between the u. S. And israel is embedded in more than political personalities in the triumph in both sides signed twotime of domestic both sides of time to time of domestic interests, which is what we have to come back to. Theres a good time in the aftermath of the agreement to look for it. I think the president is wise at taking a hard look at the israelpalestine situation. There is still time left in this administration to take a hard look at that. I think its becoming time, if in fact the parties cannot succeed at getting a negotiation going, for the u. S. To consider outlining its own views for the first time in history on what the solution it believes should look like. Not to dictate the solution. Not to prescribe the treaty. But to give the parties some hints as to what we in the international community, because i think they will join us in this, would be prepared to support and not be prepared to support. That can be very helpful in the long term. I think in the end, solutions to problems in the area are not in permanent occupation. Not in great uncertainty about whether israel has to choose between being a jewish state in a democratic state. It must continue to be clearly a jewish and democratic state, but it must also, obviously, deal with all of its people on a company has a, and i hope, fair basis. With its people on a comprehensive, and i hope, fair basis. I was hoping to ask you about the arb. When you are undergoing your investigation, did you know about Hillary Clintons private email server, and if you receive any emails . You have 15 seconds to answer that, and we will move on. If not, would you consider the investigation and complete . No, i dont consider it incomplete. There are a lot of things that have come up since the investigation took place. We have always said, in respect the investigation, we did the job we were asked to do with the material that we had. We could not foreclose, as Michael Singh continues to warn us, that the future will produce all the results. We are welcome to look at other results. Not further activity on our part. Individuals will speak for themselves. A question in the second row. My name is eduardo. You said this is the best deal u. S. Can get realistically. Receives iran is set to will probably go to terrorism and that behavior. In the u. S. Also has optio in iran. Do you really believe that the u. S. Could have negotiated from a stronger position that would have resulted in a better steel with the hostages and economic benefits . Again, this deal is about Irans Nuclear program. Its not about its human rights record, its not about its regional ambitions. That said, there is also something to be said about the fact that we keep hearing this idea that iran is going to spend all the money its going to get to support terrorists. That is not true. First of all, the official budget of the country is not w here supporting terrorism comes from. There is a clearly different fund, and years of sanctions have been changing that. We can put more sanctions in, we continue sitting at the table. Its not going to stop iran from funding hezbollah were doing other things. That is number one. And number two, frankly, iran has a lot on its plate. The economy is not doing too well. People expect some kind of blueprint. They expect rohani to get more money. They elected him because they want to see movement on an economic front. He has to deliver something. The idea that iran is just going to take the money, and instead of and directed to lebanon and yemen, i think that is misconstrued. Again, my limited experiience, anybody that tells you they negotiated the best possible permit is clearly selling you something. Some result in a worse agreement, some have resulted in better. I think there are a divergence of you. I think we need to strengthen it. On the question of how rohani will spend the money. We will look at the past. Budget,t rohani in his did increase funding for the ministry of intelligence. Iran is engaged in very costly wars in syria and iraq. I have no doubt in my mind that iran is going to use some portion of its money for what is engaged in overseas. It would make no sense for them to bring it all in domesticly. We need to be honest with ourselves about the costs of the policies with which we engage. This is one lesson we hopefully learn many times. You can say this is the best of the benefits. But to say that the cons dont exist will never lead you to the right policy. I like to relate an anecdote that i found eliminating. I found illuminating. He worked in the Nuclear Industry and ran for president 2012. T success in 2009, i asked him to draw a pie chart of how he would like to see the unleashed assets spent. Just do a thought exercise. To my surprise, he drew a pie ch art that had summoned like, under 10 for military security purposes. The quote that he gave me, trying to keep up with saudi arabia. For every 100 that saudi arabia spends, we should spend one dollar. The new wants here the nuance is that you dont have to spend a lot of money to make progress in hez circle back at successful and unsuccessful diplomatic ventures. At the very tail end of an administration that has a raucous relationship with israel to go push for some kind of comprehensive solution when bill ,linton, the great charmer failed to do it in camp david in two weeks and that resulted in a war that killed 1000 israelis and 4000 palestinians. Sitting ont would be a proposition that has less than 10 chance of success. We have lots of questions to go and only one we have time for. I have been hearing mention of similarities to president reagan. Its a very popular russian proverb. In mid july, president obama calledesident putin president putin to thank him for his support of the iranian deal. The white house statement described this as important. Considering current the poor statend of russianamerican relations, why do you think russia supported the iranian deal . Considering the falling price of oil and growing reputation for Energy Markets come a what are the applications . Thank you. A number of people around the table will have their views. My sense is that the russians have had a very strong policy of nonproliferation. They see it as working against their interests as we do. Secondly, iran happens to be a lot closer to moscow been a lot than a lotaces of other places. Russia happens to do business with iran. We shouldnt lose sight of that, including the s3 hundred among other things and potential for military equipment sales. As we saw in the end of the. Greement those are the kinds of things that played a role in the russian look at it. We shouldnt be deceiving ourselves to say they are purely wonderful motives and they will stay pure and simple and we can totally count on that. On the other hand, it is true that despite the messy and difficult relationship we have with russia, with some legitimacy in my view over ukraine, it is a situation in which there are places we can also find agreement. My sense is that we should not let one particular issue so dominate our relationship that we cant take advantage of finding ways to move the question ahead. If we are going to move the question ahead, we need all the leverage we can get and the leverage comes out of common views on some big and important issues when that time comes. I interviewed president obama two weeks ago. Surprised byappily the way russia was able to compartmentalize this issue given the other stresses here it stresses. The panelists will be around afterwards to discuss your questions with you. I want to thank cgi for putting on these sessions. Want to thank the six excellent panelists. Please join me and extending your gratitude. [applause] house and Senate Return this coming week and get to work on the Iran Nuclear Agreement. Didnt really, a resolution of the disagreement and getting set to cover that debate is Laura Barron Lopez who covers congress for huffington post. Who will be some of the key players on tuesday . Laura thank you for having me. In the senate right now, the administration is pretty confident the democrats will be able to protect this deal that p5has crafted with 1. 40 democrats have announced the deal which is a few shot if they wanted to filibuster the approval, so the debate will be heated and they will start tuesday. It looks like even if it does pass the senate, democrats will have developed to sustain a president ial veto. One of the votes they will not get, and it becomes another one in opposition ben cardin, the ranking member. He wrote about his opposition friday and here is his tweet regarding the iran deal this is a close call, but after a lengthy review, i will vote to disapprove. Does it change at all, the nature of the debate in the senate . Think senator ben cardins opposition very much embodies how difficult this issue has been for all of the senators, all of the congress members, every Single Person whether they come for it or against it has said this has been the most difficult decision to have ever had to make as a lawmaker. Ben cardin didnt really know where he was going to go, so now he is the third of a crowd on top of senator schumer and senator bob menendez to say that he is going to vote against the deal. When it comes down to the numbers and the process, i do thethink there im of good mr. Smaltz weather too much because of the fact that they know they have the votes in the senate to sustain the veto. Think they will be sweating it too much because they know they have the votes in the senate to sustain the veto. Getting everybody on board to support the iran deal, the rules Committee Takes it up in the house on tuesday evening for a debate beginning midweek. What does the debate look like in the house and who will some of the four leaders be there . Laura the house is a bit more fluid right now in the colleague letter that you mentioned. Minority leader pelosi did say that they have well over 100 democrats that have come out in support of the deal, but they need 146 in order to sustain a president ial veto. Their not quite there yet. It has been very aggressive over the august recess and administration to make sure that they are trying to get the support that they need. It is going to be very interesting next week. Lets go back to the senate for a second. We didnt touch on the talk of potential for democrats to be able to filibuster, be able to prevent this member coming to a final vote. I think the number they were talking about was 41 with 38 now in favor of the deal against the resolution of disapproval. They just need a couple more. Our Democratic Leaders in the senate indicating they might have the ability to stop that from coming to a final vote . Laura because they are so close to the 41 number, as you said, it will be interesting to see if they decide to do that. Senator durbins office have said that the democrats are not landing to filibuster and senator joe manchin, one of the undecided still left there are five undecided democrats left said he would not support a filibuster. ,he rest that are undecided because it is such an intense debate, they may not end up getting the boat. Laura lopez covers congress for huffington post. Read more and huffington post. Com and follow her on lopez. R at lerin bethe Iran Nuclear Deal will the focus on several events next week. Talk about thel deal and indications for the u. S. And middle east at the American Enterprise institute. We will ha it up we will have it live at 9 00 a. M. Tuesday. Also, Senate Minority leader henry agreed will talk about his support for the nuclear deal as senate prepares a debate on the issue. That is tuesday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, live coverage on cspan. The Iran Nuclear Agreement was one of the topics for obamasion for president and mccain of saudi arabia friday at the white house. He met to discuss u. S. Saudi relations and other global issues. They spoke with reporters for about 10 minutes from the oval office. President obama it is a great pleasure to welcome his majesty to the oval office. This is the latest of several meetings that i have had with his majesty and the fact that he has chosen to take this first isit to the United States indicative of the longstanding friendship between the United States and saudi arabia. This is obviously a challenging time, particularly in the middle east. [translating into arabic] obama so we expect this to be the conversation across a wide range of issues. [speaking arabic] president obama we share a concern about yemen and the need to restore a functioning government that is inclusive and that can relieve the humanitarian situation there. [speaking arabic] president obama we show concerns about the crisis in syria and will have the opportunity to discuss how we can arrive at a political transition process within syria that can finally end the horrific conflict there. Speaking arabic president obama we continue to cooperate extremely closely encountering terrorist activity in the region and around the world, including our battle against isis. [speaking arabic] president obama and we will discuss the importance effectively implementing the deal to ensure that iran does not have a Nuclear Weapon while counteracting its destabilizing activities in the region. [speaking arabic] president obama we will also discuss the World Economy and Energy Issues and i look forward to continuing to deepen our cooperation on issues like education and clean energy, science, and Climate Change because his majesty is interested obviously ultimately in making sure that his people, particularly young people, have prosperity and opportunity into the future and we share those hopes and those dreams for those young people and i look forward to hearing his ideas on how we can be helpful. [speaking arabic] pres. Obama so, your majesty, welcome. Let me once again reaffirm not only our personal friendship but the deep and abiding friendship between our two peoples. [speaking arabic] [speaking arabic] thank you mr. President and thank you for allowing us to enjoy your hospitality. I intended to make my First Official visit to the United States as a symbol of the deep and strong relationship that we have with the United States. It is a historical relationship that goes back to the day when the king met with president roosevelt in 1945. [speaking arabic] a relationship is beneficial not only to our two countries but also to the our entire region and the world. We always emphasize that we want to deepen our relations and further our cooperation in all fields. [speaking arabic] as you know, mr. President , our economy is a free economy, therefore we must allow opportunities for business able to Exchange Opportunities because if people see that there are common interests, they will further themselves in relations between them and our relationship must be beneficial to both of us come and not only in the economic field but in the political and military defense field as well. [speaking arabic] once again, mr. President , i am happy to come to your country to meet a friend. We want to Work Together for world peace. Our region must achieve stability which is essential for the prosperity of its people and in our country, thank god, we are prosperous, but we want prosperity for the entire region and we are willing to cooperate with you in order to achieve that. [speaking arabic] thank you, mr. President , for your hospitality and i look forward to seeing you and other american officials coming to my country and saudi officials coming to the United States. Pres. Obama thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, guys. Pres. Obama thank you. President obama will meet later this month with pope francis. The pope will attend events in new york, philadelphia, and washington dc. One of his appearances will be before a joint meeting of congress. We learn more about the popes visit from archbishop joseph kurtz. As president of the u. S. Code ships and conference of catholic bishops and it is my understanding that john boehner wrote on behalf of the house of representatives, that they made this invitation. It is the first time our holy father has been invited to this session. It is a great privilege. Like at thanksgiving, we want to welcome a special guest into our home and we are happy that he will also be at the public square. We are eager for him to come. I would love to hear a little bit about the overall themes you think he will strike. One of the questions is how much of his address will be interpreted in light of the political season with president ial elections. How much will politics be seen to play in his address . I think we have to make room so that we can hear the message of our holy father. I dont have a text or anything of what he is going to say, but we can certainly know on other visits he has had where he has talked in the public square. I think that is a good direction to begin with. I believe that his primary coming is for the world meeting families where he will be that saturday and sunday in philadelphia. However, this joint meeting of congress, i suspect he will focus in on themes of the common good, of what it means to see the dignity of every human person, the great gift of our home which we call the earth, and i suspect that he will also take up themes such as what he calls the throw away temptation. The temptation for us to become so involved in consumerism that we miss the sight of the person outside of ourselves. You can watch the entire interview on cspan. With the sudden death of president harding, Vice President Calvin Coolidge takes office. Grace coolidge was enormously popular and influenced the taste of american women by becoming a style icon. Although, she married a man known as silent cal, she never spoke to the press it used her office to bring attention to issues she cared about. Grace coolidge, this sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original theories, first ladies, influence and image. Examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From Martha Washington to michelle obama. Sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. , remarks from republican president ial candidate ben carson at the Steamboat Institute annual conference in colorado. Seven we will look at this mornings headlines on washington journal. Tv. Announcer ben carson was recently in colorado. He spoke on a range of issues including the National Debt, immigration. This is part of our road to the white house coverage. Dr. Carson thank you. Thank you. We are delighted to be with you. Thanks for all the hard work. Jennifer and rick, all the the Leadership Program of the rockies, everybody whoas done such a fabulous job in putting this together. You know, america is still a place of dreams. There are a lot of people who try to denigrate our country because there may have been things that has happened in the past that were not particularly flattering, but that is not because theres anything wrong with our country. It is because there was something wrong with people from time to time. People inhabit the country. Any country in the world has people and has problems. Of the United States of america is an absolutely wonderful place. The fact of the matter is you will notice there are a whole bunch of people trying to get in here but not a lot of people trying to get out, so that you try to tell you something about how great a place it actually is. An exceptional nation. Before our nation came on the scene 100, 1000, 5000 years, people did the same exact thing. Within 200 years of america coming on the scene, men were walking on the moon. People try to say this is not an exceptional nation. This is the most exceptional nation the world has ever known. You look at the fact we declared our independence in 1776, less than 100 years later, we are the number one economic power on the earth. Think about that. And, it is there is such a thing as the american way. Have you noticed that . There are so many people does any other country have a way . There was the british way. There is no french way. There is no canadian way. There is only in american way. Have you noticed you can be unamerican, but you cannot be on brazilian. [laughter] you cannot be unnigerian. There is a very unique thing about being an american. And, all of us are united in one way or another. We are all on the same boat in this country. I remember when i was learning a lot of Classical Music and classical art and a lot of people in detroit criticized me and they said, you know, it is not culturally relevant to you. Have you heard that turn . Culturally relevant. What does that mean to a citizen of the United States of america . Take a trip down to ellis island and walk through the gallery there. Look at all the pictures from people who came from every part of the globe. In many cases, carrying all of their belongings in their hands. Look at their faces. Look at their eyes. The determination. People who work not five days a week but six or seven days a week. Not eight hours a day, but 10, 12, 16 hours a day. No such thing as a minimum wage. Why did they do it . Because they were working for their sons and their daughters, their grandsons and their granddaughters. Hundreds of years before that, other immigrants came here involuntarily in the bottom of slave ships. They too had a dream that one day there greatgrandsons and great granddaughters might be free to pursue prosperity and success in this country. Do you know of all the nations in the world this one, the United States of america, the only one big enough and great enough to allow all those people from all those backgrounds to realize their dreams. That is why i say every single one of us is culturally relevant to every single one of us and that is why we are called the United States of america. It is important for us to keep that in mind because there are so many out there right now who are trying to divide us, to create friction between all the factions of our society. A war on women, race wars, income wars, age wars, religious wars, you name it. There is a war on it. You can get people fighting each other all the time. We have gone to a point where yes, we have a multiparty system, but it was never intended that the republicans and democrats would hate each other. It was more intended that people would perhaps have different philosophies and be able to sit down and discuss the differences and the similarities and to strengthen each other because they both love america and they both wanted it to succeed. But, unfortunately, the purveyors of those who want to fundamentally change america had seized a lot of control. This is important for we, the people of america, to realize we are not each others enemies. The enemies are those who are trying to divide us. If we can remember that, it will make a big difference as we go forward. For me, one of the things that i hated most growing up was poverty. Some people hate spiders, some people hate snakes and things like that. But me, i hated poverty. There was never any for anything. I remember we would get coupons to get to the state fair for free. I was so excited, but never enough money to ride any rides. Never enough money to buy any popcorn. I never tasted cotton candy until i was an adult and it was not that good. [laughter] dr. Carson everything looks good when you cannot have it. But, it was a very, very difficult life. My mother worked so hard going from job to job because she did not want to be on welfare. Interestingly enough, she recognized that most of the people she saw on welfare never came off of it. Therefore, she never wanted to go on it to begin with. She never wanted to be a victim. For the most part, she was successful. She occasionally accepted aid, but was able to stay off of it because she was very thrifty. She would go to the goodwill and by a pair of trousers with a big hole. This was back before that was fashionable. [laughter] dr. Carson she would buy some patches and put it on both knees. People would say where did you get those . She would take us out on a sunday morning and ask a former if we can pick four bushels of corn or tomatoes or beans. Three for you, one for us. They always liked that deal. She would can stuff. She would make everything stretch so far. Im certainty of my mother was secretary of treasury, we would not be in the deficit situation. [laughter] [applause] dr. Carson i find it interesting that the left enjoys saying carson grow very poor, him is that had some aid and now wants to withdraw aid from everybody which is a total lie, but this is how they exist. They exaggerate things and like to be able who perhaps do not think deeply for themselves and that is how they manipulate and control people. I have no desire, as i am sure nobody here, has no desire to remove the safety net for people who really need it. I have a desire to create a mechanism for people to move up the economic ladder out of the state of dependency and become a part of the fabric of america. That is what we have to start thinking about. [applause] dr. Carson nothing wrong with safety nets, that when government handouts become a way of life for able party ablebodied people, we are not doing them favors. True compassion is not keeping people in a dependent situation. True compassion is finding a way to liberate them. I was speaking at a program where they would go out on the street and get people who were down and out. They would help them. They would put them through a 13 week program free of charge. Buy new clothing. Teach them the fundamentals of personal responsibility and how to hold a job. They would help them get a job. They would talk to their employers. 70 of those people are off public aid in the year. One lady who i talked to was homeless and a drug addict and was three months away from getting her phd. You think about how much wasted talent there is out there. We really cannot afford to be wasting any of our talent because we only have 330 million people. China has over one billion. India has over one billion. We have to compete with them. If we allow large segments of our population to go on educated and unprepared, it is drastically weakening us as a nation. This is something that we must clearly come to an understanding of. One of the reasons that candy and i started the Carson Scholars Fund is because we noticed how many people were dropping out of school. In addition to the part of the program where we take kids from all backgrounds who achieve at the highest academic levels and also demonstrate they care about other people. We also have a part of the program where we put reading rooms in. We especially target title i schools where a lot of the kids come from homes with no books or very few books. They go to a school with no library or poorly funded library. They are not likely to become readers. 70 to 80 of High School Dropouts are functionally illiterate. These reading rooms we put in our just amazing. No little kid and, they get points for the number of books they read. They can trade them in for prizes. In the beginning, they do it for prizes but it does not take long for it to show up in their academic performance. And changing the trajectory of their lives. That is what we are really trying to do. That is what real compassion is all about. I believe that that is something that we can do in this country in a very meaningful and powerful way. The government sometimes they think they are compassionate, but they have not been successful. The war on poverty that was declared by Lyndon Johnson in the mid60s how successful has it been . They have spent more than 19 trillion on Government Programs to end poverty. What have we gotten . 10 times more people on food stamps, more welfare, more poverty, more incarceration and crime, broken families, out of wedlock births everything that was supposed to be better is not only worse, it is much worse. And if we are smart, and i believe we are, what we will do is we will say that did not work. Lets look at some of things that do work. The things that do work are programs where there are relationships that are established. Right here in this state, the save our youth program. Where individuals like people in this room mentor students from denver who perhaps were moving in the wrong direction. Almost all of those kids end up graduating from high school and going on to college and making something of their lives. It is not because someone is throwing money at them. It is because of relationship that develop and opportunities to instill values and principles that lead to success. One of our big problems is we are in the process of getting away all of our values and principles for the sake of Political Correctness and it is absolutely destroying our nation. [applause] dr. Carson we are also in the process of destroying the future for our young people. Thomas jefferson said it is immoral to pass debt on to the next generation. Yet, what are we doing . Over 18 trillion National Debt . That is absurd. And, if you think about how much money that is if you try to eradicate the debt at a rate of 10 million a day, 365 days the year, it would take you more than 5000 years. We are putting that on the backs of young people. That is the good news because it is actually worse than that. The fiscal gap please read about that when you go home tonight. The American People have to understand what our real Financial Condition is so you can evaluate what these politicians are saying. No politicians will talk about fiscal gap. I talk about it because i am not a politician. [applause] dr. Carson it is the amount of unfunded liability that we owe as a government. Cabinet programs, all the stuff we owe. The revenue is was the coming from taxes and other revenue sources. Those numbers should be identical, but they are not. Not by any stretch of the imagination are the identical. It is a gap or fiscal gap. That number right now is over 200 trillion. The only reason we can sustain a number that large is because we are the reserve currency of the world and we can print money which we are doing in a very irresponsible way. If greece could print money, they would not be in trouble either or at least they would not think they are in trouble. They would be but would not think they were. Just as we are in huge trouble but we dont think we are in trouble. And we are in the process of destabilizing the Financial Foundation of our nation. I have mentioned the fiscal gap during my announcement speech in detroit. The liberal media said next day, what is he talking about . He does not know anything. The very next day, economics agree with carson. That kind of put a [applause] dr. Carson that put a pain in their balloon and they shut up. The fact of the matter is we owe it to those coming behind us to understand this and to deal with it. This is the reason we can no longer accumulate debt. No debt is acceptable at this point. If we were to declare a moratorium on raising the federal budget, do not raise it one penny for three years in a row, we would have a balanced budget. That is all it takes. Just a little bit of restraint. I i would suggest more than that. I think the government is way too big. We have to reduce the size of the government very significantly. [applause] dr. Carson im not one of those mad flashers. Thousands of Government Employees retire each year. Just do not replace them. We shift people around in critical positions, but do not replace them. Do that for about four years and all of a sudden you have a reasonably sized government. There are some departments that could be divided. I think our veterans are horribly taking care of by the veterans administration. [applause] dr. Carson and continuing to take care of our veterans to the department of defense makes a lot more sense because that way they dont fall between the gaps. I have been talking to veterans and they say when you go from one to the other, a whole lot of them fall between the cracks and you cannot get anything done in an efficient way. It makes a huge difference and if we begin to run the government like we run a business, i probably am a little more entombed to that the vast majority of the other candidates only because i spent 18 years and 16 years on the board of cosco and ran a National Scholarship program with my wife. I have an enormous amount of business experience. And know what efficiency looks like. The United States government is not it. They are most inefficient than you have ever seen in your life. In business, we have these turnaround programs like lean six sigma that you apply to the overall structure. Toyota did it. 3m a lot of Different Companies have used it to turnaround the efficiency of the program and in the process save usually at least 25 . If we apply that to programs in our government, the savings would be a lot more than 25 . It is important that the American People deserve an efficient government. Most people would not mind paying the money if it was used in an efficient way, but it is crazy what we are doing now. This would be very easy to fix. We also need to recognize that it we can get rid of all the regulations, we can help create that environment that stimulates business and stimulates innovation that stimulates entrepreneurial risktaking and capital investment. All these regulations are crazy. It was never intended the government should be involved in every aspect of our lives. What people do not realize is every single federal regulation costs us money in terms of goods and services. It costs us money. And, who gets hit the most with that . The middle class and the lower classes, because everybody has to pay the same. And the progressives sit there and say the reason why we have these income gaps is because the rich people have too much money. No, no. The reason is because these regulations are driving prices that they have to pay out of their meager salaries and it does not give them the opportunity to be able to save and accumulate. We will have to start making sure people actually understand what is going on in this country so that when people come along i will not mention anyone particularly but they will say we will give free Higher Education for everybody. All that is doing as driving the fiscal gap and accelerating the financial collapse of the nation. These are things, i was people understand, they can be easily fooled. If i were trying to destroy this country, and i were in a leadership position, what i would do is i would drive wedges between all the people. I would make them all hate each other and think they were each others enemies. Then, i would drive the debt to unsustainable levels. I would be trying to get everybody on the special welfare programs and food stamps, i would be giving out free telephones, inviting people in from other countries and putting them on benefits. I would be offering free education. I would just completely destabilize the financial structure and then i would weaken the military and create depression and get all the good generals to retire because they dont want to be a part of it. I would weaken the navy so would be added smallest level since 1970 and the air force since 1940 and our marine corps would not be combat ready. I i would push for the sequestration so our Lieutenant Colonels and majors were getting letters every month. Cutting out a heart of the personnel of our military and i would have the worst v. A. System anybody would imagine so nobody would want to join the military. That is what i would do if i were trying to destroy the country. [applause] dr. Carson any resemblance that is going on is purely coincidental. It shows you that we are in trouble. This is america. This is the nation of the cando attitude which we are replacing with the what can you do for me attitude. We must begin to think ahead. The only reason that i have gotten into this race is because as a pediatric neurosurgeon, i spent my hope rational career looking out hold professional career looking out for the next generation. I see what is happening. It is not good. I look at our electrical grid and it is extraordinarily vulnerable. We need to work on that. We need to have two or three levels of alternative Energy Available to us. We need to restart, in a big way, the Space Program. We have to spend money every time you want to send an astronaut to space to the russians. When we had a good Space Program going on, we had all kinds of innovation going on. Look at all the things that came out of the Space Program. Your cell phone came out of the Space Program. When we stopped that, we heard ourselves. I dont care about men walking on mars, but i care about the many things we are missing out on. Not to mention the fact that whoever controls space will control earth. We have enemies out there and they want to destroy us. If we are just sitting here looking at the Football Game and worrying about who is on dancing with the stars, we will wake up one day and have a very different world. We have to begin to think ahead. We have to use our energy resources. We have enormous energy but we have these archaic rules that keep us from using that energy in an appropriate way. Think what we could do. We have the ability to liquefy gas. We can export it. We can make europe dependent on us and set of putin and that will put him back in his little box where he belongs. These are the kinds of things [applause] dr. Carson those are the kinds of things that we have to be thinking about. I know i need to wrap up, but just one other thing is in order for us to succeed in the future in this complex nation in which we live, we the people must be involved. We must be willing to stand up for what we believe in. Freedom is not free. It must be fought for. The secular progressives, they do not care whether you believe what they believe or not as long as you keep your mouth shut. Sit down and shut up and let them drive. The problem is that they are driving us off a cliff and we must be wise and we must be brave. Think about all those people who preceded us and think about what they were willing to give up so that you and i could be free. Everyone in here has a sphere of influence. Your friends, your family, your colleagues. Please begin to talk to them. Just like our predecessors did in the prerevolutionary days. They talk about what nation do they want to pass on to their children and grandchildren. What are we willing to fight for . What are we willing to die for . That is the question that each of us faces and i can guarantee you that if we will get involved and not wait for somebody else to do it, we will take this country back in record time and we will move to a pinnacle much higher than anything we or anybody else has ever seen before and we will truly have one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. [applause] dr. Carson thank you. Thank you, dr. Carson for that great talk. We have a few minutes for questions. We have a lot of people who have questions. I want to begin by noting a pullout last night shows you surging. You are currently ahead of governor bush, senator cruz and marco rubio. [applause] this is an unusual field. A messy field. Not sure what to make of it. Between you and Carly Fiorina and donald trump, people who are not Held Public Office what the you make of this . What do you say to people about your electability . Dr. Carson i think it means the American People are waking up and they are starting to realize that political experience is not the answer. If you take all the political experience of everybody in congress right now, it comes out to 9000 years. Where has it gotten us . What really is important is do you know how to solve problems . Are you a Problem Solver and the you know how to work with other people . One of the things that has become very apparent to me throughout my career and my life in the world of business and sitting on University Boards and every place i found out we have some amazing people in this country. Incredible people in all kinds of areas. I have learned an enormous amount about Foreign Affairs by talking to people in the military and the cia and government and academia. And, hopefully in the next debate, theyll ask me about Foreign Affairs. [laughter] dr. Carson the point is we have tremendous people. If you get somebody who knows how to work with tremendous people, you will be amazed of how rapidly we will ascend to the top again. Thank you. [applause] general question about government and the problems we face. If we cut too much, that scares people. They are nervous. But if we dont cut enough and reduce it, we will go broke because of the debt problem. You are a surgeon. How do you go about operating on the American Government . [laughter] dr. Carson cut all the pork. No. When i would do is i would call in every departmental director and i would say you need to cut 2 to 3 out of your budget over this next year. If you cannot do it, turning your resignation now because you will be fired. The fact of the matter is i guarantee you there are twos 23 fat in a recent budget. At least that. The next year i would say you did a good job, lets do it again. Do that three or four years in a row and you have substantial reduction along with the hiring freeze that i mentioned earlier. Along with applying things like lean six sigma and along with bringing in experts on efficiency. I think that would do it. The number one driver of our debt are entitlements which raises important questions. Social security, things that people depend on. We have a lot of people, younger people watching this. What are you going to do about those things and their future . Dr. Carson let me address one of them because we can talk about all of them all day long Social Security. It is basically a ponzi scheme. It would be basically ok if we had not stolen from it and adjusted with time where we put in the average age of death was 63 and now it is 80. We have not adjusted appropriately. What i would suggest is we allow people to opt out of receiving Social Security payments in lieu of tax credits for the same amount. They would be about 20 of our population who could easily do that. That immediately takes pressure off the system. Right now, it is scheduled to go into bankruptcy in 2033 and that is not that long from now. That extends the time period significantly. What we can do at that point is gradually start to raise the age for anybody who is under the age of 55. We will not mess with anybody who is 55 and older. Let me mention some specific issues. An issue in the campaign so far, somewhat unexpected immigration. We are a nation of immigrants but we have some problems. How do you understand the problem and what do we need to do . Dr. Carson our immigration problems will not be fixed until we fix the border. [applause] dr. Carson we were in arizona at the border last week and even though i recognize there are significant problems, i did not know it was as bad as this. I mean, those fences those are the same fences i used to scale as a kid. Nothing to it at all. [laughter] dr. Carson there was one area where they had cut a wired area through the fence and to repair it they put barbed wire across and there was they one its a film us from the mexican side and they went through the area. They were not particularly athletic people. [laughter] carson there is no barrier. The poor sheriffs and deputies in the area risk their lives doing things and have to deal with the same people because if we deport them which we do not, they come right back. There is no penalty for people. There is Drug Trafficking that is going crazy. You can buy more heroin than a pack of cigarettes. New york city, baltimore, places like that. It is destroying us. Listen to the farmers and their stories of terror. Our fences are not protected. That has to be fixed first and we can do that. You have to turn off the many of them do not want to stay under those circumstances. Everybody else has to register to become a guest worker. Assuming they dont have a criminal record. Anything that is negative. They can become a guest worker. They have to pay it back tax penalty. They have to pay taxes. I talked to a farmer in south dakota, and 8,000 acre farm. He starts at eight dollars an hour. They could not hire a single american. I think our farming industry would collapse. I think our Hotel Industry would collapse. We have to be realistic about that. We cannot just say they. Those people who registered will not be able to vote. They do not become citizens. If they want to become citizens, they get in the back of the line and go through the same process because we cannot neglect the people who have done it the right way. And then also, large amount of people are people who of here have overstayed their visas. We do not even talk about those people. I would enact a program where whatever country they came from that is 10 visas that will not be issued because of each one person who violates their visa. That puts a lot of social pressure on them to go back. [applause] the followup on that you emphasize unity. Pulling people together, not dividing. Are we having a good conversation and how would you improve the conversation with the American People about this question which is a divisive question . Dr. Carson i dont think there is a good conversation about it. You know some of you might , remember last week a lot of the left wing media you want to use drones to kill people on the border . You know, because i mentioned drones would be excellent for surveillance and could be used to get rid of some of the caves. You have to go and see what i am talking about, but i have these high peaks and caves hidden and that is how they communicate with each other so they can guide the people around the vast areas without getting caught. Very easy to close those caves with one of those shots and they are gone. Boom [laughter] [applause] dr. Carson the fact of the matter is, my point is we should get the military involved. We have a National Guard. Why is it called the National Guard . So what can guard the nation. We can easily employ them there as well as they can be sitting around somewhere doing some else. A specific question gun control. Where are you on that . Dr. Carson i believe the Second Amendment is extraordinarily important. There is no way we can ever allow it to be compromised. [applause] dr. Carson it was Daniel Webster who said the people of america would never live under underhey had access tyranny. At all the places where tyranny has occurred, they got rid of the guns. We cannot let that happen. I dont have any problems with background checks and enforcing the laws that are on the books, but i would vigorously protest any attempt to remove our rights as citizens to bear arms. [applause] lets give you an opportunity to talk about relations, americas role in the world. An unusual nation, we have played a great role throughout history but now we have these executive agreements where congress is not involved. We are talking to the iranians. It is a mess. What do you think about that . What would you do about it . Dr. Carson we have to be very proactive. Our Foreign Policy is to react to what other people are doing and that does not work. We have to recognize what the dangers are. A lot of people say we made a big mistake when we went into iraq. In 2003. We dont want to do that again because we lost a lot of people, money, but you have to be smart enough to realize that was a different situation. And saddam was not an existential threat to us and the global jihadists are. They want to destroy us and our way of life and israel. So we need to be saying why are they so successful . They are successful because they look like winners. They are establishing the caliphate they wanted. They are taking half of iraq, a third of syria, they have a foothold in tunisia, foothold in nigeria and they look like winners. How do we stop that . We make them look like losers. How do we do that . We take land from them and we can do that. I spoke to several of our generals and they said if we gave them that mission and did not tie hands behind their backs and tell them they have to fight a politically correct war, they can take that in no time and that is what we have to do. [applause] i could go on, we are running out of time. The last point so much american greatness comes from our constitution and the declaration. How does a president go about restoring that . We will end on that. Dr. Carson well, think first of all, the president himself has to understand the constitution. [laughter] [applause] dr. Carson and, i think all the other branches also have to understand it. One of the things i would do, first off, is call a joint session of congress, invite the Supreme Court as well, and make it clear to them that we work for the people, the people do not work for us. That is absolutely essential. [applause] carson then, i think just a brief tutorial about the constitution and what it means. You know for instance, just one , example, the constitution states very clearly what the enumerated powers are. It says everything not mentioned here goes back to the states. We need to reemphasize that because the federal government has no business in everybodys business. Also, the constitution states that civil issues are to be handled at the state level and the reason for that is because the people themselves get to decide the kind of thing that they want to govern the way they live. And when you take civil issues and you kick them out to the federal level, to the Supreme Court level, then you have unelected people determining the lifestyle of the people of the nation. That is exactly what the founders were trying to escape from. We dont want to trade a monarchy. For an oligarchy. Leadership kind of that truly understands that. It is one of the reasons why candy and i wrote a book that will come out in october called a more perfect union. It is about the constitution and what it really means. Most people know we have a constitution but most people do not know what is in it and certainly our government does not seem to know. So if we can get people to talk about this and understand the left will come out and say i am trying to make money. I knew he was just running to sell books. And make money. But you know, i have an answer for them and i will tell you what it is. I will knock them off their stools. Thank you all very much. [applause] on the road to the white house, Governor John Kasich spoke at a house party in new hampshire. [applause] [applause] gov. Kasich we will make this like a jump rope. Salt and pepper, however that went. Can we give a big round of applause for the host and hostess . [applause] i understand that everyone here will get a canned ham when you leave. They have a beautiful how about this . When im president everybody will have a backyard like this. [laughter] ok . Listen, i was here years ago and he told a story about this sled dog, i did go sled racing and i thought i was going to drown