Transcripts For CSPAN Public Affairs Events 20161115

What happens to those 20 Million People who have Health Insurance . Are you going to kick them off and suddenly, they dont have Health Insurance and what ways are their lives better . Are you going to repeal the provision that insures that if you do have Health Insurance on your job or change jobs or lose jobs and start a Small Business and not going to have Health Insurance because you have a preexisting. Are you going to change the policy that kids can stay on their parents Health Insurance plans until they are 26 . How are you going to approach these issues . My view is if they can come up with Something Better that actually works and a year or two after they have replaced the Affordable Care act with their own plan that 25 million have Health Insurance and its cheaper and better and running smoothly, ill be the first one to say, thats great. Congratulations. If, on the other hand, whatever they are proposing results in millions of people losing coverage and results in people who already have Health Insurance losing protections that were contained in the legislation, then we are going to have a problem. And i think that is not going to be unique to me. I think the American People will respond that way. So i think on a lot of issues, what you are going to see is now comes the hard part. Now comes governance. We are going to be able to present to the Incoming Administration, a country that is stronger, a federal government that is working better and more efficiently, a National Security apparatus that is both more effective and truer to our values, Energy Policies that are resulting in not just less pollution, but also more jobs and and i think the president elect, rightly, expect rightly would expect that he is judged on whether we improve from that baseline and on those metrics or things get worse. And if things get worse, then the American People will figure that out pretty quick. If things get better, more power to him. I will be the first to congratulate him. Reporter you talked about his temperament. Do you have any concerns about hisperament echo temperament . As i said,bama whatever you bring to this office, this office has a habit of magnifying and pointing out and hopefully correct for. This may seem like a silly example, i cant keep track of paper. Im not well organized in that way. And so, pretty quickly, after im getting stacks of briefing books coming in every night, i say to myself, i have to figure out a system, because i have bad filing, sorting and organizing habits and i have to find some people who can help me keep track of this stuff. That seems trivial but that ends up being a big business. The president elect, there are certain elements of his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them, because when you are a candidate and you Say Something that is inaccurate or controversial, it has less impact than it does when you are president of the United States. Everybody around the world is paying attention. Markets move. Issues requirety a level of precision and noted to make sure you dont make mistakes. Recognizes this is different. M going to take a look take a couple of more questions and then i am going to get out of here. Reporter mr. Trump talked about [indiscernible] concern if he took part of this . And what would you advise considering he is open to advice . [indiscernible] you talk if you years back about benghazi. Many people criticize the administration for the shortcomings in syria. [indiscernible] that you dont support the Syrian Opposition . President obama iran is a good example of the gap, i think, between some of the rhetoric in this town. Not unique to the president elect and the reality. I think there was a really robust debate about the merits of the iran deal before it was completed. And i actually was pretty proud of how our democracy was. There was a serious debate. People of goodwill were on both sides of the issue. Ultimately, we were able to persuade members of congress and the public, at least enough of them to support it. At the time the main argument against it was iran wouldnt abide by the deal. That they would cheat. We now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement. Thats not just my opinion and not just people in my administration, but the opinion of Israeli Military and Intelligence Officers who are part of the government that opposed the deal. So my suspicion is when the president elect comes in and hes consulting with his republican colleagues on the hill, that they will look at the facts because to unravel a deal that is working and preventing iran from pursuing a Nuclear Weapon would be hard to explain , particularly if they were freed from any obligations and pursue any weapon. Keep in mind, this isnt just an agreement between us and the iranians but other countries, some our closest allies. And for us to pull out would then require us to start sanctioning those other countries in europe, china or russia, that were still abiding by the deal because from their perspective, iran has done what it supposed to do. It becomes more difficult to undo something thats working than to undo something that isnt working. And when youre not responsible for it, i think you can call it a terrible deal. When you are responsible for the deal preventing iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon, you are more likely to look at the facts. That is going to be true in other circumstances. For example, the Paris Agreement. There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of undoing this International Agreement. There are 200 countries that signed up for this thing. And the good news is that what we have been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that its possible to grow the economy really fast and possible to bring down Carbon Emissions as well. Its not just a bunch of rules we have set up, youve got utilities that are putting in solar panels and creating jobs. You got the big three auto makers who have seen record sales and overachieving on the fuel efficiency standards that we set. Turns out that people like not having to fill up as often and save money at the pump, even if its good for the environment. You have states like california, that have been moving forward on a clean energy agenda, separate and apart from any federal regulations that have been put forward. 40 of the country already lives under in states that are actively pursuing whats embodied in the Paris Agreement and clean power plan. And in states like texas that politically tend to oppose me, you have seen huge increases in wind power and solar power and you have some of the countrys Biggest Companies like google and walmart pursuing Energy Efficiency because it has been good for their bottom line. We have embedded a lot of these practices into our economy works into how our economy works and helped the bottom line of folks. What the Paris Agreement now says that china and indian yeah china and india and other countries potentially polluting, come on board. Come on board so you guys do the same thing. And the biggest threat when it comes to Climate Change and pollution isnt going to come from us, its going to come from china with over a billion people and india and if they are pursuing the same kind of strategies that we did, our kids will be choked off. And so again, do i think that new administration will make some changes . Absolutely. But these International Agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations, particularly if once you actually examine them, it turns out they are going to do good for us in the behavior that will help us. Last question. You are right about that. With respect to syria, in benghazi we had a new insecurity. Esolution we had a u. N security resolution. The goal of preventing benghazi from being slaughtered fairly quickly. Its no secret, and you know this region that syria is a much more messy situation with proxies coming from every direction. So i wish that i could bring this to a halt immediately. We have made every effort to try to bring about a political resolution to this challenge. John kerry has spent an infinite amount of time trying to negotiate with russians and states andd gulf other parties to end the killing there. But what youre asking is do we have the capacity to carry out the same military action in syria that we did in libya . The situation is different. We dont have that option easily available to us. So we have to continue to pursue as best we can, a political solution and in the interim, put as much pressure as we can to arrive at humanitarian safe spaces to alleviate the suffering thats on the ground. I recognize that that has not worked. And it is something that i continue to think about every day and we continue to try to find some formula, that would allow us to see that suffering end. But i think its not surprising to you, because you studied this deeply, that if you have a Syrian Military that is committed to killing its people indiscriminately as necessary and it is supported by russia, that now has substantial military assets on the ground and are actively supporting that recommending emand iran actively supporting that regime and we are supporting what has to be our number one National Security priority which is going after isil in raqqa. That the situation is not the same as it was in libya and there are some those who question the steps we took in libya. I continue to believe that was the right thing to do. I indicated before in the aftermath of that campaign, i think the war of communities did not support the security structures there and now is a structures that we have to get back into a better place. I have given you ok. Last question. Reporter i wanted to ask about two things. As you prepare for the trump administration. Three quarters of a million undocumented immigrants provide [indiscernible] is there anything you can do to reassure them . Immigration. The administration wants to maintain the restraint on you by congress [indiscernible] an unconstitutional infringement on your rights. Concern that the gradual transfer will continue under a trump administration. Is this the time to test that theory . President obama both excellent questions. On the Deferred Action Program that we have, known as daca, relates to dreamers, i will urge the president elect and the Incoming Administration to think long and hard before they are endangering the status of what for all practical purposes, practical purposes are american kids. They have done nothing wrong, they have gone to school and pledged allegiance to the flag and some of them joined the military and enrolled in school. By definition, if they are part of this program, they are solid wonderful, young people of good character. And it is my strong belief that the majority of the American People would not want to see suddenly those kids have to start hiding again. And thats something that i will encourage the president elect to look at. , it respect to guantanamo is true that i have have not been able to close the darn thing because of the congressional restrictions put on us. What is also true, we have greatly reduced the population. You now have significantly less than 100 people there. There are some additional transfers that may be taking place over the next two months. There is a group of very dangerous people that we have strong evidence of having been guilty of committing terrorist states,inst the united but because of the nature of the evidence and in some cases that evidence being compromised, its difficult to put them before an article 3 court. And that group has always been the biggest challenge for us. My strong belief and preference is that we would be much better off closing gitmo and moving them to a different facility that was clearly governed by u. S. Jurisdiction and do it a lot cheaper and just as safely. Congress disagrees with me and i gather the president elect does as well. We will continue to explore options for doing that. But keep in mind, its not a matter of what im willing to do. One thing being president is that there are norms and laws and you have to Pay Attention to them. And the people who work for you are also subject to those rules and norms. And thats the piece of advice that i gave to the incoming president. I am very proud of the fact that we will knock on wood, leave this administration without significant scandal. We made mistakes and been screwups, but i will put the ethics of this administration and our track record in terms of just abiding by the rules and norms and keeping the trust of the American People, i would put this administration against any administration in history. And the reason is because we listened to the lawyers, we had a strong ethics and counsels office and people in every agency whose job it was to remind people this is how you are supposed to do things. Doesnt mean that everybody did things the way they are supposed to. We have two Million People working in the federal government, we had to try to institutionalize as much as we could. And one of my suggestions to the incoming president is that he take that part of the job seriously as well. Again, you wouldnt know this if you were listening to some news outlets or members of oversight committees in congress. But it works. And this is just one example of the ways in which the federal government is much better than the way it was. You look at v. A. People remember that legitimate problems that were publicized in phoenix. It was scandalous what happened. We have brought in well over a Million People who were getting benefits that werent getting it before. Foren the backlog disability benefits way down and made the agency work better, not work better. Work better, not work perfectly but work that are. And the moderates have said better is good. Perfect is attainable, better is possible. We will try to share the lessons that we have learned with the incoming president and my hope is he makes things better and if he does, we will benefit from it. Thank you everybody. Some of you who are traveling will have a chance to ask more questions. [indiscernible] [crowd noise] conference, press president obama spoke to organizers about the Election Results saying, your president feels your pain on this later president obama took off in route to athens, greece to just greece, for his last overseas trip as president. Republican donald trump is elected as the next president of the United States and the nation collects a republicancontrolled u. S. House and senate. Follow the transition of government on cspan. We will take you to events without interruption. Watch live on cspan and ondemand at cspan. Org or leeson or listen on our free cspan radio app. City,mp tower in new york president elect Donald Trumps former campaign manager, kellyanne conway, spoke briefly with reporters. Working on all that. What are your priorities. All of the above. Reporter some criticism. What is your response to that . It kellyanne frankly, people should look at the full resume. He has a Harvard Business degree. A naval officer. It has success in entertainment. Brilliant tactician. Reporter [indiscernible] kellyanne i am personally offended that you would think 66 million plus i know people werent prepared for us to win , so we are reaching around to of wereme examples should really focus on the role which was to elect donald trump as president. [indiscernible] his mission to unify the country and implement his 100 day plan. [indiscernible] yes, i do know that and i saw some of that in the press release. I think you can refer to that. Reince will certainly have a hand in communications. In my view, it is important for trump to have those around him who were with him because loyalty is important. It was a winning formula. Im very happy that Reince Priebus and steve bannon reporter do you expect him to continue to use his password and handle for twitter . Kellyanne i have no idea about that, i will leave that to him. What is the priority on the agenda today . We will continue the transition. President elect trump is taking calls. Meetings, interviews. We have been ensconced in trump tower. The Transition Team down in d. C. I will be there tomorrow. He continues to take as many calls from elected officials, folks he ran against in the primary, other people, other team leaders and i talked to mrs. Trump. She is also interviewing people. I talked to Vice President elect pence and he is obviously very involved in the transition. Reporter do you anticipate any travel . Kellyanne it is more likely to happen this week and they are also talking about the Supreme Court vacancy. Reporter will you be doing this week . Kellyanne to be determined. Reporter any preference for a candidate for the Supreme Court . Kellyanne he has promised to have somebody in the judicial philosophy in mind. Reporter any foreign leaders . Kellyanne no, i wont comment on that. Thank you very much. Announcer in their first a back from recess, members of congress shared their reaction to the election of donald trump. Lets watch. Ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. Revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Ms. Mccollum thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Speaker, donald trums campaign has guided our nation. After the election mr. Trump promised americans that he would bind the wounds of division. His appointment of Stephen Banon as chief white house strategist is proof of the ugly direction mr. Trump intends to take this country. He built his media career catering to white supremists and antisemites. The fact that republicans have been silence on his appointment is a disturbing sign. It shows that the Republican Party has embraced Trumps Campaign agenda, blatant sexism, racial bigotry, and religious inle to lens. Intolerance. This is an unamerican ideology and must be confronted both here in the house and in our communities. For millions of people, including families in my district, trumps election means they are now living under a shroud of fear. In this house and at home in minnesota, i pledge to keep fighting to defend our fellow americans from trumps extreme agenda. If we want a Strong America, where all families have the opportunities to succeed, we must stand united and reject those who fan the flames of hate. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady yields back. The chair would remind members to refrain from engaging in personalities toward nominees for the office of the president. For what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition . Mr. Smith i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. Revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Smith mr. Speaker, the liberal media tried to destroy donald trump. Instead, they destroyed their own credibility. Their extreme bias is provable. The Network Medias coverage of mr. Trump was 91 negative. And 96 of Campaign Contributions from journalists went to Hillary Clinton. By a 10 to one ratio the American People felt the media were trying to elect mrs. Clinton. A gallup poll the Peoples Trust in the media has hit a record low. Has the media learned any lessons . Will they show any humility . Will they now try to be objective . Not likely given the last few days headlines and commentaries. Until News Reporters give the American People the facts rather than expressing their own opinions, there is no reason to believe what they say or write. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yield back. For what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition . Mr. Pa len can mr. Pallone to address the house for one minute. I rise today to raise serious concerns about the president leekts plan to dismantle obamacare. As an architect of the law im proud to report that the percentage of americans uninsured is at a record low. More than 20 million additional americans have health care. And the million additional enrollees are expected this year. The Affordable Care act is working. Reports have surfaced that the president elects plan to dismantle obamacare would eliminate the subsidies that have enabled more than 70 of consumers to find plans at less than 57 a month. And the effort to eliminate subsidies would eliminate sustainable Cost Increases and loss of Health Care Coverage for people nationwide. It is also a threat to undo the Medicaid Expansion under which almost 16 million americans have been insured. With children representing about half of the recipients, the elimination of that expansion would be disastrous for the mouse vulnerable americans. Mr. Speaker, democrats stand ready to work to improve and strengthen the Affordable Care act, but we will continue to stand resolute against any effort to dismantle it. For the sake of the American People, we cant get this wrong. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition . Mr. Wilson i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. Revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, last tuesday American People with optimism elected donald trump and mike pence to lead our country. I congratulate president elect trump and our friends and former house colleague, Vice President elect pence and karen pence on their deserved victory. This election clearly revealed when presented with a choice of continuation of Big Government or change for limited government with expanded freedom the American People stood up for the conservative values that would create jobs, lower taxes, and rebuild our military. The ideological conflict is alive and well. And conservative principles are proven to promote opportunity for all americans. The American People have selected a Brighter Future for their children and grandchildren. I look forward to working with president leekt trump and vp elect pence, partnering with Speaker Paul Ryan to promote jobs for all americans and reinforce our principles of limited government with expanded freedom. In conclusion, god bless our troops and may the president by his actions never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. God bless president leekt do yesterday was new member check in. Done bacon of nebraska spoke to members of the press. It is being stressed really thin. The other area that concerns me and i see it, that our Business Community is suffering under the weight of regulations, the Health Care Costs and we have to help out our Small Business community, our Small Farmers by lifting the weight of the bureaucracy also their backs and making it easier for them to be successful. What is your message to the president elect . What would be your priority . Americans want change and they dont want a lot of fist fighting and throwing stuff. It is about keeping our nation secure. It is about helping out our Small Business community. That is the priorities i picked up out of the district. Campaign raising resonates with that as well. One, people are not content where they are at. A stagnant economy the Small Business community is not growing. That is the line share of what we do that is the lions share of what we do. I was meeting with three or four of these folks today and they are talking about the weight of the regulations and the Affordable Care act. That is what we have got to work on. That was the main thrust. National security was the other. The last month of the campaign, it was the cost of health care. In nebraska, 51 increase in premiums this year. Cooks the first two takes that president elect trump has done with steve bannon. I am not a regular reader of breitbart news. I know rights has worked awful hard. He is going to be a good addition. Cooks any problem working with the new president elect . We are independent branch of government. I am not a blank check for anybody. You work where you agree. You five areas where you disagree you find the areas we disagree. Still dont see things i die. You still dont see things i to i. Of congress is Bradford Fitch of the congressional management foundation. Guest good morning. Host could you tell us a little bit about your foundation and its role . Guest we are about to enter our 40th year. We wanted more assistance in the management, the running of these Small Businesses that is what they are. 435 Small Businesses. We have added an element of Citizen Engagement training. Now there are thousands of americans that go to our training event that learn how congress works. We help congress try to do a better job of engaging and interacting with citizens. We help citizens do a better job of understanding and interacting with congress. If we do our job right, but are laws are made. Host tell us what goes on for those newly elected numbers of congress. Houston do they start training, and what will they learn . They started their training the morning after they got elected. There is really no break after you get elected to the house and senate. We turn on the firehose the morning after. It is a difficult and challenging task to set up a congressional office. I was chief of staff for a freshman member of the house of representatives if you years ago. I felt like there were all the headaches of starting a Small Business with all the red tapes of starting a bureaucracy. They have to get staff, offices, and a jerk. It is like running a Small Business. They have to think it through, and at the same time make policy decisions and come up with different positions that they did not have before. Maybe they came from the state legislature and had some positions on local issues, but now they have to have a position and opinions on a Iranian Nuclear deal Climate Change, or an infrastructure bill. It presents a policy challenge and an operational challenge. Host from now until they are seated in Congress Next year, do they come to washington and stay for that education . Is it done in several steps . How does that work . Guest congressman do it a little different. The orientation starts for the new members tomorrow. They will be here on tuesday. They going to meetings with current members of congress. They meet with the institutional staff. They find out everything from what are the operational roles i have to work by, to what are the ethics rules, which are stringent and very transparent that they have to learn. They get a lot of education from mentors. Members of congress will turn to other people and their delegation, their party, and they will try to get a little bit of what happened to you experience. That happens for the next couple of weeks while they are in washington. Then they will go back home and get sworn in in early january. Get their do they office, when do they start hiring staff . Give us those details. Guest members of congress dont officially get the keys to their office until they are officially sworn in, probably january 4 this year. They do not get office space or official tools to do hiring or sign contracts the United States senate provides each senator elect one staff member. The house members dont get any staff. They have to do this from volunteers and campaign staff. Host Bradford Fitch with the congressional management foundation. What doe let you go, you think is the most important lesson for an incoming member of congress . Not, it iseve it or being disciplined in what you want to do. Most members of Congress Really want to change the world. They want to do everything. You really cannot do that. If you want to change the world, you have to run for president. You can maybe do two or three things as a member of the house of representatives. If you dont have a strategic plan, they will become one of two types of members. If they are in a safe congressional district, they will become ineffective. If they are in an unsafe district, they will become a former member. Accomplish a few things, and the voters will usually reward you. Host this morning a house hearing on the impact of self driving cars, on road safety and the economy. Live on cspan3. Republican donald trump is elected as the next president of the United States. Collects a Republican Senate and house. We will take you to key events as they happen without interruption. Watch live on cspan. Cspan. Org ord on listen on our free cspan radio app. Republican National Committee officials analyze the 2016 Election Results at a press conference on capitol hill. He attributed their success on the folk on their focus on voter turnout. This is an hour 15 minutes. And michigan. This is one hour hand 15 minutes. Good afternoon. The rnc and want to introduce the panel. To my right, youre left, bill from Causeway Solutions who will talk about data operation. Our political director. Katie walsh, our chief of staff and Garrett Mensing our chief digital officer. Do twohe goal is to things. Talk broadly about where we are as a party after tuesdays election and then secondly and also as important, you talk about how we got here. What we did as a party and how we were helped to win up and down the ticket. It was interesting for those of thisatching morning joe morning, former dnc chair howard do was on hand talking about where their party is up to the election and said what the dnc is about as mechanics. Training people, having an adequate texas to which we no longer have. Mechanics matter. You have to have all that. You can have all the ideals and programming you want. And i totally agree what former congressman europe ford was saying, if you dont to mechanics on the ground you cannot win. I think that is the message chairman Reince Priebus said after 2012. He talked about data and the yearend ground game and minority outreach and working with the Trump Campaign and harnessing that and president elect trumps movement, we were able to create a recipe for success on tuesday that not only resonates that the top of the to get but came all the way down to the statehouse level for continued republican success throughout this country. I to walk through where we are s a party and how we got there i think the results speak for themselves and i think howard deans quote this morning was telling in terms of saying i think the democrats took their eyes off the ball following the election and did not deliver the tools that we did. As we know, chairman priebus invested over 175 money dollars over four years to make sure our digitales from a perspective had every tool available to them. I cannot find a more committed a federal Committee Party obviously, that has ever invested that kind of money into a ground game structure to elect all up and down the ticket. You cannot run a 90 day sprint and expect to win. You said men and women across the country and communities, in swing states, speaking to minority groups, millennials, voters, for four years now. It is a huge change in fundamentally how parties operate which is a lot of feet in the last four years about why were not spending stashing up our money to spend on television and that is because it would not have given our candidates the tools they needed to win. Theres a lot that goes on about the role of federal party toward as moving canned Reince Priebus has set the Gold Standard of what a committee should do for their candidates and i think you saw howard dean basically say they should be doing that as well. What Reince Priebus did was build a structure for all candidates on both sides of the aisle which is very different than what we saw the democrats do in the last two cycles. Obviously president obama had a very successful operation. Hillary clinton i think tried to build off that and i think what we saw was you cannot translate a machine built for another candidate to try and sell a different candidate and have success and so what the democrats have tried to do over and over again through the last three cycles was build a structure for one specific candidate and it did not translated 2016 at the top of the ticket are frankly, down ballot. This is not a situation where trump one and down ballot did not. It was a situation where down ballot one and top ticket did, too. So what you see as an investment to speak to of the voters across the country, give tools to every candidate running. It is a different approach that i think Reince Priebus will get credit for for many years to come. For that i will turn it over to bill scully our senior data analyst who will talk you program. Ur voter corp. Im sorry. Just getting. I am going to do first. One second. One of the thanks i think is very important in chris carr talked about this over and over theovern over again is that campaign was expected to be the highest turnout ever. There is no data following tuesday night that shows that was accurate. In apanded the electorate state we historically have not been competitive it in the last few election cycles. Wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, florida which we always have is a target state but were not successful the last few elections. Under the rnc investment was able to bring the ground game and the spite. To ave expanded the map place that democrats are hard to argue with not been successful in ways they have not. Not only does Hillary Clinton doesthe effects but so their down ballot candidates from Katie Mcginty in pennsylvania to rest feingold in wisconsin. They simply did not give their candidates there tools that Reince Priebus gave hours to ensure they had what they needed for election day. We have unprecedented access on tuesday night. We have 220 counties won by president obama switch their support to president elect trump. We maintained the majority of the u. S. Senate and house and we have total control over supreme nominations. These things to not happen by accident. This is four years of work and so i want to make sure we walk you all through what weve done in the last four years but i think the success speaks for itself from a governors perspective. Net gain of 31 to a two. Still waiting on north carolina. If we were to get to 34 would be an alltime high. Republican governors across the country. 31 inp anyone we held 45 Lieutenant Governor seats. You have ever seen of attorney generals in history. 29. Secretary of state 29 to 30 with four gains. Legislative chambers remained at 69 of 99. Same numberin the in kentucky house, i was state senate and another senate. That shows you really from the statehouse to the white house we were are able to turn out voters with candidatespecific messages and in glove to talk to voters. So with that here we go. Steve scully,ce our senior data advisor who has been ahead at the rebuild of what we call our voter Score Program and how we were canned in glove with photos up and down the ticket. What we set out to build was a platform where candidates could grow in have a baseline from which to start. The program was a way to assign a predicted value to every voter. 108 million. They could exhibit some tree, behavior, or activities wrapped the course of the election. When we look accurate previous cycles at a state like ohio, many campaigns would invest in the analytics and create duplicate of values. Party models, turnout models. A set out to identify baseline. But that all there for them for a standard so that all campaigns are operating on the same Playing Field and save money by providing a universal set of could act upon. Basically it is a largescale big data predictive waddling programs that predictive program. How likely were they to support mr. Trump, mr. Clinton, the senate. Herrovide really downdraft coattails that existed to help all of our candidates be successful. We had an opportunity to begin building this program out in 2013. That allowed us to dry run through 2014 election cycle. Here is an example. North carolina. Spring, our voter score was optimistic. From september on, we showed senator hillis with an opportunity to win through september. As early voting was coming and, as the race began to unfold, we still felt confident. Our averages at the end had him losing. We went into election day feeling confident. It gave our Political Department confidence. They did not have to spend rash dollars in the final days of the campaign. We had success in almost every state. We had tremendous accuracy with our predictions. Coming out of 2014, our goal was to provide the baseline and all 50 states regardless of who came out of the nomination process. What goes into a voter score is the hallmark of the Data Department. That is for every single registered voter. Million of them. We rely on external operations to enhance that. What is available from the secretary of state offices, county clerks. We have a team who compiles that data into a single voter file. We conduct large sample surveys. We rely on several different consumer inventories from financial to demographic to purchase that long quantity. Chris carrs political operations in the field he has talked about for close to four years. It contains a robust set of data that we could build models on. The operation has been a consistent lifecycle. We have done 384 voter score refreshes. Each refresh generates about 9. 9 billion addictions on the u. S. Electorate. An enormous amount of data that allows us to create a really robust data set. Year to date, we created 100 15 billion predictions on u. S. Electorate. In ohio, conducting nationally dating back to last july when the candidates were beginning to announce for the primaries. In our target states, we increase that to weekly from about august on. Every time we did this in ohio 40scored all voters across predictions and that resulted in 300 million new predictions week. Ohio alone, 21 times this year. We were able to do this not just vertically but also longitudinally. People tole to watch identify where we needed to make up ground. We felt that Predictive Modeling was a better resource then polling. Accurate. En much more we analyze every single voter every time we do it. What we have found was some of the research if you look at small subsets, we were able to look at every single voter every single time and provide an actual list of voters to our partners. To make sure we identified the people we needed to reach out to. Mr. Orourke and his team deserve a lot of credit. We made 25 million calls. Essentially trying to contact one out of every eight people in the United States to get their opinions. Completed 300 38,000 surveys. Not traditional autodials. Extremely stratified acontrolled. An enormous effort to make sure we talking too good subsets of population. We created about 9. 5 billion scores every week. An enormous voter file we have created for the cycles moving or word. Here are some numbers. One of the things that is impressive is the number of a voter file rebuilds. We go out of my town, county by county to update public records. In 2012 we collected about 109 times the voter file assets. Just a loan, we collected 300 refreshes. A National Voter file more complete than any done on politics potential he. The team was focused on getting this information out completing and quickly. At 300a is enormous terabytes provided the analytics to not only be refreshed rapidly, but accurately. This is more, i covered a lot of this. The most important point, we constantly provided an accurate list of voters to the team so they could go act on them. If we saw movement in the electorate, we knew who moved. They could reach out to them within days. It was a great coordinated effort. Like never before. Everyone bought it. It provided unparalleled success. The action, the main part of it, i will turn it back over to katie to introduce chris carr. Katie chris carter joined us from nevada. He was the one the state director for nevada and i think he saw first hand some of the tools he wished they would have had in 2012 to aid and make sure we had better turnout. Company,p a Better Organization in nevada to register more republican voters. The chairman aggressively courted chris to be our political directory and i really feel like chris is the best political director in the country. He has completely changed this and will shared with you now. Thank you for coming out to the briefing today. A couple of things about the change. Dating back to the 2004 election, the last time republicans won in election. Onbasically did research Lessons Learned in 2004, what we did well there and we looked closely at the Obama Campaign in 2008 and 2012. We were not using the data assets the rnc has and actually had in 2008 and 2012. I have an example i will share. Early recruitment and better training of staff, we were putting staff in the last 90 days of an election cycle and frankly that was no way to compete with the Obama Campaign where they had staffers out for years at a time. Engaging in communities, another big change in the program. Virginia handled our Strategic Initiative program. And othert, the rnc campaigns had their political and ground game and coalitions separate. Could be far more effective if we are all working the same program so we took Strategic Initiative program which was at one time called coalitions and integrated into the Field Programs. Everybody was doing the same program. The turf model. I will show you a map of terps in ohio. This was a way to drill down to the voter and the criteria of unallocated or low propensity voters so it allowed us to have a neighborhood working other than just out of Victory Offices as we have done in the past and the last thing, the dollars program. Very proud of this program. We learned this from the Obama Campaign and had a lot of success. Numberso through some on that as well. Other changes, the Victory Program dating back to 2002, if you will recall that race was decided in the Supreme Court. Researchnvested into and realized it the campaigns were not as focused on the final 72 hours with turnout. The democrats were better but then we became good. But we were skipping the first two steps, registration and persuasion. We did some in 2004 but the bulk was through paid firms. We did not have any paid firms this cycle. We had filled staff in the field and focused on training our volunteers on knowing how to do Voter Registration at effectively. A bit of thate and we did not do that in 2012 and 2008. Persuasion, with the volunteers, we were able to take the message straight to the voter door. And finally, turnout, we have always been good at turnout but were not doing the first two steps. This is the turf model. On the right is the wheel. For field organizer. Ntl stands for neighborhood term leader. All volunteers but one big difference is our volunteers, you have to earn the title. Go through a training program. In the past you can see the field organizer and volunteer, we would open up the Victory Offices three or four or five months on election day and expect volunteers to come to us. Program, we had volunteers stay in their own neighborhoods and do it in their own homes. This breaks down the different people and a turf a neighborhood volunteer 10 plus hours per week. Knowing how to do a Super Saturday walk from a staging location at their house. The ideal situation was to have pert around 55 volunteers turf. There were 1125 terps. This gives you an idea of the turf map for ohio. We had terps in literally all the states but we had a size portion in the battleground states. The different shades of color. One thing you probably cannot see our little red stars. Ofae represent where the offices were in 2012 and the lineup almost exactly with ours. We had the same basic data as them but to my point, we were not utilizing that data and putting our resources where the data told us to. Our fellows program, we were operating in 38 states. We had 4637 trainings. What it was so popular we opened up and rnc office in queens, new york and one in southern california. Program and a great aspect is that we had a train full of operatives to hire our field organizers from. So 58 of our organizers came from there. The number of doors knocked, 25 million. We did the 11. 4 volunteer door knocks in 2012. Of this total 24 million short we had to share, nine point forward done the final days. We focus on the remaining voters who had not voted. John calls, 26 million. Another big change. In the past the total number was 70 funds, 30 doors you can see it is almost even this cycle. By design because we knew that doortodoor efforts were far more effective than just phone calls. This shows the contrast between 2012 staff levels. When you add the fellows and the staff in the target states of over 6000, if you look at all of the states where we had fellows, this is over 6400 organizers we had in this compares to 876 in the field in 2012. This is a breakdown of the state, voter contact. You can see we blew away the number of contacts in the battleground states in each of these different states. Voter registration i have been very passionate about. Coming up on nevada, it is always a Voter Registration battle there. They have a high number of unregistered voter age in nevada and we took this to florida, north carolina, ohio. This goes to show you how many more republicans were added to the rolls over the last two years. 2016. S sense june of if you look at 2012, the Voter Registration trend, this is the exact opposite for republicans in 2012. I spoke to a lot of you guys and we kept hammering away every day. Werere successful, we defined by you can see the gap was cut in half. I will point out florida where governor romney and team, we went into the election day down 106 5000, this election cycle and was down 85,008 i think it was a big testament to our field operation. Not only pushing it at president elect trumps events but our Chase Program was very effective as well. We had a practical program. We had to find a bunch of people to apply and train. We had a lot of energy and had to capture it. Theuilt this program around right 2016. People are still using it often. I will show you this and then show you how we utilize it. I thought there must be people out there going through the same situation and i wanted to be a voice for them. I joined the program and it gave me the tools i needed to be a better leader. The republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this sad. So, we put together this Larger Program to focus on people telling stories about people doing this. We launched our own account that covered this. It is not about getting a million likes. It is about people feeling like they were involved and could relate to people doing the same things so we knew there was a lot of energy and this is how we came up with capturing it. Over the course of five weeks in january and late december we released a teaser. On wednesdayonds and the whole thing on friday to a group of people the Data Department had modeled force that looked like all of our current volunteers. It looked at a larger audience and delivered those ads. At the end of five weeks, we got apply forsign up and the program. We got about 10,000 applications and our goal was 8000 and three months. So we did a good job of capturing that energy and delivering and and training them and delivering them to the training modules you just saw. So a good part that digital has to do is raise money and win votes online and we try to avoid everything else. To talk about the winning votes online and to build up the team, email is involved in both raising the team and money. With all the fancy apps out there it is still the killer app and we would not be able to do nearly as much without it. We made an investment in building up our email file and team. For a committee to be able to do that is a big investment and i credit katie and chairman priebus for halloween throng that because it was not easy but it ended up paying big dividends. In the five months we teamed up 250team trump we raised million online. On the voter side, on vote. Gop where we directed everyone to go to look up a vote location nor register, we had 10,000 actions. Registration for email was six cents. Incredibly valuable to be pair with a large field Team Following up with people on the email and advertising. So this cycle, this ballet where you talk to someone or show them something online and they see someone in person from the field team the next week or day is complicated to put together. It involves a data team, technology department, digital team. Billion apiaw 2 calls in the rnc Data Warehouse. With 600 million alone in october. So that means if you are using rnc tools and data as a city councilman in oklahoma or you are the president elect of the United States you are using the same tools and calling into the same Data Warehouse and if you a voter absentee ballot but dont return it we will may be call you or contact you or send someone to your neighborhood door to actually return it. That is about 90 of the iceberg underwater you cannot see. It is a good match up to demonstrate the scale of that operation. Another large part of the fundraising side was facebook. Facebook has distinguished itself as the key fundraising and advertising that form in digital politics. 20003000 dollars a day and had a roy every day. Todays we spent over 1. 5 million and were positive roi those days. How do you set this up to scale as large as possible . Buyinga competitive structure where there were multiple buying teams competing that days spend every 24 hours and every five minutes they would be altering the ads those buyers would be able to get to and at the end of the day it is usually about three in the theing, and api would split next days by between based on the previous days buyers. So if he did really well he would get more than i did the next day. Because he was making better ads or was utilizing the data better, whatever reason is. So that adds up to 4060,000 different ad variations in a single day everyday for 150 days. And again some of our biggest days we did over 175,000 different add variations in one day. And so facebook rewards people for putting that amount of variations because it wants to show the best content to its people so that people engage with it. They dont want to show all the users that stuff or else its going to ruin the advertising platform. So it rewards you to spend more time and to set up a structure where you are altering the ads, ad combination of a high right. Im going to just touch on one quick thing before heading back over to bill skelly the one of the things was a 2 billion api calls that goes back toward Data Warehouse. Those happened because people, candidates work with us all the way down from the statehouse to really nominate another president elect. This gives you an idea. I think there are a lot of questions that come of me the last two years about our candidates working with your data. I can say with unequivocally, every single Senate Candidate running this cycle crossed the map worked with bill skelly at our Data Warehouse. You can see literally the names of the staff there was we work with on a daily basis. We have weekly calls, over the weekend within and in daily, you know, requests would come into bill skelly and ashley burns undertaking that would say can you guys building a specific universe for my candidate in my state to talk to my voters about this . And then literally our team would built in the universe and they would go send their mail peace out, to their auto dials, put a walk program together, whatever it might be to make sure they were talking to voters that they want to be talking to. I think its really important to the overall goal, one of the overall goals with isnt something weve been forward leaning on his theres no reason that everything is on the voter contact is made by republican candidate that every Single Person running for office as republicans should not benefit from the voter contact. So thats the idea. I think you have a lot of candidates have realized over the last four years and really came into focus on tuesday night exactly how valuable having all that data stored in the place is a. The only place for the data to live is republican National Committee. Thats been a major focus and really came to be hopeful on tuesday night for every candidate. Or that i will turn back over to bills we can talk to you about what we were seeing leading into tuesday night. Really, what i will start off with this something that brett to work with a closely and the team closely would say over and over again as were talking to people, that this is indeed Predictive Analytics but is prescriptive. Our goal was not an academic goal. It was nco close we could predict the election. It was to give everyone a path moving for. Accuracy helps with that path and we will show you that shortly, but this wasnt a study in big data or studies in how we conduct better served research. Its how can we use this to get people elected up and down the ticket. That was the outcome we are shooting for. In august when we sat down and we wanted to a plan of how we develop some of these universes, this is the battleground map we were looking at that was plus or minus three points. As we put this path together with the Campaign Working with brad and others up in new york, this is what we are staring at. By october the map had shrunk considerably but the goal was to can do skating towards where the puck need to be. We didnt alter the path or the plan. To edwards credit we stuck to get people back to we needed to be. I want everyone through that sure that the goal, we set a goal early, datadriven. We knew what we needed to be at the end of the day and we continued to on that path throughout the entire course of the election. By the first week in november the map expand a pretty considerable as you can see. We now have 13 states up until confident. We looked at what weve done. We built a 50 state voter oppression. We have discounted the together universe. We didnt have to scramble to build a path to bigger. We had a plan. We had an accredited robust database. We were to Begin Operating spinning the path to 50 plus one in the states. As you can see we ended up winning nine of those 13 states. Excuse me thomas kinkade. Here for the u. S. Senate that. Not only were we look at this from the president ial love and down ballot but also senate races. Were working with each of them are pretty much a database a. We were confident in our ability to hold the majority. We get 52 seats in our models predicted where we would end up, and we should end up in that ballpark and 52 seats so we are really happy with how the models work to help with that of the some of the states were moving so rapidly at the end we were we training our data on the way up until election day to get a better understanding of exactly who was going to vote for election day members. Heres how we stepped through getting the 50 plus 1 to restore by projecting turnout and a mystical state. This is a florida example as october 1 to walk you through how we got there. At that point we expected it to be about 9. 4 million we sent all of our locals the 50 plus one. Theres Third Party Candidates in the race. You probably did need that we want to set high, said apple we knew we would need if we want to win outright. We would i should start with a Third Party Candidates would get. They always poll higher than they do on election day. We want to make sure were giving the Field Program of the enough to build hold regardless of what those Third Party Candidates came in at. At that point with mr. Trumps vote at about 4 million, 47,007 at 33,000 short of the goal. We need are defined in the spirit about a month a couple days, find seven and 53,000 additional votes. Just because we showed we were 753,000 votes short we were not saying were going to lose. Were just saying its prescriptive analytics, we need to come up with a path to victory. Heres what we did. We started with solidifying the base. We had a large number of what we call underperforming republicans. People that maybe shifted in the support of the Republican Party were the nominee from february to the end of election or maybe supporting senator rubio law than mr. Trump. We map them out and so will perform pretty well up in the panhandle we moved to improve down in the southeast. We turn to these underperforming republicans over to chris carr over to the television buyers, over to the digital teen. We begin hammering to movable. We felt that was the lowest hanging fruit and if we can move these people back when we felt they should perform the checks and we knew we would pick up a couple. From there we went after what with all the unallocated. These were not necessarily undecided voters. They were voters we dont have not come all the way home. Its the next iteration of those underperformers. These were republicans, leaning republicans but had not yet committed to supporting the republicans at the top of the ticket. They are pretty well distributed across the state were as the panhandle a of the florida we felt we are performing fine, we felt there was some unallocated votes. As we begin providing these universes will we might talk about in the southeast part of the state is different than the panhandle. As we talk about those dynamics, we were able to go doortodoor and give them a customized message to the volunteers after the field organizers that we were talking to. Third step was after we cleaned up that, trying to win the remaining unallocated by two to one margin this is the winning the independence. Its just simply taking the republican leaning people that have not yet committed and getting 66 . We thought that was an attainable goal and we knew it would net us a couple points have been. Really the low hanging fruit among the leading democrats was will be called hillary change voters. Drought our models over the course of the awakened by people that link in the direction of secretary clinton that they showed up as wanting change from obamas policies. Were able to had that often. And they and they were able to hammer away, the lowest hanging fruit. I begin this is where parts of southeast florida and hillsborough and Pinellas County begin to pop. With a message of this is another four more years of obama policies, we were able to wedge the way some of these democrats to bolster support where we need to get across to the 1 . This was all that indoor television targeting. We had grids that broke down the entire electorate by ratings, my 15 minute daypart across every single network. All the pies are targeted to exactly who we thought, for example, different parts of the state would maybe want to get an underperform message where there would be markets would want to talk to the unallocated, talk to hillary change. One part of one network would be underperform in a different 50 minute daypart of that number would be unallocated. The teams we worked with did a great job of helping provide us with really targeted television buys that we able to feed over this campaign. As katie mentioned we were not making the created by using unabated demand that over to all the campaigns so they can understand exactly who they need to talk to, what parts they need to buy what messages need to go into those to be most effective. Really the purpose of this was to turn the data into votes. What we did we felt we did a good job of securing underperform. The people and feel from a camping rebel to get those republicans home. The map on the left is what i showed you earlier when we were really doing just fine in the panhandle and central. By the end of the Campaign Events we brought him home in miami and palm beach. We did a good job of getting the base back talking to them, getting a message in front of them and getting them to show up and vote which was an enormous list by chris and his team. We also persuade the unallocated. You can see the unallocated were pretty well distributed across the state. By the end the remaining unallocated those with a more focused in the miami hillsborough, pinellas, places where you should have the swing to win florida. So we took care of the low hanging fruits. Weve got as much as we could about into the final days, able to handle those universes onto the campaign and allow them to get the ball across the finish line. [indiscernible] p. , it was page three of the brochure, she received 12 mail pieces, 20 emails between august 19 and november 6 when she finally voted. It was a pretty robust operation. We were either at peoples doors, in their mailbox, in their email, on their facebook feed, at a targeted level, we knew knew what we needed to do and we stayed on top of her until we had an opportunity to of reserve she had voted. Then we turned off the firehose and moved on to the next motor and began harassing them with our message until election day. It was a very streamlined operation. There are times when, if you look at some of these voters, as soon as these voter, our host was turned off and we were able to shift our attention to the next voter. By using the api, tracking their contacts, we collected this data at a clip we havent done in the past. We wanted to make sure we were not wasting contacts. The slides show how we drove people to that site to take action so we could go secure that vote. I think there is a lot of confusion sometimes about how online ads work, these are the four blocks on this slide that lay that out. If you start on the left, data gives us an audience of people that we need to turn out. They go to the voter file and they say these folks needed turnout. Then we then we go to all these ad Networks Like facebook, google and all these places and we say do you have these people on your network. Because of the quality of our data and the maturation of the ad industry online, we were were getting an 80 match rate. If they gave us 100 people for precinct in florida, we could send and add 280 of those people in that turf. So, you can follow along where were getting an 80 match rate and we deliver them creative and then we go to vote. Gop. On vote gop, the share party resource, people would arrive there, take action, and then appropriate followup would happen weather was online or in person or often a combination of multiple channels. If you, if you are republican and youre running for anything in the United States, you can use vote. Gop and you send people there and we send you the data back in the field team helps turn them out. We partnered with everyone under the sun to do that. We sent over 700,000 actions and 85,000 people thousand people filled out an absentee ballot, application and 53000 filled out a Voter Registration form. We talked earlier about the value of emails for raising money and winning votes. You can see the cost of registration is 6 cents and the change of address list resulted in over 22000 for an average cost of 4. 24. Again, an invaluable resource, the email file was to take multiple kinds of different actions. We knew we had to enforce so we spent a lot of focus on winning florida. More than 50000 actions were taken. We had 8000 early voting look up locations for an average cost of 10. Of those, 50000 requests or 31 had already voted in another 7 , requests 7 , requests had been mailed on an absentee ballot. To that ballet break and do something online and then in person action or phone call or other mail gets to you and theres a circular science that goes into all of that. And al go into some of the results of the data we saw and how we use that to leverage the final couple days in conjunction with the team in new york with chris carr to help us get across the finish line. As i mentioned earlier, we had had 13 battlegrounds we had identified before the election and we ended up winning nine of those 13 states. Were very happy with our ability to quickly turn on our data program in the Field Program that was already in place and begin executing it at full speed for turn out nationally, this was one of the things we had to focus on, if we could paint the Playing Field correctly, if we could understand the players on the field and turn that over to her campaign, we felt we felt we would have given them a lot of information to really understand. Our projected turnout nationally was 135 million, right now theyve counted 127 million ballots with california, washington, alaska, connecticut still coming in. As of coming in, we have seen projections that we have turnout between 134 and 135 million when its all said and done. We are said and done. We are confident we will have National Turnout within a million votes which is very helpful when we can turn the level of accuracy over to our candidates and really have them have an understanding of who is going to vote. We will continue updating this as information comes in. To give a couple examples, here here in florida, our final prediction as of friday had mr. Trump down 2. 8 points. As i said earlier this was less predictive and more prescriptive. We had a 9,400,000 prediction for turnout. We missed turnout in florida by only 23027 votes which is about point to 4 of the total electorate. Going into election day, i will skip ahead, down 2. 8 points in our predictive model but we identified 699,000 voters 699,000 voters that we believed were the remaining undecided voters in the final 96 hours the campaign. That is about 6 of the electorate. Exit polls showed about 7 of the electorate made up their mind in the final days of the campaign. We are pretty we are pretty confident that exactly the 699,000 people that we were talking to that the campaign was focused on an digital was hitting with people that were making up their mind in the final days. We were not wasting resources. We were talking to exactly the people who are making up their mind and we knew what we needed to do to close that gap to win florida. We ended up only about 99000 votes off what we thought the predictive goal would be that we tried to shoot high. We were able to execute turnout in the final couple days in the election that we felt played a big role in getting us cross the finish line. Michigan is another state that we saw close very rapidly. Again, we were really successful in our ability to predict turnout and ultimately the final outcome. We had predicted turn out to be about 4,806,000 in actuality was 4,789,000 with a difference of only 16900 votes. Another place we felt we had a really good understanding of the electorate and we were walking into election day knowing exactly who was going to vote and how to speak to them. They had us up 2 10 of a point in our final model. We are are currently sitting at three tenths and yet to be certified. We knew there were about 480,000 unallocated voters which again mimics a lot of what we see in the exit polls. We knew we had to lead. We felt very confident and we knew people were still making up their mind and those were people we focused on in the final days and we were able to hold onto that lead to carry it across the finish line and it appears we will end up with a win in with michigan and all is said and done. I was another great example where we knew what we needed to do to win and we had to execute. At the end of the day, we have our turnout off by a little bit, we had about 80000 votes more voting in our prediction than actually showed up. We actually got really close to where we felt we needed to be to win. We were only 14000 votes off where we thought we needed to be they executed and we hit our goals and from all appearances, look like the clinton team and the democrats didnt show up and turn out their vote. Because chris was able to execute, because their team in brads team were able to get out the vote, we hit the maximum number of votes we felt we could obtain and by being successful in our strategy, thats all we could control and we were able to be successful in iowa. Then we saw the same thing in ohio. Very confident in ohio going into election day. Our models had us up, we only miss turnout by about 3 so we had a good a good sense of who we thought would be voting in the electorate. We knew there were about 520,000 voters going into voting day. We had to operate the ohio team, everyone who was operating did exactly what they needed to do. Day maximizes our goal. We felt we only needed to win by 1 we were able to hold onto the lead and expand our gains because we executed and its possible that the other side didnt. We have some fun facts, katie if you want to run through them. These are just the total door knock some phone calls and calls and the total number for voter scores. Targeted mail pieces but this is what we did for the Republican Party ticket, part of the Victory Program. Then the phones, that that proved to be very effective. The email that the team in brads team, also i want to mention to you as well, we work very closely, very well with the Trump Campaign. We had daily calls 11 am eastern every day between the trump state directors and we were on the same page executing our program. With mr. Trumps travel which was far more aggressive than the Clinton Campaign, it was what the staff was able to do at these rallies in terms of the number of registrations, the number of volunteer signup that we were doing, the absentee request that these events. Ive been involved with president ial campaign since 1988 and i have never seen events such as the trump events. The goal was, midsummer, late summer was just to harness all that energy and plug all that manpower into our Field Program and once we did all the training and got people involved in the turf program and bought into it, they became Neighborhood Team leaders. Those guys out in the field who were carrying president elect trumps message in the field, honestly proved to be successful and we thought with the turnout on tuesday. If there is one take away that i think we throw a lot of numbers out, in terms of numbers of knocks and emails. We have gone from a party in the past four years actually understands who they are voting, how they are voting so its not just knocking on our door, its not a gent knocking on our door with the right message at the right time. Knowing who theyre going to vote and how theyre going to vote is really important because delivering the right message to the right person at the right time so they take the right action is what this all comes down to. I think that is what we as a party, the numbers numbers are important, looking at that total number of term and out, knowing if theyre going to show up in what it takes to get them there is really a testament to the progress made over the past four years to give us the confidence we needed on election day that we had the momentum on our side. With that will take some questions. [inaudible] how much was donated on the cycle and what impact did it have. Can you can explain how missouri went, on your map and september and then october off the map and then the Clinton Campaign spent 500,000 in late october. Katie spent a lot of time there in different campaigns. She is the perfect person to answer that. Bill should join me in answering this . Missouri is one of the things i think is important to talk about, my understanding and i dont work with super pacs, i cant communicate communicate with them but what we encourage super pacs to do and i think every super pack that was working in missouri on behalf of the Republican Party is they worked with a firm called the data trust which is an outside data vendor that the rnc partners with. Its the only outside organization that has access to the voter file print we strongly encourage anyone whos going to get into the business up and down the ticket to work with data trust. Because of our relationship they can access and get value out of the file. [indiscernible] the question was how much independent voter id. [inaudible] i think its very hard to quantify. I mean, i dont know, phil. Know you the take away is that we are the only entity that provides data to the campaign upanddown the ballot that can say heres who you have to get at in the message. Other people may or may not have been out there but because the campaigns had utilized the rnc in the data in the team, they had a support center they could call and get a snoot that new file. Again, its its not polling, its not saying this is a subset, they are being provided names, addresses, emails that fit into those different universes. You mention longitudinal training, how much did the president elect have and how much did that change from before he was a nominee to when the rnc started working with him and in the last few months . Overall there was a consolidation and you were able to track that by and large. I dont know that i saw any difference from 12 years ago. It took governor romney a little time to consolidate the base as well. We saw some of the democrat groups begin to engage and then everything began to be moving back in our directional. The longitudinal changes that we were focused on were voters that started moving our direction but stopped flat of where they needed to be. It was used for finishing or identifying people who we could finish the moment upon. In the last few weeks of the campaign, mr. Trump, how did he decide where he needed to go and who made this decision of where he needed to go. I think bill mentioned we were in everyday contact working with brad to make sure they had all the data that showed where swing voters were. Mr. Ously it was up to trump, Reince Priebus and others. You have talked about all the data you accumulated. Was there ever any concerns that came up . That no, we obviously took enormous precautions. The weakest part is the people that interact with the system so we took precautions. An yeah, obviously, it was everpresent concern. [mumbling] indiscernible] what are your priorities moving forward . I think we saw unprecedented success tuesday night. We will have oh no we wont anymore we will prepare for that in a worstcase scenario. We will prepare for 2018. Midterms. We had an incredible favorable map for the senate side. We have, you know, almost and presented numbers right now. [indiscernible] invest in the data and ground game that we have spent more than 750 million on. Overridden the back. [indiscernible] do you want to take the first part of that . The rnc will have an election and president elect trump and Reince Priebus will both have a say on that. Unequivocally, they want to make sure it is maintained. Of course they will work closely with the republicans to make sure they lay a large role in candidate recruitment and we will provide them with the tools our candidates had to make sure they are successful. Hillary clinton, over the made the first the secondt and announcement. I am curious if you saw any movement along those lines especially when he said he was not continuing to look into her emails. I will let bill answer that i think there was a lot that happened at the end. The disclosure. Obamacare. The strength of the Program Chris carr talked about. A of factors collided at detail end of the cycle. I do not know how much we can isolate wonder or another but i think anyone would be hardpressed to say it was not one of several factors. No made this point, too, the map. Trump. It moved substantially. All the way to the end. Hard to isolate things like that. There was a tide of movement and a lot of these states. It bounced around. Do they have a percentage yet of the voters that were not on your radar who came out and voted for trump . Still tells us specifically in florida and michigan, no. We predicted turnout within you three5 . So i do not think we saw a ton of voters came out that we did not include come out. On, i am not saying there is a hidden i think there is a parsing of words. A hidden trump vote or maybe did not vote in 2012 or 2008. Who are the people that trump resonated with . That is a different question. Right . Because we were canvassing the entire country. One out of every eight people really we talked to so who knows if there was a hidden trump voter that said they participated in the past but we had a good handle on the voting population and who was going to turn out. We will have a better analysis in a couple weeks. Im sorry given the election result, you talked about changing the Electoral College in the way a president is elected. [indiscernible] where do you stand on this . I think we have always deferred to states on how they want to allocate their electoral votes. I believe that is still a position. There are a lot of questions now about how much trump voters expect to the letter of delivery on things like building a wall or prosecuting Hillary Clinton. You have looked at the data in your smart particle people. Where you think the electorate is expecting as far as literally or do they want to go in a general direction . He laid out ahink series of issues and change in a vision he had and i think he has every intention of following up on what he talked about on his campaign trail. You have heard about that since his election. I think from a data perspective we were focused on figuring out who was going to vote last tuesday night, who would turn out, what message they needed to hear. Moving forward we will keep this robust data. We will continue to focus on not only are they going to turn out but what issues are they focused on. We did issuebased surveys, you know, on Supreme Court nominations, obamacare, and down the line. We will talk to voters and the rnc will obviously work, you know, handinglove with the trump team if they want to continue to look at the voter scores in the data we have, we will provide it. Just a followup on the expectations question, do you think its relevant that Hillary Clinton won the National Vote when the popular vote in that context of that question of what to expect from the trump administration. Im, um, can you expand on that a little . Trump did not win the National Vote, the popular vote. Weve been talking about the question of expectations about what we learned out of the results. I think electorally, he did win huge. The chairman called it a landslide and i think in terms of where people thought it was going, including the Clinton Campaign, you played a game with where it is. So, and in the battleground states and in those 13 states, not in those nine states where the action was, mr. Trumps message and his campaign were resoundingly successful. So i think it is not even a whether of he has hes going to deliver on what campaigned on. That is what he talks about and will continue to talk about. I know how hard the rnc has been working to improve the partys image and the view of minorities and women and things like that. Stephen bannons appointment has been getting a lot of criticism. How much harder does it make your job to have someone like that in a leadership position . I think if you look at the exit polls, in terms of the black vote and the hispanic vote exceeded what weve gotten in the past couple of cycles. At the end of the day its about him and his presidency and his ability to move the country forward. He has shown it a commitment to go into communities where frankly republicans havent gone into those areas in the past. Hes talking about School Choice in infrastructure and things that will help all americans. I think were going to have to judge the president and Vice President elect on their deeds. They have continued to regurgitate their commitment to this country. Thats what this is all about. Last one. The autopsy report four years ago was not actually followed by the person who became the president elect. Trump is now planning on rather widespread deportation. How do you anticipate that that will affect the healing and outreach of the Republican Party to hispanics . First of all, the opportunity to report was 218 recommendations that were largely followed. They dealt with infrastructure all across the party and up and down and in the sister communities. At the end of the day, you look at the numbers, in terms of what katie talks about, whether it is state legislatures, house representative, senate. The party has been very successful since that time. We continue to grow as a party up the ballot and coast to coast. I think the growth and opportunity report or years ago laid out where the party should go. It was followed, and we have grown. It was exceeded in the previous bolster my previous cycles were. Polls from where previous cycles were. I think youre going to see that in the company restoration. Theyre getting quite a bit of credit for mr. Trumps success. Does not have experience in government, and he is now taking over as the white house chief of staff. What skills do you think are transferable . See of him heading the rnc transferred over to the white house . Have you see this equal partnership between the chief of staff and mr. Ban and find out mr. Bannon playing out . We had a most 7000 people who were part of this effort to take mr. Trumps message and work on behalf of the entire ticket throughout the country. I think they did a phenomenal job rights previous laid out a vision, phenomenal job. Riebus laid out a vision, worked with parties, but he is a consensus builder, and one who takes a vision and gets it done. If you think about what the team that was sortout of taking his position and what he wanted, now he is going to take those qualities and transform to administration and work on behalf of the president elect to take his vision and if amended and get it done very i think he has a track record of use the sameill qualities to move mr. Trumps agenda forward. He views his role as a lot of the daytoday making things move. Focus more theto messaging any big picture stuff. Over the last three months, it has been a fan does a phenomenal partnership. That is part of the model they worked on. It worked well the last three months, so lets continue this forward to make sure we can do it on behalf of the entire government and implement this agenda. Thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans wall street journal dutch washington journal. We will discuss donald trump is the next president to what that means for them Republican Party. New York Democratic congressman will be on to talk about his reaction about the president ial election, including the fbi decision to release email in the weeks before the election. Now we will hear about trade policy. Among the speakers, kevin brady and the u. S. Trade representative. Thank you to that panel. We are thrilled tonight to have on the stage the chairman of the ways and means committee, whose committee is in charge of all things trade in congress and who will continue leaving the house and we will be interested to see what he has to say on that. Next is a senior fellow at the council of Foreign Relations and of him at the state Department Working under secretary clinton and has been the architect of the secretarys economic statecraft agenda. Its what can still be done and i know that everyone is very ready to hear what the chairman has to say on whats going to be happening. As has been a party to a large extent. How do you reconcile this question that that position with the trade policies that the president elect has announced so far and as you look at the next congress finish up business from this congress, what will the priorities be. And this is as a lot of people here an issue that will fade into the background. Thank you for the assessment of everything. Very encouraging. Im a champion of free trade and so are republicans for a couple of key reasons. Donald trump was elected to get this country moving again and balancing regulation and finding new customers for the American Goods and services are a big part of our Economic Growth and trade is what provides that opportunity. We have some challenges obviously, but i look at mr. Trump and a small case for enforcement in trade policies which congress has given this president and the new president the strongest enforcement tools ever to pursue that and take up that he allows us to make the case that to grow our economy it isnt enough to buy america. Of these trade agreementthese te right and strictly enforced level the Playing Field and allow us to create a number of jobs here so im not as down beat as others are. I think it is early to be sort of assuming where the new administration is going to be. I am hoping that we get a case as the president lays out the Economic Policy to make the case for keeping whats good about the trade and including accessing the customers and then improving areas in the public that needs addressing. Your district in texas is probably very connected to nafta in many ways. How do you see that being renegotiated and what can be reflected that would reflect Donald Trumps vision for trade and what it should be . I havent spoken to him or the team exactly where they would want to improve and he talks about these issues and talks about not so much withdrawing that negotiating the table to make it a bigger win for the United States. These relationships helped us frankly moved through some worldwide recessions more than other three countries as well. I would encourage the president to take a look at nafta that look right in the 1990s. To be bold about reducing the tariffs in all directions and give us more Economic Freedom to sell what we are making and Consumers Want to buy them as well. So if it is going to take in nafta or tpp is to go bold and over in the market to the American Goods and services, then i think that would be welcome. Can you provide a specific . My advice was that is a critical market for us that would hold them in the planet by begindoublequote we want to be there. And if we abandon the field completely, we lose and china wins in a major way. So my advice would continue to be to not withdraw, but renegotiated and take the areas of the challenge and make it better and then lets stay on a Training Field in that region i think it is critically importa important. How do you see that revisited in the future he has made that a very strong point of his speeches. What would be a way that he could provide a better deal and still appeal to the base . Running on trade he needs to set those priorities. But we know within Congress Today that the outstanding areas correctly are for making sure we have adequate intellectual property protections for biologics, making sure the Financial Services are not discriminated against and making sure there are implementation plans so we know how the countries are going to implement those key areas we are so interested in. There are a number of areas you can begin with immediately. These are the areas that the white house is continuing to work since the agreement was signed but they were not yet completed. The agreement is on hold until the president h president presiy out a priority Going Forward. But he can start there for example. This is maybe getting more specific. But tpp was meant to tackle some of these 21st century issues and the annual trade is a big issue, and that was going to be the platform in the countries to prohibit the prohibition on the data flow into the requirements. With tpp maybe even dead at this point, what forums are there that you could be addressed and is there something that you all can do in congress that the republicans in congress will do to push these Business Priorities forward . Just as the wto level and it around if you cant find agreement in larger groups than try to find it through the coalition of the willing. They go further on trade areas and especially in the cross flows of data in other areas it is really critical because the trade their ears today are not just limited to the old hears the barriers at the border. Its more sophisticated than that and one of the things i liked about the Transpacific Partnership is that it went beyond the borders and created a process where in the past countries tend to sort of put an american plug into the european socket they are designed not to correct. Tpp was the First Agreement that connected the markets on the regulatory side and the digital side and a number of those areas that allow our companies to connect with those markets and compete on a level Playing Field. So i am hopeful that continues. But if that agreement is not to peak and then we ought to be looking for other vehicles to tackle the same issues. Jennifer, a lot of focus was placed on the shifting tpp through the election. But as someone that worked closely with her i want to focus on whether you see the vision for the economic statecraft having any place in this administration. How do you see the Incoming Administration approaching its relationship with china do you think it will be more a transactional type of relationship or will there be as weve had under this administration the picture to look at the geostrategic implications involved in that region . Donald trump said a lot of things on his campaign and my guess is probably not going how much of that will come to pass. So, it may be just to think a bit too but i would hope to see under any administration. Having traded in its proper context i think a lot of the problem right now is that americans generally an advocaten particular have the pursue his agenda but we are pretty clear on and we support Large Companies without going after the tax havens like allowing ourselves to invest in new solar without going to put one out of business and i think theres a story to be told there was how its been constructed. These deals are hard, but i do think that people are skeptical about whether or not their interest in the interests of middleclass families are being put at the center as a litmus test of trade good or bad. These deals havent come to pass as we expected. Until we have our arms around how to model the trade, the predicted impact is better than we would follow the course which is meant to be the model. I dont blame anybody right now. When it comes to china, this administration has taken a pretty hard stance on the trade cases and trying to get china to address the issues like the overcapacity. Do you think this relationship is going to suffer in the next administration that there will be even more acrimony that is the case not just the cases but what has been promised in terms of terrorists and things like that that will just make the relationship unproductive or do you hope for an attemp prefer as it in the overcapacity for things that have dogged the relationship. I dont think that theyve passed the cases that they could be bringing by and large the problem is we dont have the tools to get to the abuses that we are seeing today. And so, point number one should be dismissed was legislation and i hope that we are pushing on an open door and rewriting section 301 to keep up with this sort of shape shifting policy. We take away the sovereign immunity from a lot of these things. If they can show the state one day im pretty sure that even the most nimble trade wont get ahead of that. So thats not just a matter of bringing the new cases and using the rules that we have. We need more rules, point number one. And i suspect the Administration May not be patient enough to allow the tools to be conceived around the legislation. It may be in the situation terrorist look like the more preferable choice and im not sure that i would go down that road at least acrosstheboard way that hes been suggesting. But i do want to remind everybody that the United States hold the rank of adjustment and i think that we should begin to think a little creatively about how we use that leverage. It should look a whole lot different than japan in the 80s where there was some kind of an agreement that was it the most basic level about a desire for them to repatriate the investment and we said okay but its going to take the sector. We have time for maybe one or two more questions but before we get to that, i want to ask a quick question of the chairman. With this focus on enforcement by the president elect, do you foresee any kind of work with him and the administration on the treated for such legislation and any type of new ideas that are floating around . Both parties agree on the enforcement. Mr. Trump ran on the strongest enforcement and i think most people agree that was a convincing part of that of his support nationwide. So, i think that given the opportunity to assess the tools we gave this president less than ten months ago because he may find that the tools are there that he didnt know. Second, put them in place and make sure for example the wto is where the trade rules stand and where they are enforced so he had the opportunity i think to assess and pursue chinas behavior. I will tell you also one of my suggestions is working very diligently and i still think that if we are serious about going after china and intellectual property and protections that we ought to be aggressively pursuing and concluding a bilateral investment treaty i would go straight towards the issue rather than play it on the sid sides. But his one offense and i would take a second one. We will take a question from the audience. Now that the tpp is on hold for the future, we dont know how long. The Obama Administration still has some trade initiatives that they are negotiating or trying to finish by the end of this year. Maybe you could comment on where you see those going and also do they need congressional approval . They are closer to the finish line and china still has a step forward in a major way to make sure that we are addressing the goods of today and not of 20 years ago so im hopeful that makes progress. It depends whether they are changing the u. S. Law and that proceswall in thatprocess and wo be submitted or not. The agreement is important for trade, competition, lower cost. I think some of the positions that europe has made acquiring each country to approve it i think they are creating roadblocks and making it difficult to move an agreement forwarded that should be i think agree to anagreed to in a majort has so much globally. So im hopeful that progress can be made and again i think that the administration has worked very hard to continue those agreements in placagreements ane concluded. I think weve run out of time and the chairman has to get along to that vote. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and im going to hand it over to my colleague. [applause] [inaudible conversations] hello, everyone. Thank you for coming on behalf of politico into the sponsor here i think its fair to say that when we booked this event a couple months ago we expected a different discussion to be focused primarily on the possibility of Congress Passing the transpacific part worship. But the election of donald trump throws off the table and i do want to ask if you agree with that. Now we are looking at a potential new era of the trade wars with some of the biggest trading partners such as china and new mexico. As the u. S. Trade representative, hes traveled all around the world negotiating trade deals and i had the pleasure to go a lon along on mf the trips including the one time we went all the way to columbia maryland for talks on the south korea agreement. That was one of the finest ive ever been. The real reason i mention that t if they tried to hang the credit or the blame for the agreement on Hillary Clinton and i just want to say for the record i was there the whole week and i never saw Hillary Clinton one time that i did see ron kirk and the chief u. S. Negotiator and michael who was obviously running the whole show on behalf of his friend president obama who he me met when they were boh back at Harvard Law School back in the 20th century. [laughter] my favorite fun fact is that he got his start in International Affairs by helping resolve albanian flu which we dont have time to get into today that i would be curious how they compare to the washington blood feud. Anyway, i am going to shut up and give him an opportunity to talk but first i have to ask the question that is on everybodys mind. The Obama Administration talked on the transpacific part of ship in march of 2010. There were 19 rounds of negotiations and after that, another 15 senior official meetings until an agreement was finally reached on october 5, 2015 in atlanta georgia. After all that work, after all that trouble and after all that time when you were away from your wife and two children and other negotiators were away from their families, is the tpp agreement really dead . I was going to say thank you for having me. [laughter] i may revise that forever. First of all, thank you for having me back. I think the work that has been done on the tpp in terms of opening new markets and raising standards so we can create more good jobs in wellpaying jobs i think its a very strong agreement and as the president said, we havent been fully successful yet in the concerns it raised that we are fully committed to the region and it is critical to the strategic and economic interests and we believe thats the kind of high standards that we were able to negotiate does exactly what the American People want which is leveling the Playing Field. Its certainly one of the things coming out of this election is peoples concerns that we face an unfair Playing Field and that is the main motivation was behind us when we went in to make sure we did open these markets disproportionately and other countries have a big barrier and we raised standards in the country so labor standards, environmental standards, intellectual Property Rights standards in terms of how the state of enterprise enterprd operate so they dont compete, standards on the economy those are all things that it accomplishes so im i am hopefl over time as people look into it and see whats at stake and does the rest of the world moves on and pursues their own trade agenda and we see what the implications for that are, we i. So, not completely dead but. I heard someone use the word purgatory. I think i preferred prefer thed purgatory. I think that there is a lot in there and other countries are certainly not going to stay still. They are going to move forward and when they move forward by taking tpp forward without agreeing with us or move forward on their own bilateral or chai latter will agreement the rest of the world isnt going to stand still and that means we are going to be left on the sidelines seeing not only the opportunities represented by the existing market share eroded by other countries getting access and that i dont think its in our interest. One thing today i noticed you and the secretary met today with the state agricultural secretaries at the white house. I wondered is there some crazy possibility that president obama could still slip that its too congress. We stand ready to move forward on this on outstanding issues and the producers had issues and they are now fully supported. Gary farbers had some issues and now they are fully supportive of the agreement. The Financial Service sector had issues and now they are fully supportive. Even o when the major outstandig issue of biologic at and intellectual Property Rights, your publications as well as others reported that weve are closwe wereclose to an agreemene runup to the election, so we stand ready to move forward but this is fundamentally a legislative process and it is up to the leadership when and where it will be taken up. Was going to happen when president obama meets with the other leaders at the summit this week . Will they make some sort of a statement to try to move the process forward or is there something they can do to memorialize the agreement so its there if they want to take it up in the future . They are already far down the line in their own approval process. Others are moving forward with their own ratification processes. So this meeting that we will have among the leaders will be an important thing to show the leaders the perspective on where they are domestically and im sure they will want to hear from the president and his perspective where it goes from here. Last week i was at an event and at the Cato Institute joked Trump Institute could wait and rebrand the partnership. If you see Something Like that happening . We never thought of selling the naming rights. I think i will leave that to the Cato Institute to suggest. I want to ask about nafta. Donald trump says hes going to withdraw from nafta unless mexico and canada agree to renegotiate it. If the president obama say he was going to renegotiate that and did you get around to that . He said back in 2008 when he was running that he wanted to renegotiate nafta and he was clear about what he meant because the labor and Environmental Issues were dealt with in the side agreements that were not fully enforceable and he made the point if we are going to have trade agreements we have to treat the labor and Environmental Issues as serious as any of the other issues in the agreement and thats what we did with tpp because expo and canada agreed to finding these provisions that was a renegotiation. Theres other parts, too. We get more access than we did in the care h that. Tree access to mexico in certain areas where they performed such as the Energy Sector so it is in fact a renegotiation and in that area like so many other areas if it doesnt move forward or until it does, the games are not to be seen. So if you care about raising the labor standards in mexico that is good in and of itself in thet helps level the Playing Field for workers and its important to move forward. Thats exactly what it does. Nafta seems negative with the voters. Did they ever suggest Hillary Clinton she tried to sell it as a renegotiation of nafta we certainly described the benefits of tpp and talked about how it is to renegotiation of nafta and its the most epic and expansion of workers rights i think in history. Its 500 million around the world that would rather have these binding and enforceable labor rights. Thats not only good in terms of the dignity of work that levels the Playing Field for the workers. One of the mai main complaint ie live in a world with lowwage labor and thats the reality. That genie is out of the bottle. The question is what are you going to do about it. If you could get other countries to allow the right to bargain that wouldve leveled the Playing Field for the workers and that is what is at stake moving forward. For the critics are the or the s i think the question is by defeating tpp or delaying tpp, how were they improving the workers rights around the world parks how were they leveling the Playing Field and in the meantime when we could be raising the workers rights, why are we imposing a continuing level Playing Field . A theory about i know you heard of you think that its in purgatory but do you have a theory of who put it in purgatory . [laughter] if youre asking about divine intervention here, i think what we have seen is a a rise of populism in the right and left and politics that didnt always permit a full debate based on facts and i think that combination has made it difficult for us to look at the message for just what is at stake. [inaudible] punic i think i was probably at work. That was a few days after we completed the tpp negotiation and got to washington to immediately go to the hill and consoled and we were in the process of doing so. Do you remember how you felt . [laughter] i wont comment on any candidates past or present, but i think that this process has underscored that a lot of people feel left behind whether its because of the graphics of globalization. You dont duplicate vote on globalization. Trade agreements become the scapegoat for quite legitimate concerns people have about income inequality and the stagnation of wages and feeling left behind. I hear there are republicans and democrats on the campaign trail and how we need to do more with displaced workers whether it comes from technology or globalization. I would hope that coming out of this campaign we dont all the wrong lessons. 14 million americans owe their jobs to exports. We over 2 trillion for goods and services the year cutting us off from the Global Economy isnt the answer to the concerns as legitimate as the artist dealing with these other issues about dislocation and transition in a way that goes beyond what weve done before. One thing that Trump Campaign suggested as the measures to keep out reports from china. Is there more the administration could have done . We have been committed to the trade enforcement and the use of the trade remedy laws. There are now more trade remedies being imposed by the Commerce Department if we got 23 cases more than any other in the world and 14 have been brought to china. We have won every case brought to conclusion that we are continuing to work on those cases. So we believe the enforcement is important and is an issue that has been on are scored by the campaign and that will be imparted iimported in the futur. You had one or two more cases that you were going to roll out during the debate. We work on them on an ongoing basis to bring the cases when we are caught and they are ready to go. Could we see more between now and a the end of the administration . I dont want to ruin the surprise. [laughter] while they declared china and administration before it leaves office . They recognized the determination of the status that falls under each of our statutes for each countrys statute and we have criteria about what constitutes a market economy. China can apply at any time like the last time it did so was in 2004. Based on those criteria that havent achieved the status of their focused now is the end of the year when the protocols for the wto expire how that will affect the application in the future and that is something they were continuing to work through. Do you think the environmental goods agreement could come together and would there be the conclusion of the bilateral message or he . The underscored the importance of getting the agreement done this year. We have been working to follow up that commitment and made some progress and we still have a way to go its could be critical as it was in the agreement that china played. They are one of the greatest beneficiaries that produce environmental goods and desperatelthedesperately needs o deal with the serious environmental problems but its going to be important that they put on the table that kind of access the rest are willing to offer if we are going to reach that agreement. I think its important that it would be a high standards agreement that performs and opens up and creates real disciplines to address the kind of problems that our companies have had. Weve made progress but we are not there yet. You said you spent five years negotiating the agreement and its not going to go anywhere in the foreseeable future that must be disappointing but you also have a president that the campaign trail talked about how stupid the negotiators worked. Do you think they will be able to work for this administration . Its a Great Institution and in a number of parts of the government there is no finer group of career Civil Servants than ustr they are incredibly dedicated and incredibly hardworking for making sure they are fully enforced and i have every confidence as they have with every previous i was reminded when we came in in 20 of eight and 2009 they had a number of concerns about previous trade policies and renegotiating at all alike. I have every confidence they will be able to negotiate on the priority. After january 20, and will have a lot of time. You have any traveif you have ar what will you be doing next . Im going to be finding a hammock on a beach to sleep. Thats the only plan ive made so far. You seem to have an interest in the wildlife conservation. Do you think you might be doing something in that area . Its an interesting area and something i learned about in my previous job working on Development Issues and a into tk between development, trade, National Security and wildlife is one of the areas we focused on and got the countries to agree to the wildlife trafficking something in africa and rwanda and so forth is something i would stay focused on Going Forward. I see that we are out of time but i did want to get your thoughts on this one question. There is a confusing situation right now where the polls show that democrats would trademark and you would expect that the parties vote in the opposite way and congress. How do you see that shaping out over the next couple of years . I have seen those and i think that it is interesting that Young Democrats and africanamericans, hispanics, asians are all more pro trade at an average. Theres a certain coworker of republicans are not as pro trade and we will have to do more and i mean the collective we, government business, agriculture to continue to educate people about what is at stake and we take for granted when we pick up the phone and download an app or take for granted the ecosystem that allows that to happen tha but we know that other countries are eager to create national clouds and digital products. We take for granted the amounts of farm income but when that disappears as other countries have been the market share, we will find the same people who have been concerned and are going to find themselves facing more challenges. Thats why its important to get the story out and get the facts out. I would hope Going Forward we could have a more factbased discussion about the benefits of trade but also what we need to do as a society to deal with those who are impacted by change wherever it comes from. Thank you, ambassador, on behalf of politico and everyone here for spending time with us and i would like to thank fedex and everybody also the Political Team worked hard to bring this together. Thank you for joining us here in the room and those watching the live stream. A quick reminder for those of you in the room, please join us for cocktails and conversation in the back of the room to give him a great evening and please thank the ambassador again. [applause] announcer coming up, we joined the architect of the u. S. Capital at a briefing following the completion of the dome restoration. That is a 9 00 a. M. Securities and Exchange Commission chair to announce she is stepping down, she testified before a House Committee at 10 00 on cspan 2. Chris republican dont drop is elected as the next president of the United States Republican Donald Trump is elected as the next president of the United States. Follow the transition on cspan. Watch live on cspan, watch ondemand at cspan. Org or listen on our free cspan radio app. Announcer in their first day for recess, members of congress shared their reaction to the election of donald trump. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Speaker, Donald Trumps campaign has divided our nation. After the election, mr. Trump promised americans he would bind the wounds of division. Is nominee of steve bannon proof of the ugly direction mr. Trump intends to take this country. Onbuilt his media career white supremacy. It shows the Republican Party has embraced Trump Campaign of blatant racism and religious intolerance. This is an unamerican ideology and it must be confronted here in the house and in our communities. For millions of people, trumps election means they are living in a shroud of fear. I place to keep fighting to defend our americans from the trumps agenda. If we want a Strong America were all families have the chance to succeed, we must reject the flames of hate. The chair would remind members to refrain from engaging in personalities towards nominees for the office of the presidency. The gentleman from texas. Without objection. Mr. Speaker, the liberal media tried to destroy donald trump. Instead, they destroyed their own credibility. Their extreme bias is provable. The Network Media coverage of mr. Trump was 91 negative. 96 of Campaign Contributions from journalists went to Hillary Clinton for you by a 101 ratio, the American Media felt the media was trying to elect mr. Mrs. Clinton. The distrust and the media has hit a record low. Essence,dia learned in they show any humility, will they try to be objective . Not likely given in the last few days headlines and commentary. Until News Reporters get the American People the facts rather than expressing their own opinion, no reason to believe what they say or write. Back. Tleman yields revise and extend my remarks. Without objection. I raise serious concerns about the president elects plan to revise the president s health law. More than 20 million additional americans have insurance and the enrollees are expected this year. The Affordable Care act is in effect working. Reported that the president the effort to eliminate subsidies would lead to unsustainable Cost Increases and a lot of Health Care Coverage for people nationwide. Threat to undo Medicaid Expansion was almost 60 million americans have been in short with children representing about half of recipients. The elimination would be disastrous for the most honorable americans. Democrats stand ready to improve the Affordable Care act. We will continue to stand resolute against any effort to dismantle it. For the sake of the American People, we cannot get it wrong. Chris the gentlemans time has expired. And consent to address extend and revise my remarks. Speaker, last tuesday, the American People elected a donald trump and mike pence to lead our country. This election clearly revealed ofn presented for choice continuation of Big Government or change for limited government , the america people stood up to the conservative values that will create jobs, lower taxes and rebuild our military. The ideological conflict is alive and well and conservative to presentare proven opportunities for all americans. The American People have selected a Brighter Future for their children and grandchildren. I look forward to working with president elect trump and president and Vice President elect mike pence. Conclusion, god bless our troops and may the president never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. God bless president elect truck. Travail. Yesterday was new member checkin for all of those just elected last week. Representative don bacon of nebraska spoke to members of the press. Representative bacon i am a retired one start. We have to back the military where it needs to be. It is important for deterrence. Our modernization, i am worried and the other areas that concerns me and i see it every day, our Business Community is suffering under the weight of regulations, Health Care Costs. We have to help our farming and byks in Small Farmers lifting the weight of bureaucracy off of their backs and making it easier for them to be successful. Thats my other agenda. What is your message to the president elect . Americanstive bacon want to change as they do not want a lot of fist fighting and throwing off at each other. Its about keeping our nation secure. Helping out our Small Business community. That is the priorities i picked up out of the district. Wasink his campaign successful with that as well. Think, for one, it is a stagnant economy. The Small Business economy is not growing and fast the lions share of what we do. Growth comes from the Small Business and it has been stagnant. I have been with three or four folks of these days and they talk about the weight of the regulations and unaffordable Affordable Care act. That is what we have to work on it. National security was the other. A lot heavier early on. The last month of the campaign, it was the cost of health care and 51 increase of premiums this year. Any thoughts about president elect and Reince Priebus . Represented bacon i have not really heard much. I am not a regular reader of breitbart news. I know Reince Priebus has worked hard and i think he will be a good additional. Chris any problems work with the president elect . Are anntative bacon we independent branch of government. Will never see anything i i for i. You work where you agree. You try to get it to the right spot. Have oney, when you party in both branches, you still do not see things eye to eye. Announcer washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Where focusing on members of congress and their reaction to Donald Trumps win. He will weigh in on key issues ahead of a lameduck session and the Republican Leadership contest read new york democrat congressman will talk about his reaction including the fbis decision to release information about Hillary Clintons emails. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 this morning. Join the discussion. Announcer president obama talked about president elect donald trump and his goals for a smooth transition in a News Conference there ran over one hour. President obama in a couple of hours, i will be departing on my final trip as president. While we are abroad i will have president obama hello, everybody. In a couple hours ill be departing on my final foreign trip as president. While were abroad, ill have a chance to take a few of your questions. But i figured, why wait . I know that theres a lot of domestic issues that people are thinking about. So i want to see if i could clear out some of the underbrush so that when were overseas and people are asking about Foreign Policy questions, people dont feel obliged to tack on other questions to them. Let me i know you still will. [laughter] that im aware. But im trying something out here. First of all, let me mention three brief topics. First of all, as i discussed with the president elect on thursday, my team stands ready to accelerate in the next steps that are required to ensure a smooth transition. Were going to be staying in touch as we travel. I remember what it was like when i came in eight years ago. It is a big challenge. This office is bigger than any one person. And thats why ensuring a smooth transition is so important. Its not something that the constitution explicitly requires, but it is one of those norms that are vital to a functioning democracy. Similar to norms of civility and tolerance. And a commitment to reason. And facts and analysis. Its part of what makes this country work. As long as im president , we are going to uphold those norms and cherish and uphold those ideals. As ive told my staff, we should be very proud that their work has already ensured that when we turn over the keys, the cars in pretty good shape. We are indisputeably in a stronger position today than when i came in eight years ago. Jobs have been growing for 73 straight months, incomes are rising, poverty is falling, the uninsured rate is at the lowest level on record, Carbon Emissions have come down, without inpinging on our growth, and so my instructions to my team are that we run through the tape. We make sure that we finish what we started, that we dont let up in these last couple of months, because my goal is, on january 21, americas in the strongest position possible and hopefully theres an opportunity for the next president to build on that. Number two. Our work has also helped to stabilize the Global Economy and because there is one president at a time, ill spend this week reinforcing americas support for the things weve taken to promote Economic Growth and Global Security on a range of issues. I look forward to my first visit in greece, and then in germany, ill visit with chancellor merkel, whos probably been my closest International Partner these past eight years. Ill also signal our solidarity to our closest allies and express our support for a strong, integrated and united europe. Its essential to our National Security and its essential to global stability. And thats why the Transatlantic Alliance and the Nato Alliance has endured for decades under democratic and republican administrations. Finally, in peru, ill meet with leaders of countries that have been the focus of our Foreign Policy through rebalance in the asiapacific. This is a time a of great change in the world, but americas always been a pillar of strength and a beacon of hope to people around the globe and thats what it must continue to be. Finally, on a personal note, michelle and i want to offer our deepest condolences to gwen eiffels family. And all of you. Her colleagues. On her passing. Gwen was a friend of ours. She was an extraordinary journalist. She always kept faith with the fundamental responsibilities of her profession. Asking tough questions. Holding people in power accountable. And defending a strong and free press that makes our democracy work. I always appreciated gwens reporting, even when i was at the receiving end of one of her tough and thorough interviews. Whether she reported from a convention floor, or from the field, whether she sat at the debate moderators table or at the anchors desk, she not only informed todays citizens, but she also inspired tomorrows journalists. She was an especially powerful role model for young women and girls who admired her integrity, her tenacity and her intellect and for whom she blazed a trail as one half of the first allfemale anchor team on network news. So, gwen did her country a great service. Michelle and i join her family and her colleagues and everybody else who loved her in remembering her fondly today. With that, im going to take some questions. And because josh ernest has some pull around here, he just happened to put at the top of the list kolbe nelson of the wall street journal. My understanding is that this is wrapping up your stibt stint here and youre going to kansas city. Reporter yes. President obama josh just happens to be from kansas city. So, dont know if there was any coincidence there. We wish you the very best of luck in why you new endeavors. Reporter as it turns out [inaudible] president obama there you go. Reporter youre about to embark on your final foreign trip. What will you say to other World Leaders about your successor . Theyve expressed many of the same misgivings you have about donald trump. Should they be worried about the future of u. S. Foreign policy and, separately, as democrats scram to be regroup after a pretty shocking upset, what is your advice about where the party goes now and who should lead your party . President obama one of the great things about the United States is that when it comes to world affairs, the president obviously is the leader of the executive branch, the commander in chief, the spokesperson for the nation. But the influence and the work that we have is the result not just of the president , it is the result of countless interactions and arrangements and relationships between our military and other militaries and our diplomats and other diplomats. And Intelligence Officers and development workers. And theres enormous continuity beneath the day to day news that makes us that indispensable nation when it comes to maintaining order and promoting prosperity around the world. That will continue. In my conversation with the president elect, he expressed a great interest in maintaining our four strategic relationships and so one of the messages i will be able to deliver is his commitment to nato and the Transatlantic Alliance. I think thats one of the most important functions i can serve at this stage during this trip. Is to let them know that there is no weakening of resolve when it comes to americas commitment to maintaining a strong and robust nato relationship and a recognition that those alliances arent just good for europe, theyre good for the United States. And theyre vital for the world. With respect to the Democratic Party, look, as i said in the rose garden right after the election, when your team loses, everybody gets deflated. Its hard. And its challenging. I think its a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection. You know, i think the important for many not to be big footing that conversation. I think we want to see new voices, new ideas emerge, thats part of the reason why i think term limits are really useful things. The democrats should not waiver on our core beliefs and principles. The belief that we should have an economy that works for everybody, not just a few. The belief that america at its best is inclusive and not exclusive. That we insist on the dignity and godgiven potential and worth of every child, regardless of race or gender or Sexual Orientation or what zip code they were born in. That we are committed to a world in which we keep america safe, but we recognize that our power doesnt just flow from our extraordinary military, it also flows from the strength of our ideals and our principles. And our values. So theres a core set of values that shouldnt be up for debate. Should be our north star. But how we organize politically i think is something that we should spend some time thinking about. I believe that we have better ideas. But i also believe that good ideas dont matter if people dont hear them. And one of the issues the democrats have to be clear on is democrats have to be clear on is the given population distribution across the country. We have to compete everywhere. We have to show up everywhere. We have to work at a grassroots level. Something thats been a running thread in my career. You know, i won iowa not because the demographics dictated that i would win iowa. Its because i spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and v. F. W. Hall and there were some counties where i might have lost, but maybe i lost by 20 points instead of 50 points. Theres some counties maybe i won that people didnt expect. Because people had a chance to see me and listen to you and get a sense of who you stood for and who you were fighting for. The challenge for a National Party is how do you dig in there and create those kinds of structures so that people had a sense of what it is that you stand for. And that increasingly is difficult to do just through a National Press strategy. Its increasingly difficult to do because of the splintering of the press. And so i think the discussions that have been taking place about how do you build more grassroots organizing, how do you build up state parties and local parties and School Board Elections youre paying attention to, and state rep races and city council races, that all i think will contribute to stronger outcomes in the future. Im optimistic that will happen. For democrats who are feeling completely discouraged, ive been trying to remind them, everybody remembers my boston speech in 2004. They may not remember me showing up here in 2005 when john kerry had lost an election. Tom daschle, leader of the senate, what been beat in an upset. Salazar and i were the only two democrats who won nationally. Republicans controlled the senate. And the house. And two years later, democrats were winning back congress and four years later i was president of the United States. Things change pretty rapidly. But they dont change inevitably. They change because you work for it. Nobody said democracy was supposed to be easy. Its hard. In a big country like this, it probably should be hard. Reporter thank you, sir. Mr. President , what can you tell us about the learning curve on becoming president . Can you tell us how long it took you before you were fully at ease in the job . If that ever happens. And did you discuss this matter with president elect trump . President obama about a week ago i started feeling pretty good. [laughter] no. Look. I think the learning curve always continues. This is a remarkable job. It is like no other job on earth. It is a constant slough of information and challenges and issues. That is truer now thans ever been. Partly because of the nature of communication and the interconnection between regions of the world. If you were president 50 years ago, the tragedy of syria might not even penetrate what the American People were thinking about on a day to day by asy. Today theyresy south koreaing theyre seeing vivid images of a child in the aftermath of a bombing. There was a time when if you had a financial crisis in Southeast Asia somewhere, it had no impact on our markets. Today it does. So the amount of information, the amount of incoming that any administration has to deal with today, and respond to much more rapidly than ever before, that makes a difference. I was watching a documentary during the bay of pigs crisis. J. F. K. Had about two weeks before anybody reported on it. Imagine that. I think its fair to say that if Something Like that happens under a current president , they have to figure out in about an hour what their response is. So, these are the kinds of points that i shared with the president elect. It was a freeflowing and i think useful conversation. I hope it was. I tried to be as honest as i could about the things i think any president coming in needs to think about. And probably most important point that i made was that how you staff, particularly your chief of staff, your National Security advisor, your white house counsel, you know, how you set up a process and a system to surface information, generate options for a president , understanding that ultimately the president s going to be the final decision maker. That thats something that has to be attended to right away. I have been blessed by having, and i admittedly am biased, some of the smartest, hardest working, good people in my administration that i think any president s ever had. As a consequence of that team, ive been able to make good decisions. And if you dont have that around you, then youll get swamped. So i hope that he appreciated that advice. What i also discussed was the fact that i had been encouraged by his statements on election night. About the need for unity and his interest in being the president for all people. And that how he staffs, the first steps he takes, the First Impressions he makes, the reset that can happen after an election, all those things are important and should be thought about. I think the important to give him the room and the space to do that. It takes time. To put that together. But i emphasized to him that, look, in an election like this that was so hotly contested and so divided, gestures matter. And how he reaches out to groups that may not have supported him, how he signals his interest in their issues or concerns, i think those are the kinds of things that can set a tone that will help move things forward once hes actually taken office. Reporter how long did it take before you were at ease in the job . President obama i didnt have time to worry about being at ease. Youll recall, we were losing about 800,000 jobs a month. The good news is that in some ways, my experience is a atypical. The hard to find an analogous situation. By the time f. D. R. Came into office, the depression had been going on for a couple of years. We were in the midst of a freefall, Financial System was locking up, the Auto Industry was about to go bellyup. The Housing Market had entirely collapsed. So, one of the advantages that i had was that i was too busy to worry about how acclimated i was feeling. In the job. We just had to make a bunch of decisions. In this situation, were turning over a country that has challenges, has problems, and obviously there are people out there who are feeling deeply disaaffected. Otherwise we wouldnt have had the results that we had in the election. On the other hand, if you look at the basic indicators of where the country is right now, the Unemployment Rate is as low as its been in eight, nine years. Incomes and wages have both gone up over the last year, faster than they have in a decade or two. Weve got historically low uninsured rates. The Financial Systems are stable. The stock market is hovering around its alltime high and 401 ks have been restored. The Housing Market has recovered. We have challenges internationally, but our most immediate challenge with respect to isil, were seeing significant progress in iraq. And mosul is now increasingly being retaken by Iraqi Security forces, supported by us. Our alliances are in strong shape. The progress weve made with respect to Carbon Emissions has been greater than any country on earth. And gas is 2 a gallon. So, he will have time and space i think to make judicious decisions. The Incoming Administration doesnt have to put out a huge number of fires. They may want to take the country in a significantly different direction, but theyve got time to consider what exactly they want to achieve and thats a testament to the tremendous work that my teams done over the last eight years. Im very proud of them for it. Aeven thisa jones. Reporter thank you, mr. President. You said more than once that you did not believe that donald trump would ever be elected president. And that you thought he was unfit for the office. Now that youve spent time with him, talking to him for an hour and a half in the oval office, do you now think that president elect trump is qualified to be president . And if i could do can do a compound question. You mentioned staffing and tone. What do you say to those americans who may not doubt that there will be a peaceful transition, but that are concerned about some of the policies and sentiments expressed by president elect trump himself or his supporters that may seem hostile to minorities and others, specifically im talking about the announce thament steve bannon, who is a proponent of the socalled all whn whitewhite movement allwhite movement, is going to have a prominent role in the white house as President Trump as his chief strategist and senior advisor, what message does that send to the country, to the world . President obama without copping out, i think its fair to say that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on every appointment that the president elect starts making. If i want to be consistent with the notion that were going to try to facilitate a smooth transition. Look, the people have spoken. Donald trump will be the next president. The 45th president of the United States. And it will be up to him to set up a team that he thinks will serve him well and reflect his policies. And those who didnt vote for him have to recognize that thats how democracy works. Thats how this system operates. When i won, there were a number of people who didnt like me and didnt like what i stood for. And, you know, i think that whenever youve got an incoming president of the other side, particularly in bantamweighter in a bitter election like this, it takes a while for people to reconcile themselves with that new reality. Hopefully its a reminder that elections matter. And voting counts. And so, you know, i dont know how many times we have to relearn this lesson, because we ended up having 43 of the country not voting who were eligible to vote. But it makes a difference. So, given that president elect trump is now trying to balance what he said in the campaign and the commitments he made to his supporters with working with those who disagreed with him and members of congress and reaching out to constituencies that didnt vote for him, i think its important for us to let him make his decisions and i think the American People will judge over the course of the next couple of years whether they like what they see. And whether these are the kinds of policies and this is the direction that they want to see the country go in. My role is to make sure that when i hand off this white house, that it is in the best possible shape and that ive been as helpful as i can to him in Going Forward. In building on the progress that weve made. My advice, as i said, to the president elect had we had our discussions was that campaigning is different from governing. I think he recognizes that. I think hes sincere in wanting to be a successful president. And moving this country forward. And i dont think any president ever comes in saying to himself, i want to figure out how to make people angry or alienate half the country. I think hes going to try as best he can to make sure that he delivers. Not only for the people who voted for him, but for the people at large. And the good thing is there are going to be elections coming up, so theres a buildin incentive for him to try to do that. Its only been six days. I think it will be important for him to have the room to staff up, to figure out what his priorities are, to be able to distinguish between what he was campaigning on and what his what is practical, what he can actually achieve. There are things that make for good sound bites but dont translate into good policy. Thats something that he and his team i think will wrestle with. In the same way that every president wrestles with. I did say to him, as ive said publicly, that because of the nature of the campaigns, and the bitterness and ferocity of the campaigns, that its really important to try to send some signals of unity and to reach out to minority groups or women or others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign. And i think thats something that he will want to do. But this is all happening real fast. Hes got commitments to supporters that helped to get him here and hes going to have to balance those and over the coming weeks and months and years my hope is that those impulses ultimately win out. But its a little too early to start making judgments on that. Reporter [inaudible] president obama i think that he successfully mobilized a big chunk of the country to vote for him and hes going to win. He has won. Hes going to be the next president. Regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office, this office has a way of waking you up. Those aspects of his positions or predispositions that dont match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick. Because reality has a way of asserting itself. And some of his gifts that obviously allowed him to execute one of the biggest political asserting itself. Upsets in history, those are ones that hopefully he will put to good use on behalf of all the American People. Reporter thank you, mr. President. Youre off to europe which is facing some of the same pressures we see at work in this country. When you spoke at the u. N. , you talked about the choices between talked about the choices between immigration and building walls, what who is do you think the you think the American People made last week and is there still a chance for course correction . [inaudible] president obama i think the American People recognize that the world has shrunk. That its interconnected. That youre not going to put that genie back in the bottle. The American People recognize that their careers or their kids careers are going to have to be more dynamic. They might not be working at a single plant for 30 years, they might have to change careers, they might have to get more education, they might have to retool or retrain. And i think the American People are game for that. They want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is that if you look at surveys around americans attitudes on trade, the majority of the American People still support trade. But theyre concerned about whether or not trade is fair. And whether weve got the same access to other countries markets as they have with us. Is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages and so forth. Now, i made an argument, thus far unsuccessfully, that the trade deal we made to organize t. P. P. Did exactly that. That it strengthened workers rights and environmental rights, leveled the Playing Field and as a consequence would be good for American Workers and american businesses. But thats a complex argument to make when people remember plants closing and jobs being offshored. So part of what i think this election reflected was people wanting that course correction that you described, and the message around stopping surges of immigration, not creating new trade deals that may be unfair, i think those were themes that played a prominent role in the campaign. As we now shift to governing, my argument is that we do need to make sure that we have an orderly, lawful immigration process, but that if it is orderly and lawful, immigration is good for our economy. It keeps this country young, it keeps this dynamic, we have entrepreneurs and strivingers who come here and are willing to take risks and thats part of the reason why america historically has been successful. Its part of the reason why our economys stronger and better positioned than most of our other competitors. Because we have a younger population thats more dynamic. When it comes to trade, i think, you know, when youre governing, it will become increasingly apparent that if you were to just eliminate trade deals with mexico, for example, well, youve got a Global Supply chain, the parts that are allowing auto plants that were about to shut down to now employ double shifts is because theyre bringing in some of those parts to assemble out of mexico. So the not as simple as it might have seemed. And the key for us, when i say us, i mean americans, but i think particularly for progressives, is to say, your concerns are real, your anxieties are real, heres how we fix them. Higher minimum wage. Stronger worker protections. So workers have more leverage to get a bigger piece of the pie. Stronger financial regulations. Not weaker ones. Yes to trade, but trade that ensures that these other countries that that trade with us arent engaging in child labor, for example. Being attentive to inequality and not tone deaf to it, but offering prescriptions that are actually going to help folks in communities that feel forgotten. Thats going to be our most important strategy. I think we can successfully do that. People will still be looking to the United States. Our example will still carry great weight. And it continues to to be my strong belief that the way we are going to make sure that everybody feels a part of this Global Economy is not by shutting ourselves from each other but by working together more effectively than we have in the past. Reporter some of the harsh words you had about mr. Trump calling him temperamentally you it to be president. Thatu feel differently now you have met him . Does anything concern you about a Trump Presidency . President obama well, we had a very cordial conversation and that didnt surprise me to some because i think he is obviously a person who i think likes to mix it up and to have a vigorous debate. And whats clear is that he was yes, theap into anxieties that also the enthusiasm of his voters in a way that was impressive. And i said so to him, because i think that to the extent that there were a lot of folks who missed the trump phenomenon, i think that connection that he was able to make with his supporters, that was impervious to events that might have that might have sunk another candidate stop that is powerful stuff. Sunk another candidate. That is powerful stuff. I think he is coming to this office with fewer set, hard and fast prescriptions that other president s might be running with. I dont think he is ideological. He is pragmatic in that way. And that can serve him well. As long as he has got good people around him and a clear sense of direction. Do i have concerns . Absolutely. Of course i have concerns. He and i differ on a whole bunch of issues. But, the federal government and our democracy is not a speedboat but a ocean liner. As i discovered when i came into office. It took a lot of hard work to make significant policy changes even in our first two years when we had larger majorities than mr. Trump will enjoy when he comes into office. One of the things i advised him before heto make sure commits to certain courses of action, he has thought through how various issues play themselves out. Ill use an obvious example, where we have a difference, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming year and that is the Affordable Care act. Obviously, this has been the holy grail for republicans over the last six, seven years is we have to kill obamacare. Now that has been taken as an article of faith. This is terrible and doesnt work and we have to undo it. But now that the republicans are in charge, they have to say, lets see. They have 20 million who have Health Insurance who didnt have it before. Health care costs generally have gone up at a significantly slower rate since obamacare was passed than they did before which saved the treasury hundreds of billions of dollars. People who have Health Insurance are benefiting in all sorts of ways, everything from having no lifetime limits on the claims they can make to seniors getting Prescription Drug discounts under medicare, to free mammograms. Now its one thing to say this thing isnt working. When it is just an abstraction. Now suddenly, you are in charge and going to repeal it. What happens to those 20 Million People who have Health Insurance . Are you going to kick them off and suddenly, they dont have Health Insurance and what ways are their lives better . Are you going to repeal the provision that insures that if you do have Health Insurance on your job or change jobs or lose jobs and start a Small Business and not going to have Health Insurance because you have a preexisting condition . That is really popular. Are you going to change the policy that kids can stay on their parents Health Insurance plans until they are 26. How are you going to approach all of these issues . My view is if they can come up with Something Better that actually works and a year or two after they have replaced the Affordable Care act with their own plan that 25 million have Health Insurance and its cheaper and better and running smoothly, ill be the first one to say, thats great. Congratulations. If, on the other hand, whatever the proposal results in millions of people losing coverage and results in people who already have Health Insurance losing protections that were contained in the legislation, then we are going to have a problem. And i dont think thats not going to be unique to me. I think the American People will respond that way. So i think on a lot of issues, what you are going to see is now comes the hard part. Now comes governance. We are going to be able to present to the Incoming Administration, a country that is stronger, a federal government that is working better and more efficiently, a National Security apparatus that is both more effective and truer to our values, energy polls policies that are resulting in not just less pollution, but also more jobs and and i think the president elect, rightly, would expect that he is judged on whether we improve from that baseline and on those metrics or things get worse. And if things get worse, then the American People will figure that out pretty quick. If things get better, more power to him. And now i will be the first to congratulate him. Reporter you talked about his temperment. Do you have any concerns about his temperment . As i said, whatever you bring to this office, this office has a habit of magnifying and pointing out and hopefully you correctthen for. This may seem like a silly example, i cant keep track of paper. Im not well organized in that way. And so, pretty quickly, after im getting stacks of briefing books coming in every night, i say to myself, i have to figure out a system, because i have bad filing, sorting and organizing habits and i have to find some people who can help me keep track of this stuff. That seems trivial but that ends up being a big business. I think what will happen with president elect, there are certain elements of his temperment that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them and corrects them, because when you are a candidate and you Say Something that is inaccurate or controversial, it has less impact than it does when you are president of the United States. Markets move. Roortrrtth reporter mr. Trump obama i will take a few more questions. Many people criticize the administration for this. [inaudible] and what would you say when he says he is open to your advice . You warned against killing of civilians in benghazi, many criticized your administration for this. To [in audible] president obama iran is a good example of the gap, i think, between some of the rhetoric in this town. Not unique to the president elect and the reality. I think there was a really robust debate about the merits of the iran deal before it was completed. And i actually was pretty proud of how our democracy was. How it processed that. Was a serious debate. People of goodwill were on both sides of the issue. Ultimately, we were able to persuade members of congress and the public, at least enough of them to support it. At the time the main argument against it was iran wouldnt abide by the deal. That they would cheat. We now have over a year of evidence that they have abided by the agreement. Thats not just my opinion and not just people in my administration, but the opinion of israeli and military officers who are part of the government that opposed the deal. So my suspicion is when the president elect comes in and hes consulting with his republican colleagues on the hill, that they will look at the facts because to unravel a deal that is working and preventing iran from pursuing a Nuclear Weapon would be hard to explain particularly if they were freed from any obligations and pursue any weapon. Keep in mind, this isnt just an International Agreement between arabians, but other countries. Our closest allies. And for us to pull out would then require us to sart sanking those other countries in europe, china or russia, that were still abiding by the deal because from their perspective, iran has done what it supposed to do. It becomes more difficult to undo something thats working than to undo something that isnt working. And when youre not responsible for it, i think you can call it a terrible deal. When you are responsible for the deal preventing iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon, you are more likely to look at the facts. That is going to be true in other circumstances. For example, the Paris Agreement. There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of undoing this international combreement. There are 200 countries that signed up for this thing. And the good news is that what we have been able to show over the last five, six, eight years is that its possible to grow the economy really fast and possible to bring down Carbon Emissions as well. Its not just a bunch of rules we have set up, youve got utilities that are putting in solar panels and creating jobs. You got the big three auto makers who have seen record sales and overachieving on the fuel efficiency standards that we set. Turns out that people like not having to fill up as often and save money at the pump even if its good for the environment. You have states like california, that has been moving forward on a clean energy agenda, separate and apart from any federal regulations that have been put forward. 40 of the country already lives under in states that are actively pursuing whats embodied in the Paris Agreement and clean power plan. And even states like texas that politically tend to oppose me, you have seen huge increases in wind power and solar power and you have some of the countrys Biggest Companies like google and walmart all pursuing Energy Efficiency because it has been good for their bottom line. What we have been able to do is a lot of these practices into our economy works and helped the bottom line of folks. In the it has cleaned up the environment. What the Paris Agreement now says that china and indian yeah and other countries potentially polluting, come on board. Lets Work Together so you guys do the same. The biggest threat when it comes to Climate Change and pollution isnt going to come from us, its going to come from china with over a billion people and india and if they are pursuing the same kind of strategies that we did, our kids will be choked off. And so again, do i think that new administration will make some changes, absolutely. But these International Agreements, the tradition has been that you carry them forward across administrations, particularly if once you actually examine them, it turns out they are going to do good for us in binding other countries in behavior that will help us. Last question. In benghazi we had an international mandate. The goal of preventing benghazi from being slaughtered fairly quickly. Its no secret, and you know in this region that syria is a much more messy situation with proxies coming from every direction. So i wish that i could bring this to a halt immediately. We have made every effort to try to bring about a political resolution to this challenge. John kerry has spent a. M. Infinite amount of time trying with russians and iranians and other parties to try to end the killing there. But what youre asking is do we have the capacity to carry out the same military action in syria as we did in libya, the situation is different. We dont have that option easily available to us. So we have to continue to pursue as best we can, a political solution and in the interim, put as much pressure as we can to the parties to arrive at humanitarian safe spaces to alleviate the suffering thats on the ground. I recognize that that has not worked. And it is something that i continue to think about every day and we continue to try to find some formula, that would allow us to see that suffering end. But i think its not surprising to you, because you studied this deeply, that if you have a Syrian Military that is committed to killing its people indiscriminately as necessary and it is supported by russia, that now has substantial military assets on the ground and are actively supporting that are actively supporting that regime and iran supporting. What has to be our number one National Security priority which is going after isil in raqqa. That the situation is not the same as it was in libya and there are some those who question the steps we took in libya. I indicated before in the aftermath of that campaign, i think the war of communities did the world communities did not sufficiently support the security structures there and now is a structures that we have to get back into a better place. I have given you ok. Last question. Justin of bloomberg. [indiscernible question] at least three quarters of a million undocumented immigrants what are you going to do to theer reassure them or Incoming Trump Administration Stance on immigration and the [indiscernible] president obama both excellent questions. On the Deferred Action Program that we have, known as daca, relates to dreamers who are currently benefiting from the provisions, i will urge the president elect and the Incoming Administration to think long and hard before they are endangering the status of what for all practical purposes, they have done nothing wrong, they were brought here by their parents. They have gone to school and pledged allegiance to the flag and some of them joined the military and enrolled in school. By definition, if they are part of this program, they are solid wonderful, young people of good character. And it is my strong belief that the majority of the American People would not want to see suddenly those kids have to start hiding again. And thats something that i will encourage the president elect to look at. With respect to guantanamo guantanamo, it is true that i have have not been able to close the darn thing because of the congressional restrictions put on us. What is also true, we have greatly reduced the population. You now have significantly less than 100 people there. There are some additional transfers that may be taking place over the next two months. There is a group of very dangerous people that we have strong evidence of having been guilty of committing terrorist ookts against the United States but because of the nature of the evidence and in some cases that evidence being compromised, its difficult to put them before an article 3 court. And that group has always been the biggest challenge for us. My strong belief and preference we would be better off closing gitmo and moving them to a different facility that was clearly governed by u. S. Jurisdiction and do it a lot cheaper and just as safely. Congress disagrees with me and i gather the president elect does as well. We will continue to explore options for doing that. But keep in mind, its not a matter of what im willing to do. One thing being president is that there are norms and laws and you have to Pay Attention to them. And the people who work for you are also subject to those rules and norms. And thats the piece of advice that i gave to the incoming president. I am very proud of the fact that we will knock on wood, leave this administration without significant scandal. We made mistakes and been screwups, but i will put the ethics of this administration and our track record in terms of just abiding by the rules and norms and keeping the trust of the American People, i would put this administration against any administration in history. And the reason is because we listened to the lawyers, we had a strong white house counsels office. Ethic and people in every agency whose job it was to remind people this is how you are supposed to do things. Doesnt mean that everybody did things the way they are supposed to. We have two Million People working in the federal government if you are including the military and so we had to just try to institutionalize this as much as we could. And that takes a lot of work. And one of my suggestions to the incoming president is that he take that part of the job seriously as well. Again, you wouldnt know this if you were listening to some news outlets or members of oversight committees in congress. But if you look at the back, it works. But if you look at the fact, it works. And this is just one example of the ways in which the federal government is much better than the way it was. You look at v. A. People remember that legitimate problems that were publicized in phoenix. It was scandalous what happened. What people dont remember is that we have brought in well over a Million People who are getting benefits that werent getting them before. Driven the backlog for zribblet way downlity benefits and made the agency work better, not work better. And the moderates have said better is good. Perfect is attainable, better is perfect is unattainable, better is possible. So we will try to share the lessons we have learned in these last eight years with the incoming president and my hope is that he makes things better. If he does, we will benefit from it. Ra . Some of you who are traveling will have a chance to ask more questions. All right . [indiscernible] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] this morning on cspan, washington journal is live next. At noon the house returns for legislative business. Architects of the u. S. Capitol following the completion of the capitol dome restoration. At 10 00, securities and hange commission amuck announces he is stepping down. That is live on cspan two. In about 45 minutes, a congressman on donald trump as the new president and what that means to a new Republican Party. Reaction to the election including the fbi decision to release information about illary a busy day on capitol hill with house Republican Leadership elections set at one caucus afternoon and roll call reporting key positions, including that of speaker are running unopposed. As Democrats Ask for a delay for elections set for thursday. Ryandemocrat tim considering running for House Minority leader, currently held by nancy pelosi. Fors washington journal, november 15. Hundref