Each,g about 1. 5 million 98 of them struck their intended target. Within one week of the shower alassad of alassads executed with deadly position. It was america at its most impressive. No military in the world has more capacity than ours. None is more nimble. Givenhe u. S. Military is a task, resources are never a question, capacity is never in doubt, time is a minor apps to go. The attack went down as planned, perfectly. No one was surprised. Friday morning, no one was surprised when the attack did nothing to change the reality of the dystopia creating civil war inside syria that has killed 400,000 people. No one was surprised that a political solution still seemed one billion miles away. No one was surprised that no matter how badly damaged the airfield was, syria is still just as big and National Security nightmare for the United States and our allies. Because neither the root of the crisis in syria, nor the way out, is rooted in problems that the military alone can solve. The way in and the way out is political. Its cultural. Its social. Its economic. Its no secret why syria feels just as hopeless after thursday as it did before. When a problem is diagnosed as military, the department of defense never has to worry about having enough money for capacity, or support, from congress. When a problems diagnosis political, economic, or social, no one can imagine a real solution because the agencies that do that work, the state department, usaid, primarily, they are set up to fail, only given crumbs and never the resources to win. Just enough to keep the doors open. This happens over and over and over again across the landscape of u. S. National security problems. Yes, some of our major adversaries and rivals across the world are building up their militaries, but without exception the crises popping up globally have little to do with kinetic power. Moscow is on the march because it has figured out how to use its oil and gas largess and information propaganda in order to bully neighboring countries into the kremlins corner. China is building an aircraft carrier, but they have more friends now than ever before because of their willingness to spread capital all over the globe. North korea may be trying to build the capacity to fire a missile at the United States, but they are only sex theyve only been successful in certain ways. Grows,tical instability a Record Number of displaced persons for current famines, breakdown with extremist groups stepping into the vacuum. Few are capable governments mean less capacity to do with Game Changing developments. The continuing creep of breakdown, its catastrophic this for the United States, more ungovernable space means war more room for the enemies of the u. S. To grow. The nonmilitary challenges to the world order and American Security mount by the day. Yet we scratch our heads in wonder why, under both president obama and president bush, pursuing very different philosophies and strategies with nearly unlimited resources, our enemies only seem to multiply and strengthen. The answer, to me, is simple. A strong American Military is still vital in guarding against conventional threats but the emerging threats exert an influence that cannot be checked with military power alone. We are facing new worlds today. The new players, emerging economies, developing world is increasingly immune to the blunt force of American Military hegemony. The toolshas changed used, yet we have stayed the same. Now, we Pay Lip Service to new capacities for these threats, but its largely just that, lip service. Military and intelligence spending still outpace diplomacy by a 20 to one margin. 20 to one. Have about it this way, we more people working at military Grocery Stores today than we have diplomats in the state department. Thats insanity. How about this . In the global competition for foreign investment, china is lapping us. Why . Maybe because Public Diplomacy around the world, the budget is 650 million. Their budget for economic goodwill is 10 million. How about foreign aid . We wonder why its not effective anymore. In 1950, when we were rebuilding europe, we were spending 2 of our gdp on International Assistance programs. Today the number is. 1 . We are getting what we pay for. We are wondering when we will be getting serious about government reform in egypt. Maybe because saudi arabia is spending 10 times as much in the economy there. In the conflict, their priorities take precedence. U. S. President , republican or democrat, is destined to fail if we dont recognize that the toolkit that we currently give to the commanderinchief is a mismatch for the real challenges faced by the commanderinchief. Its time that we thought about nonkinetic forces in the same way that we think about war fighters. We need to give the department of defense everything in needs to succeed. We should do that. In part tohieved military strength. I want my country to have the capacity to do what it did on thursday night. What im saying is that we should look at the state department and usaid like we do defense. It should be reasonable to propose 50 billion more and nonmilitary security funding. A detailedunveiling proposal to change course. Showing a path forward to right size the National Security budget for the real threats that face our country. That we cane way rebuild the National Security toolkit so that for the first time in our memory president s will have the option to succeed globally if they choose to. Heres how it works. First, recognize the success of a Marshall Plan wasnt an accident. It was a great National Security investment and has never been in greater need than today. We cant compete with china, russia, or even isis we exit the Economic Development playing field. We cannot continue playing the role of Global Fire Department responding to crises only after they have developed for alarm blazes. We need a 21st century marshall that the recognizes best prophylactic against this is in at region with the best pathway for new markets to American Goods being economic empowerment. Setting forward specific proposals to do this. This doesnt come at any expense to the u. S. Taxpayer. Its time to consolidate the current alphabet soup of financing agencies into one powerhouse. The International Development bank, taking off all the restrictions it currently resist exist so that we can compete with countries like china, russia, for the good of u. S. Companies. Lets really ramp up the millennium challenge. Model that works there is a line of countries that wants in. Reinvigoration could make huge leaps forward and we should partner them with a new program where money has been fronted to side with the implementation of warm. Development aid coming from the United States reaching countries where it really matters. Finally, recognize that our adversaries are using energy as a weapon and we should start fighting back. Begin Financing Energy independence for countries on the periphery. Put the money up to do it. Have a robust policy. Ukraine Energy Independent is a better longterm investment in anything we could do with the military. The second proposal envisions an america that could truly respond before the crises deployment of cruise missiles. Theres nothing soft about the work that our diplomats do to protect and advance u. S. Security. Whether it is countering russian corruption in the balkans, working to stem the flow of undocumented migrants from central america, or fighting the spread of intolerant islam in the middle east, our diplomats are defenders of security all over the globe. By the way, they dont cost 1 million per year to deploy. This focuses on powering up some of the most Important Missions of the state department. A renewed focus on state propaganda is already underway, but it is needing more help. Rapidly spreading corruption is undermining the rule of law and u. S. Interest all over the world and a new cadre of Foreign Service offices dedicated to promoting good governments governance can help to turn the tide. Corps it builds stability and helps to sell america. The third and final set of proposals would put into place the necessary funding so that the United States can finally lead on Global Finance Crisis Management prevention. Eventually the slope of every crisis flows to the United States, developing crises, whether they be military complex or famines, they eventually threaten us. Extremist recruitment, Public Safety crises thrive on undocumented migration. If the United States doesnt step up to prevent these crises before they arise, no one will and we will end up paying the price for this abdication of global leadership. While this proposal calls for some immediate increases in the historical unhumanitarian accounts, there are two major ones here. First, the consolidation of the existing Flexible Funding accounts within the state and usaid. These funding streams as they exist now are wellmeaning, redundant, and underfunded. Undersecretary they came to my office to complain that even though the u. S. Saw them moving into northern kenya, we couldnt do anything about it because we didnt have the authority to move money from one account of the other, to stand up in the capacities needed to keep it at bay. The Global Crisis prevention account will give the president to deploy the assets into the area before it falls into chaos. We dont have the resources or the agility to do this now. Second, a prefunded Global Health account that will allow the president to stop a pandemic in its infancy rather than having to wait once it reaches adolescence. Estimates are that the billions spent on ebola could have been just millions of the Obama Administration had the money to spend one year earlier. As you read through this report or the executive summary, i do thinkhat you will not ive gone mad. I understand what im doing here. Im arguing unapologetically for doubling of the Foreign Affairs budget over the course of five years at a political moment in time when the president is calling for the same budget to be cut by 30 this year alone. I understand that today this is not a realistic proposal. But it is a marker for where we should be. For the coming debate so that the terms dont start such that flat funding is on one side with a devastating 30 cut on the other. Smarte majority of thinkers on global security, they know that the Foreign Affairs budget is badly onerfunded and we need to be offense. President trumps medieval view of the world, in which the u. S. Can protect itself of the big army and a bigger moat is wrong and dangerous. Has flaw in it that the fawning, frankly over the missile strike in syria will fan the flames of his backwards views on National Security. Syria is just as big a mess today as it was wednesday, maybe even a bigger mess if the response is an escalation. The world is a mess, too. The cleanup cannot happen if the u. S. Continues to spend money the way that we are today, ignoring the blizzard of crises they cannot be solved by equipping the department of defense with everything they need in the homes that are left i am glad that we have those aircraft carriers, but the in u. S. National security is not another piece of military machinery. Its making unstable places stable. The world has changed. The tools of our rivals have transfigured. The battle is different than it was decades ago and the way to refund the fight has to be kept up. Thank you for having me today area and look forward to the conversation today. I look forward to the conversation. [applause] thank you for an much, senator. You have given us quite a bit to think about. Full disclosure, i grew up in connecticut, but you would not want that to affect the quality of the westerns in any way. We will get to syria and the strike just a moment, but i want to follow up on your proposal the you are releasing now. I had a look over the weekend costs of your proposal, added up, if i did my math right, to 131 billion over the next five years. That is before you count the president s thirtysomething percent to the foreign aid budget cut. First i want to follow up on something that you said. Donald trump won the election. Is this the time to suggest that theres any chance in the realistic future of adding 130 1 billion to the state or foreign aid budget . His proposal is at the department of defense, but he is signaling a willingness to talk about it and willingness of the resources needed to protect this country and what im trying to lay forward here is that if we are going to talk about that massive increase, then it is misspent if it is only happening in the buildup of ships and aircraft carriers and hangers. I understand that this is crosscultural today, but remember him as a candidate. His foreignpolicy signals were all over the place. He did seem to preview that he understood the danger of u. S. Military intervention inside of the middle east without a political component to that plan, right . Captiveuch more of us skeptic than he was an enthusiast. If that is the president we have , then why wouldnt he want tools that would allow him and his administration to learn the lesson . He seems to have set up this between hard power that is good and soft power that is bad. Part of the pitch am trying to make here is that there is nothing soft about what the state department does and can do. Hardened warriors for american National Security in a think if we try to reframe the debate to go on the offense, some people in that administration do know the disaster of american foreignpolicy the middle east over the last two years. The defense spending was paid for largely by cuts in defense spending at the state department, as we just discussed. Do you support any increase in defense spending at this point . Sen. Murphy absolutely. I try to make that point in the speech. There are a lot of bad things that havent happened in this world because people know that if they cross certain lines, the military will be there as a backstop. I do support increased military spending. Department state accounts. Im just laying out a aggressive puzzle and i think we should be talking about commensurate increases in state Department Funding with military increases. Million. Poses 54 if you were in charge of the world, what would you recommend . Can murphy i think i easily find, and i have recommended over five years increasing the numbers as they play out for ways, parsed different ways. 50 billion in increased Foreign Affairs spending over five years. I can argue for 50 billion this year, split evenly between military and nonmilitary accounts. I think we can put that to good use for a quickly. Polls show over and over that the American Public has no idea how much is spent on foreign aid. A recent one suggested that the American People believe that the the average american believes that some 31 of the u. S. Federal budget goes to foreign aid while the actual number is actually less than 1 . Why is the public so woefully uninformed . Where is this coming from . Its been a convenient pop talking point for the folks without a stake in the game. There have been high profile uses of the money overseas. People have been watching this on the nightly news for years. The equivalent in the story was the amount of money in the that we were spending to build up those countries. Its interesting, the next question was how much money do you think the federal government should be spending . Americans dont think it is the right number. You drill down, americans are much more willing to spend additional dollars if they know the actual size of the account. People do have this wonderful werelgia for when they helping to rebuild europe. They remember the beneficially so that hunting and if you told them that you had seen in addition and you make that argument consistently, you can reframe the debate. The folks that want to spend more money talk about the account from your talk earlier. Your site has so woefully failed ,o communicate this reality that the public is so completely uninformed about what the government spends, doesnt spend, and as you suggest, what they should spend. Thatis is a disease infects my party all the time. We sort of get on the wrong side of a debate and we stop writing it. It becomes a vicious downward cycle, right . That happened on health care. The minute we felt we were losing we stopped engaging. Of course, its an attractive argument, the idea that you should spend money here rather than over there, but we have decided to make a massive commitment to National Security. Its just a matter of where the dollars are best spent. When you walk through, the American Public just needs five minutes to talk about how enemies are building up these nonmilitary sets of tools, it is frankly not to far journey. Democrats lost a lot of our foreignpolicy big thinkers in the senate. ,olks that were good at this joe biden, my predecessor, joe lieberman, they all laughed. We need to rebuild the bench of Foreign Policy in the senate and need the courage to know that if we make this argument and spent time explain to people why its more necessary to spend money outside the military than ever before, people will follow us there. I want to get to syria before we have a chance to take questions from the other folks here. I want to pin you down on what happened last week. You were very confident or he of the capabilities of the u. S. Military and the strikes and what they were intended to do, get you remained critical of the president s overall policy. Just focused on what happened thursday night, do you believe the president did the right thing sending those in . I dont. Hy hes not constitutionally authorized to do it. Thats not a copout, by the way. Some say whats the strategic oculus, not the legal calculus. They are wrapped together. The reason the congress is supposed to weigh in on these things is that the we are allowed to have the full scope of review when it comes to military activity overseas. The congress hasnt weighed in on any of whats happening here today. Not just the missile strikes, but the 500 plus troops waiting to retake that city and getting very involved in complicated ways. Second, so long as we have a policy of trapping those children inside of syria and not eitherg them to leave, by stopping refugee flows into the United States or gutting resettlement accounts at the department of state, its an inhumane policy to bomb a country setting off what we know will be some set of escalation and then having no process to help people. Would you have voted to give the authority if he had asked for the authority . Congress would have been been able to have a conversation about what the policy in syria is. It wouldnt have happened over the weekend, right . They would have debated for a couple of weeks. Which is one reason president s take action before going to congress. Sen. Murphy but thats not excuse. Just because it takes time or is hard, remember, we give the permission to the executive to take immediate action if an imminent threat is made to the United States. In those senses it doesnt make sense to come to us for authorization. But lets be honest about this strike, the message could have been set a week sent a week later. Are really just interested in a pinprick, you could have done that one week later and during that time we could have talked about the kind of authorization we wanted to give. Maybe we would have wanted to give authorization for a targeted strike to respond to a chemical weapons attack but not authorization for the massive thatup of round troop could sit in syria for years. That debate could happen. Not to pin you down completely, but would you have supported the resolution you just described . If there was a resolution to limit the potential for the expansion of the u. S. Led ground war in syria, combined with an authorization to strike, that is something that i would have been interested in potentially supporting. Taking a Bigger Picture view for a moment, if you are in charge of the world, starting with the president started when he was inaugurated or right now, what would you do . We know its a mess. Theres a long history of white is a mess, but what would you do now . I need to step back for a second. Americans the only country in the world that believes we can solve complicated political, social, religious problems on the other side of the world in places we fundamentally dont understand. We have is left over hubris as a nation, even after the iraqi and Afghanistan War still with us, that we have to shake. Restraint is sometimes a smart policy. I know thats unsatisfactory to the folks work professionally in the field of Foreign Affairs, but what we have done over the or five years in syria is make the situation worse. We have given these rebels just enough support to keep the fight going but never enough to win. We have prolonged the carnage inside of that country. You need to decide if youre in or out, militarily. I would argue that we should be out. Focused on defeating isis, we should not be engaged in the ultimate fight over who controls the regime and we should have a robust humanitarian policy to let anybody out of that country who wants to be out. The players in the political process using the leverage that we have to come to the table, but not believing that we are going to draw up the political and bleeding military support into the country to keep the fight going, though it is never enough to get it done. What would i do . I would pull the support for the rebels. I would up my game when it came to political pressure on the russians andthe use the sanctions included at our disposal to try to pressure them to step up the fight. I would dramatically expand our humanitarian assistance to help people who want to get out. Does not just leave syria to , allowing russia to run over the rest of the country . Without our military assistance, including our airstrikes, there is nothing left for the rebels to do. They cant stand up to the syrians and the russian military. Sen. Murphy it begs the question, would you take syria in 2010 as a trade for syria today . Assad is a terrible guy. You have to start with today. Sen. Murphy but you are saying that a syria where he is in charge for any time and the russians have serious equities is an unsatisfactory outcome. I understand that given what he has done, it is impossible to imagine a u. S. Policy that allows them to stay for a heart the. Continue to pretend that there is this political settlement in which russia and iran abandon him. So, we continue to sort of feed this civil war under the belief that someday a set of circumstances will magically in which russia and iran push him out and agree to and there is a pluralistic american oriented government installed in damascus. That is not happening. If there needs to be a transition, if we need to guarantee continued state of affairs, i dont think that that is an unjustifiable price to pay for an end to the carnage happening inside the country. That suggests that if we leave it to russia and assad, the kong the carnage would somehow be abated. But it would very much likely continue in some form. Just without our help. Right. Rphy so, the question is, if we had not propped up the rebels with training, worked with our partners to do that, where would syria be today . It might be that the serial civil war would be continuing or assad might be in power, but it might be fundamentally less violent. Of myt spend every moment day thinking about this problem. I think a lot about it. Im not telling you that im sure thats the right outcome. But the middle ground we are in today, where we are propping up this civil war in just waiting for the moment in which all of the things that we want align just, to me, seems a fantasy. I want to give the Council Members the opportunity to come in with questions. Your your name and affiliation. We would like to get as many members as possible, so keep your question to a question. My definition is something to 15 to 20 seconds and after that it definitely becomes a statement. We will start right here, sir. Thank you, senator murphy. Mark jacobson, georgetown university. Secretary tillerson is headed to moscow. How would you define success regarding his mission there . Sen. Murphy thats a short one. Im pleased at the stunning change of rhetoric that has happened with respect to u. S. Russia relations. Especially over the last 48 hours. Its hard to understand why we all of a sudden decided to take this antagonistic stand when the president or his team wasnt willing to do that. I do think that there is a way to read what happened in syria last week through the lens of softness on russia. Russia has complicity in these chemical weapons attacks. You have to ask yourself, did they think that they could get away with it because the u. S. Has essentially signaled that there was essentially no price to be paid if they behaved in irresponsible manners throughout the world . You have to ask that question. But that is passed. What is prologue, what does that mean . What is success . Boy, i have low expectations for this meeting. In part because the russians are going to try to make it unsuccessful in order to provide a repercussion for this genetic turn in rhetoric. Dramatic turn in rhetoric. For me, tillerson, coming out of it talking the same way that he did going in, then coming to work with us in congress on a set of sanctions that start to continue to tighten the noose on russia so that eventually we have the leverage necessary. I got very low expectations. The lines,d between i thought i heard you saying that theres a bit of a positive development. Sen. Murphy yeah, absolutely. This is a very Different Administration when it comes to the way that they talk about russia, and i think that is a positive development. We have legislation ready to go in congress, if they could work with us. Again, this is all dizzying to our allies and adversaries. The fact that we still dont have a syria policy. We had two different ones yesterday on the tv talk shows. Nothing wrong with tv talk shows. Sen. Murphy especially when they make news like they did yesterday. Good to wehink its change, but im not excited for an administration that seems to have this kind of Rapid Transformation in their policy and rhetoric, that is not great news for global stability. Right here, maam. The microphones right there. Senator, thank you for coming today. Francis cooke. I think all we can set your funding comments is hallelujah, i hope it comes with slots. Congress in this town has not been edifying the last couple of weeks during the Health Care Debate in gorsuch fight. Do you think there are enough people in the congress who would support what you are proposing today . It certainly wont come from the administration, but the congress does control the budget. No, i dont think that there are enough, but there is bipartisan support for a proposal like this. As you know, Lindsey Graham been traveling the world, making a case for a new Marshall Plan. There is no bigger hawk out there than Lindsey Graham. That if you cut the state Department Funding, you have got to buy some more bullets. There are some new voices on this as well. Anyone who has listened to todd young, the new senator from indiana, boy, he is a strong voice when it comes to these accounts. Just a few extra advocates in the senate can make a difference. Victory in the short term would , but in the longterm we have definitely got a handful of people who understand the value of these nonmilitary tools countering what our adversaries and rivals are doing. Sir . Right here in the middle. Rick tillman, board member of the arms control administration. President trump apparently decided very quickly, without Consulting Congress or our attack. N this doesnt this make an argument the legislation that would require the president , before he launches the First Nuclear strike, to consult with congress . Im not as familiar with that piece of legislation as it should be, and i will get familiar with it. I would say that notification and consultation was woefully lacking. A handful of discussions that happened, but there were no broad notifications. I know the Top Democrats were being told as the strikes were being launched. It certainly appears that many of his lieutenants had International Conversations after the fact. It doesnt seem that President Trump had many direct conversations. Again, much of the work on this seems to have been outsourced. Was busy this weekend, conducting some pretty important diplomacy with the chinese. He did seem to leave the diplomacy conversations to others. Support has been fairly robust. I dont think you can fault him for not building an International Coalition if, in the end, most of our International Players were supportive of the strike. Yes, sir . Thank you. I am from the study for islam and democracy. In your plan, senator, would you support the Marshall Plan for a country like tunisia . Making a transition to democracy , still struggling with Economic Security situations on the border . Tunisia is almost a poster child for what im talking about. An outlier in that it comes out of the arabs spring with an impact and norma security challenges. The per capita flow of fighters out of tunisia still alarmingly high, given the fact that this is a government that may that transition. For economic investment, having an inclusive political structure that is able to take it. Just to keep a tiny flow of Economic Development flowing into tunisia. Dont assume that it remains stable. It is just a mountain compared to the peanuts necessary to build real clinical stability there. Yes, sir . Over here in the front . Abrupt change of subject, can you tell me where the budget control act plays in your plan and where you think it will be next fall and if it is still there, what are you cutting . The current sequestration and budget control constraints would have to be removed in order for this kind of plan to be put into place. Again, im imagining this in a world where we have finally decided that the insanity of sequestration should no longer apply. Amount of money we are talking about is big. Im not going to suggest it isnt a large number, but thats the amount of money that you save if you decide to directly negotiate the price of prescription drugs with Drug Companies through medicare, right . There are single policy changes that can get you 50 billion. Thats a minor adjustment in tax rates for upper income earners. The policy changes are not catastrophically large, if you chose to make them to come up with this money. Part of what im arguing is just that the administration and the folks the proposed these supplementals should be thinking about supplemental requests in these nonmilitary accounts. When the president makes many of these proposals, often they are not paid for because they are there to treat emergencies and when they do that, they should be including nonmilitary accounts as well. Right here in the middle. Sean murphy, from George Washington university. I wonder if part of your argument to be supported by observing that a large amount of what the apart department of defense does is not hard power. A lot of what they do or things like working on the ground in afghanistan or iraq, building , disasterest Africa Relief in various contexts. There is certainly hard work find it and so on, but ive always been struck at how much diplomacy our american men and women in the service do. And if you conceive of that as part of the soft power side of things, all you are talking about is augmenting that with other experts who have Language Skills and experience and so on to make the whole package Work Together extremely well. Sen. Murphy i think it is a wonderful point. I think you have seen this kind of slow, quiet shift since 2003 in which the military has outsourced has sort of traditional military work to the covert agencies and the state department has outsourced diplomacy to the military. The one group left without much to do these days is the state department because much of their work has been shifted to somebody else. In that wonderful book about all things becoming military, part of the reason we channel so much traditional diplomacy through the military is because they are flexible, they can stand up capacities really fast when the state department really cannot. Compartmentalize, there is so little flexibility for the assistant secretary to move money from one country to another its all country and capability account specific, when you decide you want to do something, like dramatically expand arable land in the corner of afghanistan, the department of defense can come to you and tell you how to do it much faster than the state department can. That is why a big part of my proposal is built around giving more flexibility within the state department, consolidating accounts so that you can move money around. Friends, my democratic that would be a scary discretionary power to give the executive, but i think that every president is destined to fail unless we given the kind of flexibility in the nonmilitary account that we give the military account. That in just an moment, were in a city now controlled by Senate Republican, Senate Republican house. At the end of the day, i know that the president has a bias towards a military buildup. Picturing quite a number of things you believe that foreign aid and the state department should focus on and the money that we need to spend on that. At the end of the day, what does it really matter if you and the president and other likeminded members of congress Work Together on accomplishing what you want to accomplish, but the Defense Department, rather than the department of state . Sen. Murphy thats a great question. In the end, the military, even with their new capacities, they are still trained and driven to do one thing, primarily. Which is that thursday night strike, right . Transforming the way that military education occurs, but there is no way to create the toacity in basic training mirror the capacity that you get in Foreign Service school. It would involve a revolution of the state department and the way in which people are trained into in the Defense Department in order for them to do it. Listen, i think in a real egg think environment, given the way the world works today, you might want to have a conversation about, about, about one whichtructure, right . Sees the whole gamut of security chances challenges as moving it around or underneath it. The 19thcentury idea of an army and a foreign office. I will give you an example. Jim jones and others put together an example that starts to tease getting to that point. Suggesting why dont we start by consolidating the state department commands and military commands . Thats one of the problems today. You have the state department carved up in a way that doesnt overlap with the way that the u. S. Military command structure is set up. Person at the top of each regional command overseeing the Regional Response and nonRegional Response. That might be a start. Question right here in the middle . Hostetter,athan church of the brother d. C. Office and i convened a working group on nigeria. Is around therk. Ngoing crisis in boko haram we have raised concerns around the accountability of the Nigerian Military and the need to increase humanitarian assistance. One of the pieces of that, as you mentioned, is flexibility, the need to work in on the ground places that are difficult to get to for larger organizations. So, sen. Murphy so, i dont know nigeria as well as others, but it strikes me as a place where our current toolkit has party not worked, in because we are supplying what we try to hang over the head of nigeria is support for the military. We have this big slush fund that allows them to move Foreign Military aid around very fluidly. Nigeria is always in that pot. We try to use that money to force the political change necessary to build long build longterm stability. Back to the question of who should be doing that, the department of defense is not in the business of creating political stability. They are not able to use funding as a leverage for political change. The state departments in that business, thats what they do. Because there is a flash slush fund and the department of defense but not state, its the military, its generals that are sitting across from the nigerians, saying we would love to give you this new money to fight boko hurrah, but boko haram, its really important that you do that. Why cant you use the same slush fund and bring over ambassador cook from the state department and get the advice and a converse the same thing or selling similar . Meaning we dont want to wait for three years and nine months. The people on your side dont want to wait to do something as we know who is going to be in the white house. Isnt there something that you thedo to work within Current Power structure in washington to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish . Which is admirable, understanding its highly unlikely that there is going to be significant funding increases at the state department. In fact, at this point, the president s budget is going to suffer significant funding decreases. I think today thats what you want to do, right . Professional diplomats sitting at the table, helping to negotiate military funding increases. Not willing to accept the way things are done today. I understand that what im proposing is a radical departure. I have found in this town that everything is impossible until it no longer is impossible. Today we are stuck spending military dollars and using it as a means to push political reform. But if we have to capabilities am talking about, 10 years ago we could have been using the money in nigeria to build the kind of political reform that never allowed for extremism to run out of control, as it is today. I dont know if that is how it would have played out, but as i said at the beginning of this each we cant even envision real Political Economic solutions for places like nigeria because we simply only have the resources to envision military solutions. Hi, this is jessica [indiscernible] from beloit. Im going to take us to the next level. To get to a plus up his vision, you are going to need to do that with secretary tillerson, bringing him on the journey. In addition to bringing more power back from dod to the state but establish their huts pah around the world. What is your plan for you and your brethren on the committee to slip the narrative to get back to being an advocate for this . Sen. Murphy you guys are so practical. [laughter] sen. Murphy and trying to lift you into the clouds here, but you are not coming. Thinking about how to plot through the tactics of this. Not lost hope in secretary tillerson. Of flossing the s accounts,plussimg he didnt use that express a high level of confidence in the work that his department does. It is going to be left to the , friends in the senate and the house, to try to make those arguments. And we have them. I mean, we have really good. Ultimately we may not have republican support for the massive increases on talking about, but we have those who are acknowledging how devastating the cut would he and im not losing sleep at night thinking there will be a budget with a 30 cut. Or even a 10 cut for the department of state. Getting support for the targeted in certain account. Im interested in that private lunch, just hearing about it. [laughter] sen. Murphy you can imagine the conversation. Secretary tillerson was good to have on the Foreign Relations committee. You can imagine the subjects we talked about. I didnt walk away from that lunch thinking that this was a 30 or 40 cut that was deeply empathetic over antithetical to the way of someone who sounded like he would defend those cuts rather than push back against them. Some said they didnt support them, arguing for more money than the department. Suggesting that tillerson will be of the latter category, not the former. Yes . This is another practical question down in the weeds that deals with the relationship between the pentagon and the state. They had stopped interviewing afghans that served with american forces. They just arent any more special immigrant visas to be had. Senator mccain, senator reid, onator shaheen, they have both sides propose legislation that would increase, think, 2500, the number of special immigrant visas. What do you think about that . How do we solve that problem . Its a moral imperative and National Security imperative. Probably likely that we will and when we are in another country with big numbers, we will need them to work with us. As word gets out, we will leave you to die, we wont rescue you. Why would anyone else cooperate with us overseas . Its a moral stain, but ultimately its a practical liability. There are more of these folks in need and you can imagine. The threats come not just to the individual, but to the entire family. I was literally on the road going from pancake breakfast of pancakes reckless, stopping to get something to drink at a convenience store, the clerk at branfordnience store store instations branford he was run out of afghanistan, but his family was still there. To his great misfortune, a u. S. Came into by a diet mountain dew. [laughter] a tough one, you have got the support in congress, but when you Start Talking about fiddling with immigration policies, dealing with the administration, that might be one of the bright lines , which would be absolutely tragic. Right here, yes, maam . Hi, senator. [indiscernible] from usaid. My question takes us back into the clouds of it. A bit. It would seem that it would need fundamentaled in a rethinking of our National Security strategy. Would you agree . And if so, what are some of the key tenants . Sen. Murphy well, you are clearly right. I hope i had i articulated that in my remarks. What i suggested is that the tools that are adversaries are using are not primarily military in nature. Yet hours continue to be. You have got to build up a basket of tools overseas. We had the biggest, baddest military in the world, worn as a badge of honor. This is the only capacity in which we are the world leader, right . Why is it acceptable that we are not the world leader on information flow . Why are we not the world leader on economic assistance . Why are we not the world leader on Energy Assistance . Why are we so proud to be the world leader when it comes to military power, but we ask that except being second, third, or fourth place in all of these other capacities that increasingly suggest the ones that are really going to matter. Second, about stability. In a world in which it only takes a little bit of ungovernable space for a handful of really bad people to plot a highly deadly attack against the United States, you got to be waking up every day to reduce ungovernable space. Big military hardware doesnt do that. It often exacerbates that ungovernable space. Think about the question and develop the capacity. Dramatically reducing it makes it much less likely. Senator, we and exactly where we begin. Thank you for watching at home. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] senator chris murphy of connecticut just leaving the room here. Having made remarks to questions of council on Foreign Relations that we will have in the video archive shortly. Type senator chris murphy in the search bar on our homepage. Taking you live now to the White House Briefing room for todays briefing by press secretary sean spicer. Thisll be the First Official White House Briefing since u. S. Strikes in syria on thursday. It should be starting shortly. E have more coming up the public swearingin of neil gorsuch held in the white house rose garden. You can watch that after the White House Briefing on the cspan networks throughout the day and also on prime time. Then tonight at 8 00 on the conservatives talk about hollywood, pop culture, storytelling, and the conservative message posted by the National Review editor in eastern time. National review at 8 p. M. Eastern time. The White House Briefing, todays briefing with sean spicer expected to start about 12 minutes ago. We havent seen him come to the room yet. We will you know coming up today, we will show you the public swearingin of the Newest Supreme Court justice neil gorsuch. And a look at conservatives in hollywood tonight. We wait for the White House Briefing to start and we look at the washington journal i know gdt rights in the work lace. Writes in the workplace. To come ats discrimination against lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals. She found her self repeatedly denied promotions and started to understand that it was related to the fact that her employer saw her with her partner in the parking lot and and really started to understand that this was tied to the fact that she had a samesex partner. Was the thing prohibiting her from being able to advance her place. How did lambda legal and that getting involved . She filed a lawsuit on her own behalf. Lambda legal keeps an eye on the legal landscape to see where ofre are cases on behalf lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. The earliest stages by District Court judge. Cover hern circumstance. On appeal to the second of the court of appeals and lambda took on her recommendation. What specific law are we talking about . Title vii of the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a number of characteristics. In this case, discrimination on the basis of sex. Its not about expanding those protected classes under title vii. Its about a class that is already protected within title vii . Askeds is a case that we the court to recognize that had kimberly been 10 and had a female partner, none of this wouldve happened. Because it was her sex that trigger discrimination, we didnt need to ask them to rewrite secretary spicer welcome back, everyone. Good to see you after a few days. This morning, the president was honored to host the swearingin of associate justice neil gorsuch. His confirmation was the culmination of a deliberative process that the president started almost a year ago when he released his initial list of potential nominees to the supreme court. In september, he released