Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160509

Governor pat mccrory escalate the nations clash about transgender rights and sued the Justice Department which said last week the state had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1954 went passed a law that prohibited people from using Public Restrooms that do not correspond to the gender listed on the birth certificate. The government accused the Justice Department of a radical reinterpretation of the law. They said the loss by the access provision was a bulwark against Sexual Assault but critics many of them demanded a full repeal said that section of the law effectively allowed this commission against transgender people. You can read more about those actions at nytimes. Com. Tonight on the communicators, republican fcc commissioner Michael Oreilly on several key issues facing the fcc like Net Neutrality, spectrum auctions and settop boxes. He comments on the political divide within the fcc. Is joined by Howard Buskirk. The direction from leadership including the chairman to take the most aggressive, leftist approach to policymaking, these little ground when that becomes the first primary goal of the item, when the policy of aggression to want to go becomes the first goal rather than any consideration of any collegiality or any kind of attempt to bring or develop consensus, you wind up with the senate we have today. Were initial interest in bringing my opinions on board and youll find that im less likely to be supportive and i will express my views. Watch tonight at eight eastern on cspan2. Syrian refugees now living in the u. S. Recently took part in the discussion at Georgetown University in washington wednesday are expenses on syria and the transition to living in the u. S. Or other speakers include the state Department Representative for refugees of the truck of Refugees International. Spirit and now im very pleased to introduce actually dr. Michel gabaudan as listed here as mr. But also a medical doctor who is going to be the event moderator from here on. He became president of Refugees International in september 2010, leaving our eyes forward in its mission to bring attention and action to refugees and displaced people worldwide. Prior to his role with our i be so does United Nations High Commission on refugees, Regional Representative of the United States and the caribbean. His career with the u. N. Unhcr has spanned more than 25 years including International Service in africa, asia, latin america and the pacific as i mentioned he is a trained as a medical doctor, in addition to holding a masters degree in tropical public health. He spent a decade working in taiwan, zandi, london and yemen before joining unhcr as a field officer in thailand in 1978. Is u. N. Career took him to Field Operations in cameroon in pakistan as well as several years at the agencys headquarters in geneva where he served as the first of Health Advisor to the organization. Due to the time considered unlucky to go through all the other wonderful things that he has done and the awards he has received, but suffice it to say that is a very outstanding individual. Michel . Thank you very much mr. Ambassador. Good in everyone and congratulations to the organizers. I think he managed to turn out quite impress is a very nice worker i think the fact we have serious on the panel explained some of that success syrians on the panel. Debate our 60 million displaced by conflict and persecution and war in the world. 20 of these are serious. This is just with the Syrian Crisis decisive as. International temerity has many challenges. It started i would not say well, the files was tremendous until 2013 there was hope among syrians it would be a political resolution in syria. As happened in libya with intervention by International Community and everybody was gone all those people i visit and jordan, lebanon, turkey and even in egypt were saying were just waiting to go back as soon as we can. The neighboring countries were extremely welcoming. Something but not recognized enough but they admitted large numbers of refugees essentially with welcoming arms. By the end of 2013 that started to change. We saw some disenchantment among refugees over the nonsolution and syria end of the activation of the coca, the activation of the number of fatalities. Today to reach over 450,000. Let alone the number of people who have been maimed and wounded in that conflict. In 2013 we started singing also that the warm welcome of neighboring countries were starting to cool down and that is continue to evolve right now to increasing tensions between communities and refugees. The International Community has tried to respond but we will discuss the, the aid was not matching the increasing needs. We were certainly not able to spot lots of attempts to negotiate a better access to the syrians would not let the country. There are about 8 Million People displaced in their own country not able to be successful in providing assistance inside syria. So to a large extent we the International Community, whatever this bickering is, we have failed the syrians to a very, very large extent. The terrible images we saw last year happening in europe sort of pointed out the fact there is a city in crisis. That was the tip of the iceberg. Basically donors not always respond as they should have to the calls of the United Nations to increase assistance. The crisis was well before the images we saw in europe. What we have to think about is that we are all focused on people who let syria the to the tremendous risk and the courage to get into these leaking boat to try to find a Better Future. These are those who could afford to pay. What about those who are left behind and who cannot even take the courage for this trip quick guide to imagine a different life. This is what we would want to discuss tonight. Im really thrilled that for once we have a panel that has policy wonks but also operational walks. Those in the state department are not the only policymakers. They try to respond to the leaves of the syrians but we have very Representative Group of city and to those how they see the crisis because in the policy world we tend to think that we know what they needed, after all. At the time when the whole issue of accountability to the people we care for should be developed much more i think its nice we have a chance in a public forum to confront all of it how we see things that the efforts that have been made match with the expectation of the syrians. So thank you very much for this organization. Mariela shaker, i dont think you need introduction, you are introduced by ambassador boucher said this is an associate a great talent in music. I can only foresee your career. Thats very well done. George in the middle, a street activism to the u. S. In 2013. Against a mistake when everything started going really down the drain. He lives and works in chicago. He has carried out a successful petition to increase the number of syrians result of years. And given the mood this year in the u. S. I think thats very well done. You must have really had to push the rock up a very steep hill. So congratulations. We still think the numbers are not enough. I think well hear about that but very well done. You invited to the white house a couple of times and your work has been featured on cnn, the Washington Post and the huffington post. Youre also the cofounder of the c rating Youth Empowerment initiative to empower High School Students in syria in neighboring countries. Very Nice Initiative to keep hope going on. Congratulations. Ahmad beetar is a man who plays different instruments. Hes a translator, journalists. More than a decade working for the voluntary sector, ngo sector in syria an established efforts on one platform to try to get all the volunteers who wanted to help their own people in syria understand what they could to comfort ago, center. Created initiative which is called the i on a level. You have up to 20,000 followers. Thats a quick achievement. For that achievement you are a semifinalist entries awards including the best Global Initiative in 2011. You have been given when the civil war started came to the u. S. You now have a green card so congratulations. I came in 2013, the same year. Famous year that will discuss more in the course of this evening. I should just ask you see the fellowship of the is department to come to the u. S. And conversations. Shelly pitterman is a Regional Representative for u. S. And caribbean. He has very long career. He has extensive postings in africa, in kenya, and the sedan and i dont want to miss any, he has held key positions in headquarters. He was at the time the head of the resettlements we understand the result works and in particular how it works with relation to u. S. And he was before coming to washington ahead of Human Resource division, a job because you people want to take. And then last the sorting not least, Simon Henshaw is the Principal Deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of population, refugees, and migration at state department. This is the bureau that really oversees all the rescue program, u. S. Is the largest fund and has been so for the past 30 years of refugee programs. It is a department that is extremely mobile, extreme active, they cooperate very well with International Ngos and with the u. N. When i was in the u. N. They were really close partners. Simon has a master sides in National Security affairs at the National War College but he is very long career in the state department. He was the director of affairs at the state Department Prior to his job if he was deputy in honduras and has held various positions in brasilia. Large, large diplomatic experience. I am thrilled sorry . [inaudible] im thrilled to have you all here on stage tonight. I will have to make sure that everybody respects the times everybody has a fair share of the evening. Mariela, we will start with you. It gives me great pleasure to do with you today. Thank you so much for Georgetown University inviting me. It is truly an honor to be here with you sharing my story. Its just about two or three years ago i was still struggling in syria. I was struggling badly to flee the country to find any way to leave. I was one of these young people who dreams were vanished and demolished in the war. A taste of happiness faced daily as a principal concern transforms into a question of whether or not we will be able to see the morning next day. I mean, theres nothing worse than experiencing this every minute over there. My parents are still living there, struggling badly with no electricity, the water. However, i tried to call them every day just to make sure that they are still alive. I feel, i speechless to change the Current Situation over there. Just about last week, hundreds of innocent souls were killed in such a savage civil war. During the time i was still living in syria i studied Business Administration and a graduated from the university of aleppo. I was also employed as a violin teach at the edit institute of music. Music has always been my passion. When i was 20, i went to lead to addition in person for a master of music performance. I got in with a scholarship but sadly the war in syria prevented me to make my dream a reality. As the last class at a Level University was delayed three times and they couldnt graduate on time. I was so disappointed but i did not lose my health and i did not give up. I realized i need to work so hard to find another opportunities. I kept searching online. I spent months and months searching. I was running between internet cafes under mourners, missiles, rockets just to send my application. I applied everywhere to a lot of different programs, a lot of different places. And one day i got a magical email from Monmouth College that they accepted me for their Music Program with a scholarship, with a full tuition scholarship. I was amazed. I was beyond happiness. But even with such a huge scholarship, boarding room which was not covered by institution, this was a great challenge. This is because i parents have lost their jobs in the war and they couldnt even support me with 1 dollar. I kept searching online and i found about an Organization Called they are supporting Syrian Refugees and syrian students by giving scholarships. I reached out to them, and through them i was in touch with a very fine man from saudi arabia it was very impressed with the papers that i sent him from Monmouth College and the music videos, and he wanted to help me in hope that i will one day be able to help my fellow series in the friends. Series in french. I am deeply concerned about my family and friends in syria. We have a great Human Potential but we are in need your help and support more than anytime ago to build a good atmosphere to flourish. My best friends graduate a racially. They are architects, doctors, but their lives are full of mystery and its threatened with this daily. Actually one of my friends in syria reached out to me. Her house was bombed. She went to turkey. She couldnt continue her education. She reached out to me if i can help, and i made the proposal to Monmouth College. They welcomed the idea. They accepted are also full scholarship and a shia software. I am truly grateful that is able to do something, but is this enough . I dont think so your. Since arrived in training ive been working so hard to achieve success in the music world. I was granted asylum in United States and i received my green card last year, and i feel it is truly an honor to be in this great country, the country that is giving me my future and my life. And i, honestly, i cant thank American Government enough for making my dream a reality and for saving my life. I performed at the Kennedy Center part of unhcr last year, and i was honored at the white house in 2015. I also performed last month, address book at the United Nations in geneva. Tomorrow im heading to london to perform at kate blech its place as she is yeah, its a great opportunity. She is holding a major fundraising event for unhcr, and im also not in touch with international of education, iit. Theyre also very interested to have a fundraiser program. And i feel this is the least thing i can do to be able to show my privilege to all the people who have supported me enormously to be here with you today. Today i consider myself as not just a legal and legitimate syrian citizen but also new debugger and Young American woman. All what we need at all what we dream of is a peaceful light and hope for a better tomorrow. American cultures impacted me in so many ways and they make me more belief and our humanity. I feel powerless to change the current tragedy ongoing in syria but i would love to be a piece ambassador to my country and deliver a beautiful message to every performance i do. I feel that music has the power to unite us. I can put this when i perform jewish music antichristian myself underperform for a muslim community. I hope music will help one day hell the pain. Last, wha to make a statement ia christian myself but the relationship between muslim and christians in and six this old and older we formed a beautiful harmony. Help each other, support each other. We are one and we will always be. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you, mariela. Organization but quite a speaker also. Very touching comic. Thank you so much. George . Push in the u. S. To resettle more refugees. What weapons do you well, i will start by just telling you how my life was in syria. For many of you and for many people i meet here in the u. S. , just did not have any perception or any understanding of how life was. I will take a look at about my life but then i would argue about the kind of thoughts that i have on daily basis because of what is happening in my country. I think its very powerful tool to communicate what are we feeling, what do i feel about my country . What do i feel about International Reaction to what is happening in syria pics i will gladly be sharing this with you. I was born and raised in syria. The one side that many people didnt know or do not expect that we had a very normal life. We used to go to restaurants. We used to go to the beach. We used to do everything that you guys do here. We used to go to universities, form friendships, have girlfriends, everything that you can imagine. So it is not because you that some people would imagine, the backwoods country that the image that isis mike tice the kind of reflect right now. I consider myself as a person who had a wonderful child in syria. All the great memories that i have are of a very beautiful country that i love of bob and i appreciate a lot and i enjoyed a lot. However, one thing started to happen in 2011. Everything changed. This change that we have as individuals, especially as young people, these huge. Because youth from very safe country were you at everything you wanted basically. Of course, we had worries, worry about future and everything and a lot of shortcomings and concerned, but you turned into a war. Youre not living in a war. Where mariela said come on a daily basis you experience those feelings of fear on daily basis i remember like sitting to see if someone like we know died. Whenever we hear a bombing, we would be like checking on facebook and asking each other, like, do we know anybody who happened to be in the location of this bombing . So it turns from a very normal life to very not normal life, where it is dictated by fear, dictated by uncertainty, dictated by all the other problems that young people like me would have. What am i going to do about the future . What am i going to do if i lose someone i love . What would i do if someone from my family died . Those are very real questions that we had to go through. So i can tell you, i can assure you that there is not one syrian who wasnt, whose life was in disrupted by war. Whether from losing someone you care about or you loved, whether from getting your building bombed, or they are losing years after life while youre waiting for the next step that is never there, that it will never ever come. Also changed us as individuals. So for me as a person, i was very, very lucky, i and i took f myself as one of the luckiest syrians because through the same organization that mariela mentioned i was given the opportunity to give u. S. In 2013 to transfer to illinois student technology. I was given like just a golden chance at rebuilding my life. I was given this opportunity, along with 32 other students. So here, once we got here, we always have this feeling that we should carry this, we should do something. We feel that no one really, everyone really cares. Of course, you do. Everyone, like the governments of the world they do care. And blunt in a human to they pledged 10 billion. They do care, but how would i tell that when my friends when they told me that their life is over . I cannot translate the 4 billion of euros donated for the person who lost every confidence in the future. I cannot say it to the girl who lost her parents. I just cant. It is a very difficult or so we like we, i personally feel that as a serious i have a responsibility and a duty to do something to help like create this opportunity for those people. I felt up to 33 students who came to chicago do share with me this vision, that we do have a responsibility. We want to do something. We are all very eager to succeed, just to prove that we as syrians are not what you may be in, you know about us. Its not what you read about us in some news outlets. We are just real people who can do normal things. Just to give a very tiny example, those 30 students now, some of gone offers from google, apple, goldman sachs, from every big company, that is very difficult. If you came to the u. S. In two years and you tell me youre not a Software Engineer at google, i probably would not believe it. But theyre working so hard. They are doing to ask her steps just to prove to the world. Theres this extra, there is this extra motivation for us to prove to the world that we are normal. And and then at the same time that also drives us to do things, to drive positive change to other syrians. Thats what drove me to start this petition to i was very, very frustrated that no one was doing anything. No one was saying anything. It was like a problem those very isolated from the u. S. Political scene or from the u. S. Humanitarian scene. So i wanted to do this and i did it, and i did it with many bunch, group of amazing people who helped us carry this forward. Im very grateful that the Administration Listen to us. After all, we are like, who cares about an immigrant who came from syria two years ago . I felt appreciated and i felt my voice was heard. That is a step in the right direction. Of course, the numbers always can be bigger and were always trying to do that. But at least it was a step in the right direction. Some of the thoughts that i constantly have, do we deserve what is happening to his . This is a question i constantly ask myself. Do we deserve a lack of engagement from other countries or the lack of interest, like American People or european people, and our cause is . My answer is maybe yes. We dont have come we never had a Civic Society that can carry those causes and those topics forward. But what im trying to say right now is that we need help to create this Civic Society that we never had. Sometimes as governments or administrations, they can to focus a lot on humanitarian response, and they forget about the human aspect of the thing. So the fact is that they focus on humanitarian but not the human aspect. Theres a lot of, i would just give you an example. For thousands of syrians who are here in the United States, it takes years to process asylum application. You know how difficult and now challenging this good before a person who doesnt know if in two years we will be deported, like on top of everything that you as an individual have to care about your career, your work, relationship, family. You dont really know if youll be deported. It is not the ideal situation that would help those eager people to do things because they just simply do not know if they can do it. Another example is that we as syrian Youth Empowerment, its an initiative where we help syrian students in syria come we offer them free classes and provide mentorship and work with universities to try to get them scholarships. We have just started but we work with some of students informally, and theres one yesterday got his visa and is going to harvard and another guy is at mit. I was very excited to announce it just now. But for this very tiny organization that we are trying to do something meaningful for those people to build this Civic Society that we aspire in the future to have the people, the people who are ready, we are facing tremendous, tremendous obstacles. One is the finances. By finances i dont mean fundraising. If they want to transfer me to my so i can transfer it to someone else, its just, it would be a disaster. Like, i just cannot do that because my name would be somewhere, like someone will check my name and as a serious i cannot do that so the law doesnt help me tie this financial flexibility. The second thing is the visa. Ive talked to many visa officers who served in Different Countries, and they told me about the system which is the system to im not saying i want favorable treatment for syrians but its a very, very, very difficult or even if you get like full scholarship from harvard, he might be denied easily because the laws that are like passed in congress four years ago just does not, there are a lot of complications that would make it way more difficult to give someone a visa from the country who has a war, no matter how promising he is. So those are the things that i think about. Those are the things i care about. And those are the things i try to mobilize people to always take action, do something, because what happened to me is in the way or another helping of 45,000 refugees who will come here. Because i, our group advocated for those people. Those people will come here maybe one day well build a syria that we aspire. Might be the people who would transfer the western values to the middle east. Those might be the people who would be the next doctors and the next lawyers and the next journalist in the next philosophers that will help us build this platform. And so thats what i wanted to share with you, and thank you. [applause] thank you for we understand reminded us that syria is not the we see everyday on a screen that is a much deeper soul. That was very powerful. And that brings me, congratulations for the successes you should make it. These are great news. You are bringing us to our next speaker. Today inside and says well talk about how to get assistance. We talk with yo who delivers ine syria, who helps their own people are syrians because no foreigner really can get even to take the risk that you would have to incur to go inside syria. Your personal story im sure youll tell us about how is this movement of Civil Society developing inside syria . Thank you very much. Actually i love being here in georgetown because like when i write in the u. S. The first place i stayed in was Georgetown Hotel and conference center. Whenever i came your i have happy memories about having a future. Just three years ago, lets say fifth of may, 2013. I will keep you like my diary. Lets say youre reading my diary and reading about the fifth of may, 2013. Dear diary, i woke up today. I checked my phone to see if there was electricity to georgia because we barely have electricity for like one or two hours per day. I open the tab to wash my face. There was the water slide to take the our stored water and i tried to clean up my face and brush my hair and be decent as a human being should be. Then imagine that you are leaving your home, like the building and then start running. Why . Because there is a twomile sniper who is two miles away and you shooting every movable object. Just because he sees somebody like me, athletic body, he is assuming that i am with some parts were fighting against them. So he was shooting me. And there were many times i hear the bullets cross into my ears, even when i was with my mom. They asked why theyre shooting . Nobody knows but i cant ask them. Why they are still there . What can we do . My day usually starts with going to a school where i used to work in refugee. Even though i was in a city where there was like you to fights and complex conflicts, but like my work as an ngo and volunteer, Many Organizations like i was an intern in ustr in syria. I worked with like palestinians, iraqis and iranians but in every imaginable and i would work with Syrian Refugees, or lets say internal displaced people. I have like always 12 to 15 hours of work and i used to go to school nearby whether its 1000 displaced people. We used to give them food and kind item, organize them. I dont know described that. Its beyond any imagination to imagine a big school for each class has at least 2530 person in just like couple of square feet space. I was the person who was responsible to put them there. Even beyond like they can barely be able to sleep but we had no other choice. The school, the number were limited and we had to put as much people as we can. People in my city, like i had to leave because i was a journalist. Even though i was not like writing or criticizing the regime or the other part, but i was well known, like respected in my community and thats what i was offered to work for the regime as a reporter for the series in television to which i refuse. And also offered me to work for them as writer. And also i refused. So actually being in the middle, not being with any part makes the other people think that you are with the other part. So you always michael each day was surviving until the end of the day. I just like in cinderella story but it is not admit that, at sunset you have to go home otherwise clashes will start over and what we call the party to always make it like pleasant term. What we mean by the party is like the sound of the bullets, the sound of everything. Everything starts by the sunset and during the whole night until the next day. One of the memories i have their what i state in my building was there a tank next to my building shooting the other part. It was so noisy but had no other choice because if i want to leave my building, i was struck. Ever want to leave my building that was a sniper. But after 10 days of no electricity, like with some food and my small cat whos trying to understand what is going on, we tried to get our transit and we start running across the fire of that sniper. I dont know what to add. Like they said everything. Sometimes i have memories, flashbacks, those kind of memories. Icons remembered what i was covering a concert in a level. Thats what i met mariela for the first time a few years ago. This kind of memory, they always come to you. They always put you in a very bad mood. I feel like anything i will do, will be compared to nothing i did that come. But however i would also like to say to thank the u. S. Government for two things. First, i came in fellowship sponsored by u. S. Department of state an iris called i was the first and the only syrian who got except to do that and were supposed to learn about the community and then go back and try to adopt things that weve learned here in syria per unfortunately when i came here, the chemical weapon had just are as oblivious threat of anything in syria, and as a journalist who was riding into is like 20,000 followers, you know, they thought that i knew to be trained on some sort of spying or game so is like so dangerous for me to return. So i had to start a new life here. Sometimes would ask you, are you a refugee or something . I said im technically a refugee since im forced, i have been forced to leave my country. Otherwise i will stay there. Why should i leave . But being here always dangers. I had to stay here. The u. S. Government gave me a future by accepting me here, by give me legitimacy to be here as permanent resident and green card holder. So this kind of thing, they gave me hope otherwise i would be arrested or killed or kidnapped somewhere because i refused to raise on against anyone else. Violence will not solve anything and its not my only point of the. To are like 100,000 people who believe in the same thing, which is why being here, why my friends and colleagues have been here. We are trying to convince the American People that not all syrians believe in the files but not all syrians want to be with regime our opposition are with isis or whatsoever. If we have a couple hundred make good choices by being in those parts like by being with isis doesnt mean that all the syrians our bed. I am here. I have a good life. Now im working as a freelance and working, i am trying to be an educated im trying to promote the series in cause. I tried to take advantage of being series in cause. So i used to stand up at every event and say look, i am a series in the. Idle cause industries. As you can see im not the stereotypical perspective about syria. The people used to see in movies, the bad guys who will bomb everything, who have this bad mentality. So i used to stand up and even sang like silly questions or like nothing but just i want to make people know that you, there might be syrian among a age migt not be noticing it and they will not do anything bad to you. I tried to do that since, i will be honest, joining organizations, syrian or decisions in d. C. All we have to do now is try to save those who have potential in refused to be dragged through this vacuum of violence. Try to improve them, tried to give them the effort to be heard. Okay, so i would like to thank you to be here. And i am celebrating that just a couple of hours ago by city of aleppo had a ceasefire for just 48 hours. My family and still save for 48 hours hopefully. Lastly, i would like to ask you something. I would like all of you to stand up for a moment of silence for all those killed in my city, hoping that the others dont have the same fate. [silence] thank you very much. [applause] ahmad, wouldve listened to you for much of our time if we had it. We bring to the angst that all of you are leading in you and your family still living in the area. They are breaking that. I tried to talk about different perspectives. Im just like suborder talking to them every hour and they have horrible stories about what happened and the balm. Thank you. I forgot to mention when i introduced shelley for a few years in his career, he was at the head of operations for the United Nations Relief Agency in jordan, the agency dealing with palestinian, but to emphasize he has experience in the middle east. When things are difficult for refugees, the world as part of the job description. I walked that path in the past. In the case of the steering crisis, former commissioner and the current High Commissioner have tried to raise around repeatedly. What did you have that. Thank you, shelly. A year ago we were in the same Beautiful Library is a former High Commissioner was here. And i am afraid that some of the points im going to make, he had to make last year and the year before, much more eloquently i am sure. After all, he was the High Commissioner. The new High Commissioner is doing the same. The first thing that unites us, i think the whole u. N. System of which unhcr is for peace which has to happen. All we do with ngos, organization and there are hundreds of them, and even mom national theory in an International American and european and from elsewhere. All that we do is somehow try to relieve the pain, but the solution is peace and 48 hours simply isnt enough. Thats for sure. But against the background of continued failure, to actually come to some resolution to the war ended to make a word. Its not just in syria. Its almost next door to iraq and there are risks of course that bill over beyond. Until such time does come to an end, our mantra as the Refugee Agency is of course that the International Community must find ways for refugees and asylumseekers to find safety, to have access to territory, to be able to be able to move and to be able to make their claim, to hear their story so that they are not subject to forcible return and they are able during the time they are forced to be in exile to have as normal a life as possible. Michel was talking about 2013 s. B. And 13 s. B. In a watermarked here. In the last few years in the absence of sustained investment, our budget are all underfunded quite significantly notwithstanding the very generous support from the u. S. Taxpayer and the u. S. Congress and in particular through the state department. Notwithstanding the refugees are suffering the end that finally led to impoverishment. We had data from the world bank, unhcr clearly referring being the refugees in jordan and lebanon are in a big way, talking major 80 , 90 are living below the poverty line and that is a progressive impoverishment and it is a sustained despair that created the situation that led so many hundreds of thousands of people to try to find another place where they could put their children in school. It was not more complicated a motivation as you are trying with Higher Education for families to protect their children just as he or i would. When i was in jordan i went to syria every opportunity i could. It was such an offense took place, beautiful place because the food. What was to mark a bowl about it is that it really was a middle income country. Now by no means it is a middleincome country, wherever else they children want to go to school and have a regular job, want to take care of their daily affairs. I was simply impossible for refugees in jordan, lebanon and turkey notwithstanding the generous policies of the government to allow them access. What has happened since is another story and i dont want to see the dear alumni sheet of paper saying that im out of time. So what i would like to highlight, perhaps many of you dont know. When you see the pictures of refugees in camps, from thatcher camp in particular or oz draft camp in jordan, that is where visitors are able to go very safe pair of 50 of the refugees globally and 90 of Syrian Refugees are in fact living outside of camps. They live in cities and towns or in shelters or renovated apartments in just shelters. The new development over the last several months is then after considerable encouragement and advocacy, there is a shift in the recognition that something has to be done to support the Host Communities in order to allow for more space so that the refugees arent considered to be and do not remain, if you will, a burden on the local economy and on the host population. So we are hopeful again to be very instrumental in working with the world and, other International Financial institutions to turn the corner. We have to look forward now to a new way to organize humanitarian and develop responses in the future when there are new emergency. The last thing i would simply say is that it is very important that as many refugees as possible are given the opportunity to move legally. Weve heard a lot about a regular movements. What we were talking about last year, resettlement to the United States, there were pictures of asylum officers interviewing individually a refugee for an hour and a half am at taking down the information about the stories to validate them and to verify who they are and where they were coming from. On cnn and elsewhere we saw people going through the field of macedonia as if that was resettlement and simply not the case as im sure simon will elaborate. Its very important we promote other legal avenues through Scholarship Programs to brazil and elsewhere, theyll still be the minority to find safety to build safety for their kids because thats the International Solidarity that will encourage jordan and lebanon, turkey and iraq to do as much as they do more and the refugee situation will regrettably persist for years to come in one form or another. With that, i want to acknowledge the great support weve gotten from the United States and other countries and to say this is a struggle that will continue as long on the International Community to find a peaceful resolution to this terrible war. Thank you. [applause] thank you very much. Im quite stimulated by the optimism in your last comments were a 10 to be come more depressed when he tried to get the resettlement and European Countries are really noncommittal despite the fact they want people to say outside their borders so they dont come legally. We can discuss that in the penalty for a sense of optimism. They are still thinking they can fix that. Thank you very much. There have been a beater in the past two years. The term behind and say where is the path you cant find them. Thank you, michel be a thank you all for being here today. Great turnout. I keep thinking its friday afternoon because im taking tomorrow afternoon off. Thank you for being here on what seems to me a friday off to noon. I represent the humanitarian arms of the state department. One of the difficulties of working in humanitarian work has begun actually solve the political crisis that caused the humanitarian harm in the first place. But we do very much hope that her colleagues led by secretary kerry right now are able to achieve a peaceful resolution of the crisis because that is what will cause the most humanitarian good. The continuation of the current possession of hostility in all its faults is saving a lot of lives. Nothing is more important than that going on and continuing. Part of that is allowing greater numbers of humanitarian shipments into those inside syria that are in great need. 5 Million People have been displaced inside syria. We are hoping the International Community put more pressure on the syrian government, particularly the russians and ukrainians to allow shipments then. I slept another record has been really, really poor. The United States is the largest contributor. The humanitarian needs around the world about 6 billion a year thats real money. Prm budget is half of that. The other half is controlled by the office of foreign disaster assistance. There are close partners, but we were in different ways. Prm works very closely with international organizations. Our chief partner is unhcr. We are the largest funder of the International Committee of the red cross. Iom, international migration, the Palestinian Refugee organization. We work with many other organizations and also with ngos about 9 of our funding goes through ngos. We are not just about money. Money counts and money is important, but we work with our diplomatic colleagues of which i am one to get our message out around the world to improve humanitarian care. So we work with our allies and we do have allies supporting our efforts. There are people behind me, standing next to me in this fight to the european humanitarian organization is part of the European Union. The large countries such as germany. U. K. Is the secondlargest contributor in the world. Canada, australia play large roles. Would like to see that expand to other countries such as china. The gulf states have made steps forward and would like to see them do more. But we use our diplomas and not just to look for more money, but also to push for goals and policy changes that will help refugees around the world. We do that in such simple ways as pushing countries to keep their borders open so that refugees can come in. We also got them to change the way they treat refugees once they are inside their countries. That is tough because countries make great sacrifices. If duplicate turkey and lebanon, a quarter of the population right now is Syrian Refugees. Can you imagine how we would react with a quarter population were canadian, god forbid. Perhaps not a great example. So we just have to go into those government since they thank you very much, you are doing a great job, but you also need to let people work because if they work they can support themselves. They reduce dependency on social services that have dignity and send their children to school. By the way, could you open up your schools to the children, to because you dont want to have hundreds of thousands of children for four or five years with no education. Its not going to be very good for you. We will help you pay for some of this. We will contribute. Its a hard message to kerry, but it is one we are carrying. Next fall for the First Time Since the crisis began, every syrian child in jordan will be in school. Thats a big improvement. Over half inside lebanon. There is more to do and lebanon and turkey is a really difficult place because of the language barrier. We have a long way to go and turkey, but we have made some progress. I want to talk about how am i doing on time . Very quickly, a series of conferences over this year which will culminate with the president refugees. We are using this summit to push for greater world involvement in the area weve just talked about. Finally, a word on resettlement. The united state is the largest resettlement country. We resettle more refugees in other countries put together through unhcr. But its a small number. The total number of refugees will settle each year is 1 of the worlds refugee population. There is a reason for that resettlement hasnt been seen since after the china crisis that the solution to refugee populations. The concentration has been supporting refugees in the countries where they first left. We resettle people that are doing well in the areas where they fled. We take the most vulnerable populations. Im not putting a value judgment on this. I just want to make the point that those who argue for is bringing in refugees need to understand we require fundamental change in the way the system works and a good deal of money because its very expensive to resettle refugees. Nevertheless, we are increasing the number of refugees to bring in the country. Its a tough year because we have a lot of political opposition. Weve also had a lot of grassroots support for our program and it hasnt stopped the growth at all. We had 70,000 in the last three years. Our plan is to do 85,000 this year and 100,000 next year. Well bring in 10,000 syrian this year which i admit is too small in number, but that number will plan to grow in the outgoing years and we hope it is the start to a strong syrian resettlement program. Thank you. [applause] thank you for providing money and humanitarian diplomacy and the way governors respond in the region. I think thats very important and would gladly acknowledge that u. S. Has been very much a leader in that field. Everybody has been extremely constructive and extremely polite to each other and i remember when i was at the u. N. I was much more turbulent future is so id like to have a brief discussion between panelists before we get the floor to all of you to ask the questions you have. Guess its good to see the world bank is coming in. Its good to see we talk about future legal pathways to come, et cetera. Have we missed the boat . Can we still repaired the level of despair in which we find the syrian when we visit the region. I want to ask one of you apart from thanking the u. S. Government for what they do. What is it that you feel has gone wrong in the way the International Community has responded. Anything can be said very politely. Id like to generate some of the feelings here among Syrian Society when used heat between yourselves what would like to tell us. Mariela. I would like to say we are in need of support. It would be great if you can kindly help us by opening to help the serious students at least. A lot of people did not get the visa. So the simple answer that this is because we know that you are from syria, we are certainly not going to go back home. Of course we are not going to get the amazing education, but at some point well go back with the country. My mom applied for the visa last week. She took a long way to beirut, 18 hours but the advantages of the road and the lack of restriction by lebanese of course the populations are now syrians. They just allowed for 48 hours in the embassy. I censor all the support and we are not going to go back. When im going to be able to see my family. Have been, maybe. It is so difficult for me. This is my third year. Im unable to go to my home city of aleppo and im hoping to be able to see my mom. It is breaking my heart deeply. Should i answer . Please. Ill try and take responsibility. It is cruel and really hard and i feel for you. I cant imagine what it would be like for me in the same position. I come from an immigrant family and it always strikes me how different it was for my parents because their ability to go back and see relatives and communicate and other relatives are so dramatically different. All i can say in your specific question and its not a great answer but ive got to be honest at the way the visa law is written as it requires people to prove that they will return home. It is obscene making people who are in the war zone applied to this because how are they going to prove if they go home. I dont see any change in that unless its a change in the law. What we are doing in another area, realizing what a horrible thing that says, is there a lot of people who have immigrant visa, and petitions many experience. In the waning months. You have to wait so many years to get there. Anyone who has an immigrant visa petition waiting to join relatives in the states to apply now as a refugee and we are just starting out the program. That population will be able to address, but we wont be able to address others about legal change. The thing ends after five years, it seems that our leaders from all parts, they screw things up. They missed it. So what i want to say is instead of saying maybe after the election will have a Different Administration and address that differently. I want to focus on one thing. Bringing syrians here to say, why would we bring those people in the middle who refuse violence and work on the try to raise them on democracy on those great principles. Those will be the new leaders they can end this conflict. Otherwise we will be trapped and will be kept on those leaders would set up looking for the syrian interest them and they are taking care of themselves. Why is the u. S. Government always skeptical about serious being here and does not want to go back. We had a great country and we learned many things from the American Values of democracy and tolerance of everything why we should increase this and have more opportunity to be the future leaders so they can go back and help and my families, my friend, they have opposition. They need a new voice. Why the u. S. Does not work on helping those voices and bringing them here to study and learn new things. Those people will be, our voices. I think millions of students will join them. Why they dont think that . You are asked in the wrong person. [laughter] i am a humanitarian. I work on the refugee issue. You need to ask political leaders why that is. I can tell you from my point of view theres been nothing cooler than sort of the focusing of legitimate fear on terrorism, but the focusing on the refugee population is just terrific. People who are 14 frontera affair being branded as a threat and thats just ridiculous. Your larger question on why we dont have programs outside the programs to bring in other people. I dont have an answer for you. I have i think what you say may make sense. I am witness to the effort erm has done on the hill to debunk the association between refugees and terrorists. Its a tremendous advocate an outside. I hope that we will move where you want to be, but in an Election Year is not the right time to put it. [inaudible] we will see that. We will have some hope that it will be a little bit easier to push some of these. Very interestingly in that panel at georgetown, group of students said we want to try to build the movement that put pressure private universities in the u. S. To offer just a temporary state. But it would achieve part of what you are saying, which is train people who can be for their own country. The students are extremely reassuring on some of the values that are predominant in this country. George. Well, my question is a bit lighter question, a bit easier to answer. A question for him. It is for you, actually. So i do understand the challenges implied by the question by ahmad and mariela. The u. S. Government cannot control in those cases and they are there for a decade and it is not jake to change them. My question is why the asylumseekers, there are 5000 in the United States who are until now, some people three and a half years did not get an interview. My question is adequate at that point he addressed in a faster way. It is only about this interview and making a decision and why we keep those people not knowing anything. I believe that this is something that the u. S. Government can easily control. I dont really know. I dont work i think that the answer is the department of Homeland Security had so many officers that can do the interviews and they are using them to interview refugees overseas, asylum cases here in cases coming across the southwest border with increased numbers. I just dont think they are our enough people to process the numbers coming in. Theres a logical question after that as to why they dont give our people. Im sorry, we are addressing u. S. The u. S. Government. I apologize. You are the only person we know here. You were saying that we failed and that we are trying to be positive and optimistic in the forward, but that there has been a failure. The number of deaths, the prolonged conflicts and not just in syria. And iraq, the persons and now europe and the challenges they are and the Risk International law and european law and what that means for asylum and the polarization of Public Opinion in europe and the United States is good because for every critical as seen above, there is somebody whos been positively gauged. Its also been a failure in south sudan and all over, partly thats funding and an inability to realize the plans that we got for individual support for community support, for sustained engagement go at the humanitarian level. So yes, more could have been done. It crystallized, it all crystallized recently, im afraid to go and i guess positively to the extent that there is now as i mentioned a real focus on education pickup the flow of so many poor refugees to europe struck a nerve that still hurts but it woke the continent and one of the motivations for that as i mentioned besides despair and the cutoff of food aid, one of the push factors, positive push factors was we want to educate our kids because so many of them are being left behind in asylum so now, there is that positive spin. We can only hope that resources will go in. Weknow the host countries are prepared to support it. As far as secondary and Tertiary Education and Scholarship Opportunities and the like , that from the date that unhcr was helping South African refugee students in the 60s and 70s, thats always been a very high per capita investment. It makes a lot of sense to go there are organizations, there are philanthropists, there are states like the germans and the daffy Scholarship Program that really are working now and are Getting Better and we can only hope, subjective of course that we will have more students coming to the United States and we know that universities and the students that are behind this association are really willing. I know theres john hopkins is prepared to take a student, so the one student hopefully will become 10, will become 20 and 30 and 50 pickup the problem is in the meantime people are dying, the war is continuing and the International Community has failed to go quite i certainly agree with the focus on education. We were recently in south america asking people why do you move to europe . We would ask lots of people and thats one of the main reason would be tensions in local communities, returning and no jobs pickup the answer we got most often, education for the children was the main incitement of the families who could still could afford to move and that i think those who move, many dont have that and turkey is now considering which is these work permits for the percentage of refugees. Its a very Nice Initiative at time when there are lots of problems in turkey so im glad they are trying to push that and i hope it will get some results. Thank you very much or this discussion. I think now we will open the debates and questions from the audience here. I have lights in the eyes, if you raise your arm just wave your yes pickup high. I was recently in europe a few months ago, in turkey as well for that matter and i was speaking to a swedish woman who was around my age so she was young and the way she was talking about refugees was so kind of disgusting and i felt like i really couldnt say anything because you know, shes from a country where they took in lots of refugees and im an american and we have so much trouble just taking 10,000. And what really shocked me was this is a very educated woman and even earlier, she was talking about i mean, all kind of animal rights. It was just a cognitive dissonance when it came to these particular group of people as opposed to all the other issues she feels very strongly about pickup and it was very alarming in europe at that time and seeing the way that it wasnt just these fringe movements. It was a very large segment of the population had very kind of racist ideas of the migrants who are coming in so i wanted to ask how are these migrants adjusting in countries like sweden and germany now mark has gotten better, has gotten worse . Okay. The short answer to my question is that im not the expert on sort of the reception and integration process. I would, since we are in georgetown i would refer everybody to the migration policy institute. Theres one source, a very reliable andgood comparative information about the resettlement and integration , to use that term, its not perfect. Experiences of refugees in the United States as well as in europe. The, so i dont want to presume that i know how there was this whole expectation that refugees would bring a boon to the german economy. That seems to not be immediately the case. From what ive read, on the other hand this is not something that happens overnight. There are challenges in terms of getting employment, challenges in terms of societal acceptance and the like. But as far as that womans attitude is concerned, im afraid that one of the things where there has been failure that i should have mentioned is in political leadership. And where and a merkel and to a solid extent president obama as well have stood out and of course Prime Minister in canada and several others is that they tried to lead Public Opinion and in some of the other European Countries, im afraid they either led them in a negative way and i wont name the countries but they got barbed wire around them now. Or theyve instilled in the population sufficient doubt and such opinions flourished and thats not good for us, for syrians, i daresay for muslim refugees in general and if its not good for syrians or muslim refugees that is not good for any refugees. If i can add, one of the reasons our program is so successful despite the recent attacks, weve never had attacks like this before is because our emphasis on integration. We spread refugees around 300 sites around the country and we as a Publicprivate Partnership so we use ngos to resell them, work with local communities, charities and ngos integrating them to society, getting them to meet people, finding jobs and getting their kids in school. One great thing about the us is any child gets to go to school. Theres never a question of what your status or anything like that. They get to go to school. So its worked really well for us and one thing we find is that anybody thats met refugee in the states is positive toward the refugee experience. We dont meet many people, i cant think of a single example like the sweetest person you met but the people who dont like refugees in the state havent met them yet. Our goal is to get them to meet people. Not in dc. I want to have a question and followup to that comment. I used to work for prn, a former insurance officer but now live in the middle of the country in colorado and watching this discussion here with the Political Climate that we have, it occurs to me that perhaps theres been a failure of i dont know, unhcr or someone to somehow educate people in the us and perhaps elsewhere about what is refugee and who is a refugeeand whos a migrants. Because many people in the middle of the country think they are all the same and they think of mexicans crossing the border and Syrian Refugees as kind of all the same and i think that people have a better understanding of what a refugee is, who they are, what we gone through, perhaps this political dialogue would be more reasonable and i dont know who would be responsible for that but i think its a serious problem. Well, just very quickly, i couldnt agree with you more. After a clan cordray washed up on the shore of turkey, there was an outpouring of sympathy and empathy and generosity that we were looking for for a long time around the syria crisis. Very shortly thereafter of course there was the paris bombings and the famous passport that through the whole refugee narrative topsyturvy. A couple then with San Bernardino that brought it home to the United States and it was impossible for us to counter , to clarify, to educate if you will. Partly because everybody was watching, i wont name the News Networks that were showing migrants coming in streams and masses through muddy fields, however said those stories, they still represented a massive threat and that was popularized in the media and in this electoral season and it was conflated to a certain extent with whats happening south of the United States border and the language there of illegal, irregular and all of that made things and still do make things very difficult in terms of clarifying that these are refugees. Notwithstanding us history. We know as americans who refugees are and we know about the immigration story of the United States and we know theres a certain mixing their from the days of the pilgrims but nevertheless, it got manipulated this year. This was a very bad year to have a refugee crisis in the United States area. I liked it but one thing on what happened in the us, the programs where you selector comes. Theres a vetting process that extremely organized and it takes a lot of time its very organized. What happened in europe, everybody invite allies uninvited which is what the people oppose the movement claim very strongly and they say they could have had protection before that so if they come here its because they want the migration outcome. They want to decide where they go. They dont want to be told where they can be protected. A year ago, the European Union made a proposal to its Member States which was not perfect but i think had the right elements. Keep them in greece, process them, those who are refugees lets rico locate them by having a burden sharing agreement between the 28 members and those who dont carry refugees because slowly, there were lots of public groups. Some were refugees and some less so. They were not able to get the Member States to agree so the situation deteriorated, more people come to the point of the recent agreement which is basically an agreement not wanting anymore. And not offering a legal pathway, thats why it tends to eliminate more because we are not showing the syrians any hope in the coming couple of years, you know . And thats essential. For your message on large scale presentation of what are thedifferences to Public Opinion, these are very expensive programs and right now , witnesses how the us is struggling to deliver the very basic with the budget that was never fully funded and even less funded year after year, they dont have the bandwidth for such a large Public Education program. Sarah . Hello. I am from syria, i am a newcomer here in america two weeks ago. I am married before, seven years okay . So i am american. After six years, i have a visa. I give 2000 about this visa and for a doctor, for a straight okay . I am a refugee for years. I work with ngos another time , with concert, with irc and my wife, my wife from america, from chicago. Ive want to ask, what future for your sgr or ngo . My english is not good okay but i hope you are understand me. But before the situation i am a teacher. I have 400 students, 150 from america okay . I have hundreds of students but if i want to ask what the future refugee in america okay . Not important. Now i am here. My goal, i am become an american what would happen in america, i been here about twice a year. After two weeks i am closing my eyes when i want here. What i want in america. I dont understand how they think here okay . If the Syrian Refugees come in, what happened here . In germany, what happens in france . This is what his problem for syrians. Syrian refugees are not about immigration, not about money, not certain about everything, just want peace. Before the situation in syria, all the syrians is happy. Never syrians sleep in street. Never any syrian want to eat. All the people have work, all the people haveeverything. Just i dont understand what the future or refugees. Thank you. Refugees who settle in the us, i know the first years are difficult. Many have to do two jobs, they have to learn to access the school for their children, healthcare, etc. It is complicated but in general, refugees who settle here you very well. Because they have these will to recover the time they have lost during the conflict so i would not be scared. Maybe one day some refugees after many years as a refugee decide to go back to their homes if the conditions back home allow that so i dont think its as first coming here is necessarily permanent but i am positive about the way this country allows resettle refugees to start a new life. Its hard work, no doubt about it but it works and ive seen refugees from somalia, from the condo, from the paul, from burma, many Different Countries really getting their way here years ago who came after the iraqi invasion so i would have some hope. I agree with you. I think that america as a country, the culture in america is very helpful for newcomers to integrate so i personally never had a problem in integrating and meeting new people and talking to americans or anything like that so i dont know if i understood your question but if i did then i think that the us as a culture would be very helpful for you to integrate but then if your question is what would happen next, what would happen when the war ends, i believe there is no, like you can leave whenever you want. I dont think anyone would make you stay where you dont want to. One of the things ive noticed is much more engagement by the Syrian American community and i broadly defined Syrian American Community Since many syrians , many lebanese have syrian dissent so i mean, the arab American Community and the arab american institute, the Syrian American medical association, a number of organizations are engaged not just in providing money but they are becoming more you know, engage with nongovernmental organizations to help syrians coming and they are advocating but they are also doing and i think thats a very positive reflection of the diaspora becoming supportive of new arrivals. One of the reasons, go ahead. One of the reasons we have this Publicprivate Partnership is at least when refugees are resettled through our program with our most refugees, they are assigned an organization which helps them get settled and sort of watches over them while they are first there and then connects them with other people from the Refugee Community so we happen to see groups of refugees working in the same place and when a new refugee comes they will bring that refugee along for a Job Interview and the same with the schools, the local ngos that we work with will bring the children to schools and set things up. We dont just drop a family off. Im not saying its not hard, its really hard. A new country, you often have to take a job below the skill level of what you can do in your own language but we also just dont drop refugees off by themselves and have them make do. I think there is a Government Organization in chicago call Syrian Community network providing access. They support a lot for Syrian Refugees and they have a lot of families who came as refugees from syria and i think its going to be great to who would like to be in touch with them, they are very helpful. Good afternoon. I have a couple questions, im kind of short. Im curious about where in syria most of the refugeesare coming from. Because i hear a lot about the situation in syria, christians, muslims, sunnis. Our most of the refugees from one ethnic group or the other or is it a wide diverse array of people were coming from the. Second question which is more challenging is you think its easier to get a political solution to solve the refugee crisis or to solve the actual syrian conflict . Do you think it would be easier to get the eu, russia, the us to agree to a solution that would help quell the conflict in syria or that would make it easier for us to bring refugees here . I would like to take the second one. Since i am reading and everything, in short, in syria everybody is convinced that someone else is winning so in negotiation they dont tend to offer any compensation or compromise, anything. Any conference, like just the last one, geneva, i dont know what the number is, they did it all or nothing because everybody comes with very high demands, asking for impossible from the other party. The thing is, and i have to admit that, as syrians because we were under one regime and under one party, we dont know how to negotiate. So usually when it comes with big heads, like asking for impossible so people like after a couple of years, like what he said in 2013 people start losing hope because they saw after one conference after another, they found nothing. Forcing the others, my son is still there. We are hearing the propaganda and all the media from all parts. The thing is, as long as those leaders remain under siege, convincing they are winning they will not give anything in return so we have only two solutions. One, send them all and bring new ones which is currently impossible. The other thing, try to empower those who have different voice and opinions like what they call it a silent majority, the people who want new leaders but they dont have the ability to do this. The world now trying to focus on refugees since this kind of change will take a while after geneva, the last one, they actually face nothing. If you see the news, it will be the same geneva conference that happened two or three years ago, the same statements, the same requests, everything. Answering your first question, i believe the answer would be sunni muslims. Its very unfortunate but i believe its a fact that the neighborhoods that are occupied by sunni muslims are targeted the most. Its a proportional question because also the sunni muslims are the majority but at the same time as a fact i believe that that is most of the refugees. I would like to add that syrians, they are justified so we see the majority of muslims, its not like something goes wild but as i said, we used to live together as one blood. We used two share ramadan, now we even share water and food. My mom tells me always that in my building we had our muslim neighbors, they are like brothers, like sisters. We have no differences and i hope we will always advocate for this. [inaudible conversation] go ahead. So technically everyone on the panel mentioned budget constraints. Students dont have enough money to attend universities, not enough money for Public Education programs, schools are expensive. The United States in 2014 gave 5. 9 billion to maintain their systems but 619 for its military spending. Jobs alone are allocated 4. 9 billion. Isnt there somewhat of a discrepancy at least numerically between the priorities that are openly said and, i know politically its different to reroute money like that but i think that in terms of extreme percentage difference is kind of unacceptable. [applause] i think will take this as a statement. Im asking this question mainly to the syrians in the panel. Without getting too hypothetical but im writing at academic paper currently so this is the idea behind my question. I definitely agree with some of the questions and comments about most of americans in particular not really understanding who syrian refugee is so ive been trying to kind of consider how do we actually change that rick large one on one, its not going to happen fast enough and its not going to be prevalent enough and one of the thingsi get pushback from from american counterparts is , dont you think its invasive to say to Syrian Refugees well, tell us your story and let us publicize it. Let us tell the world more about you and so my question is, having this opportunity do you feel that it would be invasive not just for you but if more people, more Syrian Refugees were asked if more real personal narratives were published, would you feel that invasive . Would you feel that infringing on your privacy . Well, so in terms of what we can do there are many things we can do like of course, the media is one thing. What we are doing right now is one thing. Ted x author, also a very powerful tool like informing how to raise awareness but answering your question, i think not at all. As i mentioned at the beginning, i feel i have a responsibility to share, although i count myself as one of the luckiest, share what is happening in the country to let people know the pain my people are having on a daily basis so i, on the other factor that plays into this is we as syrians do not usually get to give our communion or speak. Were just not used to it so when we are asked, i believe that most of the refugees regardless of how painful their journey were but they would love to share it and would not feel offended or anything by sharing what happened with them because they want the people to know what their people are facing. And are still facing on a daily basis. This is very subjective question, like every person might have a different opinion but my work with refugees and from my work with many other syrians, this would be my opinion. Technically, not refugees because i came a different process and different system but im trying to use my ability to convey the idea to my journalistic background and profession as interpreter so i have a Good Opportunity to speak on behalf of those who have the same story but are not able to deliver that. I think when they offered me, when they emailed me asking to be here and i think maya angelou has the same opinion, we acceptimmediately. Its not intrusive when somebody asks you to step , to step ahead and tell your story. It would be intrusive if they do that without your permission so i think it will not be intrusive. You can ask people and they said that is not okay, they will do it but i think we are here. Refugees are here but they have families, plans, relatives so they will speak on their behalf. We have our story, they have their stories and you will hear 100,000 different stories because everyone of us has their own story with thisso i dont think it would be intrusive. A quickie, royal refugee date is 20 june and the theme for that because, thats what i was looking in my phone is hashtag with refugees and its precisely the telling of the refugees story. Theres nothing like meeting, being with a refugee as opposed to watching the video or reading the story but nevertheless, its the personalizing, the 60 million and all of these numbers that are relevant and shocking in and of themselves dont yet bring home the personal stories and tragedies of the refugee story. And israeli sent a long time ago that 10,000 deaths werethe statistics and one death is a tragedy and we are still there. You have to show , the numbers we manage for policy purposes are not convincing anyone. They are terrifying people. The moment you bring personal histories, personalized change, i had a very difficult argument with someone on the hill who was completely against resettlement and he had the muslim assistance and he said look, i dont want arabs but mohammed is okay. So in a way, you demonize the thing by knowing exactly what to do. I think it would help to stop there and i really want to thank our panelists for this very firm discussion and for sharing stories that are difficult to share so i appreciate you coming here to do that with us tonight. [applause] and the last word is mister edward. I want to add just one last thing. We came from a country where our government and leader tell us what to do and all we have to do as people is to listen. Hearing you, i learned different thing. I learned that the voice of people are hurt so i dont know what channels because i am telling you in here but you can do that. You can vote for us. You can say our stories and you can say your impression about the Syrian Refugees. We are not angels. We are 24 million syrians but at least we gave you some examples about what syrians might be so you can call your political channels and present them as friends. I dont know what will be the process for you can help us. You can help the syrians and not stop there and they are hoping to have a Better Future away from violence. [applause] im sure our panelists will be. The u. S. Senate gals back into continue work on the 37 billion energy and water spending bill. They will take it he said procedural vote for the third time in an attempt to advance legislation this afternoon, the vote set for 5 30 eastern today. It houses back tomorrow to pick up a series of measures designed to combat opioid abuse including authorizing funding or justice deparent grants to states for abuse prevention and treatment programs and later in the week they plan to amend the Senate Opioid bill and go to conference with the senate. Live coverage of the house on cspan and of course the senate here on cspan two. This week on the communicators, fcc commissioner Michael Oreilly with the republicans, thank you for being with us thank you so much for having me. I want to start with one of the issues the fcc recently worked on that was the charter merger. Why were conditions put on that merger . I should be careful here, that item is before the commission. I can tell you that i have personally voted on the matter but it is still before us beef so i have to be careful in what i say about this when you say you have voted on the matter, you still have to be careful about, how did you vote . That point is to be released at a certain time. So with all that information willcome forward in the next couple weeks i assume. In general though, when we talk about a merger or some type of activity like that, putting conditions on such a, whats your philosophy . My approach to mergers is similar to a number of republican viewpoints that we have certain chargesin the statute. They are for the review of the transfer of licenses between parties. You are transferring white wireless licenses in this case. A number of wireless licenses that Different Companies own and hold and then we transfer them to the new merged company and that review is somethingthat we are required to do to make sure the new party is able to hold licenses. Hold them and have sufficient , meet our statutory requirements for having our licenses. From that, other people read the statute in a way that provides other opportunities for different reviews of the merger it self, some past commissions have looked at what is the impact of the murder on local market in and of itself and where they compete, where the Companies Compete among themselves and others have a conversation even further to generally, whatever they see fit at a given moment. And that gets you a broad universe of what can be potentially conditions for the merger. It depends on how a particular commission approaches the issue. Commissioner oreilly, do wired and wireless organizations, do they get treated the same at the fcc or survey question mark. They do not today. In some servicesthey are. In some instances they are actually, for instance we treat them the same for our Net Neutrality rules which i dont agree with that we treat them different for other purposes its a bifurcated approach on how we treat. Some of it is because of the statute. We have a law that congress has enacted that governs how we operate but a lot of it is our own doing. Id like to see an opportunity to bring greater parity between the two but also respect that the wireless is different. It does have different characteristics. You have to obtain spectrum, whether at an auction in the commission or through a Second Market opportunities and you have to build infrastructure that different from a wired company. We are going to bring Howard Buskirk of Communications Family into this conversation right away but first i want to play some videotape. This is commissioner, chairman tom wheeler on this program a couple of weeks ago talking about management of the fcc. When i first got involved at the fcc, it was very directional and detailed. You will do this, we will look at your books for this. You will have these kind of directors. It was very, very specific in terms of what it did. And in the open internet order, we have a very different kind of approach where instead of preemptively saying we know best, we said, you want to have a couple concepts. You want to have an internet where there is no blocking, no throttling, no pay prioritization and consumers know what they are getting. Transparency. And then, put a referee on the field. And the referee has the ability to look at circumstances and throw the flag if necessary. And thats an entirely different approach to what the fcc used to be and i think thats the kind of approach that encourages this kind of innovation that i was talkingabout. What do you think about what he had to say . I disagree with most of what he had to say but certainly the last priority permission with innovation. I did not support the Net Neutrality for numerous reasons, the organization whats available on the internet and what the internet is going to grow to be. Right now under the structure they have and the chairman hasproposed, it has been adopted, now being challenged in the court , you have like you described three wide item rules thenhave the subcategory. A jump ball. He describes it as a referee on the field. We have no idea what the rules of the game are so when is the referee going to drop the flag question mark we have no idea. Its whenever the bureau or chairman feels like it. Thats not a mechanism to produce certainty in the marketplace and is not a mechanism that produces innovation and weve seen this today at the commission in a number of different instances, one particular is the rating item where that issue has been reviewed and is being currently reviewed by two different bureaus and potentially the armed Enforcement Bureau but no rules of the road, no guidelines on how the investigation will go and when it will end and we will have to see what that plays out. That leaves too much authority into basically employees of the federal government trying to view what technologies should be Going Forward. Howard buskirk, you were a critic of that order from the beginning and then very strong on it more than a year ago in february 2000. After the period of time, this much later what you think has been the net effect of the order . Are you seeing any bad effects on business so far . One is with the practices of the carriers, the providers that were supposedly going to be the bad behavior, that was not happening beforehand it is and it is not happening now so i dont know that that item change behavior on that type of integration. We have seen companies and i talked to companies who have changed their decision, their investments and their rollout of products based on the rules itself so some innovation is not happening because of those rules. The third part i would say is those rules are being challenged in court. Where expecting a decision any day now and that will help provide guidance even though i do believe the decision was challenged in the Supreme Court of the United States and it will provide some guidance on whether this commission was inbound or outbound and therefore whether those rules are allowed to stay. I suppose theres a negative decision from the court, negative from the standpoint of those who want say the rules stand. That could be your dominant issuefor the rest of the administration , do you think thats going to take over the rest of the agenda as rules are rejected when the extent . It depends on what ruling is that i hate to predict what a court may or may not do. It depends on the scope of the review if its on procedural grounds, it may then occupy the rest of the year but if its done on, it actually is on the merits themselves which i think is a great chance to happen, maybe you may find you will have an impact on our decisions that are potentially pending. A lot of those decisions are tied into the authorities we have captured by Net Neutrality decisions. I also wanted to, you saw the chairman, theres a lot of people who feel that regulations are quite bad among the commissioners. Id like to ask you to comment on that. Sure. I commented on this in the past and made the point that i believe its basically something that happens on an item by item or issue by issue approach. Sadly, i dont think thats the case anymore. Its not a personality driven approach, time and i, chairman wheeler and i get along fine as people but the direction from fcc leadership including the chairman is take the most aggressive, leftist approach to policymaking is middle ground when that becomes the first primary goal of the item and the policy and direction they want to go becomes the first goal rather than any consideration of any collegiality or any kind of attempt to bring or develop consensus, you wind up with this issue we had today when there islittle interest in bringing my opinion on board and youre going to find that im less likely to be supported and im going to express my views. What has been the general gradual deterioration of relationships at the commission . I think thats probably fair. I still maintain positive relationship with my colleagues but i think overall theres a fairly tense feeling at the commission. We are waiting for a number of Court Decisions that will settle some of the ground. We have only so many more months left in this particular administration and i think people are trying to figure out what the next Administration May look like and how that may be structured and how the different commissioners mayor may not stay. Commissioner oreilly, theres a little bit of a kerfuffle going on in the senate regarding one of your colleagues, commissioner rosen whistle. Do you think she should be confirmed for a full second appointment . We put out a press release to that effect, her nomination was sent by the president to the senate. Riley is the legislating and nominating process to my friends and colleagues and to the senators in the body. They know best, thats their job, its not mine. Shes been a great colleague of mine and the senate will have to decide whether she should stay and you mentioned it being an Election Year. Does that curtail some of your activity at the fcc much like since its an Election Year we dont know whos going to be be the president next year or whos going to be administration . In my experience the answer would be generally yes. Past instances of an Election Year, you saw the commission slow down as you get closer to an election date. I dont know if that can occur the story. Chairman wheeler has a fairly broad and strong agenda that he tends to want to move in the next many months so i think we are going to keep her those items and therefore there wont be too much of interest as we get closer to election day. He wants to run through the tapeand i think , i may not agree with the items that are moving forward but i think we are going to be fairly busy. One more election question. Hillary clinton was recently in West Virginia and she mentioned how herself home would drop and she was unconnected. To use an old term, do we still have a Digital Divide in this country and what can be done . We still have parts of america that are not connected but on the wireless side a broadside. I have spent a great deal of my time and mycolleagues as well trying to figure out how to address those issues. Where are those places where services are not being provided . What is the breakdown, what is the problem . How do we best address it and we had a funding mechanism that the federal Communications Commission runs by the universal service. Its going to run about 11 billion this year and we are trying to figure out how to spend those dollars in an efficient manner. We get those dollars from the ratepayers of america who contribute, who pay as part of their telephone bill for that purpose so i tried to be solid stewards of that dollar and make sure it goes as far as possible so we have a number of different programs we run to try to expand the existing network to all people in the United States as best aspossible. You think its been well, do you think youve been good stewards . There are parts of the program that i think have done very well and other parts that i think have not lived up to what is expected. Weve also expanded two of the programs of the four, fairly substantially. One of the programs had substantial fraud and waste abuse existing and we didnt fully in my opinion address those issues before expanding the program to broadband her and that being the Lifeline Program so i think theres still some problems that need to be addressed. We are not getting the maximum benefit for dollar being collected. One of the things i wanted to ask you about is, youve been in washington since the early 90s. What extent do you think some of the fighting at the fcc is reflective of the broader conditions in washington and more deeply partisan congress . Does that trickle over to the sec . I dont believe so. I worked with four members of congress for many years and those fights come and go, depends on thecycle , depends on the leadership, depends on their tone and i let that money to a half years ago. I think the commission traditionally has run a very straightforward manner. If people are willing to work together, i have tried to be as collegial as possible in trying to find common ground. If people are willing to do that you can size up any particular problem. The difficulty is if the leadership, the majority has a particular outcome they want and are pushing as hard as they can for that, not extending my views or my colleagues views and also other republicans, if those views are sidestepped its hard to find commonalities so its not as much about the rest of washington leading to the commission,its how is the commission being run . You complained about how you would submit and they dont get looked at for various orders and that kind of thing. You believe thats a departure from past fcc . I actually put forward a good different process reform ideas, not many of those have made it into the books as of yet but i do think what i put on the table, i read every item put before the commission that my name is going out on so, there were a number of things that go out from the bureaus that i dont know about or i dont have an opportunity to vote on but besides that i do Read Everything and i tried to provide constructive ideas and edits on how to make an item better. That would garner my support. Many times recently they havent been adopted or even considered i think thats disappointing. Its just a decision i think by the leadership that my vote is not as important. And this chairman and is more than past chairman have been to vote and hes not really looking for the consensus too much . Thats been my experience. Thats what you can see from the items. Commissioner oreilly, great year into Net Neutrality. Have there been any issues . We are here in but we have a major Court Decision thats just about to break and in a matter of weeks or so, could be a couple of days. There were not problems before so im not surprised you havent seen the problems sense. There are problems with rules themselves and behavioral goals and i think thats been problematic. I like to see those things changed. I dont know that iwill be successful in that. In a couple of weeks you will be visiting with the cable industry at their annual show and one of the issues that will probably be talked about is set top boxes. Where are you on that . Why did you vote against the proposal. You outlined my position. I did vote against what the commission was proposing. In fairness, my views on settop box are fairly wellknown. Id like to get rid of the box. I dont think, i as a consumer myself do not like a set top box. They are old, they do not provide the modern functionality you expect out of todays communication technology. Id like to get rid of settop boxes. The difficulty is with the specifics of the proposal the chairman put forward. He had an opportunity to go one of two ways. One is oldstyle, how do we regulate settop boxes. How does the administration put his views on how the settop box should be and what do you charge and what does it look like in terms of the streams that come in and the streams that go out of it . The other approach was to adopt a modern viewpoint , that the video marketplace is changing and modernizing and moving to an application based culture. Most everyone uses applications today. The video marketplace is no different. In that scenario we could eliminate the box, lets consumers save all of the money they currently pay for renting boxes and we can open up innovation and straightforward way. Sadly, the proposal has been put on the table and will be disposed of by the end of this year. Its an old vision, its an old model and it should be discarded in its entirety. The first one in the world, you expressed concerns about that in the past. Are you feeling more comfortable with that now or, what are your concerns at this point . I am rooting for, hopeful for a very successful incentive option. I helped advise members of the senate on the component of thestatute that designed the rules for the incentive option , my difficulty with what the commission did over time goes back your point in terms of power things done at thecommission . s willingness to find compromise. I suggested we should move toward certain things that i would describe as social policy. Specifically target a couple companies and let them have licenses at less cost than other companies. I think thats skewing an auction and in doing so, thats harmful to those people who are selling licenses, also harmful for any kind of disrupting the marketplace itself so i am rooting for successful auction. I must admit as not being the chairman, i dont have a great deal of information as yet. I do read the information without, were looking forward to the start of the reverse auction where we see what the price will be at the initial target of spectrum thats made available and we will see how much it costs to buy out the broadcasters, the corrective broadcastersfor a gain of 126 megahertz. Fcc recently announced theres going to be as much as 100 megahertz on all markets, not all markets but most market. Does that make youfeel better about the spectrum question mark it seems like there will be a wider spectrum available we know that the initial target. Id like to release as much spectrum as possible. This initial target is 126. Id like that to be the case but im not sure that it is. The chairman has indicated it will go through multiple stages if necessary so if theres not enough bidding, those people purchasing them on the wireless carrier side to those people supplying the broadcasters, then it will drop down so we will drop down to a different tier and we keep dropping down until those things become equilibrium. We wind up having much lessspectrum and it may take us many months to get to that point. I dont know as you indicated , i think this is the first time its been tested in the world. Hopefully if we set it up in a thoughtful way, it can be replicated not only in the United States which i believe it will. I believe theres another incentive option in a number of years but notwithstanding i think it be can be adopted elsewhere hopefully without the social problems. This is tied into 5c which is the carriers are all talking a lot about 5g, the next generation of service. Do you feel the fcc is doing enough to make sure the us stays in a Competitive Position in the world as the world moves to 5g mark. Im pushing as hard as i can. I think the incentive option is one piece of it. Making more spectrum available at the lower tier, lower band. We still have more things to do in the higher bands. We have an item we will dispose of in july that will do with some of the superhigh bands, hopefully that will be done successfully. The chairman has agreed to add more bands of high spectrum, high frequencies to that pot and hopefully we will be able to do that this summer. Companies having trouble building up their wireless towers and cell phone, that kind of thing they need, thats one of your concerns. Absolutely. The first part is obtaining spectrum. The second part is doing the build out and understandably for many years, communities dont necessarily, they would like the service but they dont actually like the towers themselves. Macro towers, the big powers that cover a number of areas. We have moved to a technology, thank goodness thats advanced that we may have smaller towers, smaller antennas. They can be as small as going into a streetlight. So youre talking about a much smaller universe. To actually provide service in such a small structure you are going to still have to get signals and most of wireless in fairness, Wireless Service is driven by wired. Wired service. We have to have wired connecting all of these facilities so that wired service has to get to those wireless places. That is going to be difficult because a lot of community dont like the ground, they dont like the employment of certain facilities in certain places so you will have that tussle Going Forward and id like to see us get to a more friendly place rather than a big blob we had over the last decade. Commissioner oreilly, is the Telecommunications Market today competitive in your view . It depends on which piece of it you look at. We had this debate in a number of different instances. I can say i do believe that the wireless is fairly competitive depending on what part youre looking at and what market you are looking at. Some places are less and some places are more so its hard to say universally that everything is coming out of it. Would you like more competition but mark with everybody like more competition question mark absolutely but theres also a realization that the cost of deployments, the cost of entering the marketplace, the cost of doing everything it requires is not an inexpensive venture for a company to deploy a number of services, whether it be in the wired, wireless, satellite or even in the cable or broadcast side so those things do require a lot of capital, a lot of investment and i understand why people and Companies Make certain decisions. What, in your view could be fcc do to make it more competitive to allow more entrants a the issues we have a lot of issues. Recently have focused on the pipe itself, the broadband pipe, wireless. It too confusing. I dont suggest otherwise but it has focused on some of the physical components in recent days. Let me they determined the best time wind up the law. They have expressed interest in updating the statute since 1996. It hasnt been done but i leave it in capable hands. It seems the count has gone away from the a little bit so they may not be able to do it is congress that there is appetite to change some of the statute. I do find the statue does prevent provide issues for the commission. We are taking advantage, but youre in my opinion taking vantage of provisions in the statute interpreting them in ways that were not intended, weeding words, so i have trouble with how the commission is interpreting the law and whether theyre actually following the law. I dont believe they do and ive expressed my point. Beyond that i do think that modernizing the statute would be appropriate, but thats for congress to decide. One of the two republicans on the commission. Our buskirk. The u. S. Senate is back today to continue work on a 37 billion energy and water spending bill. They will take a key procedural vote for the third time in an attempt to advance that legislation to the vote is set for 5 30 p. M. Meanwhile, the house returns tomorrow to take up a series of measures designed to combat opioid abuse including authorizing funding for Justice Department grants. Later they plan to amend the Senate Passed opioid bill then vote to go to conference. Follow the house on cspan, the senate here on cspan2 when the gavel in in about 25 minutes. Until then conversation on Foreign Policy in campaign 2016 from todays washington to go. Host joined by Frank Gaffney founder of the center for Security Policy former senior National Security advisor to the ted cruz for president campaign. Lets talk about Foreign Policy as her legs to the president ial campaign. We seen something a bit of a role reversal in this election in your mind. Likely democratic nominee now seems more inclined to get involved overseas another Presumptive Republican nominee seems less inclined than the democrats trying to i think its a bit more complex than that, m kind of a superficial view of it. I think it is true that this sort of democratic candidate, at least at the moment Hillary Clinton, has a track record of engagements overseas. Obviouslyoverseas. Obviously, most recently her job is to get a state. But its engagement of a kind i think has been profoundly troubling, certainly National Security minded folks like myself. Theres bee been a sort of them engagement but mostly on other peoples terms. Its a transnationalist form of engagement whereby an International Consensus or conss International Law or basically anything but our own sovereignt. Sort of seems to govern. The opposite view is being expressed by donald trump. There are things about his policy line that i think ise consistent with that of people like myself, National Security minded folks. And there are things that are a little bit reading. Are some things are simply unclear. I think what were going to have happen in the next few months is pretty clearly going to be a lot of sorting. My guess is at the end of the day you will still see the republican candidate be the more robust or proamerican and the. Democratic candidate be less so. Host Frank Gaffney, former assistant secretary defense for interNational Security policy in the Reagan Administration. Talk about trump Foreign Policy outlook the you listen to his Foreign Policy speech he gave in washington, d. C. What do you make of it . Guest i think theres something t so stand up that are very appealing. I think that his view of broadle defined peace through strengthan is very much a theme of pressure Ranking Member the that of ted cruz whom i supported in the primaries. I think the view that america has to rebuild its military, that the iran deal was a disaster, that we need to secure borders, that the notion of the United States is going to continue to engage in one sidene of trade agreements, that it does our sweetheart deals for some American Companies but at the expense of the National Interest, and at worst are just again as in the transpacific partnership, a formula for a transnational governing arrangement. Thats never discussed but thats what i think is in the works. Those are very positive things to seems to me and worthy of debate at the highest levels of our government and, of course, direction. Theres something im not so keen on that hope will be clarified and hopefully even better refined to the point where they have been changed fundamentally. One of them the idea sort of America First which is a loaded term for those of us with any corporate memory at all which really speaks to a sort of isolationism. I dont think thats what donald trump has in mind. If he doesnt help you get that sorted. Host a headline from breitbart, Frank Gaffney, National Secret apparatus will not get behind trump. What did you mean . Guest well look, the kind of concerned i just expressed our ones that are worrying to some of us. Nato as an example i think is an important alliance. Its one that if we didnt have we would have to agree. We have seen in recent days Vladimir Putins rising aggressiveness, not just in terms of harassing our aircraft and ships but in ukraine come in series you. You. His Nuclear Buildup is somethinh that is hardly ever discussed. It is really alarming. We will see the entire Russian Nuclear force posture moderniz modernized. The entire thing. We we have hardly touched ours since we stopped engaging in Nuclear Testing in 1992. Some minor upgrades of their old systems but theres a real worry i think on the part of a lot of us that we are entering a phase. Ive been involved in one aspect or another and National Security policy for 40 years. I think this is the most dangerous time ive ever seen with not just the russians, with the chinese, the north provisions, the iranians, they jihadists. Latin america even. These are all places where there are Serious Problems for National Interest and National Security, as well as here at home. These are the sorts of things that require it seems to me a steady hand and im hoping donald trump will provide it. Host want to invite our viewers to join the conversation as well. If you want to join i wonder since youve left the cruz camping have had conversations with a Donald Trump Campaign . . Guest its hard to say cruz left all of us. Thats the problem. Ive had conversatio conversatie working with the campaign, yes house of representatives do you think he will work for donald trump . Guest bobby jindal pretty i think indicative of my view. I am very much opposed to Hillary Clinton and the position she is taken. I am speaking personally. I run a Nonprofit Organization that isnt partisan. Personally i believe a continuation of the kind of program that she and barack obama have engineered for, her case, four of the past eight years and in his case eight of the past eight years would be just disastrous for the National Study of the United States. My hope is donald trump will offer a very pronounced course corrections and do so in a way that would be consistent with what i think are the pressing National Interests of our country. Host john, republican up first. Go ahead. Caller yes. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Host go ahead and turn down your tv and go ahead with your comments. Caller im sorry. Im doing it right now. Host john, go ahead. Caller yes. Donald trump Foreign Policy suggestions so far seem to be very reasonable. They are basically as pat buchanan would have his Campaign Agenda is really pat buchanan without the social policy. You know, America First, United States is not the worlds policeman. Its its diminishing returns as far as what we get in return. Trade deals are disastrous for us. We been be intellectualized and what amazes me is the industrialized. Some of the republicans who are abandoning ship such as William Kristol or basically really never was much of a republican, other than the pro israel interventionist Foreign Policy middle east. Because now donald trump is rejecting this aggressive interventionism, bill kristol once every third party candidate. Its horrendous. Host we showed a column by bill kristol earlier. Here it is again for our viewers but Frank Gaffney, give you a chance to respond. Guest i think theres something to what the caller has just said. There is a similarity betweenisa some elements of the trump platform as it has developed so far, and those of pat buchanan. That began as an old friend of mine. We disagreed mightily on some pieces of this, particularly the idea of disengagement from the e world. I dont think we are the worlds policeman. I dont think we can safely be isolated from it either. I think theres a happy balance to be struck. I am convinced based on a lot of hard experience that the world is in a lot safer place when our strength is unquestioned, something donald trump is talking about, it would our allies have confidence in us, something he is also talking about. And when our enemies are persuaded that there is no profit to them from acting aggressively against those. Are inches or allies. That is the biggest talked about somewhat but a little less so of that i would like to see. Will kristol is also an old friend and colleague. I think youve done them a disservice by describing his as you have but i dont think that the way ahead is for a Third Party Candidacy because i believe that will simply result in the election of Hillary Clinton and a policy approach that neither pat buchanan nor i would support house of representatives ron is in West Chesterfield new hampshire. Good morning. Comic thank you very much. Im honored to speak with your gesture as well. The thing about donald trump is he really scares me because he does think and reacts offthecuff. And like those russian jets that buzzed our ship, and, unfortunately, i kind of think like i think donald trump, i think of i were president or something i wouldve had those jets shot down right then and there. And i believe donald trump probably would have, too. Because thats just the thing to do to a ship that is in a verye sensitive area in a situation and bad things can happen. And without really thinking it through, i wouldve given the order to shoot those russian jets down and i think donald trump would. I think a donald Trump Presidency is going to lead to very disastrous wars. I dont think he thinks things through everything. Its offthecuff. I think thats going to come back to bite us. Guest it remains to be seen, doesnt it . If he is, in fact, elected president i think there is some reason to be concerned that a combination of not being terribly astute in international affairs, National Study on the one hand and in somewhat impetuous could produce undesirable results. On the other hand, i think the fact is that the process of becoming a candidate and runnino for office and possibly being elected to this commanderinchief position, combined with good counsel from people around them including from the United States military, you can attenuate that. But i will say that the kind of behavior wev we have seen so ff this is the standard that we want to see sat by barack obama specifically, to some extent in our time by Hillary Clinton, has given rise to the kind of provocative behavior that you just described lets be clear. That ship was operating in international waters. My understanding was it was buzzed 20 times by one 02 fighter planes of the russian p air force. In what is frankly an attack profile. They didnt turn on the radars and it didnt seem to have ordinance under the wings, and may have caused the command of the ship to just suck it up. But the truth of the matter is if you want to say to the russians dont do this, dont think about doing barrel rolls over our aircraft, do not think about asserting your power in ways that are going to be harmful to us and, frankly, i think interNational Security interests, we have to be signaling a degree of opposition and we have a. Its not enough to simply sayy this is unprofessional behavior. You will get a lot more andat thats what gives rise most immediately to miscalculations and possibly conflict. Host jason is a washington, d. C. Good morning. Comic am glad you had guessed on. Is point out that both democrats and republicans are both parties at war and inefficient if thee idea of the Founding Fathers going back. Le their philosophy is clear. Tangling alliances with none. This elected the United States being policeman of the world or getting involved in places that we should that be, ukraine, the ukraine for crying out loud, lets be realistic. Then this whole folly of the middle east. This is a middle east civil war that should be handled by the people of the middle piece, not the United States uzbek when he heard the term America First is that appealing to you . Caller no. Because i dont know what that is. Us he hasnt defined that aspect of it enough for it to be clear. Trump is doing a minimalist in terms of his description of any of the policies hes advocating because he lets people mentally fill in the details of what they want. This is a sales technique. This is nothing different than selling soap. But the point being, if were just in from her previous thing when you talk about the rights of third party, the American Public is that enough of getting involved in foreign interventions and paying for it. This whole thing, you want to know whats going wrong . Host are you still with us . His own cut out but go ahead, Frank Gaffney. Guest i think he is speaking to one of the points i made myself which is to assertsp aspects of Donald Trumps thinking and policy approach that are not adequately clear at the moment. We hopefully will be learning more about them as this campaign progresses. Learning i just want to speak to the Central Point though. When our founders talked about no and tangling alliances they have the luxury of being basically effectively an island nation, separated by and large ocean and great distances that greatly diminish the dangers of foreign wars having any implications for us. That is simply no longer the case these days. The old line about he may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you, i think is more tru true today with a shrig effectively of our planet and ease of access the people to this country, as well as of course tour Strategic Interests all over the globe, which are all over the globe. We tend to sort lose sight of that. How much of our economy is dependent on foreign trade, for example. The absolute indispensability of our ability to the freedom of navigation so that trade can continue unimpaired. The degree to which the chinese, as an example, are taking positions in the south china sea, one of those critical sea lines of communication. And by the way, chokepoints from the caribbean to africa, latin america, literally around the ah globe, all of which i believe has as its purpose being able to confine and if necessary interrupt our vital trade operations. We have a new book coming out called warning order which tries to distill down all of thehe evidence of what the chinese are doing to prepare for conflict. Its not to say that they will exercise the option that its a very real option i think increasingly by the to. Host for people who dont know him center for Security Policy. Org. What is your group . Guest an easy way this secure freedom. Org and document our resources, its been our decision i started with a number of my friends, many from the Reagan Administration, some people i worked with about 28 years ago now. The purpose was to essentially d to try as the Reagan Administration lowered down to maintain the philosophy and the capacity that reagan described as peace through strength. We have done that on host of issues over the years. We have been most deeply engaged since before 9 11 actually on the Global Jihad Movement of the threat that represents in trying to help people understand how serious that is why weve got to be both clear eyed about its true nature, its catalyzing force which is called sharia and how we can best defeated. Host you talked about this on your website. Earlier this year that Southern Poverty Law Center labeled this effort to get a pulse one of its hated groups in america. This is how they describe it are found in 1988 by Frank Gaffney. Visitors to get a pulse has gone from a respected hawkish think tank focus on Foreign Affairs to a conspiracy or did mouth piece for the growing antimuslim movement in the United States. R guest as i said ive been in this business for about four years. I dont remember very fondly the kinds of comments that were suggested about my previous reputation. Putati there was a lot of criticism because people thought i was a hardliner in terms of the nature of the soviet union and what we needed to do to deal with it. Look, this isnt about namecalling. This is about facts. As one of my friends and colleagues recall some of some as a federal prosecutor, every conspiracy begins with a conspiracy theory. The difference between just a theory an actual conspiracy is facts that people have acted on their theory of how they could run mafia operations perhaps or run a civilization jihad as the Muslim Brotherhood calls a. I want to give you a copy of this. I consider this to be the most single most important we publish called the explanatory memorandum. It is something that was introduced by the federal government into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial in 2007 and 2008. It was the most important document i think in persuading the jury to convict the conspiratorial in that case whoo were charged with raising funds for hamas, a designated terrorist organization. This document lays out not just what the Holy Land Foundation was about as impose a brotherhood associate organization of the brotherhood itself was involved in. That is if this. Theres the violent jihad which we are all fully with particularly since 9 11. Theres of this phenomenon of the migration or colonization that we see much in evidence these days in europe, for example. Theres something called, a fundraising or hiding for jihad, among other things but notably for jihad and then theres this civilization jihad of them also brotherhood. Want they are doing by their own words is trying quote to destroy western civilization from within. Either hands, meaning ours in the hands of the believers so that gods religion is made victorious over all other religions. Using stealth techniques, subversive techniques which are again chronicled in his book, dont take my word for it, read it for yourself and you can read it by the what as you can all of our materials at secure freedom. Org for free. Pdfs are available and disability the Rosetta Stone on what we are doing with and whatt is the Southern Poverty Law Center or the center for American Progress or other groups on what i call the red part of the red green taxes or whether its the islamists trying to suppress our freedom of speech in describing these facts that are what this conspiracy is all about and moves it from a theory to an actual threat to our country. We need to stand up against it and not allow our freedom of expression to be stifled post but lets allow our callers to ask questions. Henry is in new york. A democrat, good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. Disco is not about doctrine and its not about policy. Its about influence. Its my assertion that Party Leadership is not going to be able to really have much hold or get halfway to first base with trump. I look at his endorsements totso substantiate this assertion. Now, moving on, this is one last point. You mentioned or you asked, she spent past if it means something. It does mean something and itss very uncomfortable. In conjunction with, and this is really what is in the back of my mind, as well as other items that i just mentioned, is wednesdays endorsement that has not been repudiated of donald trump. If i look at that, America First anand this meeting a historical context, im concerned and im concerned the Republican Leadership has, is not come is going to have come his influence is going to be, not, he will not listen to you. Thats my comment. Guest i am nowhere near Republican Leadership needless to say but i think part of the phenomenon of donald trump of dourse it is the widespread repudiation of the Republican Leadership. I think they are displaye diffen many ways. You are probably right, certainly if he is correct discussions with paul ryan, the speaker of the house, lasting significance, he doesnt seem terribly interested in the views of the republican establishment. I will say as ive indicated already, i am concerned myself about America First. If it doesnt translate into what historically it is meant which is an isolationist attitude. If what is meant by it is where going to put americas interests first, whether it is in trade negotiations or whether i in our dealings with the russians or the chinese, or you know, theyot jihadists, im good with that. But this is what of the things p think desperately needs to be clarified by donald trump and im reasonably sure the next i couple of months will do that. Mo uzbek david is in pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller how are you doing . I have one comment in one question at the delicate off the the phone and listen for the answer. As far as Foreign Policy goes, i think the United States should form an alliance with russia and get out of the middle east altogether. We could start buying some oil from russia even if we needed to. As far as my question goes, last year we spent about 600 billion on national defense. Yet all i hear is that the military equipment is dilapidated and falling apart. Washington journal live everyday 7 a. M. Eastern any time online that cspan. Org. The u. S. Senate is cabinet and next. They will continue work on a 37 billion energy and water spending bill. They will take a procedural vote for the third time to advance that legislation that is set for 5 30 p. M. Ted cruz after losing the indiana primary last week stepped out of the race and will rejoin the senate tomorrow afternoon. Live coverage of the senate here on cspanthe senate hereon csp. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Esternal god, the giver of every perfect gift. We thank you for the life and legacy of former senator bob