Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20160930

[inaudible conversations] good morning with. By American People decided to change the majority of the u. S. Senate of was down in louisville the day after the election with the press conference that i pointed out the dysfunction in the senate was one of the issues of 2014 with the minority of the senate it is down to a very small minority. So we tried to avoid dysfunction and let people produce a paper co when defeated in alaska in did not have a roll call amendment on a full six year term. Not one. We had 15 votes amendments in let them participate to the maximum extent possible majority and minority. With the ideas of bullseye the deal and i have focused largely to have some bipartisan agreement with a president ial signature. The rewrite of no child left behind with all across america with the first fiveyear highway bill in 20 years with an out of body experience with the other accomplishments that demonstrate to achieve things some of the things from all of the shortterm deal remember how many fixes we did over three years quick 17. You were trying to get out from what we were in but those constant clips that dominated the agenda. Skidded is clearly trivial to the minority. It is pretty darn clear with six weeks to move from the regular order of appropriations to have that appropriations process the only area of dysfunction with that spending process. And we were not concerned with that over the last couple years we did all bobby care. With the congressional review act. So there were some pretty serious differences but the focus accomplish things to the American People the only way to do that is to try to look for some type of consensus to move the ball downfield at the end of the day so with that i will stop [inaudible] that is a good example that the failure to communicate in early about the potential consequences of the piece of legislation that is very popular. Is this water . This is what we should have talked about much earlier but it appears there are unintended ramifications and other things worth further discussion. But certainly not something that would be fixed. [inaudible] as i have said repeatedly the next president will fill that vacancy we have to see who that is. To avoid wasting our time this is not something that i will discuss today with the implications of the president ial race. [inaudible] what did you say . [inaudible] did he mention tom . Hi wonder why. I dont know either. [inaudible] as you have heard me say repeatedly the president has gotten more than president bush over his eight years. There was a rash of confirmation was right at the end of 2014 for the majority. I think president has been treated fairly over any standard during his time here. With those accomplishments in congress there has been more on those bigticket items. Day regret not having more progress . [inaudible] to tackle the of really big issues confronting our future, you need a president who was willing to engage that in this instance his party does not control the congress. The three Biggest Challenges we have for the future we need tax reform reform, comprehensive tax reform. That has become a very difficult thing with the leadership from the next president and redo entitlement eligibility changes. Quit sticking our head in the santa think medicare and Social Security will survive in the absence of some kind of eligibility and not the demographics of americans. My greatest disappointment from president obama is we have numerous discussions in he was not willing to move which would have been necessary with control of congress in order to achieve that. Whoever that is will step up to the big challenge confronting the future. We were prepared to do it to bring the members of this party along. I will give four examples of president ial leadership. So raising the age of Social Security and they did well and balance the budget. Divided government is the best government. Because that requires poolsides to buy into progress. I knew he would be a big liberal but he is not interested to tackle those may get issues. [inaudible] we have about three weeks back here after the election. Our own personal priorities are funding the government and the 21st century chairs. That could be the most significant the president is interested, the Vice President , they were deeply invested in night think that will be a top priority in the senate. But with regard with the conference. Without regard to ideology with views on that issue to take up that controversial. [inaudible] lets just be honest nonpolitical environment theyre all against it tpp pretty sanders and donald trump and Hillary Clinton i think it would be brought up it would be defeated anyway to raise the obvious question the few interested in america still in the future that is advantageous to have a trade agreement go down. Care are the facts that the trade Promotion Authority passed with republicans and obama is still there. So that mechanism you can submit an agreement and tpp is still up there so i would hope that whoever is elected president making giveback to having a serious discussion to bien the trading business. Right now at all day congress is ready to tackle that. [inaudible] it is obvious. Who filibustered blacks does anybody have any doubt of the appropriations process . Anybody . This is not a fingerpointing thing is that fact time after time after time. I am not bitter i gsa. [inaudible] i do not like the omnibus. And if it is several minibuses we have to see what we can move. [inaudible] i have been consistent about the situation. And i thought that was newsworthy. To have 24 members bailey had 10. It is pretty obvious that is a challenging cycle for us with a lot of incumbents from the purple states. That was the situation at the start of the cycle. It is still the situation. Knockdown drag out like a knife fight wisconsin indiana florida gotten some distance in ohio. Everywhere else to go either way. Honestly that was entirely anticipated the matter who the nominee was we would have a very challenging cycle. They have 25. A number of those are red states like montana, north dakota and indiana misery West Virginia. We fully intend to be on the offense is life easier than defense to score. [inaudible] because i choose not to. I am here to talk about the United States senate with the majority has done and i help we have a case to make to the American People exactly what impact the president ial race will have is unpredictable. I will give you a little history lesson. Nixon beat mcgovern 49 at 50 states republicans lost two seats in the senate. Reagan beat mondale 49 of 50. Bill clinton was reelected and regained two seats. 2008 was the sweep president obama not only one but the senate and the house even though reagan 1980 he did not take the house he controlled the house because there were conservative democrats with the election. So to have no impact and those that seem to have. I dont think we will note the answer until after the election. I am trying to go to new people. [inaudible] we dont know who will win in november but we still have the same government emplace with the limited amount of time that we have been and i have mentioned something that i think is extremely important the bill but i believe the speaker and myself and this president really want to accomplish this year. [inaudible] were committed to taking a look at that. [inaudible] that would be the only way to have another discussion about trade and then they send them not. And a big player on trade. So with tpa we would have another discussion about trade it would have to be led by the next president. [inaudible] that has come out of committee and we will take a look at that. And that is one of them. [inaudible] on this particular issue there is very little early discussion. By the time everybody seemed to focus members had already taken a position. Did it was an example of a bipartisan basis because everybody was aware of that beneficiaries with the international relationships. But it would be helpful if we had a discussion about this much earlier. [inaudible] we had that 16 years ago after the 2000 election. To be negotiated and with the in person majority and we concluded with the party of the president. And then it was to our benefit but then the senate would be organized so i dont think that had happened. And when that was negotiated so we answer the question. So if you ask me who knows. But we do know with that scenario since we recently had that experience. What do you mean quite. That was not hedging. And that was a real question so i realize who was in charge renegotiated that out. So we would replicate what we did. My job is to get along with these folks. And then want to be in the majority. Thanks everybody. [inaudible conversations] i hope they have a good break. A good time to be here. Or we could get you divorced [laughter] i did one divorce i did lot. I married one then divorce them the next day. [laughter] you waiting for questions quick. I am waiting for senator schumer. [laughter] i will call when you first. We did not make fun of you wants. This. The senator will be hearing just a few minutes. But the Republican Senate has been a flop and that is an understatement. It is no wonder for the basic duties of the senate. For the things that we use to do. But now it is a big deal. One they have done nothing would for middleclass doing everything they can to rid the system and have the time show up for work. And remember we are very generous. 252 working days and were lucky if they show up for half of them. Added is shameful. I can remember and senator schumer can remember before recess we were so busy with doing things. Those that we refuse to consider the nomination the Supreme Court has them brought to its knees and they refuse to deal. We have an issue that should have spent so easy to do with criminal justice reform. They had agreed to do something. Bipartisan. Raise the wages. One with the perot again Campaign Finance system senator mcconnell demanded legislation that prevents them from disclosing Campaign Contributions or disclosures. They refuse to pass legislation virtually every day yesterday of 14 yearold boy that killed his dad and went and was shooting at the Elementary School. Fourteen. The nra from nevada. That is the truth. And then to restore regular order. And we will never do that. We will never stop. For what we did yesterday. Those who spend a time disrespecting president obama i am from nevada it is the big newspaper it used to be called the Arizona Republican a change in a number of years ago for the first time in the history of newspapers indorse see Hillary Clinton yesterday but then some detail the explained we are republican but we had no choice. We think Hillary Clinton will be better for the country. Pdf legacy that the republicans have. Senator reid, i could not agree more. This has spent a flock. But republicans are racing home convincing that the Republican Senate would work for them of voters will not buy it. But when they did it was a special interest. We will work mondays and fridays. In the fewest days in 50 years. They should be hanging their heads in shame how little they have worked. And then cannot get a budget done. You cannot do the appropriations bill and basically 40 or 50 members of the Freedom Caucus that is why Mitch Mcconnell wants to get out of here because that caucus was in such trouble that they get tired and not to accomplish so little. But when republicans were here, they would govern by crisis to unprecedented heights. To even renew the import export. Mendez and middleclass jobs because of it even trying to pass a budget this year berger theyll most shutdown the government rather the department of romance security with that tail wagging the dog creating paralysis and special and specialinterest legislation when they could not agree and what a disgrace they spent months of partisan witch hunts for such as attacking planned parenthood and the appropriations process was stuck in the mud. They cannot govern. When they are an opposition they are good at saying no but in power they cannot govern because the party is in shambles look at the president ial race to show what a shamble it is reflected with the inaction among the republican senators. They are touting no money that 7 million . Even buffalo needs more than that but the hard right does not want to spend money on opioids one of the few things with zika virus to say we will solve this . No. We have to push them and push and push the very few things they accomplish only because democrats were relentless. And above all, Justice Scalia the Supreme Court seat is vacant to delayed justice tying it up in knots. But they pale for what he has not done with all of the obstruction facing manufactured crisis with the failure and a dereliction of duty of the middleclass. The Republican Senate had a job to do but they failed to do their job. Everyone knows things can slowdown but lets compare this congress one final term george bush w. Bush and reagan these are new lows. They should hang their heads in shame hundreds and hundreds of civilian nominees confirmed when previous president s in the last two years for just 20 judges less than half of the typical number of nominees to be left twisting in the wind at a time of terrorism still left unfilled they fail laugh every level. But they palin comparison to what should have been done. The number when the senate did succeed to get the budget agreement for go republicans were entrusted with the majority men and said he would get the senate to work again but it didnt work cattle. At all. We will now take your questions. But also remind of the things that he did. We will both answer that because he has been focused. But if the election was right now there would focus on the debate the most watched debate in the history of the country of 90 Million People. He was knocked out in the firstround. [laughter] i know about joe louis because i have a picture. Next question . Q talk about the senate. Site think we will have a majority in the senate only because of two words of the Koch Brothers that is pouring and having said that the public is on oversight. Electorate is getting more democratic the Republican Party is in shambles and the incumbent senators cannot make up their minds what to do with donald trump but they know were on the side of the middleclass. One of their great failures whine to 20 million americans with 8 on their Student Loans when you buy a car at 4 percent. Young people learn that and that will not raise them. It is already talked about in the campaigns where the candidates and incumbents voted against this but there is issue after issue after issue. [inaudible] okay first evolve all of those who voted for the bill also obviously they figured it is better to have the bill than not the relative to any proposal but not annie that hurt the families. One proposal made for instance was limited to just 9 11. That means doing again we will not punish you. Now that the bill is passed one of the reasons that pastor overwhelmingly this saudis have been motivated. Not because we have the same exact laws of 2005 with a parade of horribles denied exist. The day when the statesponsored terrorism Diplomatic Community should be changed to be more limited rather than extended. I will look at anything with the letter beforehand with my democratic colleagues for but it has to be something that does not weaken the bill to get their day in court. [inaudible] first dialect at the familys i have set a work with these families five years. I feel their pain i did not lose a loved one they did but this is about justice. And i would say in a very partisan time before any president or this one in particular, have only one of the override . That is a darn good record i would be proud of it. [inaudible] no. No. Xx told me had a time. It did not surprise me. Look at my record. [inaudible] answer the question i will not dwell any more. I am through. Keys said a place of refuge laugh laugh. [inaudible] if you look at the headlines today republicans and vice trump to stay away from that issue and he should. I will not get into at at all. No marriage is perfect and bill clinton i am married proud how long they have been married. By he had been repeatedly criticized. [inaudible] my view he is far too tolerant. [inaudible] but i will let president clinton make her own determinations. I do think garland would be a great nominee but i will not suggest publicly names we will talk privately about that. I will make those discussions privately he would make an excellent nominee and there are several others as well. I am very proud of the work we have done year after year. We as a Democratic Caucus she is very good. And the groundwork has been laid for the rest of the year. There is a reason we should not be able to do it. Number one funding for defense. Number two no poison pill. Number three i forget. Sequestration. [inaudible] wilson that is just happy talk from the republicans look today at the column. They said basically trouble is ruling the Republican Party. So this is happy talk but of course, nevada, every place in the country he is hurting. Sandra cisneros joe is proud of donald trump . No. He runs from him any way he can. They all do. Also boasting wooden great guy he is. Okay. One more question. [inaudible] listen. I did it once. I can be decided later. I will wait until god willing i become the leader. [inaudible conversations] could morning the question everybody in washington is wondering where did you learn to hammer a nail . [laughter] i did it when i was young when i come from you built your own tree stand now you can buy that oil lot cheaper than you can buy the lumber. That was a moment. But the better way document that the House Republicans if you keep the majority quick. Thanks. [laughter] this is six Big Solutions to big problems in this country that we obviously believe is much easier to do with unified republican government. Belloc at the issues we try to tackle and that is poverty. Lets define success by outcomes. Evidence based policy making. Id like to think there is space for the of welfare reforms were talking about the matter food is and what office it be easier with a unified government that is controversial unfortunately for with regulatory reform, we have pretty profound disagreements but what the actuaries call the debt spiral we call the comprehensive alternative with the reforms necessary to prevent the debt crisis in the future that will have to be dealt with no matter what just because the law is now working for attacks reform again is inevitable because of just the fact were losing our competitiveness in this country more and more American Companies are being bought and we are losing the home grown businesses. Obama care has lots of problems and isis reported only ninepoint 1 of americans are uninsured. Would you say that whoever you replace it with would reduce the number of americans . It should be we should always have a plan to help people get Health Insurance. We can have a system in this country where everyone has access to assurance obviously low income or preexisting conditions without a costly takeover that cranks up the deductibles and denies the choices. Thirtyone of the nations counties have one player and another 30 percent have two plants. We go from that to a monopoly now they have note choices with such a high premium increase at night just pulled out the notforprofit this staying behalf to meet the standard. Asian pervert provide universal access there will be people who will choose not to have Health Insurance. Your son who is the army ranger may not choose to have Health Insurance so there will be those people but those who want it and need it need to do that and that is what we propose it provides universal access. If you go back over the last 30 years, 16 million even more job growth. To raise income taxes george w. Bush only 1. 3 million jobs. Now with the 11 million jobs so what is there in the record that gives confidence the tax hikes are the key levers for Economic Growth corrects payment that was all 20thcentury were in the 21st century. [laughter] obama raise taxes and 10 times as many after the bush cutbacks ; and the average one or 2 percent growth with flat wages quick secession is probably around the corner. Twentyfirst century . This economy is so global and interconnected with capital sold global america was out in the lead to dominate the that is not the case anymore. Overseas which means lake superior. [laughter] ireland distal. 5 england is at 18 china 25. Our corporations are 35 the successful Small Businesses the top tax rate is 44 for good if we keep taxing our businesses that hire tax rate then we will lose to global competition. Companies go overseas in repatriating because of taxes and net with one big company a huge business in minnesota who became a Foreign Company said they could take there overseas money to reinvest back in the country. This is crazy. You cannot just think you can tax and tax with no international consequences. We have to be more competitive so what pace tuesday ended make sense to manufacture in america and make sense to have your headquarters in america. To me it is inevitable. Another area of focus is spend a lot of time going into communities. And you have said republicans face a hurdle. What about the way they are perceived . Show up. Show up. Listen. You have to years and use them in that proportion. There are incredible communities doing Amazing Things to not try to displace them that i am here to tell you what to do with support them and give them oxygen. It is what we created in milwaukee. They have 14 games it was not a safe place to have your kids go to school we had a Mentor Program those over former gang members became mentors 24 7 to help get the kids on the right path to avoid the mistakes and had credibility the Graduation Rates are up, scores are up severe cross pollinating to bring this idea in dallas and all over the country home resolutions privatesector or Public Sector theyre not working together right now in tandem. We need to do that going after those root causes and that is what they can offer. Disruption to the poverty complex so we can have reforms that measure success but the Budget Priorities petite argument doesnt match up with the rhetoric with 52 percent of the cuts to focus on programs for low or moderate income. I just think that theyre fairly leftofcenter. Where you stack up a lot of different for a person. So you get about 24 grand and make it to kids and are offered a job, youre going to lose like 80 cents on a dollar preview lose your childcare benefit spray so they basically does incentivize people to move up and out of poverty. What we are proposing is to change that, taper the taper the benefits and customize Welfare Benefits to a persons needs with important incentives. You have to work, benefits are conditional. Or go to school, get training, get soft skills and hard skills. The point is, if we can customize benefits to get people from where they are to where they need to be, then therell be plenty of savings at the end of the day. At the front end it shouldnt be about saving money, the backend it will be about getting people up and out of poverty, thats the poverty, thats the way we see it. Mr. Kemp is someone you have worked with that in mind, i spent a few years with him in 1994 as the republicans are driving for the first majority in 40 years. He felt alienated from the party. He he said to me one day in his trip, we cant be just the party of little government and big prisons. You might want to say little government a big loss now. You feel hes right . Im one of the people whose pushing for criminal justice reform. I think both parties, democrats and republicans, bill clinton signed these into law, we sort of overcompensated and went to far. Now that we have learned that there better methods of incarceration and better methods of getting people on the right path that we want to institutionalize redemption, those are things many of us on a bipartisan basis are working on. Why did it derail . Were still on track. In the house we have six bills and were still working on it. The polls have shown this year in the republican primaries that in virtually every state except alabama and mississippi, every other state with a couple a majority of republican primary voters supported some kind of legal status for undocumented immigrants in the u. S. Is it possible for Republican House to forward forward on that in 2017 for conference a plan that includes some legal status . The way i say, i written extensively about it. You probably know my position on the issue. I think there is a way to deal get back in a population that doesnt involve nasty deportation. That doesnt involve amnesty that gets a person a way to earn the right to a work permit. But you have to start with security. You have to, the problem some of people have is theres no faith or confidence level actually secure our borders and will actually have security so the feeling is that we will do something on the legal side but we wont secure our border and that will be in the same problem down the road. And maybe you can bring your republican colleagues in the house along . What i dont think this works as a conference a bill. Those collapse under their own weight. I think its the wrong way to go. I think you stage reform. They must begin with a confidence building exercise that is critical for National Security. Its in in our National Security agenda to secure the border in reinforcement. In the day and age of heroine coming into the high school and isis trended penetrator southern border you have to deal with this. When you deal with it and if we deal with it in a way that gives people a sense that we are securing our country, then i think attitudes will change across the country where people are willing to embrace fixing our broken immigration system. Many of us have ideas of how to fix that, its the system is broken. It has to be addressed. Not some big blue that collapses under its own weight. It speaking of mexico, donald trump you offend doors to is not in a can the polls and in six weeks might be elected president , he is said that he intends to immediately renegotiate the terms of nafta to get a better deal for our workers. If he does not succeed he would withdraw from nafta. Would you help him, as speaker of the house, would you help him try to achieve withdrawing . I dont want to get into hypotheticals. In six weeks this person could be president. So if done trump as president wants to withdraw from nafta would you help them achieve that . Let me say this if we can make this for small was 199394 when it was done. Theres things we can do to upgrade and improve. I think a national improve. I think the National Interview policy theres clearly room for growth and improvement between canada, Mexico Mexico and i think we should have a north american block that could dominate the world. So i do think there are areas for clear improvement and nafta. Left lets work on improving and i talk about with john pray thats work on improving it. By the way, you know i wrote the trade promotion for the law and so we could go and get trade. Its really poor that we open up export markets for ourselves. 95 of the World Consumers live in other countries, not this country. We have to have trade. The key is that we have good, effective trade agreements for the last point i would say is, we are in the midst of writing the rules for the global economy. They will be written by someone, 70, some country, i say south and not, i say that the not others. From the start of your career in washington what are your most consistent causes has been entitlement reform and the budget and a better way reaffirm the goal of converting medicare into support structure. Your president ial nominee has said repeatedly, we are not going to cut her Social Security a we are not cutting your medicare. Regardless of who is elected in 2016, will you continue to push, regardless. Absolutely. By the way doesnt cut medicare. Medicare is on its way to solvency. It is the biggest hole coming in the budget. So the government right now is making promises making promises to people that it knows it cannot key. What we are proposing is a system that the Congressional Budget Office tells us is the most effective way to save money insolvency for the program for beneficiaries and taxpayers. Our programs, reforms dont apply to current seniors. They apply tired generation, if youre in or near retirement nothing changes. We can keep doing i keep keep that promise if we fix this soon rate if we blow another presidency until pixies entitlement problems and then get around to it after the boomers are well into retirement, it will be ugly reforms the pull the rug out from under people after they have retired in order to stave off a debt crisis is spurred by that bond markets. This is what were trying to avoid happening. Do it on our terms. We think it will make medicare better and give people more choices. So Hillary Clinton has called for spinning 275,000,000,000 on up a structure, roads, bridges, airports come earlier this year donald trump said, her numbers are a fraction of what were talking about. We need much more money than that to rebuild our infrastructure. Money than that to rebuild our infrastructure. I would say at least double her you would really going to need more than that. Would you help a a president , donald trump has a 550 billiondollar or more of a structured program . Is that something you help them achieve . That is not in the better way. [laughter] just you know we pass the biggest highway bill in 1990. Last night we passed the Water Resources bill which is of a structure for water projects. The emmy corps of engineer projects. So this congress is producing for the most confidence of rewrite of k12 education. The rewrite of our customs laws we pass. A longterm a longterm highway and mass transit bill we passed. So we are getting things done and yes, we have infrastructure problems. The real deal here on this is gas taxes are cutting it and where. We have to figure out a different way. One other area that and its received a lot of attention. In his arizona speech donald trump said we should have a future test for the amount of Illegal Immigrants we let into the country. That should be limited so that the share of the total population that is born abroad meets and only states that historical average which is about ten percent. Its now 14 percent, going up going up to 18 prayed he wants to limit future immigration. I have never even heard of that. Its in the policy book, is that something you would, what you think about limiting immigration so that we maintain a certain population balance. Ive never looked at it like that. What ive always believed is that you need to retool the legal system so that it fits the economys needs. Keep Nuclear Families intact but transition our legal system so that visas are given to our need for the economy. Do we have a shortage of dairy workers in western wisconsin, yes we do. Do we have a shortage of high tech in Silicon Valley Software Engineers . Boomers are retiring, were going to need medical, nurses and doctors. Even if we succeed in item number one here, get ever able bodied person out of welfare to work, theres 94 Million People who are ablebodied adults in the workforce, some by choice, many are not. Even if we get everybody off welfare to work which is fight poverty effectively were still going that population needs because of demographics in this country. A90 . A 90 increase but only a 19 increase. We are going to need people. We are going to need legal immigrants. In my mind mind that means visas ought to be given based upon your contribution to society, your skill set that is needed in our economy that cannot and and is not been filled. As he of listen this year, have you heard anything you could work with Hillary Clinton on if shes elected president . Much time do you have . Look, we will will work with whoever wins whatever office. Obviously i think with unified republican government i think we could get more done. Im tired of divided government, doesnt work very well. Were just at loggerheads. Weve weve got some good things done but the big things, poverty, the debt crisis, the economy, healthcare, these things are stuck in divided government thats why we think a unified republican government is the way to go. Thank you speaker ryan. Thank you. Call [applause] laura and i have been working on [inaudible] that stan has talked about. Stan is the head of the foundation and a meeting we had at roosevelt house and new york a couple of years ago. Let me just say that this is the opinion me of a public, private partnership. Of a Big Corporation and a Teachers Union working together to actually help teachers. Think about the 4 00 a. M. In the morning, think about 4 00 a. M. In the morning. Im not talking about all of you who take a plane somewhere and wake up at 4 00 a. M. Im talking about teachers who wake up at the start at 4 00 a. M. , they have a lesson plan, they know their kids, and their thinking about how i customize, will i do . We have started something coach or my lesson which is they can pull lessons but the difference between that and watson, the teacher advisor is that you can customize your lesson based on the needs of your kids. It stands in in the video it gets smarter and smarter, the way by more teachers using it as karen jody were talking well talk a little bit about what the technology is before anybody starts thinking this is big brother, what the technology is and what the tool really is and why were so excited. So thank you and thank you for having me with you today. My thanks to the atlantic and Aspen Institute for holding this form. Let me talk about the technology first, watsons cognitive computing. Its a form of Artificial Intelligence that depends on natural language processing and machine learning. So it is very different than traditional programmable systems. It is actually a system that depends on information being ingested and it gets smarter with usage. It is a very different engagement with the user, kind of a partnership between man and machine, or woman and machine to come up with the feeding of information and surfacing evidence based answers. Watson became famous in 2011 when it played the game show jeopardy. It has been a lot of places sense that, it is working in oncology to help doctors with cancer treatments, it is working in retail, and legal and lots of other fields. We were asked to figure out how we might employ the power of a watson in education. I represent the Ibm Foundation. So we were interested in doing something for free that would make a contribution in the k12 space. So we assembled thought leaders like Randy Y Gardner and other policies Matter Experts and practitioners, teachers, schools of education, and collectively we talked about this and what we were advised is that Teacher Professional Development is an area that could use some help. Theres not a lot of money to be made there. Maybe this is where we should follow focus watson. So we did. We started. We started with Elementary School mathematics, specifically third grade mathematics. It is very exciting because we are seeing the difference it can make, randy talked about how you can customize lessons, but we are seeing the excitement in the eyes of teachers who say, you actually develop this for me and you involve teachers in the development, and i have this all in one place and i can use it for free, 24 7. Four seven. So i am the driver of the technology. So both laura and stan who you saw the video have incredible Public School experience. So when the teachers came to these original meetings and said, this is a powerful tool but lets not make this mistake that all sorts of other Ad Tech Companies have made, if you say its about helping teachers, it has to be about helping teachers. It. It can be judgmental and it cannot be evaluated. And that is the tool that Ibm Foundation and ibm has created. So what it does, and this is why were so excited about it, if you think about teachers, particularly Elementary School teachers, theyre Elementary School teachers, theyre basically responsible for teaching the entire child everything in a very short period of time. Many of them have 20 50 kids in the class. The customization he comes really important, particularly these days they will go to a colleague and say okay randy doesnt understand fractions, everybody else else in my class does, she is not getting when there is a one eighth, shes not getting the eighth. Anybody have ideas on how to help her . Help me help her. What happens is, you have at this tremendous bank of ideas that is in the watson technology, so you cannot only talk to an individual teacher, mentor, or coach but at literally you can talk and get a customized lesson of somebody who has done that already. Thats right starts with math in terms of their gray. Its not just its not judgmental, and its free and it will be on a mobile app. As the teachers told you about in the video, we are really excited about this. So we cast a big net because it was important to us but we gained the trust of teachers, the ultimate users are clients. We also partnered with the foundation, carnegie and, carnegie and ford because this is a much bigger effort than the aft and Ibm Foundation. We are desolate and take this to great levels in mathematics. We will ask teachers in our Advisory Committee where we should go next with this technology. Its very exciting, but remember, its exciting because we have had such a great process and feedback. There are four basic experiences as theyre called in the watson tool so teachers can go look at the standards, its important you can be an experienced teacher know the standards let well. You could you could be new to the grade level and not just read the standard but know what its about. You you can look at it numbering system or concept. You can look at preand post standards which is very important as you do this differentiation, for randy whos not getting fractions in one his talking trigonometry. And then you moved to the customization feature which is very important to be able to pull in what you think will actually help you differentiate your instruction. You concert on simple paths that might be students facing activities like a worksheet, or fluency activity. Are you kidding get some help with teaching strategy. So we have some videos that are tagged to the content that will surface up some interesting topics like perhaps third grade multiplication or perhaps how to teach two diverse learners. The tool is going to continue to grow. Whats important is the content has seriously curated so teachers will not just go into this random search, they will trusted as a place that has the very best content, their interest at heart. And youre not wrong, so many of us learn math by memorizing equations and trying to apply them as if our brain was a memorization bank. So when you have a tool like this, it helps you figure out how to teach math by thinking it through which is what we do right now thats hugely important. And many of us dont want to actually show what we dont know. And so having this tool with other mentors is really important. So i want to and, i think we really want to end, you are the first people other that an article in the New York Times that are getting an introduction to watson. It is a process and we are very excited about it but the reason we are excited is because teachers all across the country right now as you are sitting here are in their classrooms trying to figure out how they reach kids and how they help meet the needs of children. And what we are very appreciative in terms of ibm and the Ibm Foundation, as they are not telling us what to do, they are supporting what we do and the latitude we need to teach. So thank you very much for this process and for what you have done in terms of watson as a teacher advisor. Thank you for your partnership randy. [applause] next up secretary of health and Human Services. It and abc news chief correspondent, Jonathan Karl [applause] lets start with the big news, you have 1. 1 billion in zika funding, Congress Finally got around to passing funding for zika. [applause] very excited. So the first question is, is it enough. You have said for a long a long time that 1,900,000,000 was essential to deal with this. Is it enough . Were happy to have the money we have. The additional money we asked for because it was an important, part of that money would go towards replacing the money we had to take from the bola which actually still is something we have to watch in west africa. Right now what we are excited to africa. Right now what we are excited to do is take the money and continue moving forward on making sure that in the United States we are as prepared as we can be. Helping states like florida who have a local transmission so the mosquito is actually biting people. Over 100 people have contracted the disease in florida, making sure that we are working on a vaccine which i think we thing is the most promising solution. We most promising solution. We are making progress. We have one vaccine in phase one trial. This week we announced work with corporate partners, where another vaccine because it will take several to get it in the third is to make sure were working on diagnostics. Finally the money will help us with the research. Theres a lot of Unanswered Questions about zika. In other words as a pregnant woman if you get in the third trimester does it still cause the damage. And while we know microcephaly is clear it causes that, we still do not know if theres other damage such as hearing, sight, or developmental issues that may occur for children who dont present with michaels microcephaly. How far we away from getting zika vaccine. In terms of the best case scenario, probably 18 months, and that is if all goes well. I have seen recent reports that are frightening about transmission and the virus is evolving and it may be much more easily transmitted. So i think the question in terms of the transmission, think most people dont realize that in the United States including our territories which is puerto rico mainly, 23000 cases of zika are ready. So here in the 50 states there are over 3000 cases. The other think most people dont realize is that we have already had 21 births in the 50 states and territories that are children born with microcephaly and tested positive for zika. The negative outcome that we are fearful about we are already seen. How dire can it get . I think the question of transmission comments transmitted to as, and those are mosquitoes to different mosquitoes, and they exist mainly so they go up as far as if there some in washington in terms of the mosquitoes and how far they go and its also sexuallytransmitted which people forget. I think the she was what this is most dangerous for his pregnant women, because 80 of of the people are not symptomatic. That is the problem because you could go visit one of the 55 countries that have outbreaks right now, you you come back and you dont know that you have it. And then the question of either you getting bitten by a mosquito or sexuallytransmitted and net unknowingly. Thats why people who travel to these areas really need to be careful when they come back. I think most people watching Congress Come back and forth on this for months and months, and months were horrified, you have this crisis, very frightening and congress is unable to give resources to deal with it. Did that delay cause harm . A number of things it did. We had had to make decisions that i think were not what i would like to make us or his decisions. The first was to take money from a bola. I think most people dont realize, within the last two months weve had to send a team from our center for Disease Control and prevention back to west africa to make sure that we are not going to have additional outbreaks. So taking care of a bowl is quite important. The second thing we had to do and i had to do it in august because we expected it would be passed before and it wasnt, had to take money from the rest of the department and take money from things like Cancer Research in order to keep the efforts going. At this point there is local transmission of florida. We need to provide the help, we have teams right now in florida that are teams that are helping florida determine the cases, the number of cases, assist florida and fighting the mosquito. Those are things that we cannot stop. In hindsight to the ministration make a mistake in a mistake in not accepting the 1. 1 billion that the Senate Passed months ago . We had opportunity. With regard to emergencies, and that and that question, is not a zika supplemental, that was the supplemental that had additional pieces and parts that were harmful. To the issues and especially in this case, as you can imagine because it is sexuallytransmitted and its about pregnancy and women, contraception is important. That was a lot of that conversation. Were pleased that we are where we are now. We have been working to be ready to spend this money effectively and efficiently. So the Affordable Care act, this is open enrollment, getting ready to start, what is your goal . Where we have right now, how many are in exchanges and how many do you expect . I think youre talking about the goal of the Affordable Care act, the marketplace is a very important part of it. The overarching goal is what we focus on. That is creating active affordability and quality, accesses the 20,000,000 is what we set our minds. A big part of that is medicaid expansion. But you expect would be the exchanges . We are going to go all out this year and are open enrollment for just this week we had a millennial summit so that we are focusing on the young people to make sure they know that Affordable Care and coverage is available. Thats an Important Group to reach. Were working with new partners and with more Digital Partners than we have ever worked with a before. Partners like new Economy Partners so were reaching people where we are. We also also focused on and we know that many people we want to reach use mobile. None of that, and large in the fonts are things like that. So working to create a product that people are going to want and make it easy for them to be able to access it. Its been a tough year in terms of the exchanges. You saw at now pull out, United Healthcare was in 34 states and now going to be in 20 other states. Humana is reducing, is that 30 of counties in this country people have gone to the exchange with a single plan to choose from. I think what is the goal of healthcare in our nation. When we think about healthcare in our nation, 150 Million People, probably most in this audience have employerbased care. Thats the vast majority. Another huge chunk of people are in medicare and medicaid, tens of millions. In the marketplace we are pleased with our 11. 1 million. But we learned just two weeks ago that in that market premiums and growth in that market, we have seen five of the last six years weve seen the slowest growth in premiums. So were very focused on the overall healthcare. With regard to the marketplace specifically, most places have more competition than that. There is reduced competition this year. Thats something we want to encourage more and more competition. Thats why were working hard to make sure we are attracting the people who are working hard to respond to the Insurance Companies concern about the marketplace and going in together with them on how we make sure we reach more people. I think anything is, a number of players have actually expanded in the marketplace. Arizona. Arizona, last week there is questions about accounting. A company when in and said we look forward to adding hr profitability. A new new market, different players are having different success. What we want is to make sure its a place where as many as possible can do that. That they are learning and it is a transition year. And i covered the Affordable Care act and fully understand theres a lot more than just the marketplaces. One of the big goals was to slow the growth of healthcare cost. In the marketplaces anyway looks like, it seems like its a failures. You have premium increases estimated at 11 and thats if youre willing to shop and switch her plan to get a best case scenario. Again, i think of the overall and what is happening, for those hundred 50,000,000 people weve had slower growth. We dont want growth at all and we need to work to continue to put pressure. For that 150 million group, and medicare, medicare spending has been 473 billion lower. In the marketplace itself if the insurers had price at the level that was suggested and did all their estimates on, it was 15 higher. So in the marketplace initially insurers basically under price for the market they were trying to serve. Thats not a criticism, they didnt have data or information. But if you follow the line of where cbo, the basic growth to where we are now now, were basically the same point. We would have this conversation if it started hire at the beginning. So are you concerned about the possibility of this tax spiral . Cvs and cosco had a much higher target terms of people in the marketplace, higher target for the percentage that would be younger people. With regard to that, one of the things about the Affordable Care act, cbos estimates was based on the fact that we will see a group of employerbased people coming to the marketplace and we have not seen that. Their number things we havent seen. But i will say though that we have many things to do to make it better and stronger and so what we want to hear whether it is more competition coming in, we think it was a transition with regards to the pricing and what happened, so we know we have work to do but i think the basic of the question are we confident, yes. We have an election going on. What happens to the Affordable Care act in the donald Trump Presidency with the Republican Congress . One of the constraints and requirements in the ability to talk about elections and candidates in any way, shape or form. At me answer the question about the future of the Affordable Care act and i think the question you were asking is can we go back and the fundamental of this is this is in the fabric of the nation and what do i mean by that . If we asked everybody do you want a preexisting conditions to be able to keep you out of your health care whether it is a Family Member if you know somebody that has had cancer, asthma or anything, for the 20 Million People who are now insured, i dont think we are going back in terms of having those people once again become insured. For those that were suffering from something called the doughnut hole in the drug payments for the 23 billion we will go back to a world we could have annual limits in the healthcare and later she had hit her annual limit. Its in the fabric at this point. As you noticed congress if you have a Republican Congress again and republican president s who had campaigned on repealing the Affordable Care act how do you prevent that, is it just not possible . Lets look back at this time i am not exactly looking forward to reflecting on on the case of burwell he felt confident but obviously it was a court case. What happened when people thought this actually could happen. I think everyone knows where these boats have occurred to the president is going to veto it. When you are faced with a reality, every district in the country has lowered their rate of uninsured. If there were a republican president willing to sign the repeal, republicans wouldnt go forward and reveal it again. You can translate that to the politics that i believ but i bee American People will demand the benefits and changes in the advancements we didnt even mention Preventative Care so when i take our six and our 8yearold in for their annual visits there is no additional payment. This is because we want a system that encourages preventive care. Coming back from thos to becomef the nation will demand that is not the place we are going to be. There is another stortherest dominated the race and an recent months. What happened and are you satisfied that that issue has been resolved increasing their discounts, etc. Watching from afar, can you see this product, the company gaining a monopoly and then kids that could b be depended on this tdepending on us tosave their l. Access to drugs is one that is a priority when i talk about the access for a quality and we need to take steps in the nation to make sure we do that and one of the tools that i think would be most important that we asked for but is required legislation is the ability to actually negotiate on highcost and specialty to negotiate in that space. They approve more generic drugs than in the history. Right now the fda wants to help people understand how to work through the generic process and you can get approval the approvu were the first time. Of that, we dont have right now. Certainly these drugs are being paid for by medicaid and medicare in certain cases and so thats where we would have ability. We have a couple minutes le left. You have this incredible job, one of the most complicated than the federal government and i spend a fair amount of time thinking about the future of healthcare and theres so much exciting happening for the treatment in terms of technology. What is the most thing thats gotten you excited right now . We are on the path of putting the consumer at the center of their care and that is put in the prevention and treatment and how we provide that and thats everything from how the system works and they are coordinating their care and the physical therapist with others as we think about that care to the use of prevention to changing how we pay so we dont pay for the peace of the service. Outcomes based on how it works is that instead of being paid by will give you thaspecific example and now we e put out mandatory bundles and think about your hip and knee replacement. Your mom goes in for a knee and hip replacement. Today the way that it works for the person that goes to her house and says take up this rug, lets pay for her services. They pay for the anesthesiologist, the surgeon from a physical therapist. But what we are doing is in order to get them to Work Together for a single outcome, we pay for the episode, the 90 days from the point that person visits tof thatperson visits tof physical therapy and what it means is you pay for the outcome. So you and the team of providers you work with will pay for the quality outcome. In the United States, the variation in the replacements and quality outcomes is great. This is how we get to a place we pay for those outcomes and quality. Unfortunately we are out of time. [applause] you complained and we took it seriously. Its good to have you. You remember it well. This is great by the way. I hear a rumor i dont know if it is true that Vladimir Putin and live rock are huddled around the screen right now and john mccain is near another. I would like to ask what would you like to communicate to the world and to those parties that they may not have heard clicks delete co . There is no way possible to communicate with those people. [laughter] its kurdish against kurdish and against turkey and saudi arabia, iran, sunni and shia and everybody against isis and people against alassad. It is mixed up the sectarian and civil war and strategic and proxies. Its difficult to align forces. Why did you think you could get a ceasefire . We got one for a period of time that held the number of weeks originally. And then this one was interrupted by very tragic events. One was a mistake. One was the destruction of 18 humanitarian trucks which is hard under any circumstance to find the rationale or excuse. And it is a purposeful action. With respect to the regime and the russian involvement, but look, there is huge levels of mistrust and you asked me the question what makes me think. I make no apology nor does president obama, none whatsoever, for trying to reach out and find a way if there is to achieve the political settlement when everyone says it is the only way to solve the problem. You will find most people constantly saying there is no military solution. If there is no military solution, what is the political solution and how do you get there and who is going to get there . Its the job of the secretary of state and the job of the diplomats to do that as tough as it is, and it is. Do you think diplomacy has become a dirty word . To some degree it has been marred by these breaches of ceasefire by the destruction and bite the persistent support in a way that is beyond the seeking of a political settlement if you will. And i think right now it is inexcusable beyond any notion of strategic or otherwise. Its indiscriminate. 800 of them are children and we have made it Crystal Clear under those circumstances it is sent possible and we need to see a change. Are we on the verge of taking down the scalpel and walking away from any chance of going back to your plan of a joined Implementation Center and a deal with the russians or are you willing to give it another chance . Its irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously. There is no notion or indication of the purpose for what is taking place right now. So it is one of those moments where we are going to have to pursue other alternatives for a period of time within indication by the parties that they are prepared to consider how to approach this more effectively. Senators Lindsey Graham and john mccain have threatened you with peace talks saying how can this have any influence on the russian. You and i have talked about this before that i would like to understand how if you are putting your solve at the head and intentions of russia how do they see the math in the future and if we do walk away, what influence do we have . Im not worried from the people that dont seem to have the votes or the ability to come together with a legitimate approach. I dont see congress putting people on the ground to go to war. I dont see people it is easy to be critical of the diplomatic efforts but what is the alternative, is the United States of america going to go to war . I dont think thats going to happen. We are at war against isis and i have no doubt about that we are making an honest progress but that is different and distinct involving ourselves in the civil war and the Russian Point of view they look at it and see it growing stronger plotting against the United States of america. They are a designated terrorist organization and we are prepared to go after that russia doesnt believe it because months ago there was a statement about the beginning to segregate some of our fighters from them because they are marbleized. They think we are using this to go after alassad said there is a huge distrust on both sides. The levels of mistrust because of the type of operation that theyve chosen to engage in is inappropriate on our side. It is inappropriate and completely against the wall of the wa war and of decency and ay kind of morality and costing enormous late so thats why we are going to have to, why we are pulling back from this concept of no miscalculation in anybodys mind about us cooperating in a way that is empowering them. My colleague Jeffrey Goldberg wrote one of the most important articles on one of our cover stories and i found it useful because it began to raise this question was if someone filtered their dashboard priority is and im interested in john kerrys frame when you look at a problem out there im interested in what you see as the nations leading diplomats and demand that we have been president of the United States. How do you organize in your mind, taking on these big National Security challenges . The first thing you need to do is obviously understand and define the interest of the United States of america. Our job, my job for the president s job is to protect the nation and to advance our interests and values simultaneously. Foreign policy is a combination of interests and values. Hopefully they are molded like that but sometimes interests are far greater and you may have tension with the values because of the level of interest were the values may be in the holocaust or rwanda which is also relevant in the debate about syria for the killings and the torture. In the values category more than interest category. We have both, we have huge interests because the stability of th the region and the need to fight against extremism and the need to prevent the country from breaking out and having a negative impact on older neighborhoods including our ally israel and jordan and egypt and so forth. So there are a lot of interests and also values. What i am trying to say is you have to get a sense of the import. So what is the secret sauce in that if people can say what you just said. Once you figured out those things you have to figure out what you find in the adversary is a meeting of the minds on any of the interests or values and thats different people at different times with iran obviously negotiating the Nuclear Agreement, wanted out from the sanctions, wanted to didnt think that it was worth the cost they were paying to pursue a Nuclear Weapon and i think the ayatollah made it clear they were going to outlaw it. They made a calculated decision. I think the right decision and important decision so there was something to work with that at thbut atthe same time, there wae level of mistrust and questioning about where they might go at a future point in time so we had an interest in making sure it was as strict as possible and we were able to answer peoples questions about the technology capacities and ultimately you could see the way to get from here to there. You have to figure out there are some frozen conflicts in the w way. You cant quite see that right now because they are not ready. They are somewhere but you can see how someone may get there if they made a certificate decisions. I believe israel and palestine. Fullstop to that category but you have people prepared to make a certain set of decisions. Is that iran deal what you are most proud of . I havent started to what are you least satisfied with . Im very dissatisfied with where we are and concerned about where it is going and what will happen in the region if more rational and moralbased commonsense approaches are not found to deal with the situation. You men, with the outcome of the children just that our extremely difficult right now. I feel good about where we are moving with isis. I think we could move faster to some degree but president has gotten us on the track to see where we are headed in syria and hes constantly looking for ways to try to accelerate that. I think the Climate Change agreement that we beached in paris is a monumental agreement and extraordinarily important because the threat of Climate Change we are seeing manifested to have brought 185, 186 nations together to reach agreements that largely grew out of the effort when we got china to agree to work with us rather than against us that was a change, and that resulted in sending a signal to the marketplace in paris, which we are now following up with on the aviation agreement and the hydrocarbon agreement, which we hope to get in october. That alone just getting the carbon could save half a degree of the temperature i of the planet. So, these are Critical Issues getting the chemical weapons out. You are laying out the net positives in the roster and you talked to more than any person. How do they see american engagement today . There is a sense that they doubt the staying power in the world. I agree with this but its interesting i hear people allege that the United States is retrenching and that there were pulling back. But i have to tell you i think if you measure all of american history, theres never been a moment when the United States is more engaged in more places simultaneously or has a significant number of complicated issues as we are today with impact. Predictions were a year ago a Million People were going to die. President obama had the courage to send 3,000 troops and we had the capacity and galvanized support from around the world. Thats never happened. They would about the first generation three of aids and we were going to put the expertise on the table to deal with that. Afghanistan we held them together with a unity government after the failed election. Weve been able to nurture that and its been complicated that we have been able to stay in the effort in afghanistan. In the South China Sea we made it able to deal with china and held u back from becoming a majr conflict. Ukraine, the sanctions worked. We are working on the minsk application and implementation right now even as we sit here we have been making progress and i hope we can further that. We are working to try to grab the capacity of the government. Its tricky and complicated. There are extremists. Boca hara and nigeria, alshabaab, we have a major plan to help terminate the challenge. Maybe we need a Bumper Sticker like theres a lot going on more than you think. I know you have some hard stops. I would like to know just quickly what do you think about iran today, is it becoming more comfortable today because its still remain uncomfortable in that despicable category and i will tack on my last question its such an important frame for you i would like to know what lesson you think we are forgetting from the non in your role but you worry about. The meeting of the joint commission in the iran agreement if they are holding up to their requirements it is immeasurable and accountable, transparent. We are comfortable that iran is meeting of the agreements and they think we are not meeting our part of the agreement and they are upset at the stuff more banking. We personally engaged in others the thing and they get the if te benefits that they bargained for otherwise theres not a lot of incentive to continue to live by so its important. There is a battle in the sense for its own direction. To try to reach out from the world of there are sources there that back on that so it will remain complicated. Your successor will have a fun time with that. Well, i hope it isnt a timeconsuming time. There will always be challengi challenging. We dont like the support for hezbollah and some of their engagement in other countries. Those are things about human hun rights and to trigger the sum. We were negotiating and we knew if we put those things on the table we would still be there at the table. And finally, quickly much of what you have framed im interested in this point when youve done so much. What is happening is exciting. Its incredible. Nobody would have imagined years ago that the communist country that we went to fight isnt communist, its authoritarian but its raging capitalism and it is moving so rapidly in the marketplace its one of the transition transformation. The traffic lights didnt work and it was just 50 years ago. Now skyscrapers everywhere, traffic, people wearing blue jeans and western clothes, middleclass Investment Opportunities in its changed and changing. You can strike, thats part of the lesson that transformation comes through diplomacy. We went there and fought the war to prevent them from being something. The diplomacy and the opening up, the listing of the embargo which by the way john mccain was with me in the effort to do that and they helped change vietnam and have changed and is changing and we now when i went there last few months ago, the opening of the fulbright university. They will be completely academically free, totally independent, able to teach coming into the Fulbright Program has been one of the transitional vehicles if you will. One of the top leaders in the highest echelons and they studied either harvard here or there. Its been an incredible transformation and the lesson is it really underscores knowing why. We did one part of it right into the other part wrong and im very proud of that one. [applause] im the Media Coordinator here at st. Johns District College and the candidate is the most suited as secretary of state she was a senator in the new york city and is the most qualified. My name is john francis, im a new york senator and im supporting donald trump. I think we need a change in this country in the view of whats been happening the last couple years and the International Situations are deteriorating. The domestic situation with respect to violence and terrorism in the United States is getting worse. I think donald trump can make that change so we dont have eight more years of the policy as we said now. In this season im supporting Hillary Clinton because i believe shes the best candidate and im excited to vote for the election. I represent the district in the new York State Assembly is the only democrat in the entire state legislature outside of new york city to endorse Bernie Sanders and now supporting Hillary Clinton for the same reason as senator sanders i feel very strongly that will be a greater opportunity to influence her administration than the opponent. Hillary clinton checked in from the campaign trail today responding to allegations that donald trump violated the cuban embargo in 1998. Looking forward to the states i once again am seeing a totally disconnected difference between what we are doing in our campaign how we are stronger together being out our plan and the effort to hide and disclose a lot of information that is directly relevant to the choice that americans have to make. We already know about his tax return. It appears to violate the u. S. Law, certainly the american foreignpolicy. He has consistently misled people in responding to questions about whether he was attempting to do business in cuba. So this adds the actions and statements in the temperament qualification to be president and commanderinchief. They kept their vote early or on november 8 so we continue to highlight the differences and talk about what we want to do thats going to make life better for the families of america. Im sorry im working on a feature. You talk a lot about the middleclass. Where is the tax policy, where do you put the middleclass. The middleclass is the social and economic engine of the country. It is in so many ways a reflection of the success of the United States from the beginning to create greater Economic Opportunity for people willing to work for it. It has been one of the premier accomplishments going back decades if not longer. Its hard to find economic targets the way that i talk about it is to say we know that the Median Income in america is that if you are living in a highcost areas. Its staying in and progressing up in the middleclass, takes more money in some parts so my pledge has been that i will not raise taxes on the middle class. Making the less than 250,000 because in highcost places in america, that is in many ways a cutoff that makes sense and something my husband adhered to when you look at the information and across the country housing is so much more expensive in lots of places and you understand why so the middleclass is both real and aspirational and i want to make sure that it remains strong and gives people a sense of security and confidence and optimism about their futures. Would he be qualified in your view to be president at all . Im going to keep running my campaign and do everything i can to encourage people to get out and vote. In making the decision about who to vote for it will be either him or me, and im going to do everything i can to make sure that its me. The polls show that republican voters. Are you disappointed you havent gotten as much . Im thrilled at the amount ive got and from people that understand the leaders with a lot of experience so that the National Security professionals who came out and said they couldnt support a donald trump a month ago i think spoke volumes about the qualifications to the job. Business leaders in so many others who understand what it will take to have a competitive economy that works for everybody and not just those at the top have been on the front line. But then yesterday the former senator of virginia i am honored and proud to have the level of support and the message that it sends it fo to the next presidet is going to be facing. This is my first flight. Happy to be here. Listen, the Trump Campaign is signaling that they are poised. How well will you respond . Thats up to him. Im going to keep talking about the stakes in this election and my agenda that makes it fair and dealing with the last problems families are confronting and what i wanted you to keep america safe to provide the kind of leadership that the country needs which is going to be one of the highest priority is the bible have when im fortunate enough to be elected president. [inaudible] we have walls in the country and the efforts trump is making for his business interests had the head of the flaws of the United States and the part that businesses were operating under because of the sanction shows his personal and business interests ahead of the law and the values and policies of the United States of america. I was a strong supporter of moving towards creating and opening with the secretary of state and i applauded the efforts and i will continue them when i am president. But donald trump knew what the law was and from everything we can tell by the investigative reporting that has been done why should it be surprising to get the tax return. To say that he was smart enough not to pay taxes but at the same time criticized and denigrated the United States of america so i think its important for the voters to see this is who puts himself first in the community there is the change of opinion about what is the best way to bring freedom and democracy and human rights. But there was also a very clear understanding and unfortunately it looks like he didnt Pay Attention to that you want more women to run for office. Your husband spoke about the things prevented the Campaign Like this as evidence his presidency would be closed is there any response to that . He can say whatever he wants to say as we know in the last many months. Im going to keep running my campaign talking about what the American People are interested in and how we are going to make a difference in their lives. I love my college calculator. Thats what we are looking for how can we get the government working for you and help you deal with the everyday challenges you face in this engaginamazing college calculato provide good information and i want you to understand that if inline with what i want to do more of. We need to get more information out and have people be able to access information about Government Programs or costs or whatever is on their minds thats what im going to be talking about is how we make College Tuition free and get free for everybody else. Who is your favorite world leader . [laughter] there were a obvious implications. The leadership and steadiness on the crisis and the bravery and the refugee crisis in its something that i am impressed by and we know each other and spend a lot of time and i hope i will have the opportunity to work with her in the future so we can talk about lots of different leaders. [inaudible] the next president making appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States will be president donald trump. The rest of the world will never forget why they always looked up to the United States of america. 2016 continues with the Vice President ial debate between republican governor mike and into democratic senator tim kane. From Longwood University in farmville virginia beginning at 7 30 with a preview of the debates been at a 30 after 9 p. M. Live coverage followed by viewer reaction. The Vice President ial debate watch live on cspan and on demand at cspan. Org and listen on the radio. Regardless of who wins in november, someone will move in in january. That is live at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Deputdeputy secretary of stae briefed senators on possible wal war in this here yet today. The questions focused on relations with russia and their support of bush are alassad. This is just under an hour and a half. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will come to order. We welcomed the deputy secretary of state i i know he was in tury and we moved the hearing back a day. I would note we have been trying to get the secretary in for some time but that has not been possible. I dont want to diminish your appearance here because we are thankful to have you here and i think for obvious reasons hes not been willing to come. I think the focus of todays hearing will be syria and i dont think anyone here can be proud of the United States role and what is the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time and what we have done to enable that to happen. As i think about your appearance here today, i think in many ways it will be helpful as we think about the next administration and as we think about the next secretary of state as we think about the relationship that needs to access between the executive branch into the secretary of States Office i know that you came over from the National Security staff so you were at the white house. You came over to the state department i know sometimes executive branch folks like to have their own people at the state department and i know for instance you were up here yesterday that the president ordered you to turkey instead so it speaks to the sort of overlap that exists between the executive branch and the department of state. As an observation, the entire conflict again is something we are not proud of and i dont think anybody here is proud of. Its interesting that many of the people in the establishment have even though i think they would view the administrations Foreign Policy generally speaking as a failure i think that is just an observation history will write. Its interesting that secretary clinton has received support from much of the establishment because it is so well known that she tried to count her so much of what has ended up happening and has lessened our standing in the world and i think that is a reason many people have migrated into foreignpolicy establishment. I think all of us are aware of her trying to encounter what happened in iraq and do more to support the rebels. I think thats just widely known. Secretary kerry team an came ina lot of excitement. People thought that he left his whole life to be secretary of state. Hed been involved in Foreign Policy and made his name if you will on the stage here. And that moved feelings to anger as weve watched what was happening to now we have a breakfast with him just a week and a half ago and to me, it has become somewhat of a sympathetic figure in that he is out there trying to deal with this situation and yet there is no support from the white house. We have had the general who was on his behalf working to create a nofly zone. Turkey was supporting that and get no decision from the white house. The best example to me of why the Foreign Policy has been such a failure as this weekend. We were trying to set up a meeting to come to some other option that might create an outlet for the victims and yet not undermine our sovereign immunity issues. I know ive been talking to the white house for some time. I talked to the secretary twice and we agreed the best way to resolve this was to have a meeting with them and mysel bend the senator and adjust to sit down and see if another option could be developed that might cause us to move to an outlet of some kind and yet maybe not to have some of the adverse consequences that some of us fear. Secretary kerry couldnt even get them to call a meeting. Let me say that one more time. The outburst yesterday from the white house over what happened is remarkable. When they wouldnt even sit down to meet with secretary of state and us to try to create a solution to a problem they thought was real so i have to tell you i think i know all of you write books after you leave, it is going to be a fascinating walkthrough but i believe to be a failed presidency as it relates to Foreign Policy and deal with the tough issues that we have to deal with and there is no way to deal with them without conversation and to not have a plan or maybe you will share one in the diplomatic actions that cant be backed up because russia and alassad realized there is no plan b. And cant be. So i look forward to your testimony. I know im being a little tough on you today but i think that it in response to just seeing again why failure has occurred and why the inability to sit down and get involved to be willing to put forth tough consequences when things dont occur, and again nothing could be more evidence of that van and the unwillingnesthan theunwillingned try to propose another way of dealing with the situation that we dealt with yesterday so with that i turn to my good friend and look forward to the opening comments. Secretary, thank you for being here. Senator, the chair man and i have been partners during most of the congress on this committee and we share very similar views about the policies and priorities and we had an opportunity to Work Together on many issues and as i was listening to senator corker in the beginning of his comments, i thought we were going to be able to continue that because i share those views on the extraordinary talents to conduct the foreignpolicy and the frustration. I think that was highlighted through circumstances that neither he nor i could control where the administration could control and that is that the timing required us to take the overnight before the recess. I think if we could have had that override me would have had more opportunity to explore ways in which we could try to accomplish the needed removal of the sovereign immunity that stands in the path of the victims but in a way that doesnt cause the risk factors that this legislation causes. And quite frankly the leadership or the president could affect the timing because the timing data to act with a certain number of days the congress was required to take up the message immediately which was unlikely so i think it put us in a position where options were not as robust as i would like them to have been so im not as critical of senator corker were secretary kerry i know that he felt pretty passionately about the legislation and he expressed his views. I had a chance to meet with the secretary on a plane for a considerable period of time and he used that opportunity to explore what we have here, so i very much admire the secretaries optimism and his unrelenting pursuit of peace in the world and we had a chanc the chance to experience that firsthand in colombia as we saw after five decades of civil war and peace agreements signed this past monday and i was proud to be there with the secretary. In the success of u. S. Diplomacy and leadership, foreignpolicy arena. Secretary kerry is correct in his belief that the tools of diplomacy should always be the preferred method for stopping violence saving lives and restoring stability. I want to commend the dedication of secretary kerry and yourself and in our nations diplomats for the work you have done aroundtheclock through allies and adversaries to forge an agreement to end the violence in syria. Thats what we need to do. There is no way to and that civil war through the military. We need to be able to have a negotiated diplomatic solution where all sides respect a government that respects its rights but now we are clearly at an inflection point. The u. S. Russia ceasefire agreement was raised on the assumption that russia could compel the assad regime to ground its air force, that russia would compel its regime to allow immediate humanitarian access. We have clearly seen that neither of these two objectives were achieved. Russia strives to appear one that is essential to solving global problems but i seriously question the reliability of russia in this regard. We must reevaluate our approach to russia and the middle east and beyond the middle east. Russia continues to attack Ukraine Forces and illegally occupies crimea. It has had into her commuter system and sought to destabilize our luck tauro process. These are not the actions of our government. These are the actions of an adversary and i think we have to recognize that. With our focus on russia in irans nefarious role in syria and beyond. I ran is backing they assad regime. Iyer vc commanders have died fighting in syria and i ran has launched intelligence to support syria and russia targeting to mobilize hezbollah. There must be consequences for these actions and there are plenty of tools we have at our disposal. I reject utterly false narratives that i ran in russias activities in syria are constants. Counterterrorism had i look forward to hearing from you mr. Blinken on what actions the United States are considering, what are our options . Turning to our practice for a moment if i might account her plight is just the first step in starting stability and im cautiously optimistic that military options can push out and down the military operations or want to raise the alarm bell about winning the peace. I think we will win the war but can we win the peace . Iraqi leaders and bag dad must get their act together. The political infighting and maturing and still no confidence at leaders in baghdad erbil and other potential battles are prepared to put the iraqi people first. We know that the Iraqi Security forces, the Kurdish Forces another forces cannot fighter bomb their way to a stable iraq. It will, driesell to be. Not confident that iraqi leaders are sufficiently engaged to respond to a planetary crisis when hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing muscle. Im not confident they are in control of the popularization forces to prevent sectarian reprisal violence but are not confident the iraqi leaders are committed to recovering stabilization and governance that will give all iraqis a state of peace. Weeks ago i was in a situation region particular syria could not be worse now we know that it can. Russia is guilty of war crimes for bombing a humanitarian aid convoy. Assad is beryl bombing aleppo with impunity and using water access as a weapon and denying humanitarian aid was not sufficiently deplorable. These are crimes against humanity to the longer the assad regime remains entrenched in damascus the longer isil remains active in the region and the more hopeless and more susceptible are vulnerable populations following extremism and more strained our governments in jordan and lebanon to respond to these pressures. Our risk is an entire generation of children in the region that have only known war and governments and some governments who want to stay with them but have been unsuccessful. It risk is an entire generation of children who only know refugee camps that dont have access to clean water schools and employment opportunities. This situation cannot continue. The u. S. Must provide more decisive leadership to protect the civilian population. Thank you mr. Chairman. Sin i appreciate your comments. I think this is what we have been saying since about 2011. My comments about secretary kerry being a sympathetic berry are not negative towards him. He is out there without the ability to do diplomacy because everyone knows theres going to be no backup effort in the events diplomacy fails which is a recipe for disaster. We have known that now for five years so again it was more of an indictment of the president than our secretary of state. But with that our deputy secretary of state tony blinken who we appreciate you here today as a substitute and we thank you for your service and we look forward to your abbreviated comments, your written testimony and without objection will be entered into the record. Mr. Chairman thank you very much and let me start by thanking you personally as well as the Committee Staff for your courtesy in rescheduling this hearing today. You know was originally going to be yesterday. I very much appreciated. It did allow me to make this trip to turkey which im happy to talk about in senator cardin thank you for referencing the best bilateral meeting i had during the week in new york at the General Assembly by far the most informative and interesting session. Mr. Chairman Ranking Member cardin and members of the committee thank you for this opportunity to discuss the civil war in syria and its regional implications. Now in its sixth year the civil wars destroy the fabric of life in syria, its killed at least 40,000 people triggered the worst humanitarian displacement crisis since world war ii put neighboring countries and asylum under enormous pressure exacerbated regional tensions helps wealthy ranks of most notably daish and a credit to the conflict continues the fueled by patrons and proxies with very diverse and interesting priorities at a time of unprecedented of people in light of the middle east. As governments pursue new models of political rule and regional influence. In short the syrian conflict presents one of the most complex challenges we have faced. The United States is cleareyed about our role and responsibility. The civil war in syria is not about us nor can it be solved solely by us but it challenges our security and Strategic Interests and our moral values. We are working to leverage our countrys unique capacity to mobilize others to end the civil war and handle its consequences even if we leave the International Coalition to counter an ultimately defeat daish. Our primary task is to defeat daish which poses the most immediate threat to our citizens and to our country and our allies and partners. We have built an International Coalition with 67 partners. We devised a copper has a strategy to attack daish at its core in syria dismantle its foreign financing recruitment efforts stop internal operations account for and affiliates. We are aggressively implementing the strategy and we are succeeding. Our conference at campaign is systematically liberating terrorism and daish and cutting off its finances stemming the flow of foreign fighters combating its narrative that allowing citizens to return home gutting the foundation which its ambitions rest. We have deprived daish of 25 of the territory controlled in syria and 50 of the territory it once controlled in iraq. We now face a moment of both strategic opportunity and urgency. The opportunity before us is to effectively eliminate daish physical by taking back the last pieces of holds mosul and iraq and raqqa in syria. With support from the coalition local forces are preparing to launch these operations in the period ahead. These battles will be hard but the consequences to daish will be devastating both tactically and psychologically. But this opportunity is matched by urgency. As the news around daish is tightening we have seen them adapt bye bye plotting are cursing indiscriminate attacks in as many places as possible to this puts a premium on this during its internal operations that were especially in raqqa for many of these operations are plotted planned and directed. In iraq mr. Chairman two weeks ago and then in turkey this week i held discussions with our partners on the campaign to liberate mossel bay feet in raqqa. It requires court nation not just militarily but also to ensure we meet the humanitarian stabilization and governments needs of newly liberated territory. This effort ensures that daish is defeated and stays defeated in senator cardin i think youre exactly right in a sense the harder questions are almost the military defeat of daish in iraq and certainly in syria. Ultimately we will not fully succeed in destroying daish until we resolve the civil war in syria which remains a powerful magnet for foreign terrorist organizations and draw strength from construction of its own nation. The objectives and processes that we agreed to earlier this month with russia were the right ones. The renewal of the cessation of hostilities, the immediate resumption of unhindered aide delivers the degradation of the focus on daish and al qaeda in syria the grounding of the Syrian Air Force over civilian populations the beginning of a syrian led integration track that can provide a path where the conflict and make possible the restoration of the peaceful syria. The actions of the assad regime and russia aided and abetted by jihadist now rests fundamentally undermining this initiative destroying what was the best prospect for ending the civil war. The september 19 attack on the u. N. Humanitarian aid convoy near aleppo was unconscionable. Then followed by the regime and russia renewing a horrific offensive than aleppo that includes the killing of innocent civilians and apparently intentional attacks on hospitals the Water Supply Network of the civilian infrastructure. Yesterday secretary kerry or in the foreign minister of russia that unless russia takes immediate steps to end the assault on aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities the United States will suspend u. S. Russia bilateral criteria including the establishment of the joint Implementation Center. President obamas direction we are actively considering other options advance our goal of ending the civil war in starting a political transition in syria. We maintain close links to the moderate opposition to support their viability. Its important as archer member how the crisis in syria began not with barrel bombs but with peaceful protests by citizens calling for peace and change. The humanitarian catastrophe that we bear witness to it is an outgrowth of the vengeance of its own people and the cost is rising every day for the region, for europe and most of all are the Syrian People. We will continue to work with the coalition we built to defeat daish and we will explore and is appropriate pursue every option in the civil war in syria and bring about transition that the Syrian People want and deserve a thank you very very much mr. Chairman. Senate thank you mr. Secretary pitt and going to asked one question and may interject as we go along. Is it from your perspective but that the white house and the state department and Important Role is that your observation that the only way for us to be successful in our Foreign Policy endeavors and for the secretary of state to be successful is further to be a close relationship between the white house and the secretary of state and the knowledge that the white house will back up the initiatives that the secretary of state endeavors to achieve . I think mr. Chairman any of of. Is that a yes . We have had i know numbers of proposals from the state department including the nofly zone in the northwest triangle of aleppo and the exclusion zone along the turkishsyrian border that the turks were supportive of. Why is it that in that case come in the case right now where secretary kerry is out there on a tether, you just mentioned we are going to cut off bilateral negotiations in syria. I just have a feeling its not much of a price to pay from russias standpoint so there has been discussions of the plan b. Secretary kerry talked with several of us in munich in february about the cessation of discussions and there was going to be a plan b at a failed. I have never seen signs of a plan b. I know russia has a plan b and assad doesnt believe theres a plan b and iran doesnt believe theres a plan b so whenever for to this how can the secretary of state have any chance of success in ending the murder, torture, the and bombing of innocent people in the killing of young people, how does the secretary of state have any chance of success when the white house is unwilling at any level to have a backup to what he is doing if diplomacy fails . Mr. Chairman on all of these issues including syria be worked through a very deliberative process involving all of the agencys relevance to the issue. At the nfc with the state department, with the pentagon and the intelligence agencies etc. And we tried to work through these things deliberately and make the best possible assessment of the best way to advance our interests and to evaluate both the benefits and risks of any course of action and that is what we have done in this case. A policy that emerges is the product of these deliberations. The secretary of state is very much fully a part of it. In the case of syria i think its useful for a second to step back and ask yourselves this question, how do civil war particularly ended and we know from experience. I dont want a history lesson. I would just like to understand what plan b is. The plan b has been referred to it since february and was supposed to be leveraged to get russia to quit killing innocent people, to get assad to quit killing innocent people. Just explain to us the elements of plan b. Two things mr. Chairman. In the first instance plan b is the consequence of the failure as a result of russias actions of plan a and that what is likely to happen now, if the agreement cannot be follow through on and russia reneges on its commitment which it appears to have done, is this is going to be bad for everyone but its going to be bad first and foremost. I want to hear about a plan b sir this is important because russia has a profound incentive in trying to make this work. It cant win in syria. It can only prevent aside from losing. If it gets to the point where the civil war accelerates all of the outside patrons are russia will left propping up assad. I understand that. What is plan b . Give me the elements. Again the consequences i think to russia as well as to the regime will begin to be felt as a result of plan a not being implemented because of russias actions. Second as they indicated the president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options, some familiar, some knew that we are actively reviewing. When we are able to work through these in the days ahead we will have an opportunity to come back and talk about them in detail but we are in the process of doing that. At me just say what we argue no. There is no plan b and when i referred to secretary kerry as a sympathetic figure i say that because he gets up everyday and some say he should resign over lack of support but there is no support. Its possible to be successful in negotiating an agreement with someone if there is no consequences. In this case the consequences that you are laying out is that russia will fully determine the future of syria. I think russia is going to bear significant consequences. So far that hasnt been the case and i know thats what the president said when they came in a year ago. I rest my case. Diplomacy without any plan of failure is something that cannot be successful and i again for my experiences this weekend with the administration who is unwilling to even sit down and talk about a solution with the people who are involved because they think its bad for our country but unwilling to sit down and talk about a possible option just leads me to believe that we will continue to have nonsuccess in syria, nonsuccess in other areas and again all of us have tremendous sadness over the fact that our country has idly sat by after encouraging the people of syria. Remember ambassador ford was cheering these people on, cheering these people on. We made commitments to the opposition which i remember meeting with general address in turkey. We could even get the trucks that we committed to so its a statement without a plan. Its a statement of red lines without followup and again i fear that more bad results are going to occur and with that i will turn it over to senator menendez. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you to the Ranking Member. We have had a Train Derailment with fatalities in new jersey. Its an incredibly important topic. We have had a lot of missed opportunity with this committee passing it with a strong bipartisan vote to train and to assist the bedded Syrian Rebels at the time that could be done and gave the president the power and wherewithal to do that. It wasnt done then. Then when its done it was done so feebly that those that we trained were largely eliminated and then instead of having a safe zone which many of us call forwards would have given an individual the opportunity to have an ability for security and maybe to organize those who might want to fight for their country, that wasnt done and so i move forward and i see what has happened to date and the one thing which makes it testimony much longer but theres one paragraph thats incredibly important to talk about. You talked about daish but you stay in your statement ultimately we will not succeed in fully destroying daish until we reach the civil war in surrey which remains a powerful mag ed for terrorist organizations that drive in the ungoverned spaces and draw strength from assads brutal destruction of his own nation and i fully. Thats the problem here. Having missed opportunities and now creating a vacuum where russia comes in. I know that i keep hearing the equation that russia will ultimately come to an understanding that its paying very large consequences for his participation. That hasnt changed their calculation at all. As a matter of fact they avoid assad in this process. I think that the temporary truce that was created never had any russian perspectives never had a real pack elation to actually effectuate the result of the secretary kerrys content of which of course i would have applauded but was to give assad the to rearm in american eyes and immediately the incredible despicable attacks made against the humanitarian convoys. So my question, i would have asked what plan b is too. I dont get the sense that there is one and that worries me. I dont think we should wait for the next president to start devising something that moves in that direction and i understand that secretary kerry has threatened to enter bilateral talks with russia over syria, but i cant fathom for the life of me what those talks would be anyway. Russia seems to agree only for the purposes of giving assad time to rearm and regroup. What leverage do we really have . What are we doing here to russia to change its calculation because now whether we like it or not they are a major player here and i have had a totally different view that russia does not share our results. It does not have the same interest as we do. It has a very different set of interests so understanding that gives me a sense of what leverage specifically, what leverage do we have, why are we still engage in a conversation which we have a quote unquote partner that continues to undermine our purposes in syria as well as that of the International Community which is why i understand some british and french counterparts walked out of the meeting recently at the u. N. Thank you senator. Two things. First, we believe that the effort that we have made to reach this agreement with russia was the best way to effectively move toward ending the civil war because had it succeeded and indeed it still can succeed and i think we will know in the hours ahead whether russia is responsive or not, the cessation of hostilities would be restored, humanitarian assistance would flow, we would get the syrian air air force out of the skies over the civilian populated areas. Russia would be focused on iceland dice. We understand the benefit if it had succeeded. But its not going to succeed because russia doesnt want to. Again i know this may not fully resonate but first russia escalated in syria because its been there all along and its been there for years. Precisely because it was at risk of use losing its only foothold in the middle east and the cayman harder to dave aside from falling at a time that he thought he would although i think that assessment was overly optimistic. Its now in a position where having gotten in its very hard to get out because assad cannot win. So the leverage in the first instance of leverage is again the consequences for russia but being stuck in a quagmire if its going to have a number of profoundly negative effects. First they are going to be bearing the brunt of the civil war escalates as a result of their actions of an onslaught of weaponry coming in from out side. Second they will be seen in their own country and throughout the world and in the region as complicit with assad, with hezbollah and iran in the slaughter of sunni muslims. 15 of their own population is muslim. We agree there are ready complicit on that. If the civil war gets worse as a result of their actions and the effort to get to peel away countries for example in ukraine i think the International Reactions they are taking in aleppo will make that even more difficult that already is so as i said in response to the chairmans question we are also very actively looking at additional options that we can bring to bear to advance in syria and those objectives are ending the civil war and getting local transition. I know what the objectives are. I just dont see the consequences you are suggesting can be levied. Senator rubio is here but he wants to get adapted. Thank you mr. Chairman and secretary blinken. What has happened has happened and i think history will reflect decisions that were made and whether they were the right decisions at the time. We need to learn from the past and decide how to move forward. There is no question that there is an urgent need to protect human life in civilian life in syria and the United States needs to act globally. I am encouraged secretary blinken by your comments that there will be significant consequences for russias actions. I look forward to seeing how that is translated into u. S. Policy and u. S. International leadership working with other countries. We need actions to protect civilian lives. We need that now. I look forward to reviewing with you the options that are being considered and the actions that are taken to protect civilian life and the significant consequences concerning russia. Are we restarted because the jcp a way, my understanding is that does not restrict us but has there been diplomatic restrictions as a result of the jcp a way that has limited our ability to hold iran responsible for its actions . The answer is no. Why havent we taken action . With regards to the activities . Theyve been imposethey have bee entities that have sought to support the regime. I understand we have sanctions that are related to the actions related to the nuclear activities, but im not aware that we had increased those sanctions or looked at ways that we can apply more pressure against iran. Its my understanding that we have been pretty guarded in his activities. We put in place various sanctions to put pressure on the regime and they also include sanctioning individuals or entities who do business in various ways with the military etc. And in that context my understanding is the individuals have been sanctioned. You said we are looking at all options with regards to the Current Crisis is part of that is taking action against iran . I dont want to get ahead of where we are in our discussions but iran is along with its proxy the most serious impediment to ending the civil war and its support for the regime is the most significant. As i said at the outset i believe given the support that has gotten greater since russia increased its engagement it has the capacity to change the actions of the regime but there is no question that iran and hezbollah are the most important supporters of the regime. I think you would agree with me that since its been agreed upon, iran has shown no slowing down so i would hope that we would see some aggressive leadership to make it clear that conduct doesnt get a free pass. I would hope that would be part of the options being considered and let me also say with regards to russia its not an isolated problem that we are having. Russia attacked america through cyber to try to compromise our electoral process. Russia has violated the agreements and is causing ukraine to be compromised today, and i could list a lot of other activities russia is participating in. So as we look at very significant consequences that russia will play as a result of their value to live up to the ceasefire agreements, i hope in that each station will go these other activities so that there is a message to russia that u. S. Leadership will not tolerate that conduct and we are prepared to take unilateral action and work with the willing to make sure there is a price to be paid for their activities. Im sure there will be more awards and i would love to have a briefing if thats what it takes i think we all understand that its nonexistent and the only thing that is is words. Thank you for being here. In your statements you mentioned russia six times but there is an omission. I dont believe in the testimony you mentioned iran a single time. Earlier this month you said you couldnt guarantee the funds that were received as a result of the payments that were made havent been used for trigger for some i think it is common sense we have seen for Example Press reports of the council to transfer 1. 7 billion by the way i dont think that number is a coincidence. We have seen the Top Commander say that the allies supply intelligence for the air strikes so i think the first thing we have to play to is they ultimately helped them help russia target to increase the dominance of the region or the role in the region, and again i dont know how we justify the transfer of all of these fun to the regime knowing that it is deeply involved in propping up the regime and in the process providing assistance to all of these atrocities. How do we justify that . First as you know since youve been focused on this for many years, iran has been engaged in the destabilizing activities for a long time during the sanctions in other words before the Nuclear Agreement during the negotiation of the agreement, and indeed since the sanction has been lifted in the context that has been consistent throughout and they were doing this before when we had the regime in place. We have taken a Nuclear Weapon off the table which is profoundly good for our interests but as we said all along we expected that they would continue to take these actions in various ways and places after the agreement and thats why we worked very hard to continue so we worked closely as you know with building up their capacity and we just signed a recordbreaking deal to make sure they had in place what they needed for their security and we continue to implement sanctions. Basically we werent involved in terror before and now and i consider them to be a part of that. The only thing thats changed is that we made it harder for them to acquire a Nuclear Weapons capability. The second thing that changed they have access to millions of dollars they didnt have access to before. So its now millions of dollars more tha than they once did and there is no evidence that they are using it to build orphanages or sponsor food programs around the world. We dont see them providing food and medicine to people. What we see is an increased amount of support for the regime and the sponsorship of terrorism so one of the things that has changed as they have access to millions of dollars they didnt have a year and a half ago. Our best assessment is that given the significant economic difficulties of both of the resources they had access to is the result of the agreement or to supplement these funds have been dedicated to mount the regional activities. Under the Nuclear Agreement, we believe they now have access to roughly 50 billion that had been frozen or restricted. They need to have a trillion dollars in the government obligations propping up the currency etc. And as i said, they have engaged in these activities before, during and after and also unfortunately a lot of support they are providing isnt very resource intensive. So thats why even as we have implemented the agreement which in our judgment is a good thing we worked to intensify our efforts to counter these activities. That even if the money has been used ultimately if that were the case, the domestic economy would produce more revenue they could use to fulfill the funding needs of their priority which is terrorism and the propping up against the plate for the average americans watching this issue here is the bottom line you have to supreme sponsor of terrorism who has billions of dollars more than they once did as a result of this and we are supposed to believe its being spent to improve the way the economy functions and that this isnt being used to increase their other games they have around the world and that includes propping up this extraordinarily vicious regime into there are any builders in russia so again i think this is another example of how this deal and everything that surrounds it has provided more resources to the regime to continue to do what they did and one of the things theyve done is they are able to fund their intelligence gathering capabilities and allow them to help with the airstrikes and those struck the convoy of the ago in creating the situation on the ground that we havent seen in decades anywhere in the world. Secretary, thank you for being here this morning. Sadly i have to say that i share my colleagues views that despite the best intentions that our policies have contributed to where we are today and there was a news report that just came over that russia rejected the demand for the ceasefire and they vowed to press ahead with their operations, so i guess that says to me they escalated the civil war and they intend to continue to do that no matter what the expense to his own people. Im not going to beat the horse because i appreciate that you havent been able to share with us what might be considered and maybe youre not able to talk about what options are being discussed that we might still have, that it seems to me that we need to look at all of those options because the current effort isnt working, and i appreciate the arguments you are making. I just dont think they are working. So, let me go on to a couple more areas where i am interested in what you can share with us. On the meter summit on refugees i thought your appearing on sesame street was a good thing. Its nice to let young people in on whats going on. Can you talk about which states have been particularly generous and what has come out of this summit and what is being made to implement the refugee summit . As you know him but the committee knows, we are facing the largest displacement since world war ii. It is a global problem, a Global Crisis because we see the migration of one kind or another. Theres about 12 countries that are forcibly displaced by conflict. Central america, afghanistan, pakistan, so the president brought together countries and leaders around the world on the margins of the General Assembly to take action not just to talk about the problem, but to do something about it and that is exactly what we did. There were three objectives we had. One was to get more resources around the world into the amount because as the committee knows, unfortunately it is significantly underfunded an ino this basically overmatched by the scale and scope so we wanted to get more resources and countries that havent participated as much to participate or to do more and be succeeded. We have countries all told to put in about 30 more than they did so we are looking at billions of additional dollars and second, they were looking for countries to make additional commitments to resettle the refugees and we sought to basically double the number of legally resettled persons around the world over the next year. That objective was also achieved. Third and finally, we wanted to help build the resilience of countries that were receiving refugees basically the first asylum in the case of serious, turkey, lebanon and jordan which the committee knows have extraordinary burdens with millions of refugees. We wanted to increase support for them but we also wanted them to make additional commitments to make sure children could go to school and adults could go to work because as the senator said we do risk the lost generation of children from the conflicts. We have commitments over the next year to be an additional 1 million places in schools around the world for refugee children and another 1 million jobs legally around the world so these are significant and real and concrete. Ultimately, the answer to a lot of this has to be resolved in the underlining conflicts that are causing people to leave their homes and families in some cases. We recognize that and that is of course why it is so important to end this conflict but we did make a major advance now the critical thing would be to make sure the countries make good on their commitments. I will wait for the next round. Thank you mr. Chairman and mr. Secretary for being with us today. A comment and a question. At the heart of the most spectacular u. S. Foreign policy failures in the last 50 years is hubris, is this idea that there is a u. S. Solution usually a u. S. Military solution to every problem in the world. You can read vietnam and iraq and libya. The current policy leads to a radically different reality on the ground as fantasy. I hate the place we are in today. Its an ongoing global tragedy that this idea that there was a magical moment in 2012 week. Shoot onto the rebels and the would have overrun isnt true. If blood [inaudible] i just say maybe every bad thing that happens in the world isnt the fault of the failed u. S. Policy and maybe there are times and places where there is not always a u. S. Answer. I think we can be incredibly helpful. I think we can work with partners to try to make the situation better. But i read the last three years as a continuous ramp up albeit very slowly if the military engagement and situation on the ground of people getting worse and worse and worse. Not better and better. I think history should probably teach us those things are not a coincidence. So i would reject the idea that there are easy alternatives the administration isnt looking at. This is a hard problem with no easy solutions and we should operate from an assumption there are not always usled solutions. Let me ask you a question about where the failing of hubris could get us in trouble in the coming weeks and months and that is in those old. So a new announcement that we are going to put 600 more u. S. Military personnel on the ground coming off an announcement that we are going to make a diplomatic surge in and around to try to solve some of the governance problems in the city. Some share with me and the answer to my skepticism that a military surge is ultimately going to solve the political problems that you correctly identify. We dont have a military quagmire yet. We can solve the military heartbeat by putting another 2,000 troops in. We have a political problem. So it seems to me to be an example where you have responded to pressure to try to make progress by announcing the military surge. How does that get to the political, and what allowed for isis to overrun in the first place wasnt a military vacuum, its a political vacuum in that city. How do we make sure there is a military hubris that doesnt get us into the same exact situation that it has over and over again in the region . Coming back to your opening comment i have a question. It is and will be the culmination of the counter campaign. And as i said in my remarks, it is a vitally important opportunity. Its political as the caliphate that has been at the heart of its narrative and at the heart of its ability to project success, so its vitally important. Your comments are also vitally important because you are right, it cannot be and is not just a military effort. We are working along multiple tracks at the same time and coordinated action on the military piece making sure that all of the forces are coordinated under one plan by bringing in all of the call of duty for Political Forces the kurdish push america into critically tribal elements for manila. There is an objective of raising 15,000 members from the tribes and we are on track to do that. Part number two is making sure that we have in place all the capacity we need to deal with the consequences of seizing those old and in particular displaced persons. They are projecting there could be up to a Million People forced to flee as a result we are working very hard with the un and the iraqis to put in place everything that they need to care for these people with food and shelter and medicine and that also is on track. Its challenging but weve made the money to do it. Third, stabilization of those old so people have something to go back to as quickly as possible. We have raised resources and have a plan on basic security. Security. Fourth and finally, you are right. Unless the basic government structure is in place and everyone agrees to if we are going to have problems after the liberation. Weve worked with others centered around the governor that is the constitutionally appropriate person for the province, the provincial council but also persons designated by baghdad to support them and the city is still in effect divide d with some think sure as much as possible that those decisions are very closely represented of the people for whom they are making decisions. , this is a coordinated effort and you are exactly right it has to bring in the supplements and that is what we are working on. We also try to learn from the past where it was liberated as you know we saw some reappraisal atrocities committed by the Popular Mobilization forces. We have made sure that there will be no southern going into the cities and similarly no kurdish push her to and as i said a significant hole to force comprised from the regions both in the Security Forces and so we tried to learn from that and also they are screened before they go to find refuge provided to them by the government and the United Nations. We want to make sure that the process is done as quickly as possible keeping Families Together and again without any of the elements being part of it including we very much have that in mind. On the initial comment i do think it is important that we not be bound by history that informed by it. In the case, we do know this. Civil war throughout history ended in one of three ways. One in five wins. That isnt likely to happen because as soon as one side gets the advantage, the patrons of the other come with more in the right balance and that is what has happened. So, dynamic is outside a trend can make sure that no one loses but its hard to make sure one side wins. Second is the exhaust themselv themselves. What we see in history is that it takes on average ten years. [inaudible] when theres a multiplicity of factors involved the third way the sand is outside intervention either military or political. Military intervention of the scale necessary to actually end the conflict is technically possible but then whoever does that is going to be left holding a heavy bag with all of the consequences and i dont think the United States or for that matter russia or any others are prepared to do that and that leaves outside powers, the United Nations and others trying to put in place and as necessary in prose some kind of resolution. Thats what we have been working on because we see the best way to try to end this. I always appreciate my friends comments and perspectives. I think it is something that can be the downfall of all of us. I would say that hubris also from the standpoint of making big statements about what the United States is going to do raises peoples expectations. I think we certainly have made bold statements about what we are going to do that were followed up with almost nothing and in that case, weve caused sons and brothers and uncles and goethose in the opposition to be slaughtered as they waited for those things that we stated we were going to do but never did. Secretary, last october to former president jimmy carter wrote in the New York Times that since 2011, the United States preconditioned that he must go and reinforced the escalation of the civil war and inhibited the discussion about compromised solutions. The president published a followup piece in the times calling on the entire International Community to focus on one imperative to stop the killing. He wrote the discussions should focus on th the goal of temporay freezing the existing territorial control without the opposition giving up their arms. Additionally, the measures should be agreed upon to stabilize conditions in the territories controlled by these belligerents with guarantees of unrestricted access to humanitarian aid. Secretary, what do you think about that proposal the United States could advance that in the absence of the agreements by proposing a Chapter Seven Un Security Council resolution requiring all parties to stop the killin killing and killing e civilian population and ensure full access to humanitarian relief for all victims. The ongoing atrocious behavior makes it clear that they wouldnt support such a resolution however is what put them on notice that we were about to have this global discussion of the need to just stop the killing. Can you talk about the proposal and what you think about it and putting aside the movement for the time being so they can begin to put an end to this humanitarian crisis . I would like to be able to read it in detail so ive heard the description but first, in effect, what we have been trying to achieve is the cessation of hostilities that would in effect and the violence. The provision of humanitarian assistance if needed, and as i was also taking the air force ouoffice guys in the air areas d getting them to focus on the common enemy which is al qaeda so in effect, those were the firsfirst that we thought were critical. Now, if we were able to take those steps, we would have in place the conditions under which all the parties could begin to negotiate a political transition. Its broken. So, what do you think about taking it to the un or to a Chapter Seven escalating this to the point where everyone is going to be forced to sit down and discuss it . At least we are going to be focusing on the core problems of stopping the killing. We are actively looking at what can be done. We have a our priority has been because that poses the most immediate threat to us. Russias priority has been to keep assad in place or maintain its foothold in syria. The priority and the kurds is been working with the current. So all of these things, the saudis haves have been most interested in checking iran. So in all of these ways because people come to this with different interests and priorities that make the more complicated. That said, i think you are right, further turning up the heat of the United Nations is something that we have to very closely look at. Administration announced that this week it would increase the supply of arms to kurdish militant groups in syria to enable them to play a leading role in a future offensive to take rocca, sunni city back from isis. One of the wrists of relying on a Kurdish Force for military operations in the sunni arab city . And can you discuss this with the turkish government before you made that announcement . In fact i was in turkey just this week and we are working with her turkish partners and allies very closely and how we campaign in syria to take terror territory away from isis. As you know we have worked in Northern Syria with the Syrian Democratic forces per that has several components, one is the Syrian Arab Coalition and one also includes Kurdish Forces, and this course case and the turks have not been comfortable with support to this kurdish element of the Syrian Democratic forces. That is obviously caused some tensions. But, it, it has resulted in taking back which was a critical vantage point. A treasure trove of information about their external plotting came from that. So we need to be able to work with effective actors on the ground in syria. But we also need to do it in a way that respects the concerns and interests of our turkish allies. So we are in the mist of conversations with them about the best way to move forward including ending if i could just going back up to emotional again in terms of your statement that it will be a sunni government officials, lb sunni police that will be in charge of multiple, does the government in baghdad agree with that . Are they going to keep the shia militia out . That is their commitment just as it is the kurdish commitment to keep the Kurdish Force out of the city. The core of the force that liberates the tribal elements that are being trained, equipped and brought on board with the goal of getting 15,000 of thousand of them will be predominantly the holding force once it has been a liberated. It thank you recommended. I just want to thank our secretary for help here. Just keep us involved on the options being considered in regard to syria. In regards to a mosul, could be a wonderful advancement because militarily things look like theyre in place. I sent share the senators concerns that in practice we dont see the ethnic reprisals that we see happen so often when territory has been reclaimed from isis. So i think that its going to be more difficult thing getting the confidence necessary so just Work Together. In regards to turkey i would enjoy getting in talking not through questioning here but how successful we are in getting our nato partner constructive and keeping the border closed but also dealing with the kurdish issues that dont obstruct us from dealing with isis. Thank you very much and i look for to continuing this question. I too want to thank you for appearing today. I think you for your service and mostly for your response. I do want to say that i think history does teach us a lot. I think it running your form policy and a matter to be not what the last person was, not being your total basis for decisions leads us to a place that has been very negative for u. S. National interests. What i hope is going to happen for the people of watch and understand that form policy is much more complex, it takes much more engagement than just a policy of not being who your predecessor was. Im hopeful the next president and the next secretary of state can learn from the failures that we have witnessed and hopefully in some form or capacity what you have learned from this will be helpful in that regard. Mr. Chairman i would love the opportunity to pursue that conversation another time. I have to tell you from my experience where more engaged in more places in more ways than we ever have been before. I think theres a debate. Will that negative trend. I think theres theres positive to but id be happy to pursue that conversation. I would welcome that and i would welcome that with secretary carries and others which i know has been difficult to achieve. With that, the meeting is adjourned, the record will remain open through the close of business on monday. If you could fairly promptly with all the other responsibilities you have respond to those, we thank you for being here and the meeting is adjourned. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] cspans washington washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact too. Coming up on friday morning, committee for responsible federal budget miami guinness on her groups effort to educate voters and lawmakers on the fiscal impact of the nations growing debt. And author james talks about his latest book, supremely partisan which argues book, supremely partisan which argues the Supreme Court is becoming increasingly partisan and that politicized cases threatened to undermine confidence in the court. See spence washington journal is live beginning 7 00 a. M. Eastern on friday morning. Join the discussion. Regardless of who wins the election in november, someone will move into the white house in january. Friday, look at the issues Hillary Clinton and donald trump transition teams need to deal with. That deal with. That is five at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Also a ten a. M. , past and present health and Human Service officials talk about efforts to prevent cancer and policies that can support the goal. That is live on cspan three, cspan online, and see spend radio app. The full Fourth Circuit court of appeals in Richmond Virginia heard arguments in u. S. Versus robinson. The the case examining police stop and frisk policies. West Virginia Police department received an anonymous tip that a black man loaded the gun in a parking lot, concealed it and left in a car with a white woman. A short while later lisa stopped the car for a seatbelt violation, asked asked mr. Robinson to exit the vehicle vehicle and frisked him, but in a firearm. West virginia will allow citizens to arm themselves with us sealed guns. The officer recognized him, confirmed he was a convicted felon and not allowed to carry firearms. The court is looking at whether the police had a reasonable suspicion suspicion he was on and dangerous. My personal court, my name is necklace, i represent the person the case, rochelle, i would like to have about a minute for rebuttal. The facts in this case are not in dispute, on march the 24th, 2014 the Jefferson County West Virginia Sheriffs Office received an anonymous tip that an africanamerican male was in the parking lot of the 711 and ranson West Virginia, loading a firearm, concealing, concealing that firearm in his pocket and then entering a bluish green toyota camry driven by a white female and heading out of the 711 parking lot south on north mildred streets. Upon receiving that tip, officer Kendall Hudson and chief Robbie Roberts of the Sheriffs Office left the station and went to track down this toyota camry. Officer hudson came upon the camry on north mildred street, stop the vehicle for a seatbelt violation. He exited his vehicle, drew his weapon upon exiting the vehicle and approached the driver side. When he approached the driver side he asked for the drivers license and he questioned the driver. In your view, and your view when the officer stopped the car with probable cause and the driver of the car has a concealed weapon permit, does that make, does that make the stop less dangerous . Or more dangerous . It does not make, i dont believe it makes the stop anymore or less dangerous your honor. So it just doesnt matter. Well, i wouldnt say it doesnt matter. Tell me what you said. Well i wouldnt say does it matter, i dont think it makes. I mean as far as making it more or less dangerous. I think its a fact to consider. So does that make it more dangerous or less dangerous when you consider that . In this instance if you factor this in. It generally. Will generally of the defendant or the person being searched is complying with the law of the state. We dont know about all that we just know that person has a concealed weapon. Will if he has a concealed weapon permit and that is what permits him to carry that weapon legally, then i think that would take away from the factors that the officer had. Will the officer doesnt know that individual has. He may not know that he has a permit, and that, in states where you are required to have a permit the default is not, the default standard is not that you are possessing it illegally without a permit. Even if he does, even if he the stop is legal, i know theres no dispute about that,. There is not no dispute that the stop was legal. And in my mind is no less dangerous in that situation. Every firearm obviously comes with i think some aspect that it could be used in a manner that could cause harm, but i do not believe that is just one factor to consider when trying to determine the dangerous aspect of the armed and dangerous to do the patdown first. We probably would spend our time better by getting directly to the issue. You mentioned pretextual, thats not an issue there. This case really comes down to the business of does it i dont know what it means with the concealed weapon if you can possessing unlawfully or walk out with it or even if its concealed the question is do you have to show a permit in the instance where the authorities presume you have one. It it really comes down to the question of having a gun, by having a gun does that mean you are armed and dangerous . At least in my perspective, i dont know what the implications beyond this case me for that. I dont believe that having that having a gun means anything other necessarily then you are arms. I dont think in and of itself possessing a gun, particularly when youre possessing you are possessing a gun legally under the laws of the state either by permit, concealed or by open carry, or is now as the lawn was rigid, concealed without a permit. I just want to ask one question. But i understand the position, but why is it safety for these officers really a paramount concern. If you have a gun, the safety of an officer and we know the statistics of officers being shot, we know how things can happen, how is it that we can say if he has a tip that this guy has a gun and stops in, why is it at that point that Something Like a frisk can happen . We are certainly concerned with officer safety, but i think this. Is not just the safety of the officers the safety of everybody there. Thats correct. Is the safety of the fellow with a gun to. Thats correct your honor. And the other person in the car, its everybody safety. Is of concern what the state law have to deal with this . This standards i think state law goes to the dangerous aspect of it. Well must a legislator change the supremacy clause they can change the decision of the Supreme Court. They cannot your honor. Apsley not so how can that have anything to do with it. It goes to whether not the state legislature can make a determination as to whether or not its citizens are legally allowed to present the firearm and in what circumstances, if they possess a firearm openly and are not committing a crime by doing so, then that takes away from the dangerous aspect. Mr. Compton, arent you ignoring the facts in this case. You said if they possess a gun openly, this man was concealing a gun and we have the factual circumstances of the case that provide Additional Information that he was loading a firearm in a public place in broad daylight, at 230 in the afternoon. He then concealed the weapon on his person. Now, why is it that indicative of suspicious behavior, irrespective of any laws of him carrying a gun. Because none of that is illegal activity in West Virginia. But it doesnt have to be illegal to incite reasonable suspicion. All the police have to do, as i understand the laws of frisking and stop and frisk him of the police when youre talking about stop the police are looking for evidence of illegal activity and thats one thing, and i think thats what youre pointing to. But when youre talking about whether they have a wrist write to frisk somebody who lawfully stops, youre not talking about illegal activity, youre talking about factual that someone is armed and dangerous, isnt isnt that correct and the Supreme Court law, the breakdown of those twos concepts. If so, the wise and the isnt the situation indicative that someone may be dangerous . If this conduct of loading a weapon in a public place, and a high crime area, wise and that something more than just a citizen arming himself . I think your honor has stated it correctly. I think illegal activity goes to the first part can you stop, but also is a factor to consider. Right you would have to consider the illegal aspect of gun ownership in this case and whether its lawful or not because there was a reason for the stop. Thats conceited in this case. That the stop was valid, correct . Correct. So then we look at the frisking when we look at the frisk we look to whether there is that this person is armed and dangerous, there certainly is that he was armed. And why isnt there suspicion of dangerous activity when youre loading a gun again in a public place, and a place place where drug activity is apparently frequently conducted . Your honor, not saying that it is not a factor to consider in the dangerous aspect, it is a factor to consider, but. How do you consider, and this goes back to the original question, he said in response to his question whether it makes it more or less dangerous the fact to consider, it would be helpful for me to understand or to have you play out how you would consider the fact that the person was armed. And who is supposed to be considering this, the officer making the stoppers this later judicial decision . I think the officer has to consider the totality of the circumstances at the time of the stop. The officer has done a a legal stop because of the seatbelt. He has information that this individual is armed. So we have the stop and we have the arms part of the armed and dangerous. So now he has to consider the factors that could make him dangerous. One of those is that this guy has a gun, what is he doing with that gun . Has he pointed it at somebodys head . Thats illegal. Did he hold somebody up with that . Did he did he robin bank . Thats illegal activity. To follow up on judge duncans question, it seems to me what youre saying, all of this fax consider, youre leaving completely at sea and i dont understand when this is a rapidly evolving situation and you dont know when its going to turn hostile or deadly and all youre saying is that no is a fact to consider but thats no help in the practical situation on the road. There are factual asked aspects to this question. The fact that going to whether its reasonable suspicion for stop. And and then the fact that go into the question of whether there is reasonable suspicion to believe somebodys armed. But once you have reasonable suspicion to believe those two things, the Supreme Court has said numerous cases that the frisk can then proceed as a protective measure and something that is designed to lessen the tension of the situation and lessen the prospect or possibility because theres going to be what none of us want which is the use of lethal force. Instead of this fairly relatively clear path, you are just trying out factors to consider and i can only imagine an officer scratching his head on the side of the road and wondering whether he can take the step of assuring himself that the situation is not potentially lethal before he goes forward. What are you leaving officers with . How is this going to be taught to them . How them . How is this going to be communicated to them . I think it has to be community to them very carefully because i think they are tasked with making a decision, a very important decision whether to interfere with the personal liberty of an individual who they wish to stop, for whatever reason and then put hands on. I think thats an important decision. Does the presence of the gun change that calculus . Does the presence of a good change that calculus on what an officer can and should do . It can, it is a factor to consider in terms of the dangers. It doesnt alone change it . I dont think alone. I dont think having the fire alarm alone particularly when youre in a situation. Your view is that when you stop someone illegally the officers approached should be the same to the driver when he knows the driver is online and when he knows the drivers on. In situations where. Situations is not my question. It should be exactly the same and the officer should just simply ignore the fact that there is a weapon present. If its in a jurisdiction where the individual is allowed legally to possess a firearm. Will what he can do youre saying is different in West Virginia than it is perhaps in maryland or pennsylvania or all of those close by you have to know which jurisdiction hes in and know about the state law. So youre saying the legislature could change the Supreme Court decision and the constitution, whats the difference in supremacy clause. No sir, i think that again. Well what is this have anything to do with . Well, think it does sir in terms of the calculus. Yes sir, think the Panel Majority was alluding to this when they said. You have to look it up for the safety of himself and everybody else there in order to carry out his duties. Yes, sir. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said in Adams V Williams michigan the long and other cases that yes, the frisk is as you said indignity, theres no question about that. But it serves in many cases to deescalate the situation and lessen the tension. That is what you want to do here is to the degree you can, lessen the tension. So that the use of lethal force which is something no one wants will prove unnecessary. That an officer will be simply not as uptight, and everybody will be not as uptight if they know theres not a chance of gunfire breaking up. So the Supreme Court cases talk about this in terms of a deescalation measure. In taking some of the tension out of the situation because its intention that leads to the worst of all outcomes which is the use of lethal force. How can we come back to judge kings question, how can we question that rationale that has been given us in case after case . We dont have that authority. I understand the court saying that that were trying to deescalate the situation here, but when an individual is exercising a right that they have, given to them by the legislature of the state that they are in, i dont see how infringing upon that right in some way, by patting them down. What happens if they find the gun and find the gun. They dont just let them keep it which there though allowed to do. The officer then takes the gun. All because of a seatbelt violation . Or a license question or a license . Surely youre not suggesting that the state can grant to write that the Supreme Court cant restrict. No, your honor did and im not that West Virginia again has the power to overturn a Supreme Court decision, and what i have been suggesting, hope. Year saying they can modify. In the camp. Legislature of West Virginia can change the law of the land is determined by the Supreme Court. And i dont think that is what im suggesting. You said thats a factor they need to take into account. Esser, under the armed and dangerous standard. But the Supreme Court didnt think about taking into account the local ordinance or statue. When the officers trying to determine whether to frisk somebody that hes made a legitimate stop on the side of the road. And here that he has a loaded firearm. Thats because this is part of your answer that for 200 years states have been recognized to create privacy interest. When a state legislator creates a privacy interest in the possession is the personal issue such as the handgun that personalty on the citizen of West Virginia is entitled to exactly the same protection that any other person of the possession of a person West Virginia and therefore state law has everything to do with what is protected under the fourth amendment, isnt that right . I think thats right. Clearly the court has articulated it better. Let me follow up on that too because i think there is another right, and you mentioned the words of second amendment. Yet there is a string of cases that is increasingly allowing the citizens to possess guns and to invest them in Public Places that are full of state laws that have expanded on this right saying the citizens have this right, so where we come to now is, what happens when citizens exercise