Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20151114

With the general an think taking place . I know whether its emerge or care, i helped start a Youth Leadership symposium in houston where im from and its still very, very difficult for us to get people engaged to sign up for these programs. So you can talk about putting these programs in the mosque or starting a sunday school class about it or putting ads in your local paper, but theres still a very, very large divide in having people in the Community Involved in this. What are suggestions practically speaking on apathy . Okay, ill go first. And thank you for sort of thank you for the question. Something that id eventually speak about when i was up there. One of the ideas we have tried to quote unyoet get the Community Involved and engaged is to get them to run for Political Office at the lowest level. There are thousand chairs in the city of houston. And about 10 of them are from our community. Our population is less than 1 or 2 approximately. Many times, its not that difficult to get somebody elected because many of them maybe be in we live in quote unquote areas that are majority of the republicans, but we obviously many of us happen to be trats, so we get democrats elected in republican areas, then turn around and go to ideas that are democratic and i can remember who can get elected. That is one way. We have all 300 delegates from just the city of houston to the state convention. 70 judges. Election judges, who are muslims, so thats one area we try to focus on. Youre right. You are part of the Youth Leadership last year. Starting one this weekend and its gone up by 50 . Total number of applicants, or 50 more than we had last year. Many challenges, some communities facing. And what i have seen is that it is substantial amount of activism. In the community. Whether its goal oriented, thats a question. I see a good number of just hyper activity. People are doipg more of what they were doing. Because theyre nervous about it. The industry has worked substantially. Just one person speaks up and the board, hey, this is politics, you cannot do it. Board freezes. So, education is needed. 80 of everything in politics can be done by 51c3 without any, so, education, what can be done. I would also say you know, i have written a lot about rethinking mosques, so i dont want to call that. You can gook l me gle me on the issues. Some mosques are better than others and working with those to open up the rest of the mosques will be a good strategy. At a board member is talking we do this, we havent done this. We have achieved this. Their organization will accept. I have also found that the regional organizations, which are developing like in chicago, Islamic Organization of chicago, i was a shay for 40 years. Started without a budget of 40 thourk. In a year, it was a budget of 1 million. And there were nine full time staff working there. When people saw that example, more and more mosques wanted to be affiliated with that. They wanted to be part f the success. I believe its changing. And change will come fast. If younger people commit to institutions which are already built. There are complaints on both sides. That young people do not show any commitment. What commentment are you looking for . Younger people are are saying youre not giving us space. Then you ask, what space do you need. So, dimpbts community and different people have dimpt way of mobilizing, but if i see many, many cities where i visited, more and more two weeks ago, there were more muslims present there than there were catholics. More muslim present than mormons. So, muslims are engaging in a larger way. I like that to be appreciated as many times in mosque institutions. Im sorry, im the director for the virginia chapter of emerge usa and my question is for randa. This round of elections, i was in charge of doing endorsements for virginia. And i uses a template questionnaire, which was deficient in some areas, so i had to tweak it and really do some research to make it more relevant. So, i wanted to ask you, what are the main things that youd look for in a questionnaire that eququalifies candidates and can come by and sit with you and go through it . Sure. So, as a community, you have to decide what are the questions you want to ask because you want to get answers. So, what are the top ten questions or issues that are important to the Muslim American community. Give me five domestic, five Foreign Policy and ask in a way that gives them a lot of leeway in answering it. I have a candidate and i sat on the other side. I was not the candidate, but i was the staffer to the candidate, who was often responsible for answering that questionnaire. We would say to ourselves within the campaign, gee, is this a community that matters . Is this a community that votes . This is a community, that gives contributions. Lets face it. Moneys still the mother milk of politics. Okay, is this a community that if we dont answer this questionnaire, were going to get a lot of raf so, what are the pros and cons of answering. We are ging to answer it how in detail . Because maybe the campaign themselves doept have very flushed out positions. Look at trump. He sounds great on television, but his positions arent that a well flushed out. Flush out your tax policy. Tell me about this wall youre going to build. People are starting to ask. So, to the extent the cans themselves dont have those questions or issues flushed out, they may or may not answer they will. Those are the things that candidates are looking for and that you as somebody who wants to get your questionnaire answered, should do its best to try and focus on, to get them to answer it. I think thats what you focus on. Sometimes, you need to pressure within the campaign and with some of your most active members within the community to say to the candidate, hey, we gave you a questionnaire and you havent answered yet. Wed really appreciate you answering it. Okay. So, if that is the policy of the campaign and that is of many campaigns, fine. But make sure that theyre not answering any other Interest Groups questionnaires, like for instance, the National Rifle association or aarp, who are famous for their questionnaires or you know, any one of these issue groups. Who have questionnaires. So, if indeed, its their policy, you could easily find out whether or not you know, dont let them pull the wool over your eyes. You can easily find out and many, by the way, that is the policy and that is why open forums are so important because they view that as the ability to answer those questions. Sorry, thank you. Im bob moreau, from the adams community. I have a comment with a lead to a question. You know, a lot of what weve talked about today in all the different panels, its something adams is doing. As a mosque, we started out in early 18 19 80s with about 1 people. Right now, our e prayers draw in 15,000 people. Probably about 50 to 60,000 people. Thats a significant number of people. Weve used that for leverage. Not just for political, but interfaith. Two of our branches are in synagogues. One is in a church down the street. Episcopal church on 13th street. We have interfaith saiders every passover, so we reached out to all of the communities. On the political side, this past election, election in virginia last week. We had at least 35 candidates coming to our prayers or the e prayers over the campaign season. For the last 12 years, every governor candidate, attorney general candidate and most senate, the delegate and others have come to adams. For meetings with the community and you know, in terms of how do you energize the community to go out and vote, when they see these candidates coming, people will get energized and remember there is an election coming up. The candidates themselves, we can then press them to see if we can keep them on our side. Virginia has had an antisharia bill introduced every year for the last several years. In 2012, we formed a coalition with jewish groups, others, interfaith groups. Got that bill defeated and every year since, when ever its been introduced, our friends have pushed it back and taken it out. This year in the general assembly, unanimous approval for resolution commending adams for all we do in civic responsibility. In fairfax county, unanimous approval from the board of supervisor frs the same thing. Weve gotten people involved in internships with political officials. Weve put people on to campaigns. There are several whove had Muslim Campaign managers. Were trying to educate. We issue press releases when ever theres a major story. Weve met with yeah, all right. The question is, weve as you said, the mosques can be the epicenter for getting this word out. How can we do this . This is a great event, but an annual event. How can we do this so we can share these lessons, share nl÷m were trying to do and learn from each other. Were not saying we have a lock on this. We want to learn from you, but we think we can help teach you. But this is something, i hope youd be willing to do this, not every year, but at least every quarter. Especially in a campaign season. Electoral season is a great time and people are willing to learn and things like that. In a measure of three months, i trained 950 people, workers. And so, were all busy doing 10,000 things in our life. You can have a drag to run for the office. For the next year, or next term. You can have drag to support candidates which you like. A great example of the mosque which im talking about. In each city, i found two, three moss bs of this time. I believe that a National Organization are all rated and mosques are underrated. Its higher than now any of the National Organizations. So, when you Pay Attention to those two, three, highly publicized, make a big deal for the mosques, were willing to come if you want, well do it a branded presentation for your mosque. More than happy to do it. Along the line, election season is a great season. The process gets really tanked up for the first primary in february. So, starting this week, already have messages going out to the messages. In houston, there are a ton of them. And doesnt have to be within the same organization, but separate organizations, will come and give a presentation, which is bipartisan an will identify the opportunities for people to become delegates, chairs and to be involved and engaged. If we really focus stuff that weve done every four years, the drop off as weve seen in the 2010, 2014 elections, that midterm elections, such a low voter turnout, that you have frankly extremes of both Party Candidates get elected who dont represent the community. So, collaborations with messages, but also identifying how to get the general public engaged and involved is a critical factor. Before i have a question for the audience, but i want to ask you about stock ticking. You talked about islamaphobia. How would you rate the american Muslim Communitys response to a lot of these themes going around . Ben carson, trump. Seems like its getting worse. What do you make of how muslims are responding to these kinds of argument sns. Its interesting having worked on a lot of different issues with a lot of different communities. Every community is the first to criticize itself about how bad its response is and if i see any common theme, everybody thinks that their community is more dysfunctional than the next and quite frankly, i did a lot of organizing in the lgbt community, which is how i originally had come to, was asked to do this work and i think we made a lot of mistakes in that movement early on from a Communications Perspective and had very high pro file losses like prop 8 in california. But we learned from those mistakes and did things differently the next time. I mean, i think its interesting here. Theres been a lot of success. Talking ability defeating bills. There havent been that many mistacks in terms of an actual policy outcome that went the wrong way, right r, and that garnered national attention. I think there will be a moment when that happens. That will probably be a really key moment i think of reflection about okay, we used this strategy, this time, it did not work. What are we going to do last time, but fortunately, sounds like there has been a lot of alla ally building. These fringe bills that have thankfully not really passed, so pat yourselves ton back for beating those back. It would be nice if they didnt exist at all, but its almost impossible to stop the crazy fringe from putting forward crazy things. Any questions to the audience, im going to ask you a question. Good. Thank you and i want to say thank you to this panel. Ive been waiting all day for this panel. Everything youve said has rung true to my heart. I want to touch base, what bob said about the adams community. Im from the best place in america to live with four out of ten, are you from Montgomery County, too . Where about . Bethesda. Potomac. Rivals but friends. Montgomery county is home to four of the ten most diverse cities in the country according to the u. S. Census wur row and is home to 10 of our county, 1 Million People is muslim, so, 1100,000 people total. Belong to the islamic faith and i want to bring it up because in the last couple of years, weve seen a huge outgrowth of Muslim Political involvement in Montgomery County and weve had two elected in montgomery and prince georges county. Elections last tuesday and on top of that, the young Muslim Community, Young Professionals community has been driving hard to involve the Greater Community into the political spectrum and were looking to have in the next four year, as many as five to six candidates run for state delegate and really what a. J. Was saying hit home to me as a board member about engaging at the presimgt level. How do we take the monte dpomry county model and adams motd el and ek port that across the country so we have this strong model that we can use to empower Muslim Americans to move beyond is civic discussions were having here and go into driving into making america what it can be through our involvement. Thanks. I just want to mention one thing for Montgomery County. A great example of being locally involved is the school board, so, the Montgomery County school board, you may or may not have known, Montgomery County public schools, they allow vacations for the christian holidays. They allow vacations for the jewish holidays and when the Muslim Community stepped forward and said, may we please have the holiday for and at least an excused absence for the islamic holidays and the school board said no. First. And then they went back and r reassessed and said, well, they didnt want to say yes, they said were going to take all religious holidays off the calendar and have winter breaks, were going to call them, that of course include the christian and the jewish holidays. But certainly not the muslim holidays. It is a crazy decision. I give you and your colleagues kudos for continuing to push on this issue. And the way that you continue to push is that you work with the school board and you nominate new candidates for the school board. And knock people out of office that dont agree with you in the democratic kind of way, until you get the change that you want. With respect for having a Network Across america, that takes organization and it takes money. Like we talked about today. There are many wonderful american muslim organizations and i know within every community, theres always rivalry, but if you took the top ten active american muslim organizations across the United States and put a little red pin in where theyre located, and you guys all came together, men and women, and decided to do a political oneonone training. Very much like this. Did a road show. In all 50 states. I bet you could cover the whole United States within a couple of weeks. Two questions. Alex, you mentioned that after the initial struggles with the lgbt community, you moved forward with the lessons learned. What were those and how did you move forward as unified front. We find that we are sometimes our only worst enemy. You mentioned that its important to keep the our Public Opinion officials accountable. How do we do that, especially the movement, i think i mentioned after the failure of marriage bill, Ballot Initiative in california, prior to that, the message that had been in use in most states about why we should support marriage for lgbt people had been from a rights perspective. Everybody deserved the same rights you get from marriage. Well, when people think about marriage, we ask them and you know, research. Why do you get married . Is it for the rights . No, because i am love, i love and am committed to my partner and this is a public expression of that. So, there was a huge disconnect of what we were saying about why gays and lesbians deserve to beeried . Right. Everybody agreed, yeah, you should have the rights, but they didnt think gay relationships were real relationships. So, the strategy after california was put forward stories of the couples themselves and lean into this person doesnt want to get ma y married for the rights. This person wants to get married because theyre 85 years old and been together for 55 years and just want to be married like everybody else. That was the key learning that then got implemented in state after state and we started winning. I think it goes back to where i was talking about how you tell the american muslim story. That to me are critical elements of how to tell that story in order to beat back this muslim as extremist stereotype and to try to put to rest these fears about muslim does not equal americans so, its not like theres a sort of high profile issue here that has caused the collision point that was so clear after california, the whole Community Came together. And was like, what are we going to do differently next time . I know this is kind of a more recuring debate of things that have just persisted for you know, decades now, so i think that makes it harder to have the shift to something new. Because there isnt an event that forces you to go oh, this is, this did not work. What are we going to do differently. I think thats hard. It becomes a debate. That doesnt have a real world data point that forces you to shift. You know, from a broad perspective, the way you keep politicses accountable once theyre in office is to be actively involved if their campaigns and when theyre running for office. So, let me give you an example from my personal ek appearance. In 1999, when i was working in the u. S. Senate, there were a number of individuals running for the republican nomination and i was invited to go visit with one in austin texas. Governor george w. Bush, so i boarded the plane in washington and flew down with ten other Muslim Americans and arab americans with us. We met with governor bush in his office, in the state capital and we had the opportunity to talk about muslim and arab american issues. Two issues that i talked about because i happened to be working on them when i was in the United States senate as a Legal Counsel to the senator was secret evidence and profilling. I talked to him about it broadly, but specifically how it affected your community and then i talked to him about hey, you know, to be very honest with you, al gore, one of the candidate on the democratic side, invented airport profiling. He invented it through a tsa program in early, the late, in the 90s at some point. So i provided him with the documents. Then he decided he wanted to reach out to the Arab American Community and had a very robust outreach in which i was a part of during the campaign. I decided he was my candidatement i worked with him, particularly in michigan and other places where again, the community had an opportunity to meet with him in a private round table. 25 members of the arab and Muslim Community n. The year 2000. The rest is history. And the second debate during Foreign Policy when he was debating al gore. What did he say . Stop and frisk and africanamericans being profiled in new jersey by police officers, george bush came up with arab americans and Muslim Americans are profiled to. And out from the mouth came these issues we had had talking about. Fast forward, he becomes president. I started working in the administration. January of 2001. Invited to several ooempbts at the white house. The hispanic community. They had these big events at the white house where they had have lovely days and meet with the president. So, i said, what about us . The arab Muslim Community . We want a meeting with the president. We want a meeting. Quite active in the bush campaign, in supporting the president. Wanted to hold the Administration Accountable to our communitys concerns and finally, through a lot of pushing and patrollinrodding, w meeting. On september 11th. 2001 at 3 00 in the afternoon. And as i woke up that morning and put on my nice clothing to go meet the president of the United States and drove my daughter to day care and got to my office, the first tower was hit and the second tower was hit. And my boss, the secretary of energy came into my office and said, rhonda, were not going to the white house today. I said, i know. Flash forward three weeks later, that meeting happened with the arab Muslim Community, but under very different circumstances and for a very different purpose and the president reached out to our community and said what is it that i could do, that you can do to convince america that islam is a religion of peace, that the people who did this for terrorists and this was not an act of religion. He told me his promise and he was accountable because our Community Held him accountable. One last personal story, i was with the president bush two weeks ago, there was a reunion for many of us who worked in his administration. He took questions from the audience for about half an hour. He talked about 9 11. He talked about iraq. He talked about offense. He talked about domestic terrorism and not once, not once did he say the word muslim. Not once did he say the word islamic terrorists. He managed to talk about all these issues by using a word and that was extremism. But he refused, refused to tie the two together. Thats what i mean by Holding People accountable. Wanted to respond and thenal hand row. Thank you so much. Main point is that how interaction reflects. And interviews, senator send me, send couple of staffer to my office, and jigs one simple message that i received letters from churches and synagogues and this office and that association. Its extremely rare for me to receive any letters from any mosques. So, just a normal relationship. No election time or anything. Same thing, Award Winning journalist. Whom i said why did you join this newspaper when she was fired and she was telling me, well, when i arrived anything, i received this several hundred letters in support of Muslim College and not a Single Person really one or two being supportive. So, considering not only the media people have learned were real people. So, connecting all of them of its miles, if not is always work. Can i just make a sure. Talking about couple of months back, the imam of the community, i dont know if you know, many of you know the community, a small shia sect, was visiting texas and he was going to have a sermon every day for the first ten days and the community went to the School District where this event was being held and asked the children be given time off for these ten days. Of course, the immediate answer, sorry, cant do it. So, they said why do you find out, is there any way we can do that because the imam is like the pope is Catholic Church and when pope was here, the children got to stand u and see him. So, we went and talked the to them and when you have relationships, solutions are found. They found a state of texas regulation, a religious event, you can take one day off for the event and one day for travel. Three days off. So, these folks were asking for ten days, said, okay, were going to give you five days off. Second, first two days, thursday friday and three days for the first week. Now, i dont know if any place where children get five days off of school during the school session, but they found a way. We didnt come up with it. They found a way because of the engagement and relationships. Thats the politics helps. Thank you very much. Im, i happen to be a researcher at the university of maryland Stark Research center. My question is somewhat academic. But it does interest me a little bit personally as well given that i happen to be american muslim and id be curious to hear from alex and rhonda. So, some of the research were doing right now at our research center, which is dedicated to terrorism studies, is looking at responses to violence and extremism, particularly from the community. Where the most Interesting Data points that my team and i had been uncover sg that so far since 9 11, there have been some 350 at minimum that we found, statements that have been done by Muslim American organizations and actors. Thats a conservative kounts. I have to emphasize that. And yet, one of the things that sort of perplexes me is that there is this constant question, whether sincere or cynical. In the public, that says why arent muslims speaking out on terrorism and extremism . I guess im curious to know if nothing else for my own research purposes, is why in your sort of view, are we continuing to see this sort of phenomenon contrary to the overwhelming body of imperical evidence that my team and i have encountered thus far . Two things on that. So, first, an audience has to hear a message seven times before they will remember it. Literally remember it. They have to hear it more than that for them to actually start to believe it. So, repetition is key. So, even, 300 sounds like a lot. But i also at another, im actually surprised its that low. If you were to compare, i dont know if you compared to statements that come out from other thipgs. I dont mean it wasnt said frequently, but the frequency with which somebody needs to hear a message in order to truly be persuaded by it. The volume as well. I get this from activists all the time. Weve been saying that message until were blew in the face and im bored with it. You have to keep being blue in the face and its going to be really boring for you. The other problem is that the audience is constantly getting reprimed about the connection between muslim equals terrorist. Every single time there is a story on tv that makes that equation, it is pushing back against whatever just got said. So, its also what is the relationship between the two. How many statements versus how many times theyve seen a news story that shows them something different. Thats the challenge. Remember about the onepage talking point i was encouraging dwrou sit down and put together in the media . Well, the opponents have their own one pager and it goes Something Like this. Muslims never condemn. Alla is not your god or my god. Islam is a cult religion and number four, shiary area is going to take over the country. Theyre getting a lot of air time. So, let me do an interview with you on fox news. We first ask you why hasnt the Muslim American community denounced this latest act of terrorist. Your connection to care and what if any your connection to care is and then the third question im going ask you is why are you supporting hamas, hezbollah, isis and al qaeda. That its nature of the energies. The nature of the media and its called you know, did you beat your wife, why did you beat your wife. Its that type of argument. We learn about that in law school, so your opponents have a great onepage talking points and those are the talkers that are getting out like alex said. Time and time again. Islam is a cult religion. Shari sharias trying to take over. Muslims never denounce acts of terrorism and theyre part of this islamic network. Thats their one pager. Better get yours together and start having proactive talking points and pushing back with facts. Quickly, i could not agree more. The other key thing that i said, the same message seven times. Literally the same words on the exact same theme right, so, if people are even articulating the same idea, but using the same language, theyre not going to remember it so, the importance of them coming together, crafting common talking points, is critical to making sure that every time those 300 are heard, its the exact same thing, it will make that chorus more effective if theyre singing the same note. So, i wanted to end on a human note. Ooifr done a lot of the fox interviews, if youre nice and calm, you dont sound like a crazy person, which is kind of how a lot of thsound, youre be pushed, kind of you know, and if youre calm and youre cool with it, over time, one thing thats amazing is you get to know the people are human beings and theyre nice and they start telling you stories and jokes and embarrassing anecdotes and you develop somewhat of a relationship. Thats not sufficient to change the narrative, but it is possible, so i like the fact you pointed that out and everyone should have answers to those questions na their heads. Thank you very much for an amazing panel. Thank you all for the patience and if you have any other question, hopefully, youll be able to track our panelists down. Again, there were some folks from pbs and elsewhere. Oh, we got someone waving, so if youre interested in talking more, first let us know what your opinions are and well let you know. Weve had bad experiences in the past so, if youre approved by the impact counsel, talk to the media. Just kidding. Nice to meet all of you. All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention. My fellow americans, tonight, our country faces a grave danger. We are faced by the possibility that at midnight tonight, the Steel Industry will be shut down. Therefore, im taking two actions tonight. First, im directing the secretary of commerce to take possession of the steel mills and to keep them operating. In 1952, the United States was involved in a military conflict with north korea. And at home, a dispute between the Steel Industry and its union had come to a head. The korean war was a hot war and they need ed steel for munitions, tank, for jeeps. For all of those things that you needed in the Second World War as well, so, if the Steel Industry went on an a industry wide strike, that was going to be a real problem because its basic to the things that an army and navy need, an air force need to fight a war. To avoid a disruption of Steel Production, crucial to the military, president truman se e seized control of the mills and as a result, the pending strike was called off and Steel Production continued. However, the Steel Companies led by the youngs town sheet and tube company in ohio disagreed with the action and took the lawsuit to the support. Well examine how the court ruled in the case of youngstown, sheet and toon Company Versus sawyer and the impact on president ial powers. Joining our discussion, professor at the university of North Carolina law school. And author of power of president and the forgotten president. And william howe, Political Science professor. Power without purr situation. And coawe that are of while dangers gather. Congressional checks on war powers. Thats coming up on the next landmark cases. Monday at 9 00 p. M. For background on each case you watch, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book. Available for 8. 95 plus shipping. Justin trudeau met with his cabinet yesterday and spoke to reporters about Climate Change, the up coming g20 summit and u. S. Canada relations. He also answered questions on canadas role in combatting isis. The 16minute News Conference is courtesy of canadas cable Affairs Channel known as cpac. As a nation thats going to be at the center of my discussions with my colleagues around the world. Mr. Trudeau, two questions. First of all on your meeting with president obama, that will happen in manila, what message do you want to send to him on what tangible basis do you intend to renew the relationship with him . First of all, there are many issues that canada and the u. S. Are close alleys on, whether its in terms of Climate Change. I know that president obama has worked a great deal to ensure that the conference on november 30th be a great success. I know we will be working together to encourage countries around the world to participate and obviously, conversations on the economy and security will dominate our discussions. We need to Work Together to ensure for the middle class in investment rather than austerity and certainly, we share views and on the needs of remaining villagilant in our fight agains terrorism and the world. Furthermore, when youll be at the g20, youll be in the country thats been at the front lines of the refugee issues. Theyve been asking for a Global Solution for that for years. Its, well and good to welcome 25,000 in canada, but your sending to your partners on this issue. 25,000 refugees in canada is a significant thats going to make a big difference. Also as an example to other countries as to how we can welcome people and integrate them well and these are people who are experiencing very difficult circumstances. International Community Must do better to help countries such as turkey, that are in close proximity, but also jordan and others as well and we need to do more to establish a process through which people will be able to be successful in their lives. During the Election Campaign, you were able to discover 26 secret orders and counsel. They never told parliament, whatever they used. Has your team had a chance to review and what can you tell us about them . Our principle moving forward is always around openness and trarnz parnsy, but at the same time, people understand on issues with cabinet confidentiality and issues of security, there are, there is a requirement to respect confidentiality under certain issues in regards to those orders in counsel. We will take a look at them and make the appropriate decisions in having a balance between openness and trust and by canadian people and also, maintaining the proper functioning of a government that canadians except. I look forward to encaging with them in a responsible way as time goes forward. Two questions. On refugees, earlier, you were talk i talking about the 25,000. And all of sauden, it seemed like it might not be just refugees that are sponsored by the government. Can you clarify the situation, please . Well, obviously, as we all know, it will be determined as challenge to welcome 25,000 syrian refugees, but its something i have a great deal of confidence in. Canadians across the country have demonstrated openness and desire and wish to do more. I know that canada has benefittbenefi benefitted for decades and generations of waves of immigration. People who were often fleeing if their lives and who have established good lives for themselves and have also contributed greatly to our countrys success, so, weve looked at various way of bringing these people, but our promise was to bring 25,000 government sponsored refugee and now, a completely different question. The European Union is adopting a labeling this week. So, that things produced, products produced in the occupied territory. Israel. Being labeled. Be clearly labeled. Well, ive always spoken out against any boycott of israel. And i continue to be very concerned by initiatives that seemed destined to target israel rather than other countries. I think its important that consumers have information on where their products come from, but not at the extent of targeting the country. Prime minister, any plans any on refugee, when you get to the g20, economic agenda, are you going to have contemplate an offering, anything else beyond the 25,000 . Any assistance or anything you expect to do more than youve said you will. Canada is committed to increasing funding directly to the unhcr and continuing to offer humanitarian and refugee support. I think one of the things that is most important right now is for a country like canada to demonstrate how to make accepting large numbers of refugees, not just a challenge or a problem, but an opportunity. An opportunity for communities across this country and economy. An opportunity to create growth for the economy. Completely in keeping with what canada has always been able to do, and i think leadership on the world stage showing this can be done and should be done and is a way of not just helping people in dire need of being helped, but also contributing to Economic Growth in our home countries by bringing families and individuals willing to work and build and contribute fully as members of our society. Quick follow up on iran. On establishing relations, do you have a timeline on that . We continue to be briefed up on a wide range of topics. As a principle, i believe canada has an important voice on the world stage and engaging in diplomatic discussions in a broad range is something canada does well. Prime minister, on the Climate Summit in paris youll be doing, befoyoure stuck with targets set by the previous government to reduce emissions standards by 2030. If you dont have anything better to offer, why are you going . I am pleased to announce it will be meeting with the premiers on the 23rd of november. Were having a climate briefing by top climate scientists for the first ministers and for my own cabinet to be followed by a working dinner with the premiers to exactly discuss the kind of strong and cohesive message we will be delivering as canadians in paris at the very important conference. Secondly on the manila summit, we understand you will be meeting president obama there. What do you plan to tell him about when exactly youre going to pull the cf18s out of iraq and syria and whats the hold up anyway . I made it very clear during the Election Campaign that it is canadas intention to withdraw from the Bombing Mission but to do in a way that is responsible and in coordination with our allies to continue to demonstrate that canada is committed to the fight against isis to being a part of Strong International coalition. And we will have more to announce in the coming days and weeks as we proceed in a responsible way with the ending of the air combat mission and moving towards a different way where canada can help militarily and in many other ways as well. Translator good afternoon. Two questions. What are you intending to do . And secondly as a member of parliament for the region of montreal, what do you think of this sewage being dumped into the river . First of all, the decision will be made by the minister based on the facts and recommendations. Itll be based on economic reasons, so its always tempting to make political decisions that are based on symbols, but we will base our decision on economic facts and from the perspective of the benefits for canadians concerning what decision the minister will take in so far as the unfortunately, its been far too long since canada invested in Water Treatment infrastructure. We are destined to invest 20 million in Green Infrastructure over ten years, and any decision needs to be science based. And this is what i asked my minister of the environment and Climate Change to make in this situation. Translator for the transpacific partnership, the text had been made public. To you translator we can have a debate on that and hear what the concerns are of various industries. There have been some positive reactions of some industries, and canadians should be able to study this text and clearly state what they think and whether or not its in canadas interest, so i continue to be committed in presenting this to parliament so that we can responsibly discuss this and comprehensively. Two days ago, a Brazilian Air company expressed some unhappiness about the opec decision to by shares. If you gave into bombardier, what would you do . Were still in the process of trying to decide whether or not theres a strong business case. We will examine the proposals from bombardier. Well ensure that any decision taken is in the best interest of canadians based on a strong economic case, but concerns about International Impacts im sure will fold into any decision we make in a responsible manner. Would it make you less willing, perhaps, to offer it . Im not going to hypothesize on this. Well make the decision based on the best interest of canadians. I know youll be joining us on the summit trips. I look forward to engaging with you on a regular basis in various ways. Translator thank you very much for having been here. I have made a long standing principle and value of freedom of the press. A strong and independent media is an essential component in a strong and vibrant democracy. And the issues raised are issues that we will be looking into. It is important to make sure that we actually have a strong and free media that is able to do its jobs and thats what i continue to support. Translator obviously, i deeply believe that the press, the media, plays an Important Role in the proper functioning of any democracy, of our democracy, and i continue to want to defend freedom of the press, particularly on troubling issues. Im waiting to hear more about troubling issues, but you can be certain that the freedom of the press is one that i take seriously. Thank you very much, everyone. American history tv this weekend. Setting out boundaries, political boundaries, state boundaries, Community Boundaries for the future and for this territory going forward. Lectures in history with Iowa State University professor carlton mangian on an act by congress to organize and govern newly acquired territory from iowa to the mississippi river. And our new series road to the white house rewind. Senior citizens against the kids . No, i missed. Come on. Let them have it. Oh, i see. I dont know if you made it special or what. You told me to sit facing the coke machine. Thats what you said. A look back at the 1992 president ial campaign of bill clinton during a visit to Franklin High School in new hampshire. The 1945 u. S. Army documentary on nazi concentration and imprisonment camps. It was a couple days after dday when they had enough beach land to justify it. And my captain was a new captain on that job and he came and he said you stay here. Again, it was one of those times when somebody reached out and i was left. Off they went. It was several days later. It was a week or so later before i went across and joined my outfit. An interview with a former chief prosecutor with the United States. He reflected on enlisting in the u. S. Army after law school and being assigned to set up a War Crimes Branch to investigate nazi atr nazi atrocities. Get our complete schedule at cspan. Org. And now joining us on the washington journal is a professor at the harvard law school, former democratic president ial candidate as well. Before we get into our issue of Campaign Finance reform, you probably heard some of the first segment this morning talking about the issue of race on college campuses. You teach at harvard. Whats your take on whats going on, what happened at missouri, et cetera . I think this a microcosm of a much more fundamental inequality, institutionalized, that has spread throughout our society. And my campaign was targeting that, the way we have let democracy become radically unequal. That manifests itself throughout our political and social system. I think this is the critical issue that we have to find a way to rally Political Support to affirm the equality of citizens which has manifested the inequality throughout our society. How and why did you run for president . Well, i think we have at the core of our democracy a failed institution, institution sitting right over there, congress. Failed in the sense that it no longer represents the people. It is no longer representative because of the way we fund campaigns, because the way politically gerrymandering creates radical inequality and polarization inside the house. This system that we have allowed to develop has produced not a democracy, not even a government that can function. My concern is even though candidates in my party were talking about the influence of money and politics, nobody was talking about how we could fix this crippled and corrupted congress. And that we need to fix at first if we have a chance to do the other things were talking about. So what i wanted to do in this sprint of this improbable campaign was to in a very short time get to the level that would allow me to be in those debates and in those debates make this the issue the central issue that the democratic address. Campaign finance reform . What thats what you say and thats the way its framed. The way we fund campaigns is a critical part of why we dont have a Representative Democracy. 158 families have given half the money thats been contributed in this political cycle so far is the measure of the inequality, unrepresentativeness in our political system, but its not just that. It is also the way we allocate power in the house of representatives. It is just the way we suppress the ability of people to vote with voter id systems. We no longer live up to the standard of a Representative Democracy that respects the equality of citizens. At what point did this inequality occur . Was it written into the constitution . Is it the last 22 years . America is the history for striving for equality in so many dimensions. The framers of the constitution were not aware of the needs for racial equality. They certainly didnt even understand the need for sex equality. They wont know what orientation equality was. The framers of our constitution were very sensitive to the basic quality of citizens. When madison described the government that the constitution would create, he said we would have a congress that would be, quote, dependent on the people alone, an exclusive dependence. Then after describing that exclusive dependence on the people he went on to say by the people, he meant, quote, not the rich, more the poor. Their conception of the republic, the Representative Democracy they were creating, it would have a basic equality of citizenship. Now what we have allowed to happen and i think really just primarily in the last 20 years is the evolution of all sorts of inequality in the basic way our government functions. And the consequence of that is a corrupted and crippled institution of congress. We have all these candidates promising the moon as if we lived in a dictatorship. Yeah, were going to have a 15 minimum wage. Were going to take on the banks and break them up. What you know and what we know is we dont get change unless you actually get congress to enact it. And we wont get congress to enact it so long as congress is focused obsessively on what they need to do to raise the money to get back into power. Why were you not allowed to participate in the democratic debates . I dont know. We launched our campaign against the background of the congress that the rules of getting into the debates were 1 in three National Polls six weeks before the debate. We were told repeatedly those rules were not going to change. We didnt make that in the first debate. The pollsters wouldnt include my name the polls. If they had just included the names in the polls, i would have qualified. Okay. I didnt make the first debate. We got to the second debate. It was pretty clear we were going to qualify. Monmouth had a poll. Nbc had a poll. Both 1 . But the three they would have counted all had me at 1 . Then at the end of the week before i withdrew, the Democratic National committee contacted our campaign to say actually it wasnt three polls within six weeks. It was three polls at least six weeks before the debate, which meant i couldnt have qualified. When i said i couldnt run because of this change, there was all sorts of outrage because of that. Cbs modified the rule again and said it wasnt 1 in three polls. It was greater than 1 in three polls. So the goalposts were moved. Had the goalposts not been moved, i wouldnt been here in washington today. I would be in iowa prepared for the debate tomorrow. Our guest is lawrence lessig. The forms are going to be up on the screen if you want to participate in this conversation. Its about Campaign Finance reform. Its about what he calls inequality in our political system and in representation and some of the other issues in the political arena. Lets begin with a call from jack in hyattsville, maryland. Jack, go ahead. Caller hey, good morning. Thank you for the effort of the guest. What a noble idea to get the money of the politics. It could be doing just so much good elsewhere. And i think that as well as in the backdrop of things, so much thats wrong with the government hinges on this majority versus the minority and the short term, the shortsightedness of things. The rules committee can say eight years from now when we dont know who is going to be in power, who is going to have the sway, lets write rules that would be fair and get rid of things like unrelated amendments to bills, forcing 1,000 page bills through in one or two days, the filibuster. Something passes one house and it is not even brought to a vote in the other house. It could be so fair. And alien would look at this system, especially the fox in the hen house situation with so much money and special interests influencing these political officials. Thats my comment. Got your point. I think the point about shorttermism is really important. This is a city where elections are basically every two years. Whats happened is that the Campaign Time has evolved from basically six months before the election to 24 7 from one election to the next. So no longer is there actually a time when Congress Gets to govern perpetually. Theyre in this constant mode, this constant permanent war mode, where they spend all this time calling donors. The estimates come from 30 to 70 of their time raising money. Theyre calling out the other side as being the devil. When you spend all your time referring to the other side as the devil, its pretty hard to turn around and work with those people to actually get anything done. I think the critical thing weve got to be focusing on is how do we begin to get people who can think about what makes sense for america rather than what makes sense for my party to get control of congress in the next two years. Sea of tranquility tweets into you, in history when has there ever been equality . Equality is only achieved with a planet of clones. Difference is the beauty of l e life. And that is a tweet. If you cant get through on the phone lines and you want to tweet, cspanwj is the twitter address. When im talking about equality, im talking about equality of citizens. And that idea is different from the idea that we are equal in our abilities, equal in our wealth, equal in our prospects, equal in absolute opportunity. We have all sorts of inequality in society and some of that inequality we should celebrate. We should celebrate the inequality that comes from hard work. People should be equal before the law. People should be treated equally. In my view, im obsessed with equality not because im in some deep sense an egalitarian. I believe in it. I think it is important. The reason i care about equality is the corruption we have in our system right now is a product of the inequality in our system right now. If we could create a Representative Democracy again, one where congress wasnt obsessed with what the tiniest fraction of the 1 cared about, then we could have a government that would work again. The disease of our government is the cronyism that comes from the corruption of this political system. Eric is calling in from arizona on our independent line. Hi, eric. What would you like to ask . Caller i have a question and a couple of comments. The question is, this is not a democracy. Its a constitutional republic. If hes so worried about the individual, thats why the forebears made it a constitution of the republic. Im curious about what he thinks of benjamin franklin. Thank you. I borrowed Ben Franklins glasses. Im a big admirer of franklin obviously, but lets be issue about this issue of democracy versus republic. The framers gave us a republic. By the republic that meant a Representative Democracy. It is one kind of a democracy like a red apple is one kind of apple. When people refer to america as a democracy, they should not believe america is a direct democracy. I believe in a Representative Democracy. When i say we dont have the democracy the framers intended, what i mean is we dont have a Representative Democracy because in this democracy citizens are not equal. Citizens arent equal in the 345 districts in the house where the seats are safe seats, where the Majority Party basically controls that seat, whether its a democrat or a republican seat, meaning 89 million americans have no effective representation in those districts because they know their views could never be representative because theyre in the minority party. The way these are inequalities that mean we dont have a Representative Democracy, which means we dont have a republic anymore, which is why my book is called republic lost. And this book is new . I wrote 70 of it and it just came out last month. Still the name same . Yes. Hi, john. Caller morning. My question to you is how are we going to stop this knowing the Obama Administration stopped the Keystone Pipeline, not knowing that warren buffet gave millions of dollars towards the administration. Theres a railroad called the Santa Fe Railroad that comes from canada all the way down to texas. All that oil is being pushed through the railroad. Thats why the Keystone Pipeline was stopped. Theres also congressman in washington that are taking money from terrorist groups. Theres one terrorist group in pennsylvania. The only reason why i know that is because i grew up not too far from that area. How are you going to stop the situation of, you know, the corruption that is getting worse and worse throughout the United States and throughout washington itself . Its a great question because it brings out exactly the problem with the Current System we have right now. Right now, whenever you see a decision you disagree with, we run to they must have made that decision because of the money. I think it is completely fair to point out whatever financial interest may have benefitted the democrats when he made that decision and the same thing the other way around. We have no reason to believe that the decision are being made in the interest of america as a whole. We have every reason to believe decisions are being made to benefit the funders. I own all you people, and i own you because ive given you money and i know youre going to return the favor in exchange. Hes been in the system and he told us what the system was like, as if we needed donald trump to tell us that. We all believe this government is corrupted, that these politicians are bought. Until we change the way we fund campaigns, that belief wont change. If that belief doesnt change, whatever government does, we have no reason to get engaged democratically to respond to it. We just sit back in our cynical way on the couch saying thats just politicians in the way politicians are always behaving. Are any candidates speaking to you . Every one of the democrats have on their websites and in their policy papers policies, which if enacted, would address this problem. Theyre not out there explaining to the American People this is what we have to do first. Its just not credible to talk about breaking up the banks when wall street and the financial industry is the number one contributor to congressional campaigns. When the New York Times reviewed the Health Proposals of the different candidates and they talked about Bernie Sanders single payor health system, they were so derisive of what this proposal was they wouldnt give it a paragraphs consideration not because it was a bad idea, but because industry opposition would be so overwhelming that it would never have any chance of getting anywhere. If thats true, why does industry opposition matter so much . It only matters because of the money the industry puts into the system. Until we find a way to address that fundamental corruption, we cant do the things that democrats are talking about. The democrats are the party of yes in this debate. Were trying to bring about changes. If you want to keep the status quo, this is a pretty good system for producing that because stalemate and veto is the default way the system functions. Lawrence lessig interned clerked i should say with Justice Scalia and with richard po posner in tchicago. Some would say those are rather conservative credentials. Scalia at the time would have a liberal clerk, which everybody else would beat up on, but i was the person in the chamber who was charged with making the argument from the other side. The great thing about clerking in the Supreme Court is 60 to 70 of those cases are unanimous decisions, so most of it has no political flavor at all. Most of it is just finding out what the right answer is. Did the other justices do that . Did they also look for an opposing view . When i clerked, it was a rare thing for a judge to do that. Im not sure what Justice Scalias Current Practice is, but most of the other chambers were pretty unified. You know judge posner. Please comment on his cerecent doubts that the 14 amendment contains information on birthright citizenship. It is a completely destructive debate to be having right now. America is filled with americans who deserve to be citizens and we ought to be talking about the fastest way we can move the hard working americans in this society to becoming citizens and birthright is one way, but i think we have to talk about other ways too. Tim is in west milton, ohio. Democrat. Hi, tim. Caller hi. Good morning. My question is, if the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court is the law of the land, should we all be paying shouldnt we all be paying off of the same tax schedule, corporations and individuals the same . Ill wait for my answer. Thank you. Its a great question. It brings out really the fundamental protest in American History, which is no taxation without representation. That principle you might say in a world where so much corporate money is driving political decisions should produce a response for citizens to say, why should i be paying taxes in a system where im not fairly represented . Indeed, some conservatives in the reform movement, a guy named richard painter, who was george bushs ethics czar, now a professor of law in minnesota, has proposed a system to change the way campaigns are funded giving everybody a 200 voucher to fund campaigns. The name of the proposal is no taxation without representation act. His argument is in this system the representatives are responding to their funders of campaigns. So long as american citizens are not the funders of campaigns, we wont be represented. The only way we can be represented is if we are funders of campaigns. Richard is in austin, texas. Independent line. Richard, youre on with lawrence lessig. Caller good morning. Im a retired history teacher, and what bothers me right now is we no longer have a government of and by the people. Its governed by the corporation. Germany set up a system very similar to our system now in the 30s. They started killing off the retarded people. We put mentally ill people in prisons. They lived off whatever they could and were hungry. They did them under. Then they came after the jews. My theory is the christian people in the United States are starting to get christianity to go in the direction to hate others. Any comment for him . Yeah, we need historians in this debate because it is important to remember that what we look back at and call fascism really had two important many strains, but two important strains in it. One part is the racism that eventually manifested itself in the holocaust. Many other people were targeted by fascists as well. But the other part of fascism, the corporatism in governance, was a part of fascism that america toyed with as well. The first new deal in the United States was the similar model of turning over much of the regulatory structure of the recovery act to private corporations and private unions that would collude to try to write the rules that would make sense as they saw it for our future. Now, of course, that part of the new deal was struck down by the Supreme Court. I think rightfully so, but we should remember any time we are tempted to turn government power over to private interests, private interests will overwhelm the government and steer government power in a direction that benefits them. This is what conservatives call cronyis cronyism. Politicians are so dependent on Campaign Funds that they do anything they can to make sure that their funders are happy. What that means is the Business Model of corporations in america increasingly includes how do we come to washington and get special favors from washington to benefit ourselves so that we could increase our profit margin substanti substantially. That cycle, economy of influence, that we have allowed to develop is something we have seen historically throughout our past, but it seems we never learn from that past and build the protections into the system to avoid it repeating itself. Im sure youve seen this column by Johnathan Bernstein of bloomberg. Lessig never gave anyone reason to believe he belonged in the major candidate candidacy. In the Democratic Party, as in the republican party, theres a fundamental fight about whether insiders should control or whether we should allow outsiders in. And of course the perspective that i wanted to bring to this was not just one issue. Its not like i came in and talked about Climate Change as the most important issue or economic equality as the most important issue. My point was none of the issues anyone was talking about had no hope of progress unless we addressed this fundamental issue first. Saying that requires i call out some of the most important and powerful people on the inside, like congress, as ive said here today. The failed institution in our government is congress. And if you depend on the insiders to make that point, its never going to be made. Thats the point. Its never going to be made. If we were in a completely well functioning democracy where the system was actually working and people were actually being represented, i would be in the school of lets just let the politicians deal with this. Lets let the politicians solve the problem, but were in a system where the politicians cannot cure themselves. And what we need in that is an outsider who steps up and says heres who you we need how we ne system. The republicans seem to be open to this. I think the democrats should be more open to the idea that maybe its time to bring a principle from outside this government to inside this government to restore it. Would you consider running for president again . Look, im going to do whatever it takes. I took a pretty substantial risk. The one thing we were certain of is it would be expensive and i would be ridiculed for doing it. I knew if i could at least get into those debates we would have a chance to change the dynamic of this election. And what our polls showed us is that the voters, especially democratic voters, care deeply about this issue. Really for the first time almost since watergate, there was a poll asking voters if the next president were certain to do just one thing, just one thing, what should that one thing be. By far the number one issue that democratic voters identified was fixing the corrupt way we fund campaigns. Im going to do whatever i can to make this issue a central issue that finally our government will address. If thats running again, i would do it again in a heart beat. The thing i was most surprised about when running for president is how rewarding and how incredibly fun it is to talk to these voters about issues, whether it is in a group of 5, 20, or speaking to 100 people. That interaction is the most rewarding thing ive ever done. Is your go fund me still open . Of course, the website still accepts contributions right now. Well be closing down by the end of the month. But yes absolutely. Jeff is in frederick maryland. Republican. Youre on with harvard professor lawrence lessig. Caller hey. I really enjoy your show. I think youve hit the nail on the head, professor. You know, weve got a lot of pundits and philosophers that are up there on stage. Youre right in the fact theyre all influenced by their funders, by their Campaign Funding organizations, groups, or what have you. I think thats what trumps success here is. He really isnt influenced by this outside entities. And hes a businessman. Thats what we need in this country. Weve got some good people from good people running. Weve got hillary and even Bernie Sanders has got a couple of good ideas. Not many, but a couple, i feel. If we took all the ideas and just put a good businessman in the position of jeff, are you supporting donald trump at this point . I have to because he doesnt have that outside influence. And you like the fact that hes selffunded . Caller i really do. He might have some personal things that hes trying to put forth, but the fact that he is selffunded is really the way theres no big money behind him thats speaking for him. In fact, the New York Times recently reported 158 families in the u. S. Have contributed half of the Campaign Cash for 2016. I think this point is so fundamental and its so clearly missed by people inside the beltway here in washington. I think this is exactly why donald trump is so attractive to many people on the right. They look at this system and they say these guys are all b t bought. Some people say he has crazy about exporting a Million People from the United States, but im willing to accept his crazy ideas as long as we have somebody that is not beholden to this money. This would be someone in government not worrying about what his funders cared about, but instead pursuing what he thought was the right idea. I dont believe in the things hes trying to push. But hes right. We have to have a government filled with people who are not dependent on funders to get into government. The solution donald trump has is we elect billionaires. Thats the idea we fought a revolution against. Thats an aristocratic idea which we sent back to britain. So i think we need a system where representatives are independent. Theyre able to do what they think is right according to the views of the voters in their distri district. We need a system where we can elect ordinary people to government and the only way we can get that is if politicians begin to have the guts to use words that talk about the change that would make that possible. Words like citizenfunded or publicfunded elections, which would radically change the funders influence on our system now. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Great. Caller okay. I keep hearing the republicans say were going to make America Great again. When you have white supremacy, slavery, and racism ever since george washington, when was America Great . Thank you. Yeah. This is a great, great question. Heres what i think is great about america. It has had at its core ideals that it has not yet lived up to and as Martin Luther king said in his speech at Lincoln University june 6th, 1961, he said america is a dream and the dream is expressed in the sublime words of the declaration which said all are created equal. That equality is something that we have not yet achieved. In my view the great injustice of American History is race inequality for 400 years that been fighting in america this should have been obvious from the beginning, the equality of people regardless of race. That is the great injustice of america. But in the context of that injustice, what we have also held is an ideal, an ideal that we are constantly aspiring too. A dream that king said that is not yet realized, but that we will still fight to realize. The campaign that i was pushing was an expression of that ideal. I believe that the core value of a Representative Democracy is equality, and i wanted to have a campaign, a rally, around the idea of equality. The equality that would end the incredible injustice that makes it even necessary for people to rally around a slogan like black lives matter. The inequality that makes it so the vast majority of americans dont believe that their government has anything to do with them. Those inequalities are completely anathema to this core value at the heart of our constitutional tradition, and what we need to do is continue the fight for that core value. That is the greatness, that we have that ideal at the heart of who we are, even if we havent yet come close to representing it in the practices weve built. Stella tweets in to you. Doesnt your idea for Campaign Finance reform take away my right to spend what i want wherever i want . No, it doesnt. The way ive been talking about this issue and the way frankly most progressives talk about this issue in my view the solution that we have to be fighting for is not about restricting anybodys ability to speak. Its about increasing the opportunity of more people to participate. So i support, for example, the idea that richard painter was talking about. Where we take the first 50 of everybodys taxes and rebate it to them in the form of a voucher which they can use to fund campaigns. Thats not restricting anybodys speech. If you return that first 50, what you have done is you have now increased the number of people who are speakers in the funding stage of political elections. If you change that dynamic and you made it so candidates for congress were worried about what a Million People thought rather than what a thousand people thought, you would produce a congress that was much more spon responsive to the people. I believe that the decisions in the Supreme Court that have led to the creation of the super pac are mistaken. I think the Supreme Court is going to fix that within the next five years. I dont believe that it will ultimately be necessary to do more than do the core thing i think we must do tomorrow, which is to change the way campaigns are funded by radically increasing the number of people who can participate in the funding of campaigns but bottom up public funding. Brenda, petersburg, virginia, democrat. You are on the air. Caller good morning, america. And good morning, world. First let me give you a little biography. I have three things i want to talk about. Mr. Lessig is completely correct. Im a black woman, single parent, retired schoolteacher, who grew up under segregation and jim crow. I was against the vietnam war. I was against the draft. But right now we need to bring back the draft since were getting ready to go to war. I need to say something. Mr. Lessig is absolutely right. We do not have a representative government. I taught sixth grade history. I keep next to me a sixth grade history book that has within it a copy of the constitution. Every time somebody starts talking about the constitution i open a book and see what theyre talking about. These people are always talking about the constitution having never read the constitution and never read anything in it. The black lives matter movement, i told you how i grew up. Black lives do matter. When my father who was a world war ii veteran came home from world war ii, he was not allowed to take care of participate in a g. I. Bill to buy the house he wanted to buy. Generations later we still do not have that wealth in that house. Now every time i write to my congressman about an issue, what i get back is thanks for that letter. Send me money. I never hear anything else from them. I never see any results except send me money. Brenda, well have to leave your comments, stand there, and get a response from lessig. The point shes making is absolutely right. Something we have to remember as americans is we have failed to achieve the ideal, the very core idea of america, and know part of america h no part of america has suffered this more than africanamericans. There are 1,000 remedies we have to immediately undertake to make. The way to get there is to remind america of this core value, this core principle, that we ought to celebrate at the very beginning of our republic the value of equality was the central idea. My colleague at harvard, a woman named danielle allen, an africanamerican political theorist, wrote a fantastic book called our declaration. The core value in the declaration of independence is the value of equality. That value ought to be our constant charge. How do we achieve it . Because if we achieved it, we would have a government that was representative. If we had a government that was representative, it would not be the insane dysfunctional crippled institution that we see in washington right now. Bill shirts, texas democrat, you are the last caller. Caller yes. I want to ask the guest he started out with the Congress Campaign six months prior to the electi election. Well, i was in army for 22 years. When i signed a blank check for the government to basically take over my life, i was on call 24 7, 365 days a year, for 24 years. So how can these guys just work approximately half of three years, go home and campaign day after day, week after week, get months of not even working in congress, and still say theyre working for the people. Bill, we got the idea. Lawrence lessig. First of all, bill, thank you for your service. Something incredible to keep in focus, the people who dedicated themselves as you did. I think thats exactly the question. It is astonishing to me that people are not outraged at the idea that they spend as much time as they do raising money to get back to congress. If but we have that system in washington right now. What weve got to do is build awareness of why that is a corrupted system. That begins by politicians having the courage to call it what it is. Not the fantasies that were going to automatically amendment the constitution and somehow that fixes the problem. They have to have the courage to use the words that America Needs to hear. Change the way campaigns are funded so they are not dependent on this tiny fraction of the 1 , so they are dependent on all of us the way madison said it would be. A multitude of interrelated problems. Which one would you have fixed first, money, gerrymandering . I would start with money because if you solve the gerrymandering problem without the money problem, you have increased the cost of elections without changing who is paying for elections. Solve the money problem. Solve the gerrymandering problem. The citizen equality act had three parts. Number one, change the way elections are funded. Number two, change the way districts are drawn. Number three, end the way we suppress votes in america so that everyone has an equal freedom to vote. Those three changes in the citizen equality act would in one fell swoop bring about a Representative Democracy, something we have been denied for most of our history. Weve been talking with harvard law professor, lawrence lessig. Thanks for your time. On the next washington journal, Melissa Yeager with the Sunlight Foundation looking at a recent report dealing with Online Campaign ads. Then Charlie Savage discusses president obamas executive action to close guantanamo bay. Plus, your phone calls, Facebook Comments, and tweets. Washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. The Florida Republican party is hosting the Sunshine Summit in orlando, florida, a gathering of president ial candidates. On saturday well be hearing from bobby jindal, chris christie,fiorina. Martin omalley, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders will be taking part in a debate from Drake University in iowa live starting at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. You can listen to that on cspan radio. On sunday, well be showing the debate in its entirety at 4 00 p. M. And 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. American history tv this weekend. Setting out boundaries, political boundaries, state boundaries, Community Boundaries for the future and for this territory going forward. Lectures in history with Iowa State University professor carlton bass magian. An act and our new series road to the white house rewind. Senior citizens against the kids . No, no, no. I missed. Let them have it. Oh, i see. I dont know if you made it special or what. You told me to sit facing the coke machine. Thats what you said. I just do what im told. A look back at the 1992 president ial campaign of bill clinton during a visit to Franklin High School in new hampshire. On real america, marking the 70th anniversary of the neuremburg trials. My captain, who was a new captain on that job, came and said you stay here. Again, it was one of those times when somebody reached out and i was left. And off they went, and it was several days later, it was a week or so later, before i went across and rejoined my outfit. A former chief prosecutor for the United States bowho emigrat to america. He was assigned to set up a War Crimes Branch to investigate nazi atrocities. Get our complete schedule at cspan. Org. Two things are very different. First of all, we have a Justice System that does not these trials were not held to according to what we consider to be modern law. No one has a defense there were no lawyers, by the way, i should say at the time. The courtroom was an extremely unruly place. Thats one piece of it. We dont believe in witchcraft. Sunday on q a, stacy talks about her book on the salem witch trials. I mean, the interesting part about the accusations, especially given the way we think of salem, is that wealthy merchants were accused as witches, sea captains were accused as witches, homeless girls were accused to be as witches. This is not an incident where all the victims are female. We have five male victims. And we didnt burn the witches. We hang them. There was so much encrusted myth and so much misunderstanding here that i felt it was important to dispel. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern. Michelle malkin, your new book sold out. What happened at disney . Disney workers were summoned into this meeting room. A lot of them had just gotten off of a project where they performed with excellent skill, and a lot of them assumed they were going to be rewarded somehow. And it was a horror story that no hollywood writers could conjure up. In this case the reality was so much worse than anything they could have imagined. They were informed that they were going to be laid off, but even worse and this is something that has been repeated over and over again in American Companies over the of decades, its been sort of like the dirty little open secret of the Information Technology industry, they were told that they were going to be forced to train their cheap foreign replacements from india as a condition of receiving any kind of severance pay. This is not some sort of aberrant outcome of our current immigration and entrance policies. Its actually built into the law that created the h1b specialty worker program, and we blow the lid off, my coauthor and i, in our new book, and i think that it is we have been told and its laalready been writ than t timing of the intobook is very fortuitous, in some ways providential at a time when the issues are finally coming to the fore and where theres a growing awareness of this practice and the devastating impact that these policies ever having on the best and brightest workers in america. Well, your coauthor is john miano with the center for immigration study as well. How does the h1b Guest Worker Program work . The way it works is actually a threestep process. First the employer has to make out a labor condition application in which they certify theyre going to be paying the socalled prevailing wage and that theyre not going to be adversely theyre not going to be violating certain rules. Unfortunately, this step is just a paper shuffling exercise. Once its submitted the department of labor is required to approve all the labor condition applications as long as the form is filled out correctly. Then when thats approved and you can pretty much guess it will be automatically approved, they submit the actual visa petition to uscas and if they approve it, they go to the state department to get the actual visa. And how many workers are coming into the United States and where are they going . There are about 120 to 130,000 coming a year. I thought this was capped at about 65,000. See, thats the little mistake is that they dont count all the visas in that cap. So theres a base cap, a 65,000. Theres an additional cap of 20,000 for u. S. Graduates, and unlimited for people going to academia and research, and the reason why they do it that way is because you can say, oh, weve been capped for all these years. Well, in reality the number of visas has more than doubled since the 1990s. In your book, Michelle Malkin, you write the manufacturing of a crisis, there is no stem short akage. We repeat, there is no s. T. E. M. Shortage, science, technology, engineering and math. This is one of the keystone issues of the entire debate over the last 25 years. This month, november, actually marks the 25th anniversary of the creation of the h1b program, and all along theres been this underlying premise on the part of both big business and Big Government cheerleaders for the program that we need to bring in these we need to have this huge pipeline, and it needs to be increased and in some cases many of these political crap weasels as i call them, thats the subtitle of the book, the bipartisan crap weasels in washington who cut the back room deals to do things like john said, to have the unlimited number of people coming in under the h1b program who are hired by academic institutions and research institutions, and it all it rests on this presumption that there are not enough american highskilled workers doing this job, and we trace the history of a lot of the Advocacy Research. Much of it which was born inside the government bowels to bolster this claim that there were not enough nativeborn and legal permanent residents already here to fill these jobs, and its not true, and the fact is that outside of sort of the d. C. Front group, front groups of lobbyists, this constellation of lobbyists and special Interest Groups who masquerade by these patriotic names. We basically catalog where these people are coming from, where the money is coming from, and we highlight a lot of the shoddy Advocacy Research theyre doing, but when you look at independent academics, people who dont have a vested interest, people who are nonpartisan, its clear from all of the economic evidence, just simply looking at wages in this country in these particular sectors that there is no shortage, and, in fact, weve had a lot of data come in over the last couple of years that indicates that youve got millions, 11 out of some 15 million americans who have these socalled s. T. E. M. Diplomas who arent able to find work because they are undercut and underpriced by the h1b visa holders. The numbers will be up on the screen if you would like to participate in the conversation with michelle and john, coauthors of sold out. Michelle malkin, my guess is that crap weasels was something that you put in the title of this book. What is a crap weasel . Look, it represents this creature in washington, elected official who says one thing to get elected and then turns around and not just does another thing but completely betrays the base of voters who sent them there in the first place. Well, that pretty much covers 99. 99 of washington, doesnt it . Exposed how beltway crap weasels cooked up the gang of eights comprehensive Immigration Reform. Everyone in washington pretends to agree americas immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. John . Well, its interesting you mention that because somehow weve been sold that this bill would actually reform the immigration system. In reality is comprehensive reform didnt reform anything, and thats how essentially washington works, theyve distracted the public by creating a bill that doesnt reform immigration, calling it Immigration Reform, so theres absolutely nothing out there to reform immigration. And one of the obvious examples of that is the bill that created the current immigration system in 1952 was 120 pages long. Comprehensive reform in 2013 was 1,198 pages, and that wasnt 1,198 new pages. That was 1,198 pages on top of the 120 pages and on top of everything added over the decades. Okay. Got two articles here that i want to push back just a little and get your view as an immigration lawyer and somebody who is with the center for immigration studies. First of all, here is debunking the myth that immigration harms america. This is put out by several groups, including National Association of manufacturers, u. S. Chamber of commerce, fwd forward. U. S. Sponsored by facebook. Cta, use to be cea, the consumer electronic association, et cetera. Myth, lowering the number of immigrants would free up jobs for American Workers. And they say fact. Immigration helps create jobs for American Workers. Where is the evidence . Anyone can just say that. I mean, immigration itself isnt just going create a job. There has to be other factors as well. Such as . You know, what is the type of immigrant . If you import a someone who is a panhandler is an immigrant, to go one end, that person is not going to create a job. So there have to be certain you have to qualify it more than immigrant creates jobs and thats how they express it. And a the other thing, too, that is important in the book, really one of my Core Missions as a journalist over the last 25 years is to help people since that synthesize information. The synergy we had came from my journalism bre journalism background and being able to tell stories and john with his analytical skills and the depth of knowledge he has about how all of the immigration socalled reform sausage making has occurred in this town, and part of that entire kabuki theater involves these advocacy groups that pose as neutral number crunchers, and so we have what i think is a very important and enlightening section on one of these very prominent groups. Its the partnership for National Partnership for a new economy, and in conjunction with not just, you know, from my perspective as a conservative journalist people on the left, but people on the socalled right. Big business interests. Conservative think tanks, and they come up with they just pull these figures out of the air, and then have them regurgitated by bill gates or Mark Zuckerberg and they march up onto capitol hill and not only do they claim that theres a tech worker shortage, but they also say that h1b actually magically creates some random multiplier of jobs, 10, 20, 50 times, and it really takes even just a basic knowledge of things like, yes, regression analysis. I know your eyes are glazing over, but its important to understand how they cook the books. Some of these groups names include compete america, council for global immigration, Information Technology industry council, and things like that, but then on the leftish side of the spectrum is the American Immigration council, and they say before the employer can file a petition with the u. S. Citizen and immigration service, the employer must attest that employment of the h1b worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed u. S. Workers. Actually, theyre quoting from a different statute, not one that doesnt apply to h1b. Thats 8 usc a5a. As i said, wh en they make thos attestations, they are required to approve them as long as the form is filled out correctly. Its part of the entire smokescreen that goes on. They assume your average, ordinary american doesnt have time and is not interested in knowing the distinctions between a labor certification application and a labor condition application. And so it is part of the big fat lie, and we bust all of these myths in a chapter on all of the talking points that you always hear that somehow American Workers are protected, not only with regard to socalled nondisplacement clauses but with recruitment conditions as well. And it turns out, of course, that many of these things that they claim protect the entire class of American Workers only apply to a tiny, teeny, tiny, tiny amount of businesses in this country, and then for the businesses that they do apply to, of course, theyve got the lobbyist in the back room trying to make sure their special preference or special loophole is built into, oh, i dont know, the gang of eight bill and its 6,000 pages or whatever it is. Lets take some calls. Lets get our callers involved. The book is called sold out. Steve is calling in from phoenix on our democrats line. Please go ahead, steve. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. My question is to both guests, not trying to beat up anybody, but the question is where is the supply . Its all about capitalism, capitalism is about gathering market share. It only seems reasonable to me that in the desire to lower the prices, were going to get the lowest price labor. It worked so good with the palette maker and forklift driver why not work up the chain. Thats my question. It worked down below, why not up above . What id say is you see its coming that the big businesses coming at the American Worker from all sides, that, you know, weve seen it, as youre describing at the low wage, and most of the public debate is on the low wage, low wage immigration. Should we have some sort of amnesty for illegal aliens, but the problem of americans in Tech Industries being fired and replaced by Foreign Workers really hasnt hit the news until recently. And the other thing i would add, too, is that this comes up a lot because, of course, there are a lot of fissures on the right side of the aisle between libertarians who join with sort of open borders folks on the left and this is all in the headlines of the papers today about where does the gop stand. I think our feeling about the h1b program and all of these foreign Guest Worker Programs is this is not capitalism. This is cronyism. This is american businesses, the creme de la creme in Silicon Valley using the power of government to rig the game, and, in fact, in an appendix in the book we reprint the emails between google and apple fixing wages. They want to fix wages and they want to fix their pipeline for this, you know, cheap foreign labor supply thats undercutting americans. Well, in fact, this headline came from this mornings usa today more temp workers might come to u. S. Congress is considering legislation to allow u. S. Employers to bring in thousands of more unskilled Foreign Workers for seasonal jobs that last as long as ten months at a time. I know thats not what your book is about, its about the h1b program that everybody seems to support. What about the issue of unskilled workers, bringing in more . Theyre facing the same problem as the tech workers are. I mean, the reality is not everybody in the United States really has the skill to become a computer programmer, and so there are going to be people who are going to be in america who are going to be doing labor manual labortype jobs, and i mean, if were going to do anything about poverty, we have to improve the conditions for them, and in theory the free market should allow that to happen, but congress isnt allowing the free market to work by bringing in more foreign labor. We already have 66,000 visas that are issued for nonagricultural season workers and another 117,000 every year for ag workers. In the same way that these Tech Companies are always talking about a shortage, you also hear that in the Agricultural Industry as well and its just a suspect. I saw an article recently in a newspaper where the writer was saying that paying someone 13. 59 was an absurdly high wage. I mean, that person could barely make it by on that. And that was for agricultural work. Carrie is in canton, North Carolina, republican line. Carrie, where is canton . Is that in the Raleigh Durham area . Caller no, no, thats right beside asheville. Biltmore house area. Up in the mountains. Okay. Caller michelle, my best friend would be so jealous if he could even know i get to talk to you this morning. Good morning. Caller being that said, i have pros and cons on both sides of this. Sure. Caller i can listen to the Democratic Party and some of the latino groups and they say, well, were pretty much trying to blackmail the country into accepting amnesty. On the other hand, i can see a man from san salvador having to walk 2,000 miles across a desert because he knows once he gets to this country hes got a job. When he looks at our inner cities and sees most of the population of our inner cities wont walk across the street to get a job, i can see why he wants to come. I mean, im torn both ways. I grew up working tobacco, tomatoes, beans on the farm. Thats how i worked my way up to get a skilled trade job. Im a transmission mechanic. 15 years ago i went to a seminar which they said that the average age of a mechanic today is 46 years old. It just i can look at the universities and see where the government has actually failed, not only us, but our children. All right. Carrie, were going to leave it there and get a response from Michelle Malkin. Theres a lot there. I think i would approach it in this way, and certainly as a child of legal immigrants to this country, i understand what hes saying about america as a beacon for people who want to come here and work hard, but we already have many processes in place to bring people here who have something to contribute, whatever part of the pay scale were talking about, and the fact is that the number one problem in terms of Immigration Enforcement that this federal Government Faces is that theyre completely overwhelmed. We go into great detail, gao reports and Inspector General reports and every Single Agency of the Immigration Enforcement bureaucracy. Theyre creaking. They cant even enforce these basic American Worker protections in h1b and b1 and the eb5 program which is selling green cards to the highest bidder let alone the problem, the ongoing problem of the illegal immigration situation, and so not only do we have to fight this compulsion that both parties have, and i think thats one thing thats really distinctive about this book is we go after republicans probably even harder than the democrats, and it really does transcend all of these party lines. The inability of the federal government to do its basic duty. Every single one of these immigration and entrance programs should put American Workers and american citizens first. Public safety, national security, and economic security. I want to show charts from bloomberg. Here is a cluster of skilled foreigners. It says that in total employment, 22 of the raleigh durh durham, North Carolina, area is for skilled workers is held by h1b visa holders. It says that most of these folks come from india. You can see there that the vast majority of h1b employees come from india, and then china is next in the line. And then who is employing them . And these are some groups that, you know, at the top that maybe we havent heard of, and it begins with Tata Consultancy Services Limited and Cognizant Tech Solutions u. S. , the two biggest employers of these h1b and i want you to address that. We have i think one more chart . No, thats it . Yeah, we have one more chart and this is the jobs that the h1b visa holders are holding. Systems analyst, program and computer related, university educational, electrical education. But Tata Consultancy. What is that . Tata consultancy is a division of tata which is like indias mitsubishi, but they are in the business of moving jobs out of the United States to india, and so what weve seen what the h1b program has done is created the business of importing Foreign Workers and moving jobs overseas. So what tata will do is bring in a few people into the United States, like five or six, to then send 30 jobs overseas. So you will see five or six people in the United States on an h1b visa and there will be about 30 americans that lost their job and the rest of the business going to india. William is calling from minneapolis. William, youre on the air, independent line. Caller thank you, peter. Like you very much but i think you really have to make an effort to get more callers there. You know what . You are absolutely correct. Caller okay. I like you. Michelle, i dont usually agree with you on things but i have to agree with you on this. I like to think i live in the h1b capital of america which is minneapolis, and we have Target Corporation and best buy here and all the employees in their engineering is all indian. And they overstay their visas and never go home. Its never even addressed in immigration. All they talk about are the mexicans or hispanics coming across the borders but the true Illegal Immigrants are people who come over on visas and get these high tech jobs and high jobs in corporations like best buy and Target Corporation who i dont think you guys are aware of were aware of them. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Caller and they overstay their visas. All right. We got the point, william. Thank you. Who wants to answer that. I think probably a little bit of both of us, but, of course, in minnesota youve got senator Amy Klobuchar there who is the cosponsor of legislation on capitol hill that would greatly expand the number of these h1b visas and he hit on exactly something that is the theme of the introduction of the book. One of the things that we find has been a flaw in much of the reporting and it has improved over the years is that even the New York Times, which is playing catchup on covering these issues treats it as if this is something new when, as we have emphasized, this idea of bringing these people over here, making American Workers train them, and then watching these American Workers have to see these replacements go back to their home countries carrying all the knowledge they imparted with them as a condition of receiving severance has happened at disney, Southern California edison, cargill, harleydavidson. It is a massive harbor story and the fact that the caller disagrees with me on most things but that we can come together on this, again, shows you just the very interesting fault lines here, and its going to make a lot of people vulnerable. Hillary clinton, we talked about Tata Consultancy. As a senator brought tata to buffalo as part of this government deal. They said they were going to create american jobs. It created ten. Meanwhile, in the back door tata was petitioning for 1,600 h1b visas. Where is the democratic outrage of that . The party of the people, the party of the workers. From the New York Times Large Companies game h1b visa program and jobs leave the u. S. This is Julia Preston writing. She says that many of the visas are given out through a lottery and a small number of giant Global Outsourcing companies has flooded the system with applications significantly increasing their chances of success. John in ka tab what, virginia, democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want to say, michelle, i live in virginia and i work and i am shocked at how many indians are living in this area that bought houses and stuff like that, and it seems to me that weve seen a lot of Young Students graduating universities, working at sams club or costco and they cant get a job and they have 80,000 on their backs. It really bothers me that someone tells me that we dont have enough employees. We can train our Young Students another direction and we can give that job that would bring in overseas. Here is the thing, most of these companies, they care about the money. Instead paying the americans 80,000 or 90,000, theyd rather pay indians for 40,000 so they can save 50,000 for their pockets. And most of all i heard a lot i dont know if its true or not, there is a lot of corruption about these visas. Its not only here. The people that they bringing, theyre not qualified. They have to retrain all over again. When these guys get in the system, guess what theyre going to say . Can i bring my cousin . Hes in india. Its amazing to me whats going on. John, we got the point. The salary, is he right about the salary differential . Yes, thats correct. The h1b Program Allows the employer to pay a prevailing wage. Its the 17th percentile of u. S. Wages, the 50th percentile is the median. What wed normally call the prevailing wage. Although one thing i would like to say, that hes focused on the indian aspect of this, which certainly is a problem, but the problem with the h1b program isnt in india. Its right over there on capitol hill with americans who are largely european americans, not indians, and theyre the problem, not the indian companies. Is he right about corruption or is it a gaming of the system . Well, its not its not even a gaming of the system. The h1b program is working exactly as its designed to do. Thats one of my issues. Im glad to see the New York Times covering this issue, but i think but my biggest objection to the New York Timess coverage other than it being new to the issue is its portrayed as exceptional. This is exactly how congress set the system up and how its working. The only thing thats not working as its designed is that the news media is starting to cover it and they havent been doing it in the past. We are talking about the coauthors of sold out and david is in chicago on our independent line. Caller as an american tech worker i want to thank you so much, john and michelle, for writing this book. Its about time the word gets out. Id like you to discuss how these trade deals have inveigled foreign guest workers whether its the the fact were and secondly discuss the three executive actions that the Obama Administration wants to do in terms of spouses of h1b work permits, the fast track green cards and the opt, if you could do that and the total number of h1bs. A lot there. A lot of acronyms, david, and well get john on it in a second. What type of tech work do you to . Caller i do Data Center Network cloud with nascent cyber security, im very skilled, well trained and im making wages i was making 20 years because of the wage suppression and wages have been flat for tech workers since 2000. We know theres no shortage. If there was a shortage of s. T. E. M. Workers wages would be going up. Certainly thats the argument for paying executives high compensation because theres not enough talent. Well, if that were the case for tech workers, wages would be going up like they did in the 90s, but, in fact, theyre not. All right. We got it. John . Well, i think david is saying h1b is just the tip of the iceberg. There are other ways foreign labor is coming in in this area of technical workers. One of the issues he raised is trade deals. The inside lobbyists are using trade deals as a means to bring foreign labor in, that the u. S. Is locked into giving at least 65,000 h1b visas every year under a treaty, and now under this new the transpacific partnership, theyre also trying to slip in more foreign labor. Then im just going through the list, the other thing we could add is that theres the executive actions are going on. Obama this year started allowing spouses of h1b workers to work. Industry lobbyists have sought that in the hopes they can eventually turning h1b in a twofer where they can get spouse and get the spouse both spouses to work on a single visa. Another one we have is the whats called the Optional Practical Training Program which is a student visa. In 2008 microsoft came to the department of Homeland Security secretary at a dinner party with the idea of using student visas as a means to get around the h1b quota and dhs worked in absolute secrecy to produce the regulations and the public didnt even know these were being considered until dhs put them out without notice and comment, and so essentially we had the situation where microsoft was telling dhs to do regulations. They just did it and dropped it in, and i have been involved with that because i had a court case that got those regulations set aside but the Obama Administrations response to that was, oh, well lets just make the student put out new regulations and let them work longer. I havent seen hit all the different ways that are being used to admit foreign labor here. But they are detailed in sold out. Gene is in dublin, virginia. Hi, gene. Caller good morning. Thanks for cspan. Id like to relate two things and get a comment. First one is im a former im a refugee from the big blue oval in dearborn and when i was looking for a new engineer for my group, i went to my hr person and all i got was h1b visa people. Now, ive worked internationally most of my life. If i was still working i would be in brazil this weekend, but they i went to im far from xenophobic. I went to my hr person and said, hey, here in dearborn we are surrounded by universities that are turning out making out pretty good engineers. Can we find at least one american to which i was told, quote, h1b visa people work between 9,000 and 14,000 a year cheaper so thats who we hire. The other issue is i now have graduate students who were showing me emails from i. T. Companies that are literally based within miles of where you guys are sitting, one of them being tysons corner, and in the email it says, quote, come to work for my i. T. Company and i guarantee you will be accepted at one of these two universities and if you look and one of them is based also in tysons corner. Theyre unaccredited universities. Basically what theyre doing is using the student visa system as a scam to get around the immigration workers and get i. T. Workers in the company. By the way, this i. T. Company i did a Little Research because i do policy work, my undergrad is engineering but i do policy work, and this company has government contracts. All right. Gene, we got the point. Tysons corner, of course, is here in the washington suburbs, a hightech area. Yes. We have an entire chapter in the book on how the f1 foreign visa Student Program has been exploited as another one of these alternative channels to bring in all of these cheap foreign students to work, and thats tied to the Optional Practical Training Program. And i think its interesting again to note that these calls are coming from the democratic line and the independent line and the republican line, and we really think that weve struck a nerve here because if all we do, if all we can serve to do is amplify these voices of americas best and brightest this is not news to them, but what this is is really a wakeup call to the beltway, to those crap weasels, ill say it one more time on cspan, to talk about this collusion, and i think that this is really one of the key, key issues thats a breakout issue for this president ial Campaign Cycle because its talking about how the donorist class has bought both parties, and the testimony on the ground from workers like this engineer shows two things. Not only are these American Workers being devastated, but, of course, all of the h1b visa holders who are used essentiallies a indentured servants and are being exploited as well needs to be shown, too, and so we have a whom chapter on that. Very perverse practices and they call them names like handcuffing and body shopping and really, of course, sabotaging the original intent of the program in the first place. Michelle s there any relationship between this book and your earlier book this year which was on innovators and american manufacturers . That is a really good question, and the answer is yes. In part, i have been thinking about delving into this issue for a long time because, of course, my first book was in 2002 was invasion which was about the illegal immigration aspect and all along i had wanted to get here, and it really was just providential that the two of us were able to get together on this. But when i talked to anthony, the head of mag light flashlight and we talked about this back in may, he was such a fierce proponent of American Companies hiring American Workers, and this is an immigrant who came here from croatia for the American Dream. He refused to outsource. He knew the best and brightest were right in Southern California and really that just spurred me to tell the other side of the story. These two books i think are flip sides of the same coin. Jenny, springfield, virginia, here in the suburbs, independent line. Michelle malkin, john miano coauthors sold out. Caller im really glad i have a chance to speak to both of you and the host. Please dont cut me off. We just went through an election cycle, and the polling the phone calling from the different candidates, and one of the things that was really stressed about how our American Students are so under educated and that we really need to compete with india and china and, you know, im talking about the Democratic Party telling me how our students arent really getting the math education early enough. Well, you know, then they go ahead and say about they cant compete in the Work Environment because of their lack of education, and i happen to know because i have children who actually are educated as, you know, engineers and really the real world of what they go through, and what i saw was, you know, theyre saying that we have to compete, and im like what about the kids who are g d graduating from the top universities in the state of virginia. Why dont you take your message about how under educated these kids are as they graduate and go on to graduate school in degrees in engineering and degrees in figuresic and they cant get jobs but yet you have people being brought in. Jenny, we have a lot there on the table. Michelle malkin, any response for her . Thats as trenchant a commentary as i have heard, more trenchant than anything you will hear from most of these candidates who continue to buy into the myth of the american tech worker shortage and at the same time are doing the bidding of these companies who want to staple green cards to every foreign student visa, and, you know, even among the candidates who are sounding the sanest on this, donald trump, for example, we point out that hes got a terrific Immigration Reform plan, not only on illegal immigration and the southern border but also with regard to h1b, the most detailed we have seen, he consulted with someone who we think has his head screwed on straight more than any other on capitol hill, Jeff Sessions, but even donald trump has sort of paid lip service to this american tech worker shortage and talked about the need to import untold numbers of these foreign students. Theres another aspect of the education part of this, too, that we delve into in the donor chapter because you have bill gates wanting to open up the floodgates to h1bs, and with another side of his tongue, talking about how we need common core, and common core, of course, supports the myth that theres american tech worker shortage, and in the meantime what is it really doing . A lot of the independent academics who were behind the scenes here in d. C. Where all the back room deals were cut on that racket say that all it will do is lower standards, particularly now in math and science, which theyre working on. So in essence, he would take this common core scheme, which hes poured hundreds of millions of dollars into and put the American Students at the disadvantage that theyre not at now. From your book, Clinton Foundation donor and corporate mogul donald trump vaulted to the front of the gop pack and the top of the polls in 2015 by spotlighting brutal crimes by illegal aliens against americans, but while vowing to build a trump wall on the southern border, the Celebrity Apprentice star espoused a path towards legalization to illegal aliens we deemed outstanding. That sounds a lot like the amnesty path of his rivals. Linda is calling in from knoxville, a democrat, hi, linda. Caller im another liberal democrat who never thought id be agreeing with Michelle Malkin about anything but on this one, we do. Yes. Caller there was an episode of the west wing about this in the mid2000s that dealt with h1b visas and it fingered congress as the villain. Theres so many things here. Im a hightech worker. These people who are coming in on the visas are victims, too. You mentioned that a little bit earlier right after i called, and what they these people, what they want more than anything is to stay. They have to be here. So this makes them ripe for all kinds of exploitation. The salaries that they are purported to be getting, they dont get those salaries. Half of that is skimmed off by the agencies they have to go to on the way here to get here, and if they make any kind of waves about it, dont pay it, they never get a chance to stay or to come back. Linda, what kind of work do you do . Im a i dont really want to then you dont have to. Dont worry about it. Lets get a response about this agency issue from john. Well, its said most of these companies are coming through most of these aliens are coming through companies that are in the business of importing workers and basically taking a cut off of the top of the salary. Thats not the way the system is supposed to work. But one of the things id like to say, we have a liberal democrat here and probably have had conservative republicans speak, this is an issue that essentially everyone in america agrees to except a small elite and yet while liberals, conservatives, moderates all agree that americans should not be replaced by Foreign Workers, most of the president ial candidates right now support replacing americans with Foreign Workers. Its shocking. Actually, of course, this is broken out into the open now and wed like to think that part of it is sort of the sold out quctiout effect of the open warfare you have between cruz and rubio over issues. Cruz is attacking marco rubio for all the water he gathered on the gang of eight bill and rubio points out as which did that until recently ted cruz had supported the quintupling of the h1b visa. Our shared attitude is if everybody gets to the right position, if every one of the gop candidates, well, the democrat candidates, too, thats not going to happen, adopted Jeff Sessions platform on reforming h1b if we could finally produce some kind of real results, not just fake, phony, called reform over true comprehensive, proAmerican Immigration enforcement reform, then wed be pretty happy with that i think. Jim at fern hollow tweets in, Michelle Malkin ragging on masty, evil corporations and the left still hates here . Gosh. And jody says, Michelle Malkin, you have finally woken up. There are liberals saying the same thing. Union people, you know. Susan is also calling from knoxville this morning on our independent line. Caller hi. Hi. Caller nice to talk to you. This is a real burning issue and has been for some time among tech people, and quite a few people in my family are in engineering, physics, so on, so i have known about it, but also this is happening in health care such as physical therapists. Physical therapy assistants. There are pockets in knoxville where all the hospitals physical therapists and the aides are all from the philippines. Yet, i know two families whose girls have gotten out of physical therapy school, which now takes a masters degree, and cant get a job. This is true in so many industries, and its so detrimental to the United States. It really needs to be a big issue. Either of you . Well, i can say that h1b is primarily in the used in the tech industry, but it is used in all industries as well, and as you say, physical therapists is one, doctors, even accountants. So the damage is very widespread. And teachers, too. We actually have a section in the book that talks about that. And, you know, fun fact about h1b, you know, its sold on capitol hill as, you know, for the bright specialty workers who are entrepreneurial who are going to come here and create new businesses. Youll hear this propaganda from h1b promoters on both sides of the aisle all the time, and yet it covers things like supermodels, and theres an interesting special interest story behind that, too. Sold out is the name of the book and donald is in south bend, indiana, a democrat. Caller yeah. Im sitting here watching this, and im just skeptical of miss malkins i dont know. Im just skeptical. I mean, i have seen you talk a lot of times on fox news, and i dont know what to make of all this. Now, okay, primarily the reason why i called is because, well, what do you expect . I mean, thats capitalism as you and your friends on fox have been trying to tell us in labor, that if a Company Wants to come in, i mean, if they want to hire somebody at a low cost, i mean, labor is cost. You know, forget about their family and everything, they have families. They dont care. Its about cost. So now that its happening to people who are working and dont get me wrong, we need programmers and, et cetera, people white collar jobs and careers, but now that its happening to them, well, you know, hey, you know, welcome to my world, you know . Well, a couple of things. We challenge the leaders of the h1b racket and the funders of it and the promoters of it across party lines, and i dont agree with everybody at fox news about everything, and i know that Rupert Murdoch probably doesnt agree with what im saying and yet i have gone on as many venues and weve tried to reach out to as many people as possible. We already addressed the fact that this isnt any kind of capitalism in the form that i ever support, and i have long been an outspoken critic of the kind of crony deals that we see not only with regard to h1b but whether its green cronyism, the cronyism that was embedded in the health care bill, and i think that this is where there are shared interests among so many of the callers that weve already heard from. I understand hes skeptical. He thinks that i have an agenda, but the fact is as a journalist who has been out of the closet as a conservative for 25 years, you can take my biases and judge them against the evidence in the book. Just judge the evidence. We cite everything. We urge everybody to do their homework, not just the journalists here in washington who should be covering it better, all of those campaigns out there that are crusading for the American Dream and the American Worker, but its important as a functioning of a healthy republic that citizens be informed, and this is our educational and evangelical mission. John, this tweet from i love politics, h1b lies told by ceos to congress. U. S. Workers are not available, not able to do the work, unwilling to take the jobs. Hes basically summed up the nonsense. One of the things that we havent mentioned is i used to be a computer programmer, so i saw what these callers and what the tweeters are saying firsthand. Right now if youre trying to find a Computer Programming job, it will be really tough. Why . Because they just simply arent out there and theyre not being advertised. Every so often i go into dice. Com to go look for computer jobs in my area. Its rare you find any. Occasionally its one or two and the only listings are agencies, you know, who submit a resume and maybe well submit it to someone else. Very few real jobs that i can actually find, so if i were back as a computer programmer, it would be really tough. Dana, chico, california, republican. Hi, dana. Caller yes, your guests have done a really good job of explaining the problem, and its an eyeopening thing for me to know about all this, but my question is what is the solution . Is the solution to force companies to raise wages so that theyre forced to pay everybody those high wages . Would that cut down or help the problem or is the problem education . Whats the problem and whats the solution . Michelle malkin. Before you fix a problem, you have to know just how bad it really is, and that was the purpose of the book, to really shake people and wake them up to the depths of the problem, and we have our own comprehensive Immigration Enforcement reform plan. Its the very, very last section of the book, and it takes a comprehensive look at what needs to be done on many, many levels. And i think the immediate thing that the next president do should put a moratorium on all of these programs and reassess, you know, how exactly theyre working, who is being hurt. Of course, its hard to do anything with regard to the foreign guest worker rackets when youve got upwards of 30 million illegal aliens here, 40 of them who are visa overstayers with the government having no way to track them down and make sure that people who should leave have already left, and then john can address some of the reforms with regard to h1b but, you know, the problem of duel intent is one of them and making sure that the prevailing wage is actually the prevailing wage. Caller was asking what he can do. The first thing is to be informed, and one of the things about doing the book is you can explain things that i could not possibly explain on this show. For example, we talk about how regression analysis is used to come up with these bogus statistics about the visas creating a job. Thats one or two college lectures. We could put that in the book and explain how they get these numbers. So you can so from the book, this is a shameless plug i guess, but you can get informed about whats happening and understand the whole scope of the problem, and then once you know the problem, vote. You know, find out where your congressman, where your senator stands on these issues, and if youre senator and congressman support replacing americans with Foreign Workers, vote them out. And call your congressman, write your congressman and senators. Let them know you dont support replacing americans with Foreign Workers. The same thing with the president ial candidates. Let rubio and company know, you do not support replacing americans with Foreign Workers. And from sold out, a quote by representative former representative tom davis on big techs push to eliminate h1b caps altogether. Quote, this is not a popular bill with the public, its popular with the ceos. And jim from lodlodi, ohio, on independent line. Your the last caller. Caller i never realized really how big the problem is but its very personal to me and i believe that shes right, michelle, that both the immigration laws and these problems that you brought out here are you know, theyre interrelated, and the reason is my wife is an immigrant. She stood in line and she came from korea. We got married and i had to wait for her for two years to be able to get here, and she finally became a citizen and we had two daughters, and one is now a she was a high up graduate at purdue as an engineer. Shes 30 years old now and gone back to Nursing School because she cant get a job that she had like to have with her degree. M my other daughter is an International Politics and journalism and right now shes working on computers because she cant find what she would like to do, and i knew there was a problem, but i never realized just how bad it is. All right, jim. Thank you very much for calling. Final word from each of you, john . Well, id say this book describes the problem that essentially everyone can agree on, and i hope not just from the intrinsic interest in promoting the book, but this is an issue thats been near and dear to my heart for 20 years, and, you know, this has been a labor of love to get it out to the public so you can see what i have been fighting for for 20 years, and i hope that you will read it and will join the fight with me. This seems to me like a kumbaya moment on cspan to have had so many folks call in across party lines who understand just how daunting this problem is, and i really want to underscore what john said about translating this into votes. I mean, thats where the power is here, and we tell the story of dave bratt here in virginia who was able to topple eric cantor and all of the money, much of it coming from big tech propagandists who wanted h1b and the gang of eight bill. Its extraordinary. We see that as a sign of hope that it can be done, that the peoples voice, the workers voice can be heard and just address the caller as a last thing, i think it just underscores another thing thats so important particularly to me and thats the idea that we can so many of us can unite behind this message that proamerican is not antiimmigrant. And finally, this tweet from kq spp thank you so much. You transformed this democrat midsummer about garage invent s inventors, your earlier book. No h 1b american lives matter. Thanks for being on the program. Thanks for having us. On the next washington journal, Melissa Yeager with the Sunlight Foundation looks at a recent report detailing the growth of Online Campaign ads. And why online political spending is hard to track. Then Charlie Savage of the New York Times discusses president obamas executive action to close guantanamo bay. After that bob weiss of the alliance for excellent education exams a new report showing a degrees in High School Dropout rates. Plus your phone calls, Facebook Comments, and tweets. Washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. The Florida Republican party is hosting the Sunshine Summit, a gathering of president ial candidates in orlando. On saturday well hear from bobby jindal, chris christie, rick santorum, rand paul, john kasich, and Carly Fiorina live starting at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Also satisfied martin omalley, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders taking part in a debate from Drake University in iowa. Live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan radio. And on sunday well show the debate in its entirety at 4 00 p. M. And 9 00 p. M. Eastern over on cspan. And baker says to him, well, i want to be a congressman. I think youre just using this as a steppingstone to the senate and george h. W. Bush, says, no, no, im not using it as a stepping zone to the senate, i want to be president. He had a sense of destiny. Saturday night at 10 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2s book tv, the conversation between Pulitzer Prize winning biographer jon meacham and former president george w. Bush about the life of the president s father. Also on saturday its the louisiana book festival including keith we will don medley talks about his life and adam rothman and his book beyond freedoms reach. And sunday night at 9 00, former congressman Patrick Kennedy shares his personal journey with Mental Illness and substance abuse. I really was convinced that no one could pick up on the fact that, you know, sweaty palms, i was perspiring, i was, you know, furtive and moving around in an agitated way. I totally thought no one knew. Hes interviewed by democratic representative Jim Mcdermott from washington state. Book tv, television for serious readers. So to all of you, thank you for your support and to the kids for just saying no. Thank you. My hope is that the women of the future will feel truly free to follow whatever paths their talents and their Natures Point to. I think they thought that the white house was so glamorous and your role was so what you did was so glamorous, your life was so glamorous, and all they saw were the parties and meeting people and, you know, and i have to tell you i never tell you i never worked harder in my life. Nancy reagan served as longtime political partner, ferocious protector and ultimately as caretaker for ronald reagan. She was involved with key staff decisions, policy making and campaigning. She made drug use her initiative with her just say no come campaign. Nancy reagan. This sunday night on cspans original series, first ladies, the private lives of women who filled the position of the first lady. From Martha Washington to michelle obama. Sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. Benjamin netanyahu was in washington, d. C. , and accepted the 2015 Irving Kristol award for work in public policy. This is an hour and fifteen minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats and turn your attention to the screens. If you believe subversive truth, that a free society is necessary for Human Dignity and human potential, if you believe that ideas matter the American Enterprise institute stands at the center of a revolution in ideas of which i, too, have been a part. That civil debate and intellectual courage can change the world. If you believe that we should see our fellow citizens not as liabilities but as sets, that the social safety net is a great accomplishment of our free market system, but that our main goal must be to help the poor lead lives of dignity, selfreliance and independence. If you believe that real social justice should not depend on politics, that we should be fighting to make the starting line more equal. If you believe that American Leadership remains the key to a free world and lifting billions out of tyranny and poverty, that american greatness is not just about our past accomplishments but about the high expectation the world still has for the United States, if you believe that our best days still lie ahead of us, then you are not alone. [ applause ] good evening. Im arthur brooks, president of the American Enterprise institute. Im so honored to welcome all of you to the aei dinner and kristol award lecture. Do you believe that america is a force of good in the world . Before you say yes, consider that this is a very serious commitment. It is to say that our ideas of Democratic Capitalism are good for us and good for others and thus as generous, decent people were willing to share these ideas. We do not deny americas errors but still see the motives of our nation as fundamentally just and the net effects of our influence is making the world a better place. I believe these ideas are fair and right because ive seen the evidence all around the world. One week ago, my aei colleagues were in an indian slum in mumbai. Thats the area featured in the famous movie slumdog millary. I walked for hours in the narrow alleyways among pottery factories and Plastic Recycling plants with a 34yearold man by the name of krishna. He started out with nothing, dirt poor in ways that we cannot imagine. And has pulled himself out of poverty with a small business. Krishna is truly proud of his success and i asked him his secret. His answer, entrepreneurship. And what does that mean . Build something, earn a living, serve others. Build, earn, and serve. Where do you suppose he got these crazy ideas . Hell tell you himself from america, hes never been here before but he knows this. This is what we stand for. This is our ethos spreading around the world, lifting up people like him in countries like his. Krishna is not alone and is not an isolated case. Since 1970, two billion people around the world have been lifted out of absolute poverty and billions have seen democracy for the first time. Why . Two reasons. First, they saw how we live in the United States. They saw an open society, the rule of law, Property Rights and the rewards of entrepreneurship and hard work. Our freedom, prosperity and by copying these ideas, the inspiration and drive that makes this country so great, they threw off the chains of poverty by the hundreds of millions. Second, they saw that america is a servant leader nation. We have a military diplomatic and cultural commitment to sharing values and the system around the world. Usually peacefully. But when necessary, with force. But it can only happen in the future if we retain confidence in the greatness of our nation, believe in the goodness of our value, learn from our mistakes and maintain a commitment to serve the rest of the world. And we need one more thing. We need friends. We cannot honor our commitments to the world by ourselves. We need friends who share our values. We need outposts of Democratic Capitalism. We need people who believe in equality, freedom and fundamental potential of every single human being. Friends are very hard to find in the world today. Too many nations are silently glad we lead and find it pretty convenient to free ride on american strength, enjoying the benefits while grousing about the morality of our cause and the principles behind our leadership. For others, American Values are a threat to their power which they maintain at the cost of the poor and oppressed, so when we have a true friend, a collaborator nation in the optimistic joyful experiment of building a better world, its important to celebrate that and thats what we need do tonight. No nation in the world is a better friend and partner to america and the fight for freedom and Democratic Capitalism than israel. No nation mirrors our values more faithfully. Israel is truly americas sister nation in the fight for a better, more just world because like the United States, israel is a beacon of hope and a model for its neighbors, its region and world. Tonight, we will have a conversation about this friendship and its future with israels Prime Minister, benjamin netanyahu. He receives the Irving Kristol award honoring our friend is our commitment to our nations own values. And that is a can commitment that i know each one of you probably shares. Before i invite Prime Minister netanyahu to the stage, i want to hand the microphone to bill kristol. Following this, he will say a word about the council. Ladies and gentlemen, bill kristol. Thanks, arthur. Its an honor on behalf of the family to join in welcoming all of you to this Irving Kristol award dinner and a particular honor to welcome the Prime Minister of israel tonight. My father would have reproved of approved of the choices of the Prime Minister, of Prime Minister minister netanyahu. I say this, mr. Prime minister, not on my own authority but on that of my mother. So you can be sure its tracked. Arthur asked me to say a word about my father, since many of you, an increasing number as time marches on, did not know him personally. But let me try to capture him in my own words, but of those of our guests. Heres a letter he wrote to my mother little over six years ago. Dear b. , i was saddened to hear of irvings passing. He was a man of talent and exceptional humility. His intellectual contributions will be felt for many decades to come. His principles made him a mentor to three generations of thinkers and influenced president s and Prime Ministers alike. No less important as he made his way in the prestigious circles, he remained the proudest of jews setting a powerful example. I will always treasure my conversations with him throughout the years in which his eyes twinkled and wisdom shone. Deep respect, benjamin netanyahu. Thank you, mr. Prime minister, for that wonderful condolence letter which meant so much to us and also i think was an accurate portrayal of my father. For those interested, let me refer you to a website. Irvingkristol. Org. This guide to my fathers work is the work of the foundational government which is put together curated websites to voters with c contemporary thinkers more easily accessible to all of us, but especially to students and future general races. This project isnt directly involved with or connected to aei. Not affiliated, but it turns out to be in a way an unintentional tribute to aei. Its amazing how many of these thinkers, these important and influential thinkers have been affiliated in one way or another with aei. Ill mention only james wilson, walt t walter burns, leon diamond and many more who you could find at contemporarythinkers. Org. I think one of the other websites thats going up is devoted to the work of charles murray. Its reminds me of how central aei remains to American Public life over the past several decades. But youre not here to hear from me. Difficult as that is for me to believe. And youre not even here to hear about aei, as difficult as that is for arthur to believe. Youre here to hear from mr. Benjamin netanyahu, the Prime Minister of israel and perhaps the preeminent leader in the free world today if were still allowed to use that term, free world. Im happy to use it here and when i see Prime Minister netanyahu, i think of the free world. So i say thank you for honoring us by your presence and im pleased to turn this over to the chairman of aeis chairman of council, george priest. [ applause ] thank you very much, bill. As bill mentioned, im the chair of aeis council of academic advisers. Im the official host of this event, believe it or not, and ive done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. The principle purpose of the event is to bestow the Irving Kristol award. Weve seen bill, his son, and the wonderful tribute to irving, but there are also other members of the kristol family here tonight that i would like us all to recognize. Bee kristol, irvings widow, with whom i served for 18 years on the council. She was a member longer than that, but were very happy to have her here tonight. [ applause ] we also have with us lelizabeth nelson, bills sister and susan, bills wife. Were very happy to have them, too. Now, many of you might think that tonights event is just a big d. C. Party with a prominent speaker followed by dancing. Thats wrong. Now, it is that but its also an academic event. The council of academic advisers of aei comprises a set of academics from leading universities around the country. Assembled by aei to serve two duties. First, to review the work produced by scholars, to make certain that work meeting academic standards. These are not the standards of dissertations. But the job of the council is to make certain that the work of aei scholars is solid. Thats its defensible and persuasive. Aei scholars know this standard and more than meet it. The second job of the council is to select each year, the person most deserving of the Irving Kristol award, which as arthur mentioned, the highest honor bestowed by aei. Aei has delegated this task to an Academic Council so this group of academics can select that person quote, who has made extraordinary, intellectual contributions, social welfare of political understanding, as did Irving Kristol in a number of ways. The council of academic advisers this year has chosen to bestow this award to benjamin netanyahu, Prime Minister of israel, and mr. Prime minister, were very honored to have you here to receive this award. As arthur mentioned, tonights program will consist of a discussion between Prime Minister netanyahu and danielle plutka, ais director of defense and Foreign Policy studies and considerable intellect. Danny, i am certain, will raise many important issues with the Prime Minister. But i would like to address to Prime Minister netanyahu with all humility, in order to set the stage, a question that i think was raised and discussed by members of the council and is, of course, a broader concern to all of us, including to all citizens around the world. How is it possible to achieve peace in the middle east . 20 years ago, at around the time of the first i asked this question to an israeli friend of mine who often teaches at yale and who was later the chief justice of the israeli Supreme Court. Its common maybe just for americans to believe that wars have a beginning and an end. Although, of course, the recent American Experience in afghanistan and iraq may be changing that view. But i asked my israeli friend, when will there be peace between palestine and israel . And my friend answered, weve been fighting for 2,000 years, why should it end now . There was probably a deep truth to that point, though it is not an assuring answer to all of us today. But i would like to put that as well, with all respect, to Prime Minister netanyahu. And danny im sure will have other questions as well. This institute, the American Enterprise institute, is committed to promoting through its studies the benefits of free markets, free trade, open interactions among citizens as to how best to improve their lives. There is an old saw in the Political Science literature that provides that democracies do not go to war against each other. Theres no strong theoretical support for the proposition beyond the idea that citizens voting democratically would not support destructive wars. Now, of course, the proposition has been belied imperically. Hitler was elected democratically and particular by the palestine israel dispute today. One can view a citizen that elected hamas as a functioning democracy. The more important generalization might be that wars do not occur and have no reason to occur among countries that embrace the market order. In the context of market economies through destructive war and combat that cannot be achieved more sustainably through mutually beneficial transactions in the market. And so again, with all respect, i would put this question to Prime Minister netanyahu. Why shouldnt israel promote a lively economy for gaza and the west bank . Put them on their feet in economic terms. I believe that a vibrant Palestinian Economy would change the relationship between israel and palestine. I very conscious of the security concerns that remain. Which are not at all trivial. But i believe that they will deminnish every time as a gaza and west bank economy develops. As an example, the settlements become not a colonialist intervention, but money to buy palestinian services, just as a small town in america welcomes the arrival of new neighbors. Im sure that danny and many others in our discussion tonight, we are all looking forward to the remarks of Prime Minister netanyahu. Thank you. [ applause ] and now, ladies and gentlemen, the main event. This is the largest in aei history. Why is that . Perhaps you think its the food or the band. Youd be wrong. Our amazing team has assured us its very good because of our honored guest. Few leaders are important as benjamin netanyahu. We are fond in america of Favorability Ratings and polls. So its noticeable that he is currently polling better in america than our own leaders of either party. [ applause ] this, i suspect, presents an interesting opportunity for the Prime Minister given that we have an election coming up in this country. Prime minister netanyahu has been an unflinching supporter of the democratic capitalist values that we share at aei and in this room. He has not had simply a political, but also a great economic career. He was the finance minister of israel that helped manage israels transition from a good and successful country to a wildly successful startup nation and all along the way, hes maintained toughness for his country and our shared cause in a part of the world that is frequently pretty hostile to both. Benjamin netanyahu is an unapologetic friend to america. Not democrat america or republican america or jewish america, but to every single one of us. His accomplishment in politics and world fairs, his accomplishments are well known and too numerous for me to list. It is our honor to have him as the awardee of the Irving Kristol and ward and hear his thoughts in an interview. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome with me Prime Minister minister benjamin netanyahu. [ applause ] yes. Can everybody else hear me . I know youre here for me. Here we go. Its my opportunity to sing. We apologize for that momentary disturbance. Mr. Prime minister, youve been welcomed only three or four times already. Let me welcome you again. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I have to say, im not used to receiving awards in israel. Especially not from the media. I do get them from the public on election day. But its very moving for me to be here. I do remember Irving Kristol as a great intellect. As a fearless intellect. Political correctness was thrown out of the window. He called it like he saw it. And he had a profound influence on many. Had a profound influence on me and i consider myself honored and privileged to have spent many hours with him. I think hes left a great legacy and hes left a great family. And i want to especially welcome his wife, bee, ive read her books recently, a book, believe it or not, on semitism in britain, can you imagine . A tremendous book. This is a tremendous family. It goes on in the next generations. I am deeply honored to have received this award from you. Thank you. [ applause ] i dont think anybody sitting here in this room would underestimate the affection and respect that the American Enterprise institute, our entire family and community has for the irvings legacy, so, thank you so much for saying that. Now let me pick up on our remarks. Just a quick, brief word. For those of you who have been with us for many years, in years past, we have had our honorees give a speech from the podium and this year, we asked you to have a conservation and thank you for doing that. We thought it would be more interesting, more enlightening perhaps for some of us and in addition, it would provide an opportunity to hear about a range of issues that would be of importance to everybody. But perhaps, more importantly, i think there are some who may with a little disappointed that im not going to interrogate you in washington style about a variety of issues. Id like to remind our guests, aei is not a news organization. I may disappoint you. I am very sorry. But were a think tank and were interested in the big questions. And i hope that if we can take something away, it will be some big answers. Well, i hope this catches on. Its wonderful. Were all about leadership. Mr. Prime minister, youve said israel has always been pro american. Israel will always be pro american. You yourself spent many years in the United States as did your father. Tell us a little bit about what is at the heart of israels and your affection for the United States. Common values, first. I think the values of freedom. Free societies. The idea of individual choice. That is enveloped the collective purpose. I think that defines Israel Defines america. These are two societies built on a purpose. On the idea of freedom. As spoken in the congress a number of times, and each time, i look and i see the emblem of moses in the american congress. And it says a lot. Its the, the idea of the promised land, a land of freedom. Freedom of bondage. Freedom to pursue your future. So, i think this is the, the identity of conviction. But there is Something Else that i think has to be seen in an historic context. We were a people scattered among the nations. We had no capacity to defend ourselves and by accident of historical regularity, we should have disappeared. Most nations that existed in the past do not exist today. And certainly a nation scattered from its land and becoming utterly defenseless, subject to the whims, worst whims of humanity should have disappeared. We gathered our resolve, came back to the land of israel, the promised land. Rebuilt our country when we repossessed the power to defend ourselves, but it was said here before, all power, all countries, all power even great powers need alliances. We need an alliance, too. We did not have that alliance in the first half of the 20th century when the Founding Fathers of zionism identified the threat of antisemitism in europe, we had no capacity yet to build our nation, we built it having lost 6 million of our brethren and i believe that in the United States had been the preeminent world power in the first half of the 20th century, things might have turned out differently. And yet, israel was born in mid century. The United States became the global power at that point. And what a difference it made. It made a difference for the entire world by guaranteeing liberty, by facing down soviet totalitarianism. It made a difference for us in that we had a partner. And i think that not only the common ideals of israel and the United States, there were mentioned here, but i think its also the role, the active role of the United States in defending liberty around the world and standing by its allies. In this case, the best possible alley, the United States and israel. I think its made a world of difference and i met on this alliance. I wouldnt sell the United States short. I wouldnt sell israel short. And i would not at all diminish the purpose of this alliance. I think its pivotal for the future of our world and if you ask me about it, ill tell you more. This is what i believe. [ applause ] with a sore throat. Ive got tissues right here, too. Thats all right. Like the United States and okay, sure. Like the United States, which was founded on a big idea and on a by a group of people seeking freedom, israel, took into consideration was founded on a big idea, but the countrys come a lopg way since 1896 when huds el word the jewish state. Is zionism still is animating idea of the state of israel . Is there another direction that israel goes in . Where does israel go in the 21st century . Having not had a state for 2,000 years, we have secured it again, but we have to assure the Jewish Future. Thats what zionism is about. Giving the jewish people the ability to have their own independent state, but you know, this is an ongoing effort. The challenges keep changing. What you want to make sure is that you have the inner strength to confront these challenges and also, to make these alliances that i talked about. Nobody makes alliances with the weak. And nobody makes peace with the weak. So, the first obligation we have to further the future of israel is to make sure the country is strong. Strong militarily. But thats expensive. I hope you know that. Its very expensive. So, the only way you can actually fund israels defenses to safeguard the Jewish Future is to have a very vibrant economy. The only way youre going to have a very vibrant economy is to make sure its a free market economy. That is something that ive devoted a good part of my life to do and i think that were successful in doing that because in israel, what is happening now is that we are harnessing is power of innovation to free markets. If you have technological brilliance, but no free markets, its not going to go anywhere. The former soviet union had incredible physicists and mathematicians but they were utterly useless. If you put them on a plane and took them to palo alto, they were producing value in three weeks. Israel had incredible technologists, incredible scientists. Incredible. But we had to liberate our markets, which is a process i had something to do and as a result, israel is becoming i would say the preeminent or one of the two Great Centers of innovation in the world. And as a result, the our ability to make alliances is shifting. We are now in a extraordinary relationship with two small countries in asia. India and china. And japan. Together, we account for roughly 2. 5 billion people in the world. Now, theyre all coming to this new israel, you ask where is israel going. In the century of conceptual products and knowledge, the ones who will prosper are those who can innovate faster. Israel is a speech innovator. We dont have that large a number of innovators, but we have a very, very large number of very fast innovators and our culture promotes that. So, i think israel is moving into a leadership position. Ill give you a number to illustrate this because i think its important i take this away from general concepts and make it concrete. In 2014, as a result of a deliberate policy that my government is leading, israel had 10 of the Global Investments in cybersecurity. Thats 100 times our size. In 2015, we tracked that number. We received double that amount. We received 20 . Of the Global Investment in cybersecurity. In cyber, were punching 200 times above our weight. This is an indication of how you can increase your capacities and how you can harness your innate ingenuity, both for National Power and international connections. I read a book by a wonderful writer named will durante. Well, he wrote some 12 volumes on history. And towards the end of his life, i think in the late 60s, he wrote a small book. Its 100 pages long. And its called, the lessons of history. Well worth reading. I suggest aei reprint it. Its tremendous. Every sentence is potent and pregnant with meaning and insight. I want to give you the good news and bad news. The bad news, if i have to, if i can use the word crystallize, what durante is saying, he says that in history, numbers count. That is, big nations overcome smaller nations because you know, they have bigger gdp, so they can have a bigger military and so on and so on. And then i think on page 19 or so, he says, there are exceptions sometimes, where nations can harnness the cultural force. And he says the young state of israel may be an example of such an exception. Well, half a century later, i think we proved the point. So where do we go . We maintain the defenses of the jewish state. We develop its economy. We allow our ingenuity to flourish. We become a technological powerhouse and we hope na that the great battle between modernity and evilism, that if thats the case, we all win. [ applause ] there is a battle, though, going on in your part of the world. And if you talk about democracy being the idea that made israel strong and the markets and capitalism being the idea that will propel israel into the 21st century and beyond, there are other ideas at play and a lot of people who suggest that throughout the region and are tyrranizing many of the people in the middle east, that are founded on an idea and that as many drone strikes or air strikes or even ground wars that happen, without having an idea to substitute their, you cannot win. As the leader of the only truly democratic market economy in the middle east, what is the idea that is going to beets this . Is it democracy . It certainly created freedom. I think theres a process in which the arab world and parts of the islamic world move towards the idea of greater freedom. Its not automatic. But its certainly a good contrast to the kind of tyranny theyre experiencing now. And the brunt of the savagery is inflicted on muslims right now. Millions have been displaced and hundreds of thousands butchered, so they have a good idea of what they dont want. I actually think that sometimes, in these kinds of battles, its first of all important to win physically. Win. Fight. I mean, combatting you had denounceification after you won. You have to win. Its very important not to allow these beasts the freedom to prowl. Because what theyre doing is theyre emptying parts of the middle east you have these two human streams fleeing the ministry. I spoke to david cameron, Prime Minister of britain and to Angela Merkel in the last few weeks and i said, i dont want to talk about isis. Thats politically loaded. You can ask me privately later. But i wanted to speak about boko haram. I wanted to speak about al shabab. You know, there must be at least 12, probably closer to 20 leaders of african nations who came to israel just as asia is coming to israel. And they only want three things from us. Israeli technology. Izzy Israeli Technology and Israeli Technology. The african states come and say we want israel the technology and agriculture and health care and irrigation, whatever. And they all come down to one word. So, i suggested to some of the european countries, a simple partnership. Consortiums to deal with individual countries, help them with their security. The islamist movements in africa. They could be defeated today, they can be defeated. Be a lot harder tomorrow and my point is, in addition to the battle of ideas, theres the battle. You have to win the battle. And the earlier you win it, the cheaper it will be. The longer you wait, these forces will dissipate because there is no hope, there is no future for a world of darkness. It may take decades. It may take half a century. Naziism was defeated but it claimed the lives of tens and millions of people and a third of my people. I think defeating them early is important. Well defeat them in the battle of ideas but lets defeat them on the ground as well. [ applause ] i hope you wont mind if i press you on this question because there are plenty of voices, i would say growing in volume, both in the United States and i think even in israel who suggest that we are better off with the saddams and the assads in place to tamp down on the islamists who rise up and that secular dictatorship is really the solution we should look for for the rest of the middle east. Others say that democracy is only Fertile Ground for islamists to rise up. Where do you come down on that . Well, i went to serve in the United Nations 100 years ago as israels ambassador and there was a woman there. Her name was jean kirkpatrick. [ applause ] and i had read an article that she had written called dick tart for ships dictatorships and double standards. She said we are committed to the larger battle of soviet total tearism and for the larger goal to make arrangements with secular dictatorships. Thats basically what she said. Now, mind you, saddam was horrible. Horrible. Brutal killer. So was gadhafi. Theres no question about that. I had my own dealings with each of them. But i do want to say that they were, in many ways, neighborhood bullies. That is, they tormented their immediate environment but they were not wedded to a larger goal. The militant islamists are iran leading the militant shiites, hezbollah and Islamic Jihad or hamas and even though hamas is a sunni. Or the militant sunnis led by daesh. They have a larger goal in mind. There goal is not to merely conquer the middle east. Its the conquest of the world. Its unbelievable. People dont believe that. They dont believe its possible to have this quest for a caliphate in the 21st century but that is exactly what is guiding them and against this larger threat that would present two islamic states, each one of them seeking to arm themselves with weapons of mass death, chemical weapons in the case of isis, Nuclear Weapons in the case of iran. That pose as formidable threat to our world. Therefore, if i have to categorize those threats, i would say that these are the larger threats and it doesnt mean that you have to form alliances with secular dictatorships, it means you have to categorize what is the larger threat and that is something that i think is required from all of us. Political leaderships involves choosing between bad and worse. I seldom have had a choice between bad and good. I welcome it when it happens but these are by far the easiest choices its choosing between bad and worse that define as good part of leadership. And i think i know how to choose that. [ applause ] lets talk about syria for a moment and then i want to talk about iran. Syria is spiralling out of control. The situation seems to be going from bad to worse. When you think about this, how do you see the implications for israel . How do you see this affecting israel . How do you see solutions that israel can effect . I have this weakness. Ive done a lot of Economic Reforms in israel. I think about 50. A lot. You can ask me later about them. Im not taking this hint enough. Well, they want to have dinner. But i want to tell you about that. So these Economic Reforms, the most difficult problem, contrary to what people think, is actual conceptual. Its getting the concept right, getting the idea right, especially if you can borrow it from others and see where it worked. And then you just have to fit it to your own country. And then you have the battle with all of the vested interests and so on but i find that particularly boring. Its the first part, deciding what is the right thing to do that always takes the largest effort and also the greatest intellectual investment. And its pretty easy to do in economics. Its pretty easy to do in education. Its pretty easy to do in other things. If i see a situation where i dont have a clear concept, i dont charge it. In syria, i do not see a simple concept because you choose between a horrible secular dictatorship or two other prospects or that would be by iran and youd have iran run syria, a horrible prospect for us, or daesh, which is also touching our borders. When two of your enemies are fighting each other, i dont see strength in one or the other. I say weaken both or at least dont intervene, which is what i have done, not intervened. I have acted several years ago and i think i was the first count to do that, to put a Military Hospital ten yards away from the border with syria and weve taken in thousands of syrians, children, women, men, amputated, horrible conditions, given them treatment in israeli hospitals. We never showed their picture because if their photograph was seen and they were then rehabilitated and they go back to their villages or towns, they would be executed on the spot. But other than that, i have left the internal badland in syria untouched because im not sure what to choose and you have to openly admit it. But heres what i do define in syria. I dont want syria to be used as a launching ground for attacks against us. And i have said this to Vladimir Putin when i flew to moscow to see him. I told him, heres what we do in syria. We will not allow iran to set up a second front in the golan and we will act forcefully and have acted forcefully to prevent that. We will not allow the use of syrian territory from which wed be attacked by the syrian army or anyone else and we have acted forcefully against that. And third, we will not allow the use of syrian territory for the transfer of gamechanging weapons in to lebanon, into hezbollahs hands. And we have acted forcefully on that. I made it clear that we will continue to act that way. I explained that to putin. I said, whatever your goals are in syria, these are our goals and well continue to act that way. And i think that message was received. Now, there is talk now of an arrangement in syria. And i spoke about it today in a very good conversation i had with president obama. And i said that any arrangement that is struck in syria, if one is achievable im not sure. Im not sure Humpty Dumpty can be put together again. Im not sure syria as a state can be reconstituted but whatever arrangements are made in syria, that do not irans aggression to us directly, that doesnt oblige us. We have very clear policy demands in syria. We keep them and well continue to keep them. Firgs and foremost and on that well continue to act forcefully. [ applause ] i know you want to talk about the economy but let me ask you quickly about iran. Otherwise, the audience wont forgive me. The iranians are certainly embroiled in syria but these have been pretty good times for them, actually. We see them interfering in yemen without too much push back in bahrain. In lebanon, of course, they are still active in the west bank and gaza. They are everywhere without very substantial push back. Do you see iran as being constrained or in some way moderating its actions because of the joint comprehensive plan of action, better known as the iran deal . How do you see irans ambitions playing out . Its no secret we had a disagreement, president obama and myself on the nuclear issue. That deal was signed. I think right now we have to concentrate on three things. The first is to prevent iran from violating the deal. I was concerned with two things about the deal. One, that iran violates the deal. The other that iran keeps the deal and within 15 years they have a clear path to producing the enriched uranium for a Massive Nuclear arsenal. I thought and im still concerned with that aspect of it but right now we are in agreement that we want to keep irans feet to the fire. We want to make sure they dont violate the deal. And the president and i spoke about that today at some length. So well cooperate, first of all, to make sure that iran doesnt cheat and, believe me, he has a proclivity for cheating. Thats the first thing. The second thing is, we have a vested interest and by we i mean the United States and israel, not only israel, to prevent irans conventional aggression. Remember, iran is not only arming hezbollah, as ive described, trying to build a second front in the golan. Supplying hamas and gaza and Islamic Jihad with the technology of attack drones, acting in yemen, trying to undermine jordan. You name it. Also building an arms industry 50,000 man strong that produces submarines, satellites, precision rocketry and many and iran could pursue this aggression if its not met with force. So i think the second thing, other than keeping their feet to the fire, is supporting your allies and the most important ally and the most important countervailing force is the state of israel. Support israel. If i can be subtle enough. And the president and i have discussed today a memorandum of understanding for American Military support for israel for the next ten years. Imagine the middle east without israel. I have to be diplomatic. Now imagine a middle east with three israels. One in afghanistan, one in libya, one near yemen. Its a far different situation. The support for israel that im talking about is the United States supports israel to the tune of 3 billion. Okay . You spent on the wars in afghanistan and iraq a trillion and a half. So thats 5 centuries worth of support for israel. I think secretary carter said its something that we deeply appreciate but its also a very solid investment in American Security as well. Were an ally that doesnt ask for any american troops. We never have and we dont intend to. We can defend ourselves. We just want to have the tools. So i think the second thing in finding iran is giving israel the tools to defend itself and deter iran. Theres a third item that i think is essential. Iran is not merely practicing aggression in the middle east. Iran is building a Terror Network in both hemispheres, adding the new terror cell roughly every four weeks. When i say both hemispheres, that obviously includes the west hemisphere, this hemisphere. I think the Terror Network that is growing rapidly should be torn apart. So three things. Keep their feet to the fire, support your allies, this ally first. And third, bring down that Terror Network. I think thats what i can say about iran. It will be left to history to see if iran will modernize and reform under this click. I have my doubts. I hope im wrong. I suspect ill be proved right. But ill be delighted if the google hits take over iran. That has not yet happened. I think well all be delighted. Normally i would cut things off because were about to run out of time but i want to press you on an issue that i know youre very reluctant to talk about and that is israels economy. I love that one. You said ask me about israels economy. You tell us. What do you want people to know . What do you want people to take away . I think the supremesy of free markets is not selfevident. I think it has to be explained. I think the task of leaders is to get things conceptually right. But the second is to communicate it effectively. When i became finance minister in the midst of a crisis in 2003, we were in a horrible crisis. Our economy was shinking, gdp was shrinking, terrible unemployment. Most people thought it was because of the or the collapse, the nasdaq bubble bursting and so on. That had an effect on us. I thought that certainly contributed to it, but i didnt think that was the major problem and so, i had about three weeks to come wup an economic plan. That ultimately made many, many changes in israel. But i thought no less intensely about how do i communicate this to a country that doesnt have lemonade stands when youre a kid . You have little cards. That when i was a child and you could see this was a nick fighter and a mistier area fighter. Thats what we traded as cards. Didnt have lemonade stands. We had a fairly semisocialist economy, so, how do i explain the idea of free markets in their centrality in todays world . And so, three weeks later, im at a press conference and i said i want to fall back on my first day in basic training in the israeli parra troops. The commander put us in a Straight Line and he said youre not going to take, youre not going take a race. But its a special kind of race. Each man look to his right. You are the first man he pointed to me, put the guy to your right on your shoulders. And the next guy did that. And the guy after him did that. And i got pretty big guy. Was heavy. The next guy, was the smallest guy in the platoon and he got the biggest guy on his shoulders. And the third guy was a big guy and he got a small guy and so on. And then commander blew the whistle. I barely managed to move forward. The next guy, the guy next to me, the small guy with a big guy on his shoulders collapsed. And the third guy took off like a rocket, you know, and won the race. I said in the modern economies, all National Economies are pairs of a Public Sector, sitting on the shoulders of a private sector. In our case, the Public Sector became too big, too fat and were about to collapse. So, we have to put the fat man on a diet. And we have to strengthen the guy at the bottom. Give him a lot of only in his longs, lowering tax rates, and third, we have to remove the obstacles, the barriers to the race. Barriers to competition. By the way, this became known as the fat man thin man. Thing and taxi drivers could repeat it. But effectively, we ended up doing that. We constrained the growth of public spending, lowered tax rates. I had a big argument about that. They said whos this guy loafer, i said, no, his name is laugher. Laugher. We actually tried it and it works. Worked for us. Big time. And we instituted a lot of reforms. I mean, even earlier as Prime Minister in my first term, i removed you know, all constraints on Foreign Currency Exchange and that was supposed to collapse our economy. Of course, everybody was warning me that a mountain of mown would move into the country. You know, and so, we did all these reforms. And the consequence of that was that we grew at 5 a year for a decade. Exception of 2008. We still grew. But we grew at 5 a . Per decade. And we have now overcome past many leading economies in the world. And if we continue to adhere to free market principles, and encourage innovation and open new markets with ease, new product, new markets, deregulation. And infrastructure. Which were investing in mightily. Then i think israel has a brilliant economic future. The thing that i have to tell you that is that although our gdp per capita is rising rapidly, we have a small gdp. We have 8 Million People. We can be number one in cyber. We are. We can be number one in many other things. But were small. And therefore, we have to compensate with other means. Among others, the American Military assistance, which is invaluable. But i think, but i think that the race that i described, the thin man fat man race is is ongoing. You always have to improve the performance of your economy. You have to make sure the government does not interfere with ingenuity, but actually promotes it. The thing that i have to tell you, though, is that although our gdp per capita is rising rapidly, we have a small gdp. We have 8 Million People. We can be number one in cyber. We are. We can be number one in many other things, but were small and therefore we have to compensate that with other means. Among others the American Military assistance, which is invaluable, but i think that the race that i described, the thin man fat man race, is always ongoing. You always have to improve the performance of your economy. You have to make sure that government does not interfere with ingenuity, but promotes it and you can never rest on your laurels. You should always hone your competitive edge. This is not something that consultants tell you. Its some things that leaders Israeli Palestinian conflict. The core of the conflicts in the middle east is the battle between modernity and early primitive medievalism. Thats the core of the conflicts. The core [ applause ] of the specific conflict between israel and the palestinians is the persistent palestinian refusal to recognize a jewish state in any boundary. This is why this conflict persisted for 50 years before there was a state, before there were territories, before there were settlements. If that were the core of the conflict, the settlements, why did it take place in 1920 . Jews were murdered for what. That continued 1921, 1929, 1936, 1939, 1948. What was that all about . 1969 1967. For nearly half a century we were being attacked because there was a persistent refusal to accept us in any boundary. Well, we got into these territories as a result of the conflict, and what our propganda has done because we left gaza completely, every last centimeter, and theyre still firing rockets at us from gaza. When you ask them why are you doing this, is to it liberate the west bank, and they say, yeah, sure, that too, but no it is too liberate palestine. So now i turn to the other guys to the palestinian authority, not to hamas. At least they dont practice violence, which is important. And i say, well, what about you . Are you willing to recognize the jewish state . Are you willing to recognize the fact youll have a nation state for the Palestinian People . How about a nation state for the jewish people . After all, weve been there for almost 4,000 years and we recognize there are two peoples there. Were willing to make the deal. Are you willing to make the deal . Are you willing to recognize the jewish state . Because theres no point in making another palestinian state, another arab state, that will continue the battle from improved lines against the jewish state. Are you willing to end the conflict . Give up the claim of the socalled right of return. Make peace. You know what happens when you ask them that . They move. They say, oh, were willing to recognize israel. I didnt ask israel. I said are you willing to terminate all claims to the jewish state. You wont flood us with refugees. Are you willing to do that . And the answer is theyre not. We will have peace when the palestinians will accord us what they ask us to accord them. Were willing let them have a state of their own. They have to reconcile themselves to the fact that we have a state of our own and its here to stay. That is the core of the problem. In the middle east, modernity against medieval, israel against the palestinians, the persistent refusal to recognize the jewish state in any boundary. I hope that changes, but i have my mind on making sure that until it changes that, yes, we work out the economies to great at least an economic vested hope in the future. If the palestinians follow the prescriptions ive given here for market development, theyll be better off economically and well move two steps closer to peace too. Thank you very much. Thank you. [ applause ] [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the formal part of our program, and we move on now to a delicious dinner and dancing and a safe drive home. God bless america. God bless israel. And god bless all of you. [ applause ] on the next washington journal, melissa yag wert Sunlight Foundation looks at a recent report detailing the growth of Online Campaign ads, online political spending is hard to track. Then Charlie Savage discusses president obamas executive action to close good juan tan moan bay. After that, bob wise of the alliance for excellent education, examines a new report showing a decrease in High School Dropout rates. Plus, your phone calls, Facebook Comments and tweets. Washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. The Florida Republican party is hosting the Sunshine Summit, a gathering of president ial candidates in orlando. On saturday, well hear from bobby jindal, chris christie, rick santorum, rand paul, rick kasich and Carly Fiorina live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Saturday, democratic president ial candidates martin omalley, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders taking part in a debate from Drake University in iowa live at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan radio. And on sunday, well show the debate in its entirety at 4 00 p. M. And 9 00 p. M. Eastern over on cspan. Having business before the honorable Supreme Court of the United States thooz give their attention. Americans, tonight our country faces a grave danger. We are faced by the possibility that at midnight tonight the Steel Industry will be shut down. Therefore, im taking two actions tonight. First, im directing the secretary of commerce to take possession of the steel mills and to keep them operating. In 1952, the United States was involved in a military conflict with north korea and at home a dispute between the Steel Industry and the union had come to a head. The korean war was a hot war. And they needed steel for munitions, tanks, for jeeps, for all of those things that you needed in the Second World War as well. So if the Steel Industry went on an industry wide strike that, was going to be a real problem. Its basic to the things that an army and navy need and air force needs to fight a war. To avoid interruption of Steel Production crucial to the military, harry truman seized control of the mills. And as a result, a pending strike was called off and Steel Production continued. However, the Steel Companies led by the youngstown sheet and tube company in ohio disagreed with the action and took the lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court. Well examine how the court ruled in the case of yungz youngstown sheet and tube Company Versus sawyer, the impact on the Steel Industry and the person from the North Carolina law school and william howl, Political Science professor at the university of chicago and author of the wartime president. Power without persuasion and coauthor of while dangers gather. Congressional checks on president ial war powers. Thats coming up on the next landmark cases. Live monday at 9 00 pm eastern on cspan. Cspan3 and cspan radio. For background on each case while you watch, order your copy of the landmark cases companion book. Its available for 8. 95 there are plus shipping at cspan. Org slash landmark cases. A signature feature of cspan2s book tv is our coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country. With Nonfiction Author talks, interviews, and viewer call in segments. Coming up, book tv will be live from the 32 nld annual miami book fair. The coverage starts on saturday, november 21st at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Authors include representative john lewis discusses i had book, march, book two. Peg pegy noonan who talks about her book, the time of our lives. Judith miller joins us to discuss the story, a reporters journey. And ted koppel on lights out surviving the aftermath. On sunday, speak with the authors live. First, p. J. Orourke takes your calls. Then msnbc joy ann reid will take questions about barack obama, the clintons and the racial divide. Join us live from miami on cspan2s book tv starting november 21st. Be sure to follow and tweet us questions on twitter. Next a discussion about the upcoming 2016 president ial elections and what american muslims can do to get involved in public policy. This was held by the Muslim Public Affairs council and the new america foundation. Its an hour and a half. There is no introduction for me. I was told i could introduce myself which was an honor. And dangerous proposition. I want to thank everyone for coming and thank you, america, to work at new america and not in this building. After i left, they moved to nicer headquarters which is not in any way a reflection of my contribution to america. Im a life long lakers fan and they have flown me to los angeles on several occasions. That means a lot to mechlt los angeles is my mecca. So, you know, were here to discuss the domestic and Foreign Policy agenda of the american Muslim Community. We are here to discuss the domestic and Foreign Policy of the community and we are the only demographic that has been excluded by high office by a leading president ial candidate and we are one of the only demographics whose shorthand is a name for terrorist, and that despite the fact that we are late into the second term of the i was hoping i was the first person to make the president joke, and i dont know, i just got here, but hopefully. I am. Finally, muslims in the lead. This panel is different than the previous ones, and this one is open to media. If you are muslim, you know what its like to be recorded so behave normally like you would anyway, and there is media here and i was told to let you know media in the back is open and eager to speak to people after the panel if there is anything you would like to contribute or add or provide to the conversation. I will introduce each of the four amazing panelists and each of them will have five minutes to make an opening presentation and the whole point is for you to ask questions, this is a panel whose whole purpose is to get us talking about our domestic and Foreign Policy agenda in our communities and talk about where we are going to be in the terms of the upcoming election, 2016 election, how we are going to do something about it, and ask your questions and debate and see this as an opportunity to think through out loud with the smart people in this room what we can do and should do and shouldnt do. Beginning and starting on my left, alex cole, brings more than a decade of experience. I am just going to give a brief biobecause i know we are running late, and my apologies. I am a representative of the muslim empire. And our next panelists oh, here, my apologies. Ajdurrani, empowering and motivating grass root entities, established to improve and increase political awareness, especially the muslim, arab and south asian populations. Finally, an international treasurer, and she is the associate and counselor to the United States senator, spencer abraham. Please give them a round, our amazing panel. We will start with alex who has a presentation and then we will move on from there, thank you. I promise its a short presentation. There are three slides. I actually spoke at this forum last year, and was there anybody in the audience who was here for that . Oh, good. I was worried it was going to be three quarters of the room. I brought different material this time from a really Extensive Research project that i did about a year or two ago on how to improve perceptions of american muslims, so as we are talking about elections, as we are talking about policy reforms one very important thing to keep in mind, policy is born of perceptions of people. If fundamentally a group of people is viewed positively, the policies that are created that impact that group of people are going to be much more sympathetic to its interests, think of groups of people that are revered in American Society and the policy outcomes that those groups experience are much better than those when the group is fundamentally viewed more negative tea, and this is not news to anybody in this room, american muslims are viewed very negatively, and we did a thermometer poll listing off a dozen different groups of people in america and asking people how do you feel towards these different groups of people, and unfortunately, american muslims ranks last under every other religion in america and other groups that are sometimes viewed negatively like latinos and gays and lesbians. So what do we do about it . First we have to get real about understanding what is the problem. What does the audience thing . What do americans think and policymakers think that drive those negative stereotypes and perceptions . Second, we have to test different messages that will address those negative perceptions. First, going to what is the problem . This is one of the problems. Twothirds of broadcast news media in America Associates muslims and islam with extremism and terrorism. Yes, im in a pylon with ben carson and marco rubio and donald trump and criticize the media and say its their fault for everything. In this situation, what is so damaging about such negative media coverage, most americans dont know a muslim, and in the absence of personal experience, media fills that void so stereotypes portrayed by the media and hollywood are what people walk away with. So what do we do about it . First, to address terrorism, and i want to preempt this, the question has come up many times before in forums like this, well, should we even respond when the community is unfairly accused of being involved in terrorism . And my emphatic response is we have to, and the audience already believes that so if we ignore it they will continue to believe it, and that may not be fair, but if we want to change the audiences mind, thats what we have to do. I am jumping to the answers we tested a whole bunch of different answers to make them feel different, and there was two messages we found most effective when you are trying to do that. Both of them work because both of them focus on security. Too often the message that people will use is we need to its the kumbaya message, and we need to embrace everybody in america and preserve Civil Liberties and thats why we cant have over aggressive surveillance policies that target one community of people, and that falls flat because it doesnt address the audiences realistic concern about terrorism and their own safety. So were in a better place when we use messages like this. The first one here, we are stronger and safer together in a face of a threat when we stick together, and the job for americans now is to remain united and that means not targeting innocent americans because they are muslim what that is doing is saying we should not single out a single group in American Society because that makes us less safe, we are stronger together. See how different that is than we shouldnt just single out a group in American Society because thats the constitution, and in this context, they are not thinking about the constitution but safety and thats where we need to meet them. And another one that is effective is offering an alternative solution to surveilling one community or tactics that you might use against an entire community of people, and we should target terrorism on evidence and not based on their religion. Why does that work . Its intuitive and makes sense. Should we have a scatter shot approach and survey millions of people or go after those who the evidence tells us are probably guilty . That makes more sense, and it makes more sense in terms of thats a more affective way to get to the security outcome that we want. So when engaging in this conversation, when its necessary, those are two messages that are highly affective to use. So last point thats how we counter the negative. You also counter the negative by promoting the positive. Fundamentally, what is the best way to tell the american muslim story that will fundamentally make people feel better about the entire community . We in a series of more than a dozen focus groups around the country tested this question, gave participants a whole bunch of different stories about american muslims and then isolated the elements of those stories that seem to ingender the most positive feelings and we found the most effective ones are stories where you talk about a persons heritage, the contribution that they are making to society, and where you invoke a shared value, and when you skip any of those things, the story and total is not as effective. I will dwell on the first one. So when you are doing focus groups with people on a topic like immigration and how people feel towards latinos, which are a central character in the debate over immigration policy, everybody has a story or at least a stereotype in their head about why latinos come to america, and its to make a better life for their family and its the american immigrant journey golden dream story and its actually very positive and one of the most effective messages that the Immigration Reform community has. The challenge here, when we in focus groups showed people pictures of muslims and said why did this person come to america, they were like, i have no idea. When we press them, they are like, i dont know if they came to make a better life for their family or if they came here to carry out a terrorists act. In a situation where you dont have some kind of personal experience, you fill it what whatever the media is saying, so if they are telling you stories of muslim equals extremists, thats how the story gets populated. And if you say this person came to america because they were making a better life for their family, or, shocker, they were born in america, they were born in columbus, ohio, that really rocks people in the head, that challenges that populates that little blank slate with something positive. Thats an essential part of the story and if you can incorporate a contribution that person is making to society, are they a doctor, thats helpful, and then finally invoking some shared value, the other undercurrent that i did not talk too much about are concerns that american muslims are culturally are an other, so muslims evoking American Values, they also believe them, and it helps people understand this is a community of people that i fundamentally share the same values with, so theres a whirlwind tour of a couple thoughts on how to fundamentally improve the way people perceive american muslims which will help to pave the way for the kinds of electric electoral outcomes. Thank you. Its good to speak to you. In the name of god, the merciful, the mercy giving. Thank you so much back for this opportunity. Actually, i want to do i have so many thoughts and ideas inspired by the greatest speakers. This is the topic given to me, what does effective Muslim Americans look like . I chose three different examples, and one is 1990s, one in 2005, and one in 2015. So how many of you know that muslims are the core of that campaign . You have heard it anywhere . Well, i forgive those who are not born yet in 1995 or something. So this was the shape. Well, going back a little bit, the campaign was funded by mosque, and that lady sitting over there with the islamic foundation, they brought the mosque of chicago together, and it was 50,000 for this campaign, and we started the bosnia task force which was based in sound vision, and we aligned ourself with a National Organization of women now, and we have demonstrations in 100 cities, and we lobbied in congress, and it went to the house and the United Nations, and first time in human history, not in Geneva Convention one or two, its the first time in history when rain should be a war crime, and it went on, and total cost, 50,000. Second, ill take you to illinois became the first state required by law of the state to cover all young people under 18 with health coverage, and that campaign was brought and worked with united power, and thanks to the interfaith interaction, the muslims were the core group, and there were labor unions, and united power, it went to the assembly, and then the governor signed that and then the program was there, and total cost of doing that, 10,000. Emphasis, mosques thinking together, and working in alignment with other groups. I will give you one more example, which is current of this year, and i work on different causes and i have not found a cause more difficult to work on than this, and again, it was the mosques that came forward who asked for something to be done on this particular issue. Well, i wish i could incorporate a little more. Anyway, if it can come through, thats great, otherwise i will continue without that. Again, it was the Chicago Community that got together, and provided initial funding and we thought since its not done on tv how do we handle that . One of the things we did is we went and brought we had a conference at Harvard University and yale, and then there was a conference sponsored by the bosnia task force, and then there, seven noble peace back laureates helped. More and more mosques and more and more cities are open towards engagement once they understand what you are doing and what your agenda is, and its not broad or vague, and they can figure out in a tenminute board meeting, and if they understand that they will move forward with it. So if elections are coming we need to think of mosques in america more like black churches, what would it be like without black churches . Many of the black churches file the certification just to maintain their independence, but given 80 of all activities can be done with 501c3. I understand not all mosques are the same, but this is a major unit of activism, and thats where all the papers are districted and thats where a Community Comes to know what are the current issues, and these bills dont come one year, and they continuously come in the parliament of the worlds regions, and i he said thank you. Each of these have continued year after year after year. And islam phobia is hitting the mosques, and how we can translate that into activism in the future, and this is the islam now, and so theyre sick and tired of it, and they are looking for people, honest voices who look at hate as one secretary, and more and more people are doing, and i have 100 imams that signed a statement on that. These are serious concerns, there are thinking what they can do looking for resources. So those concerned about future engagement, i think if you understand the mosque vocabulary, and talk about what the phobia is doing to mosques, and translate that as being directly connected to radicalization, so if america understands the vocabulary, and if we can connect that, there will be a greater opportunity for organizations and entities to have a more successful program. Thank you. Thank you. Aj durrani. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The topic i am going to be talking about is best practiced on strategizing priorities and agenda moving forward with the 2016 elections and its really appropriate because the organization that i belong to is really involved in engagement and participation. The survey that was done a few years ago identified muslims and in general asians as being in the United States among the most affluent and educated communities, yet one thing that distinguishes them from other similar communities is their apathy towards political involvement and thats not just voting but engagement and participation and thats basically what im going to be talking about. You talked about islam phobia, and a week ago today, there was an election in houston, and there was a muslim, a sal taeugs and also the president of the Islamic Society running for the second highest position after the mayor, and unfortunately he was not successful and lost by a narrow margin, and nobody identified him as a muslim and said if you elect him, sharia is going to be the law or running our budget because obviously sharia can do everything in our part of the United States, and the reason is engagement. The muslims of houston at least are no longer identified as terrorists, and they may bg the doctor next door or the professor at the university or the job lady who is at the election booth who asked you, can i see your papers, please. Thats my story that i will go forward with. I have a bunch of graphics and i will go fast because i have a short period. What is our strategy . Educating the community. If you just tell people go to vote, nobody does, but when you engage the community, inform them and educate them about the importance of engagement in the american political spectrum, they coupling out to vote. We provide a whole bunch of workshops and i will go over that in more detail, and what you are trying to do is to engage them and persuade them rather than just asking them to become a voter. The other thing i want to talk about is the agenda for 2016, which is strategies, and i will show you on the map, muslims are scattered throughout the United States but we are also concentrated in some areas, very strategically, in those swing states that can be the difference in the upcoming election. So what is this, its a nonprofit organization, and we have introduced what it stands for, but it has a 501 advocacy. Its not a new organization, and part of it is 10yearsold and we have officers in several cities, several of the critical states, and officers in florida and an office in houston and new york and philadelphia and an office in michigan, and we shall hopefully have an office in ohio and columbus in 2016 as well as california and new jersey. Emerging waters, which is educating waters getting them to understand why its important to be involved in the american political spectrum, and the participation is involving and engaging in the Major Political parties, and its really difficult to say that you are part of the spectrum, and you have over 200 young people who have graduated from our program and when you look at the Muslim Community, its more like a red bar bell. The guys standing in front here right now and the younger people, and yet for the younger people, through the basic social media, they are getting information, but for the majority of the other folks, the american regular process of engagement does not work with them, mail ads or television, you have to contact them and approach them in the way they understand, and thats where we have the emerging data program for them. So what is our strategy . The 501c3 engages in education, and we have young people informed about the politics, and then in houston, we buy radio time, one hour on several radio stations, and theres chinese radio stations, and bangladesh radio stations, and then the community understands the election and will come out to vote in larger numbers. And also we take our newspaper ads in the newspapers. We also get involved in leadership in the political structure, which is how do you get with the republican and democratic parties so they understand the communities have a say, and are the challenges, apathy, and funding. You need to hire staffers to get the work done. And we just cannot get excited four years from when the president ial election occurs, and oh, yeah, this is the time we need to work, but we need to work every year. The advocacy part is to promote those areas we are interested in, like mobilization and legislation in florida, it comes up every year and every year because of the collaboration with the Political Parties over there, we are able to get it down. Support mainstream legislation, and muslims cannot be identified only as a single factor community, surveillance, terrorism, we need to say, yes, we are part of education and part of health care and so on, and we do polling to identify in the Muslim Community what are the important areas we are wanting to focus on. For the political action, all parties are local. We gather money and give it to candidates who are likeminded and we participate heavily in local races. Pictures of our involvement. Who governs us . You always think of the president ial election, but, no, theres a City Government and a county and a local and district and school board, so when you look at the ballot in any major city, you are like 50 people you are going to vote for and one or two you have interests, and thats the education you give to people. The other thing is, elections not only occur in november, and there are the primaries that take place, and that voting percentage is low, 10 or less, if we can mobilize people, we have selected the candidate in november, so primaries do matter. Heres a newspaper ad we took for the elections, and we have found that when we take ads in ethnic newspapers it has a far larger impact than if we bought time on television. The last part is party organization, if you dont get involved in a party you cant get our candidate to become a viable nominee in the party, so we idea the structure of getting people elected and the structure of getting delegates. One thing i did not mention, i am what they call a comedy man for the texas Democratic Party out of about 200,000 voters within the area, so im not just a muslim candidate who happens to represent muslim voters, i represent the Democratic Party in that area. And this is a ballot, and the last election, those things that are ser kuled in red are muslim candidates running for office. We have five muslims who have been e elected to the state executive level. And then delegates out of texas alone there. Over the last three president ial cycles the muslims in the Democratic Party have had more National Delegates from texas than any other state. The road map for 2016, we need the identification of communities, and specific states, and a dialogue with National Campaigns and development of local leadership that can work within the state rather has not the Central Organization telling them what to do. Our demographics is focused on where muslims are in Critical Mass and we are looking to acquire a list of non muslims who are nonmuslims, who are citizens but not registered to vote yet, and then boots on the ground, you have 20 hire people, you cant have everybody do it on a volunteer basis like i do. This is a map of what the president ial election looks like. The democrats have 237 electric trul votes, and then the republicans 206. And texas is a large red state for the republicans, but there are other states like florida and others that have and ohio, we have and virginia, we have muslims that can have an impact on the upcoming election. This is a map of the fourth largest county in the United States, and in there are whites, and muslims there, and look how the map changed over the last 30 years. This is what it looks like now. This is where if you focus on areas where muslim concentrations, we can have a look like in houston and thats our strategy. We have moved from voting two to one for the republicans against clinton when he won his election, to presently right now, and were 2 to 1 voting for the democrats. So the nation has turned towards democrats, and im not pushing the Democratic Party. We have offices in these states and we are looking to open in places like ohio which can have a major say as far as the next election is concerned. Thank you very much. I dont have any slides, but i do enjoy sitting on a panel with such experts where each one of us, i think, talks about a different aspect of advocacy. I think my presentation fits quite nicely into all of these comments. I would like to drill down a little bit, specifically on the 2016 elections, not just the president ial, but of course onethird of the United States senate is up for election as well as all 435 members are up for election, and all the state and local level races are also going on. What does effective advocacy look like . I would like to start by saying this, effective advocacy can be a traditional way and nontraditional ways, so first, of course, and this applies to every candidate out there, and as a community you can submit a questionnaire, and most campaigns and candidates do accept questionnaires but they dont always answer them, so impact together with other muslim organizations can lead in developing a questionnaire and submit those to the president ial candidates. The second way of effective advocacy, frankly as a Muslim American who is interested in politics, show up at a town hall meeting, and show up at one of the hundreds of events that go on every year with candidates, particularly now in this intense season of president ial races, you can personally meet, and in the president ial party one of our 14 lovely candidates, and in the Democratic Party, one of the now three candidates. Meeting that person, and i can give you hundreds of examples of that, whether its Bernie Sanders and the woman standing up recently at a forum, or, you know, the questioning of donald trump at his forum. So show up at a Town Hall Forum and ask a question that is relatable to most americans, but represent your community proudly. The third is more of a strategy thing. Be proactive rather than reactive temperature get out there and continue to educate like the panelists talked about today on a continuous basis. Dont wait for a crisis to happen, and thats very offensive to muslims in america, so try to be proactive about your agenda. Another way of affective advocacy is open letters to candidates, certainly working with the media, and working online with blogs and working with news letters and others. Open letters to a candidate. You ask a candidate questions and you expect them to answer. We do that publicly. That puts more pressure on a candidate to respond back to you. Again, these days anyone can have a place. Can you write. Can you draw. You can use any manner as a community. Do not feel like you have to be appointed spokesperson of your community. You dont have to. You have that power in your very own hands. I would encourage you to develop relationships with the media. I know we have media here in the back of the room today. I swear they are all living, breathing, thinking human beings with hearts and they will listen to your stories. Whether theyre your personal stories or concerns. They tlik engage with individuals. And the more you build up relationships with the media, starting with the locals and the state and the national level, that is extraordinarily effective for your community. I know probably in the question and answer ill hear a lot of complaints about how your voices are not heard in maybe main strooed stream, particularly on television and talking heads. The Muslim Community understands but you very rarely see an american talking about that. There needs to be more than that. You establish relationships with the media. With the people in the media who are responsible for putting people on television. Theyre called bookers. Theyre nice, young men and women who work 24 7 for very little pay. And theyre always looking for people who have expertise in different areas. I think alex, you had mentioned some of the talking points that alex presents today. Can you always read up on it. Again, something that we sneed a one page talker on a particular issue. A one page talker on current events. A one page talker on Muslim Americans and their contributions. That helps. Because that gives a more confident and organized message that when you do go out and speak and advocate and talk to your politicianors write them in the papers or blog or go online, youre all on the same page representing that issue. Another important thing, again, alex you touched on this very important for the American Latino Community to relation to the American Community at large. And what am i talking about when i say that . Much of this phobia fervor emminates because americans think muslims are the other. Very psychological thing. Im not a psychology majer and never was. I was a Political Science major. But much of this is psychology in the american psyche. So part of this is when youre talking to politicians, when youre talking to the American Public, when youre talking in the media, you have to use language that relates to them. So what do do you . You start out with the original grounding. Islam is one of the great, great religions in the world. Judaism, christiancy and islam. Youre going to bring the temperature down a little bit. You also could talk about specific ideas certainly within the faith that people have great misconception onz. Can you also talk about current events. So lets faulk abotalk about 9 . People want to talk about 9 11 where many of the islam phobia started. The 19 hijackers, none of them were american you muslims. None of them had american citizenship. And, in fact, none of them intergrated themselves nor buried themselves into the american Muslim Community y . Because had they, our community would have said what are you doing here . Where is your family from . What village do you come from . Why are you not in school . Why are you going Flight School in florida . They would have questioned them. Those 19 hijackers never were born in michigan. They were never in places in which there was a high concentration of muslimamericans. So you really need to push back on this idea that somehow american muslims were a part of 9 11. Now has radicalization increased since then in this country . Absolutely. For a variety of reasons. But thats an important thing to gain ground. Other idea is using american lexicon and american ideals. So, for example, there was an interview and sad that he doesnt believe, his personal belief is that a woman should not be elected or hold office as president of the United States. I am a republican and i made a statement. Seen i was called by the Huffington Post and npr and others to make comments about it. They reached out to me. And i said, yeah. I find it a problem. The comments that i made, well, it started with the u. S. Constitution article 6 of the u. S. Constitution says there shall be no religious prejudice. Then i went on to use examples of two american muslims in the United States congress. Both who swore and took an oath to uphold the u. S. Constitution. But wait. Im not done. He actually took an oath of office and it is owned by who . Thomas jefferson. How more american can you get than that . And so with dr. Carson again made a comment about the different pyramids, im of the egyptian heritage, i couldnt take him on on that one. I thought let him swim into the sea for that one. I think people realize. So i think what you need do when speaking to politicians and speaking up about these issues, particularly in this tike r cycle and its only going to get worse, the 2016 cycle, that you relate somehow to american ideals. One thing i probably dont have to tell you is now this is no longer a 24hour news cycle. Now its four hour news cycle. Something happens, it goes online. Youll see it maybe on the nightly news at 6 00 tore 10 00. Tomorrow morning on the front pagest post or the times or the walt journal, thats where it will be. Right now the cycle is four hours. You better get on it and you better bond to it quickly, particularly when, again, it is politicians running for office to make these types of comments. I will say please do not criticize. So please take the opportunity to also commend and thank candidates when they do stand up and support Muslim Americans. There will be no religious cap for anyone serving in the government. And so people need to reach out to Carly Fiorina and tell her thanks for. That finally ashgs little bit about beyond. I know part of this is what can you do for effective advocacy in 2015 and beyond. Lets go to the top. Whoever is elected president , this Community Must, must be sure that white house position, they deal with outreach to the arab and Muslim Community is stacked. Usually they combine arab and Muslim Americans. I can tell you in the Bush Administration, we had that person. There were certain people within the Bush Administration but it was always an arab Muslim American. I can not say for the same for this administration. With someone other than the next man or africanamerican or Jewish American or lets j go down the line. That should be something we look forward to 2016 or beyond. Whoever is president in 2016, impact can lead the way. Keep a resume bank of individuals that are highly qualified and want to serve in the u. S. Government. Im more than happy to help with you Training Session onz political appointments and how you get that, strength, power being appointed to very political positions throughout. And foonll lfinally, i would sa whoever is elected president , please try very hard to keep that person, he or she, accountable, accountable to their Campaign Promises they made and accountable on their policy aspect of issues that are important to this Community Whether they be domestic or i. . Ational. So with that, i am certainly happy with the rest of the panel to answer any questions. Thank you. [ applause ] so were going have a mike going around the room. So we really like your questions, comments and thoughts. Please just when you stand, identify yourself and were going by the jeopardy rule which is questions should in be the form of questions. So, with that, floort is opthe is open. Hi. Im a middle east policy analyst with the Friends Committee on national legislation. Thank you all very much for being on the panel and giving comments. I had a quick question and maybe ill direct this to a. J. On, you know, its really great that we live in d. C. And surrounded by, you know, politicians and were all in this space and i deal with this policy every day. But when it comes to our community where we need the grassroots power to actually get policy done, how do we deal with the general apathy that is taking place in our community that i know whether its care, i helped start a Youth Leadership in houston where im from, and its still very, very difficult for us to get people engaged and sign up for the programs. And, so you know, can you talk about putting the programs in the mosques or starting sunday School Classes or putting ads in your local newspapers, but there is still a very, very large divide in actually having people in Community Involved in this. So what are your suggestions practically speaking on apathy . Okay, ill go first. Thank you for the question. This is something i speak about when im up there. Onest reasons we try to get the Community Involved and engaged is to get them to run for Political Office at the lowest level. There are thousands in houston and about 10 of our community. Our population is less than 1 or 2 . And many times its not that difficult to get someone elected to them. Theyre in areas where there are majority of republicans. But we obviously many of us happen to be democrats. So we get democrats elected in republican areas. We then turn around and go to democratic and i can remember when they get elected. That is one way we have 300 delegates from houston to the state convention where we have 70 judge thats are muslims. Thats one area we have to focus on. Youre right, you were part of the Program Last Year and youre doing one this weekend. Its grown to 50 st number of applicants or 50 more than we had last year. There are many communities and what i have seen is that it is substantial amount of activism in the community. But there is a question. I see a good number of hyperactivity. People are doing more of what they were doing. Fear has worked substantially. And this one person who speaks up and the board is hey, this is politics, you cannot do it. The board freezes. So education is needed. A person is looking toward politics, it can be done. I would also say, you know, i have written a lot about mosques. I dont want to go through all of that. You can google me on those issues. Some mosques are better than others. Working with those mosques to open ut the rest of the mosque will be a good strategy. When the president of the mosque or board member and we do this and we do this and achieve this, their organizations will accept. I have also found that the regional organizations which are developing like in chicago and the islamic population up there in chicago. I was there for 40 years. It started without 40,000 and in a year it was a budget of 1 million. And people saw that example more and more mosques wanted to be affiliated with that. They wanted to be part of the success story. So i believe its changing