Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20150909

Governor, but we didnt have it then. But i think if you look at the way you also used digital media, the white house photographer was still taking still photos in 20012003 and we didnt change that until 2004. And i still dont understand facebook. Ronald christie on twitter. And how could we utilize this technology with the staff. And you notice president obama caries a blackberry and president bush did not. President obama uses email, president bush did not. So i think by the time you get into 2006, 2007, the white house staff was a lot more sophisticated in dealing with the emerging technology but for our cousins now in the Obama Administration, it is night and day, the Technology Capabilities that they have and the tools they have at their disposal to get their message out versus what we had. Um, mike hayden, who was one of bushs cia directors gave an interesting talk earlier today about the cross roads of of change that is going on in terms of security end of all of this. And it strikes me as i was listen to ron, that the Bush Administration was really at the cross roads of an enormous generational change in the world, not just in america. You had warfare which was essentially the business of nation states for 300 or 400 years suddenly becoming the business of individual groups who could use disruption and even al qaeda, as mike said this morning, which i thought was a terrific talk, is now sort of an institution and isis is the noninstitution. It is sort of a doomsday cult, which is effective using methods that nobody even could dream of, other than people like Charlie Manson who didnt have the reach of isis. So the Bush Administration was really, i think, at a cross roads, of a lot of things that were happening in the world, not just america and generation of young people who were looking at institutions in a completely different way. And all of government, and it happened to be bush was presiding over this which i dont think made his presidency any easier. In my view, one of the fundamental misunderstandings that we base going into iraq on is that iraq was actually a country. Well it wasnt a country. It was a creation of an agreement between european powers 100 years ago and made no sense as a country in a sense what the president did was to unroof all of that and create begin the loose forces that nobody had any idea were as powerful as they were. And the same thing is true of technology. There is this Enormous Technology revolution going on around the world and particularly led in the United States and the bush people just happened to be there at the time. So to say that the bush people really dont understand technology is not really fair. That would be kind of like saying, you know, William Shakespeare didnt understand literature 300 years later. And you just caught in a historic change that effected everything. Not Just Technology or the media, but the existence of the nation state itself began to change and the fundamental beliefs of all of the people who have had been trained in the past 40 or 50 years in the post war order became unmoored during the Bush Administration. Which had nothing to do with bush or anybody he hired. The rules were changing under their feet and there was not they could do except play catchup. In discipline, in a campaign in the white house, you cant tell 100 stories. You can tell one story. Im sure the administration this week wanted to tell atory on the nuclear iran a story on the nuclear iran negotiations and we had a massive plane crash yesterday and the bombings that started to take place last night and all of a sudden, whatever the original game plan was, you are on a different track. And the hardest part today with blackberries or phones or any of the rest of it, is you see everybody sitting here with the iphone and there is a temptation to go off and respond to that. And as a press person or political strategistic or what have you, to have the discipline to say i just got this text from julie who wants an answer on this right now and so i send a text off to answer her question and i totally moved away from my agenda to her agenda. So the way to maintain this in the future is going to be extraordinarily harder and i remember my chairman and i were doing an event in iowa where he was catching momentum there. And we did a room again when you get to iowa, all of a sudden, you start out going to pizza places and you have ten people and by the end you have every major press person in the world and have major press conferences like this. We did a press conference and had probably 150 bloggers with another 500 on the phone and we made the Mainstream Media and they couldnt ask any questions and they are behind with the cameras and i said this is the future. But controlling that message is going to be very, very hard. So i i think it just should magnify a thousand times what it used to be. It is like you walk into we used to have an office on times square and you walk in and you are bombarded by billboards and lights an the whole bit. Every one of the billboards cost 5 million, 10 million, 20 million and there are hundreds of it. And i defy anyone to walk through times square and come out with a message. And in des moines iowa, people will drive 50 miles to see the billboard. Today we live with clutter. So whether it is your network or someone elses network to find how you get your message open and have a consistency in that message is an extraordinary challenge for campaigns and the white house even more so. And let me add quickly, it has just begun. It will get much worse. The number of americans who watch the evening news on the three Major Networks is not only a fraction of what it was before, but the average age is well over 50. The average cable viewer on msnbc is 62 years old. The average age of the cable viewer on fox is 68 years old. And the reason those numbers are so high and that is because there is a bell curve and it stops at 35. Howard does msnbc. I do fox. We have more viewers. But years are going to age out faster. [ laughter ] no, the truth of the matter is that these all of this stuff, the evening news, is fast the evening news, which is still the biggest single way of getting the news out, is disappearing. So were not at the end of this transition, were in the big first quarter. And so this for this problem of controls messages is only controlling messages is only going to get more and more difficulty as the hundreds of thousands of ways of people get their news. If something is on the front pages of the New York Times or the l. A. Post, but it is still a big story. Not as big as it used to be. In 15 years, that may not be true any more. If those institutions still exist. To bring this back to the white house, one of the fascinating things to track over time is how seating in the Briefing Room has changed. The white house correspondents came out with a new seating chart. It is them who decide who sits where and not the white house. And during the Bush Administration it was what we consider old media, legacy media and newspapers that dont exist any more sitting in the Briefing Room. And this week they add the buzzfeed and yahoo. So. Wow im going to ask one over question and turn it over to the audience. And ron started out talking about the conspiracy of deputies but kind of how to communicate first internally and then externally the message. And you know, it is one of the things that i think people sometimes dont understand, is that its not as if the word manipulation has come up. You would be irresponsible as a public figure if you werent spending a lot of time trying to figure out how the message youre trying to get out. Now if you are lying or deceiving an concealing important evidence that is one thing. But trying to get your message out and one of the things that i remember discovering when i went and worked in city hall in new york back in the 80s, if you were the press secretary, you had to be in the policy meetings because, in fact, it is a good thing for the public that somebody in the meeting is asking, how are we going to feel if this decision is on the front page of the daily news. So you could talk maybe starting about the way, ron, the way p. R. People are not the s implemente of the strategy but they are guiding policy at the same time as other people are, because i think that is an important thing to it is an interesting question because one of the offices that youve probably never heard of, nor should you have heard of, is called the office of the staff secretary in the white house. And i think this office largely out of public view, largely ub known, is one of the most powerful offices in the white house because the staff secretary deals with all of the paper flow that comes to and from the president. So suppose that you want to the president , you briefed him in the oval office and he said, howard dean you course he wont say howard dean. Articulate what i want to get the tax cut through in 2001. Every head of every major White House Office will look at the governors memo and say this looks good to me or theyll say paragraph three, i dont agree with this. And before something gets to the president , every Single Department head has to sign off on that document and say the president senior staff has seen this and we have gone to the Cabinet Agency if necessary and this articulates what your policy decision is. How that relates to getting into the oval office and the way that the press apparatus and the p. R. Worked, is that the policy briefing, in my last three years, i cant think of a time in the oval office that we didnt have either Ari Fleischer or Scott Mcclennan or someone from the Communications Office sitting there and the presence was not as a policy role but if they couldnt communicate what the policy or the message was, then we were off message. And going back to eds point, it was all about discipline and making sure were on the same page. And for us to stay on the same page, that meant the communicators an the policy geeks, for lack of a better word, had to find a way to work together. And the policy people obviously are saying here is exactly what the president s policies are and the communicators want to find a sexyer way of putting it out there. Well, ron, that doesnt work in a sound bite. So we really had a strong relationship with the press folks an the communicators because if they couldnt articulate the president s policy was, it didnt matter the policy the president was trying to convey. I think it is important not to think that p. R. And agree with rons premise, the press secretary is critical and always has to be in the room and know what is happening. But Public Policy and ive been in four administrations and a few others and you dont make decisions to do good p. R. You have to sell your Public Policy decisions. But it is a very complex process. And the vast majority of president s and people in the white house and around the administrations do what they think is in the best interest of the country. Then you have to sell it. And obviously these things are difficult to sell and there is always a counter point. One of the difficulties in the administration, no matter what the press secretary wants to do, reporters can go out and do their own thing and you have a bunch of agencies that obviously today and may be more interesting to talk to the faa administrator or someone in transportation or Homeland Security on the crash in the tragic crash in the alps as it is to something else. So you are always fighting to make sure whatever your best plan is, you can go out. But i think the key thing here we have to understand and one of the things that is occurring today, that never occurred before, is isis and the rest of them understand american p. R. And they are out there every day telling their story, telling their story very effectively. Chopping off a mans head or crucifying a man or setting him on fire, my people say my god, that is outrageous. That is what terrorism is about. They are doing that to create terrorism and so all of a sudden you have a guy being beheaded on Network Television that night and whatever the message of the day is in the white house is probably diminished dramatically and they want you to respond to whatever this may be. So when i come back to the point of my discipline, maybe that is not the best thing to do or the best argument you want to make. Maybe you dont want to get off of topic. So it is hard and there is conflicts on the white house and the messaging side of it. Bush called the press the filter. And he said it like that. The filter. And he always wanted to go around the press and speak directly to the American People because he felt like the filter distorted his words and intent and put it through a siv of darkness that he didnt fell like it held up well under that scrutiny. He started and i believe president obama has perfected a system of staterun media where bush when i covered bush, we thought he was terrible. No access, no accountability, no nothing. Well compared to barack obama, bush was like the most open, giving, sharing person you could possibly imagine and his press shop was much more open, much more responsive to the needs of press than the current administration. It is naturally a relationship at odds. They want to come out and tell their good, positive, upbeat story. They have their own p. R. Operation. That is not what we want to do. They control through denial. Bush was great at taking questions on the fly. To the detriment of the control of the story of the day and the message of the day. He would just sit there until you were done and be like ha and take whatever questions you had on your mind. And in that way the administration was able to move through stories quickly. Now what you see is president Obama Holding back and we wont hear from him for months and almost like this fire hose effect of this pressure building up and when you get access to him, reporters are asking 12part question and no one can remember what question three was in the long sol illock wee and you dont get to ask him because the cycle moves on and off. And im talking about photo releases. Instead of allowing photographers into the oval office for a routine bill signing of significance or something of note which president bush did do and knew it was to his advantage to do so, now we dont have that. We dont get that. We get a photo taken by a white house photographer that is handed out. Which is really no different from them writing out a press release and handing that out and expecting that to go into the paper without any scrutiny or accountability. This president doesnt like the press. Bush didnt like what the press did but he understood and respects the role that the press played. I much much more accessible in a casual way. Like the oval office encounters. Reporters lobbying questions at him. President obama doesnt like that. He doesnt do it. Through both administrations, reporters found that the best information came out from outside of the administration so you report around it. People on the hill just love to talk. And theyll come out of a meeting in the white house and tell you everything. So those people are gold. And also, you know, in the Diplomatic Corp and sometimes in the agencies, you dont go to the briefing and get your news. That is not what white house reporting is about. So ill just share with you some of the tricks of the trade here. What we used to do when i was governor and on the campaign, is we would avoid the big papers, so when i got tired of the press corp in vermont i would go out on the road and do small paper interviews and they were thrilled and they would write it mostly the way i wanted to write it. The bigger papers wont do that. When i was on the campaign trail, in defense of the big papers, they are not going to write the same story every day. But youre going to have to give the same speech every day, five times a day, because that is what you do on campaigns, if you want to stay on message. So i give the speech for the 25th on a friday and the big paper is not going to write that. They will find something else. Delve into some lead some opposition researcher gave them or some stuff. So of course it is in my interest to limit that. And that is why you have these these kind of tactics that people use. And in defense of president obama, one of the reasons he doesnt do many bill signs is congress doesnt pass many bills. I just used that as an example. He met with Hillary Clinton and it wasnt on the week and they announced it after the lid. If you were Hillary Clinton would you want to be at that meeting. It is a news worthy event. It is fun when he does it. The next president , ted cruz, will bring it to the next level. From your lips to gods ear. May he be nominated i may become a republican just to vote for ted cruz in the primary. You heard it here first. [ laughter ] so were going to start with questions and we have a couple of people here i think with microphones. I would like to go to student questions first if we can. And once again, please do a question. Right there. Yeah. Good morning. Thank you. David strack, school of communication. This question is for mr. Christie. I was wondering, what was the message being communicated after the week of 9 11 . It was a tough day for the country. It was a tough day to be in the white house and it was a tough day to advise, for me, the Vice President of the United States. Our entire focus went from what we call domestic priorities, getting no child left behind passed, to working on a tax cut, to domestic consequences. How do we reopen new york city beneath 14th street. We grounded all civil aviation. And closed most of the maritime ports in the country. And the president , a few days later, had the National Prayer celebration. And in the days after 9 11, our focus went to prayer and remembrance for those who had lost their lives and as well as the opportunity to try to heal as a kurn. So when you look at what our message was, the president tried to reassure the country that every agency and entity was doing everything they could not to prevent an attack on the country again and we needed to move forward and we needed to heal and the terrorists would win if we succumbed and sat around and felt sorry for ourselves. So its way difficult period for us as a country and difficult in the white house but ultimately and i think julie mentioned this earlier, that you notice his Approval Ratings did go up in the 90s because at least the early messages, people felt he was doing everything he could to protect the country. Two important things that he did and i know the question wasnt aimed at me but as an observer, there was a memorial at the national cathedral. And there were a lot of stories about the president , what was going on in the white house and the president off reading to young kids and what have you. And no one was sure who would be in charge. And we had this Extraordinary Service televised and the vast majority of americans at the time were watching television and billy graham gave a history speech and the president followed him. As he was walking up, i said to myself, working for several president s, if there is ever a time you have to hit a home run, it is now and he did. And he basically got up in front of that audience, following big gray graham and he gave an extraordinary speech. And he went straight from there up to new york and you have the photograph with him down with the firefighter and him on the stage. And those two events, the visual was more powerful than the message. And the message was, were in charge, were not going theyre not going to beat us and this is time to come together. So sometime the activity someone mentioned the fly by on katrina, that was a poolish effort on the white house to show that the president was not in charge and the white house picture was not a delivered effort. But the president s activity sometimes are more powerful than anything else and i think that was the message, that he was back in charge. They werent going to let them get to us and that was the president at his finest because it was him. And he is a man of real integrity and always underestimated and rose and grew in a job in very, very difficult times. Can we do the question two rows in front can you bring the mic down. Excuse me, to the person two rows in front of the last one. Thank you. Hi. I was just this is for any of the panelists but if you could talk about the effect that new technology and modern media, the state of the modern media has had on speech writing. Is the era of a great memorable speech over and it be adapted to fit within 140 characters. I dont think it is over. Because i think there is always a role for that. There is a couple of things said up here that i think are incredibly important to remember. One is the president has a role and everybody looks to the president at a time of great crisis. And at that time, everybody is going to focus on that. And anyone who doesnt focus on that is not going to be paid attention to. If you write a blog about recipes on a day where Something Like that is going on, fine, good luck. But that is what people are focusing on. And something that ed said in passing which is important to remember for Communications Majors or for anybody, the visual is always more important than what you say. Always. And when i want to find out how effective a Television Commercial is, i turn the sound off. If i want to find out if somebody did well in a debate, i turn the sound off. It doesnt matter what you say, it is how you say it. If you look confident and look like a leaderond a president , then youve done well. And it doesnt matter unless youve said something outrageous, which some of us have done on the stage from time to time. You are not alone this howard. But those are the things you have to remember, there is always a role for a central performance at a time of crisis and that is, as ed said, when you have to hit it out of the park. And ed also said and the visual of george bush standing up there with the bull horn, he could have said im having spaghetti for dinner and as long as he looked forceful, he would still get great cred. And one thing important about speech in the future. Rond, and i traveled every day with him for six years, said to me one day, how long do you think i can hold an audience . One of the greatest speechmakers, and i said 20 minutes. No, no, ed, he said watch the audience. First of all, when a president gets up, the first five minutes is an add olation and no matter what you say, they Pay Attention to you. And he was a minor and we had 220 sprinters and he said it is like a 220. You get out fast and coast in the middle and kick it in the end. He said you can watch the audience for about 20, 23 minutes. Why are shows 23 minutes and seven minutes of commercials. And he said, my point is, you cant have the bill clinton speeches that going on for an hour and a half and keep adding points and adding points. You have to think in terms of the future, getting your message across in 20, 25 minutes and make it count and make it memorable and have some lines in there. One of the things that i started my life as a speech writer and richard nixon, a great speechmaker and had great people around him. He made them underline a line. What was the sound bite in the news that night and you had to guess that. And nine times out of ten, once you do this drill, you know where it is going to be and that is the sound bite. Because that is all a sound bite is going to be, eight, ten, 12 seconds. And now you have to put together a string of eight or ten sound bites but you have to weave it together. It is more difficult to write speeches today and they need to be uplifting than it has ever been before. Somemes, and the interesting, one of the great speech writers for reagan and bush and others, was peggy noonan. And many write for the history books. And you read the document and you say wow that is really interesting. Peggy was dan rathers writer on cbs news and she understood the spoken word. Ronald reagan being a communicator in both movies and commentary and what have you, he understand the spoken word is different from the written word. So writing for the written word which is you hear it differently than you do visually is very important in this day and age. Other questions. Down there. Thank you. Building off the previous question that was asked, i wanted the opinion of the panel on how quickly the innovation of technology will effect policy making in the future . You mean policy making directly about technology or policy making in the broadest sense . In a sense about technology as well. Technology in the hands of civilians but also from a military standpoint. Relatively speaking, policy making tends to be slower and at least speaking in terms of the Bush Administration, since then to modern day, weve seen rapid leaps and bounds in the type of technology that is available all around us, to us and to our enemies. So i was wondering how developing and managing policy making as technology advances, what are the changes that youll be seeing . In terms of the technology itself, youre seeing huge battles over things that most americans dont understand, like net neutrality. If you ask and go down the subway this afternoon and ask about net neutrality, anybody over 40 will have no idea what you are talking about, chances are. So that and those are huge battlegrounds. And i think they are not well understood by people who are making the policies because most of them are over 40. And the longterm implications i think are well understood by the people who use the net. The second piece is about security. Obviously policy will change dramatically. And again, mike hayden this morning gave a terrific talk about the balance between listening in and how many people you have to listen in on. On the old days you could listen in on a few people and find out all of the things you needed to do that were the Security Threat to the country. Today you have to listen to 300 Million People and color electronically to pick out the likely things. And you cant do it any other way, because the diffuseness because you dont have a danger state to us as much as a diffuse movement of individuals, any one in any location of the world could get a arm or weapon and harm people, you have to have a huge attachment. So i think the nature of Security Policy is going to change dramatically and is already changing dramatically ahead of time. And then finally, of course, we go back to what weve been talking about, the nature of Technology Changing changes the way in which you talk about policy and the way you talk about policy has to change probably the way you formulate policy will change and i have to do more thinking about that because that is a complex interaction. In washington, we notice that laws and regulations arent keeping up at technology. You look at the patriot act and nsa surveillance. They cant keep up with how Fast Technology grows. And members of congress are not that tech savvy. Lindsey graham said he doesnt do his own twitter feed and never sent an email. These are u. S. Senators. Not a qualify to be a twitter expert to be a senator. The only requirement is to be 30 years old and live in the country. Putting the twit in twitter. One of the things im concerned about as a communicator, i was not a great student. And i basically my daughter harasses me all of the time about that. I graduated in the upper twothirds of the class because im sure the bottom flunked. And i was a reader. And read six newspapers a day. And i knew every point of view. And i evolve from a liberal kennedy democrat to the right of most people in this room probably. But i think at the end of the day one of the things that bothers me today when it comes to the technology question, people narrow what they want to read. Their time is limited. And so you have the capacity to say im not going to read any conservative junk. Im going to read these three things every day so i know what is happening. And my sense is that is a dangerous thing longterm because it reinforces your point of view and you dont see a broader picture and there is no flexibility. And what i have said repeatedly, to my students here and to people around the country, all of the issues we deal with today as americans, whether it is congress or what have you, all of the policy issues are all very complex. There are no easy answers. If there were easy answers it would be done. Peter callico would fix education in new york city with the dedication to other things if it was easych it is not easy. He did a great job fixing the Transportation System but he doesnt want another run at it. At the end of the day. I hope you young people, when you think in terms of policy, you have to have a broader scope. And the thing that scares me the most about technology and i have my ipad and i do everything i can for an old man, as howard said he fox or appears on fox news the other 4 Million People aday howard, but that isso is okay. He has 200,000 people who watch him on msnbc and i dont care what howard says every day. So i think it is important that in and the most telling me is the statistic that 96 million jobs are going to be lost because of technology. So we have to think in terms of the policy question. Technology is great and all of the rest of it. How do we create 96 million jobs in other areas. And the society in 1900 was a blacksmith and a medical doctor graduating from harvard. The mostet cated man in america. Extremely valuable. And blacksmith was every bit as valuable. Today the difference between the most educated people in the society, which is many of you here, and those who arent educated or the gap, it is not just the economic gap, it is the ability to deal in the next new world that scares me and frightens me and we need to deal with it. Let me take a quick minute to address your question about policy making as it relates to the bush white house. Because i think 9 11 exposed for us that we werent prepared. Youll remember that when president bush had left sarasota, florida, and had flown across the country, that the technology wasnt sufficient enough for him to be able to communicate in live time with his advisers. He had spotty communication and sometimes he would get a signal and sometimes it would go out. And if you read his book decision points, the president notes that often time when they are flying across the country, they had to tune into local news stations on air force one because they didnt have the technology to communicate and to look at more secure communications. For us, with the Vice President being off and gone, we had to deal with him and to communicate with him via secure satellite feeds. Sometimes those would go out. The white house situation room had to be dramatically upgraded so the president had the ability to talk to foreign leaders in Different Countries at the same time to conduct those meetings. From a technology standpoint the Obama Administration has really benefited from the advances in technology because i can tell you on september 11th, 2001, it really showed you how inadequate the president S Communications were so that he could adequately formulate policies to work with his policy staff to try to get ahold of the situation he was dealing with. At the back of the room there. My question is directed toward ed rollins. You were saying that the message should be controlled. But over the last 50 years clearly the people dont want control. It didnt work for nixon and he had to offered to and it hasnt worked for reagan because now with the iran contra affair and it didnt work for clint when he tried to deal with Monica Lewinsky and you say you should try to work through the clutter but shouldnt you stay in the same position and try to find the gems within the clutter to get your message. Youre talking about two different things. You are talking about specific policies that turned out. When i say controlled, im talking in terms of a message if i want if im the president of the United States or the governor of a state and i want to talk about the things that i think are important to the country because i need support from the country to get something passed in congress or what have you. Take obama care. In the debate, the president needed to control the agenda to get people across the country to support his program. If i stood up and said lets talk about 50 other things, im not talking about manipulation, im talking about the element of how you do your messaging. And as any of you getting into communications have to understand, and it is not a negative thing, it is a positive thing. If you want to have a conversation with someone and you have a point of view and you want to express your point of view, you dont want to talk about 55,000 things. It is like the guy who goes in the country club and sits next to the guy and the bar and say do you like sports. I say i love sports. So this guy proceeds to talk about golf. And i walk out of the bar and im bored to death. I go out and my wife said how was that conversation and i said it was terrible, and this guy bull about his golf game. And you have to ask the second question. Do you like football, golf, baseball. And for the president , if there is 500 people in this room that want to ask 500 questions, i cant articulate my message. My message is this. Obama care is the important thing more me this week. Iran contra deal is the important deal for me this week. I have to use the media as my vehicle to get to the country. It is not a manipulation. It is i mean obviously iran contra would much not rather have, and much rather have a lot of other things occur. That had nothing to do with messages. Monica lewinsky is something the president would not like to discuss or debate, but at the end of the day, my point is how you communicate with the country and the country wants to know what the government an the leader is doing. Okay. More questions. At the very back there. Thank you. Id like to compliment you panelists for living history. You were part of this Great American story. Now i have a futuristic question. Were at president bushs seminar and i would like to ask all of you to comment. Do you see the president s brother jeb as the next president or his good friend bill clintons whose wife Hillary Clinton as the next president . Maybe. I think jeb bush is an extraordinary man and he was always the bush that was sort of assumed to some day be the president , to follow his father. We have a very crowded field on our side. We probably had the best field of candidates since 1980. We have several very competent governors and several senators and articulate men and a woman who is articulate in the race at this point. We have probably 20 candidates. So for jeb to win, he has to base hes not going to get it handed to him. He is going to get a lot of money handed to him. But he has to run an Effective Campaign and overcome some of the negativity that unfortunately is left over as we discovered in the last several days from the george w. And people do really want a third. In the case of hillary, it is different. If her name was bill clinton jr. , she may be challenged. She is not being challenged at the democratic process at this point. I dont think anyone will run against her of any significance. I think she is the nominee. I think well have a robust race. So it could easily be a bush, clinton campaign. At this point on my side it is too difficult to predict who will come out of my side and win. There have been a lot of oh, focus groups and polls and stuff that show that jeb bush has Serious Problems in the early states. Voters are hostile to him, his name, his positions obviously on common core and immigration and more. So i dont think he is a lock to get the republican nomination at all. I dont know who he is. It is too early to try to predict. I agree it will probably be Hillary Clinton but her numbers or his disApproval Ratings are going up as she gets more partisan. She benefited from high job approval numbers when she was secretary of state. It is not a very political job. With voters, even democratic voters, are going to wish they had more choices. I think that i think hillary is likely to be the nominee because i dont think anybody is likely to run, because who knows what and who knows what happens a lot in politics and for for every race. The more formidable candidate is jeb bush because he is closer to the center than the other candidates and i think this is a center country. I think agree that jeb bush may not win. Scott walker, who i think is basically an empty suit, devoid of principal, but hes a hell of a good politician, and if the conservative if the conservative vote crystallizes around him, i think they could dispossess jeb of the nomination. I think ted cruz presence harms scott walker because he will pull off ten or 15 of the people who are willing to vote for somebody who have no platform whatsoever except i hate everything and government is at the top. So it is an interesting race. I dont think this is the most formidable field that has ever been raised in the republican because i think three quarters of them are completely unqualified to be president of the United States. But there is there are candidates who are well qualified. Agree if john kasich gets in, he is well qualified. I dont agree with him. But there are few that are a real deal. But not a lot are a lot better than the last crew, which is a hell of a lot of fun for us. What made you qualify as governor of vermont to run for president and others are not qualified to run for president. Well you may remember, i got my kicked. [ laughter ] and they may also. But i think i think this is not not a wellknown the interesting thing about american politics, you get knownov. Just take sarah palin. Were not arging she wasnt well qualified. Im not arguing anything. But in this day and age we have 35 governors and three or four will run and i like kasich and i think to a certain extent, the field it is a big, important field and i think well have a formidable candidate to run against mrs. Clinton. I think that we can only say to be continued and thanks to our panelists, thanks to you for coming. [ applause ] and there are many more panels over the course of the day. And i encourage everyone to attend as many as you can possible. Thank you. Tomorrow remarks from Senate Intelligence vice chair Dianne Feinstein and house intelligence chair david nunes. Theyll discuss ways to make it more effective while conducting it in a matter that proteches the rights and privacy of u. S. Americans. It starts live at 8 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan 3. After that cia director john brennan and fbi director james comey testify at a hearing on global Cyber Threats joined by admiral Michael Rogers of the National Security agency and james clapper, director of National Intelligence. The hearing held by the National Intelligence Committee Beginning live at 10 00 eastern also on cspan 3. Earlier today in london, David Cameron answered questions from members in his first question time since returning from the august recess. He discussed the u. K. s role in the syrian refugee crisis and Northern Island and efforts to combat isis. Several members paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth ii for the longest reigning monarch in history. That is 40 minutes. Order. Questions to the Prime Minister. Mr. Julian knight. Yeah. Number one, mr. Speaker. Thank you, mr. Speaker. This morning i had meetings with colleagues and others in addition to my duties in this house, i shall have further such meetings later today. Mr. Julian knight, thank you mr. Speaker. I would like to echo the sentence echoed by the Prime Minister in relation to her majesty the queen. Will you join me today in congratulating parents of the solely hold provision academy, providing vital places for those with complex behavioral means and also agree with me that those opposite who would scrap free schools, would deny Parents Choice and children opportunity. Yeah. I believe my honorable friend is absolutely right. I think the preschool movement is bringing what we need, which is more good and Outstanding School places. We have over 250 such schools already in existence and we want to see 500 set up over this parliament. What weve seen so far is a quarter of free schools are classes act standing and instead of the education placement, speaking out today, perhaps he should praise the fact that a quarter of free schools are Outstanding Schools. In addition to that, these are not just what he rather called con desendingly schools for yummy mummies, they are enhancing education in our country and we should be proud of the people who set them up. Harriet paulman. Can i also the Prime Minister about the refugee crisis. This is the Largest Movement of people across europe since the second world war, within just one month, over 50,000 refugees arriving in greece and thousands more setting off on foot from hungary to austria, the Prime Minister committed on monday that we would accept 20,000 Syrian Refugees over the next five years but for these people, 2020 must seem a lifetime away. Can he tell the house how many will be allowed to come to the u. K. But the end of this year . First of all, mr. Speaker, before i answer the ladys question, im sure the whole house will join me in paying tribute to her 28 years of front bench service, as it potentially comes this week. Shes served with distinction in opposition and government. Twice she stepped in as the party acting leader and carried it out with assurance and a robust adversary and a fierce champion for womens rights where shes led the way in changing attitudes in our country for the better. Although we havent seen eye to eye, she has served our constituents and party and this house from the distinct someone from the front bench and i wish her well as she continues to serve this country from the back benches. Turning to the specific issue she raises, she is right. This is the biggest crisis facing europe. We have to act on all of the areas she mentioned. We have to use our head and our heart. Weve committed to taking 20,000 people. I want us to get on with that. There is no limit on the amount of people that could come in the first year. Lets get on with it. But lets recognize we have to go to the camps, we have to find the people, we have to make sure they can be housed, we have to find schools for their children, we have to work with local councils and voluntary bodies to make sure when the people come they get a warm welcome from britain. Heriot harman. Can i thank him for his generous words about me on the front bench. And just say that for me, an ab privilege to play my part in leading this great party. We have to do all those things that he set out in relation to the refugees. But we do still need to know and have a commitment about the number that we will take this year. This is an urgent crisis. If he cant give us a number today, can he at least commit to go and consult with local authorities, with throughout government, with voluntary organizations and charities and come back in a month and say how many this country will take this year. Its welcome that the Prime Minister says we will take in from the camps in the region. But hes ruled out those who already made it to southern europe. We understand that his argument is not wanting more people to put themselves in danger, but weve got to deal with the reality. And the reality is that there are already thousands including thousands of children without their parents who have arrived in europe. Save the children have proposed we take 3,000 of them into this country. Surely we should be playing our part to help those most Vulnerable Children even if they are already in europe. Will he reconsider this . First of all, on the number we can achieve over the coming year, we have a meeting on friday, the first meeting of the committee thats going to be jointly chaired by the home secretary and Community Secretary. At that meeting we want to invite members of the local Government Association and body as well to make sure we can plan. Its of course one thing to give commitment to a number whether its the 20,000 which i think is right or something else. Its another to make sure you can find these people, get them here, and get them a warm welcome. I hope the whole country can come together to make sure we deliver this properly. The second point she raises about europe and she talked about the reality in europe. I would say there is also a bigger reality which is there are 11 million syrians who have been pushed out of their homes. Only 3 of whom have decided so far to come to europe. I think its in the interest of the Syrian People and all of us to do everything we can to make sure we can to make sure as many people as possible stay in the neighboring countries in preparation for one day returning to syria. Thats why britain has funded the way of the refugee camps and will continue to go on doing just that. Answering specifically her point about children, well go on listening to save the children. The excellent work theyve done. A number of other organizations, expert organizations warn about the dangers of taking children further away from their parents. But the point overall id make is those that have already arrived in europe, they are at least safe. The ones in the refugee camps, the ones in lebanon and jordan, those are the ones if we can help will discourage people from making the perilous journey. The conversations ive had with leaders of france and germany, they can see britain meeting the percent of gdp and taking 20,000 syrians to welcome into our homes. Very important, indeed. And we support that. But what about these thousands of children who are already many, many miles away from their home who are already in europe but have no home. Surely we can play our part in helping some of those children too. And i do urge him to reconsider it. And of course planning has to be done for receiving those refugees from the camps. Its right that he should be meeting with local government. But when hes developed those plans, he should come back to the house. A month is enough time to come back to the house and say how many we will take this year. Urgent. Can i ask him about the situation of those child refugees from the camps who said will be allowed to come here. They need sanctuary and security. We mustnt leave them with the threat of deportation hanging over them. Can he assure us that they wont be automatically liable for deportation when they turn 18. I can absolutely give that assurance. The reason for resetting people with these fiveyear humanitarian visas is because you dont have to go through the normal asylum process. But the assumption is at the end of that if people want to stay, they can apply for application to stay. The assumption is they would be able to stay. Some may want to go back to syria particularly if theres a settlement between now and then. Let me answer other questions. In terms of coming back to the house, obviously i will be coming back to the house on a weekly basis appearing in front of the committee. But i will commit to make sure the home secretary and Community Secretary regularly update the house because this is an enormous National Exercise to make sure we give a welcome to these 20,000 people. Im happy for them to do that. I know members of the house want to feed into the process with offers and ideas from their own local councils. Coming back again to the point about children, yes, we will be taking Vulnerable Children as we have already including orphans from camps in the region. But all the while well be listening to the u. N. Hcr advice who advises relocating the children who have come to europe as well. Harriett harman. But they dont say to take the children without their parents, they dont. But i do welcome what he said about not having a threat of deportation over those syrian children that do come here. As the number of those fleeing to europe via turkey and greece grows, its right we dont lose sight of those who are still making the perilous journey, our navy has rescued thousands of them already. Its to make sure that is maintained. Can he update the house on that. The update i can give is so far i believe we rescued 6,700 children. First this was the flagship of the royal navy. It was replaced by hms enterprise. But enterprise has continued this good work and will continue in doing this work with allies and others as long as necessary. Were also using the two cutters. But i think we should all be honest with ourselves and recognize that we have to particularly in the case of economic migrants leaving on the african route, we do need to break the link between those people getting on a boat and getting settlement in europe. All the evidence from these sorts of migration crises in the past, particularly the example of spain and the canary islands, you do need a way of returning people to africa who are not fleeing for their lives but are leaving for a better life. Because if you cant break that link, an increasing number of people will want to make that perilous journey. Harriett harman. Of course we do need to find ways of returning people where thats right. But weve also got to make sure we stop them drowning at sea when theyre fleeing as refugees. I know he agrees with that. The eu must have a robust and realistic plan. Today the commission has announced further steps. The Prime Minister said he would look at whether there was a need for a special summit of eu leaders. We know theres one scheduled for october, but if there ever was a need for a summit of eu leaders, that time is now. Will he call for one . Well, im happy to keep this under review and i discussed it with chancellor merck el in the last couple of days. The meeting of the home affairs and justice ministers will be taking place in just a couple of days time. I think the british approach will be very clear which is this must be a comprehensive approach. If all the focus is on redistributing quotas around yoour europe, that wont solve the problem and it sends a message that its a good idea to get on a boat and make the perilous journey. Thats not just my view. The chairman of the Home Select Committee has said this. The answer is not quotas. All quotas will do is play into the hands of those who exploit vulnerable refugees. So of course europe has to reach its own answers for those countries. Britain which have our own borders and our ability to make our own sovereign decision about this. Our approach is to say yes we will take 20,000 syrians. But we want a comprehensive approach that puts money into the camps, that meets our aid commitments, that solves the problems in syria, that sees a new government in libya. We have to address all of these issues and britain with a sovereign nation will do just that. Harriett harman. But this is not just about us as a sovereign nation doing what we can and should. This is about us working together with other countries. The refugee crisis presents a daunting problem which were all striving to tackle. But we have to address the underlying causes which are conflict, poverty. And there are no simple answers, but we can only address them working with other countries. The responsibilities we share as well as the threats that we face reach across borders in this globalized age. To be british is not to be narrow, inward looking, and fearful of the outside world, but to be strong, confident, and proud to reach out and engage with the rest of the world. The government should rise to this challenge of our time. And i urge him to do so. I agree with every word of what shes just said. I would say britain uniquely amongst countries in the world actually meets our 2 nato spending target so we can play a role in terms of defense and helping to secure these countries. And we reach our gdp spending on aid. No other country in the world meets those two major countries in the world meets those targets. And im proud that we do. She talks about going to the causes of these crises and shes right about that. We have to be frank. Particularly the Eastern Mediterranean crisis is because assad has butchered his own people and because isil has butchered others and millions have fled syria. We can do all we can as the humanitarian nation of taking people and spending money on aid and helping in refugee camps. But we have to be part of the International Alliance that says we need an approach in syria which means we have a government that can look after the people. Assad has to go. Isil has to go. Some of that will require more than just spending money, but it will on occasion require Hard Military force. Sir peter bottomly. I think the last exchange is the most important. We with other countries have moral and practical responsibilities. My friend said the president of the country meeting commitment to the worlds poorest and on military spending. Each helps deal with the situation in syria and around it. The point i made to my old friend is that the spending on aid is vital because you have 11 Million People who have been forced out of their homes. Some of them remain in syria. They need support. Some are in refugee camps. They need support. And many are being looked after in lebanon, in turkey, in jordan. So the aid budget which has been controversial in our country, people can now see the connection between the money we spend, the lives we save, and the National Security we help to enforce here back in the uk. The point im making is not to change the debate now about what happens next in syria, but we just have to keep thinking about the fact that there is nothing in the end that will make isil go away other than a confrontation which were seeing in iraq, were seeing in syria. And i think we should be clear that isil being degraded and destroyed and ultimately defeated is not in just this countrys interest, but in the interest of civilization more broadly. Robertson. Thank you very much, mr. Speaker. The threat level from terrorism is listed as severe in the uk. And there are many challenging decisions to the Prime Minister to take in protecting Public Safety and for parliament to consider. Its taken four months for the reestablishment of the intelligence and Security Committee. Can the Prime Minister explain what role he hopes that committee will fulfill. Well, honorable gentleman is absolutely right. The current level in terms of threat is severe. That means that we believe an attack is highly likely. These levels are set independently of government. And the intelligence and Security Committee does very important work and theres a motion today to see its reestablishment. And i very much hope that he will be part of that committee and will be able to be briefed in the way that other members of that committee are briefed. Is there a role for the intelligence and Security Committee which weve already expanded to do even more to scrutinize the actions of the Intelligence Services and the government. That may well be the case as i announced on monday what has happened, what we have done in terms of this strike against the british citizens in a country against which we are not currently at war is a new departure. And i think its important these things are properly scrutinized. I would argue the first way of scrutiny is for the Prime Minister to come to the house, the house to question him. But is there a role for them to look at these things. Im happy to discuss that with the new chair of the ifc. Robertson. The Prime Minister talked about the importance of the intelligence and Security Committee and parliamentary oversight and scrutiny. We learned this week of a new uk policy of drone strikes against terrorist suspects in regions where its not parliamentary approval for general military action. Will the Prime Minister provide all relevant information to the intelligence and Security Committee so it can conduct a review . As ive just said, im happy to discuss that with the chairman of the committee when they are appointed. I meant to say elected by the members of that committee because that is what rightly happens. The only proviso i put on is the committee cannot be responsible for overseeing Current Operations. I mean, the responsibility for Current Operations must lie with the government and the government has to come to the house to explain that. Im not going to contract out our counterterrorism policy to someone else. I take responsibility for it. But i think its i think it is important after these events have taken place that the ifc is able to make these. Rebecca powell. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Over the past few weeks ive been meeting with farmers facing severe difficulties to falling Commodity Prices in many sectors. These industries are a life blood in my constituency. Could the Prime Minister please give assurances that all efforts are being made to help these industries through this particularly tricky time. Farmers have been campaigning on the streets recently to highlight their straits. Well, my honorable friend is absolutely right to raise this. Commodity prices are causing problems for farmers in the uk but also right across the european union. We led calls in the council for urgent action and there is going to be a 500 million euro package of measures to help. Weve taken steps to help which includes the grocery code. To make sure we get a fair deal with the supermarkets, to do more on public procurement, to make sure public authorities are buying british food. And also the chancellor said about making sure to look at the tax treatment of farmers to give them a better deal at this ex. Eva abrahamabrahams. They also published data on the deaths of people and sickness benefit. Which showed they are four times more likely to die than the normal population. Told the house this data did not exist. Given this and his offensive remarks earlier this week referring to people without disabilities as normal, when will the Prime Minister take his toll and respond to my call for the secretary to be investigated for breaching. First of all, let me deal very directly with the publication of this data. This data was published because i promised at this dispatch box it would be pob published in a way it was never published under any neighbor government. That is the first point. And i also think we should be clear about what this data shows. It does not show people wrongly being assessed as fit to work. It does not show people dying as a result of their benefits being taken away. If you listen to the organization full fact, they said this. I have to say two newspapers have printed that fact and had to retract it. So i think actually people should look at the facts. And the Fact Checking Organization Says this. It was widely reported that thousands of people died within weeks of being found fit for work and losing their benefits. This is wrong. Perhaps you should read that before asking your next question. David davis. In 2011 the Prime Minister quite rightly confirmed to the house that the wilson doctrine, the prohibition on electronic of parliament was still in force. July 24th of this year the governments own lawyer stated in the tribunal announced a complaint from the member. The wilson doctrine is not legally binding, cannot work properly, and accordingly places no obligations on intelligence agencies. This is clearly inconsistent with the Prime Ministers previous statement. Can you clarify the status of it today . Ive got nothing to add to comments ive made about this issue before. But im happy to write to the honorable gentleman and set out the position. Caroline lucas. Mr. Speaker, the ongoing harrowing refugee crisis is fueled by conflict which in turn is powered in part by the global arms trade. The uk has supplied weapons being used in many areas from which people are now fleeing including yemen and libya. So in the week that london will once again host the largest arms fair in the world, isnt it time the government recognized the link between arms sales and the terrible tragedy were seeing unfolding around us . First of all, we have some of the strictest rules anywhere in the world for selling arms to other countries. But if she thinks the reason why so many people are leaving, fleeing syria is something to do with the arms trade, the fact is its because assad is butchering his own people. Its because weve got an islamic extremist terrorist Organization Running a large part of iraq and syria. Those are the problems we have to confront rather than pretending its about something else. Jenkins. Topic of uk is a social enterprise in my constituency thats expanding into South Yorkshire and london. It should be about developing growth and prosperity across england. Can i ask the Prime Minister when he hopes to see a metro merge in our area and how it will stimulate growth for businesses like this in the region. Well, i think theres a real opportunity in this parliament to make decisive steps towards rebalancing our economy and building the Northern Powerhouse we have. And a part of that is going to those who can be accountable to their local communities and have new powers and new resources to drive Economic Growth in their areas. We have had had over 30 areas making proposals including city regions. I think this is an exciting development. I very much hope West Yorkshire will be in. Dr. Ellie whiteford. Im sure the Prime Minister will be aware that over 900 people at the youngs Fish Processing factory have faced redundancy but theres a perception the uk government has been encouraging and supporting the company to relocate many of those jobs, so can i ask the Prime Minister what hes going to do to support the workers. Im aware of this issue because the local members of parliament in the grimesby area has come to talk about this industry. What matters is we go on being an economy that wants to attract businesses and growth and jobs. And that means keeping our inflation down, keeping our taxes down, means keeping corporate taxes down. I would also argue it means keeping our country together. Mr. Robert walker. Thank you, mr. Speaker. May i associate my constituents with the tributes paid earlier to her majesty the queen. The hall which she visited on her Diamond Jubilee will next week be hosting a jobs fair. In worcester weve seen it down by twothirds. But can my friend update us on his plans and determination to finish the job by eliminating youth unemployment. Well, im grateful for what my honorable friend is doing and what is happening in worcester. What weve seen is the employment rise by nearly 2 million. We have to be frank. The job is now going to get harder as we dig down to those people whove been out of the labor market for a long time, who have challenges for getting jobs, and we need to work really hard to make sure the apprenticeships and training and help is there. Wilcox. Can the Prime Minister tell the house whether he thinks he has led Public Opinion on the refugee crisis or followed it. I would simply argue that this government is doing the right thing. And weve done it consistently. To be frank, Public Opinion hasnt always supported the percentage we give of our gdp to aid. And even in the most difficult of economic circumstances, it was this government led by a conservative Prime Minister that kept the promises that we made to the worlds poorest. Jones. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Will the Prime Minister join me in welcoming the chancellors announcement of funding to kick start improvements to the north link road and does he agree with me this is a vital project if it were to continue with the Economic Growth and jobs which his economic policies are already delivering. Well, one of the things that struck me on the many visits i made to his constituency in the runup to the last election is the coastal towns are completely reliant on the north devlin link road. Its a vital artery. Thats why its so good there is this 3 Million Pounds of funding to develop the Business Case for improvements. And what i will say to him is well keep on this because we know just how vital this road is. Pierce. Every year thousands of people have medical emergencies outside of hospitals. When its a cardiac arrest, every minute reduces survival chances by 7 to 10 . First aid is a true life skill. The majority of teachers teaching in schools. Will the Prime Minister look closely at my bill which aimed res to do that and make every child a lifesaver. I will look closely at the bill. Truth is this is a real lifesaver. The availability of a cpr equipment whether its in Village Halls or in pubs or in schools can save or sports clubs, can save many lives. Thats why there was a Million Pounds in the budget to be used for buying defibrillators for schools and training. Im sure many schools will want to take advantage of this. Nigel adams. Thank you, mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister will be aware that the new owners of the power station in my constituency are consulting over the closure of the station which provides much of the countrys electricity. This comes on top of the announcement that ferry bridge is to close. And also longganet in scotland. Taking legal action against the government over changes to the tax regime. The reality is that these power stations have been taxed out of existence. Were walking into Power Capacity issues next year. Will the Prime Minister meet with me to discuss a way forward for this station and the industry and for the hundreds of people in my constituency whose jobs are under threat . Im very happy to meet with the honorable gentleman. Ive discussed this issue with him before. I believe we do have sufficient capacity in our energy market, but its something that i have meetings regularly with other chairmans to see thats the case. We have this situation of wanting to see over time a fazing out of unabated coal that does need to happen if were going to meet our carbon emissions. But when it comes to replacing in the stations, coal with some of the renewable technologies, we need to make sure this is affordable. Weve got to make a judgment about how much were prepared to add to consumers bills, because this has to be paid for. The uk Steel Industry is facing huge challenges. 25,000 people rely on steel. Will the Prime Minister call a steel summit to show that his government will stand up for steel and take the action necessary to secure its future. Well, ive discussed this issue with the honorable gentleman before, and im sure we will meet and discuss this again. What the government can do is help the Energy Intensive industries wiy industry. And we set out in our infrastructure plan the infrastructure needs of the country so that steel consumers can plan for how much needs to be produced and well go on doing everything we can to support this vital industry. Andrew bingham. Mr. Speaker, in my constituency the third and fifth busiest in derbyshire. The constituents who use these stations have been notified of the change. What can my honorable friend do to make sure the new franchise to kornt to offer as good of services as theyre available now and maybe even better . Well, i think my honorable friend is right to raise this. And the whole point about the franchise process for the new northern franchise is to see an improvement in the services. Weve already spoken about getting rid of the pacer trains which i know is going to be popular in the north of england. Then well kb adding an extra 1,500 services a day. We want to increase the morning peak capacity by a third. And see those outdated pacer trains retired. I think that is a good program and one we hope we can secure through this franchise. Smith. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Experts say that delivery of the electrification of the main line between covington and swansea is slipping. How is the Prime Minister going to get this project back on track and budget by the delivery date of 2018 . We are committed to this all the way to swansea. Were making record investments in our railway line. Many of us were prif lvileged o see the state of the art trains, not trains built in japan but trains built here in britain with 700 new jobs in england. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Does my right honorable friend recall in the debate about syria two years ago there were voices around this chamber who argued that the conflicts in syria and elsewhere were nothing to do with us and they shouldnt involve us . Isnt it clear that the failure of western Security Strategy in the middle east and elsewhere is the main driver of this migration crisis and can i endorse his requirement for a full spectrum response to isis and would he consider actually setting this out in a comprehensive white paper in order to lead World Opinion . Well, first of all, what i say to the honorable gentleman, we should be clear about who is responsible for the refugee crisis in syria. I would lay it at the door of bashir assad and isil who even today are throwing gay people off buildings, raping women, terrorizing communities, and driving people to take to the road and leave their country. They are responsible. But he makes an important point. When we dont involve ourselves in these issues and take difficult decisions, that is a decision in itself. And it has consequences. And thats what i hope we will debate in the coming months. He talked about white papers and the rest of it. I think we need to look at all the arguments for what i would call a comprehensive approach to these issues. Mr. Speaker, theyre not protected by the education fence. That means our constituency has lost 20 of their funding over the last five years. And in some places almost 30 . Whats the Prime Minister got against form colleges . Im fully in favor of six form colleges. Unlike previous governments weve gone a long way to equalize the funding between schools and colleges. We made a lot of progress. Were just days away in the start in england of the worlds Third Largest sporting event. The rugby world cup. In addition to which we look to the home nations will the Prime Minister agree this represents a great Economic Opportunity to my town whereas we welcome visitors from around the world to the birthplace of the game . I certainly am looking forward to the warm welcome that britain will give to rugby fans from around the world. Im happy to wish luck to all of the home nations in what is going to be a compelling contest. Its always worth noting that of course this dispatch box was the gift to the house of commons of the people of new zealand. And while well very grateful for their gift, we want one of the home nations to win this tournament. Mr. Nigel dobbs. Thank you, mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister will be aware that the situation in Northern Ireland already following the ira murder in august in belfast has escalated to new heights with the arrest today of the chairman of shin fin in connection with that and other leaders. We warned about this earlier this week. We have now reached the tipping point. In my view we have gone beyond the tipping point. The Prime Minister is aware the first minister has met the secretary of state this morning. He has put a proposal to her. Does he not accept that unless he and others take action that we are in a grave state as far as deevolution is concerned . We want to see government but only those of peaceful means can be if government. The people of Northern Ireland cannot be punished. Does the Prime Minister agree . First of all, i agree with him we are at a difficult phase of these discussions in Northern Ireland. I obviously cant comment on the Police Operations that have taken place, but let me say this. There is no justification for structures in Northern Ireland or anywhere else in our country. They are a blight on our society. They are not wanted. They should be disbanded on every occasion and on every side. The only thing i would appeal, the members who dont take their seats in this house, as someone who sat on those benches and watched while the Peace Process was put together and the power sharing arrangements were put in place, its one of the most inspiring things i have seen to see politicians put aside their differences, put aside concerns about appalling things that happened in the past and decide to work together. An appeal i would make to all of you is please have that spirit in mind. It is an amazing thing you all did in Northern Ireland when you formed that administration and that assembly. Well do everything we can to help you, but let us think of the nobler processes and the great noble principles in the past and lets do it again. Order. Tomorrow remarks from Senate Intelligence vice chair Dianne Feinstein and house intelligence chair devon nunes on the role on u. S. Intelligence. Theyll discuss ways to make it more effective while conducting it in a manner that products the rights and privacy of u. S. Citizens. Theyll speak at an intelligence and National Security summit. It starts live at 8 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. After that john brennan and james comey testify at a hearing on global Cyber Threats. Theyll be joined by the National Security agency and james clapper, director of National Intelligence. The hearings held by the house and intelligence committee. It begins live at 10 00 eastern also on cspan3. Last week the housing and urban Development Department held a fair housing training and policy conference here in washington. Former Vice President Walter Mondale spoke of his sponsorship of the act and the challenges he encountered in getting it passed through congress. He was joined by tim kaine. Its an hour and a half. Thank you and good morning. My name is brian green. Im the general Deputy Assistant secretary in huds office of fair housing. Its my pleasure to join you today as the moderator of this first panel of our National Training and policy conference. The title of this session is, the problem we all live with. That title, the problem we all live with comes from a Norman Rockwell painting. It shows a black girl headed to a white school with federal marshals escorting her. That painting is from 1964. So this panel could be titled the problem we still live with. Many of our metropolitan areas remain segregated today despite desegregation being a stated goal of the 1968 Fair Housing Act. You heard Vice President mondale talk about that today. Senator ed brook, mondales cosponsor to the act spoke to it on the senate floor. Even then in 1968 he described segregation as the problem we had already lived with for too long. He said todays federal housing official commonly conveys against the evils of ghetto life even as he pushes the buttons that triumph. When you ask these gentlemen why despite the 1962 fair housing order, most Public Housing is still segregated. He blames it on regional custom, local traditions, and personal prejudices of Municipal Housing officials. That was 1968. Everyone here have cable . Yeah . Okay. My wife decided we didnt need cable. I hope im not saying this on cable right now. But you all remember the 1980s commercials, i want my mtv . Yes. Well, lately ive been saying i want my hbo. Do you know why . Because for the past three weeks every sunday ive had to go to friends houses or while i was on vacation back to the hotel room to watch david simons hbo mini series on housing desegregation in yonkers in the mid1980s. Its a show called show me a hero. If you havent seen it, you must check it out. David simon, the producer, said he first decided he wanted to make the show back in 1999 when he optioned the book that a New York Times reporter named lisa bellkin had written on the yonkers case. Now, what drew him to do an hbo mini series on housing desegregation . Well, he said he saw a longstanding pathology among the American Population that he wanted to talk about. He said the general population, quote, is not very good at sharing physical space or power or many other kinds of social dynamics with significant numbers of people of color. Over the years the project kept getting bumped. In the meantime he produced shows like the wire. But he kept coming back to this project. He said, at every point there was a fresh example that the dynamic was still there. That the racial pathology was still intact. He added, and i think its only become more pronounced. And he told his interviewer, the show was green lit before ferguson, before baltimore, before charleston. Simon could have written the blush in your program that describes the panel that we have assembled today. Simon charged that, quote, there was a long history of American Government at federal, state, and local levels using public money to purposely hypersegregate our society. Poor people didnt just end up all packed into housing projects in one square mile of yonkers by accident. It was a plan. It was a plan in chicago, in baltimore, in dallas, and everywhere that took federal money since the 1930s. So here we are in 2015. We have an illustrious panel to share their ideas on what we can all do now to make real on the promise of the Fair Housing Act. Hud has turned a corner on this as you know hud has issued a new rule that both breathes life and adds flesh and bone to the Fair Housing Acts mandate that hud and its grantees take steps to fulfill the desegregated goals of the Fair Housing Act. President obama reminded the nation why this is so critical. He said, in some cities kids living just blocks apart lead incredibly different lives. They go to different schools, play in different parks, shop in different stores, and walk down different streets. And often the quality of those schools and the safety of those parks and streets are far from equal. Which means those kids arent getting an equal shot at life. Now, our panel knows that not everyone agrees its governments business to address this. Perhaps our panel can tell us how we respond to critics who call these efforts social engineering. But ill leave you with some words from david simon who balks at this term. He says, the idea that social engineering starts at the moment that somebody might want to restore somebody to their full civil rights 40 years into the rigged game, and thats when you object . Sorry, he says. Thats racist to begin your argument there. I have a feeling thats not where our panelists will begin the argument. Let me tell you about them. We have richard rothstein. Hes the associate of the Economic Policy institute. In the fall of 2014 he published the making of ferguson Public Policies at the root of its troubles. A report documenting the racially explicit federal, state, and local Public Policies that segregated the st. Louis metropolitan area. He is the author of grading education, getting accountability right. And reform to close the black white achievement gap. His many other publications on education and race can be found at the Economic Policy institute website. Cherylin eiffel is part of the nations civil rights organization. Her career has been to civil rights law. As a young litigator at the ldf which she now leads. For 20 years mrs. Eiffel was a tenured professor at the university of Maryland School of law. Eiffel is the author and frequent media commentator on matters involving race and civil rights. Definitely some university of maryland fans here. So lets have our panel first were going to hear from richard rothstein. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much, brian. Its nice to be back here at hud. I want to talk to you a bit this morning far few minutes about the National Context of our system of racial segregation in which every metropolitan area in this country is racially segregated. Every metropolitan area in this country is characterized by predominantly white suburbs that encircle predominantly black, in some cases other minorities, urban areas in inner cities and first ring suburbs. We now have as youve heard already today a new emphasis on affirmatively furthering fair housing and on monitoring the impact of policies for which you cannot prove racial motivation. But stopping discrimination as we go forward will not undo the segregation thats been established over a century of Public Policy. So affirmatively furthering and i dont like the euphemism fair housing. Affirmatively furthering integrated housing is going to require more than just simply making sure we dont continue to discriminate. The main barrier in my view to pursuing aggressive policies to desegregate the society that was segregated explicitly by Public Policy is a national myth. That myth is shared not only by conservatives but by liberals, by Public Policy advocates, by politicians across the political spectrum. And that myth is that we have something in this country today that we call de facto segregation. As chief Justice John Roberts described it, he said where racial imbalance is a product not of state action but of private choices, it does not have constitutional implications. In other words, if we have a system which is not established by the government, then we have no obligation to undo that system even if we can prohibit discrimination going forward. This view that we have de facto segregation has been a dominant view of the Supreme Court for the last almost 40 years and it has taken over all our conversation in the Public Policy realm. In 1974 Justice Potter stewart in which in a case in which he was joining a majority that said that we do not need to desegregate on a metropolitanwide basis because he said the segregation of metropolitan areas in this case he was talking about detroit, of all places. He said the segregation of metropolitan areas was created by unknown and perhaps unknowable factors such as immigration, birthrates, economic changes, or cumulative acts of private racial fears. Thats the dominant narrative in this country still today. Now, as you heard earlier and as you all knew before you came here today, we had the remarkable decision authored by Justice Anthony kennedy in the impact case this june. The Inclusive Communities decision. What was remarkable about that decision was not simply that Justice Kennedy allowed the impact standards to continue to be used as has been used in every judicial district in the country and by hud for decades now, what was remarkable is that Justice Kennedy hinted at a departure from this constant reiteration of the notion we have de facto segregation in this country. What he said in this opinion was we have the jury by law by Public Policy action, the jury segregation by race was declared unconstitutional almost a century ago. But its vestiges remain today with economic and social life. Segregated housing patterns, he said, can be traced to the rows of the mid20th century. During this time, various practices were followed. Sometimes with governmental support to encourage and maintain the separation of the races. But the 1960s, these policies, practices, and prejudices had created many predominantly black inner cities surrounded by white suburbs. Thats a phenomenal statement in view of the history i described before of the court and as i say policy generally arguing that the segregation of metropolitan areas was unknown and unknowable in its origins. And where it was not created as it was not created by governmental action, it has no constitutional implications. No obligation to undo it. Even Justice Briar whom we would expect to know better in a Decision Just six years ago or eight years ago, im sorry, just eight years ago. Said that the segregation of metropolitan areas was de facto. The same argument weve heard from justices. But he said his disagreement with the line of argument that weve been hearing is that we have de facto segregation. Communities should be desegregated even if compelled to. We have such a systemic system such a systemic pattern of governmental sponsorship to establish the landscape in this country that we have an obligation not just an opportunity but obligation to undo it and we are failing in our responsibilities as american citizens if we fail to pursue that obligation. Now let me describe some of this history that weve all forgotten. It once was well known and well come to that later. Weve all forgotten how the federal, state, and local governments consciously segregated in this country by race. It wasnt not just the impact of well intentioned policies consciously segregated our metropolitan areas by race. The main driver initially began in the 1930s when we first began to build civilian Public Housing in this country. Under the new deal, the Public Works Administration was the first agency, federal agency to support Public Housing. To subsidize localities to build Public Housing. The most liberal member of the administration in the new deal bb he had been president of the naacp in chicago. Harold dickey is the member of the brain trust cabinet, proposed a neighborhood composition rule which said that Public Housing should be restricted to people of the race that lived in the neighborhood where Public Housing is located. This was the liberal view of the administration. What was liberal about it was they proposed the bill for blacks as well as whites. So the liberal view was we build separate for blacks and this was a benefit to the africanAmerican Population. Under the new deal, 21 fully segregated projects were built by federal government. Some for africanamericans. Some for whites. In addition, there were six projects that were socalled integrated but the buildings were segregated. Some for blacks, others for whites. They demolished neighborhoods throughout the country in the grounds that they were slums. And instead substituted for those integrated neighborhoods segregated Public Housing projects. In that time in the 1930s before everybody had automobiles, there were many metropolitan urban areas where both european immigrants, africanamericans, other whites from rural areas had come to work in factories. They all had to live close enough to the factories to be able to walk to work. So the neighborhoods were relatively integrated. That wasnt to say there werent clusters of different ethnicities and races in neighborhoods. But overall they were integrated. I like to talk a lot about st. Louis because it led to the segregation of ferguson. In st. Louis, the downtown area a neighborhood called the solo car in the 1930s was 55 black. The federal government subsidized the city of st. Louis to build housing. To build an allblack housing project. And then st. Louis again with federal Government Support built an allwhite project south of the downtown area. So you had an integrated neighborhood and then the Public Housing program separated it. This was not an accident. This was not the this was a deliberate attempt to segregate the st. Louis area. The next push to segregate metropolitan areas through federal programs was during world war ii when the second great migration brought large numbers of africanamericans to centers of defense production across the country. And housing had to be constructed for them. The federal government often without even local support constructed segregated Public Housing for defense workers in the metropolitan areas. And those projects became the core of the later ghettos that we know today. In richmond, california, one of the largest shipbuilding centers of the country where ships for the war were being built, mostly merchant ships to convoy supplies to great britain. Richmond, california, had a tiny black population. Almost none before world war ii. Its ghetto was created by the federal government where it built separate housing for workers who came to work in the yards for blacks on one side of town and for whites on the other side of town. Of course the blacks were closer to the shipyard, the whites were farther away in more residential areas. In one case another california example ive read about and studied, the Hunters Point naval yard in San Francisco drew many, many defense plant workers to service the navy yard at Hunters Point and the dry dock in San Francisco. San Francisco City of San Francisco wanted to built an integrated Public Housing project. The navy prohibited them from doing so. The navy insisted it be segregated. And this was true, again, throughout the country. And detroit, the willow run bomber plant was built outside detroit in an area that previously had been undeveloped. So there was no previous pattern of segregation in that neighborhood, but the government built housing for white workers only. Blacks were prohibited from living in the housing the government created for the bomber plant that became a white suburb of detroit. Not by accident. Not because africanamericans didnt want to live there but because the federal government specifically built housing for white workers only from which blacks were prohibited. There was a big civilian housing shortage not only in this country, not only in the 1930s and during world war ii when materials werent available for civilian housing construction, but after world war ii the korean war then again consumed many materials. So there was a big shortage of civilian housing. President harry truman proposed the National Housing act to build massive Public Housing across the country still mostly for whites. Because this was as i say a civilian housing shortage. Public housing was the most desirable housing that was available for middle class and working class families. So president truman proposed a National Housing act to finance massive expansion of the nations Public Housing program. Conservatives in congress who were opposed to any federal involvement in the private Housing Market this has nothing to do with race. They were opposed to government involvement in the private Housing Market. Conservatives came up with a poison pill amendment. We still have these today. These are amendments that legislators can put on a bill which if the amendment is adopted that it ensures that the entire bill will be defeated. And conservatives in Congress Proposed an amendment to the National Housing act that president truman had proposed. The amendment was that all Public Housing from now on had to be integrated. They knew full well that if this amendment were passed, southern democrats would then vote against the entire Public Housing program which they had supported on a segregated basis. Liberals in congress led by then senator huebert humphrey and by another leading liberal senator at the time paul douglas of illinois. Liberals in congress campaigned against the integration amendment. Arguing that if the integration amendment would be passed, there would be no housing at all. And africanamericans would be better off with segregated Public Housing than they would be without any Public Housing at all. In retrospect we can question their judgment about that. In any event, they campaigned against the integration amendment. It was defeated with liberal votes. Once that amendment was defeated, the Public Housing program then passed and we saw a massive expansion of Public Housing throughout the country. The Robert Taylor homes in chicago and the pruitt homes in st. Louis which were built under the provisions of this 1949 segregated Public Housing act. The pruitt towers, you may remember them. They as two separate projects. The producets project was for blacks. This went on throughout the country. As late as 1984, a newspaper investigation by reporters from the Dallas Morning News surveyed 47 metropolitan areas across the country. They found in every one of those areas Public Housing was segregated by race. And in every one of those projects, the facilities, the amenities, the service and the maintenance in the white projects were superior to that in the black projects. Well, i mentioned a minutes ago the producetsigo towers in st. Louis. You may recall eventually they became infested with drug dealers, low income families only. Lots of people on welfare. Public no longer had families in it as they did originally. It was all black. The iigo towers had no whites wanting housing. There were waiting list for the producets towers. Eventually the st. Louis Housing Authority opened theigo towers for black p. How did it happen we had a housing shortage in 1949 and by 1955 when the towers were open to africanamericans there was no longer a housing shortage for whites. They no longer needed Public Housing there was only a shortage for africanamericans. To understand that we have to look at another federal program, a program administered by the predecessor agency of hud, the federal Housing Administration. The federal Housing Administration embarked on a program in the 1940s and 50s, the white population of this country. Explicitly the white population of this country. They embarked on a program to finance, to underwrite loans mass production builders, loans to mass production builders to create subdivisions on condition that developers who took these loans would not sell homes to africanamericans. And suburbs around the country were created for whites only. The housing shortage disappeared. Whites could leave the Public Housing projects where they lived and buy if they were returning war veterans they could buy homes in the suburbs in which the monthly carrying charges they had on these homes were less than the rent they were paying in Public Housing. And this was for explicitly whites only. Youre familiar with many of these projects, the suburbs around the country. New york, the most wellknown is leaven town. 17,000 homes built on condition that they not sell homes to africanamericans. Loans to build the project was guaranteed by the federal Housing Administration. Some you may recall hearing a song pete zinger used to sing about houses on a hillside made of ticky tacky. South of San Francisco is daily city built with federal Housing Administration funds that were on condition, that no homes be sold to africanamericans. Let me just play out this leaven town example for a minute in 1947 homes sold for 8,000. Thats about 125,000 today. Those homes sell for 500,000. We now have a law youve heard a lot about it today. The Fair Housing Act which says okay now africanamericans you can move to levts town. Were not preventing you from moving to leaven town. While the Fair Housing Act is a wonderful thing and it prevents sdroi discrimination, it cant undo the federal policy that created leaven town in the first place. Homes in 1947 were affordable tool working and lower middle class africanamericans the way they were affordable to lower and middle class whites. Theyre no longer affordable to working class families today. Even though we have a 1968 Fair Housing Act which prohibits discrimination. There might be some discrimination still in leaventon but blacks are able to move there today. Its still 1 black. In a metropolitan area thats 23 black. Today nationwide, africanamericans on average have incomes that are about 60 of white incomes on average. Africanamerican wealth and most wealth in this country is wealth in housing equity. Africanamerican wealth is 5 of white wealth. Income, ratio is 60 . Wealth is 5 . Thats almost entirely attribute to federal racial policy that prohibb prohibited the ability that whit what would it take to remedy this kind of policy. Simply as i say, simply saying we cant discriminate against africanamericans is not going to remedy this policy. Ill tell you what the remedy would like like, a remedy that would meet constitutional standards that even john roberts says if its governmentally sponsored theres a constitutional obligation to undo it. The federal government should go out and purchase the next 23 of homes that come up for sale in leaventon if they have to pay 500,000 or whatever and resell it to qualified to africanamericans for 125,000. That would be affirmatively promoting fair housing in a way that is constitutionally required. Its completely political unrealistic to talk about that. But why is it completely politically unrealistic. Its because we have completely forgotten the history of how federal i could go on with state and local governments have purposefully segregated metropolitan areas. Because we have forgotten that and we think we have de facto segregation because people dont want to live with each other of different races, because they dont have the money they can afford to integrate or because inmigration or whatever Potter Stewart said. They think things happen by accident can only be undone by accident. If americans recognize the things that were done on purpose can only be remedied by things done on purpose, then we might have the chance to begin to think of some of these policies that would reverse the social engineering that created the metropolitan society. Brian talked was it you that talked about social engineering . Yeah. We need to undo the social engineering that created the metropolitan landscape that we have today. And we cant do it unless we understand the history. Because the history is whats creates the obligation for affirmative policies today. Now, there are many things, of courseer that we can do short o aggressive policies that will make small differences. Of course we can abolish discrimination. We can assure that the low Income Housing tax credit is not used disproportionately in minorities and low income communities. But to really address the segregation of our metropolitan areas, in order to integrate not just low income people who middle class areas but middle income africanamericans into middle class areas as in the leaventon example as i talked about a minute ago. Were going to have to become familiar with the history of how we purposefully created the segregation. And i think in addition to the things that all of you are doing in your local levels to prohibit ongoing discrimination, the most important job in addition to that that you have to do is to education your communities about how they got to be where they are so that the people begin to understand the obligation that they have to undo the segregation that we all live with. Thank you. [ applause ] good morning and thank you very much. Thank you, brian. And all of you here at hud and thank you, richard, for always providing this wonderful seminar. Richard and i have been doing these joint talks here at hud and other places and im always riveted by his presentations on this really, really important history. I think i want to pause and talk with you all today a little bit about the contemporary manifestation of some of the history that richards talking about. And, also, encourage you to make what i think are some important connections between what you have been seeing on your television over the last year as weve dealt with issues of Police Violence and urban unrest. And also to recognize, frankly, your role, our role, my role in the problem we all live with. And the segregated structure which we have come to take for granted. We have come to accept it. We have comeo