Transcripts For FOXNEWSW Happening Now 20170605

President trump regarding the russia investigation. And how one climber defied the odds to make history in Yosemite National park. Its all happening now. Jon we begin with President Trumps latest push for a u. S. Travel ban. This an the wake of the deadly terror attacks in london. Jenna the president calling out the Justice Department on twitter this morning. He is also asking the doj to seek a copper version of the order. Both versions have been blocked by the court. Jon we have Fox News Team coverage today. Former fbi director james comey is set to testify thursday. We begin with Kristin Fisher outside the white house. The fact that President Trump is even calling it travel ban is a big deal all by itself. That could really undermine his administrations ability to descend it in court. They have all gone to Great Lengths to avoid that phrase in court and in the press. Today, President Trump really pushed Political Correctness aside by saying this. People, the lawyers and the court can call it whatever they want but i am calling it what we need and what it is. He created even more headaches for his legal team by criticizing his own Justice Department. Justice department should havel travel ban and not the water down politically correct version they submitted to the Supreme Court. Government attorneys have been arguing for weeks at the watereddown version is substantially different from the original. Those orders have been blocked by lower courts, the administration is now asked king the high court for it to be reinstated. The president is saying what happened in london is proof that they need the travel ban more than ever. This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end. [applause] as president , i will do what is necessary to prevent this threat from spreading to our shores and work every single day to protect the safety and security of our country, our communities, and our people. President trump didnt take any questions at the event that just wrapped up inside the white house, but his Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders is almost certainly going to get asked about this when she steps behind the podium in the Briefing Room and that could start in just about 30 minutes. Jon . Jon we are going to have that live. A former fbi director james comey is preparing to testify before the Senate Intelligence committee thursday. Mr. Comey expected to discuss his investigation of russian meddling in the 2016 president ial election. Also allegations that President Trump try to interfere with that probe before firing director called comey almost ah ago. Good afternoon. Head of that huge hearing appear on capitol hill, some lawmakers are asking whether it will be particularly productive and whether congress will have access to all of the important information. Its hard to do this without seeing the documents. There is this new question, is the department of justice actually going to share those documents . There is tremendous anticipation about his expected appearance on capitol hill. He has not spoken publicly since he was fired. Lawmakers are expected to ask many questions about his interaction with the president. The top democrat on the Senate Committee laid out some of his areas of interest. I want to know what kind of pressure, appropriate, inappropriate, how many conversations he had with the president about this topic, did they take place before the president was sworn in . I think he deserves to have his day in court since the president has disparaged them so much. There have been questions about whether it President Trump and his team will exert executive privileges morning. Key Senate Republican urged against blocking comey. I think the president is better served by getting all this information out. Sooner rather than later, lets find out what happened and bring this to a conclusion. If you dont do that, i think by invoking executive privilege on a conversation you had apparently was nobody else in the room. He went on to say what comey says and how he says it will be important. We expect the open session in the Senate Intelligence committee to go about three hours on thursday. He obviously doesnt think it will be a good idea for the white house to assert executive privilege and tried to prevent the former director from testifying. What about other members of congress you are talking to . Maybe some from the democratic side . What are they saying about the possibility of executive privilege . They are saying its a bad idea, saying director comey has a right to tell his side of the story. They think the former fbi director should have an opportunity to make his case in public, so he will get three hours of that on thursday unless he is blocked by executive privilege, and then they expect to have a close, classified session where he may be even more candid than he would be in the open session. Jon it is going to be a fascinating week, you will have your hands full. Thank you very much. A lot of people are saying that if there was some kind of untoward pressure on the fbi director to end the investigation, the fact that then director comey didnt actually resign in protest as a sign that there may have been pressure but was it completely inappropriate, i guess thats a question and thats what congress is going to have to determine. Melissa it would be surprising that we didnt hear anything about it at the time if it was so overwhelming. Some have decided that maybe he reported it and we dont know about it. A lot of unanswered questions, i hope we get some answers as opposed to if this hearing goes off and he is sitting there answering questions and saying it is part of the investigation. It would be frustrating for the public, especially hearing about this behind closed doors where the real answers may happen and we wont get to hear them. Jon if you think there is obstruction of justice going on, you are not allowed to not report it. Melissa thats a great point, thats a great point. Jon hes a federal prosecutor, he knows the law. Melissa will be watching closely. A shakeup in the middle east, why arab leaders are cutting ties. We are waiting for the White House Press briefing with Sarah Huckabee sanders, we will bring it to you live. Were the williams family, and were usaa members for life. Strike a pose. A. Your eyes work as hard as you do. But do they need help making more of their own tears . 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Of fox news alert, we are about 20 minutes away from the scheduled start of todays White House Press briefing. It will be his deputy Sarah Huckabee sanders. You know the press corps is loaded, they want to know what the president was talking about when he tweeted that the travel ban is really what we should call it. His aides have spent some time trying to explain that it is not a travel ban, when the president wants to ban citizens from five islamic majority countries from coming into the United States, at least for now. When we get the briefing underway, we will take you back there live it for the fireworks. In the meantime, saudi arabia and other arab countries cutting ties with with quatar today. Regional airlines are also suspending service to the capital city. I cant think of a time that i have seen an undiplomatic move like this. Its a big story. In the context of the middle east, if you look back to President Trumps trip and then a meeting of plus arab and muslim countries, one of those was qatar. The president met with the leader, one of the oneonone meetings. There has always been concerned from the u. S. And from other arab nations that qatar was funding and funneling money to different terrorist groups. That had been a point of contention with the u. S. , but its also a point of contention in this new arab coalition, that essentially was formed after the president s trip. This is a huge story for the Geopolitical Center over there, and the fact that these nations are stepping away from qatar is significant. Jon i was in qatar for the start of the second gulf war back in 2003 and we still have 10,000 american troops posted there, that was a central command. The headquarters for that. The airbase is still there. One of the things that u. S. Officials privately in their conversations with qatar had threatened was to move that airbase out of there if qatar didnt change its ways as far as funding terrorist groups. And communicating and facilitating terrorist activities. The fact that these other nations are doing that, severing ties is significant. There are some on the flip side say listen, qatar, you want as many friends as you can have in the region. Of the airbase provides a window into a negotiation with that country, and also an easy access to the region. Theres a lot theres a lot of backandforth on that issue. Jon one of the accusations is that qatar has been getting to proceed with iran and i guess in that arab world is about geg cozy with the persians is one of the worst insults one can hurl. The president s speech was about their appointed language in iran. Not just in the nuclear claymore, the Obama Administration put iran at the center of to get that through. When the president was over they are, that was a unifying factor. The fact that qatar was getting closer to iran, thats a major concern for the region. Jon the saudis have apparently closed their border crossings with qatar and most of the food that qatar received comes through saudi arabia, i imagine because they are on the golf, they can bring in shipments by air and they certainly have the money to do that. Its more than just closing embassies and sort of throwing a diplomatic fit here, there is some pretty serious stuff going on. Ill be surprised if qatar doesnt come back into some compliance, they are the little brother if you will too saudi arabia and others were standing in that region. The fact that the u. S. Still has a major base there is a significant factor. Jon the u. S. Has leverage, its just a question of how secretary of state tillerson and President Trump will use it. Exactly. You may see different standing for qatar going forward. Jon Fascinating Development and always trouble part of the world. Well see you more tonight on special report. Melissa bill cosby arriving at a pennsylvania courthouse this morning for the first day of his Sexual Assault trial. A live report from the courthouse is next. We are awaiting the White House Briefing, we will take you there live as soon as i begins. ® lowec and blood sugar better than the leading branded pill, which didnt get me to my goal. Lowers my a1c better than the leading branded injectable. The one i used to take. Victoza® lowers blood sugar in three ways. And while it isnt for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. Noninsulin victoza® comes in a pen and is taken once a day. announcer victoza® is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes and is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. 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A police are revealing that two of the three have been identified so this after a series of raids resulting in more than a dozen arrests. Prime minister theresa may is calling for a new strategy to fight terror. We will continue to support military action to destroy isis. We will do more to deny its ideology here at home. That means refusing to tolerate extremism of any kind in our country. It means being more robust in identifying it across the Public Sector and across wider society. Melissa joining us now to discuss all of this is the editor for the telegraph. Listening to the reporting around the suspects who have now been identified, two of the three of them at least, we know that at least one was pictured in a documentary about jihad. What does it take to get snared in the net of a terror probe . Melissa, thats the question i think everybody should be asking. Weve had a really serious terror outrage here in the streets of london where people have been killed and now it turns out that these people were known to security services. They were simply being too soft with the terrorists when it comes to rounding them up and preventing these sort of tax. Melissa is it that or is it that people are getting self radicalized faster than any country has the resources to follow and to track them . With regards to the London Bridge attacks, it is still pretty early in the investigation. What we can say is the Manchester Attack of two weeks ago, we now know the bomber traveled freeway from the United Kingdom back to libya where it is now understood he received training from Islamic State and other islamist groups. Then he came back into the atrocity. People are looking at just how many freedoms these people are entitled to. And not be apprehended before they come back and carry out these atrocities. Melissa every time we see one of these, i understand right now we are getting pictures of the attackers that have been identified and we can show you, there are some of their pictures on the screen. Every time one of these attacks occurs, the conversation begins about if we had President Trumps travel ban it wouldnt have stopped this, it would have done this. What do you think is the answer in terms of security . Is what hes proposing a first step, given the experience that is happening in london right now . What do you think . I think the key to this is having ban on bad people, i think a blanket ban risks alienating the good people. Melissa whats a targeted band . How would that work . For example here in the u. K. , Intelligence Services have revealed recently that there are about 20,000 people in the United Kingdom who are known to have jihadi sympathies. Why not target them, deny access to the internet and shut down their operations, and that will go to a long way to curbing their ability to cause the kind of attacks weve seen in britain. Melissa we end up seeing abuses of these powers, theres been a history of that almost everywhere, how do you put a stop on that or a safeguard and make sure that doesnt travel especially in light of the fact that in america we are talking about the government spying on people, potentially for political purposes. When you talk about putting a lockdown on people that seem to have sympathies with terror, that makes some people very nervous about their liberties and spying and that sort of thing, how do you balance that . Britain almost invented civil liberties, going back so we are very sensitive to these arrangements and these restrictions. If the Intelligence Services know there are 20,000 people, and if they know there are 3,000 people involved in active props, at the moment the weight of the law allows these people to continue with their props with impunity. And the ability to intervene is very limited. That has to change, melissa. Melissa con coughlin, thank you. Jon one of the most anticipated Senate Hearings of the year, former fbi director james comey will testify this week, our Political Panel breaks it all down. Also, we are awaiting the White House Briefing today, we will take you there live when it begins. When you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the unpredictability of a flare may weigh on your mind. Thinking about what to avoid, where to go, and how to work around your uc. Thats how i thought it had to be. But then i talked to my doctor about humira, and learned humira can help get and keep uc under control. When certain medications havent worked well enough. 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Liberty stands with you™ Liberty Mutual insurance. Jon Sarah Huckabee sanders was sent to hold the White House Daily press briefing any moment now. It is going to be one of high drama given everything that is going on in washington. James comey is expected to testify in court front of congress this week. In the meantime as i just mentioned, the former fbi director will break his silence on thursday for the First Time Since President Trump fired him. He is set to testify in front of the Senate Intel Committee on the investigation into russian and meddling in the 2016 election. Former governor Mike Huckabee says too much attention is being paid to nothing. There is an interest and fascination with the comey hearings, i dont think most americans are that concerned about what james comey said or heard when he was having a meeting with the president of the white house. If he heard something he thought was appropriate, it was his responsibility to immediately report it. The fact that he didnt and the fact that the Justice Department repeatedly said there was no pressure to pull from investigations, i dont think the president has as much to worry about as james comey does. Jon lets discuss it with our Political Panel. Thanks for being here. Jose, if you are on the committee, what would you ask . We ought to know the truth. The American People deserve to know the truth. We need to know word for word what was the context and what was the tone that was used by the president when he was asked what could potentially have been obstruction of justice, this is serious stuff. Jon does not rise to the level of obstruction of justice . I think thats the main point. It will be nice to finally have a name on the record talking about whats going on inside the white house. The problem we have had up to this point is that everyone has been off the record and on background and it has led to all kind of speculation which is where we are today. The most important aspect of this is is to watch whether he divulges any information, does he say that donald trump asked him to not investigate pressure. If so, thats a real problem and we go into full scandal mode. If it ends up being more of nothing where he talks about private conversation and the fact is, if there was something divulged, that was an appropriate, comey most likely because i believe he is a man of honor wouldve divulged that immediately. That is what we are moving into here, a lot of set up, a lot of excitement over nothing. Ill leave with this, the most important thing is how donald trump response all this. Does he take it in stride or go full twitter mode and start attacking comey . That just allows us to be distracted from any agenda or issues that he should be trying to push forward. Jon a lot of your fellow democrats were demanding that james comey be fired after his involvement in the 2016 election and his investigation of Hillary Clinton. Now all of a sudden he seems to be a hero among democrats, what change . I dont think hes a hero, i think he hes going to uphold the constitution which is why whether the president told him or not hes smarter than that. That makes me happy. Im not going to get into the whole deal with whether james comey is a friend of the democrats are not. He is a republican first and foremost. Jon he was appointed by a republican president. Im not going to get ahead of this, i want to see what happens thursday. Maybe we can put this behind us, maybe we cant. Maybe we wont, well find out thursday. Jon we are going to find out thursday what he has to say, there has been all discussion that the president might actually try to prevent him from testifying by exerting executive privilege, do you think President Trump would do that . Should he do that . It would be impossible for me to speculate as to what President Trump would do. It would be a mistake for him to do so, the best thing that could happen for donald trump and the trust administration would be for this to get behind him. Until this testimony takes place, he is going to be in a situation where its a complete distraction. We are all talking about what comey says about tromp, the interesting aspect will be if he uses this as i get even the session. He has been under attack since the election took place, and now hes got fire from republicans. Hes got a list of people to get even with that is longer than anyone in washington. As you said, he came in attacking the clinton campaign, everyone blames him for her loss. It is going to be really fascinating to watch how much of the attack will come on him if he tries a little bit of a get even factor here. Jon there was that extraordinary News Conference he held back in july where he laid out the case against Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information and after making point after point after point about what the then secretary of state had done, he then said no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case. A lot of people within the Justice Department were saying wait a minute, there are reasonable prosecutors who would bring a case. Thats still my point. He has been reviled by both sides. Everyone has calling for him to be fired until they werent calling for it anymore. There is a situation where if i am him i would want to set the record straight, he did try to do that a few weeks ago but frankly it just made matters worse. Hopefully for his own sake and interpretation, he can pull the curtain back a little bit and take everything that was discussed and if there is something inappropriate, you should say it. My bet is there probably wasnt and this is much ado about nothing and puts all this behind him. My bet is he wants to get on with his life at this point. Jon jose you talked a couple times about the president ial request for a pledge of loyalty from President Trump. We dont know exactly what was said to because it was in a conversation between these two men. It does that really bother you if, in fact, the president of the United States asked the head of the fbi for a pledge of loyalty . Absolutely, that is incredibly dangerous and i will tell you why. Donald trump needs to be the president of the United States. If hes asking officials, especially independent officials to be loyal to donald trump and not the presidency, that is incredibly dangerous and i hope that wasnt the case, which is why we need to talk to james comey and see what really happened. Jon all right, again, thursday is going to be an interesting day. Thank you both. Melissa President Trumps travel ban is heading to the Supreme Court but now Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg is coming under fire for critical comments that she made about President Trump during the campaign. Fox news anchor and attorney is here to discuss that just ahead you dont let anything keep you sidelined. Thats why you drink ensure. With 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. For the strength and energy to get back to doing. What you love. Ensure. Always be you. Adult 7 promotes alertness and mental sharpness in dogs 7 and older. ray the difference has been incredible. She is much more aware. She wants to learn things. vo purina pro plan bright mind. Nutrition that performs. Jon of fox news alert, the president has been involved in a couple of flaps over the weeken weekend. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a set to answer some of those questions from the press, it is going to be a hot one today in the white house Briefing Room, we will take you there when it begins. Melissa as President Trump makes a new push for his travel ban, there are calls for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to recuse herself from the case after some critical comments that she made during the campaign. Last week, the Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to consider reinstating his executive order banning travel from six muslim majority countries. Gregg jarrett joins me now, he is an attorney and a fox news anchor. What is it exactly that she said that we are focused on now that might be meaningful . Her statements in three separate interviews were stunning and unprecedented, in one interview with the Associated Press and another with the New York Times she said the following. I cannot imagine what the country would be with donald trump as our president. For the country it could be four years, for the court it could be i dont even want to contemplate that. And then she added what her husband likely would have said. Now its time for us to move to new zealand. Thats bad enough. Days later in a cnn interview she said of candidate trump she is he is a faker, he really has an ego, how has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns . Those words reflect a clear bias or prejudice and in fact a personal animosity against the man who would become president. It was out right reckless because he was about to be the nominee when she uttered those words and she had to have known that his decisions or orders would come into question legally and would reach their way to the Supreme Court. Melissa you would assume that she like so Many Democrats thought there was absolutely no way he would be elected. What does it take to be disqualified on the Supreme Court level . Im not sure ive seen that . It is set very clearly in a federal statute. Any justice shall disqualify themselves in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. He shall also disqualify himself where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning up a part. Her comments show a personal bias, prejudice and in fact an outright hostility toward donald trump. Her impartiality can certainly be reasonably questioned as the statute says. How can she possibly be fair . Melissa it was really startling to see those comments there. We are going to go now, lets listen in, thats Sarah Huckabee sanders doing a press briefing. At meetings, events, both inside and outside of washington. With that i would like to bring up the secretary to talk about the big announcement he made this morning. As a reminder as always, i would encourage you to please be respectful and keep your questions on the topic at hand and i will be happy to answer questions on other topics after. Thank you. Thank you. I am glad to be here today. As sarah said earlier today, i made an announcement about the department of veteran Affairs Decision on Electronic Health records. Normally that is not too exciting a decision about a product but i am excited about this because i think this is going to make a big difference for veterans everywhere. Its going to make a big difference for the department of veteran affairs. I wanted to say from the outset that when the president selected me to be secretary he made clear to me that he expected me to act with faster decisions and act like business and make sure we were really doing the right thing to change Veterans Health care. I told you when i was here last week that i would make a decision by july 1st and i wanted to let you know that i am honoring that commitment. Having an Electronic Health record that can follow a veteran during the course of his health and treatment is one of the most important things i believe you can do to ensure the safety and health and wellbeing for a veteran. I told congress recently that i was committed to get out of the Software Development business, that i did not see a compelling reason why being in the Software Development business was good for veterans and because of that, i made of the decision to move away from our internal product to an offtheshelf commercial product. As you may know, almost all of our veterans get to us from one place and that is the department of defense. When i went back and looked at this issue very carefully since becoming secretary, i was able to trace back at least 17 years of congressional calls and Commission Reports requesting that the va not only modernize its system but work closer with the department of defense. That went all the way back to 2000. We each have separate systems and are supporting separate electronic systems. While we have been able to advance at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayers, today we still have separate systems that do not allow for the seamless transfer of information. I just want to expand on that a little bit, being a doctor. What we are able to do with the department of defense over years and years and as i said hundreds of millions of dollars, we were able to read each others records right now. Thats our certification. What we are not able to do is Work Together to plan a treatment, to be able to go back and forth between the department of defense and va. We have not been able to obtain that to this point. For those reasons, i decided that the va will adopt the same Electronic Health record as the department of defense. We will now have a single system. That system is known as the genesis system which at its core is cerner millennium. It will allow all patient data to reside in a common system. We will have the seamless link between departments without the manual or Electronic Exchange of information. As a secretary, i am not willing to put this decision off any longer, i think 17 years has been too long. When dod went through its decision on Electronic Medical records, it took them approximately 26 months to do this. I will tell you in government terms, that is actually a pretty efficient process. I dont think we can wait that long when it comes to the health of our veterans. And so under my authority as the secretary va, i am acting to essentially direct acquisition of the hr currently being employed by the department of defense that will allow the Seamless Health care for veterans and qualified beneficiaries. Once again, because of the health of our veterans ive decided that we are going to go directly into the dod process for the next generation of. Let me just tell you, this is the start of the process. Va has unique needs that are different from the department of defense, and for that reason the va while adopting this needs additional capabilities to maximize with our community providers. Onethird of our health care goes outside the va into the community. This is critical that we can have the same interoperability with our community providers. We are going to have our clinicians very involved and how we develop the system and how we implement it. In many ways, the department of veteran affairs is actually well ahead of the department of defense and clinical i. T. Innovation. We are not going to discard all the things that weve done in the past and in fact that is how we are going to help dod get better. It is a system that will strengthen care for veterans and our active service members. We are going to be embarking upon something that has never been done before. That is an integrated product, using the dod platform but it is going to require this integration with other vendors to create a system for veterans so that they can get care both in the community as well as in the department of defense. Thats going to take the active cooperation of Many Companies and leaders and it will serve as a model not only for the federal government but for all of health care that is trying to seek this. Once again i want to think the president for his incredible commitment to helping our veterans and support the ba. I also want to thank the department of defense who have been incredibly helpful in this process and the American Office of innovation who has been incredibly helpful in helping us think differently about how to solve problems. This mission is too important for us not to get right and i assure you we will and id be glad to take any questions. Reporter one, how long will thid two, how will veterans know and feel and experience the difference . Great question. This is the beginning of the process and we are going to start essentially entering into the details of how we would and clement a contract. We would expect that process, trying to do this as quickly as possible will be about 36 months of the latest. During that time, we will be developing both the implementation plans and the cost of the system so that we can go out and make sure that we are doing this right and that we have the Resources Available to do it. Secondly, to a veteran, there is now going to be a single system from the time that they enlist in the military until potentially they die, one single lifetime record. There will never be a need to go back and forth and say that records arent there for me or my doctor isnt able to have input into what the department of defense is doing and our Community Partners need that same type of operability. My top clinical priority is to reduce veteran suicide. One of the areas weve identified is a gap in the transition when you leave the military and all of a sudden you know longer have that structure that you were use to and what happens to you before you get enrolled into either health care or Community Health care. That no longer is going to happen, we are going to have a seamless ability to make sure that information is there. To a veteran who is experiencing emotional disorder, when they reach out for help it is going to be easier to get them help, for other people who have a physical problems, that same information is going to be there to develop a coordinated care plan. You are waving Competitive Bidding for ballpark estimate of how much it is going to cost, has not factored into your current budget . We have not begun cost negotiations. We know the department of defense had a billion dollar contract, we have not begun those negotiations. Part of the reason why i had to wait that processes i absolutely believe and i had spent the time reviewing the materials that it is in the Public Interest to move quickly and i believe we can do this cheaper for the taxpayers by essentially moving forward quickly without a lengthy process. Thank you, mr. Secretary. You are part of the last administration, is there a particular reason why this process which you are announcing today did not take place during the Obama Administration . Did you drop the ball the Obama Administration . If you could, explain a little bit. This is one of those problems that i talked about last week with all of you, that i think spans administrations and has been going on for decades. I can count no fewer than seven blue ribbon commissions that have recommended that we move the director like this. The commission on care was a 68 million study that came out with this recommendation. I think people have felt that this was a direction that they should be moving in. I will tell you, it is hard to make decisions. Theres a lot of builtin movement to keep things the way they are. In the last administration we considered this and we looked at a number of things, i think it really was this administration and the president s mandate to do business differently that allowed us to move forward with this type of speed. At what point in the future will that records be transferred . When will it kick in . Who in the white house is involved in this process . One question is about the timing, wind is a veteran begin to experience this . That is what we are going to be determining the timeline during this 36 month period when we roll it out. I do believe, and everything im doing is trying to act this speed, working with the department of defense and already using their planning materials and their management tools, we will be able to do this much faster than if we did it alone. The department of defense has taken a period of time before the implement of their first system, i think we will be able to do hours even faster than they did. Thanks again to secretary mattis on the department of defense. They have detailed some of their Key Executives who work with the project and they are helping us begin this. We have Institutional Knowledge from them that is considerable. Your second question has to do with who at the white house has been working with us. I will tell you that i not only review large numbers of reports, independent management reports, consultants that come in to help us, hospitals, hospital ceos, members of congress and people at the white house to be able to talk to all of the stakeholders to make this decision at the white house. Weve talked with the president s office but also working closely with the the American Office of innovation. One of the guarantees when you try to integrate all the information from all the services into this one system . What are the guarantees . No guarantees, highrisk process particularly when you were doing this and the largest integrated Health System in the country. This is highrisk, its one of the reasons i made this decision. I think by going with the department of defense system, we are lowering our risk. We are taking their expertise and putting it in the va and again. As a private sector ceo i have done this several times successfully but ive never done it on this scale. The risks are there but we are going to make sure we are going to do this the right way. What happens to those older veterans who have problems . You are doing this now, but what happens to those who been in the system for a long time, where do they come in and how long will this take . This is a problem that Many Health Care organizations have traduced transition to other Electronic Health records, you do not discard your old information, you have to have a way to make sure the old information is there. Thats a problem that i think we are going to be pretty good at handling. Some of our Management Consultants looked at this issue offtheshelf versus staying with maintenance, help us look at the cost benefits. That was part of my thinking. This is essentially the most costeffective way to go to a commercial offtheshelf system. The problem with what the va has been doing, a 4. 1 billiondollar budget and i. T. , 70 is maintaining our current systems. Our systems are getting older, its getting harder to hold the system together. Each year i believe we will get more and more expensive to modernize our own system. We arent able to keep the type of people that we want. I think the best costbenefit decision for taxpayers and for veterans is to move to an offtheshelf system. You are talking about an offtheshelf system, you are not developing new software. The biggest problem with offtheshelf a security. One of the reasons why i chose to go this route is because of security. The department of defense has already invested in such a high security standards, those of the standards that we need to be able to assure privacy and security for our veterans and thats part of the reason why we are doing this. Just to be clear, we are adopting an offtheshelf system. As i mentioned before, we are also embarking upon something that nobody has done before because of this problem of these commercial systems not talking together. We need them to talk together, because many of our patients are on the community and our academic partners, many of them use other systems. We are so were creating something taking the best off the shelf but also creating something that doesnt exist today. Yes . The on thing Congress Needs to get involved with is the appropriations, yes or no . Yes. We dont know what youll be asking for thats not built in the fy18 budget. Youre correct. But it will be higher than 4 billion, right . I would love to do it for less but that would be unrealistic. You dont have a ball park. Yes. Is that going to hamper the appropriation if you want a three to six month time frame to initiate what youre doing . Weve already begun to engage starting today with the appropriations leadership in both senate and the house. And i will tell you that this is something that congress has been asking for. I believe they will support this. Of course, this has to be a dialogue between us. They have to make sure that were making the decision at the benefit of the taxpayers as well as veterans and active service members. But i do believe we will have the leadership and the partnership to get us there. One last thing. If this is an off the shelf system, this is not a low bid process