Mental cases and he has twice failed to full McDuff meant in the wake of 2 inconclusive national ballots now city all he centrist rival in those elections Benny Gantz of the blue and whites policy was also an able to form a coalition government civilians on Friday packed a road leading out of a flashpoint town in northwest Syria where 2 weeks of heightened regime and Russian bombardment has displaced 235000 people pick up trucks carrying a mattress clothes and household appliances ferried entire families out of the town the latest violence in the jihadist dominated lib region has killed scores of civilians this is viewing news the wreckage of a helicopter carrying 7 people to one of the most rugged remote coastlines in Hawaii has been found and the county of Koichi fire department Battalion Chief Solomon can know how searchers have recovered some remains the passenger manifest confirm 7 were on board the aircraft and we have recovered 6 sets of remains there are no indications of survivors who y.-e. Hawaii's 4th largest island features sharp mountain peaks jagged cliffs and tropical rain forest the u.s. Military is offering details on the death of a u.s. Special forces soldier in Afghanistan this week correspondent been Thomas a spokesman for u.s. Forces in Afghanistan says Sergeant 1st Class Michael Goble was with his unit when its members discovered an undisclosed amount of Taliban weapons in conducive province Monday Goble was killed in an Afghan service member wounded mine explosion as they were clearing out the cash the Taliban had claimed targeted the group with a roadside bomb and that is a piece bin Thomas rushes defense ministry. Says it had deployed its 1st regiment of hypersonic nuclear capable missiles on Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that this weapon puts his country in a class of its own the u.s. Pentagon says it will not characterize the Russian claims about the weapons capabilities Jerry Herman the Tony Award winning composer behind many Broadway shows including Hello Dolly has died at the age of 88 Julie Walker. Cut. Cut Jerry Herman I am what I am one of his most popular tunes his goddaughter Jane Dorian says he died from pulmonary complications in Miami where he'd been living with his partner real estate broker Terry Mahler terming created 10 Broadway shows and contributed to several more he won 2 Tony Awards for Best Musical Hello Dolly and lucky. Tributes are pouring in from Broadway Boyle to Harvey Firestein tweeting we lost one of the greats I'm sure will Walker and all break of chicken pox has forced the temporary closure of a shelter housing Central American migrants sent to Mexico from the United States shelter in the northern city across the border from El Paso closed on Thursday after 72 people including 69 children were diagnosed with the virus according to officials in Chihuahua state and the statement I'm Tommy make me your v.o.a. News. From Washington v.o.a. Presents issues in the news. Welcome to the scenes in the names on the panel this week Linda Feldmann Washington bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor Tom De Frank a contributor to The National Journal and a moderator install Brandis White House the porter for West Wing deployed and a columnist for USA Today. Hello thank you for joining us and here are the issues the u.s. Senate gears up for a historic trial of President Trump 5 men have been sentenced to death for their roles in the gruesome murder of the dissident journalist. At the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Turkey tensions between the u.s. And North Korea increase and we'll look back at 2019 and preview the new year 2020 Well let's start. With this impeachment trial of President Trump I think as our global listeners probably know the president has now been impeached by the House of Representatives that of course is the lower chamber of our Congress and he'll be tried at some point in the New Year in the Senate of course the issue is we don't know when this trial will occur we don't know what the trial will look like work if anyone will testifies a lot of things up in the air Linda let's start with you what do you think is going to happen right now or it impasse so Nancy Pelosi has not handed the articles of impeachment to the Senate which would then allow them to announce the terms for the trial so this is all a matter of discussion should be between the majority leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell and the minority leader Chuck Schumer in our last impeachment with Bill Clinton the 2 Senate leaders were. Able to work together and get a deal together for a trial of Bill Clinton this time it's not happening Nancy Pelosi is using what little leverage she has and withholding the handing over of the articles it might look like she has no leverage the Republicans have the majority in the Senate but what she's done is gotten under Donald Trump's skin he has spent the Christmas holiday in a rage rage tweeting at Nancy Pelosi over the fact that she's not triggering the trial there will be a trial but she's holding off to try to get a better deal in terms of the terms for this trial and one thing that is an issue here is that Mitch McConnell of course the Senate majority leader has already said that he cannot be an impartial juror and that he's cooperating closely with the White House without hardly seems like a fair process and they've been complaining about the process and yet that hardly seems fair well the truth of the matter is the way the protocol works Paula is that all senators will have to swear an oath before anything begins to be fair and impartial jurors of the president any president and it's hard to see how McConnell can do that because he's already said I'm not impartial so that sets up a bit of a back and forth there that tells you a couple of things it tells you like many Republican senators McConnell who is up for reelection in 2020 should be cruising to victory is scared to death of crossing President Trump getting on President Trump's bad side and so he has a tight rope to walk but it suggests that the Republicans don't care and whether there'll be a backlash at that point somewhere down the road it's too early to tell the procedural problem the Republicans have is Linda said you need 2 thirds of the senators voting to throw out a president meaning $67.00 is very unlikely that that will happen so nobody really thinks that Trump will be removed from office but you only need 51 votes to prevail on. See general things and so if the Democrats can find for Republicans to say we need to have a witness we need to hear from Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden who was the Republicans think did run and did bad things and when he was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company the Republicans would like to hear from him but Democrats say we have to hear from John Bolton the president's national security adviser who was right in the middle of all the Ukraine stuff and was pushed out in so far he's not been willing to testify so the threshold of 4 votes is not that big so we'll have to see what happens and it looks like there's perhaps at least one Republican Lisa Murkowski the senator from Alaska who has expressed reservations about what McConnell has said in terms of not being impartial who might the other 3 be is that even possible there are 3 others in a colony maybe you know even Romney is a possibility he's it's close as you can get to being a never Trumper and so to stay in the Senate there Susan Collins of Maine who's up for reelection and is in of the battle of her political life through under her seat Cory Gardner a Republican from Colorado Colorado has become more and more of a democratic right enclave in the last decade or so and he and Collins are considered to be the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection in November of 2020 so they get you to 4 now will that happen and we don't know but it Republicans are torn I mean and I'm sure Linda I mean Lunacon speak for herself and I'm sure we all know situations where we've gone up to Capitol Hill and talked to Republicans who say we're really troubled by this president but we have to back him because if we criticize him he will destroy us he will unleash the power of his very formidable conservative base in other words are not troubled enough they're not troubled enough to show any profiles in courage but it's a real Democrats could lose some votes to don't forget you've got. The senator from West Virginia Joe Manchin who is represents the most Republican state in the country John's Nalbandian and Judge Jones an Alabama has probably had gone or in the next election a Democrat in the deep south kind of won on a fluke so honestly I just don't see the Democrats really getting to 51 well we'll talk more about this I think in the 2nd half of the show when we preview the year to come but let's move on in Saudi Arabia as people perhaps at No 5 men have been sentenced to death and another 3 face a total of 24 years in prison for their roles in the gruesome killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul Turkey last year there are some people who say that this is actually kind of a sham here Tom I mean they were convicted sentenced to death so how would that be a sham what but what's going on well 1st of all the trial was closed to the public and to the media there was no transparency we don't know what kind of a trial they they got the 2 closest advisers in the chain the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan on were cleared of any risk culpability on the grounds of insufficient evidence but there's no record of what the lack of evidence was it's a sham because and this is not a personal opinion this is a fact the u.s. Central Intelligence Agency a year ago had concluded with a very reasonable degree of certainty that the Sharky's killing in dismemberment was ordered personally by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Mohammad Vincent assault on better that is not a personal opinion on my part that is the fact that the CIA and other American intelligence agents concluded that Mohammed and cells on was personally responsible and culpable and he their courses has denied it it's a hint. Crime I had nothing to do with it but he's not very credible and so that is the problem for the Saudis they can't admit that the leader of their country is persistent paid in a criminal act of murder so there there is a giant cover up here there's no no way to sugarcoat that but I think M.B.'s will will survive but it'll be interesting to see over the next year or so what what happens on the global stage about this the United States is still in his corner for geo political strategic reasons but again there are very few people in positions of authority in the u.s. Intelligence community who don't who don't agree with the CIA that he is culpable All right well Linda in the remaining minutes we have in this 1st part of the show another thing that I wanted to talk about tensions between the u.s. And North Korea have suddenly begun to rise again the president as you know I spent the last couple of years he's met with Kim Jong un 3 times now he's said that the nuclear arising we know or at least u.s. Intelligence agencies say that has never been the case and continue to work on their nuclear program on their long range rockets and so forth and you know things are kind of deteriorating when the name calling starts to ratchet up in the president just recently read used his phrase a rocket man when talking about Kim So this appears to be kind of a going backwards here yeah and Kim promised a Christmas gift for America and so we we sat here on Christmas wondering if something terrible might happen now people are looking to Kim Jong un's birthday which is January 8th because that is for North Korea big important day so we're looking as that might might something happen by then and what the top officer for air operations in the Pacific region is looking at is he's. Doing some type of long range ballistic missile to be the gift a test not a good thing but we were talking about John Bolton a couple of minutes ago Tom and Bolton I think at Twitter which is seems to be everybody's medium of choice these days at Bolton has said well at some point President Trump is going to have to admit that his strategy everything he's done with respect to North Korea from day one has failed is that a reasonable that's what John Bolton again the president's former national security adviser has said is that a reasonable assessment Well it's a reasonable that assessment but it's not a reasonable expectation there's nothing in President terms d.n.a. That suggests he can or will admit a mistake has not he's just not wired for that he's always on the attack it's interesting to me that you know the love letters seem to have stopped it's been a long time since the president said I got the most beautiful letter from Kim Jong un he said we fell in love we fell in love. And I think I don't know why this why the show in recent months maybe it's because the president has now understand there's no way North Korea is going to give up its greatest global bargaining chip nuclear weapons it's the only thing they have right and without them without on them they're just a country and starving its people and international pariah but their international prize with nuclear weapons so this is going south that's for sure well let's pause for a short break more issues in the news in just a moment if you didn't ending this coming to you from the Voice of America in Washington if you would like to download the president made spray on 19th just click on the i Tunes tab on our website at v.o.a. Needs dot com While you're there check out our other president rather one for USA and. Encounter also live it up on Facebook and 3 make a comment or 2 then like the parents of mayors with Carol Castillo Now back to our panel Linda Feldmann Washington bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor Tom De Frank contributor to The National Journal and our moderator Paul Brandon White House me Porter for West Wing reports and a columnist for USA Today Welcome back well this is our final program of 29000 where is the time gone it's just the year has flown by it's the end of the year in fact the end of a decade and as we look back at this year and ahead to 2021 to talk about 29001st it's almost impossible to think of all the things that have happened this year just happened so quickly but Linda we'll start with you the 2 or 3 things that have stood out in your mind this year so I'm I'm just struck by the roll of Nancy Pelosi we began the year with her having to fight for the speakership which even people who opposed to rise to that position for the 2nd time of course she was the 1st female speaker a decade ago and then when the Democrats re took the house in the midterms last year she was positioned to retake but face this revolt among some younger more progressive members of Congress and she won the speakership back and has proven herself to be the most skilled politician the most skilled tactician and Washington bar none she gets under Donald Trump's skin he doesn't know what to do with her he's finally giving giving her nicknames but she doesn't care she raised 5 children and any mom knows that when you raise kids you learn to put up with a lot and you can see through the stuff that they're throwing at you and I can't think of anybody better be facing off against him in a way it's almost ironic that trump pulls poorly with women of course and it's not going to do well with women I think we can presume in the 2020 election and here he is. Being. Right so far by a very the most powerful political woman in the country to question and every time he launches on her he used to he used to say to aides and friends I respect her toughness Linda's right she's gotten under his skin like no one else has been able to and every time he launches on her and calls her wacky him crazy and I mean she probably loses another 1000 votes from suburban women who didn't like him much anyway I mean her strength please only person in America at the moment who can rattle him throw him off his game and she's just cool as a cucumber 3 just keep throwing his name calling to the right she doesn't hate it she doesn't care I mean she comes out and she says things and I think it's heartfelt I pray for the president every day well that sends him into orbit and he sends this remarkable very long letter to her right before the impeachment vote and which he's just kind of excoriating her sentence after sentence after sentence that was a came across as a very interpret unpresidential letter and he also accused her of lying when he said she was trying for him that that is going to be a continuing duel in the next year setting aside the election which we'll talk about I mean the Palosi back and forth with Trump is really going to be a duel of the Titans so there was one thing that Linda said that stuck out for her there sure what about you what was sort of the top thing that you who are to me it was it was the coalition around Trump by a Republican Party that really doesn't quite know what to do with him other than the fact that they have to bite their lip bite their time and support him because the Republican Party lost the off year elections and 2018 they're worried of many of them are worried about doing poorly in 2020 but they cannot break with Trump because they see what has happened to other politicians who have broken with Trump most of them are out of office a couple of them were defeated in primaries. When Trump supported somebody else because he was angry with them a congressman from South Carolina is one of them and so what I would call otherwise sane and principle Republicans have said I want to be in the Senate in the house for a long time but I've got to get through 2020 because if I can get through 2020 without incurring the wrath of Trump I have a chance to be in Congress a long time helping people in my districts or my states so the coalescing around Trump by more moderate conservatives in the Republican Party is one of them more striking political developments of the year for me tell you both giving me kind of a Washington focused sort of answer it's a big country what Beyond the Beltway to use that cliche struck me To me it's sort of a Washington there too I suppose but the thing that stands out in kind of a depressing way is this hyper partisanship which appears to be getting worse it used to be in this country that there were always a big number of people who were in the middle who did not necessarily identify as either Republicans or Democrats or the riot or the left them in a big group of independents and now that appears to be just shrinking by the day and people are just moving further to one side or another of course which makes cooperation on these big issues even more difficult to me that sort of the big thing the country is basically divided along tribal lines there's 2 giant triumphs the people who adore Trump and the people who detest Trump and there are tens of millions of Americans in both categories and you get the feeling there's about 40 percent of the of the electorate who adore him and about 40 percent of the electorate who just detest him and the number of undecideds You're right Paul continues to shrink and this this lack of comity the lack of being able to work together is amazing I mean I remember I'm a cover Gerald Ford when he was vice president and then president and he was a. Master of getting along I mean it's a cliche but it really is true Ford used to say I believe we can all disagree without being disagreeable and now everybody is disagreeable I mean there's name calling there is no goodwill and there is precious little goodwill on either side of the political debate or even even in the country and I think I find it really depressing Ford said that compromise in fact is the glue that holds government together that appears to be disappearing rapidly Well it's kind of go beyond Washington and America if we've got a couple of minutes left here whole bunch of things around the world to talk about quickly let's just started Britain Boris Johnson is going to continue as prime minister a convincing victory couple weeks ago quickly what does that mean in your view for breakfast at Rex It will happen that's a certainty and his balancing campaign was brilliant basically let's end the misery and get this done and people said yes please stop this endless impasse over Bracks it so they will leave the European Union in January but that's sort of in name only they have an 11 month transition period which experts say will be very difficult to achieve and so Johnson will likely get an extension on that so there will maybe go through a new phase of misery watching the u.k. Extricate itself from the you without being too disruptive to people's lives but there's no doubt that the people within the u.k. Who wanted to stay in are in full panic mode particularly and Scotland and Wales but Ireland question has now been reopened and they've got to have a kind of a compromise set up on that so that you don't reopen the whole Ireland question but you know the future of the e.u. Is not as gloomy as you might think in fact I recently had hosted a coffee with a key member of the European Parliament Radek Sikorski of Poland who said that in fact that has strengthened the e.u. He says that the populists in Poland in France and Italy no longer supporting their countries exits from the European Union they saw how awful it's been. For the u.k. And he says the so-called corpse is very lively in Israel with 3 attempts now to have a new leader Benjamin Netanyahu been a dieted for corruption yet he's still hanging on and I think he won kind of a victory just this week that allows him to keep controlling his Likud Party but the leadership in Israel is far from clear to as we head into the new year this is almost certainly going to be the 3rd election in less than a year in Israel the leading contender is a former Israeli Defense Force chief retired General Benny Gantz and you get the feeling that power is slowly leeching away from Netanyahu I don't know whether he survives the criminal trial on corruption charges or not but it seems like after a decade his hold on power is more tenuous than ever before so I think we're going to see months and maybe longer turmoil there and it's not at all clear who's going to be able to form a government whoever wins this 3rd election the u.s. Will remain Israel's staunchest global ally and no matter what happened I think President Trump would prefer Netanyahu or survive because Netanyahu has gone out of his way to support trump it remains to be seen and turmoil and chaos in Israel is never a good sign the people those who don't like that proposition are basically the Arabs that would talk about sort of a you know politics in Britain and Israel and so forth and what's going to happen with the between of one kind of a more amorphous issue that I wonder about is so you've got this d. Globalization trend and yet it's pumping up against international issues that it seems to me can only be solved with international cooperation so it seems to me those are 2 forces that are going to just create increasing friction at some point or is it like sentiment How do you deal with things like climate change which is not going away appears to be getting worse right places like Australia how do you tackle big problems like that when everybody. It's to go on the road well it's your right is no doubt that the u.s. Dropping out of the Paris climate accord is huge problem for global cooperation on this issue but you have other forces you have California which if it were a country would be I think what the 5th biggest g.d.p. In the world they have their own climate policy and they have their own restrictions in place and even a country like Australia which is very dependent on fossil fuels and a big exported to China fossil fuels there are still with the program and they're conservative prime minister acknowledges that climate change is a general sense linked to these extreme weather events and to the brush fires that caused him some harm politically so I think it is an all gloom and doom we've got most world leaders believe that climate change is real and are have instituted policies to fight it but give me an arc last minute or 2 here 2020 is here to a couple of days away at the big event here in the United States obviously is the presidential election next November we are sort of talking before the show that President Trump has a very good chance of winning. What do you think is going to happen in 2020 Well I've said a 1000000 times from these microphones Paul overnight is a lifetime in politics and we have 10 and a half months worth of lifetimes left to go until early November. Of next year something will happen that we don't expect to happen why because it always does. And so it's it's hard to know the one thing I believe the president from still has going for him other than a ferocious base of about 40 percent of true believers is the economy there were a lot of worries that the economy would start to slump but I know that has not happened still some people who think that that might happen next year remains to be saying but it's that will definitely be the domestic story. Quickly I think there's going to be growing competition from China and Russia challenging the president in the u.s. And in global affairs China and Russia seem to be somewhat in bold and and I think is going to be more bumps in the relationship between the u.s. And those 2 other superpowers Ok We'll have to end it right there our thanks to 2 of Washington's most prominent journalists Tom De Frank he's contributing editor to National Journal and Linda Feldman of the Christian Science Monitor this program was produced by Carol Castillo engineer Justin Thwaites and I'm Paul Brandis of USA Today and the rest will deploy this is their last show of 21000 Happy New Year and we'll see you in the New Year. From v.o.a. Press Conference USA here's your host Carol Castillo. Welcome to Press Conference USA I'm the voice of America on this year end edition of the program we bring you the highlights from 2019 Hello I'm Rick painfully over care Ok studio on March 16th so there should a Press Conference USA We had our 1st in a series of conversations with members of Congress our gas then was Congresswoman Abigail Spann Berger who represents Virginia's 7th Congressional District 2019 marked the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or as it's more commonly known Mido representative span Berger comments on whether or not the u.s. Is doing enough to strengthen the middle lions I think that we are definitely not doing enough to recognize and assert the value of NATO I think that some of the rhetoric that's come out of the executive branch has done just the opposite of that has maybe shaken a foundation of trust that exists between the United States and our NATO allies and I do think that members of Congress particularly Foreign Affairs Committee and all of Congress as a whole in passing this resolution have taken steps to affirm our position that NATO is incredibly vital to our long term national security and that the relationships under NATO are incredibly important to us but I do have really significant concerns about a lot of the rhetoric coming out of the White House related to NATO and to what extent do you think this rhetoric and these actions in a sense play into one of our most formidable foreign adversaries hands and that is Russia's Vladimir Putin's hand and therefore in a sense in danger our collective national security as a follow up do you think we're doing enough to combat lighting your Putin's Russia which is an autocratic regime which interfered in our elections which interferes in many other elections around the world particularly in Europe to the detriment of mainstream center left or center right. Parties and often boasters far right parties and populous parties it's troubling and surprising to see how harmful Russia's influence has been we've seen Russia grants aggressive against the United States in our 2016 elections moving into the future we have to recognize we being the international community but particularly the United States have to recognize the overall threat that Russia's propaganda or instability efforts have on this country and on our relationships across the world I think that there's perhaps in recent years never been a time where we've needed our NATO allies more particularly given the aggressive nature of the aggressive posturing that Russia has made against the United States and with allegations of meddling be it in England be it in France be it in other elections I think it's incredibly important that we affirm the relationships that we do have under NATO that we engage in information sharing wherever possible to be sure that we can address these concerns one of the things that the House passed last week we passed h.r. One which is a campaign finance reform and good governance bill but in that bill there were multiple amendments meant to address foreign money flowing into our elections the ability of foreign nations foreign actors foreign companies to purchase ads on social media as we know Russian entities did in the 20162018 elections I offered an amendment that would require the d.n.i. The director of national intelligence to provide threat assessments be it from non-state actor state actors or just overall cyber weaknesses that may exist with our voting machines to the individual states so the states can address any concerns and ideally safeguard and protect our elections so there's a variety of things that we in Congress are trying to do to get at the threats that we see coming from Russia certainly there's investigations in the intelligence committee that's working to better understand what's happened and what continues to happen but I think that all of it just points to the fact that it's incredibly important. We keep and affirm our strong relationships with our NATO allies Representatives Berger a Democrat won her seat been gone groups by defeating a Republican incumbent give the Nov 28th. She considers herself a centrist and often works with her Republican colleagues to create and pass bipartisan legislation congresswoman spam Berger shares her political philosophy and tells us why it's important for Democrats and Republicans to work together for the common good oh America I'm a Democrat I've always been a Democrat because I believe that the core values of the Democratic Party is that we can use legislation and policy to foundationally better people's lives to create more opportunity to create a more vibrant and rich country in a way that people can prosper and we do that through policies that are fair and encourage growth and prioritize education and recognize that sometimes people need a boost if they've fallen on hard times and so I somewhat reject these notions of always having a label where we fall on the spectrum because you know I think it is a moving target and I think that if we want to create legislation that is long lasting and impactful we have to find places where we can agree and I think a good example is the bipartisan background check bill that we just passed 2 weeks ago and that Bill was bipartisan Republicans and Democrats came together voted for it and it is the largest piece and most impactful piece of gun violence prevention legislation that we've had in more than 20 years I think on issues like prescription drugs and stabilizing Medicare that's a great area where we can have bipartisan agreement because at the end of the day you know these are issues that impact everyone regardless of your political ideology infrastructure issues we all benefit we might disagree on how to go about prioritizing infrastructure issues but when we have bridges and roads that work and broadband internet that connects our communities that is going to positively impact the broad spectrum of Americans and so I think discussing some of these issues where we can come together and then work our way to. It's an actual legislative next step that's what I'm trying to do that's where I'm trying to find some common ground and I think it's necessary so that we get out of this volleying back and forth between Democrats are in charge and we do this and the Republicans are in charge and they I'm doing it and do something else and then flipping back and forth it's not sustainable in many on our next visit to Capitol Hill Carol spoke with Congressman John Curtis a Republican who represents Utah's 3rd congressional district nearly 60 percent of Utah as lands are managed by the federal government representative Curtis's district is also home to some of the most iconic and scenic places in the United States and as a result he serves on the House Natural Resources Committee the congressman told us what he is doing to ensure that these lands are protected Well I love the question because it is a big part of what I do I have bears there's in my district which a lot of people heard about because of President Obama's original Antiquities Act as it Nation and President Trump repealed that but what people don't know a lot about is Emery County which is near barriers and we just finished a bill made it all the way through the House the Senate was signed into law that's a 1000000 acres of conservation recreation grazing and we actually brought these groups together who rarely agree on these difficult public lands issues and were able to get a bill through a substantial bill and I think that gives us hope that we can duplicate that formula and some of the other counties in this team and my office spends a tremendous amount of time on these public lands issues on that particular topic it seems like the Trump administration Mr Trump in particular would prefer to develop some of these areas and actually risk jeopardizing their protected status so that's really not true I think what you're seeing from President is more a leaning towards letting these decisions be made locally and I feel like the people locally want to preserve and protect as much as everybody else it's really not a. Isn't of what we do with these lands it's more a decision of who gets to make those choices and how they're managed in a related topic let's turn now to the issue of climate change President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris accord What are your thoughts with regard to know what we just debated this in Congress we had h.r. 9 which we which really was on this issue and the problem with the purse peace accord is fundamentally it gives a pass to China to Iran and to these countries who are putting out vast amounts of pollution and then in my opinion is discriminately hard on rural America and parts of my district so my question to those who are pushing the purse peace accord is why is it Ok to give a pass to a human rights violating dictator and then villainize people in Utah and it's not about taking care of the surface not about leaving the earth better than we found it it's really about the fact that there were some fundamental flaws in that accord that in my opinion were Dutchman to be hard on rural America representative Curtis also serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee he gives his opinion on President Trump's approach to foreign affairs and he shares his thoughts on international relations that really should surprise no one that the president was elected to go against the grain is going to cost the grain and it's painful and it causes a lot of us myself included some anxiety but he's delivering really what was promised and it's kind of $1.00 of things interesting about the president when people complain I frequently say there's nothing that you don't know about the president today that you didn't know when he was elected and so that is his style and his style is to come in and blow things up and cause a lot of discomfort and the question is Can things be put back together in a way that is actually better for America that when he started and you know we're all watching very carefully as these things are or are happening there. Are examples and I'll be of one of our NATO partners not spending proprium out of their budgets on defense that has been very positive there's been a really positive change in acknowledgment that they needed to up their game with that and so I think people are watching to see if the style is effective if it delivers the types of results that ultimately are good for our country or if it damages long term relationships as you have alluded to let's turn now to immigration because it sort of sits at the nexus between domestic and foreign policy and of course just like President Trump has the America 1st mantra you know he has he ran also on this anti immigrant message not just against illegal immigrants but even he has restricted legal immigration and of course now he's intent on building this so-called border wall even though Congress has not allocated funding for he's taking funds from the military and so what do you think that's the best way to go Congressman Curtis you know I've probably given more thought to immigration than any other topic which which is probably similar to all my colleagues this is a big issue and I don't mind telling you in my short time here in Congress one of my biggest disappointments is that we have been able to make progress on this but I think to be fair to this problem 1st and foremost belongs to Congress the president is only doing these things because Congress is not acting if we got our stuff together and if we work together as Republicans and Democrats none of what the president did would really be relevant because we hold the power to solve this problem and so 1st and foremost I think we need to blame Congress and I'm a member of Congress as I say that we need to work together we need to find solutions and we're simply not doing it and I think in many ways we're letting the American people down in early June Carol visited the u.s. Department of State to talk with them Bassett or Sam Brownback the u.s. Ambassador at large for International Religious Freedom or I r f and. Sort of brown bags office monitors religious persecution and discrimination throughout the world he talks about the state of religious freedom in the world and points out some of the trouble spots where there is widespread mistreatment of people who just want to practice their faith in peace There are list of the worst actors in the world these are nations that really oppress faith where it's very dangerous a lot of times for religious had here and or of a minority religion to practice their faith and the government doesn't step in and protect the individual so there are places where there's communal violence taking place but the government's doing everything they can but in some cases it's a government that doesn't have the resources or is too weak to really be a more effective than they are but these are a series of countries China's in this group of countries of particular concern we've got about 11 nations in that category some of the more authoritarian regimes to stand Turkmenistan are ones that are just really doing a lot of control and not letting people openly practice their faith in China you've just got a broad war against people of faith Pakistan just recently went on the list of countries of particular concern and it was that the government really wasn't standing up to the people that were conducting all the persecution was a lot of communal violence but the government itself wasn't stepping up and itself was encouraging some of this by their blasphemy laws and other things Ambassador Brownback talked about some of the places throughout the world where religious persecution is harshest in particular he spoke of the horrendous discrimination that there were your Muslims are suffering at the hands of the predominantly Chinese this is a atheistic communist government that's at war with all faiths there are a war with Islam with wiggers they're at war with Buddhism with the Tibet. Buddhists are war with the Christians or war with fallen gong and it's a war they will not win that's the very counterproductive thing of what China is doing is that they're at war with faith but they will not win this war you will not subjugate faith faith will find a way to flourish just like a plant grows up in a sidewalk it will find a way to get moving on forward and the freedom is what should be embraced of it the Currently the Chinese government has over a 1000000 acres in labor camps in the western part of the country they have destroyed any number of the house churches the Tibetan Buddhism they've been putting down for years and fallen gong they've had a particularly harsh attitude in criminalizing imprisoning and I told you about the one British report of even citing organ harvesting from falling Gong practitioners part of what's also concerned about China is their new methods that they're bringing in place of oppression it's cameras in artificial intelligence systems and blocking your ability to enter into the stream of commerce or to have an apartment if you go to the mosque in your face is seen in taking d.n.a. Samples from everybody so they can track all of you and it's a sort of big brother gone wild to oppress and suppress a religion and then our concerns are going to start so on the system to the rest of the world to authoritarianism and other places that seek to put down a minority and once the system is developed and all the software behind it then it's a simple matter of people gathering and putting the data together and then you can you can oppress people had a lady from the Holocaust Museum over a month ago and she was talking about the oppression in the future may look a lot different than it did in the past where there was a lot of people killed or imprisoned in the future you just may be marginalized in the society and once they get your face and they associate you with going to church or mosque or being religious that they say you can't go into these apartments you can't buy and sell in this place you can't travel your kids can't go to school. Because this the system has shit and they've got your face and your name and you're not going to be allowed to participate and that's probably the pace of oppression moving forward in this area which we don't want to see this happen let's take a break now you're listening to the best of Press Conference USA 29 team on The Voice of America here's a reminder that press conference USA is available for free download from our website v.o.a. New start com slash p.c. USA and from many streaming services such as Apple podcasts Let's get back to today's press conference USA featuring highlights of the program over the past year Carol returned to Capitol Hill at the end of June to visit with Congresswoman Alyssa Slotkin a Democrat who represents Michigan's congressional district like her colleague represented the vote against Danberg or Congresswoman Slaughter can also defeated and incumbent Republican for her seat in Congress the long awaited report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller was released on April 29th teen The report details the outcome of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election representative slot can says the report supports findings by u.s. Intelligence agencies that Russia did indeed interfere with the election let's just set the table by saying that in any other time under a Democrat a Republican president even before the mall report came out all 17 of the u.s. Intelligence agencies came out and said We believe that Russia attempted to meddle in our elections publicly in any other presidency we would have a blue ribbon panel with the greatest minds of a generation from national security and from Silicon Valley world coming together with a budget to write a report on how to protect our democracy because it's that fundamental obviously that hasn't happened the Moller report comes out it reinforces again just the full on it. Back by the Russians in the form of information warfare that's adapted from Eastern Europe and brought to the United States so I read the report and there is obviously a ton of work going on to try and understand the administration's role and what they did and did not do with the Russians but there's a whole half of the report that no one is doing enough talking about which is an information warfare and how we protect ourselves there's a group of us looking at this right now or members of Congress with a security background or with a law background and we're all trying to create a suite of legislation that protects ourselves in 2020 because we can talk about the president's role all we want and we should but we're not doing anything to protect ourselves and 2020 so that's where I've been putting my attention because that's my background and my expertise helps me in that process should become a key issue of economic concern for the past 2 years congresswoman gives her views on the use of tear not only to Coors own lines like India the e.u. And Canada but. China moves egregious unfair trading brought diseases I don't think anyone certainly in my district feels that China is playing fairly in the international system China is cheating China is not being a good international actor when it comes to the issues of trade and currency and interaction intellectual property but we can't have the cure for that problem be worse than the disease and I think some of the tariffs that have been imposed 1st of all they create immense instability particularly for industries in Michigan and in my business owners will tell me I'm just trying to be able to have a predictable plan for the next year and with these tariffs and the way the administration is sort of cavalier about threatening them it is hard for a business owner to have that stability so big they can plan separate from China I just can't support the use of some very very sort of obscure authorities like declaring national security emergencies when it comes to our allies when it comes to Canada. I'm going to declare you know trade coming from Canada as a national security threat that's the authority they're using in order to slap some of these tariffs on I believe in rules and standards I believe we have to be a country that upholds them so I the way they want about this I just deeply alienates our allies and to me that's always a bad thing is especially when you've got adversaries in the world so we know that in Michigan for instance the supply chain to making cars we have a ton of industry focus on that is disproportionately affected our farmers I mean I live on a soybean farm we are disproportionately affected by the tariffs and the trade wars that are going on right now July 21st of this year marks the 50th anniversary of mass is Apollo 11 moon landing considered one of the greatest accomplishments in human history we celebrated the Ok Zhen with a special science edition of Press Conference USA NASA chief a story and Bill Berry joined me for a discussion on how the space agency was able to me President John f. Kennedy challenge of landing a man on the moon and returning safely to Earth before the end of the 1960 s. Mr Barry tells us why he thinks the moon landing is still such a cherished event 50 years later Rick I think it's the issue is it's one of the great moments of human history were people than great steps in exploration it's like Columbus stepping on a new world or any of the other great explorers from that century is the 1st time humans have set foot on another heavenly body and I think a lot of people see this as the 1st step in human exploration of the cosmos in the centuries to come far years from now who remember probably not me. But Neil Armstrong I suspect will be well on average schoolkids looks just like Christopher Columbus was on mine when I was growing up it's incredible over the years you've heard people say well they can land a man on the moon but they can't do this it's amazing that we're still using that moon landing as a like a touchstone to greatness have we come anywhere. Near that since I hate to think that human accomplishment is so limited that we don't have other great things but it is a real touchstone because it was seen as such a huge task and such an impossible thing to do to go from you know when President Kennedy been that proposal that we should go to the moon in a decade we had 15 minutes or experience and space and it was sub orbital right there was a huge step to you make that challenge and then you know we organize all the forces that make it happen need to build a huge infrastructure for NASA industry 400000 people across the planet working in 20000 u.s. Companies involved in it and it was huge and still we managed to pull off on schedule despite expenses and costs and the human tragedy as well with the Apollo one crew being lost on the way but the fact that we pulled it off I think it really stands out in people's minds and that's one of the great legacies of Apollo I think is his belief that in fact he means when well organized and focused on a goal we can do anything Mr Barry looks back at the influence the Cold War between the u.s. And the former Soviet Union played in sending Americans to the moon that's a thing that we don't often think about so much these days from the perspective of 50 years but the whole reason why President Kennedy wanted something that beat the Russians with was because you know the Soviet Union was making a case that it was a better system of government than Western capitalist democracy and that's proof was look what we can do in space Yeah Americans can even do whatever a deal of this week's you know challenge was the so we had a really large booster rocket and they had a brilliant engineering team was very small but very nimble and so they were constantly looking for things where they could beat the United States on various things so a lot of their program wasn't so much a program as a series of sort of propaganda tasks but it didn't look that way to most everybody on the planet looked like the Soviet Union had been destroyed in World War 2 and 12 years later the 1st country to launch a satellite years later the 1st person to put some of that space it looked like they were way ahead and Kennedy realized that this was a. Age or political geopolitical risk for the Western world you had all these countries that had found their independence after World War 2 and they were looking at this and they weren't particularly keen with the Western model that given our experience with it in the past a lot of them and the Soviet system seemed pretty attractive given its technical capabilities so there was a lot of concern about where the trend would go and in 1981 people actually believe that the Soviet system was better than the Us system it's now it's a research thing I mean nowadays people can roll their eyes and go you could be kidding me you know we know how the Cold War turned out that sort of falls apart but at that point that was a real issue and one of the successes of Apollo is that we don't even think about that anymore and in fact I would argue that being the Soviet Union to the moon undermined the legitimacy of the Soviet system very effectively both internally in the Soviet Union and externally and it became much less of a geopolitical threat during the seventy's and eighty's and eventually the Soviet Union collapses not because we beat them to the moon necessary but I think that was one of the things that nudge that system over the edge and when and how was it decided that Apollo 11 would be the moon landing mission that's an interesting question often people think of baldness clear progression really going to pop the way we test them in a module in Earth orbit not all 9 Politan we test the whole thing around the moon and Paulette is obviously going to be the landing that was not how people at NASA saw it and in 1909 they had a series of missions they were coded to be certain kinds of missions and it wasn't the mission planned to be the lunar landing mission but all along the path as they were training the crews and preparing for those very flexible about which actual launch was going to fit into which category and so when the spring of $96.00 tonight begins after Apollo 8 successful going to the moon they named the Apollo 11 crew and NASA announces in January that pallette and crew may be the 1st crew to attempt to land on the moon so we knew that at that point but if Apollo 9 had gone badly and then the lunar module hadn't been tested properly Earth's orbit had been a problem with your module they would have to refine that mission again which meant that would've been a politician. So at 1st when the writing would be 12 or maybe 13 or 14 so there wasn't hard wired that those things would happen but we were incredibly good number one but also lucky that Apollo 9 went well and Apollo 10 went perfectly well and so Apollo 11 was our 1st mission that we might attempt a landing would actually turns out that be the mission we took going to the moon and then it successful the United Nations General Assembly opened that 74th suction 17th Carroll traveled to New York to talk with former f.b.i. Counterterrorism expert Ellie Soufan c.e.o. Of the Soufan Group to discuss major issues emerging from the u.n. G.a. As well as his recent research regarding the growing global threat from white supremacist extremists Mr Soufan talked about a report he had written based on research he had conducted regarding that threat for a few years we've been monitoring this a new phenomena and what we do in the center here we focus on trend lines and we try to predict which trying to lines might be faultlines down the future and that's frankly why we started to monitor what came to the ISIS early on or the foreign fighters who were the 1st and they need to collect numbers on what a fighter is and that wasn't popular and even in our own government because the focus of the time back in 20122013 was to just focus on one side and later on the foreign fighters in Syria developed into being a major contributor to instability in the world now we're seeing and you phenomenon in developing and it's a white supremacist extremism and what made us very concerned about it is it's evolving in a similar way to the jihadi threats in the eighty's and ninety's so it's a transnational in nature a lot of people when we talk about new Noddy's of white supremacy as they think it's a domestic terrorism issue in the United States yes there is the best they can monsters but they have tentacles in so many different Western countries all the way from New Zealand Australia to Ukraine to all the countries you know. To the United States this Nothe work is operating as I mentioned in a similar way to but also on the same time they are copying for example there's a white supremacist group in the United States their name is the base the base mean they copy actually copy even Al Qaida manuals they put images of. We started to see a movement in promoting the idea of violence to purify Western society from all nonwhite influences from a Jewish influences very similar to the wanted to purify their societies from any An Islamic influence so there was a lot of similarities the way they had a crude in the way they see violence as very justifiable to meet their goals and the way they fundraise the way they travel overseas for example we always saw the Jihadi is going to conflicts taking advantage of conflicts in order to build networks training experience we've seen them doing it in Afghanistan against the Soviets and then in the Balkans and Somalia we've seen it in so many different countries around the world recently in Syria and we've seen the same thing happening with the white supremacist extremism they are using the conflict in the Ukraine in a similar way to. Use the conflict that I just mentioned to be of their own ranks and that's press conference us a look back at 2019 I'm Rick bent over Carol Castillo from all of the current affairs program and. A very healthy and happy New Year thanks for listening and please join. For another press conference to say I'm the voice of America. This is the way news trying to tell me that's in your Generac can fix that killing at least a dozen of the survivors Reuters Matthew Lebrecht dozens of them killed or wounded when a passenger jet crashed soon after take off in can.