This is 15 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, the president and Vice President of the United States accompanied by bob mcdonald. Good afternoon, everybody. Please be seated. Let me start by thanking acting secretary gibson for welcoming us here today. Im pleased to be joined by our Vice President , joe biden, from leaders across this department and our many partners particularly representatives from our incredible veterans and military Family Service organizations. I want to begin by making a basic point. Those of you who serve here at the v. A. , do absolutely vital work every single day for our veterans and their families. I know how deeply you care about our veterans. Many of you are veterans yourselves. Veterans serving veterans. You help them transition to civilian life, college, a first home, and start a new business and you have some of the best doctors and provide some of the best Specialized Health care. In our national cemeteries, you lay our veterans to rest with dignity and com
Other health professionals, how do we bring those people into our system . Health care is certainly a major issue, but that is not the only challenge that our new secretary will face. We have the Veterans Benefits administration, which is now in the midst of one of the largest transformations in modern history. That is going from a paper system to a paperless system. In my view they have done a good job, but problems remain. We want to make sure that in that transformation, as we bring down the wait times for benefits claims, that we do it in an accurate way. That is a challenge that you are going to have to face. Scandals in the modern history of this country has been the number of Homeless Veterans that we have seen all over the country. In recent years, general general general this,ki played a role in that number has gone down. That is another challenge that you are going to face. Let me close by suggesting that i think that mr. Mcdonald brings to us two very important qualities. He
States just this year, entered without permission in the Immigration Court system. What happens to these guys . The new people would have a status. When thed send back to United States government did ins in vietnam, in haiti, parts of africa. Remove people from a situation that is dangerous, unsafe in a variety of ways, whether it is politics, country conditions, or some other capacity, but if you open all of those other questions, in addition to el salvador and guatemala. There are two other countries at play here who also have tens of thousands of citizens in the United States who also have temporary protective status from years ago. Ballsis a lot of sort of in the air and which one you pick up will determine the future potentially for one small group or a larger group, but not necessarily the whole group, if that makes sense. You are addressing a piece of the puzzle, but it could potentially create another wave in a different capacity. It is so unknown, i think, at this point, you w
We will discuss that today. What terms should be in the final agreement . What would United States have to consider doing if we do not get a solution we consider excess factory satisfactory . He talkedck that when about International Order and international institutions, he did not mention the israelipalestinian issue. His support for john kerrys peacemaking instead, we have a third escalation of the conflict in the last five years. We know how they go and we know how the and. They produce casualties. That is a situation we will try exploretoday today. The panelists are ready to do this. I will introduce them briefly. They will speak in which the order they are listed. I asked each of them to come to the podium because we have Television Cameras here. Speaking to the microphone. I hope i have been doing that. Way, each of these speakers has a biography that would take all day to read. You will find them on the back of your invitation. I am only going to give you the highlights. Our fir
Support hamas strategy and the to en thetion set conflict. For years, we warned community that hezbollah was amassing tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. Mit with silence. Will you continue to remain silent . That hamase told you was building a terrorist strong hold in gaza and we called on the International Community to condemn the rocket fire. Silence. Et with for years we warned of the impending escalation and you ignored us. The hardest thing to see is what eyes. Front of your israel is in the front line of radicallistgainst islamist terrorism. The buyer civilized world has a the outcome, so it must support israels right to defend citizens. Israels fight against terrorism today will determine how we live tomorrow. Do nothing and to say nothing, to support our efforts the tyranny and terror is to invite tyranny and terror into our own back yard. The International Community must stand together and speak soether and prevail together that all people everywhere can live in freedo