Evening. How are you all doing . Good . Thanks for having me. I know who bobby bones is. Nice to meet you, kind of sort of, in person. , i want to thank the executive board of the radio tv correspondents association. On behalf of the people i work with, i want to thank olga and her team at the house radio tv gallery. [applause] tonight, igentlemen, have prepared my remarks in a way that will forever revolutionized the way that you hear speeches. It is going to be organized in a stream of bullet points. That makes it sound like it was an axios joke. He swore to me that was going to be a funny joke. I wasnt sure. Thank you for proving me right. You may beof wondering why i came here so soon after my health smith dinner. Its never too early for a speaker to work on his next gig, and i had lots of leftover dad jokes. After the l smith dinner, where i spent a third of the time ripping on the president , he give me a call the next morning, pretty early. He actually really liked the speech. H
Attracted to the ideology, on the second question, the relationship with russia has been very complex and not to beat around the bush about it, russia is a player in syria and went in there to preserve their interests and at least to preserve it temporarily. But the russians will be key in moving him out at a certain time. Were in Constant Contact with the russians here and we have channels in geneva and people talk to them every single day about the ceasefire and in very extensive and detailed conversations. Our intelligence people work with them to resolve issues of fact. It is challenging at times. Very challenging at times. But i think it is fair to say that the ceasefire has been held in important areas in the country and it is always being negotiated in other parts of the country as well. Secretary kerry has been the best to say, he will not taken in by this and the proof will be in the results. For that matter, the rest of the International Community to advance the ceasefire. Ka
To respond to these crises and to treat People Better in their own kick countries. Paleumbers, of course, compared to the large migrations we see overseas, but for many years we have been the leader in a program taking the most refugees from around the world and bringing them to the United States where they can restart their lives. This year, we are seeking to bring 85,000 refugees. So, an increase, and also to g 10,000 Syrian Refugees [applause] anne r. i get criticized from the right and the left on this one. Because friends in one direction say that is not enough and friends on the other side say we are worried you would let terrorists sneak inside the program. It is the most heavily vetted program of any traveler in the United States and it is ramping up sharply. Right now, we have over 40 of the Syrian Refugees and we will see larger numbers in the coming days. We are all over halfway to 85,000. Stay tuned. We have done a lot to try to meet the targets. I mentioned central america