Do the oath of office. It is my great pleasure to introduce the Vice President of the United States, mr. Mike pence. [applause] Vice President pence good afternoon. And on behalf of the first family, welcome to the white house. Its going to be my great honor today and in fact a privilege to administer the oath of office to the 42nd United States ambassador to japan, bill hagerty. Cheers and applause] were joined today by some very distinguished guests. Senator alexander and senator corker both from bill hagertys home state of tennessee. Will you join me in welcoming both . [applause] see distinguished members of the military and other honored guests. I know the families very the familys very grateful youre here. As is the president and myself. Were joined today also by the most distinguished guests who are here, and that is our incoming ambassadors wonderful family. His mother, ruth. [applause] and most especially, his wonderful wife, chrissy, and their four beautiful children. [applau
Pence swore in william hagerty, president trumps pick to be the next ambassador to japan. This is 15 minutes. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests. Its my pleasure as the acting chief of protocol to welcome you to the swearingin ceremony of big hagerty as the next United States ambassador to japan. The honorable mike pence will give the oath of office. Its my honor to introduce the vicepresident of the United States, mr. Mike pence. [applaus [applause] well, good afternoon, and behalf of the first family, welcome to the white house. Its going to be my great honor today and, in fact, a privilege to administer the oath of office to the 42nd United States ambassador to japan, bill hagerty. [applaus [applaus [applause] were joined today by very distinguished guests. Senator alexander and senator corker from bill hagertys home state of tennessee. Will you join me in welcoming them both . [applaus [applause] see distinguished members of the military and other honored gu
Chief of protocol to welcome you in to the swearingin ceremony of bill hagerty as the u. S. Ambassador to japan. The honorable mike pence will do the oath of office. It is my great pleasure to introduce the Vice President of the United States, mr. Mike pence. [applause] Vice President pence good afternoon. And on behalf of the first family, welcome to the white house. Its going to be my great honor today and in fact a privilege to administer the oath of office to the 42nd United States ambassador to japan, bill hagerty. [cheers and applause] were joined today by some very distinguished guests. Senator alexander and senator corker, both from bill hagertys home state of tennessee. Will you join me in welcoming both . [applause] see distinguished members of the military and other honored guests. I know the familys very grateful youre here. As is the president and myself. Were joined today also by the most distinguished guests who are here, and that is our incoming ambassadors wonderful fa
Youre not going to have people serving vat rans. Youve got a leadership crew not willing to make desuggestion and it contributes to whistleblower retaliation, people being dissatisfied with their jobs. Weve got to get the positions filled. I heard the secretary talk a little bit about reviewing the infrastructure to find out how many positions are needed. We cant make that decision. Pi thael ooh have to make the assessment. If the people filling those positions that have been pulled from other positions, those positions will go back. Its a ripple effect. We have, like i said, roughly 50 over the vha landscape of leadership that is either in a temporary position or vacant. If those individuals that are filling in those leadership positions are just plugging the gaps so that the operation can move forward, their positions are now vacant. Its a very difficult situation that needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed immediately. Yes, sir. Thank you, senator. And if i could comment on the
Do. It is that common sense that literally had us look inwards and put together a plan for the department moving forward. Governor nixon was a huge proponent of that. He was very big on making sure we had a strategy and that we were following the strategy and making certain we were addressing all the needs that needed to be addressed. The items brought up by our two private sector panelists, on the slide here, you will see key economic indicators. I wanted to take an opportunity to tell you about some of the other key advantages we have that are not readily available or recognizable. To that point, we are smack dab in the middle of the United States. Our location is key to the success of the state of missouri. It is location, location, location. If you look at missouri, one of the things you will find, within 600 miles of our state are 62 of all the manufacturing plants in our state. In addition to that, we have an interstate system that spans all across the state, but we are fortunate