i know you are all very busy so we are going to jump right in our program but for those of you attending for the first time i hope you will become regular attendees. we established the forum back in the 80s to give congressional staff the opportunity to hear from expert speakers on critical topics in a bipartisan collegial atmosphere. as we always promise we have an expert speaker to address a very interesting and critical topic, what is the trump doctrine, what to expect from the current administrations foreign policies. fred flights is here to answer that question for us as someone who spent his entire life and national security positions as well as serving in the trump administration. he served for 25 years with the cia, the dia, department of state and also house intelligence committee staff. he served most recently as deputy assistant to president donald trump and chief of staff to national security advisor john bolton. this appeared in many u.s. and international radio programs ranging from msnbc to fox news, he is the author of several books addressing different foreign-policy topics. currently he serves at the center for security policy and we are honored to welcome fred to answer the question, what is the trump doctrine? >> i would like to thank suzanne and the ambassador for inviting me here today and it's really a special leisure for me to speak here because i am a former congressional staffer and i know how hard it is to get out of the work you are doing and i know how important the work is you are doing, running offices and making the members who work here more effective so i salute you and i would love to talk to you sometime if you want to hear somebody who worked five years on the hill and survived. when we talk about the trump doctrine we are talking about the trump foreign-policy and i have to say mr. trump has had a good run and foreign-policy so far, reestablishing the united states as a credible and powerful nation by standing up to rogue states by fighting for trade deals that look out for the interests of the american people, this is all driven by a new approach, by a president who is trying out the normal diplomatic ruble, trying things a different way as an outsider. the results have been mostly positive but it's a big change and it's worth explaining what this policy is and where comes from. the presidents policy stems from the model we talked about during the presidential campaign, miracle first america first. america first is a nationalism approach to national security, it's also an approach which is defined as principled realism. when i talk about nationalism i'm not talking about the ultranationalism of extremist groups. this is a benign active nationalism that tries to look out for the interest of the american people, the american worker, the american economy and u.s. security when the u.s. government enters into international agreement or when we make a foreign-policy decision. it is a backlash to efforts by the foreign-policy establishment. you know how the president hates the establishment, there's a foreign-policy establishment. there are good people but in the opinion of many conservatives there approaches have not been working out so well and the president has tried to take a different approach, rejected some of those things advocated such as international agreements that people don't support nationbuilding with indefinite u.s. troops deployments and trade deals that leave the american worker out. this is very important to the president and he summarized it during the campaign when he said my foreign-policy will always put the interest of the american people and american security above all else. this is not isolationism, this is factoring in the interest of our people in our foreign- policy. it's pretty clear the president is prepared to use military force when necessary but is also taking an approach that factors in the interest of our nation. i think that is important to recognize because his critics constantly misrepresents this strategy. america first has been developed into a comprehensive u.s. policy in the nasa security strategy that was announced in december of 2017. this is the result of two years of work, hundreds of people and a variety of agencies who put together a very impressive document that transforms america first across the u.s. government. at the beginning of this strategy there was another statement by the president that sort of represents how this policy has been developed while he is president. he said our governments first duty is to our people, our citizens to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights and to defend their values. you can see that's a little more developed than the statement he made during the campaign it represents a president who has been office for two years and has used so many experts to come up with a way to employ this revolutionary strategy across the board. the national security strategy has four pillars, protect the homeland, the american people and the american land, promote american prosperity, preserve peace through strength, advance american influence and it also is termed in the strategy principal realism and this is what the strategy says about why it's considered principal realism. it's because it's is clear eyed about global competition, it acknowledges a central role of power in world affairs, affirms the sovereign states are the best hope for a peaceful world and clearly defines our national interest. it is principal because it is grounded in the knowledge that promoting american values is key to spreading peace and prosperity around the world. there's so much in this but this is a criticism of globalism, this is criticism in international leaps who wants to take american sovereignty and give it to organizations like the united nations and european union, it is a stepping back from theories and approaches that have not been working in the interest of the american people. my friend who is the director of the center for freedom and security gave this summary of the national security strategy. it takes a clear-cut view of the immense challenges of the united states from an array of actors from russia, china and north korea to transitional largely islamist terrorist networks and in addition to strategy rules out the idea of extending the hand of friendship to rogue regimes such as iran. the document reveals a president committed to pursuing a peace through strike military and leaning forward and critical parts of the world where america's vital interest are under assault. peace through strength, this was a center for security policy has been promoted since the reagan administration. there are just delighted that presidents trump has moved toward this approach to national security to help us defeat the soviet union and will help us defeat enemies we face today. the economy is a big part of this, the president wants free and fair trade deals, or the other nation does not cheat, we do not look the other way and obviously here i'm talking about china and i'm going to get into that in a moment it goes without saying the presidents takes a dim view of the foreign-policy establishment, elitists in europe and the u.s. who think they're in the world to promote their own liberal values and globalism. they promoted military operation to do nationbuilding, and promote leftist ideology, socialism and high taxes. this is why the united states has pulled out of the un human rights council and unesco because of the hostility all these organizations towards the state of israel. this hostility is unacceptable to the united states and it is interesting this is the second time we withdrew from unesco, the obama administration rejoined it and i think it was a principal thing to do. what we are talking about is in stark contrast to president obama who might be the ultimate foreign-policy established president who ran a foreign- policy of apology tours leading from behind in the middle east. strategic patients on north korea and ultimatums that were repeatedly set for parties in the middle east and russia that were just made and ignored. you see when the u.s. does this we lose credibility, we are emboldening and encouraging rogue states to engage in more belligerent and destabilizing behavior. the approach by president donald trump leaves our enemies worried, leaves them guessing it has led to some significant advances in promoting international security. if we have a credible and decisive u.s. president the world is more secure and i think that is something president trump is trying to prove every day. the president does not like indefinite troop deployments. we know this when we look at the situation in syria as he has tried to balance the interest of the united states and our allies and his belief that u.s. troops should not be in situations they are indefinitely and if there are troops there the u.s. should not share all the burden. the president speaks for the vast majority of the american people when he says this and his desire that other nations have to carry the weight obviously is not factored into his policy towards nato. nato states to spend 2% of their gdp on the military and i think only five of them are doing so. it's not that the u.s. can't afford to do this, they made a commitment to do this and when we ignore this commitment we are undermining our credibility, we want them to live up to their commitments and they want us to live up to our commitment, this has been a big issue for the president and he is making progress in getting nato states to start to meet their commitments. i think they have until 2025 to meet that commitment and it has been slow going but there has been some progress on that. this president has carried out a number of significant foreign policy initiatives some of which the foreign-policy establishment opposes but i think they have been very successful and they have been moves of gray principal. to recognize israeli sovereignty and numerous presidents said they were going to move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem but they never did so, it's a foreign-policy establishment and the state department opposed this because it would be too disruptive, it would make it hard to get a peace treaty with the palestinians. the problem is the time is up. the time is up with the palestinians to make a peace treaty if they are going to say we are not going to deal with you if you move the u.s. embassy to jerusalem. it should have been done a long time ago and i think the presidents just decided it's time. the same for the golan heights, this is part of israel. if we had given, or if the golan heights had been given back to syria, think of the threat israel would face today. this high ground would be used by iran to rain down rockets and missiles in the state of israel. this territory is obviously never going back to syria. and is there really a syria today? it is a shadow of what it was a few years ago. this is something that is in israel's interest, it's not going to interfere with the peace plan assuming we can move forward with the peace plan, it was a matter of principle for the president for doing this and i congratulate him for doing it. i worked closely with ambassador bolton on the nuclear deal in iran i believe the deal is a fraud that iran has been cheating on from the day it was announced. there has been significant information lately that the israelis have produced an archive of iranian documents that iran has been cheating on this agreement and is continuing to engage in nuclear weapons related activities since it was announced. this agreement also allows iran to continue to advance its nuclear program by letting it and reach uranium with 5000 centrifuges to develop advanced centrifuges. iran was supposed to be given a heavy water reactor, one would be billed for it. although this reactor would produce less plutonium it would produce a quarter of a weapons worth of plutonium per year. iran should not have any plutonium, iran has violated its nuclear treaty obligations repeatedly and we know this from revelations from the mek during the george w. bush administration. he has pursued every possible avenue in secret to develop nuclear fuel and we know when it does it in secret that is not a peaceful purpose and these were not declared, it broke its treaty obligations and i think the u.s. position should be iran should not have nuclear technology, we should cut it off with strong sanctions. about one year ago the president withdrew from the plan of action, the nuclear deal with iran that was announced in 2015. this is a deal negotiated so it would not be a treaty, that way the senates did not get a chance to vote on it. treaties need a two thirds vote to ratify them and there was a vote in the senate but opponents had to get two thirds. there was this bizarre mechanism that i hope no staffers have to deal with the house and senate could reject the treaty if there was two thirds in opposition. this through the constitution on its head it's not the way the government is supposed to operate but this was negotiated deliberately to get around the representatives of the american people, a majority of congress voted against it, a large majority of the american people were against the steel and i think pulling out of it was the right decision. but it was hard because not only were there people on the left who wanted to stay in the steel but there were mistaken people on the right who thought it could be fixed. that is a myth, this date deal was not fixable it was so fatally flawed, not only does it allow the problems i just announced its did not include missiles or iran sponsorship of terrorism, it's meddling in the middle east, it was a disaster, absolutely unfixable. you know some of the presidents advisors fought with him and try to keep him in the deal. when the president let them go and brought in ambassador bolton he made the right call and got out of this disaster deal. i congratulate the president again in importance and active leadership. the same thing was true in the paris climate report this was an agreement that would cost the u.s. $3.5 trillion by 2035. thousands of united states jobs would be lost, u.s. electricity bills would go up 15 to 30% and it would do almost nothing to affect the climate. some experts say it would have no effect at all but it would be some great benefits to the economy of india, china and europe. this agreement was also negotiated so it would not be ratified by the senate, the obama administration signed it, senates did not have a chance to ratify even though there were other governments that did ratify it. the iran deal was ratified by the iranian party but it was not ratified by our senates. this was an obvious effort to get around the u.s. constitution, an effort by the elite who think they know better than the american people. these factors had a role in the election of mr. trump. the american people were tired of the foreign-policy establishment thinking people that they know better than us going around the u.s. congress, going around the constitution to impose agreements on the american people. there is an effort right now to address nafta and the transpacific partnership, to agreements which the president backed out of. the usmc a is an alternative to nafta which we are hoping congress will sign onto and the president knew this is an agreement that left american workers behind. it was not a good enough deal for other nations who do not represent the american interest of american people. the president promised to destroy ices, destroying a movement is difficult and radical islam is a movement that is not simply linked to a terrorist group with a presence on the ground but isis has lost its presence on the ground because the president put out a policy where the white house was no longer micromanaging u.s. forces fighting in syria and we were allowed to do the airstrikes and operations on the ground necessary to defeat isis. isis is still around but the presence and holding territory it has ended and that is because of the policy of mr. trump. it has reflected in last years strategies that for the first time radical islam as a driver of terrorism, this was a big change from the years where you weren't allowed to use the term radical islam and a whole sort of other words were on a blacklist of things we could not say. the president has advised they understand this exists and it's something he has been focusing on. there is a lot of talk about trade deals with china, this has been a big focus of the presidents and america first strategy to get free and fair deals to stop the chinese and engaging in predatory trade and to stop stealing intellectual property. there has been significant movement in these talks, not two. but as america is surging with a credible u.s. president who we know will walk away if other parties are not negotiating has led to a situation where it is looking likely we are going to get a good deal. border enforcement is also another important part of america first. strict border enforcement and tougher rules in immigration, this is something as you know the presidents talks about frequently, he believes this is an important issue to protect our economy and our security and it's what the american people want. when the american people see thousands of people trying to illegally immigrate to the united states across our southern border i have to tell you i think they are with the president on this. this is not something we should be permitting and it's a chain that just a few short years ago they all agreed we have to stop illegal immigration across our southern border. this is something the president has taken a top stand on but that is the way this president is and that is what america first is, it does not worry about the conventional view of issues like this. we really need to talk about russ especially this week that the mueller report came out and throughout this idea that there was some collusion between the trump campaign and russia. the president thinks we should have a working relationship with russia. this is not very different than the obama administration, russia has the largest nuclear arsenal on earth. they have a large military, we have to be able to talk to the russians but what the media is not telling you is the president has been much tougher on russia than the obama administration. very tough measures have been imposed to sanction individuals who meddled in the 2016 election and on a related point some very good and tough measures have been engaged and passed to protect the integrity of future elections. there is no mention of that on tv, i have been in the interagency meetings. this is a serious matter, this comprehensive matter to protect our elections, next time you watch and they go on and on that this administration has done nothing to protect our elections it is not true. i think they know it isn't true but i have seen these policies and is something bolton takes very seriously. over 100 russians and entities have been sanctioned for meddling in the ukraine and this administration sent lethal military aid to the ukraine. there has been strong opposition by this administration to the pipeline in europe which would yield hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the russians but also would link europe to closely to the russian gas. for this reason we thought hard about that and the president has made progress in trying to stop this more moving forward and most importantly we close multiple russian consults in the u.s. and kicked out a number of russian diplomats we know to be intelligence officers after the horrendous incidents in the uk, intelligence trying to assassinate former agents with chemical weapons in the united kingdom. we work with our allies on that, it was the right thing to do and i think we will see more actions like that in the future. there are many examples of this administration being tough on russia and you don't hear any of them in the press. it is something that this president is just not getting credit for. i have done a lot of work on north korea and it is certainly something that needs to be discussed here. the president has ended or had north korea suspend its missile launches, they have tested at least 80 missiles during the clinton years, for nuclear weapons, there was a test of what may had been a hydrogen bond tested in september 2017, all of this ended in late 2017 for a number of reasons, first of all the presidents managed to get other nations to start enforcing un sanctions against north korea. the presidents twisted some arms, called people out, i will tell you i don't think certain nations like being the focus of a presidential tweet that they are cheating on sanctions and the president is not shy about calling people out. this has had an effect. in addition the president was pretty clear in his rhetoric against north korea including threatening that the generals and were totally destroyed north korea if it threaten our allies and you remember how angry all the pundits were and the new york times was when he said that that he threatened military action in an organization of peace, the president called it like it is and i think that threat stuns the north koreans. it really put them off balance and led them to decide in 2018 it was time to talk. these talks have not gotten where we want them to get, the north koreans have agreed to things in principle, there recently was talks in vietnam the president walked out on because kim jong-un was asking for more than we were prepared to offer but the tensions between the two nations are significantly better, there has been a lot more dialogue behind- the-scenes than is generally known. i think we are close to getting an agreement where there will be inspections of the test site and missile facility. i know that the south korean president is traveling to washington soon to see what he can do to get negotiations moving. we have a lot of work to do here and i think we are going to need secretary pompeo and ambassador bolton to keep grinding away but the president opened the door to a peaceful solution with the united states. kim has not yet chosen to walk through that door does not mean he will not walk through it but this is hard for the north koreans and i'm hopeful that the presidents personal diplomacy with kim and the diplomatic opportunities we have seen will eventually lead to an agreement. the final international issue is venezuela. the u.s. recognized the president of venezuela after he was recognized as acting president, this was a bold move because it is going to be difficult, working with our allies and international coalition the next step is to get the states to support the regime, to stop doing so. i think the use of force is available, the whole region is against maduro, europe did not want to back the presidents approach gave maduro an opportunity for talks, he turned that down so now we have europe behind this initiative started by the united states, it's a gamble but i think it's the best approach to try to deal with the situation that stephen is 1 million people are suffering on right now. in terms of looking forward we have a strong and decisive american president and i think that has made the world safer. we know that a strong and decisive president keeps our enemies off balance and guessing. it keeps the world safer as well. there's a reason why iran has stopped harassing american shipping in the persian gulf and their rebel proxies have stopped firing missiles at ships in the red sea. because they don't know what president frump would do if that happened. that is leadership, that is how we keep the world safer. a strong and decisive united states and a strong and decisive president is good for national and global security. the president has tried to rebuild and strengthen key alliances especially with israel. i think i am most proud of what the president has tried to do to work with israel, he has made it clear to the government that if there's a nuclear deal we are going to talk to the israelis. we are not going to throw it at them and say this is what we agreed to. israel and saudi arabia and the gulf states are more affected by the strikes from iran that we are. this terrible nuclear deal they had no say in, they did not know what we were agreeing to the four it was announced. the clinton administration negotiated something called the agreed framework, a terrible agreement but at least the south korean and japanese governments went to the table, we consulted before we made a deal. we did not consult with israelis or salaries at all before we agreed to this monstrosity with iran and i think they appreciate that and know the president wants to work with them. i think the president has a good relationship with our middle east friends and allies, with canada and we do have a good relationship with europe although they would prefer we get back into the iran deal. it's interesting you know that the european leaders said there is no point in the trump administration pulling out of the iran deal because we are going to stay in it, the sanctions are going to stay in place but the thing is european multinationals if they have to choose between doing business with the united states and iran, iran is economy is broken, they tend not to pay their debts and if your executives go over there they might get arrested. it's not a hard call and companies are leaving iran by the droves because they want to do business in the united states and are worried about sanctions imposed upon them if they keep dealing with iran. there is a workaround european states who try to come up with to allow european companies to do business with iran despite our sanctions, this was almost one year late and frankly it's not going to work. that has been talked about in the western press and it's not going to get anywhere. the trump doctrine is america first. it is principal realism, it's a benign nationalism that looks out for the interests of the american people and the american worker, american prosperity. i think it's a new strategy that's working and has created a lot of potential and hope for our national security in the future so i have been proud to be part of it. also it has been a work in progress and we have been seeing such and the national security strategy, we know what the president announced and we have seen as the administration dressed and experts worked on him develop into a comprehensive approach to deal with national security problems. i would like to thank all of you for coming here today and i would be happy to take your lessons. >> i don't think president trump has any interest in invading as well a but ambassador bolton has made it clear that american citizens are put at risk, that's a different matter and there's at least 1000 americans in venezuela but in terms of a military presence to forcibly remove the regime is not something as far as i know that the president is going to do. i imagine if there are some i'm not aware of them. >> the president has not given anything to north korea, there's not going to be a deal until the north koreans agree to negotiate in earnest. it has been a concern that president move and wants to move too fast to give concessions to the north before the north gives anything and i think the north thought in vietnam they can convince us to lift sanctions for very little in return from the u.s. we have seen this over and over again with north korea that the north koreans get us involved in negotiations, we give them concessions and they either give us nothing or whatever they agree to they backtrack on later and they are aware of that. north korea has an opportunity to do the right thing and negotiate but if they don't we are going to resume the pressure we had put on before and i understand it is difficult to watch u.s. officials interacting with such a ruthless dictator. i find it difficult to watch but i also see it's developing hydrogen bombs and missiles that could possibly hit the east coast of the united states and this is a significant threat. if we are not going to bomb or attack them and the u.s. is not going to do that, we have to find a diplomatic solution but it has to be one on our terms. i know this is hard to watch and i wish there was another way to do it but realistically i think this is a way of approaching it. the president has done some interesting things with kim that have not been noticed. the first meeting with kim was in singapore that got him out of the bubble he lives in. it got him away from his advisors, it gave him opportunity to see the prosperity of singapore. it gave us an opportunity to talk to him and explained to him what north korea could become if it agreed to a peace deal. it's was a typical approach, throughout the diplomatic rule but nobody would have thought that, he was showing a movie that depicted how north korea could thrive if it normalized relations in the united states. i don't know that this is going to work, i think we are in a better position than we were but i share your concern that we could make a deal without north korea actually coming across with the concessions that they are supposed to. i know there are people in the state department pushing for bad deals and i know bolton and pompeo are trying to keep them under control. but i appreciate your question. >> one of the things that have been stunning as the reaction of the foreign policy establishment to the presidents proposals and to the point where suggesting that nato should be reformed seen as proof the president was a russian spy and needed to be removed or defeated by any means necessary. i worry that after the president leaves office we will sort of snapped back into the old ways of thinking simply because so many people are in these dominant positions in think tanks and the government state departments are on this mindset which on my personal. i consider ignorant and extremist but do you have anything you can offer as to how that might not be the case we are getting some reforms and smarter people in key positions? >> we are slowly getting reforms i think what you said is right, we are reforming it and it is slow going because there is resistance from foreign-policy professionals. they are good people, they just have a different view, i have done some work with organizations that are very pushy jobs and frankly they like to go out to lunch and have cocktails and i don't know what they do bust the president is aware of that. we need to staff the government, there are a lot of jobs in this government at the state department and the president has an ambitious agenda he cannot carry it out if he does not fill all the jobs. i was talking to some of the folks at this table they are aware of this and i understand there will be some changes made to try to remove the obstacles but time is running out and i hope they will be filled quickly to do these things. >> i just wanted to ask about the strategy when it comes to human rights, what will final deal included in terms of pressuring the regime? >> that's a good question i don't know how that's going to be addressed i think our priority right now was to address the missile and nuclear threat, i know it's been discussed in the talks i would like to see major achievements made, not simply the impression of the north koreans but the abduction of japanese citizens by the north korean government which i think is a real concern to japan and i know the president has raised this repeatedly, i think it has to be part of the talks but it's a difficult issue because we are so concerned about the nuclear threat. >> the debate rule is been changed from three hours per nominee to two hours. i don't know if, that was as of yesterday i saw that in a message. i just thought i would mention that. >> that's good news, it's pretty clear that too many good nominees are being blocked for no apparent reason. hopefully that will fix it. >> do you have any suggestions for how to resolve this north korea nuclear problem after, for example to increase south korean involvement or what is your assessment of the situation and how would you go about it from now on?>> first of all i would like to see all players stick together. i want to see china and south korea and japan not move forward any type of agreements or trade sanctions until there is a deal. they are going to remove or reduce the leverage we have to get a good deal i think kim saw how determined the president is, he's not going to agree to a partial deal or drop sanctions for very inner in return, he is looking for a comprehensive deal, that was a good signal being sent in vietnam. it's very hard for diplomats to walk away. there was actually preparations for some type of celebration for big agreements and in my experience, i love the state department but they love these signing ceremonies. there's a big picture taken, state people of that and to walk away and not do that is hard. people are disappointed, all the preparations have to be canceled, i'm convinced the president wants a good deal, i know bolton and pompeo wants a good deal and i think we send a message to the north, that's what we are working on now. considering reports that north korea is cheating it seems every month there is a think tank in washington satellite imagery that north koreans are building missiles preparing to test nuclear weapons it's hard to know what the north koreans are doing. these think tanks often don't know what they're talking about. it's difficult to interpret satellite data, the north koreans are always moving equipment around because they know we are watching, sometimes they just want to freak us out and are not doing anything. the cia know what's going on but when other organizations put out another urgent report, we have satellite imagery we caught north koreans cheating they don't know anything the government doesn't already know, the government knows a lot more than they know. it's complicated. i don't doubt the north koreans are continuing missile activities but we need to get a declaration from them of what they are doing, and commitments that they will stop what they are doing right now. i think the story is a bit more complicated than what you might have heard. >> the u.s. china relations and trade talks, you also said his doctrine is to give them the american values so in this i'm just wondering how do you see this like a rule of law, where is the position of this in these overall relations? >> i think human rights in china are a very serious issue, there have been reports of the washington post lately about the weaker muslims and unbelievable oppression of them, we know it's going on and we know how many journalists have been arrested, we know the terrible oppression in china and it is an issue we raise with the chinese, the president is trying to work out a relationship with both nations to get along and not just in the economics but in securities. is working on his relationships you don't hear about in the press very often and our officials are raising them at the right levels, on one hand we want to get a trade deal so the chinese will stop economy, on the other hand we know what is going on in parts of china where people are subject to pretty brutal oppression. i hope we have them speak up on this more often. i know the center for security policy tries to. before i go, the center for security policy which is a nonprofit security organization. we have a website secure freedom daughter. i hope you check it out. we have lately focused on the u.s. israel relationship. we think there is a sharp rise in anti-semitism on the left. we are trying to take a stand on that. i don't want to discuss that today. where happy to work with suzanne and the defense foundation. check out our website. secure freedom.org. >> [ applause ] >> >> i was going to ask you to give us your website. you took care of that. there are a lot of questions that were asked about north korea. are your questions on north korea will be answered in the next for him. i want to mention, if a 28 will be the 16th annual north korea freedom week. april 28. the theme is listen to the north koreans, then you will know the truth. we will have a forum with the defectors by them a three. please write that down. april 28 is the north korea freedom week. it is a whole week of activities. the main focus is to host people who have escaped from the regime, to learn from them and we will have a special forum for the defectors to talk to us about what to do to do with the bridging. thank you all so much. that was amazing, fred, thank you for the presentation. thank you for coming out today. we will see you in may. >> [ applause ] >> here's a look at our live coverage on wednesday. nato secretary-general jens stoltenberg addresses the joint meeting of congress. we have that live at 11 am eastern on c-span. on c-span 2, british by minister theresa may faces questions on the latest brexit negotiations in the british house of commons. after that, the head of the epa andrew wheeler testifies at a senate subcommittee hearing on his agency's 2020 budget request. later, the senate works on a couple of president trump's nominees. it is possible republicans will bring up a measure to shorten the time allowed for debate on certain executive and judicial nominations. on cspan3, the house judiciary committee hold a meeting on allowing subpoenas to be issued for former trump administration officials to testify in the mueller report. that is 9 am eastern. later, the house oversight subcommittee hears testimony from the special inspector general in charge of afghanistan reconstruction. it is underway at 2 pm eastern. >> tv was once three giant networks on a government supported service called pbs. then in 1979 a small network with an unusual name rolled out of make idea. let viewers decide all on their own what was important to them. c-span opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see. it brings you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. in the eighth of power to the people, this was true people power. in the 40 years since, the landscape has changed. there is no monolithic media, broadcasting and narrowcasting. youtube stars are a thing. c-span's big idea is more relevant today than ever. no government money supports c- span. it is nonpartisan coverage of washington and funded by your cable or satellite provider. on television and online, c- span is your unfiltered view of government. so you can make up your own mind. >> the house natural resources subcommittee held a hearing to assess the drought contingency plan for the colorado river. in this part, we hear a couple of opening statements and testimony from brenda burman