the area of interest at the time. we get into these legal arguments that the groups we go after our pursuant to that authority and with that authority, somehow or other, it connected adequately to the group we were going after. it is a legal document and it has to be done with some real care. it is not done in the conflicts we have seen. we didn't have aumf in lybia. we have never had an aumf using airpower. i believe the president should get bipartisan support. i think the policy is right. i believe that the policy that he has laid out his right. for this moment to disagree on technical wordings a concurrent or joint resolution doing with those limits, no ground troops relying on a coalition. these are themes of this president which i happen to share. it gets to the point of if we are going to try to overcome the complexities of an aumf which might be a complex partisan debate. it leads to that because it is such a legal document that is binding law instead of supporting the title x funding and having a sense of the congress resolution supporting what 90% of us support. just put in their the parts that we agree. it will stick with a 90%. some might think we go too far and 90% of us think that it is pretty close to being on target. i think people feel that. we have to carry the brunt of the fight. it has to be us assisting them. i think those principles to have general support in the congress and the american people ought to focus on where we can agree right now. instead of trying to figure out exactly what the parameters are which goes on forever unless there is a limit. we can spend a week debating how long the next aumf will be in effect. that is a really good debate. that is an honest kind of debate we should have. i just think that is the wrong message for the world right now. focus on where we can agree, the funding 500 million and some kind of sense of the resolution being supportive of a policy which is strong. >> unfortunately, we don't have any more time for debate. it has been a very good exchange. thank you, everybody. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> on friday, the center for american progress has a discussion on u.s. strategy combating isis in iraq and syria. you can watch the event live starting at noon eastern on c-span 2. on the 13th anniversary of the september 11 attacks, house intelligence committee chair mike rogers and senate intelligence committee vice discussxby chambliss the current state of u.s. national security. their remarks were part of an event hosted by the ripon society in washington, d.c. this is one hour. >> good morning, all. shhh. good morning. we are going to get started since time is not our friend this morning. we thank you also much for coming out on this thursday morning. i am jim, the president and ceo of the ripon society. for those of you who it is your first time to attend one of our events, we are an organization that was established in 1962 by one of congress' own. our name from the small town where the republican party was established in 1854, ripon. one of the main goals of our group is to promote ideas and principles that made our party great, keeping our issues secure, our taxes low, and having a federal government that is not only smaller, but smarter and more accountable to our people. we promote these goals in a number of ways. four times a year, we promote this through the ripon forum. we also host a daily new site called the ripon advance. do you see the thread here? is focused on solutions for america and those leaders trying to make a difference not only in their communities, but here in washington as wealthy -- as well. we hope that you will visit the site. there isanything -- if anything we are not following, please let us know. we would love to promote it. we hold a series of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners about the challenges that we face all the time. this is one of those events. before i begin, i would like to reflect on the event 13 years ago today that changed the lives of everyone here in our country. would you please join me in a moment of silence to remember those folks who lost their lives on 9/11 as well as those who to risked and continue their lives in defense of our nation? thank you. some housekeeping details, everyone. i would like to recognize several of our guests this morning could first and foremost, the honorable mike kelly. [applause] we also have the commissioner of the u.s. international trade commission. [applause] from governor rick snyder's d.c. for the great state of michigan, bill mcbride. [applause] from the european parliament office, the director. [applause] there you are. embassy,the australian tim roberts. [applause] welcome. also, we have a number of staffers here. as you all know, we would not be here today without their great help. let me go through them and please hold your applause until the end or we will be here until 9:00. tyler stevens with senator saxby chambliss, chris with tim scott. diane with mike rogers, david stern with andy barr. frederick,, bobby grant gardner, formerly with speaker boehner and now with the republican national committee. susan, also with mike rogers. darian flowersll, at homeland security and also with rob portman. martha scott poindexter with the senate select committee on intelligence. and tim butler with mike kelly. welcome. [applause] i would like to call your attention to a number of events we have coming up. next wednesday, we will be hosting a breakfast with egoists . we will be discussing the november elections and the landscape that we will be seeing soon. on september 23, we asked senator bob portman, who will not be here, but will be over at the monaco. do not forget that. at the monacle. on september 25, back here at the capitol hill club, we are hosting a senior leadership from team majority leader kevin mccarthy. we will have all of his senior staff here. this will be a launch event. do not miss that. as for this morning, we are so honored to be blessed with these two guys. i already miss them and they have not even left yet. they continue to try to keep america secure and i feel that the greatest thing about both of them -- i have traveled with mike rogers. senator chambliss, i knew when he was in the house. the greatest thing about both of these guys is they have never forgotten from whence they came. as you know, their staff, the falls do not far -- do not far from the tree. we are so pleased to have you here this morning, especially on this very special day. to introduce them, i will turn it over to the senior vice president of affairs. have both of to them take their seats here. so please welcome them. [applause] >> thank you, jim. your timing is impeccable. there is not a better time to hear from our guests today. senator saxby chambliss of , his final term in congress afternoon newly 20 years in capitol hill. he spanned both chambers and provided tireless leadership for his constituents. born in north carolina and raised in louisiana, he graduated from the university of georgia and law school at the university of tennessee. soon thereafter, he began practicing agriculture law with a passion that would prove instrumental during his time served in key roles, both the agriculture and the select intelligence committees around congress. his congressional tenor -- tenure shows a man willing to work across the aisle. a long and distinguished legacy for this true american statesman. senator chambliss serves as a member of the agriculture committee and is firmly vice chairman of the senate select committee of intelligence. joining the senator is congressman mike rogers, chairman of the house intelligence committee. also in his final term in , he believes that national security issues should be bipartisan or even nonpartisan. the washington post has called his leadership a rare example of bipartisanship. along with his ranking member democrat, the chairman has worked to get authorization bills signed into law with bipartisan support. he has also taken on critical ,yber security legislation getting it passed the house with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. he was a commissioned officer in the united states army and continue to serve his country as special agent with the fbi in chicago. after being elected to the , he went toate congress in 2000. please join me in welcoming our guests. [applause] >> thanks very much. if anyone cannot hear me, let me know and i am happy to pick up this microphone. i will try to shout if you can't. it is great to be here this morning with my long time dear friend. it is not my first time to be here. i have known the makeup of the audience. thank you for your great support and commitment to america and what is good about washington and our government. it is also good to be back with my buddy, mike rogers. it has been 24 hours since we were on the platform together. and i missed him all day yesterday. we have shared a few drinks of whiskey now and then and sold lots of problems between ourselves. here without saying that i was on the house committee my last two years in the house. at awas a great experience critical time, obviously. under the leadership of mike rogers and dianne feinstein, we have made a dedication to not just making that relationship better, but making it a very smooth operation between the committees. we visit regularly and i was talking earlier to a couple of folks yesterday. the four of us have been talking about cyber security for two years now. that is the extent to which we these bipartisan committees. mike has been a dear friend and a great leader. i think it is appropriate that we are here today on the 13th anniversary of september 11. it is one of those seminal moments where all of us remember where we were. i was the chairman of the house subcommittee on intelligence, terrorism, and homeland security. meeting after september 11, that subcommittee was charged with the first investigation. closely together to produce a report on that. it kind of set the stage for me with respect to what i was going to be doing for the next 12 years in the senate. qaeda that we knew in 2001 was a narrow band of renegades and killers. in 2001, they attacked us on our homeland. today, lord knows, we are thousands and thousands of offshoots of al qaeda scattered around the world that present a greater threat to us today than al qaeda presented in 2001. when the president talked about we have eliminated core al qaeda , guess what? we have al qaeda in iraq, al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. just in the last 30 days, we have seen the creation or the announcement of al qaeda in india and bangladesh and burma and other parts of the world. struck al qaeda are going to have to continue to fight and continued to strike them. destroy them just like the president has been talking about destroying isil. isil is not an isolated terrorist group, but they are the most vicious of the terrorist groups that are out there. tvwe have seen exhibited on over the last several months, particularly the last several weeks, they are committed to a caliphate in the middle east part of the world that now stretches from syria into iraq. they want to stretch that into jordan and lebanon and into gaza. if we do not eliminate their capability by destroying them and killing those individuals, they may have the capability to do that. that is why it is so important that we use the only thing they recognize and understand, deadly force, to counteract them and destroy them. with effect to what the president said last night, we have been in conversation -- they have called me over the last several days, couple weeks, regarding our thoughts and opinions. the white house has reached out to both sides of the aisle. where they think we need to go with respect to this heated conflict. the president answered all the questions last night. but look, this is not a partisan issue. we have got to -- it is not about giving the benefit of the doubt as much as it is joining as americans to solidify the offensive action that needs to be taken to kill this group of nasty terrorists. i was pleased to hear some things the president said. obviously, i would like to go a bit stronger on some things. but some things are going to happen. the thing that pleased me the -- mike and i have been around the world together, talking to our friends in the arab world. they have always encouraged the united states to do what we are doing. they are pleased to have us in their countries, fighting terrorists. but they never really step up to the plate light we have needed them to do. the president has put the ball in their court with his comments last night and the strategy that he outlined. so the challenge is there to the arab world. america is willing to do its part. we will do more than our part. we always do. but the challenge is for the arab world to come forward and really confront these guys. it will have more meaning to it than all of the action america can take. so i am very encouraged by the fact that the arab world is joining hands with us in this effort. our european friends are also joining hands and we have got off thehere, battlefield, that we have to address. i just got back from a 10-daytrip to europe with some of my colleagues. one of the issues that we talked to our friends about is the visa ways of -- visa waiver program we have with everyone of those countries. it is a very serious situation that we have gotten ourselves into. obviously, a very unintended consequence. we used to never have concerns about anybody coming to the united states. today, with all of the foreign fighters going to syria, going to iraq, and now coming back to their native lands and having the capability with their british passport, french passport, whatever it may be, of hopping on an airplane and coming to the united states, they are representing a different threat, from that respect, then we have ever seen. we need to join hands with the president and make sure we exhibit the right kind of forceful action to destroy isil. at the same time, we need to make sure that we are given the tools to our intelligence community and law enforcement community to make sure they have the capability to keep these bad or that we are able to monitor them and control them and keep an eye on them while they are here. we are going to be debating some of that as we go forward between now and the end of the year. next year, somebody other than mike and i will have to be making those decisions. is intelligence community composed of a lot of brave men and women who are doing a wonderful job. our military is composed of great men and women who are doing a wonderful job and if we do not give them the right kind of support from a policy standpoint, they are not going to be able to continue to do that. i will continue working with mike between now and the end of the year to make sure that we continue to accomplish some policy matters that keep those tools in place and hopefully give support and make sure that the table is set going forward in this long, and during fight against isil and other threats out there around the world. thanks very much for letting me be here. [applause] >> thank you very much. councilman invited us today, found outs, and i that he just wanted to see if we showed up. if we did not, he was going to get in the car and go home. so thanks for that. i want to be part of the dialogue that gets this town right. that is going to be even more important as we go forward. i just want to go back and talk a little bit about some history. when you look at this, since --re is so much debate today we do not look back far enough and look at how we got here. 9/11 is when this fight started with al qaeda or jihadists or extremists -- you remember the , a radicalgermany jihadist movement in the 1980's. 1993, they tried to blow up the world trade center. do you but -- do you remember that? had gotten iteers wrong, that building would have come down then too. and you look at the east african bombings of the 1990's. of years later, 9/11 happens on our soil. they were against us long before we ever notice. that was part of the problem. the 9/11 commission said something interesting. because we never really engaged them, they believed they could get more emboldened. they could do more emboldened efforts, something like 9/11. one of the things that they also said was that we lacked imagination. because we had bits and pieces of information, but nobody had the imagination to put the information together and say -- we knew they were taking private lessons. we knew that they were jihadists. we knew they were committed to acts of terror and violence. notbody said -- we could quite put it together. no one said, what if they got on our airplanes and flew them into buildings? no one had the imagination to put that together. and so 9/11 happened and we are where we are today. threat asook at the you see it and notice it today, someone said this whole episode of the last decade created all of these new jihadists. i am going to dispute that for several reasons. the one reason why al qaeda was able to spread its wings -- as you recall, osama bin laden moved around a lot. he was in africa or a long time. he has been moving around for a long time before his demise. finally, he found a home. he found time and space in afghanistan. he found a government that was willing to absolutely tolerate him and support his efforts. you do not mess with us, we are not going to mess with you. we are going to be equipment in the soccer stadium. executing people convicted of adultery. do you think they went back to the stone age? they made it illegal for girls to read. you could not teach your girls to read. ago, notago, 100 years 200 years ago, this was in the 1990's. when we got there, i was the first congressional delegation, dave hobson, we were the first congressional delegation. it was still against the law to teach girls how to read in afghanistan. if we do not take a step back as americans and pull ourselves out of the kardashian world that we live in and start understanding who they are and what the threats are, maybe you would not have statements like it is the 21st century, people do not act like that. i have bad news for you and america and the rest of the world -- yes, they do. , youyou see now with isis have a group gaining safe haven in eastern syria, further ,adicalizing their individuals employing their harsh version of , summaryw sum are executions, burning churches. they took that opportunity to grow and took over oil refineries and sell it on the black market. we think they have a billion in cash and precious metals. once they got strong enough they go over the berm and now they're in iraq. and some notion we can call them j.v. or these al qaeda operations as less than serious is a serious mistake. we're getting ready to make that mistake again. i'm very proud of the president candidly that he decided to change his path. he stood up last night and said all right, we have to do something about it. it's a good start. it's a good day. i'm with saxby who has been a great leader in the united states senate on these issues. he's very humble as the southern gentleman, as you would expect. but he has been very key in all of those authorization bills, all the cyberfight that we had and all of this comedy -- comity we've been able to find between the house and senate, he's been the leader and point man for all of that, thank for you doing that, saxby, appreciate it. what is that saying, thanks for doing it, now get out. [laughter] >> he still wants me to do his radio show. >> yeah, exactly. so i just hope we take a second and stand back and tell you why we do that. for those of us who study national security issues and spend time doing this and reading about it and undergo the threat, there's about 20, 21 now with this new announcement of al qaeda with this new al qaeda affiliate in india and we think that's just to get them on the board. remember, they're jealous isis is getting the attention. some notion that isis is more brutal than them, remember, they split people's throats to overtake an airplane to fly them into buildings. pretty hard to argue who is more brutal in my mind or you'd be more brutal or more tolerable than one organization over the other. and so what you have is this competition now, by the way, between al qaeda saying hey, we've got to get on the board here so we can show the rest of the world we're the strongest jihaddist organization and you have isis holding ground and calling the califate and now have recruiting offices around the world. and have pamphlets recruiting jihaddists and come and fight be and a part of the group. and when they show up a lot of them have western passports. and i think we got so soft and removed from this threat we decide the n.s.a. must be a bad and horrible organization. dd the whole reason these program with respect put in place after 9/11 is we did a study and said what did we miss? which pieces of the puzzle would allow us to miss somebody to kill 19 people, killing 3,000 americans? one of them was a phone call from a safe house overseas, an al qaeda safe house to san diego. and they said operation is a go and we missed it because we didn't want to have those kind of communications from a foreign country and a foreigner into the united states. so think about the debate we've had in the last year. well, we've got to get out of afghanistan, they're gaining ground, so the table is gaining ground and with that comes al qaeda. we're saying let's dismantle our ability for the n.s.a. to track foreigners overseas and even watch a phone call from a foreigner overseas into the united states. we have thousands of individuals who have western passports who are coming home. somebody overseas is going to pick up the phone and call them. do we really want to be blind in that circumstance? do we? america, the political debate is ours. i'm not sure i'm going to take the time to understand that problem but it sounds kind of hard and maybe they might call me. this notion is ridiculous. what we worry about, i know i worry about is this threat is as real as it's ever been. how far the 20, now 21 al qaeda affiliates, half of them have pledged in affiliation to isis because they believe they have to get on this notion of a caliphate. which now you have an organization big and strong and well financed. you have a dabbling of the al qaeda affiliates around the world saying maybe they're the ones, i still pledge allegiance to al qaeda but want to express my support which means you plug into their logistical nodes and their ability to plug in operations and now you worry, saxby is only 25 years old and look what this job has done to him. now you know what happens when we sit in those dark rooms and go through -- pour over all this intelligence. this threat is as serious as i've ever seen it. and i really don't think america is ready -- in the place to debate the real threat so we can meet this threat with reasonable expectations and using america's diplomatic and soft power and military power to bring these things to a conclusion and disrupt their activities enough we can keep america safe. it is to me a critical time and i just want to tell this last quick story because on that trip to afghanistan, i asked to go down, there was a children's hospital in kabul and i went down to that hospital and it was in -- you can imagine pretty rough shape. the indian government had run it when the table took over, they pulled out and took everything with them. and so this hospital had no air conditioning, no a.c. at all, candidly, and for their infectious diseases ward, what they'd do is close the window and close the door to stop the spread to the rest of the hospital. when they opened the door to give us the tour, you can imagine it was a, overcrowded, b, they had no nurses because they wouldn't allow their women to be nurses, you can't have take, so they sent them home when the table took over so they had parents, mothers who were there trying to take care of their kids in a closed room about half this size with about 45 people in it, all of them sick. it was the most god-awful thing i had ever seen. and the woman who met me at the door was running it, was a doctor, trained in the united states. when the fighting started, she had been -- let me back up. when the table got there, they sent her home. she is a trained orthopedic surgeon. they sent her home and said you can't do that here in afghanistan under the table. she goes home. six years later she hears the bombings starting and she walks out, she takes off her burqa and walks nine miles through some pretty tough territory without her burqa, gets to the hospital and she said, i knew i to be here because this is where i could do the most good. she was the one giving me the tour in this hospital. we get up. and by the way, each hospital bed had more than one child in it because they didn't have enough hospital beds. you can imagine, they don't have any way to clean the sheets, this is not a place that was, you might make it there, you might not make it out. i asked her at the end of it after she gay me this tour and we were in the ward where the children had just had surgery so amputations and other things. and i asked her, i said is this important for the united states to be here? and i'll never forget it because she turned and put her hand on my shoulder and said yesterday i had to amputate the arm and a leg of a young boy that stepped on a soviet mine. their parents threw him in a cart with a donkey, it took them two days to get him to the hospital. they kept him alive. i didn't have the right an setic or didn't even have the right medical tools but if it isn't for the united states, none of us will have a chance at life. neither will he. and you can still hear the bombing in the mountain ranges in the distance. so think about what america is getting ready to do today. the president even announced it last night. i liked a lot of what he said except that he's going to end the war in afghanistan. we have asked these women to come out of the back of their houses, to take their burqas off and join society so that they could temper this problem of the table and al qaeda coming back. and we are going to pull out like we just pulled out of iraq. and the difference between iraq and afghanistan is afghanistan will happen in about 1/100th of the time. and we will slaughter thousands of women who had the courage to stand up for something bigger than themselves, democracy, engagement, temperament, i hope that america stops for a minute and shakes themselves out of this notion that we are war weary. less than 3% of the population has ever even been asked to do anything in the war. you didn't have to give up sugar, you didn't have to give up your tires. you didn't have to stop eating eggs. you didn't have to stop -- we didn't ration flour. we did all that in this country at one people. those people were war weary and had to give up a lot of their lives in order to win the fight. we have to give up a little kardashian tv. if that's who we have become, then we will suffer the problem of terrorism for generations to come. i hope this is our moment. i hope this is the president's moment. i know saxby and i and dianne feinstein and dutch are going through the details at least on our space on this plan to get this right. i hope america rallies around candidly the president, bucks him up a little bit. we do this together, republicans and democrats and say we won't tolerate the spread of radical jihadism around the world. and we will not tolerate them threatening the united states in any way wherever we find you. if we don't, you're going to have this conversation with two more members next year on the 9/11 date wondering why this is taking so long. anyway, with that uplifting note, let's go get some of that whiskey. [applause] >> yes, ma'am? >> i watched an interview with the islamist leader, and he said -- inaudible] and i mean, they hoped to shall law.- sharia what are your observations and have they changed? >> i was in belgium on our first stop on the recent codell we took in visiting the generals and other leadership at nato, and this is a real problem all over europe. muslims are the fastest growing population in a number of countries like france, the u.k. and in belgium. and obviously the more of that population -- and i have to member that 99% of muslims are the right thinking kind of people. but it doesn't take many of them to really wreak havoc in any country. and in most european countries, there is the opportunity that we don't necessarily have in the united states, for jihadism to be created. there are a lot more radical imans in that part of the world than we see over here. there is a free flow in europe, in all the european union. there's no need for a visa or passport. you can go wherever you want to know. so there's a definite trend, not just an increase in muslim population but in that small percentage of jihaddist, there's also a very trend towards seeing that increase. now, i don't know about the projections on what the population in belgium, which is a very small country to start with, may be. but let me tell you, there is an active group of jihaddist within that community, within that part of the world that is very capable today and they're just going to get stronger. so our european friend are now understanding that they've got to do a better job of monitoring those folks and trying to make sure that at least from a public standpoint, that jihaddists are not able to recruit and train right under the nose of their law enforcement agencies. i just hope it works for them because that's those folks who have the ability to come to the united states once they are radicalized. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman, thank you for your fine analysis. you said earlier today the president's plan requires some affirmative action on the part of congress. what does that mean and is that conceivable? >> well, i think it's the congressional responsibility to be affirmative because it does go out beyond the bound of the authorization to use military force that was established in iraq. you're talking another country. and it is hard. i hope congress shows its strength here and shows america we can do hard things. we should affirm what the president talked about last night. we're going to have to do some language for the funding portion. i happen to believe we should also do an outright affirmative affirmation of what he's doing to give the congressional approval for him to do this. i think it does a couple things and shows america, yes, this is serious. it shows the rest of the world that yes, america is finally serious and shows the enemy we're taking it serious which means, you know, someone will knock on your door real soon. and i think without that we lose our coalition partner's commitment in a way that i think should be at the level it should be. i love my nato partners but they need a little encouragement. and i think this can give that encouragement for them to help and participate in this. and they are likely to be the first receiving end of these westerners going home. it's likely to be easier to get that first strike in europe than it is to even the united states. and that's why this coalition building is going to mean something and this affirmation by congress shows it is serious and we can do hard things and we're together on it. i don't know if you may have a difference of opinion? >> i totally agree and i think there may be some requirements for participation and training under title 10 that requires congressional approval and we should give that to the administration and allow them to move forward on that and it's not going to be without some heavy debate but i think it should be done. >> i was just going to -- you mentioned the visa waiver program and the fact that makes it easier that all these passports can come in the u.s. without a visa. is there com competition in approvaling that and the t.s.o. or people coming into it country can use nor vigilance. >> we do a very good job today putting the bad guys we know about on no fly lists and even if they hold american passports, if they're out of the country and get on a no fly list, they can't get back in the united states. but there's always the potential of somebody slipping through the crack. should we change visa waiver? i don't know. you i do think this is a time in our history of when we ought to review that policy. our european friend are very close associates and they truly are our friends for the most part but when somebody gets radicalized in europe and has the ability to come to the united states, you better believe those extremists are recruiting them because they know they have the ability to come to the united states. so we've got to be evermore vigilant with respect to the no fly list and keeping bad guys out of the country. but at the same time, i think it presents that opportunity that we need to review that program and see if any kind of changes need to be made or additional tools given to t.s.a. to do a better job of enforcing it if they need it. >> one of the things we have done after 9/11 is we've done a better job in establishing our homeland security in a way to catch bad folks coming in. the problem with this particular case is even we'll tell you yeah, we know x number of folks with u.s. passports and will do everything we can to make sure when they come back, they'll get a welcome. the problem is they're using cutout countries to get into the country. so you may fly somewhere in europe and end up in country x and from country x you get over land transported into syria. that part we wouldn't know. now, u.s. citizens have a higher legal standard for surveillance, rightly so. nobody is saying we should change that. but that creates a huge gap in our ability to know. if you're talking somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 western passport holders, you can start getting nervous in a hurry knowing we probably don't know all 3,000 to 7,000 people and we're not sure if that's a light number or heavy number. many in the intelligence community believe it's a light number. we think that number is getting bigger which by the way, quick action has to happen. if you want to stop the pipeline of recruiting, you have to take a right now and make sure this does not look like disneyland to anybody who is sitting in cleveland wondering if that whole jihad thing looks like a good idea. we need to nip that in the bud right now. that is a concern. and other cups have different privacy rights and requirements that might not track their travels in the same way that other countries might in europe. and canada is a great example. they have a different cultural approach to that issue. once you get into canada, you're a bridge -- you're a toll away from getting into the united states without a visa, without a government check or anything and might not have any idea in the world you had been in syria or iraq. that the challenge that we have and why those of us who are saying, this is an urgent problem, we need to get in front of and why we're -- at least i encourage the president got there last night. >> the 9/11 commission issued a report, a summary for give you n update on where we are today after the first report was issued. and basically what it -- the bottom line was they thought that we are on september 10 right now. i just wonder your comments about that. >> oh, look at the time. here's the -- i under what they're saying. i think we're better positioned. here's the problem. again, you have these 20 affiliates around the country -- by the way, somebody said we never had 20 affiliates. >> trust me, they were there with different mission sets and i think we need to stop the argument when they got there. it's a complete waste of time. they were there and committed to political jihad and now they've expanded it against the west. and they 1 groups now all have an interest to commit an act of terror. some have the ability -- capability to do it locally and some have the aspiration to do it in the west. all of them have the aspiration to do it here. what i think they're saying is are we configured in the right way to get the best information to protect us in a way that i think we would be able to sleep better at night. argue the answer is no. because we've engaged in an ideology that wants to pull back -- you can't put a nice face on terrorist disruption activities. let me be blunt. it's a hard end of this business. you can't put a nice face on it. it is what it is. they're cutting people's heads off. you can imagine you're not going to sit down and have a cup of tea with them and talk it over. that's just not going to happen. and so are we configured exactly right in africa and the middle east and other places in southeast asia to make sure that we're doing it exactly right and try to remove any chance that we might have a terrorist attack? i argue we can do a better job and think that's what they're talking about. you might want to think of this configuration so we can try to handled this problem. nothing's perfect. you want to get as close to never making a mistake as you possibly can and i think they're saying, and i would agree, we're not quite there yet. >> i don't think there's anything in that report where we would disagree with. we understand the world is more dangerous today than it was in 2001. if nothing else by virtue of the cheer numbers. in the past five years the state department has designated 20 groups as terrorist groups. and those are just new ones. and that's added to the list of dozens of others that were already on the terrorist list. so just the sheer numbers make the world a much more dangerous place today. [inaudible] >> will send troops to address this issue. but those countries have different political systems than we do but i'm sure they have to be cognizant of what the common man things about, muslim organization taking on a muslim organization. what do we know about that dynamic in some of those countries and how it may affect their ability to fully participate in trying to address the problem? >> the culture in that part of the world is different from the standpoint of anything, not just in the united states but in any other part of the world. and it's something that's very difficult for americans to understand. if you're asking muslims to go to fight other muslims, you've got an uphill battle just from the start. but the fact of the matter is that this group named isil is different from any other group of terrorists that we've seen. they do want to establish caliphate in the middle east part of the world which means shiria law and those women who gained the rights over the last several years, they would medically lose those rights and children all of a sudden won't be going to school again, and i think there is a large segment of the arab world that does not want to reverse to that type of system they'd been living under in some countries. i think there's more inclination on their part today to join the fight. they know that it's their back yard and they've got more to lose than anybody else. but they've never really been challenged to step up to the plate and that's what i was pleased to see the president do last night. give them that challenge and say we're going to be there. we're going to provide leadership. but you've got to come to the fight and join us. and we need them to be the boots on the ground. we have lots of assets we bring from an airpower, from intelligence, from a logistics standpoint. but we need them in the fight in a big way. and it's their opportunity to do so and i know we've been briefed on the behind the scenes negotiations and i'm encouraged about where we are. but we'll have to see what happened over the next several weeks. >> i would agree. hen they went into mosul, when isis intent into mosul they took the people that were not going to be compliant enough and chopped their heads off and put it on strikes. they call that motivation for owes other urban leader. they have no respect for law strict interp station of their -- strict interpretation of their faith. i am encouraged by what i'm seeing. i think they have as much to lose in this as anyone and they're eager to interrupt the success of this organization. they're also recruiting from their own countries and those people are going to go home and it's easier to get there from those countries. they have that problem and understand it's a problem for them and think they want to get on with this as fast andically -- fast and quickly as they can. >> you have a long track record working across the aisle and overcome the gridlock and get important legislation through. as you all wrap up your careers on the hill, what advice or guidance to you have to successors? >> it's easy in the senate because for the most part, you still can't do anything other than get a nominee to the bench or to the administration through without getting 60 votes. and neither one of us have those 60 votes so it's imperative you work across the aisle. and you know, i think our two committees are a good example of the positive things that can happen when reasonable republicans and reasonable democrats sit down together and check our partisan hats at the door and agree that we've got a goal that has to be accomplished and we've got to just talk through our differences and reach that goal. and i know that there are lots of democrats that have good ideas. there are lots of republicans that have good ideas. nobody has a patent on all of that. so i'm looking forward to seeing what the makeup of the next congress is going to be. i'm encouraged where we are on the senate side right now but we've got 54 days to go and a lot can happen there. but i think with the right leadership at the top, you will see more bipartisan efforts in the senate for sure. >> you know, it takes work. we've had -- we've all four gotten together and don't want people to think we close the door and giggle and come to an agreement in 32 second. some of them have been fairly emotional and heated discussions on how we've come to the right goal but at the end of it, it was done. it was an issue we had to get through and came to it with philosophical differences but with the same goal and worked it out, in every issue. i don't think we had one we couldn't get there. but it takes the commitment to sit down and understand that we have a goal. if you don't accomplish the mission talking about it for 100 meetings means nothing. so we all came to agreement earlier that we were going to do that and national security was too important. but there is that outside influence on congress that says if you sit down with someone who believes something a little lift from yourself that that is somehow some vials of your oath and your credibility and your principles and i say nonsense. this is a place where you bring your principles to the table and you work out to the best of your ability to get something moved forward. we need to get back to that. we need to have more people come here with the notion that they want to help solve a problem versus just tell you no to a problem. and unfortunately, there's been a lot of political profit made from being against everything, if ue want $80 in cuts, they won't support you unless you get $81 and if you get $81, they really meant $85. and it's unfortunate and disrupted the senate activities and zrutted the house and governance -- disrupted the house and governance as we see it in america. we are paying a price. we don't get to do it in a vacuum. the world watches the united states. i hope you have leaders like saxby, dianne feinstein and like dutch who understand, yeah, we're allowed to disagree. i'm an old reagan republican. we lost that somewhere. i think we're going to get have to get back to that. the environment now is that we have to disagree with anything. no person or party has a good idea on anything. that is really not helpful. longt's, i don't know how it has been there. a few years. it is getting worse. we travel overseas a lot and meet with foreign leaders. the rest of the world. people are starting to ask questions, if america is going to make it. you get these questions overseas, i get a lump in our throw to think that on our watch we are going to let the greatest nation on the face of the earth just go away and melt away into mediocrity. again, it is going to take all of us. it takes organizations like this to believe in sitting down and having dialogue. of imparting that on members congress. it is ok to sit down and negotiate and get a settlement where you do not get everything you want. peeay, there is my pet ve. there is my unpaid political advertisement. both for your time this morning. and for giving us a lot of reassuring -- this is tough stuff. and there's so much information out there that we are all picking up at different points. and you guys kind of brought it all together. we know how much both of you lov e our country. on behalf of the ribbon society, we would like to present you to the smithsonian's new book. wihth our thanks. we hope you will come back and give us some more insightful thoughts on where this country is going, because we know how much you love it. away far, will not go because we have a lot of friends in this town and you'll continue to have a lot of friends. please join me in thanking our speakers. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] > coming up tonight, marking the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with ceremonies at the white house and pentagon. then house speaker john boehner on the president isis strategy. later, senate democrats call for approving plans to train syrian rebels to fight isis. coming up on the next "washington journal, michael barone discusses the development of the republican party over the past 100 years and how the split between the tea party and mainstream republicans will impact 2016. then former congressman and nine commission cochair lee hamilton talks about national security since 9/11. and the president strategy. look at public policies that impact higher education and the role of the big 10. our guest is the president of the university of iowa. "washington journal" is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. join the conversation on facebook and twitter. on september 18, scottish voters will decide whether scotland should become an independent country and breakaway from the united kingdom. panelists at the brookings institution will discuss the pros and cons of independence. and the implications for the united kingdom, europe, and the u.s. you can watch that live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend on the c-span networks, american history tv is live from baltimore's fort mchenry for the 200th anniversary of the star-spangled banner. sunday morning a: 30. later at 6:00 p.m. eastern, we'll tour fort mchenry and hear how war came to fort mchenry in 1814, about the british barrage and why francis scott key was there. saturday night at 8:00, the presidential leadership scholars program with former presidents george w. bush and bill clinton. and sunday afternoon at 3:30, live coverage of the hark steak fry. sunday evening at 8:00, q&a with the evolution of the conservative movement in american politics. 10:00,an 2 saturday it author ken silverstein on the secret world of oil. then sunday night at 6:45, democratic senator from new york kirsten gillibrand on her life and politics. find o ur television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. orl us -- email us at -- send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> president obama led a moment of silence this morning on the white house south lawn to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. [bell tolls] [trumpet plays "taps"] ♪ >> following the moment of silence at the white house, president obama spoke at a ceremony at the pentagon to honor those who died in the september 11 attacks. other speakers included secretary chuck hagel and general dempsey. this is 30 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention on the flag on the pentagon building. the flag hangs from sunrise to sunset in honor of patriot day and in honor of the 184 lives lost at the pentagon. the national anthem of the united states performed by the united states navy brass quintet. ["star spangled banner" plays] ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the united states army chief of chaplain's, major general, donald rutherford. >> let us pray together. lord of hope, we have endured over a decade of conflict. we have raised a generation that's never seen a sunrise without war on our national horizon. we look back on the events that brought us to the present, it would be easy to despair. let us not forget we've yet to write the ending on our national story. it would take a moment to look at the day it began, we witnessed the flames of hatred extinguished by acts of valor. cries of the lost match with the prayers of the grateful. we live every day with those memories, those whose dreams the darkness left unfulfilled. the concluding hand shake, the last good-bye, and the final kiss. remember those that we lost and we grieve for them, grieve for our families and for ourselves and we come to remember them as well as those who continue to fight in our frontiers and those who stand watch within our borders at home. we come to remember that those who expected weakness have instead seen strength. those who want a division have instead seen unity. those who sowed seeds of violence and hatred have watched us harvest the fruits of grace and of hope. 13 years ago, the lights of darkness hoped to extinguish still shine today. our hope and resolve and the darkness cannot enter our lives. and we pray this day, amen. >> amen. >> ladies and gentlemen, 13 years ago today, at 9:37 a.m., the pentagon was attacked. please join us in observing a moment of silence to remember those who perished. >> ladies and gentlemen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey. >> mr. president, mrs. obama, mr. secretary, distinguished guests, thank you for being here this morning. i want to offer a special welcome to the families and friends of those we lost on these grounds 13 years ago. we know the memorial ceremonies and we know you've been through many are especially tough, emotion-filled moments for you. it takes a great deal of courage to keep coming back here. so thanks for being here. not long ago, i received a note from a mom whose daughter is buried just across the way at arlington cemetery. she said the pain of losing someone you love, even years later, never really goes away. at any instant, a smell or a color or a song or a date on the calendar like today can bring into stark relief the first raw moment when everything changed. she said if there's any secret to grieving it's that there can be room for sorrow and joy, sadness and pride, to exist in the same space at the same time. and she learned that grief is not a lack of faith or sign of weakness, it's a price of love. today is foremost about reflecting and about remembering and about the love for the 184 lives that ended here at the pentagon and those that perished in new york and in summer seth county. -- in somerset county. today is about strength and resolve. we found strength in the children who lost parents on 9/11 and who have blossomed into fine young adults and are now making their own mark on their world. we find resolve in the men and women that 9/11 roused to step forward to defend our country, a generation that has served in iraq and afghanistan. and today offers us, all of us, the opportunity to rededicate our own lives to the causes of our great nation. and its great future. for as one of our nation's leaders said, we could easily allow our time and energy to be consumed by the crisis of the moment of the day. but we must also lay the groundwork to help define our future. it's now my privilege to introduce the man who spoke those words and who strives to live them every day, our nation's secretary of defense, chuck hagel. [applause] >> general dempsey, thank you. mr. president, mrs. obama, distinguished guests, family members, survivors. we will never forget what happened on this day in this hour in this place, an act of terror that shook the world and took the lives of 184 americans. today we remember those we lost on that day, this day as we are surrounded by those who love them. we celebrate our nation's strength and resilience, surrounded by those who embody it. and we draw inspiration from the ways in which survivors and victims' families continue to honor their legacy. my thoughts also turn to others whose lives were forever changed that day. the first responders and survivors whose heroism and resilience we celebrate. the pentagon personnel who came to work the next day with a greater sense of determination than ever before. and the men and women in uniform who have stepped forward to defend our country over 13 long years of war, bearing incredible sacrifices along with their families. we live in a time of many complicated challenges. but america has always faced challenges. and we have always responded as a nation united in purpose, woven together in a fabric of strong character and resounding commitment to each other, and to our country. to lead our nation in such a defining time requires not only the courage and the vision to lead, but the humility that recognizes this unique privilege. these traits are embodied in our commander in chief. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. [applause] >> scripture tells us we count as blessed those who have persevered. secretary hagel, general dempsey, members of our armed forces, and most of all, the survivors of that september day and the families of those we lost -- michelle and i are humbled to be with you once again. it's now been 13 years. 13 years since the peace on an american morning was broken. 13 years since nearly 3,000 beautiful lives were taken from us, including 125 men and women serving here at the pentagon. 13 years of moments they would have shared with us. 13 years of memories they would have made. here once more, we pray for the souls of those we remember. for you, their families, who love them forever. and for a nation that has been inspired by your example. your determination to carry on, your resolve to live lives worthy of their memories. as americans, we draw strength from you. for your love is the ultimate rebuke to the hatred of those who attacked us that bright blue morning. they sought to do more than bring down buildings or murder our people. they sought to break our spirit. and to prove to the world that their power to destroy was greater than our power to persevere and to build. but you and america proved them wrong. america endures in the strength of your families who through your anguish kept living. you kept alive love that no act of terror could extinguish. you, your sons, your daughters, are growing into extraordinary young men and women they knew you could be. your families have turned this day into something that those who attacked us could never abide. that's a tribute of hope over fear and love over hate. america endures in the tenacity of our survivors after grievous wounds you learn to walk again, stand again, after terrible burns, you smiled once more. for you for our nation. these are difficult years. by your presence here today in the lives of service that you led, you know no matter what comes our way, america will always come out stronger. america endures in the dedication of those who keep us safe -- the firefighter, the officer, the emt who carries the memory of a fallen partner as they report to work each and every day, prepared to make the same sacrifice for us all. because of these men and women, americans now work in a gleaming freedom tower. we visit our great cities. we fill our stadiums and cheer for our teams. we carry on because as americans, we do not give in to fear. ever. america endures in the courage of the men and the women who serve under our flag. over more than a decade of war, this 9/11 generation has answered our country's call and three months from now, our combat mission in afghanistan will come to an end. today we honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice these 13 years, more than 6800 american patriots. and we give thanks to those who served in harm's way to keep our country safe and meet the threats of our time. america endures in the perennial optimism that defines us as a people. yet tomorrow there will be teenagers, young adults, who were born after 9/11. it's remarkable. and while these young americans did not know the horrors of that day, the lives had been shaped by all the days since. the time that brought pain but also taught us endurance and strength. the time of rebuilding, of resilience, and of renewal. what gives us hope, what gives me hope, is that these young americans who will shape all of the days to come. 13 years after a small and hateful minds conspiring to break us, america stands tall and america stands proud. and guided by the values that sustain us, we will only grow stronger. generations from now, americans will still fill our parks, our cities, generations from now, americans will build towers that reach for the heavens, still stand for freedom around the world, still wear the uniform and give meaning to those words written two centuries ago. land of the free, home of the brave. generations from now, no matter the trial, no matter the challenge, america will always be america. we count as blessed those who have persevered. may god bless your families who continue to inspire us all. may god bless our armed forces and all who keep us safe, and may god continue to bless the united states of america. [applause] [playing "america the beautiful"] ♪ ♪ [inaudible conversation] ♪ [band playing "it is well with my soul"] ♪ [inaudible conversation] ♪ ♪ [inaudible conversation] ♪ ♪ [band playing "god bless america"] ♪ ♪ [band playing "this is my country"] ♪ >> coming up tonight, house speaker john boehner talking about the president isis strategy, followed by democrats approving plans to train syrian rebels to fight isis. then later, buck mckeon. on friday at the white house, former president bill clinton attends a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of americorps. that eventng you live at 11:30 eastern on c-span. the hispanic national bar association hears from attorney general eric holder on friday at their annual conference in washington, d.c. you can hear his remarks from this event live at 12:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. few of the comments we have received from our viewers. vibe owner,nticac and i got a recall on the cable leading to my steering wheel. bags toffect the air come out and hit me. . am nervous about it here at the put my vin number on the no dealershipd knows about it. i just watched the television questioning of mary barrow, and it was very interesting. but no one is mentioning my problem. am looking for help on this. them i haveo tell been watching this on this f gm starter. how he asked that question, many parts are out there that are not meeting the specs, they still didn't asnwernswer. it is amazing how the ceo cannot answer a question. and they dance around the question. y'all are doing a great job. >> i was switching the channel. i noticed the gm ignition switch recall. first of all, they had that ms. barrow on. then i thought it was over with. i came back. now they are talking to the national highway traffic safety administrator. to me, sitting on my sofa watching this, i am seeing two people that were basically set up. as far as the representative asking the question, i feel so sorry for them because they are not getting the answers there need -- they need. gm is lying. they have proven that they are liars. they have proven that money is more important than people's lives. same with highway traffic. it is unbelievable that these people are in charge of watching over us making sure that we are safe. >> and continue to let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us @ co [email protected]. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> the morning after the president's speech on his isis strategy, john boehner talked about the president's request for authorization to train and arm syrian rebels. it is 10 minutes. [camera shutters clicking] >> good afternoon, everyone. last night, the president finally begin to make the case that the nation has needed him to make for quite some time. that we must destroy and defeat this terrorist threat. isil is a sophisticated and determined enemy. in order to be successful we will have a comprehensive strategy designed to destroy and to defeat it. i think last night the president made a compelling case for action, but as i said in my statement last night, there were still questions and concerns that remain. for example, i support the president's plan to train and equip iraqi security forces in the syrian opposition, but i remain concerned that those measures could take years to fully implement at a time when isil's momentum and territorial gains must be halted and reversed immediately. we stand ready to work with the president to put in place a plan that would destroy and defeat isil. members are getting briefed as we speak on a range of options that the president is contemplating. those briefings and consultations will continue. we delayed action on the continuing resolution yesterday to consider the president's request for authorization to train and equip the syrian rebels that are fighting isil. we're doing our due diligence here and discussing all of this with our members and frankly it's the right thing to do. yesterday we came together to honor the fallen heroes of 9/11 with a congressional gold medal. the highest honor we can bestow. today we pay our respects to those -- their families. we never forgot them. we'll never forget our responsibility to confront evil and to defeat it. >> mr. speaker, you said multiple times from that podium that the president goes alone too much, he doesn't respect the constitutional power of congress. so given that, why not be much more active and have a vote to give the president authority, to have a congressional marker on this if this is such an incredible threat? i do believe it would be in the nation's interest. i believe it's in the institution of the congress' interest to speak on this question. now, normally in such a case -- i've been through this a few times in the 24 years i've been here -- the president of the united states would request that support and would supply the wording of a resolution to authorize this force. and at this point in time we have not gotten that request. we have not seen that language. >> but if the congress is such an equal partner, as it is, why not write a resolution on your own? >> typically in my time here in congress, that's not how this has happened. the president would make that request, and the president would supply the language for the resolution. >> do you believe support is there? do you believe a resolution will pass? >> i think we're at the beginning stages of building the kind of support that's necessary from the nation to carry out this plan and to carry it out successfully. we are at the beginning stages. >> will this be done this work period that the president requested? >> you're talking about two different things. the president's request was for title 10 authorization to train and equip syrian rebels. that's the only request that has come from the white house at this point. as i said, i support the president's request. >> mr. speaker, in your remarks last night, you alluded to this a moment ago, you said that a speech is not a strategy. that implies that maybe you don't think he has fully laid out a strategy and that you think he is all in, is that the case? >> well, the briefings are continuing with the members. but i can tell you in our conversations this morning, a lot of our members don't feel like the campaign that was outlined last night will accomplish the mission that the president says and that is to destroy isil. and so frankly a lot of our members think a lot more needs to be done than what was laid out last night. but, again, the members -- they have been in a briefing since 11:00 a.m. this morning with the president's top people to outline more of the specifics of what this plan consists of. >> what was that skepticism that was reflected in your statement last night? >> pardon me? i'm not sure we're doing all we can do to defeat this terrorist threat. if our goal is to eliminate isil, there's a lot of doubt whether the plan was outlined by the president last night is enough to accomplish that mission. >> mr. speaker, there seems to be a sense here on capitol hill this is being pushed through, that there's just about a week left before people go back to their mid term campaign, is this being rushed through too quickly? do you think there needs to be more debate? do you think this is something the congress will regret? >> the president on tuesday while at the white house made this request, the specific request to have the ability to train syrian rebels. i wanted to make sure that members have ample time to have the conversation about, started today and it will continue and we'll make a decision sometime next week on how we will proceed. >> chairman mckeon just told a group of reporters that the decision has been made for two votes, a vote on the authorization and then a vote on the c.r., is that true? >> that's not true. >> the chairman has it wrong? >> look me in the eye. there is no decision to be made on how we're going to proceed. >> could you tell us what your preference is? do you believe it would be best to have a separate vote on the title 10 authorization apart from the c.r. or are you ok embedding title 10 authorization within a much larger piece? >> no decision has been made. while we had a conversation with members today, these are serious discussions. this is a very serious issue and ought to be handled that way. and that's why these conversations are going to continue over the weekend so that -- so that the congress has ample time to consider the president's decision and act on it. >> mr. speaker, do you think based on all the information that's been given that the syrian fighters will be a trustworthy and competent approach? many americans are concerned about u.s. arms going to a force we don't know everything about. do you think they can be effective? >> based on all the information that i've looked at, the free syrian army has by and large been very well vetted by our intelligence officials. today they are in a fight against assad. they're in a fight against isil, and they are in a fight against another al qaeda affiliate in eastern syria. and they're about to get run over. an f-16 is not a strategy. and air strikes alone will not accomplish what we're trying to accomplish. and the president's made clear that he doesn't want u.s. boots on the ground. well, somebody's boots has to be on the ground. i believe what the president has asked for, as the commander in chief, has the authority to train these syrian rebels. frankly, we ought to give the president what he's asking for. >> so if i'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like there will be at a minimum be a vote to give the authority -- narrow authority he's requesting. and the question of whether you go beyond that, the timing and if so the timing of that action . >> that would be correct. >> mr. speaker -- [inaudible] with the understanding that maybe you split that into that but at some point you have to decide to move the c.r. one way or another next week to make sure it would get done? >> i would hope so. there's no reason for it to last that much longer. >> do you think the president is wrong, then, to take u.s. combat troops on the ground in syria off the table right now? >> listen, we only have one commander in chief. he laid out his plan. i would never tell the enemy what i was willing to do or unwilling to do. but he is the commander in chief. he made that decision. at this point in time, it's important we give the president what he's asking for. and we've got to keep our eye on the ball. the issue here is about defeating a terrorist threat that is real and imminent. >> thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] > coming up on "washington journal," michael barone discusses the development of the republican party and how the split between the tea party and needs republicans will impact 2016. lee hamilton talks about national security since 9/11 and the president strategy for dealing with isis. policieslook at public that impact higher education and the role of the big 10. our guest is sally mason. journal is live every morning at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. in response to president obama' speech senate democratic leaders called on congress. they spoke to reporters for 15 minutes. >> last night, president obama laid out his strategy for isis.ating the president made it clear that we will not rush into another ground war on the middle east and we will not do it alone. instead, america will lead a coalition that includes european arab nations and the targeted strategic mission to destroy isis. american air strikes will be supported by local forces fighting on the ground to protect their own countries, their own families, their own homes, their own communities. but now it is up to congress to rally behind president obama and his is to slice of strategy. i am confident we will put our political differences aside and work together to give this administration the tools it needs to meet isis head-on. the administration has consulted with congress. i expect cooperation to continue. senators will be briefed on the situation today. hearings will proceed next week. i expect a continued consultation with congress and the administration as events unfold including the c.r., which we expect to get from the house next week. the proposal the president has given to the american people requires immediate congressional action in granting the administration the authority to equip syrian rebels under title x to fight isis. congressional support to train and equip rebels is critical for building this international coalition that is so necessary. i expect this proposal to pass congress before the end of next week. our colleagues in the house are currently discussing exactly how they are going to proceed. i expect this proposal to pass congress with broad bipartisan support. this is the time, really a time for americans to close ranks and engage our adversaries as one united nation. matters like this are no place for political posturing. now is the time for us to come together, to speak with one voice and tell terrorists you cannot hide, you have committed horrific acts that threaten the security of united states and our allies, and we will find you and destroy them. senator durbin? >> last night, president obama spelled out a clear strategy dealing with this extraordinary terrorist threat. and it is extraordinary. we have faced and we remember this day more than any other day of the year. we have faced terrorist threats in the past. this one is exceptional. exceptional in its organization, in its structure, in its financing and in its depravity. i believe the president was right to speak out and single them out as a special threat to the stability of the middle east, the stability of our allies and to the interests of the united states. what i heard from the president was encouraging. encouraging that this would be an international effort, that the troops on the ground be coming from other countries, and that he, the president, is going before the un security council to discuss this matter. he's engaging those who are freedom loving around the world to join us in stopping this terrorist threat.