Transcripts For CSPAN Public Affairs Events 20161205

Today on capitol hill, the house and the senate will be gaveling in for business. Legislative work in the house starts at 2 00 and six bills will be considered today. The senate comes in at 3 00 and will try to finish up work on a medical Research Bill, that includes funding for Cancer Research initiatives spearheaded by Vice President joe biden. He will be attending and presiding over the senate session. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Cnn and Harvards Kennedy school of government hosted a discussion on the 2016 president ial election. Participants included former Trump Campaign manager kellyanne ok,way and robbie mo clintons Campaign Manager. This first aired on cnn. It runs about 40 minutes. War stories from inside the historic and unprecedentedly ugly president ial election. For the first time, just the two of them. Trumps Kellyanne Conway. Kellyanne Everyone Wants to go back in a time machine and make sure this results ability saw coming. Robbie we won the popular vote. Announcer they take us behind the curtain and revealed a strategy. What sealed the deal for trumps historic win . Kellyanne he was able to tap into the frustration of job holders. Robby the fbi director sent to letters with out reason. We would have won without them. This is the most overly gated story in the history of american politics. Kellyanne that incident affected Donald Trumps numbers significantly. Announcer a deep dive with the man and woman running the campaigns. The exclusive state of the union start now. Jake hello, im jake tapper where the state of our union is still quite divided almost one month after donald trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Officials from both campaigns are still raw and emotional, bitter and angry, more offended than introspective. Hillary clinton won the popular vote while donald trump easily surpassed the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Today, were going to bring you something rarely seen both major president ial Campaign Managers sitting together doing a joint interview, discussing how we got here. A conversation both enlightening and contentious. Trumps Kellyanne Conway and clintons robby mook dedicated their lives to seeing the other party have a terrible night. Behind the scenes of one of the most unprecedented and ugly campaigns in modern history. I know there are a lot of people here wondering what happened . What went wrong . Hillary clinton on the popular vote and one more votes than any white man in history, but this is a race to 270 and she came up short in states like pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. She told donors that she thought the letter from the fbi director james comey was the nail in the coffin for her. Do you agree . Robby we are proud of her margin in the popular vote, but this was about Electoral College votes and we did come up short. We felt very good about where we were going into the last 10 or 20 days in the election. I think it is hard to imagine the kind of impact that letter had. Most of the polling showed a distinct drop and we certainly saw that in our internal numbers. Particularly because the letter did not seem to have much of a purpose. He had some emails. He did not really not know what they were. When you look across those three states, we are talking about 100,000 votes, anything could have made a difference with such small margins. We do think that was an incredibly powerful force in the race. The reality is, we were hoping for a stronger performance and a lot of the data was off in this race. We have to reflect on all of those reasons. What sectors . Robby mook we were expecting to perform better with suburban women and we saw those numbers stronger than we saw on election day and we think that was because of the comey letter. We saw young people go to Third Party Candidates and we think the letter had a lot to do with that as well. There were a number of reasons, but lead among them would be the letter from comey. Jake you say the shift in movement away from Hillary Clinton and some of these Democratic Group started before the letter came out. Kellyanne you see it in the polls we saw internally. Abc news released a poll on sunday that said 50 38. We knew we were not under 40 but everybody had to live with that 12 point poll because people held it up as evidence that the race was over, that there was no way donald trump could win. By friday of that same week, it was a one point race. That was before the comey letter. Secretary clinton herself, the night of the day that letter was released said at her rally that she, it did not matter because americans had already decided what they thought about the emails and it was already baked in the cake and this was the messaging point from her campaign. At the time, they said it was Wishful Thinking and maybe they were not being completely truthful and now it is supposed to be the comey letter. Donald trump turned over 200 counties that went for president obama in 2012 to donald trump in 2016. That is because of messages that connect with people in this area, not because of a letter late in the game. I do think it probably had an effect on some voters, but you want to reach suburban women and the first female running for president as party nominee, why is the message not connecting to them . Jake lets back up to june 2015. Donald trump comes down the escalator at trump tower and announces he is going to run for president. It seems back in the primaries that many people in your Campaign Want to donald trump to be the nominee, that they thought he would be easier to be beat than marco rubio. Is that true and why . Robby i think Many Democrats did believe that. Opinions on that changed as he progressed to the primary and was very successful. Jake you have been critical of the polls, so let me allow you to weigh in on a rare moment of agreement here. Kellyanne i can be critical of the polls, but the polls were wrong for a couple of reasons. Its be very clear that these are mostly public polls. Our polling worked and we had five different polling firms working, including my polling firm. We were using them for internal, strategic positioning, not trying to get clicks or call the race over before it is one way or the other. I think a few things happened. Presuming between the 2012 electorate would be to 2016 electorate, that presumed conclusively that secretary clinton would be able to attract and knit together and keep together the obama coalition. A Critical Mass of voters of color, millennials, and maybe even running up the total among women and shes the first female candidate. She was running a decidedly reach out to women as an antitrump message to the very end. That was a failing. The other failing was in presuming people who voted democratic in the past would do so here, we thought in our modeling that the 2016 electorate had a better chance of mostly resembling the 2014 electorate in these key states and counties, which is my obsession, the counties, then the 2012 election. So i talked publicly early on about the undercover trump voter. The undercover trump voter, this is not somebody who is afraid to say theyre are voting for donald trump. It is someone who just does not look like a trump voter. The Union Household has voted democratic for years. The single mother who couldnt think of voting donald trump. Why would she do that . We took that approach where we were more openminded about who the electorate may be and allowed them to tell us who they were. Robby turnout was not what we wanted it to be in some places and there were different stories across different states. Philadelphia did not turn out the way we liked and other states were not. But the one thing we did see across the country is we did see record hispanic turnout in a number of communities. That was important to our win in nevada and colorado. That is why texas was a lot closer than many anticipated. That wasnt enough for us to win the election, but that is something to be celebrated. That was unprecedented and i hope those voters continue to turnout. Jake coming up, the future of Donald Trumps tweets. Will he maintain control of his account while in the oval office . That is next. Welcome back. Donald trump took the republican primaries by storm using his celebrity and business background to propel him to the top of the polls almost from the start. But it was Controversial Campaign promises that made the headlines. Mr. Trump donald j. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. Jake Kellyanne Conway was allied with ted cruz in the primaries but she joined the Trump Campaign as a pollster and by august, he elevated her to Campaign Manager. She and steve ran and seemed to get trump more focused and disciplined. The campaign scaled back some of his most provocative proposals. How important was that to his ultimate victory . I asked her to take us find the scenes. August 17, the same day steve bannon is named campaign ceo, it seems as though you and steve bannon were able to convince donald trump to be more disciplined in a way previous Campaign Managers had not convinced him to do so, had not succeeded stay on message, stick with your teleprompter, not that he only stuck with his teleprompter, but your campaign called them some of the gas gaps, some of the more controversial statements he made, most of them took place disproportionately before you and steve bannon took over. What did you and steve bannon say to him to convince him we will not take over but you need to listen to us in terms of staying on message. Kellyanne i dont really divulge private conversations but i feel confident telling you that i told him, you are running against one of the most joyless president ial candidate in history, it seemed to me. So why dont we not be that way . Why dont we find a way to be the happy warrior . He loved doing the rallies and connecting with people that way. You have to know who your campaign is and its not a substitute for a quality, compelling candidate. In the case of donald trump, he gets his oxygen being out there with the voters. Robby i think what did happen, the very end of the race, there were more undecideds than in a lot of races before and we think because the director of the fbi sent two letters in what was an unprecedented intervention in the election, a total breach of protocol, a lot of those undecideds broke against us, but i dont think that was an inherent problem. I think without those letters, we would have won the election. Kelly and said it was a joyless campaign. We had a lot of fun. Im a joyful guy. Hillary is joyful. We have a lot of fun. Everyone who knows Hillary Clinton says the person you see jake everybody says the person you see on stage is not the person you see behind the scenes. That behind the scenes, shes much warmer and more amusing. Did you struggle to get that person from behind the scenes out to the crowd . Robby there were a lot of headwinds in this race. The first woman to be the nominee. Jake why is her being a woman inhibiting . Robby having worked for a few women candidates, i think they face certain scrutiny that male candidates do not. Sometimes, people talk about the way hillary spoke during a speech. I did not hear them remark about male candidates that way. I think the bigger issue is the russian intelligence, our intelligence agencies confirmed russian intelligence stole emails from our Campaign Chair and selectively leaked them out with the purpose of intervening in the election and helping donald trump. We faced these headwinds the whole way through. That was tough and i think it is it absolutely affected the outcome. Jake you took over when donald trump recast two of his more controversial proposals the ban on muslims entering the country until we figured out what the hell was going on and the Deportation Force to round up 1112 million undocumented immigrants and remove them from the country. He never explicitly repudiated them but the way governor pence talked about them, was that part of the reset for the general election . Kellyanne i think it starts with explaining what you said and putting it in a different policy prescription type of language. When the trump flew down to mexico, he accepted the invitation and secretary clinton did not. People may say they dont like it, but at least they can read it. Then flew to arizona and give a 10 point plan. He has one. It there and he delivered it over 45 or 60 minutes and then im sure its on a website somewhere. In that regard, he explained how he would approach the immigration system if he were to be elected. Robby president elect trump jake president elect trump without question offended many groups during this election, whether mocking a disabled reporter or saying whether a judge could do his job because of his heritage. Did he ever express any regrets about that . We heard from him on Election Night a desire to bring the country together. But that job will be tougher because of some of the things he said before you came on board. Kellyanne i wont divulge private conversations but shortly before i came on board, mr. Trump was in North Carolina and gave a speech. Some people refer to it as the regret speech because he talked about expressed regret for having offended anyone. And he said, particularly with my words. That is a leader, showing humility and inclusiveness and regret, to use his word. But i want to say to you this if you talk about the hispanics alone, donald trump did better among hispanics than did mitt romney or john mccain. He did much better among women. Then almost everybody predicted. You have the first female president ial candidate on the cusp of being the first female president where are the women saying we must have the first female president . Where is the march . I didnt see them on fifth avenue or in washington, d. C. They were volunteering for the campaign. They did not vote for her, though. Jake lets go to a question. Donald trump is known to tweet out falsehoods and other liabilities. Is that something he plans to do after inaugurated . Kellyanne that is going to be up to him and the secret service but i will tell you the president elect looks at his social media accounts, a combined 25 million at this point. He sees it as a Good Platform to convey his messages. I can tell you there are posts he makes that otherwise would not be heard were seen, but hes a unique person who has been following his instinct and judgment from the beginning. Jake one of the points i think we would all be interested in hearing is that in the last week he tweeted there were millions of fraudulent votes. Theres no evidence. I dont doubt there were some, there always are. But the idea that the only reason he did not win the popular vote because of millions of fraudulent votes is not true. When cnn reported that, he them,ted criticizing including a 16yearold boy. I think the question arises in a room full of people who want president elect trump to succeed, who want him to realize a vision where there are more jobs and you achieve so much of what you want to achieve, is that really president ial behavior . Kellyanne that is president ial behavior, yes. He is the president elect. I see where you are going. Are you comparing what bill clinton did with the oval office shall we review for those who were not born then what president clinton did in the oval office . Robby just because a president does something does not make it president ial. Kellyanne the fact is this man is now president of the United States and is tackling very big issues. The ones he campaigned on and the ones he will execute through his first 100 days. I know him very well. Im a trusted advisor. Hes committed to making good on the promises and the plans and hes going to be focused on that. We need to move on and support the president i dont like a lot of things people in leadership do, but they are there. And that should be respected. I mean, i was raised to respect the office of the president and its current occupant no matter who he or she is. Robby i just hope moving forward from this that the campaign is over and i hope the truth doesnt get lost or sacrificed. Jake hillary Clintons Campaign blames the fbi director for her loss but it was the revelations of the email scandal the behindthescenes lit her top advisers. Split her top advisers. We will have more on that, next. Welcome back. Clinton Campaign Officials point to two things they say were out of their control that hurt her campaign. Fbi director comeys investigation into her server and the hacks that exposed by wikileaks private emails of her Campaign Chairman and Campaign Officials at the Democratic National committee. But did clinton or any of her top aides bear any responsibility for any of this . Hillary clintons private email server and we learned that the Campaign Chairman sent you any mail saying did you have any idea the depth of the story. You answered, no, we brought up the existence of emails, but we were told that everything was taken care of. In other emails, it comes every clearly that there was a divide between the new guard, you and some others and the old guard. Im wondering if you feel some of the actions and activities the old guardian either allowed to happen, did themselves or enabled, whether it is giving speeches to Goldman Sachs or setting up a private email server or the decision to become multi, multimillionaires did the decisions by those individuals make your job close to impossible . Robby no, not at all. We came very close to winning this campaign. And as i said, we won the popular vote. Look, hillary said she regretted that email setup, that it was a mistake to took responsibility for it and apologized. Jake but it happened and you are talking about james comey, he is in that conversation because of the email server. Robby if any of us on the campaign could have gone back in a time machine and changed it, absolutely we would have. But despite that, this was the most overhyped, over reported, over litigated story in the history of american politics. Particularly because of what james comey did. There are protocols at the Justice Department that they are not to intervene in electoral races, they are not to report out on investigations, to the 3, 4 months before an election. This was a total breach of protocol and in and totally unnecessary. Particularly to write a letter saying we have read the emails and havent even looked at them, it is mindboggling why he did this. Jake one of the things that has come out after the election is james comey might not have felt empowered to do everything he did had the attorney general Loretta Lynch not recused herself from decisionmaking because bill clinton had that meeting on the tarmac. Do you agree with that trust that bill clinton somehow empowered james comey . Kellyanne yes. That is true. The meeting between the attorney general and president clinton bothered the voters because it played into the culture of corruption a different set of rules for them and the rest of us. Who in the world can do that . To walk across and within your talking up the grandchildren for 45 or 50 minutes. But to let jim comey be the scapegoat, in fairness, Hillary Clinton had a very bad time convincing americans she was honest and trustworthy. That was in everybodys polling and it was long before the investigation. Jake you refer to this as a post factual election where facts do not matter and you are taking issue with something donald trump said. There were other things. The fake news and disinformation out there, there was a crazy story toward the end of the campaign where the nypd was about to throw Hillary Clinton and her whole gang in jail and because of stuff that link everybody to child sex , a bizarre story that interestingly enough general flynn retweeted at one point. How much of a problem was his post factual election . Robby i think it was a big problem and theres a lot of things we need to examine. You named one of them. Congress has got to investigate what happened with russia. We cannot have foreign aggressors intervening in our elections. We know the russians were promulgating fake news. Through facebook and other outlets. And this is with all due respect to kelly and her colleagues, this is not personal, but steve bannon ran breitbart news, which was notorious for peddling stories like this. Im not attacking him personally, but they peddled a lot of stories on that website that are just false. Are just not true and that reinforce sexist, racist, antisemitic notions. Headlines that are shocking and insulting and should not be part of our public discourse. Kellyanne the biggest these of piece of fake news in this election was donald trump couldnt win. That was peddled for weeks and months before the campaign. If you look at major newspapers and major cable station networks, it is robby i never said he couldnt win. [crosstalking] kellyanne particularly print stories. We have colleagues who we all respect, some of them in this room if you pull the whole front page, it is unbelievable. But it is fake because its based on things that are not true. They have no ground game. She has more money, she has more personnel, she cant possibly lose. The growing narratives, which im not going to repeat the narrative here but they boil down to donald trump takes the wings off of butterflies. Theres a difference between what may offend me and what actually offends me. Fx me. And i as a voter am going to go that way. Jake are you at all concerned by the fact that intelligence agencies say russians were hacking into gmail accounts and servers of the dnc and john podesta . Kellyanne i just dont know it to be true. The Trump Campaign knew this there clearly is a foreign actor doing it. Just assuming it is true it is a fact, jake. Trumpeone president elect is interviewing for a job senate. Just assuming it is true kellyanne you are the one who quoted from wikileaks. Jake 17 National Security agencies have said this is true. Its true. I dont understand why you are reluctant to knowledge with these agencies are saying. Kellyanne im not reluctant to acknowledge it. Thats not the question you ask me. You are the one that quoted from wikileaks, i did not. But we are not progovernment interference. If that is what you are asking. Robby i have to say this, it is running on my conscience. It is outrageous a foreign aggressor got involved in our election. It should be investigated and it should never ever happen again. Jake the boston globe recently ran an talk to them about what youre thinking. She wrote that was one moment more than any other where she saw undecided voters shift to donald trump. It was not the comey letter, it was when Hillary Clinton referred to the basket of deplorables. Did you realize at that time that the comment she made was as potentially damaging as this one study says it was . Robby first of all, hillary apologized right away after that. And said that she misspoke. That is something donald trump wouldnt do. First of all, hillary apologized right after that. That is something that donald trump wouldnt do. She regretted her choice of words but donald trump never apologized. You are talking about one instance where Hillary Clinton said one thing. She immediately explained that she regretted. Kellyanne i think she regretted getting caught. She took it back right away. Robby it definitely couldve alienated some voters. I was proud the day after the election that Hillary Clinton said in her speech that donald trump is the president elect and he deserves the chance to lead. Robbie from the Harvard Kennedy school. I want to ask you about whether the Clinton Campaign was too confident or some might say arrogant throughout this election cycle in a way that could lead to complacency. Robby we know for a fact that some young people were voting for thirdparty candidates. Im not criticizing or blaming them. I was frustrated at times and i think kellyanne and i would agree when people said the election was a foregone conclusion. This habit some news organizations got into assigning a percentage likelihood to win. We need to reevaluate that system. Jake but do you think the Clinton Campaign bears responsibility for that impression that this was a foregone conclusion . Kellyanne i do think there is some responsibility. When they were opening of the lead and the public media polling, things were said that the election will be over before election day. People voted like this was the truth without Fact Checking or verifying. Announcer the most shocking moment in the campaign was how donald trump responded. What happened behind the scenes with that excess Hollywood Video came out. Campaigns are often defined by unexpected moments and how the candidates respond. For donald trump, his moment came when the Washington Post published this unseen footage. From access hollywood. When you are famous, you can do whatever you want. Grab them by the [bleep]. Whatever you want. How did donald trump react . I asked Kellyanne Conway to take us back to the moment. Who told donald trump about the tape . Who watch it with him . Kellyanne the members of the team came in and took a few of us out and said, we only have a transcript of the tape. Anyway, you know the rest. Donald trump decided he would like to put out a video apology. Two days later was the second debate in st. Louis. He carried forward with that. If you look at the polling, that incident affected Donald Trumps numbers much more significantly than the comey letter affected Hillary Clinton. Early voting was not underway. Most folks had already voted by the time the coming letter came when the comey letter came out. Three weeks to the day. Jake was that your reaction . Did you think oh my god, this is over . Robby not at all. I remember the meeting i was in when that news came out is we were dealing with wikileaks. Still in the mills that the russians were leaking out, we had to deal with that. Anyone who was popping champagne bottles was just wrong. In fact, we put out a video two weeks after that day and said we could lose this. We got a rally. We fought hard. Jake i want to move on to the vicepresident ial decisions. At what point was Bernie Sanders stricken from the list . We know he was on the list of 39 or so possible contenders. He obviously generated a great deal of enthusiasm. He obviously reached out to a lot of groups that you didnt find easy to reach out to. He won the michigan primary, won the wisconsin primary, two states you did not win. Why not put him on the ticket . What did tim kaine offer that Bernie Sanders did not . Robby Bernie Sanders is an important part of our campaign no matter what. We would not have had a successful Convention Like we did without the help of the Bernie Sanders. We would not have had so many supporters without the help of Bernie Sanders. He was an enormous part of our presence on the ground. We are very grateful to him about that. The decision about who should be your Vice President should be a decision about who you think is ready to do the job and who you can see as a partner. Someone you can call on to work with you. That is how hillary approached this. And he was on that list because he deserved to be on that list and he was considered along with over 30 other people. But at the end of the day, she felt like tim kaine which represent her views and values if he had to become president. He had the background and preparation to do the job. But also that partnership and that chemistry was the right one. Jake do you think Bernie Sanders would have made it a tougher race . Kellyanne yes. I would like to publicly thank Bernie Sanders for his effect on our campaign. He softened up Hillary Clinton. I was at the same convention in philadelphia and the fact is, his supporters were still out there protesting her. He was in the hall being a dutiful Democratic Convention soldier but his supporters were not. And you saw on election day, you read the polls and so many of them on election day were upset by the way he was treated and their views were never fully assimilated into the clintonkaine campaign. I assume her choice of tim kaine had to do something with virginia and something with not being overshadowed. He was not effective in the end, at the beginning and certainly not the fights president ial debate. He interrupted the female moderator about 36 times. Someone i had worked with mike pence for over 10 years. He has been in congress for 12 years, 10 of which he sat on the Foreign Affairs committee. A very effective governor of indiana. Well only thought if we were going to bust that blue ball, it would be with a running mate who our himself with the concerns of the workingclass voters. Jake Hillary Clinton called donald trump to concede the election but why did we not see her afterwards . Welcome back. After Hillary Clinton conceded the race to donald trump on the phone, we did not see her get a speech. She waited until the next day for her public concession. What was going on behind the scenes . Why did she wait . I asked clinton Campaign Manager robby mook about the moment that ended her bid to become the first woman president. John podesta came out and spoke to your supporters saying Hillary Clinton would not comment. A lot of people were surprised that there would not be a closing comment that evening given the fact that donald trump had won. We know now that president obama called Hillary Clinton and told her she needed to concede. She did call him and told him she was going to concede. The next morning she was going to get her concession speech. It took her a couple of hours to get that much celebrated speech praised by everyone. What was going on behind the scenes . Robby a little Fact Checking there. We set the time for that speech the night before. We wanted to get our people time to show up and be there. It is not as if that speech was delayed. Jake the impression was she is having a tough time with this. Certainly understandable, no . Robby no, in fact some of these reports, im not going to get into private conversations, but she made the decision to call donald trump. She made that decision on her own for she spoke to the president and she made it because she believed, and she has said during the campaign, that it is important for our democracy that whoever wins, that to their opponent concede the election and be supportive of them becoming president elect. Kellyanne that is true. We had a time on when we would speak with each other that night. We emailed and agreed. I saw an emailed from robby mook and said, it is a fundraising email. And that i said look, im excited. Jake d two of you negotiated . Kellyanne yes, we had a little plan. I handed it to donald trump and he is absolutely right, secretary clinton was gracious but she congratulated donald trump and conceded to him. That is a clear point to make here. Now you have people stating in a recount. As the person who was asked, will he respect the Election Results, will his supporters move on . I will post a question to her supporters. Are you going to accept the Election Results because he is your president. The right questions were being asked about the wrong candidate. I am glad robby mook just mention that because the combination of secretary clinton congratulating, conceding and then telling the American People the next day lets have a peaceful transition of democracy. I am paraphrasing her now but, lets respect the process. Into the president elect. Taking will get some of our live coverage on the cspan networks in about an hour, the group no labels will have a discussion of what the first 100 days of the Trump Administration might look like. You can watch that live on cspan two cspan2. Whata discussion of covering the Trump Administration may be like. Martha raddatz and Chris Wallace will talk about their experiences with the 2016 president ial debates. That is live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. The house will be meeting a new and eastern time for mourning speeches. Six bills will be considered, including one dealing with combat injured veterans and tax related issues. The senate comes in at 3 00 and they will try to finish up work on a medical Research Bill, including funding for the socalled cancer moonshot spearheaded by Vice President joe biden. The Vice President will preside over todays senate session. You can watch that live on cspan2. Follow the transition of government as president elect donald trump slices cabinet and we will prepares his combat and we will take you to events live. Watch ondemand or listen on our free cspan radio act. Radio app. As the Obama Administration comes to an end, secretary of state talked about the future of foreign policy. This our this ones just about an hour and 15 minutes. 1, 2, 3, four. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us again today. This is the fourth form you have forum you have addressed, one for each year of the tenure that you have had at the secretary of state. We thank you for honoring the forum in that way. It is just one expression of the abiding commitment on your part, the relationship between the United States and israel. I have the privilege of directly working for you for 14 months. You might remember that. I certainly do. [laughter] sec. Kerry [inaudible] martin as we strive to help israel achieve its secure peace with his palestinian neighbors, one of the things i learned from the up close experience with you is your commitment to israel is bred in the barn. A few telling examples. For 30 years as u. S. Senator from massachusetts, you had a perfect voting record on israel. You promoted the unprecedented 38 billion agreement for the next decade. You have brought unbelievable passion and energy to the effort to achieve secure peace train between israel and the palestinians. With one hand tied behind your back, you managed to secure an agreement that removed and destroyed the vast of syrian chemical weapons. Then you went on to negotiate a deal for irans enrichment program, ship out Nuclear Material and soft to the core of its heavy Nuclear Reaction reactor. The deal was hugely controversial but today, for the next decade at least, israel is much safer with the deal than it would have been without it. It is in the nature of the job of secretary of state that you do not get to finish all that you have started. What matters is you are in the arena, always fighting for peace, always fighting for security, always fighting for american values, and our interest. There is a verse from a rabbi that many in this audience will know. It goes like this. The day is short, the labor vast. The workers are weary. It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world. But neither can you desist from it. Mr. Secretary, you have never desisted from the task, from columbia to the Central African republican every other conflict in between, especially the israelipalestinian conflict. For all of that, we care deeply about the United States, israel, and the relationship between these two democratic allies. We want to express our heartfelt thanks. [applause] sec. Kerry thank you. That is really wonderful. Martin i am going to unveil a plaque we made for you for the occasion. Her i am the here. Er in chief who paid for this, brookings or me . It looks really expensive, doesnt it . [laughter] there is not a more deserving person than this guy right here. So [applause] read what i was told to what is written, because obviously you cant read it. To the honorable john f. Kerry, what does the f stand for . Kerry [indiscernible] 58 secretary of state for his Noble Pursuit for a strong relationship between the United States and israel, a deep appreciation, you did not know but now you do, and the brookings institution. I want to say thank you. Thank you so much. For all you have done. [applause] sec. Kerry thank you. Thank you. Thank you, martin. Mr. Goldberg good afternoon, everyone. Sec. Kerry thank you, jeffrey. Mr. Goldberg i will jump right in before we talk about, before i raise some of the easy questions, i wanted to ask you about some of the events in the previous few days. President elect trump has made diplomatic innovations on the pakistan front, the taiwan front, the philippine front. And so, i wanted to ask you [laughter] mr. Goldberg i am simply stating truths. I wanted to ask you if you are at all worried that the trump transition team, that president elect, is going to instigate a National Crisis while you are still in charge of american diplomacy, and if you are still in contact with them at all about managing the transition process . [laughter] sec. Kerry thank you, jeff. Thank you very much. Mr. Goldberg inquiring minds want to know. Sec. Kerry i know. I know. Amont want to display i merely consciously working to stay 1000 miles away from the and theansition process. It is important for me to be able to brief whoever the final nominee is going to be for the job of secretary of state, and i do not want to come at it with any engagement on any of the choices they are making publicly. I think it is better for me to stay out of the politics that i have stayed out of for four years. I did not go to the race and i did not go to the convention and im prohibited by law. Mr. Goldberg fine. That is what i expected but i was hoping for more. Let me pivot to the main subject of the forum, possibilities for peace in the middle east. In may of 2013 in the outset of the most recent process, you said the two state solution had 1824 months. If you could not achieve it in 1820 months, it would be too late. We are 3. 5 years out from that date. Is it too late for the two state solution . Sec. Kerry that is a really thats a great question and it is one that will take a little bit more lengthy and answer than i might have anticipated starting out with here. Can i begin just by saying thank you to all of you and thank you to very much for your incredibly generous efforts and your public citizenship through this enterprise. Thank you to all of you for your interest and working for this complicated and perplexing at times. I do not think it has to be as everybody is making it, but those are choices of leadership. I want to weave into the answer of to your question some thought. That question and the possibilities in the answers to it are still very much central to my thinking and what i want to share with you here today. Can i begin by saying you know, i do feel really passionate, generous genuinely passionate about israel. The land of milk and honey. It was about 120 years ago that the first Zionist Convention took place in basel. 100 years ago that the declaration was laid out. 70 years ago that i think we proceeded with resolution 181, which led to the formation of a jewish state and the state of israel. Of course, 50 years since the sixday war. These are all very important demarcation points. I think you have to stop and go back and look at the first declarations, look reread others who define zionism, and think about what was trying to be achieved in the establishment of this beautiful thing close to israel, a place where the george people had their identity or the state was defined by that and history, it was a place where people could be protected, where they had a nationstate signed by borders, a place which was an example to the world of democracy and freedom and rights, rule of law. It is a great concept. It is it was in the movie the greatest story ever told. It is the greatest story ever told. But it is not finished. The end of the story has not yet been written. I believe what i said. The timing, you can fight about where we are in the process that i will tell you there is no status quo. It is getting worse. It is moving in the wrong direction. I do not know how to explain the friendship of barack obama and john kerry and this administration more than what the history shows, notwithstanding this disagreement over the iran agreement. Which, as martin said, nobody says today doesnt at least give you 10 to 15 years. I happen to believe it is a lifetime because we will know if and when they ever enrich above 3. 67 , we will know instantaneously if they have more mines because we are tracking the mining. After 25 years and then afterwards, a lifetime agreement, inspections, advanced protocol. I am confident. Our Defense Department is confident. We will know if they pick up. That does not mean they will not. In which case, every option we have today will be available to us then. What we have is an opportunity to redefine the middle east, to redefine the region. To meet security needs of israel, and the security needs of the rest of the region. I spent four years now at the most intensive effort. I asked my staff to go back and read the record. I have spoken to netanyahu more than 375 times in this term. Those are only the republic recordings the public recordings. I have talked to be be netanyahu more than 375 times in this term. Those are only the republic recordings the public recordings. I have talked to him in those public transactions more than 130 hours. My wife accused me of having talked to him more than having talked to her these four years. Ive traveled 40 times or something, i met him in rome for eight hours at a time, i have met him in new york and israel, jerusalem, tel aviv, everywhere. New york, multiple times, so forth. And we are friends, we really are. I knew him back when we were sharing coffee at the charles hotel, when he was spending some time there at harvard, and we stayed friendly all the time. I was there the night he was elected. I remember him talking about what he was going to do and what we were going to do. I remember him saying to me if you are ever in a position of responsibility, we could really Work Together and get something done. I look forward to doing that. But here we are. Now. In a situation where i speak as an unapologetic friend of israel. I have lost while the Obama Administration put 23. 5 three and dollars on the line for Foreign Military financing, more than 50 of the total that we give to the entire world. That has gone to israel. We have just signed an agreement for 38 million over 10 years. 3. 8 and dollars per year up 3. 1. We have never ever shied away from vetoing a resolution or standing up against an unfair and biased resolution at the u. N. , at the human rights council, you name it. And many times, my friends, alone, the only nation in the world, we were there. I say all of this to you because i want you to understand that i want to be very clear about my passion for this stream, for the entity, for the democracy, for cash about this passion for this dream, for the entity, for the democracy, for the example, for the beauty of what israel was designed to be and should represent to the world and what everybody hopes that it is and will be on any given day. But here, i have to tell you the truth. I come to you as somebody who is concerned for the safety and security of the state of israel. For the longterm ability of israel to be able to be what it has dreamt of paying and what the people of israel i believe wanted to be. I am here as somebody defending israels need for security, and any number of ways i believe we can do that that we can talk about the let me point out a few things. The questions i raise about israel are not because we dont care about israel. It is because we do care. We want to be able to see this thing develop into the full blossomed begin it has the potential of being. Israel has enormous agricultural skills, technology skills. Remarkable finance and innovation, all of this capacity, which it could be sharing with egypt, with jordan, with saudi arabia, and all of these countries. Who talk to me about their desire to do that sharing. But the issue is, how do you get from here to there . There is a fundamental choice that comes from the question. Let me ask, raise your hand, i know some of you may not want to would knowledge it, and how many of you believe in a two state solution . It is the vast majority. How many of you dont or are willing to say so. Just one hand up. Maybe a few of you dont want to say. All right. So the question for all of us is not the road we have traveled for the last 100 years. The question is what will the next 100 years look like . Where are we going . Let me tell you, let me tell you a few things i have learned for sure in the last few years. There will be no separate piece between israel and the arab world. I want to make it clear to all of you. I have heard several prominent politicians and israel sometimes saying, the art world is in a different place now and we just have to reach out to them and we can work some is with the arab world and we will deal with the palestinians. No. No. And no. I can tell you that reaffirmed even in the last week as i have spoken with leaders of the arab community. There will be no advance and separate peace with the arab World Without the palestinian process and the palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality. Secondly, i begin with the proposition that the palestinians have major responsibilities to contribute to the process, some of which they have not fulfilled. On capacity, we can run the list. But this is a u. S. Israeli forum. I want to talk about what the u. S. And israel can do in answer to jeffs really important and probing question. There is a basic choice that has to be made by israelis, by the leadership of israel. By all of you who supported israel and care about israel. And that is, theyre either are going to be continued settlements, continued implementation of some policy, or is there going to be separation and the creation of two states . The reason i put the question to you is the following. Whens low was signed in 1993, the vision was with the signing of oslo, there is area a, b, c. Palestinian security and administrative control, area b is a split and area c is just israel, security, and administrative still. The deal in 1993 was, over the next year and a half, area c would be transferred to administrative control. It did not happen for a number of reasons. But back in 1993, there were 110,000 settlers in the west bank. Today, there are 385,500 or so. There was about 90,000 settlers living outside the barrier and the barrier i want to remind everyone here, was established israel. It is a line, security line. Outside of that line drawn by israel, there are now 90,000 israelis living in the patch works of settlements. There are 129 settlements. There are about 100 outposts. Tomorrow night, there will be a vote which will decide whether or not 54 of those illegal outposts will be legalized within months. That is in addition to some 31 who have already been in the legalization process or legalized. I believe 19 have been legalized, 12 are in the process. 85 of the 100 are about to be legalized. These outposts begin as one building, two buildings, and they become a scattering of 10 or 15 and they become a settlement. What is concerning about what is about to happen is many of the outposts are held on what is considered to be palestinian private land. Now, since obama became president the population outside the barrier in the west bank has increased by 20,000 people. Leaders in israel are fond of saying the settlements and other reason or the cause. No, they are not. I am not pretending that. Im not here to tell you the settlement is the reason for the conflict. No they are not. But i cannot accept the notion they dont affect the peace process. That they are not a barrier to the capacity to have peace. I will tell you why i know that, because the left in israel is telling everyone they are a barrier to peace in the right that supports it openly supports it because they dont want peace. They believe it is the greater israel. They are pursuing a policy of greater judeo samaria, building out into the west bank. They want to block the piece because they want those places to belong to israel. That is the history of the settler movement, my friends. All i can say to you is that out of the mouths and ministers have become disturbing statements. They said a few days ago, this represents the end of the era of the two state solution. And more than 50 of the ministers and the current government have publicly stated they are opposed to a palestinian state and it will be no palestinian state. This is where we find ourselves. Mr. Goldberg i was talking to Lindsey Graham about you. He said thing about john kerry is if you burn his house down and shoot his dog, he will put you down is undecided. Even the most optimistic american who has ever lived in americans are optimistic people. You just described a situation in which you lost, the side you are advocating for, you describe the situation in 1993, thats one thing and in 2016 its a different thing. Sec. Kerry let me answer that. Mr. Goldberg have we not passed the Tipping Point already . Sec. Kerry we are getting i will tell you what. This is a function of leadership, a function of believe, of what choices are being put to the people. Mr. Goldberg you know how hard it is to be 10,000 settlers from gaza. Sec. Kerry they dont have to move depending on what the situation is, what you choose to have is your outcome. Let me give you the alternatives, folks. If youre sitting there saying i want israel to be the israel ive always dreamed and said it was, that is democratic. And it is also a state. Today there are about six point whatever millions use living between the mediterranean and the jordan valley, but there are more arabs living between the distance. What is your vision of a unitary state . Are you going to run the schools . Are you going to have the roads that are completely check pointed and blocked that lead to this Little Island all by itself of the settlement . And the palestinians are going to live over here . Are they going to vote . If they are a majority, will they have a palestinian Prime Minister . The answer is no. No and no and no. That is not a choice that is been put to the people of israel, im just telling you. I dont think this is the choice that is input there. Everyone says the palestinians we dont have a partner or the ability to negotiate or the ability to be able to resolve the Security Issues with israel. I dont agree with that. We did work no administration has ever done. In john allen, we had wanted to 50 people from our Defense Department working with the idf, the mossad, Security Experts from israel. I urge many of you to talk to security folks in israel. Have a nice long conversation with them. There is a strong, strong base within the security establishment that believes you have to resolve this question with the arab world and the palestinians. If you dont do that, how do you allow the arab street ultimately come to grips with the future of the region . Moreover, i am convinced, and i say this to everybody that the conversations ive had in the arab world do indicate the arab world is ready to move into a different kind of security posture. But to get there you have got to have a serious negotiation and begin somewhere. Where is the United States and that . Our position has been 1967 lines, not the position of the current government. Even the american position, which every president has been opposed to settlements. We issue a warning today when we see a new settlement announced. Nothing happens. It is ignored. The new settlement goes up. New units. Mr. Goldberg why dont you have any leverage with the Israeli Government . You are describing the situation with zero leverage. Sec. Kerry i think we do have leverage. Mr. Goldberg but they never listen to you. Sec. Kerry they have not listened to us on settlements. Mr. Goldberg on the issue you consider to be key. Sec. Kerry it really is a question lets stay with the big picture here. You have to keep coming back to this ground zero question. How do you have peace . Can anybody here to find for me how you would fact have peace if the world and the palestinians themselves in the arab world and the Arab Peace Initiative are saying we want a palestinian statebased on 1967 lines and we have moved them . The mandate in 1948 was 49 . It is now lowered to 22 . That is what the palestinians have been prepared to fight for. I remember shimon perez, the wonderfully eloquent perez saying to me as recently as two months before he passed away, i think 22 is fair and that is enough. We cant ask for more. The question is how do you resolve with the palestinians their aspirations . How do you get the arab world to make this peace . How do you make people secure for the scissor attacks in the car driveby killings . How do you do that . Im trying to be practical, folks. I think you have to do that by negotiating, by reaching accommodation that meets the needs of the parties. I think that is a function of leadership. They have all had different visions of how they might move at some point in time to do that. Olmert was negotiating over 3 or 4 difference at one point. What is happened is there is been an erosion over a period of time by virtue of this continued settlement process which narrows and narrows the capacity for peace. Let me add a flavor to this. While this 20,000 additional israelis have moved into the west bank, outside of the barrier there has simultaneously been a process of demolition of palestinian homes. There are currently about 11,000 demolition orders for homes in the west bank. In the west bank 60 is area c, under oslo is supposed to be turned over control. Effectively 70 of that 60 is exclusively reserved by the state of israel. It fits into a combination of six regional boundaries and a bunch of municipal boundaries that extend well outside of the settlement housing itself so that jurisdictionally the palestinians cant build anything. In 2016 there was one permit issued to the palestinians to build in area c. Tell me. How does this work . Have you have one state that will be jewish and democratic and resolve the issue of israels security . Mr. Goldberg at least that back and ask you a basic question. Why does this even matter from an american National Security perspective . You have a situation in which half the middle east is disintegrating. That cataclysm in syria, near cataclysm in iraq, libya and failed states, arguments that are vicious and violent. No one believes the settlements the israelpalestine conflict is at the root of the middle east problems anymore. The question is was it worth spending 130 hours in conversation with Prime Minister netanyahu from an american National Security perspective . Could your time and been spent on more pressing, violent conflicts of the moment . Sec. Kerry i think everyone you that i spent more than one of 130 hours on those issues. It is about our security and israels security and israel is our ally and friend. You cannot check israel ultimately unless you can find a way to peace. It defies the imagination that you are going to have a jewish in state with a unitary state. If you are not going to have a unitary state, what shape is the of the two states . A lot of president s and Prime Ministers and a lot of secretaries of state have laid out visions of that. 1967 lines plus swaps resolving the refugee. There are Different Things that constitute that resolution. If you dont put those choices on the table, and now you have to rebuild trust. I understand. I am not naive about this. There was an absence of trust on both sides. Everybody mistrusts each other. I will tell you this. This fits into the entire issue of how you are going to calm down the middle east, of how you will will ultimately build a society that makes the transition through this clash of modernity with tribalism, sectarianism, and radical religious extremists. That is what we are seeing in these other places. I see transition there too. Let me describe that to you for a minute or in and it. Libya. I have been working hard with the egyptians to try to get the gna and the general and the tubruk group to come together in a unified government. We are working this right up until the end with a view to strengthening the governance of libya. And we have been able even while doing that to take on daish, isil, and defeat daish in syria and put the extremists in libya on notice they are not the future. I have confidence about where we are heading in the long run. Yemen. We just had a small breakthrough yesterday with president hadi. We got the houti and saly to sign on with a plan together with the u. N. To get a ceasefire in yemen. If things can work in the way i hope they will, i know the saudis any ermaties want to see this concluded. They want to focus on the things you just talked about, building their economies, quieting down the region. I believe we can make progress. In syria we are still talking with all the parties about how to get to the table in geneva. The dynamics of change in aleppo to some degree. It seems clear that everybody has been focused on daish and nisra. I can say with absolute confidence the strategy we put together two years ago now to go after daish has worked. We have taken back 55 of the territory that they took in iraq. We have liberated fallujah, tikrit, ramadi. We are moving on mosul. We are pushing it on the heart of the caliphate. We have taken up every top leader except the very top. Baghdadi, we are putting enormousressure pressure on their financing. We have taken their 1000 a day recruits that a 500 last year. And now down to a dribble. We are drying up their capacity to wage this war. I believe we will be turning over to the next administration a situation that is moving absolutely in the right direction. All of this is a bold and people to realize we are not the prisoners of this extremism. We are not the prisoners of chaos. We are moving in the right direction. A israelpalestine needs to be there for the safety of israel and the region and our own interests. Mr. Goldberg you were painting a somewhat optimistic picture. We know what is going on and aleppo and how many people have died. You go to the russians without leverage to try to get them to stop behaving in a certain way. The iranians, no leverage. Earlier this year president obama described the situation russia was working itself into syria as a future quagmire. It seems like russia is running this show despite your efforts at the negotiating table. In retrospect, could the president have given you more leverage. Is there something that could have been done to assert the United States in a more muscular way into the situation . Sec. Kerry there were a lot of debates and have been a lot of debates over the course of the administration about different options that existed in syria. I dont think we get anywhere by going backwards and debating at this point in time. This is not the moment to be talking about the internal deliberations of the administration. Suffice it to say that we did not go in to 2013, and russia went in to support assad because he was weak at the time. And also because the appearance was daish might have been the entity that might overthrow him and that would not have served anyones interest. In effect what has happened is the opposition obviously has been damaged by virtue of the intensive, i think, savage bombing taking place at all standards of warfare and my judgment. The result is, yes, a heavy price has been paid by the people of syria and by the opposition. We have been united in our efforts against daish. Recently we had some meeting of the minds of a how to try to deal with that. We have not been able to yet finalize an agreement which would save aleppo and provided ceasefire. We are still talking about it. We are still in conversations. It is possible we could achieve an understanding. What is the resolution we have pursued with respect to syria . It is a diplomatic solution. From day one president obama made the decision and we have all, our military concurred, there is no military solution to syria. Even if russia succeeds in driving the opposition out of aleppo, even if aleppo is finished as a contested strategic goal for any party in this war, this war does not end. Everybody needs to understand that this war will not end without a political understanding of how the opposition is integrated into the government of syria. That can only happen in geneva through some kind of negotiation. We are prepared to accept a negotiation in which there is a transition. Assad is part of that transition. Ultimately there is an election and the people of syria make a decision about user leadership of their country. And how you get there depends on what happens in these next weeks and months in terms of what arrangement is made with russia and assad and the iranians. Mr. Goldberg i want to ask you a israel question. You spent a lot of time talking to the israelis trying to convince him your vision of what is coming down the road is the correct vision. What many would say, and im not talking about the ideological settler movement, but the average israeli might say you are at a moment when we have hezbollah to the north, isis in sinai, a somewhat weak, threatened jordan. Isis in syria, and iran on the northern border. You were asking us to begin a process of withdrawing from territory that overlooks been international airport. Turn over territory to a weak and divided palestinian government. Sec. Kerry no, no, no. Nobody has ever suggested a turnover to a weekend divided week and divided government. Mr. Goldberg it is a weekend divided entity. Sec. Kerry it is today but nobodys talking about a turnover today. This is something that is going to take time. We have always said to Prime Minister netanyahu this will take years of work to evolve. Nobodys talking about something happening tomorrow or next year or three years. It has to happen with the assurance you are not turning the west bank into gaza. Are there ways to give that assurance is . You Better Believe there are. We had any number of very complicated and very detailed ways in which the egyptians, the jordanians, the americans, the israelis and the palestinians would Work Together with respect to border, security. We have a Development Procedure by which you can have Israeli Soldiers on the north end of the jordan river valley and in the south you have the moving within six minutes by helicopter to any possible disturbance on the border. You have all kinds of ways joint troops, joint operations developed over x number of years. X to be determined by the israelis and palestinians. We have never suggested anything that imposes on them a solution. We had only said israel has to be able to defend itself, by itself, and we said we must empower israel to be able to have the security needs fully and totally met. I believe that is not up to us to define, it is up for them to define. A demilitarized entity with carefully defined egress and exit, border control, all of it. We had King Abdullah agreed to build a fence on the best with electronics and cameras, drone capacity constantly patrolling with troops constantly patrolling. And the palestinians agree to build a fence on their side of the jordan river valley. We even said to bb, i challenge you. The top special forces of israel. If you can get through there, all bets are off. Mr. Goldberg what the you understand about israel and its security to the Prime Minister of israel does not understand . Sec. Kerry i am not going to suggest he doesnt understand more than i did. Mr. Goldberg do have this argument of the direction israel is moving in. What does he did not get that you and president obama believe you have . Sec. Kerry i believe there is a difference of opinion about what is needed and how it can be provided in terms of meeting the longterm needs of israel, both on security as well as in terms of the border and what the palestinian entity could be. But i think there is also a difference in terms of what kind of risks, and risk in terms of politics that people may be willing to assume or not assume. There are political decisions here. The Current Coalition does not the majority does not favor to states. I am pushing for two states. The Coalition Government does not believe in moving that direction. I am pushing uphill for the moment, but i believe there are people in israel that understand. And if this choice is properly put, and there are ways in which the palestinian capacity could be built over whatever number of years necessary, we all understand israels security. I am not suggesting you want to have a situation like gaza where you can dig a tunnel and have the ability to build missiles and a fake factory. We all understand that challenge. What we are talking about is a police force any Security Force and an intelligence force worked up over time with american and jordanian and egyptian and israeli engagement directly and it, and a cooperative fashion that changes the dynamics of who knows what, of who is doing what, and what the responsibilities are. That is a you build a state. Mr. Goldberg i know you will follow this issue after you leave office. How do you know when the Tipping Point has been reached . Israel is past the point break in a fix this problem and it will no longer be a jewish majority democratic state. What is the sign you are looking for . Sec. Kerry it will be defined not by us. It will be defined by people on the ground one way or another. I do not want to get into using terms and making predictions and talking about this or that. I believe that if you cannot answer the question of how you empower people who do not have full rights and how you will empower them to preserve the jewish state and the democracy if you cannot answer the question, it will be self evident at some point when things are going to happen. We are for the moment, we have a leader of a not perfect entity who is committed to nonviolence. But nobody knows what happens down the road. Nobody knows what the diminishment of the status quo on i continued basis will produce. Again, if history is any indicator, and the past is prologue to the future, and we all know those that dont learn the history lessons are doomed to repeat them, if we dont move on this there is a reason so many president s have grappled with two states. There is a reason Prime Ministers have put themselves a great risk, even to the point of Prime Minister rabin to put himself online for peace. There is a reason thing of all chased that. I believe what is happening is there has been a slow erosion of that commitment to that goal. There has been less debate in the country about it. An indifference to what is developing underground. I know sometimes there is a proclivity to kill the messenger. I know that previously when i misused a word or set one thing or another some pretty tough things have been said. I am a friend. America is a friend. We are the best friend israel has and we will remain a friend of israel. But we need to see a genuine effort to provide answers to these questions and we need to see a genuine effort to try to move towards a resolution of something that is been there since the state of israel was created. I think it is critical we get there. Mr. Goldberg if you can bring a mic over. You, the other hiam. Who should the government of israel negotiate with . Sec. Kerry i think as i said the palestinian entity is not a perfect entity at this moment in time. I am convinced if the basis of negotiations is 1967 plus swaps, with a fair understanding quietly of other components of the parameters that would be negotiated, there can be a negotiation. I have no doubt about that. I think it can be a different kind of negotiation from any that is taken place in the past because i believe the arab world, from all the conversations i have had, is prepared to move to a different place. Mr. Goldberg Andrea Mitchell over here, front row. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, Prime Minister netanyahu told this forum today that settlements are not the issue. That recognition of a jewish states right to exist is the issue. Not as a precondition, but every meeting he has had he says to his palestinian interrogator, why is he wrong about that . Following up on jeffs opening question, without you getting into the politics of the matter, the career diplomats who are are wondering why their advice is not being sought in these opening conversations that are being had. Whether they are courtesy or not. Whether there is some value in the decades of experience of diplomacy before these conversations take place, without reference to any particular conversations. If you could just discuss for the people that have followed you, what is the value of diplomacy . Sec. Kerry let me just say that we have not been contacted before any of these conversations. We have not been requested to provide talking points. Mr. Goldberg have you had highlevel meetings with the trump transition yet . Sec. Kerry i have not. Our head of transition and the state department has that with them. Mr. Goldberg do you feel it is running adequately faster would you like to speed up the process . Sec. Kerry i will not make that judgment because there was not a nominee for the secretary of state. The first thing you need is the nominee for secretary of state. I think it will be guided somewhat by that automatically. I will not find fault without it. I do think there is a value obviously on having at least the recommendations. Whether you choose to follow or not is a different issue, but i think it is valuable to ask people who work the desk and work it for a long time their input on what is the current state. Is there some particular issue at the moment . I think it is valuable and i certainly would recommend it. Obviously that is not happened in a few cases. On the issue of Prime Minister netanyahu and his perception and view of this, we have had long arguments about this and long discussions about it. I dont agree with him that the settlements are not an obstacle to peace. Does that mean i want to go back to what i said earlier. They are not the cause of the conflict. If he says the settlements are not the causes of the conflict, i agree. They are not the cause. But as i said earlier, if you have a whole bunch of people who are specifically, strategically locating outposts and settlements in areas that they make it impossible to have a contiguous palestinian state, they are doing it for the specific purpose of not having a peace. That affects the peace. There is no way 20,000 additional people moved in in the last period of time does not provide you with a bunch of splotches of islands that dont have to be dealt with in the context of where do they go. What law will apply to them . Who will protect them . Where will they go to school . Who is responsible for the services . That greatly complicates the whole topic of peace. You cant just wipe it away by saying it doesnt have an impact. It has an impact. How you resolve it will depend on the negotiation. If you dont have a negotiation, it is obviously not going to get resolved. Then the intensity grows. There have been increasing numbers if i show you a map that shows all the sectors of where the violence has been in israel and in the territories, you will see it is with the settlements are. That is where most of the violence is. There are other incidences that come in a tel aviv and jerusalem and other places, but there is a huge amount of violence. Some of it has been settler on palestinian, palestinian on settler. That obviously is having an impact on peoples perception of peace. Mr. Goldberg before i go to the last question, you have six weeks or so left. There is a lot of talk about laying down new parameters. Possibly action of the security council. Can you give us any insight about where your thinking is on that, or has the election of donald trump changed it so radically we will not see any further action on this from the Obama Administration . Sec. Kerry let me make it clear at the outset. We have always stood against any imposition of a final status solution. And against any resolution that is unfair, biased against israel and we will continue. We dont support that. There has been no decision made about any kind of step that may or may not be taken in that regard. There are however other people out there who, because of this building frustration, need to know they are any number of countries talking about resolutions to the united nations. If it is a bias, unfair resolution calculated and delegitimizes israel, we will oppose it. There was a building sense of what ive been saying today, with some people can shake their heads and say it is unfair. I said earlier there are real imperfections and problems inside that. We all know that. We have been adamant the palestinians about incitement and adamant to the palestinians about their need to deal with their Education System and change things kids are taught and to try to lead by example with respect to the nonviolence and so forth. All of that needs to happen. I am not suggesting we are dealing with this easy place. I will tell you what i do know. I have spent a lot of time in looking at this thing. My first trip to israel was in 1986 and i have probably been more times in any secretary of state. I have been everywhere in israel. I love israel. Ive had great engagements with so many friends there. I love israel. But i do believe israel, because of decisions being made on a daily basis, quietly and without a lot of people seeing them or fully processing the consequences, is heading to replace of danger. My purpose in saying the things ive said is to say there is, i think, a better path to pursue. I think over time this small little city state which is what effectively the west bank would be demilitarized as it would be with the proper input and guidance over x number of years to be defined by the parties and by the way, you can define withdraw based on performance. Which sets up standards that have to be met that provide for security. These are the kind of things we talked about with john allen and the idf and the israeli leadership. Nobody is thinking all of a sudden, boom, there is this thing and its called the state like gaza. That is not what anybody is talking about. I think there is a very different, longterm perspectives that can be defined here that allows israel to defend itself for itself. That respects israels security needs and respects all the other needs that would constitute ultimately trying to find peace. You cant do it if youre not in talking and you certainly cant do it if all you are doing is building up your presence in what people think will be there state while they are seeing homes demolished and people moved out. That is not a winning equation. Mr. Goldberg diane. Mr. Secretary, this is the case of the patients being wiser than the doctors. The people are wiser perhaps than the leaders. Have you ever openly asked, are you afraid in terms of political survival and that is why you were not willing to go ahead and stand up to the occasion and try to promote historic compromise . The other question i have given that you know where the problems are and given you have invested so much time and effort and Political Capital in this conflict, is there anything you wouldve done differently . Mr. Goldberg you would have done differently . Do you think sec. Kerry there are a few things. I will not discuss them now, i might write about them in the future. In inevitably we all make a mistake here or there. By and large i think we did the right thing and i think we approached it effectively. We had very, very difficult dynamics that were developing. You asked about libya, yemen, egypt, there is a lot of turmoil. Turmoil is frightening and unsettling. There are a lot of reasons for people to feel, whoa, this is so uncertain. In unfortunately fear plays as an effective Political Tool sometimes. There is been a lot of fear in the way of people being able to feel comfortable moving forward with other kinds of choices. I do believe what i said before. I am not sitting here pessimistic about the longterm of the region providing we the United States and the developed world make the decisions we need to make to address this moment that exists in southcentral asia, the middle east, north africa and elsewhere. What you have is an unparalleled rise of a number of different factors simultaneously that are different from anything any other generation dealt with. Will technology, communications, the rise of very young populations. 60 and 65 of many populations in the region are 30 years or younger. 50 under the age of 21. They dont have jobs. There are 1. 5 billion kids in the world under the age of 15. 400 million of whom will not go to school. If many of those are in these countries and they are ripe for the picking of extremists and lying to people about their future and what happens and life on earth versus dying, exploding yourself and taking a lot of people with you, we will have a problem. An enormous problem. We had a Marshall Plan after world war ii which put 13 billion into the redevelopment of countries we fought against. We are redeveloping developed countries, specifically japan and germany and europe. Our challenge now, and it has a bad name out there in the public. People dont like the idea of why would we spend a dime over there . It is all about our security and about the alliances we have with the security of our allies. Them if we dont face this, there is no over there anymore. It is everywhere is here. Here is everywhere. If you dont realize that, you are missing the biggest change. A whole bunch of people running around with smartphones who can see what everybody else in the world has, which means they can see what they dont have. If those folks i will tell you a story quickly. Foreign minister of a country in north africa which is a fairly large muslim population, not a majority, i asked how do you deal with this . You were trying to develop and create opportunities for people. He said we are scared. He said the extremists will spend money grabbing 13, 14, 15yearold kids. After they have won them over they dont have to pay them anything. They send them out as the next wave of recruiters. They go out and bring in the next wave of young people. He said these guys have a 35 year plan. We dont even have a fiveyear plan. Now we do. With what we have begun to do with daish, what we are doing in libya. We make progress in somalia. We fought back against boko haram. We have done the same with daish in libya. In yemen if we can quiet it down. We are trying to deal with the proxy aspects of that war which are complicated. Syria is even more complicated. There are about six wars in syria. Saudi arabia in iran. You have israel and hezbollah. Turk versus kerd, pkk, suni, shia, oppositionists against assad. It is extraordinarily complicated in the proxyism. You have got differences between egypt and the emirates versus saudi, emerate and turk. It is hard to declare we will go in and bomb and do this or that. But i do believe in being strong. I believe it is important for us. I know the cost of the president s decision when he decided not to enforce the redline through the bombing. But that is greatly misinterpreted. It had an impact. People have interpreted it as his decision not to, when in fact he never made a decision not to bomb. He did make the decision to bomb. Recently decided he had to go to congress because tony blair not tony blair, David Cameron lost the vote in the parliament on a thursday and on friday president obama felt hearing from congress he has to go to them to get the decision. The decision was not forthcoming and in the meantime i have to deal to get all the chemical weapons out of the country. We got a better results out of not doing it, but it was the threat of doing it that brought about the result and the lack of doing it perception wise cost us significantly in the region and i know that. And so does the president. As much as we think it is a misinterpretation, it does not matter. It costs. Perception often beats the reality. I think we are on the right course. I think we will stem the tide providing we do not retreat from the region, not just militarily with our presence in our potential use of force, but more importantly right now our ability to try to deal with these countries governance and their ability to address these young people and the possibilities of the future. If we dont do that, we will be inviting a lot of other problems as a consequence. Mr. Goldberg mr. Secretary, it has been a real pleasure for me to cover you these past years. I dont know if it was a pleasure for you, but i want to say thank you and we thank you for your [applause] [indiscernible chatter] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the 2016 we invite you to join us. Thank you. [indistinct chatter] [indistinct chatter] the house is about to gavel in with speeches. They will later work on six bills. Senate, lawmakers come in at 3 00 and try to finish a medical Research Bill theh includes funding for cancer moonshot. Joe biden preside over the senate session. Ms, washington, d. C. December 5, 2016. I hereby appoint the honorable jeff denham to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, paul d. Ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2016, the chair will recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and minority whip limited to five minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 1 50 p. M