. . . . . and i'm wondering what do you forsee as possible one of two steps in the middle east that you think would bring stability to the region? >> one is i think we'll see a strategy beyond just taking a flag down. the recognition that for the contributed stability we have to go beyond that. i think rather than telling the iraqis we'll withdraw but that we'll be engaged in a sustained way to keep that country together. obviously there will be a lot of support in the region. it will be a lot of support. i think reengaging with egypt but at the end of the day it is important to have a construction relationship because egypt is an important part of bringing stability to the region. you know, i think syria is insolvable. if we are lucky we'll get -- but everybody acknowledges we can't ignore libya and somalia and let it be launching pads. i'm actually semi hopeful. i think a lot of people want to see libya be a success. i think it is a place we could actually make real progress. i would love to see a more proactive -- but we need a policy beyond just ke nettic. that's what i'm looking for. >> right here, sir. wait for the mic. if you just say your name and what your question is because we have a lot out here. >> hi. joe jenkins. human rights first. i want to shift gears about the conversation. refugee vetting. some will say it is not existent and others will say it's already extreme. i want to get on the same page. is attacking the vetting system, is that also political? or is that a good faith effort and also, if you disagree that the system is working, what are the improvements? what is the conversation being had about that? i hear no substantial points being made as to how that can be better or how it can be improved. i'm at a loss. >> i unfortunately don't have the security clearance to know how those agencies operate. all i know is there was a concerted effort. i know that the intelligence agencies wanted to continue the program, wanted it to be robust and eventually came up with a mechanism. when you an effort it gets more complex. you have to talk to one another and understand what's going on. that behind the scenes effort, you know, citizens outside of the security process don't know. we do know when the system was tightened under obama significantly primarily to an incident involving iraqis that there was apparently great success in agreeing on a system that was tight and more security in advance. beyond that i can't answer it. if question is do you have to shut the whether he wiole thing order to improve it? i don't think you do. >> yeah, the problem with answering your question is you do have to go behind the door and you can't do that. my sense is there are some marginal improvements that can be made in terms of information sharing that would make the process a little better. you have to shut the program down to review that. i do agree it's partly a political decision. i think we own this thing now. we are responsible and we want to make sure it runs right. we think the risk of keeping terrorists out is balance. you can disagree, but that's their logic. it makes for a very unsatisfying public debate. >> we had two or three questions over here. >> can i say one short thing though? it also doesn't matter. as soon as you move to a new situation you reset the whole table. you might be great at getting iraq down cold but then you move to a new area you have to reinvent the whole thing. >> two people ask a question and somebody sitting near you, maybe the gentleman behind you and then it can take the two together just because we are almost out of time. >> sure. i'm mat wilks with u.s. conference of catholic bishops. i have a very brief statement. we really appreciate the call for bipartisan support and elements of refugee protection the third that we would add for sure would be root causes of migration and to try to address that too. the other goes back to a question you asked earlier. that was about the countries, those six countries providing information for people who want to come into the united states. i guess one of the concerns that we would have about that if there becomes a rule that certain countries are banned. it would be for refugees coming from those countries. from some of those the countries themselves are the ones persecuting the refugees. i wonder if it could be addressed. in a way it is sort of how the first part of the executive order, the 90 day ban is connected with the refugee ban. >> it is not a permanent ban. it's just a review. people share your concern. that's why it wasn't a permanent ban. >> and gentleman right behind you. >> latin america is also suffering for issues that have cause of mobile and refugees in the area. >> can you say that again? what's your question? slow down a little. >> my question is that we are only talking about syria and middle east earn refugees. >> because that's the topic of today's discussion. we are fnot going into other parts of the world. >> i want to know if they can talk about it, like mobilization of people and refugees. and what can we do about them? >> so for the u.s. that's mostly about asylum, which is a different process. i will say what the u.s. response will be, i think the u.s. particularly are very interested in doing more in central america to bring stability into central america. so i think you'll find this administration, that will be really keen, interested this engaging to help address some of those issues. that's my guess. >> do we have others? >> we did. there and over there and that will be the last two. unless you want to ask a question too and then we can do all three. >> you diskissed tcussed the is migration. it is larger than just the migration. how do you think the u.s. should address this issue? internationally changes are kind of shaky. how exactly do you see that establishment of that leadership? >> well, i'm going to go ahead and have everybody, if we could get the mike to them. there was a young woman here and somebody there. we could take those three all together. >> hi. i'm a student studying conflict management. i have two questions. the first one is to mr. james. you said time and again it doesn't matter and that's need to look beyond it. i don't understand what you mean that it doesn't matter when it's coming from the united states? do you mean that the statements that go out to the public don't -- number two is to danielle again, there was a lot of questions raised about how this administration is not doing enough. my question do to you can how is the previous administration not going enough for the current administration. if you could throw some tlielign that. >> we talked a lot about getting bipartisan support and it is being made into the political issue. but when there's obvious engrained prejudices that exist throughout our representatives as told by a representative or an adviser who called islam a cancer, how can we ignore -- how can we overcome this as a political issue if it is a prejudice engainrained in the party? >> those two seem to be very similar. >> every presidency has a ball lo lance of rhetoric and action. i think it is determined much more by rhetoric than achlktion. everybody remembers that obama gave a speech in cairo. nobody remembers what he said. there was very little between that and action. he did very little to bring peace and stability to that region. so we forget the rhetoric. the problem -- i men the challenge as we see it is we live in a political environment today. if all you do is focus on the rhetoric you'll be in this hyper angry talk and you're never going to see the forest through the trees. what i do, this is me personally, i tend to ignore the rhetoric and i tend to focus on what the government is actually doing. i don't listen necessarily to what they say in politics or their attitude towards religion is, i look at what they actually do. if you look at what the administration is doing, they are trying to find a way to defuse the middle east and lower the temperature on some of those conflicts and stabilize the population. to be honest i think bolster many of the countries in the region against the influence of iran. it is one of the destabilizing or state sponsor of terrorism. they are an aggressive and i think they are one of the problems. getting rid of isis, getting rid of al qaeda, ending conflicts an pushing back in iran, that's the administration for bringing peace and stability. can you knit that together from listen to campaign rhetoric? no. is that my problem? no. >> my problem is i have to wrap this up on time. >> rhetoric has a profound impact. so it taints a situation. you want to get beyond the rhetoric. let's talk about the good things nobody discuss sz. they do come in at $2,000 per capita assistance. they have to be employed within three to four months to survivemesurvive. they are small business owners. refugees have tdone a lot of great things. he went onto found one of the most successful countries in the united states. celebrate, don't make them out to be bad people. [ applause ] >> so i agree we should look at actions. i think you're not hearing -- you're thinking that anybody who says this rhetoric has hurt my community is calling the administration -- i think painful things have been said to open up the door to hateful speech and hateful action that insults them as americans. the same thing is true. the latino community in this country, i know this is beyond. it has been terrorized. you have got to hear that and realize it's not -- you can't just say let's talk about actions. these are real things people are feeling in their communities. >> one way to merge with things here, other countries are private sponsorship of refugees. it would take your billion dollars and let people bring it in and maybe it's something we could work on together. >> time still try to go reconcile whether they are proud americans who are happy to be here or terrorized and unhappy to be here. >> could be both. >> how do you address the problem of leadership. first of all, you do take in refugees. i say we should take in 100,000 refugees. i'm not the president or eligible to the president either. how do you address the problem of leadership? there are lots of different ways of showing leadership. one of the biggest disservices barack obama for us is that there are only two options. military intervention is doing nothing. the reality is we have an enormous federal government that has tons of expertise that enables us to do lots of things to preempt and to also add dres issues once they become a problem. we need to resource our budget to do that. that's a very legitimate question. yeah, some people should just shut up. let's just say it. there are things that shouldn't be said. there is a special burden on you when you are the president of the united states. any one of us who doesn't recognize that is frankly not understanding how momentous that office is. that's why i was upset when the president failed to use the power of his office. so it stands both ways. i don't think that recognizing the failure of the previous administration isjustification. i think it didn't help deliver us to the rotten situation we are in now is also wrong. by the way, islamic cancer, that -- you asked a question that i'm prepared for. it's wrong to say islamic cancer. it's also wrong to -- we have the islamic state. it is islamic and it has the pretenses of being a state. those are real issues. we deny the facts on the ground when we don't suggest there is an issue relating to islam overseas that every one of our allies would agree with. >> and on that note we are going have to end it. i wanted this to be lively, and it was. i thank all of my panelists. thank you all. [ applause ] the mu see -- watch our live coverage of ceremony starting at 10:30 a.m. on c-span 2. it includes joe biden, museum of the american revolution president and ceo michael quinn and cokey roberts. music by the philadelphia boys choir and sidney james harcourt. watch the opening of the museum of the american revolution live today at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> you can also watch the opening ceremony over the american revolution museum tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 3. ben carson recently talked about the need for housing programs to be run more efficiently and how affordable housing issues can be addressed outside of hud. this is about 40 minutes. good afternoon. welcome back for the afternoon session. i see everybody has gotten their lunch and settled in