time for a period of general speeches followed by debate and a procedural vote on a u.s. district court nomination. that'll be followed by a vote on legislation sponsored by senator claire mccaskill dealing with sexual assaults in the military a. also on the agenda, senate democrats plan an all-night session to talk about climate change and other environmental issues. over in the house, there's no legislative business today. the chamber will gavel in at 2:00 eastern for a pro forma session. the house will return tomorrow at noon with eight suspension bills being considered including a resolution that calls on the u.s. to impose sanctions on russia for its intervention in ukraine. you can watch live coverage of the house on c-span and the senate here on c-span2. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your television provider. >> host: and fadi chehade is the president and ceo of the internet corporation for assigned names and numberses, also known as ica, this n. what do you do? >> guest: the doe neighbor maim -- domain name system, the numbers which are underneath us which insure that every device on planet has a unique number and the political parameters. whilst the policies are developed in different place, icann insures their security, their resiliency and insure that there's proper multistakeholder oversight over our functions so that we have legitimacy in these roles. >> host: who sanctions you? >> guest: so icann, really, the history of icann started from the time darpa started, and under president clinton's administration there was a move to create icann as an independent, private, nonprofit institution that is responsible too coordinate these -- to coordinate these things globally for the planet. and in that regard, we have done this job very well. the dns has not been down once in many, many decades. it's working very well. and we insure that the stakeholders have a seat at the table and guide us along the way. and the stakeholders here are businesses, governments -- we have over 130 governments sitting on icamn committees -- we have civil society, we have technical organizations, we have academics. all of them sitting on equal feeting and making sure they share the planet well. >> host: are there any competitors to icanning? >> no. this role cannot be performed by more than one player. if more than one entity manages to key identifiers of the internet, hen by nature the internet will no longer be one net. at the heart, for example, of the domain name system is the root services system. and very few people appreciate that in order to resolve names on the internet, there is an actual root system that makes that work for the entire planet. all names are resolved to insure that when you type www.c-span.org, for example, or any other web site name, you go to the exact site that c-span wants you to go to all the time, every time for the last two-plus decades. >> host: how are you funded? >> guest: when people buy web site names, there's a very small fee, a very small part of what they pay the registrar that comes to icann. that ends up to somewhere north of $90 million a year, and that's what icann uses to performing its functions. >> host: and where are you based? >> guest: good question. icann's home has been los angeles for a long time. but since i started i've taken the concept of a headquarter office and divided in what i call a triquarter office. and we now operate our core functions, all of you our core functions from three cities on the planet, los angeles, istanbul and singapore. this way we can offer stakeholders on the planet around the clock support and coordinated support because we also deploy what we call stakeholder relationship management systems in order to make sure that any stakeholder around the planet if they call any of our operational head quarters or triquarters, they get follow-up service at any time of day in a unified, structured way. >> host: fadi chehade, how'd you get this job? >> guest: my name was put into the lot of applicants. frankly, i had not known ica, this n well other than when you buy a web site name, you and i see the word icann, and someone suggested that i would do well to to serve the internet community that, frankly, gave me so much. my entire career was based on leveraging the great permissionless innovation that is allowed on the internet to create companies and create value. iwm had bought my last -- ibm had bought my last company, and i was starting another company when my name was put into the lot. icann has a nominating committee that the board put in place. that committee, working with a search firm, went through tens of applicant, and i was the finalist. and i feel very -- i remain very humbled and honored by the choice the icann board has made. >> host: well, joining us to discuss some of the policy issues is erin her chan of politico. >> yes, paddy, i think -- fadi, it's an exciting time for icann right now. i know you guys are about to launch new, generic top-level domains program, and i wonder if you could speak about where you are in the process, uni, what is -- you know, what is about to happen to the internet that we all use every day? >> guest: enshrined this the bylaws of icann and icann needs to provide competition and choice for consumers when they interact and participate in the domain name system. essentially, the naming of all the sites on the internet. and so several years ago, almost eight years ago now, the community got together and started discussing how might we do that. today, as you know, countries have country cold top-level -- cub code top-level doe neighbors. -- domains. of course, most people know about dot.com and dot.org, but there are actually 22 of them. seven, eight years ago then the community said why don't we expand that. why don't we provide more choice and more competition in that market by opening it up. and, indeed, that's what happened. many companies applied. the process was long and complicated. and we are now at literally the cusp of starting to add new top-level domains, generic top-level domains to the root system of the internet that i mentioned earlier. and the moment we add them and they pass certain steps to insure stability and resiliency of the root -- because we need the root to be stable and resilient -- then they'll be available for the consumers. in fact, many registrars already offer them in a preregistration mode so you can already go and buy names on new top-level domains like, you know, whether brands, there are brands or there are cities or there are communities, or they are purely south korea network. so new york city has dot.nyc. rio is waiting anxiously before the games for a dot.rio, so on and so forth. brands also have their own, and communities. i want to emphasize this because i belong to a minority community where i came from, and finding each other in cyberspace is also important. so new, top-level domains will give the opportunity nor communities to express their -- for communities to express their identity on the web. last but not least, remember that we opened up in a very major way the use of nonlatin characters in the top-level domain. so, in fact, the very, very first that was approved was spelled arabic script. there will be more in cyrillic script and more in chinese script and so on. >> so, i mean, i think you mentioned quite a number, i think there's going to be over a thousand potential new, top-level generic names, that's obviously going to be a shock for some consumers who are used to just seeing dot.com, dot.org. you guys have played a huge role, and i'm wondering what is icann's role going forward to educate consumers for these new top-level domains, that they exist, that consumers can safely navigate to to something that they're not used to seeing? >> guest: yes. icann will have a role, and we will have campaigns to support the consumer mostly. they're not campaigns so that we can get more people to apply. this is not be, frankly, our focus. we operate in the public interest. and in the public interest it's important we give consumers a sense of safety about using these new domains, a sense of understanding the choices he was. it's becoming more and more difficult sometimes to find the name you want on the existing top-level domains, so now they have the possibilities to express themselves differently are. i also want to note that many of the new applicants are also engaged in that, these public campaigns, you know, maybe for their own interests, but they will also be engaged in explaining to consumers how choice and opportunity to brand or to gather or to build community in the virtual space is now made more possible and broader through the new gtl program. >> host: fadi chehade, what did it cost the city of new york to get nyc? >> guest: so every applicant paid the same fee except a few applicants where we provided some support in order to also support applicants from developing regions and so on. but in general every applicant paid $185,000 as a set-up fee. and that fee is turning out to be about right, was the cost of insuring that these applicants know how to or not these new registries -- because they become registries, right? people can buy then, restaurants.nyc, etc. so they need to serve these people that will put maybe their communities or their businesses or their blogs. we want to make sure these registries are stable, therefore, there are the -- the fees went to insure they're financially ready, they're technically ready, they are operated in a way that would insure stability for the consumer. and, of course, there were many, many, many steps to each of these applications. some applications had confusingly similar strings, some applications had competition over the same name, so we had to go through processes. and that was the reason for that fee. i'm hoping in the next round the fee will be lower. i think the fee was a barrier for some folks, and we would like to see that the learnings from this round of new -- [inaudible] would lead us to, hopefully, a lower fee. >> host: how many generic top level domain names, gtlds, do you see in the the future? >> guest: i do see the potential for thousands. not because i have very specific knowledge of that, but because be my sense is as that space opens -- and it's a limitless spas, obviously, you can have as many as you want -- and, indeed, the domain name becomes an an expression of brand or community or a certain type of service on the internet. and as the internet grows just naturally, i mean, the number of users on the internet is growing in spades as we speak, i think that we will see many more of them. now, many, i am certain, will fail. it is not guaranteed that every one with of them will do well. therefore, it's important to look what's behind the name, not just the name a. name. so dot.green may sound like a superb generic name because it conjures things all of us would represent. but what's more important is the wiz plan behind dot.green and how it will serve the people on dot.green and the fidelity of the business to that space and what that space represents. so the market will decide. it's not up to icann. icann gains solely by making sure that the domain system, again, is always available, always stable, resill cent, secure -- resilient, secure and open, open so everyone can participate in it. that's our job. >> host: erin. >> guest: i mean, you listed a number of really exciting things, i think, about program, but i know there has also been a lot of concern from folks like trademark holders who are worried they might have to register their name in an untold number of these names. so c-span.org might also have to worry about c-span.book. are they going to have to do that? is this a lot of extra cost and hassle for big brands that are worried about this? >> guest: yeah. look, there is no question that those who own brands and trademarks and, by the way, i come from that community, i was, i built many businesses and many brands, and i own many of my own. so i'm very, i'm deeply appreciative of the need to protect these assets. i understand that. as i have been engaged with that community, i explain that rather than be defensive and, frankly, operate in that new space without strategy which is to say, fine, we will buy c-span on everything which would be, frankly, would be costly but also a easy, we're encouraging trademark owners to actually build real strategies. this is a portfolio. you're building a portfolio of spaces. and they need to understand what is coming, participate in it with care, with wisdom rather than just a generic shot of buying, because that's the easiest way to protect. we also, in fairness to icann, icamn has done a remarkable job to actually put protections more these owners. icann has introduced the very first global trademark clearinghouse. there's no other place on the planet where you can actually do that, where you can literally register your name, and anybody buying a domain on any top-level domain on the planet will have to contend with what people registered this that place. and -- in that place. and if people buy domains that breach somebody's trademark, they will be informed, and then there is a process to also insure that trademarks stay with their owners. and then the last thing i'll say as someone who built businesses is that it is important for trademark owners to look at the other side of the coin. indeed, it is a cost to register that name, but there's also an opportunity. and that opportunity has a value. i met one big brand owner that applied for a dot their brand recently, and i asked them when they were discussing their brand, i said what do you plan to do with dot.your brand? he says, i haven't a clue. i said, well, why did you pay clash 185,000? oh, he says, the corporate risk department said buy it. so i encouraged him, as i would encourage every business, to talk to their marketing people, talk to their business development people, talk to their internationalization departments to understand how these new real estate that they have on the internet can be leveraged for opportunity. and as a businessman, i assure you i've hard some business plans of new glds, it's impressive. there are some great ideas. >> host: fadi chehade, there's some controversial though, aren't there? like dot.sucks, dot.sexy. >> guest: yes. that comes with anything we do in life, as you know. as with good things come also the freedom that we cherish in this world comes also with expressions that, you know, you and i may not agree with. but it's the openness and the freedom that the internet offers, and we have to respect that so long as it is not against any laws or policies of icann, we grant these names. i think that this comes with any medium, and that's no different than any other. >> i'd like to shift gears a little bit. >> guest: sure. >> i know under your leadership icann has taken a much more active debate in the -- [inaudible] you had a statement from a number of players from montevideo last year, it offered a rebuke of the government surveillance practices that were revealed last summer, and i was hoping you could speak where you see ica, this n's role -- actually with, let me start first with how have those revelations changed the conversation about internet governance in the last few months? >> guest: i think the equation between privacy on the internet and security on the internet was modulated by the amount of trust that exists in the system. if i trust you, i'll let you see more of my private information. as the revelations reduced that trust in the system, the pendulum swung towards more secured view of how the internet should look like. i think that that has had a pretty important impact on the dialogue we're having in internet governance. because with trust being punctured a little bit through these revelations, it becomes more complicateed how we established what i call governance networks that give people a sense of balance between the private and the secure. and governance networks, just like ones that we established decades ago for other things like armaments, need to be based on checks and balance. and checks and balances which underpin, for example, our u.s. government system need to permeate how we manage the internet moving forward. it's very, very critical, and i think that the world is ready to see how internet governance evolves from where it is today into a model that i'm calling networks of governance or governance networks that do not have a central core, but that are based on common principles and that enable stakeholders in a way that is effective, that is legitimate and that is dynamic, because the internet changes every day, to come together and to address specific issues in the space. and that dialogue is starting right now, and it is very central to the debate going on in the world about how we govern the internet in the future. >> host: fadi chehade, would that lead to the u.s. losing control of governance of the internet? >> guest: no, because losing control assumes that the u.s. has control today other the internet -- over the internet. the u.s. in its wisdom and its stewardship of the icann functions from the beginning appreciated that these functions are the world's functions. and even icann in its founding as well as in the original plans that were set in place for icann to do its job are, it was very clear that it's a matter of time. as soon as icann is ready operationally and institutionally and has the legitimacy of a global organization that the function that the u.s. has today -- which is a very minimal function of oversight on some of the things we do -- will be passed on to icamn through its multistakeholder accountability mechanisms. so the u.s., the control over the internet at the level of ica in hn's work -- icann's work is really in the hands already of the stakeholders. it is not in the hands of the u.s. what the u.s. simply has is a stewardship, i call it, rather than oversight, a stewardship role to insure that the core functions we do are done according to the policy set by all the stakeholders, not by the u.s. government. and i think as i i mentioned recently on a recent trip that it is time for the u.s. to consider that this stewardship is ready to be passed to the stakeholders. as it has alwaysen visaged. the time has come. ask and i think the u.s. appreciates that and appreciates that it's the interests of the u.s. and the interest of the world for the stewardship to go to the multistakeholder mode el at icann. >> i mean, in that case is there someone or some entity that takes over the oversight function of icann or -- >> guest: icann itself is made legitimate through its accountability to all the stake hold holders. everything at icann, i know i have the president constitute l l, but frankly, most things get decided by the stakeholders, not me. bottom up. and it works. it has worked for years, and it will continue to work. i think the u.s. government in its wisdom wanted to wait until they were certain that the bottom-up multistakeholder model of accountability at icann is working well, it's delivering good results. the leaders of the staff at ica, this n are -- icann are able to institutionalize these functions and follow this very important spirit, and as soon as that is all in place -- which we believe is in place now -- the u.s. government would be, should be comforted in achieving what it had always, again, envisioned from the gunning. and time -- from the beginning. and the time is now. >> in those governance networks that you were talking about given where you'd want icann to go, what do you see as icann's role that you said is sort of starting now? >> guest: so, first of all, ica this, n's -- icann should stay where it's supposed to be to manage the, to coordinate the names, numbers and protocol parameters and their implementation according to the policies set by the community, the broad community. and i am a firm believer that icann should stay focused on just that. but, now, how does it fit into my definition of a governance network? ica, this n itself is a governance network, right? and there will be other governance networks. our governance n happens to include 130 governments, ex-businesses, ex-technical people, etc., who come together and define how icann's policies are set and how we implement what we're supposed to do in the public interest. but there will be other governance networks, so icann does not have to and should not expand its scope. >> i know you're headed to brazil in april to sort of begin these conversations on a very global stage. can you talk a little bit about the agenda for that meeting and what you hope to accomplish there? >> guest: certainly. brazil is going to be one of many milestones next year to set the tone of internet governance in a multistakeholder approach. the conference in brazil, which is called the multistakeholder -- the future of multistakeholder internet governance, that's the name of the conference, was called for by president due receive on april 23rd is a chance for governments, businesses, civil society and technical organizations to all come together and start discussing the networks of governance for the future and how should they look like, what are the principles we will adopt, how will we manage them. i am, frankly, very hopeful that this conference will produce two things. first, it'll produce a document that describes the core internet governance principles that would define how these networks of governance or governance networks will evolve. and these are important principles, because at the heart of any network or any governance model we need to agree on common principles. the second thing it will do is it will take the existing internet governance ecosystem and evolve it and then expand it. now, these are two different things. evolve it means to take what works very well today and insure that it continues to work for the future. and we will do that. in addition, we need to expand it. what do i mean by expand it? today our very well-working internet governance ecosystem largely address things, what we call things off the internet, not things on the internet. so how the internet works. something like what icann does. increasingly, the world is focused on how to we govern what's on the internet p essentially, the use of the internet. and we need to make sure that our multitake holder -- multistakeholder mechanisms extend into that space as well. to be frank, last year in december, two years ago in 2012 there was major conference called the wicked that was organized by the itu, the u.n. agency, and at that wicked conference in dubai it was a very difficult moment, by the way, because there were many countries that did not know how to address issues that were left unaddressed on the table. and when they pressed many of us to say where do i take this issue, i have an issue, i don't know, in cyberbullying, i want to discuss best practices for that issue, where do i take them? we did not have a mechanism to lead hem to that is -- them to that is truly multistakeholder to address this issue. now we can no longer simply say we don't know. it's been over a year, and people need some answers. so that's what we're hoping to achieve and e preserve. disms and, unfortunately, we are out of time. fadi chehade is president and ceo of icann, the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers, and erin merchon is a technology reporter with politico. thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> thank you. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you today as a public service by your television provider. >> coming up next, a couple of panels from this past weekend's conservative political action conference. we'll hear first from author and political commentator ann coulter and mickey kaus of the daily caller on immigration, health care and the midterm elections. that's followed by an analysis of russia's intervention this ukraine with former undersecretary of state paula dobriansky. then a look at the influence of pro-israel lobbying groups. and later, at 4:00 eastern, the senate returns for a period of general speeches followed by debate and a procedural vote on a u.s. district court nomination. also a vote on a bill sponsored by senator claire mccaskill dealing with sexual assaults in the military. >> the conservative political action conference was held over the weekend just outside the nation's capital. one of the sessions featured a discussion with author and political commentator ann coulter and daily caller contributor mick cay kau -- mickey kaus. the conversation was moderated by jonathan garthwaite of town hall.com. this is half an hour. ♪ ♪ [applause] >> hi, folk, are you ready? all right. so we'll be dividing today's firing line into three segments. in the first i'll ask both guests questions. in the second the guests will go at each other a bit, and then in the third you'll get some questions from the audience that you'll have to tweet to cpac news. in the best tradition of bill buckley, please make your questions biting and -- [inaudible] [laughter] it's time to introduce our firing line conned -- contenders. today's liberal now writes for the daily caller. he's an author and former democratic u.s. senate candidate who blogs for kaus files. ladies and gentlemen, mickey kaus. [applause] all right. and our conservative, can you guess? do you know? [cheers and applause] is a ten-time phi times best-selling author, a few of those for regnery publishing, syndicated column u.s., legal correspondent for human events and is, obviously, a fixture on cable news, please welcome our firing line femme fatale, ann coulter. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. thank you. here? >> that's fine, right there. >> mickey, you want to close on in so we can get closer? we can get started. all right, first segment. i'm going to go at you guys a bit first. so, miss coulter -- >> yes. >> as a proud university of michigan law school grad -- [cheers and applause] this which class did you learn that the president of the united states only had to enforce the laws in which they agree? [laughter] >> no, i learned that at a grateful dead concert, not -- [laughter] not university of michigan law school. no, i mean, it is a serious point, the way obama is -- it is unconstitutional legislating from the white house. the constitution divides up branches, it's the congress that's supposed to write the laws, and it's very, you know, care any designed. you have senators for six years and members of the to house for two years, that's the people's house, and they write the bills, the president can suggest stuff, but his only role in the writing of legislation is to veto it. and if he doesn't veto it, then it becomes law. that is not what obama has been doing. most obviously or at least the most talked about has been with obamacare, and i think most egregiously with our immigration laws. at least with obamacare, people talk about it. and it's kind of a tough one for republicans because we were the ones who fought to get these waivers put in. he rejected, he -- obama -- rejected them. now he's just doing it in a way that's unconstitutional, oh, i just won't apply this heinous law. well, we won't apply it to congress, won't apply it to unions, won't apply it to big business, now we won't apply it to small businesses. so a small number of being screwed, but it's a tough argument for republicans because we want the whole thing waived. so how do you complain about him waiving it for only 95% of america? with immigration it's quite the opposite. you have, well, you have the democrats who want more immigrants, and particularly illegal immigrants because they need brand new voters, just warm bodies, more votes. [applause] amnesty goes through, and the democrats have 30 million new voters. i just don't think republicans have an obligation to forgive law breaking just because the democrats need another 30 million voters. [cheers and applause] you have big business, and businesses generally who want it, you have yuppies who want it. so in l.a. they have gardeners even when they don't have a garden. [laughter] lay wore so -- lay -- labor so cheap, those are the big groups that want it, but the american -- the only people on the other side are the american people. this is the issue republicans should be screaming about executive orders on. >> mr. kaus, can president pick and choose? >> no, he can't, and i'm pretty confident the supreme court will pin back his ears. that's one thing lawyers are good at -- [applause] is, you know, keeping people in the bounds of their power. and if you've ever clerked for a judge, it's not all -- it doesn't all go by what the rules are, it's in large part do you feel guy needs to be reined in. and i think the supreme court will feel that. what strikes me is how despite the fact that obama is untrustworthy on immigration, i mean, he said i can't am mess i the dreamers -- amnesty the dreamers and then when the election was looming, he went ahead and did it anyway, the republican leadership still presses ahead for amnesty including john boehner in the house. and i don't -- i don't understand why. i mean, democrats have a perfectly good reason for amnesty which is crane ethnic pandering which is going to insure our power over next few generations. [laughter] but what's the republican? >> next, mr. kaus, so isn't doubling the national debt in order to make america process produce analogous to russia invading ukraine to set it free? >> well, i think the better, the better paradox is reagan's -- this is the liberal coming out, there are a new vestigial signs of liberalism yet -- reagan said he was going to lower tax rates. we know how that you turned outt didn't happen. i was reading david fromm, a conservative who may not be that popular, he invests his money on the basis of theories of paul krugman. [laughter] and he's made a lot of money. and he is veryuateful to krugman -- grateful to krugman who correctly predicted inflation wouldn't be a problem and says our debt isn't all that bad. and i don't think it is all that bad. it is due to explode when the baby boomers need their medicare which is very soon, but there's an obvious answer that both parties are going to gravitate towards which is means testing. make the rich pay more for their medicare. keep them in the system, but make them pay more. and i think that will so solve the budget problem. >> could i just say -- one is it just has to be said whenever a liberal said what huck key just said, when reagan cut taxes, more revenue didn't come into the treasury department. [applause] he got, you know, every year taxes went down, and i think this is in every single thomas seoul book. every year taxes were cut, more money came into the united states treasury -- [applause] the problem was tip o'neill would spend three times as much for every dollar that would come in. now we'll spend another three -- prison. [applause] and as for the future of entitlements, again, everything always comes back to immigration. we are talking about bringing in 1.2 million poor people per year here. that's going to be sustaining social security? that's going to be sustaining medicare? and on top of that, something i think people haven't really noticed, what -- well, certainly they've noticed on msnbc where they are celebrating the browning of america. but if you don't celebrate it, you're a racist. it is going to be people who are not from america who are going to be, in theory, funding older white people who are getting to their social security, medicare age. i don't think that can last. i mean, at some point they're going to say, screw it. >> third question for you, ms. coulter. what's the over/under of number of years before it's illegal to criticize a democratic president? [laughter] >> i think, i think obama is different from the rest of them. i mean, i get as probably a little of you do a little depressed thinking about who we're going to run next. [laughter] but then i look at their field. [laughter] i mean, once the obama magic is gone, we are not going to have people fainting at, you know, joe bind rallies. [laughter] [applause] or -- and, i mean, you sort of have to lobotomize yourself from all of obama's powells to recognize this -- policies to recognize this, but i do think he is the most charming, elegant, articulate person the democrats have run for president in my lifetime. you take him out of equation, what, hillary? biden? hopefully governor moonbeam, andrew cuomo. and then, and then hopefully we'll have free speech against democrats again. >> all right. >> governor moonbeam isn't that bad. i mean, in california we see what the future of politics is if we have amnesty which is the republican party is irrelevant in california. we don't care about them, all that stuff about abortion, cultural issues, forget it. it's not in the picture. democrats are governing the state. and because of that, democrats have to be responsible. we can't blame republicans anymore. and the democrats have been fairly responsible. so one-party government has worked pretty well in california. [laughter] >> all right. so now we take the gloves off. it's the you against each other. mr. kaus? your question for ann. >> ann, why haven't republicans stepped up on amnesty? is i don't quite understand it. i looked at -- i spent all day yesterday looking at the republican new ideas of fighting poverty -- [laughter] because i mow you have a positive message of new ideas. and it's really sort of a motley lot of sort of mid-level tinkering with tax rates and allocations, and we'll only fund health care to three times poverty, not four times poverty. [laughter] none of that will do good, in any way compensate for the negative effect of amnesty on unskilled and poor americans. paul ryan says he's got to lift them up, but he's pushing them down with the other hand. >> right. >> what is it with your party that's fallen -- republican voters don't like it. look what happened to marco rubio when he endorsed amnesty. why does the republican party persist in this suicidal rush? >> it's baffling. it's one of those questions like how high is up, why they keep doing this. i mean, part of it is you do not hear the truth about immigration or amnesty any place in the media. you can hear, i guess, on some of the blogs. there's no issue that is of much importance to america and americans that is so hidden from public view as immigration. i mean, you're talking about who votes. one of my friends told me yesterday, i don't know if any of you were in on this, but this was a big facebook debate someplace about, you know, liberals acting up and should we just throw texas out of the union, was it's so conservative? >> yes! >> and they're going back and forth on this -- [laughter] and i e-mailed him back and said, well, that's what, that's what amnesty doesment that's it -- does. that's it, 24 million conservative voters overwhelmed, gone. the country does become california. why republicans are rushing headlong into this, some of it is cowardice. they feel like we lost the last election and, oh, please, hispanics, will you vote more me many look at the polls. hispanics don't care about amnesty. as mickey just said, who gets hurt by bringing in more low-wage workers? the million you brought in last year. and the year before and the year before. i mean, my whole life i've heard republicans hate black people, i've never seen any evidence of it until i read marco rubio's amnesty bill. we are the party that has always stood up for african-americans. who gets hurt the most by amnesty, by continuing these immigration policies? it is low wage workers, it is hispanics -- [applause] it is blacks. and the fact that republicans don't understand that, can't grasp it, you say rubio was hurt by it. it wasn't just rubio. mccain, bush. as you've written in your blog, it's like a zombie amnesty. of we can't kill it. they keep going back to it -- [laughter] and my assumption is it's the lobbyists. and it may not be the congressmen and the senators themselves who want the job lobbying, but i think their staff does. .. and the minimum wage naturally rises. [applause] i thought you guys cared about the poor working class? >> it's hard to me to defend the democrats on the. there were some senators, like byron dorgan, byron dorgan, he opposed immigration amnesty for precisely this reason. he was defending irking class wages. bernie sanders opposed amnesty until obama on them off with a 1.5 billion bs jobs program. so that took care of bernie sanders. that some journalists on the left of "the new republic" like tom frank the wrote one of those articles written on immigration amnesty. this is a plan for cheap labor, we are on the left, we are supposed to oppose this. you will not see those people on the floor of the senate until amnesty passes. then all of a sudden they will say, like tony blair says about his immigration policies in europe, maybe we made a big mistake. then it's too late. that's the difference between an this debate and the tax debate is taxes, we can always raise them later or lower them later if we don't like it. amnesty, there's no do overs. once you let people in they are here. >> that's like more important than obamacare. if i can list a few other democrats, clinton was in favor. the jordan report came out, harry reid once called the anchor baby philosophy which is not in the constitution, it is from a justice brennan footnote, harry reid called the anchor baby law or ruling in sandy. of course, it's insanity. so there was an to democrats but are not just they just think screw the country, screw low wage workers. we want our 30 million voters. >> it's the triumph of ethnic politics over economic politics. as an old marxist i remember the time in the '60s when people came in and said it's not -- its effect were black or hispanic. we said you're crazy. we are marxist. all workers are the same. doesn't matter which color they are. but they have one. they taken over the democratic party. >> we have the question or ms. coulter. >> this is only transition the red to amnesty, although everything is, even charles murray agrees that america is coming apart. my right wing friends agree with the. my left wing friends agree with the. it's not just the incomes are growing more unequal but culturally the rich are growing very distant from the poor in behavioral terms as well as money terms. this is murray's thesis. the rich have two parent families, the poor don't anymore. the poor have babies out of wedlock. does anybody on the right have a solution to this problem? >> i think murray does. part of the problem is, and i completely agree with charles murray on this, you read these terrifying divorce statistics and find out their completely different for college educated people and those without, or with only a high school degree. the unwed motherhood raid, and that just feeds upon itself. the one thing that's really changed, besides going to the government often subsidizing bad behavior give hollywood rewarding bad behavior. there's also an overwhelming cultural sense, i think it is a political correctness, to end shaming. shaming is good. this is how, it's almost a cruel and selfish as saying for the operate classes, for the educated, for the college graduates to refuse to tell poor people, keep your knees together the for a you are married. that will solve so many of life's problems. no, no, no. you're into the ring with their cultural mores. that is something very strange about our friend steve sailer, has written about the problem of littering among immigrant communities big is something i didn't live there but in the 50s apparently all americans littered a lot. who started a campaign shaming americans out of littering with the indian and keep america beautiful act? it was the corporations themselves. no government action. of producing these products with disposable cans and plates and someone and they didn't want it all over the landscape. so it was anheuser-busch and other companies got together and funded these ads to shame americans out of littering. now at all of these national parks in california where the littering is coming from recent immigrants, we can't suggest that anyone group is doing it. let's just shut the park your that's what they're doing. this is always a solution. we don't want to stigmatize anyone. sometimes the statement is good. they stigmatized smoking out of existence. how about stigmatizing unwed motherhood, littering, running across the border illegally? how about stigmatizing at? can we just do that? [applause] >> i've lost track of whose turn it is but let me throw in a question from the audience. usually comes up every year. it's the marriage proposal. >> could you stay on, please?him clinton doesn't run, are you a biden man? >> i am deathly not a biden man. like ann i despair of my field until i look at your field. i voted for obama. i voted for obama to undergo for him last time. [booing] because i thought he would enact obamacare. i didn't really see screwed up but i thought he would enact obamacare and that he wouldn't get amnesty done. so far he hasn't disappointed me. has not gotten amnesty done and it seems to me that all of the republican candidates, including ted cruz, will sell out on amnesty. there's not a single republican candidate who won't old way to the corporations bidding and try to push it through. the only hope is to elect another democrats or the republicans will at least resist them the way they are resisting obama. that said, the only democrat i found attractive in the last, aside from obama in the last two cycles has been ed rendell. he took on the unions. he is relatively candid. [booing] and the obvious has broad appeal. [laughter] >> here's a question. who is your pick for 2016? >> well, in response to something that you just said about -- by the way, right before, i think in 2000 election, you and i had an ongoing and vicious debate out over which one would be more enthusiastic about amnesty, mccain or obama. and i'll admit it's close indiana. obama is trying to do everything he can. it's not elected republicans. it's the american people who are stopping republicans. i think that's probably the best hope. because again what mickey kaus used to think everything was about sex. i realize everything is about immigration. it determines every single other issue, and, of course, that's how we got to pick our presidential nominee. a little but no, that's why mitt romney was my favorite candidate. he was the most aggressive on immigration. and in a way that was very appealing, in the first day -- debate he won the best answers fy two weeks to write in it, for illegal in which join together in driver's license in-state tuition? have republicans on stage had already done that, and mitt romney said, no, i will appeal to hispanics the weight republicans always have. we are offering freedom and liberty and a chance at a better live for you and your children. and any hispanics are here for a handout are not voting for republicans anyway. it was a beautiful and perfect answer. made fun of deportation, liberals an immediate have the capacity they can turn a phrase apple pie into, he said apple pie. but, of course, that's our solution to immigration. he can't let these fake polls on all, what most americans support the path to legalization. that's because i look up everyone of these polls and the question is always do you want, you have this minor question, too often, do what you round up illegal immigrants at gunpoint, put them on buses, send them home ripping children from grandmothers? or would you like to put them like to put them on a path to a position where they have to learn english and take lessons in patriotism and pay back taxes, of which there are none, they would getting money back during the earned income tax credit. but look, there is no politician in washington who suggesting rounding anybody up. we didn't round them up to get to me. will not round them up to get them on. we just enforce e-verify. when the jobs dry up and oh, say, college tuition subsidized by we found out this wicked joe wilson was right. obama was line. he has now announced -- is announced to illegal aliens what -- this will not be used to deport you. i think the only way to get republicans, other than romney, republicans ran for president, it's the damnedest thing with republicans, like invasion of the body snatchers, he is so good on national defense, wants to give the democrats 30 million new voters. i think it has to be pressure from americans. the reason americans often fall down on the job is you will not read anything about this in your local newspaper, in your time from in the "washington post," you will not see on television. that is one thing i will give the amnesty and mass immigration proponents. they know, let's not talk about it. let's do it all hush-hush and try to slip it through. the more people know, the truth about immigration marco rubio's bill by the way triples legal immigrants, most americans do not favor a path to legalization. when you hit them going on and on about the children, the children. the children under the dream act include young men who snuck across at age 17. some of them are in their 30s now. overwhelmingly, throughout history, throughout the world most immigrants are young males. they will send for the families later. this nonsense about families being broken up and the children. it's not busy people crossing the border illegally in the back of trucks, pico de gallo, hiding in barrels, running from the border guard. it's not like they did know what they're doing was wrong. everyone acts like they stumbled into the country. oh, gosh, i didn't know that was illegal. >> that's what it was a disappointing for me to read on november 15, 2013, where romney in an interview with -- endorses the path decision should and legalization. i tell you, everybody on your site will sell out on amnesty except for jeff sessions. he is about the only one. >> we are right about end of time. >> romney is going for his obituary. >> ninety seconds, best day for liberals and democrats in 2014. >> you just made it. spent we won't get amnesty. they will fix -- >> how do you win in 2014? spent we are not going to win. [applause] >> at this point with obamacare, it's like the iraq war, the fastest way out is to go through. the best path to certain is to get it done and then we can fiddle with the lead once it's up and running. and obama will not produce amnesty. at least he's the best chance of not producing amnesty if the republicans will stand up to them. they don't trust them. you were supposed to pay a fine to qualify for the amnesty. obama will waive the fine. there will not be a fun. everybody knows that. so the best hope for those two big things is to vote for the democrats. >> why should americans vote republican? >> it's the only way to repeal obamacare. i keep hearing people say on tv, all, don't get in the way. it's falling on its own. nothing also its own. we have ultimately the heinous government programs. public education, the amtrak food service, the post office, the irs. nothing ever falls on its own. the only way to get rid of obamacare, and by the way, i am an individual out there. i'm part of the 1% that didn't get away for. wait until it comes to you, you will not be able to get an english-speaking doctor went to an american medical school, i mean unless you leave the country to find one. may be on an indian reservation. that i think is going to be an argument and the only thing that is going to hurt it is, obviously i'm disappointed in republicans but don't think it matters more is immigration. immigration is forever. it is game over when that happens. every republican voted against obamacare. so there's no try to figure out if you can vote against obamacare. some are better than others. i don't like hearing them say will keep the good parts of obamacare. what is that? but amnesty is forever. i think you've got to vote for the republicans one more time and just make it clear. but if you pass amnesty that's it. it's over. then we organized the death squad for the people who racked america. >> thank you. thank you. give a round for mickey kaus and and culture. >> thank you. ♪ ♪ >> another session of this past weekend cpac conference of them russian intervention in ukraine. a panel discussed russian president putin's goals and strategies. the u.s. response and influence in the region. and the future of ukraine and its crimean region. former undersecretary of state paula dobriansky moderated this 25 minute forum. >> good afternoon here good afternoon, everyone. we're going to spend some time focusing on the crisis in ukraine and i want to take a minute and just give you a little bit of context to what's happening. let's go back last year. in november of last year, then president yanukovych turndown opportunity to become associated with the european union. that association would have resulted in economic reforms and political change in ukraine. ukraine is in dire economic straits. and those changes could make a real difference in its way forward. as a result of his unwillingness to a sign that association, attest, massive protests, broke out on the streets in kiev and throughout ukraine. people were protesting them put their lives on the line, one, because they want to become associated with the west, with the european union. and secondly they were also protesting against corruption. because corruption has played and set ukraine back. fast-forward, february of this year, three diplomats from europe went to ukraine to try to broker a peace between the opposition and those demonstrating on the street, and with then president yanukovych. ya the polish foreign minister, you had the french and german foreign minister, and also by the way, the russian ambassador was there on the scene. an agreement was concluded, and that agreement was signed by then-president yanukovych. the agreement called for a change in the constitution, an agreement to go forward with economic reforms, and that it would be new presidential elections to be held before december, at the end of 2014, and there were other terms that were established between the opposition and then president yanukovych. it was signed by president yanukovych and those three diplomats. ambassador did not sign. what happened in was in the news. president yanukovych disappear. he ended up in moscow. then the next thing we saw was that there was a russian aggression into crimea. this comes at such a crucial time. ukraine is politically gripped and economically in very dire straits. what will this mean for the united states, for the west, for ukraine, for the globe at large? we have a great panel, and i want to invite them to come out and join. we have clifford may who is the president of the foundation for the defense of democracy, and he's also a foreign affairs contributor to the "washington times." [applause] and we also have paul saunders whose executive director of the center for the national interest, and also associate publisher of the magazine the national interest. so we are going to hear more about the crisis in ukraine. thank you. [applause] >> gentlemen, let me go to you immediately. with that backdrop the question on everyone's mind, first and foremost, is why? why did president putin support and advance this aggression into crimea? which flies in the face of international legal agreements, including the osct and the budapest memorandum which the u.s. and uk and russia signed when ukraine give up its nuclear weapons and the agreement was the protection of ukraine's sovereignty. >> if i had to boil it down to one reason, and i'm speaking here from a russian perspective in trying to explain their thinking rather than from my own point of view as an american, but to boil it down to one reason, i think russia has been quite frustrated over the last 20 years by the way that europe has developed. many russians feel that russia doesn't have the kind of role in europe and in european security that they like. and they are especially concerned about the fate of ukraine, which has very close to historical, cultural and other ties to russia. i think what you see here is essentially president putin trying to tell the united states and western europe, you can't decide the future of ukraine unilaterally. you need to consult -- >> but there are measures you can choose which are, conform with international norms. this flies in the face of it. >> i'm going to disagree and take a harder line. the basic recent putin did this is because he can. couldn't look back at history and in is that under the stars, russia at a nearby. under the common source, russia had in empire. under putin of russia will have empire and it must are in the ukraine. that's how he looks at it. sarah palin was a recently, earlier today. i want to give her a problem because it turns out she could see russia clearly from her house. [laughter] [applause] >> she also so i think vladimir putin clearly more clearly than the two american presidents. president bush looked into famously looked into putin's eyes and saw in his soul something akin to thomas jefferson akin to thomas jefferson when he should in something akin to ivan the terrible or catherine the great. then we had to reset with russia which assumed what was in your question that russia wants to live by international norms, that russia wants to abide by international law, that vladimir putin is an aspiring democrat when, in fact, he is a very convinced autocrat who thinks that the way we try to govern the world, this idea of an international community, it's very silly and he will take advantage of that. in 2008 he chopped off a piece of georgia. if you listen to condi rice she -- they also would've undermined the comment i was in georgia but they serve a chopped off a part time and now they will chop off a lease the crimea from ukraine. >> let me ask you this. why, why is that although this this matter to the united states and to the west? should we care about what's happening? teleflex. >> we better care because putin, one thing doing right now is decide what else is going to do next. this is not the extent of his ambition. if we don't want to see a crisis next and latte, lithuania, perhaps and paula, other parts of eastern europe, we better think about whether we're going to send a strong message of her own or whether a weak message. he's not the only tyrant in the world was looking at this important lessons as well. among those lessons, under the budapest memorandum you mentioned, yes, the ukraine's territorial integrity was guaranteed in exchange for which ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. to leave me, the suit -- the supreme leader, you don't give up your nuclear weapons the matter what the western diplomats say about the interest of the international community to we are not in that committee picked it's going to be a lot more powerful. >> i have to agree complete with you. it underlined the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and you actually have iran watching this situation very, very closely. as is in asia countries like japan also watching. >> and china which is throwing its weight around asia as well right now and knows that it has fecklessness in washington and europe. >> paul, do you want to jump in? >> i guess i would say a couple of things. certainly i agree very much that it does matter. there's no question that it matters. we are really talking here about the future of europe. and beyond that, about the future of the international system here i would differ a little bit with cliff on the question of russia doing this because it can. there are a lot of things that russia can do that it doesn't do. russia could be sending missiles to iran. at this point it's not. russia is actually defending and iranian lawsuit because they signed a contract to deliver those missiles, and then at the request of the united states, they didn't. they also decided they wanted to keep the money, which did not please the iranians too much. they certainly have the option to deliver those missiles. the iranians, i'm sure, would be quite pleased with that. russia is not doing that. so i think we need, what russia has done is entirely inappropriate. it violates international norms. it violates a lot of agreements, but the question of russia doing things because it can, i think that's not a helpful way to think about it. >> let's talk about the united states, the west, looking at options as to how we can have potential influence. first, the question is, do we have influence on the situation, on this crisis? secondly, if we do, what do you use? are their political estimates, economic instruments? do we use sanctions? are there other options on the table? >> i think it's true that putin has most of the high card, particularly when it comes to crimea. there's every indication he is taking crimea back into russia and we're not going to be able to stop it. he is probably considering whether to take parts of eastern ukraine along with it or not. and how he is going to treat western ukraine. i think you can have an impact on that and thinking further down the road. my view of it is this, that we shouldn't be taking steps simply to punish russia. rather, this is a good occasion for us to take steps to strengthen america which was in the most important message and perhaps stop them from going further. so first we do not begin to bring, to take a peace dividend and bring our military down to pre-world war ii levels. we don't do that. bad idea. very bad idea. now is not a time delay of soldiersoldier so we can hire ms officials. this is not what we want to be doing. secondly i was the president obama has said just a few years ago i guess that is going to have and all-of-the-above energy policy. hasn't happened. we should be utilizing every source of energy we possibly can. keystone pipeline from canada, encouraging entrepreneurship, all of our guests and making sure that our energy supplies are abundant and diverse and again i would say to export as well to europe, begin to reduce the dependence europe and the house on russia. eastern europe in particular. a third thing -- you may agree with me. i'm happy spitted i think we're all in agreement. >> here's something more radical. the g7 and 56 and the g7 was expanded to the g8 and rush was included. it never belonged. it is not productive enough. it is not a democracy. let's i think russia should not be in the g8 franca. i think we should be discussing that and i think we should begin to turn the club into an association of democracies and not pretend that those who join will become democracies if they are rewarded in advance. >> what about the wto, the world trade organization. there have been those of single out the wto said the because russia has used influence, economic instruments to strengthen the ukraine. even prior to this aggression. what about the wto, is that on your list? >> it is less on my list. it bolsters american leadership, economic power, military power, diplomatic power in the world. i think united states has to shoulder the burdens of leadership, and because there was nobody else who can do it, the international committee is not going to do. putin will take the job. >> let's see if paul agrees. >> i certainly agree on the military but i certainly agree on american energy. i think those are two critical areas. on the g8, we can decide in this room that that's something that we want to do. there are six other countries that are. many of them in europe. you it's about $120 billion from exports to russia. europe has about 180, $200 billion in foreign the best investment in russia. so whether governments are prepared to agree to that, i'm not sure. the foreign minister of france said a couple days ago they are not yet prepared to consider canceling the sale of two helicopter carriers to the russian navy. so i think we're getting a little bit out in front of the europeans on that issue spend what about freezing assets? freezing the assets of those russians who are complicit in these actions. >> freezing assets i think, frankly, is a little bit of a comical idea on the part of the administration. the united states congress already passed 15 months ago the magnus key act which gave the u.s. government -- magnus key act, the ability to do that. so what don't tension self-respecting russian after 15 months would still have significant assets in the united states? and earlier this week, the administration when they announced that they would extend of the authority to this issue, vix beausoleil said, well, we have created this authority but we are not naming any specific people at this point. there have already been three days for anybody who didn't take the assets out in the last 15 months to get to work on that. and imagine a number of them called their bankers fairly quickly. i don't consider that to be a credible policy. i think were i would look and it extends a look at some of the things that clip was saying, let's talk about your. our european allies and partners are trying to develop some of them their own energy resources. i certainly think the united states should get behind that. there's some american companies exploring for shale gas in western ukraine. that could make a huge difference in terms of ukraine's energy dependence on russia, and i think that's a certain something that should be supported. we also need to think out of this situation, and i'm sure we'll hear from a number of our allies about it, about the disposition of our forces in europe, and that's something we've got to consider very carefully. >> let me ask both of you, the foreign minister of sweden tweeted just this morning that the osha, helsinki mongers try to get in into crimea -- oecd, and they were not able to cross in to actually verify allegations going on. the statements made that the russians and russian speaking ukrainians, that their lives are in jeopardy. they sent monitors but they couldn't get in the first question is, he tweeted that and he said instead that there's a movement of russian troops in the area. what does that portend? no monitors, troop movement, where is this going? >> let's first understand its more than a violation of international norms. when you send troops into a foreign country, even if they're not -- especially when they're not wearing proper insignia, that is a violation of the most basic international law. that's an aggression, no question. >> do you see this going further? >> look, it is possible that putin is exactly what he's going to do tomorrow, the next and the day after. it's possible he is waiting to see and judge the reaction and then he will decide. what i don't know again is whether or not he thinks i would like to have eastern ukraine as part of my sphere of influence or part of russia proper, or could be again like status is murky but for what he thinks it's better not to have that and simply let the government of ukraine know that no distance should be taken that this pleases them. the are another possibility looking at and it's hard to fathom his strategy exactly. if you were to cut eastern ukraine, which is the more productive and industrial as part from western ukraine, he could leave the western ukraine as a ward of the european union for a very long time. so the european union and america would pour money in, spend in russia it would be a basket case of country, kind of like moldova. he might be considering today. i don't know if he is made a decision. i think it is at least possible to begin to shape his decisions going forward as he sees whether we are feckless or whether we're determined in regard to what is done so far. i think crime is probably realistically american diplomats shouldn't say that, he probably wants that everything he does. >> do we anticipate that this aggression is going to go further and split ukraine? >> well, you know, we have eight days until the referendum in crimea. if we had in this country and effective administration, i think eight days actually would be enough time to try to work with moscow and with others to point in crimea in the direction of much greater autonomy, somewhat like what it had under ukraine's 1992 constitution when ukraine had much greater -- unser, when crimea had much greater autonomy and it has now. with the leadership that we currently have, i think that it's very unlikely that that heavy lift will be accomplished in eight days. when we look at eastern ukraine and compare it to crimea, you know, crimea is roughly the size of the state of maryland, geographically. there are about 2 million people there, so the population density is not too high. eastern ukraine is a totally different situation. sending the russian military into eastern ukraine come into major urban centers, where the population is divided and in many cases more divided than in crimea, that could potentially be very costly. it's certainly a very different kind of decision and sending the russian military into crimea which, you know, certainly was part of the russian empire and the russian republic of the soviet union, intel 1954. it's just a different situation. and putin may well come to the point. i think that cliff is correct in suggesting that he probably has not decided, i think for the russian leadership, that would be a much tougher decision than the decision to go into crimea. >> i think there are a lot of variables that are hard to predict with confidence. the outcome of the referendum is not among the. we know what's going to happen. not least because 60% of the population of ukraine does identify as russian rather than ukraine. and also because it's long been a place where retired russian military officers retire. it's sort of like colorado springs on the black sea, if you will. there's also the basic a stalinist rule that who vote doesn't count, who counts the votes counts. i think we know how the referendum will come out. so that's the most predictable part of the. the rest seems to me open to different outcomes. >> is worth the audience don't have been quite a few polls taken in ukraine itself. and by the way, for both east and west, the numbers come out higher in a variety of polls when ukrainians, both russian speaking screams and ukrainian speaking ukrainians, and russian, ethnic russians living in ukraine when they've been asked do you want to be associated with the east or the west, always the west has come out ahead. gentlemen, let me ask you, is this a new cold war? is that what we are witnessing? how would you describe this? >> i don't think it has to be. i think that that is one possible outcome, and i think we need to be very careful moving forward in how we are thinking about this situation. there it is one school of thought, which is that we need to isolate russia. and that that's the answer to this problem. the challenge that we have in the world today, that it's the world today. it's 2014, it's not 1990. it's not 1980. so isolating russia is not really something that the united states can do unilaterally. i mentioned the point about europe-russia economic relations, but there's also china out there. even if we were to succeed in bringing our european allies along with us on a strategy of isolating russia, isolating russia in my view basically pushes russia into far closer alignment with china than it is in now. you start to see again major russian arms sales to china. and do we start to see russian support for china's territorial claims? then we have a new cold war and potentially a very dangerous one. >> i don't think revenue cold war. what i hope we have is a time when we take off the rose-colored glasses and understand who it is we're actually dealing with. the obama administration in particular has been more solicitous of our enemies and adversaries than of our allies. we have had a misguided view of putin, a misguided view of iran and the site institute, a misguided view of a lot of people around the world. we do not have this wonderful international temerity with shared values in which we should be in a one among many equals and that we need to do is remind people that they should be on the right side of history. they don't want to be 19th century. they want to be 21st century and some other will come along to our way of thinking. we have enemies, those are different you put interest that we do, different values. if we recognize that we conform policies that can be protective and defensive of the free peoples of the world and expand the true freedom in the world. >> one last question. we have like 30 seconds. which way is ukraine going to go? >> i think ukraine is going to be split one way or another. >> split, that's what -- >> if crimea stays in russian hands, it is split. beyond that, how much putin tries and -- we will see. >> crimea i think is probably lost. but i think the loss of crimea drives the rest of ukraine much more firmly toward the west over time. we need our european allies really to step up to the plate to help to make a habit. >> and we need to be there, too. gentlemen, thank you so much. please give them a hand. [applause] >> coming up next a look at the was relationship with israel and the influence of pro-israel lobbying groups on u.s. policy. and at 4:00 eastern the senate returns prepared of general speeches. followed by debate and proceed to vote on the use district court nomination. and they vote on legislation sponsored by senator mccaskill dealing with sexual assault in the military. >> the institute for research middle eastern policy recently hosted a summit on relationship between the u.s. and israel. analyzing the impact of pro-israel groups on u.s. policy. the following panel look at how these groups have imposed political parties in the news media. the event was held at the national press club in washington, d.c. it's about one hour 15 minutes. >> thank you very much. the question i've been asked to address today is quote, are the israeli lobby gatekeepers and damage control squads on the left? speaking with 40 years of experience, the answer is clearly yes. some years ago historian and activist lenny brenner wrote extensively about zionists not a clever addition, a taboo subject still over there, described the left as the rearguard of israel lobby. he was referring not just to be a bonus of the left and antiwar movement, to challenge or even speak about the lobby, but to the efforts of the leading factions all of them claim to be anti-zionist to isolate the palestinian struggle from protests against south african apartheid and u.s. intervention in central america in the '80s while israel was occupying lebanon and during the first, and not to talk about the role of israel in central america and supporting act african -- south africa and apartheid. 30 years later nothing has changed. the same factions are still in control. with washington also being israel occupied territory they have every base covered. little wonder why the palestine solidarity movement has not had the slightest impact on u.s. policy since all the years it's been in existence. existence. steven greenhut examined state department archives dealing with israel u.s. relationship for his book on the subject taking sides, america's secret relations, concluded that after eisenhower quote israel and for individual america have become a broad outlines of u.s. policy in the region. it has the left to american presidents to implement that policy with varying degrees of enthusiasm and to do with tactical issues, end quote. there's a corollary conclusion. within the left in general and within the organized opposition to israel's crimes against the palestinians, and lebanese people, there is a similar limit. the parameters in which israel and its friends in america may be legitimately criticized without the critic and stigmatized by being called an anti-semite, have been adapted from misinformation concerning israel u.s. relations that has advanced over the years largely by lesser noam chomsky an independent scientist and echoed by larger and most prominently institute for policy studies fellows dennis come to a large degree these parameters have been accepted without question by the left combined mainstream religious institutions and said he said by many palestinians in arab americans. they have been spread and, of course, by influential handful of jews activists who appears to play an important role behind the scenes, the jewish voice for peace and use committee to end the occupation, the two most prominent and well-financed groups did with israel-palestine conflict. on the opposition. indie media were jewish domination, this issue is observable is the late alexander cockburn wants it, democracy now! is andy goodman, a valuable a keeper for the american jewish establishment about which i will see more in a moment. given a time limit i'll focus on two of the most important of what might be called the chomsky parameters. the first is his insistence that israel is backed by the u.s. because it is a strategic asset to america's cop on the beat in the middle east he has written. and it will not undertake any major action without the approval of the white house. this is simply wrong. it's also the u.s. according to chomsky, that has led israel rejecting an agreement with the palestinians and applying washington's opposition to israeli settlement is a ruse, another falsehood. his distortion of the facts on the ground became enshrined for the solitary movement in 1983 with a publication of his book, the fateful triangle, the training, israel and the palestinians. that an israeli shoulder has yet to shed a drop of blood on america's house and bush's father and son paid of israel to stay out of both gulf wars hasn't is what a chomsky or his followers from adhering to that position. the result of this, from a political standpoint has been the left is a lot of members of congress to publicly support israel, particularly democrats, challenge if they're considered good on other issues. in the fateful triangle, chomsky didn't spare words ascribing atrocities committed by israel to in the 1982 war in lebanon, but in a clever bait and switch he plays the ultimate blame for those crimes not in israel but on the u.s. for providing the weapons to commit those crimes. the weaponry was provided according to congress not because of pressure on israel by a pack of because the regular session approved the invasion. a possible reason for chomsky placing his blame on washington and the winds of israel's critics inside and outside the jewish community is that the alternative is something a few of them at least publicly will acknowledge. that those responsible for the plight of the palestinians with the zionist jews and their supporters around the world. who backed i know in her power carry out the ethnic cleansing of palestine in 1948 and the capture of the west bank in 1967. chomsky described, a favor to the united states. he has quickly said after 1948 when israel is cleared statehood it was as legitimate as any other state and should be recognized as such on the palestinians employing their being expelled and the destruction of 500 on state and coaches are something they should put behind them. most critics of israel, jews and non-jews, don't want to acknowledge jewish culpability because the notion of blaming the jews has an ugly to struggle presidents and they share the fear of provoking anti-semitism. the altar protecting jewish sensibilities, the oppression of the palestinians continues as is a pax occupation of congress. downplaying the influence of visual lobby and determine u.s. middle east policies, it is second of chomsky's parameters that flows from the first. for him to lobby is just pushing through an open door. i don't write about the i don't talk about, he once wrote in explaining why he wouldn't debate the issue. the invasion of iraq was a major threat, particularly attention and the attention given to the actual book, israel lobbying which attribute the logic of the war to the lobby and punctured the left mantra that wasn't the war for oil. response of that book, the person the subject released by major publisher in more than two decades, the real guard rallies its forces, essentially linking arms with alan dershowitz to dispute and sullied the reputation. first on the attacked ironically was policy professor joseph massad who have been targeted by a lobby group while teaching at columbia. columbia. his experience has barely taught him how to behave another lobby leaves him alone. accessible long attacks on the book followed. one by apologists and chomsky that professor stephenson is, another by jewish voice for peace michelle. any goodman's response took the prize for damage control. because an untouchable icon of the let it was an ever widening listening and doing audience. what she does and doesn't say about is of singular import rather than invite either professor to be just under program, to discuss the book, she brought in chomsky. it was no surprise he dismissed the. mission accomplished for both of them. the exclusion -- should be renamed damage control now is of course an experience shared by most if not all of today's speaker. telling her viewers and speakers of the truth that israel-u.s. relations, the iraq war and develop to the war in iran is clearly clearly not on the goodman agenda. for chomsky to throw cold water on the book was in keeping with the tradition of enduring aipac. she never reports in the almost unanimous vote on sanctions legislation is israel's enemies that aipac drive for congress, nor on its annual policy conference is here in washington which are not insignificant events. even the public confrontation between obama and aipac over new sanctions has rated only a single headline on what she now attends every day is the war and peace report. what goodman also shares with chomsky and dennis is their silence and serving the network of pro-israel think tanks that dominate the washington beltway. we had to learn about the project of the new american century from the scottish morning herald years after initiate a made up of predominant jewish neocons began promoting regime change is in iraq. today, we hear nary a word or its successors about any of his successors the foreign policy initiative and the foundation for defense of democracies which sprang into existence the day after 9/11, both of which all were dominated by jewish neocons. some of the very same ones. in 2011 during aipac policy conference, i asked an audience over 100 people who attended ostensibly and aipac event an hour earlier if they've heard of either one of these organizations. only one hand with the. how major have heard of the foreign policy initiative? not many. how about foundation for defense of democracies? not many. you wonder why not. then there's the washington institute for near east policy as resident experts have put onn a database about the times and other national media on middle east issues and originally testified before congress on issues affecting issue. who aside from the present company knows the greatest by aipac in 1985 to do exactly what it is doing now? that it's funny director martin indyk and one of his leading spokesperson who were part of a john kerry to bridge differences for israeli and palestinians during the phony peace tax are now going on. that should be news. no, no. not at least for mainstream media nor for chomsky, jennifer goodman, nor for the followers nor for the left, nor for the powers that managed to fool. it a the our fate, colin powell blamed the war on iraq unquote -- the jewish institute for national security affairs. how many readers of this book of ever heard of it. how many people outside of this room that have been around since 1976 and a dick cheney, jeanne kirkpatrick, paul wolfowitz and former cia chief had been among its membership. no? no. not for our damage control for those who worship them. one may argue that they know their audience can only say what the audience wants to do. the role of the gatekeepers is to keep it that way. in 1991, speaking at berkeley, chomsky was asked by an iraqi american in the audience about the role of the israel lobby in pushing george bush senior to attack iraq in 1991. there was a loud applause, chomsky said the lobby played no role. it wasn't true. but it was what they wanted to hear. chomsky's fateful triangle was polemic designed to prove to supporting israel has been high on the agenda of every u.s. president that followed eisenhower. when it has to, they simply ignore. that's why there's no mention of kennedy in his book. can be strongly opposed and was last president to do so. he also supported the palestinian right of return and wanted to implement to some degree in the time of his murder his justice department under brother bobby was engaged in a serious effort to get the american zionist council, with the creation of the jewish agency to register foreign agents became aipac. all these positions were redlined as far as individual concerned. why didn't i chomsky mentioned them in his book or mention them since? what also didn't mention gerald ford delaying a major weapons ship additional in 1975? or six months when it refused to disengage from sinai land, and ford's concurrent threats to call in israel to return the 67 borders which aipac was able to stymie. later he tells readers that george bush senior who went on national tv to block israel's request for tender and in loan guarantees and didn't -- when vice president want to say judicial both after bombing iraq the reactor and after invading lebanon, that he was pro-israel. chomsky said he was pro israel, israelis would find it very ironic but as medevac -- i believe he's a circle errors and omissions on chomsky's part are not accidental any more than those of goodman or dennis the quick answer them with the truth, this conference is a way to begin. thank you very much. [applause] >> next up is allen brownfeld, he is a syndicated columnist and editor of the quarterly journal of the american council for judaism. [applause] >> thank you. it's a great pleasure to be here and to meet many of my longtime readers in the washington report on middl middle east affairs, oh i've been associated, it seems like for decades. now, we all know that zionism has distorted american policy in the middle east. at the same time it has had a terribly negative impact upon jewish life in the united states and throughout the world. and it is important to remember that historically, zionism was a minority view within judaism, particularly in america. the organization whose journal i edit, the american council for judaism, was established in 1942, and it was established primarily because the established jewish organization, which had previously opposed the concept of jewish nationalism, had changed course. so the council was organized to maintain this older view, that first judaism is a religion, not a nationality, that american jews are american by nationality, and jews by religion. just as other people are protestant, catholic, or muslim. this was the view maintained by the vast majority of american jews all through history. in my opinion, it's the view of the silent majority today. .. >> this city is our jerusalem. this house of god is our temple. in 1885 when the union of american hebrew congregations was established in pittsburgh, rabbi isaac mayer wise, the leading reform rabbi of the time, was instrumental in writing what was called the pittsburgh platform. in it he declared we consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community. and, therefore, expect neither a return to palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of aaron nor the restoration of any laws concerning the jewish state. one of the leading jewish theologians of the 20th century, abraham joshua heshel, said judaism is not a religion of space and does not worship the soil. so, too, the state of israel is not the climax of jewish history, but a test of integrity of the jewish people and the competence of judaism. and in 1929 a respected orthodox rabbi, aaron samuel tamarat wrote that the very notion of a sovereign jewish state as a spiritual center was a con rah duction -- contradiction to judaism's ultimate purpose. he wrote: judaism is not some religious concentration that can be localized or situateed in a single territory. neither is judaism a nationality in is sense of modern nationalism fit to be woven into the threefoldedness of homeland, army and he row you can songs. -- heroic songs. no, judaism is torah, ethics, an exaltation of the spirit. if judaism is truly torah, then it cannot be reduced to the con phones of -- confines of any particular territory. for as scripture said of torah, its measure is greater than the earth. it is my opinion that what has happened to american judaism has completely corrupted its religious nature. what we are witnessing today, synagogues flying israeli flags, programs urging american jews to 'em date to -- emigrate to israel, their real homeland, is a form of idolatry making the sovereign state of israel the object of worship rather than god. in 1999 the union for reform judaism adopted a resolution saying israel is central to our religion. israel, not god. and one of the prominent zionists, professor ruth weiss of harvard university, said at one time i would rather surround myself with jews who loved israel and didn't believe in god at all than with those who believed in god and did not love israel. it is also my view that zionism is a sub subversive enterprise. what would we as more thans think of -- as americans think of any religious institution in our society that flew a foreign flag in its houses of worship, that told young americans that this is not really their homeland, that someplace else is their homeland and that the highest form of their religious expression is to emigrate to that country? now, i doubt that very many american jews believe any of that. very few american jews are emigrating to israel. yet their religious institutions manifest that sensibility. if you read the jewish press whether the forward or the washington jewish week or local jewish papers in los angeles or cleveland, you get the feeling that you are reading the papers of an ex-patriot community. it's as if you were reading the papers of recent immigrants from el salvador who were reading about the daily events in their home country and were being urged to return. now, there have been many distortions in american jewish life. consider the hypocrisy of american jewish organizations which have gone to court to remove voluntary school prayer from our schools, remove christmas trees from our schools yet support a theocracy in israel where there is no separation of church and state. the israel calls itself a i jewish state -- itself a jewish state, yet nonorthodox jews have fewer rights in israel than any place in the western world. reformed rabbis have no right to perform weddings or funerals, conversions by reformed rabbis are not recognized. israel is not a free society with regard to religion. the question then arises, american jewish organizations which dedicated themselves with such fervor to a strict separation of church and state seem not really to believe in separation of church and state when jews are a majority. it's interesting that when thomas jefferson and james madison wrote the virginia declaration of religious freedom, they were not members of a persecuted minority, they were people who believed in religious freedom. one wonders if the american jewish establishment shares that belief. consider how israel has infiltrated american jewish life to the extent when resolutions were proposed in congress to recognize the armenian genocide by turkey, jewish organizations led the crusade to remove that legislation and defeat it because israel at that time was allied with turkey. i suspect if the same resolution came up today, these organizations might take a different, different position. [laughter] in israel itself there is a government of racism -- a growth of racism, there is a growth of religious extremism. the book, "the king's torah," was a best seller. this is a book that said jews and non-jews are basically different in nature. jews are much closer or to god than non-jews who are referred to as uncompassionate. the ten commandments, thou shalt not kill, according to this book written by orthodox rabbis who are financed by the israeli government, this book says that thou shalt not kill refers only to one jew killing another. not killing non-jews. in fact, it discusses the circumstances under which it is all right to kill non-jewish children. religious extremism of the highest order. rabbis have made proclamations telling jews in israel not to rent homes, apartments to non-jews. we understand there's religious extremism in many parts of the world. my point is why don't american jews say a word about this? not a word of criticism of the racism and extremism growing in israel. it has distorted jewish values, it has distorted american jewish life. now, i'm not a pessimist, because as i said earlier, i believe that the position i represent represents a silent majority of american jews. not those who are members of aipac or the american jewish committee, but the vast majority of american jews believe they are americans, believe that judaism is their religion, do not believe that israel is their homeland. zionism is in retreat, in my opinion, within the jewish community. we've seen a number of events. hill el foundations in various parts of the country are rejecting the guidelines set down by the foundation officially, and eric fingerhut, the former congressman from ohio who is now the head of hill el, said according to our guidelines no anti-zionists will be permitted to speak at the foundations. mr. fingerhut must not be aware of the long tradition of jewish opposition to zionism that i have just recited. and do you know this is nothing new among the established jewish community? when napoleon with invaded russia -- when napoleon invaded russia and was bringing religious freedom to russia, napoleon tore down the ghetto walls all over europe, but the rabbis in russia supported the czar and opposed napoleon. because if the ghetto walls were torn down and religious freedom came to russia, the authority of the rabbis would be eliminated. so among young people there's a great belief in freedom of speech, in freedom of debate and a desire that moral values, treatmenting each individual with -- treating each individual with human dignity, be applied everywhere. in palestine as well as in israel as well as in our own country. so i think zionism within the jewish community is in retreat, and time will tell whether i'm right. thank you very much. [applause] >> all right. our next speaker is justin romando to, the editorial director of antiwar.com. he also writes for the conservative magazine, and he's the author of the book "reclaiming the american right: the lost legacy of conservative movement." [applause] >> my topic today is israel and the american conservative movement, a history. and as is the case in so many other way, the conservative movement's position on the state of israel isn't what it used to be. just as what we call the old right, the re-buckley right -- pre-buckley right was anti-interventionist and good on civil liberties, so the conservatives of the 1940s and 1950s were hostile to israel and sympathetic to the arabs, believe it or not. a good example of this is revealed in a letter from the neoconservative guru leo strauss to the editors of national review magazine. he was objecting to an article in the november 17, 1956, issue of the magazine that contained the following sentence. quote: even the jews themselves the victims of the most notorious racial discrimination in modern times did not hesitate to create the first racist state in modern history, end quote. now, this is coming from national review magazine in 1956. so things have changed. it is unimaginable that such a sentence would ever find its way into the national review of rich lowry, the current editor, because mr. lowry represents a movement that has been thoroughly co-opted and corrupted by, first, the cold war and, secondly, by our endless war on terror itch. terrorism. the conservative movement of the 1940s and '50s openly challenged the entire conception of a jewish state. this argument was made in several books published by the very first conservative book publisher in america, henry regnery, who issued a whole series of books reporting on the dispossession of the palestinian people and calling into question the whole zionist project. for example, there was -- i can't pronounce this -- his deep's the arab world published in 1943 and noted by the reviewing service as follows: the writer is also, if perhaps naturally, violently against the creation of a state of israel which she feels was prompted more by international power politics than by humanitarian principles and represents an american and british threat to the arab world, unquote. regnery also put out frieda utley's will the middle east go west which expressed a viewpoint just as fresh today as it was back in 1957. quote: freedom and justice for israel, she wrote, depends on freedom and justice for the arabs. that same year regnery put out another book, this time a book
took place gradually as a result of various conflicts. the u.s. expanded into the vacuum made possible by the collapse of soviet power in the middle east with the gulf war and then became even more deeply involved with the iraq war and afghanistan in central asia. i will get to that in a moment of the in europe, although the presidency of the george herbert walker bush had promised gorbachev as a condition for german reunification within nato that the u.s. would not expand nato eastward, the clinton administration reneged on this promise and did so. finally in asia the united states simply kept its cold war alliances in place with no practical plan for revising them for incorporating china into some kind of a new regional order although china was invited to join the world economy. if there's a single statement of the bipartisan hegemony strategy would sum it up, i think george w. bush's speech at west point in 2002 where he said competition between great nations is inevitable but armed conflict in our world is not. america has and intend to keep military strengths beyond challenge. making the destablizing arms races of other eras pointless. in limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace. and if you parse this what he is actually saying is that the united states will be unique in being the supreme military overlord of the world. other great powers voluntarily, america hopes, will cede the responsibility for retaining their security interests in their own regions to washington and they will specialize in trade and other pursuits of peace. in effect, what this was doing was offering all of the rising and existing great powers in the world the deal which had been offered to defeated japan and west germany after world war ii. that is in return for becoming u.s. military protector rats, call can trade and governed systems established and supported and policed by the united states. so, that to the extent there was logic to this strategy and it was simply response to opportunistic exploitation of power vacuums after the soviet declines, the idea as the united states as this sovereign would create a world in which really there would not need to be any other great powers because the united states would be doing the policing everywhere in every region and the other great powers would be one-dimensional powers, they would be economic powers and china incorporation into the world order in this american view would take place under these circumstances. it would be kind of a bigger version of japan or of first west germany and then united germany. the u.s. encouraged china to join the w tough o, to become integrated in the world economy. at the same time the u.s. insisted on maintaining its cold war era alliances and its prerogatives as the domnant military power in east asia. so that was the hard military underpinnings. the united states would conclude these three 20th century struggles to prevent eurasian hegemony establishing eurasian hegemony in the near future. the world order it would promote in recent years has become known as the liberal world order and this term is bandied about as though there is some consensus bit. i think the liberal world order in the sense in which the bipartisan u.s. foreign policy has used the term since the 2000s began actually is a fairly novel thing. it is not the old 1945 united nations charter world order. it's something new. it has two components. this is the new liberal world order, if you want. the old liberal world order. the new liberal world order redefines sovereignty and weakens it compared to the 1945 u.n. charter which the u.n. charter recognized basic human rights and it also made genocide a crime of universal jurisdiction. but other than that, both in practice and in theory the united states accept ad high degree of sovereignty from most of the other states in the world and beginning more with the europeans than the americans in the early 21st century, the idea of the responsibility to protect justified interventions by outside powers, particularly the united states in countries which were not actually guilty of genocide. as i say that was always an exception to solve sovereignty in the u.n. charter but for various less offenses. suppressing rebels, massacres, ethnic cleansing all of which are terrible things but which were seen as internal events for the most part in the post-1945 era but are now seen as proposed exceptions to the rule of sovereignty along with actual genocide. the other part of the liberal world order as it was pushed by washington was a kind of economic liberalism which was much more thorough going than anything washington had promoted after world war ii. after 1945, the u.s. tried to create an integrated world economy so you wouldn't have rival imperial blocs and particularly among the industrial nations through the general agreement on trade and tariff the u.s.-led an effort successfully to pretty much reduce or eliminate tariffs on exports and imports. but what was called the washington consensus was much more radical in the 1990s and the 2,000s. it required that all countries adopt a particular model of capitalism with clinton ain't reagan and thatcher and blair's britain. would you have deregulation of finance. most forms of pro-industry support would be delegitimized including tariffs and most radical of all, you would have regulatory harmonization among countries and that really digs deeply into basic domestic, economic, policy sovereignty if your rules how you treat your workers, treat the environment, consumer safety regulations are removed from national parliaments and transferred to an international legal regime. but that was the consensus in the united states until recently and i think among foreign policy leaders in both parties that remains the consensus. now in practice the washington consensus was observed more by the u.s. a few other countries including britain than bit other leading industrial economies and america's major allies, japan and germany, particularly japan which like south korea and taiwan and other american protector@s in east asia have a ruthless version of mercantilism and industry promotion in the expense of some cases their industry trading partners. that was american, america's vision of hegemony. the u.s. would be dominant military power in the europe, middle east and asia and would promote a new world order based on weakened sovereignty in the name of human rights and responsibility to protect and also a much more thorough going version of economic liberalism than had earlier been the case. now skeptics throughout this quarter century period since this hegemony strategy coalesced, and i'm one of them. thought in the long run it would fail for three reasons. first, other powers, potential great powers would reject u.s. hegemony in their reasons. second, the united states would not adequately resource its own strategy. third, the u.s. public would rebel. all three of these have now come to pass in the 2014. first the rejection of u.s. hegemony in the your rabe shun entities -- eurasian. iraq and afghanistan and perhaps some middle eastern central asian states would become permanent base for u.s. power projection the way japan and south korea have done in east asia. this was not to be. the united states so alienated the iraqi people and afghan people there is some question whether we'll remain in afghanistan and under what circumstances and in iraq a refusal to do status of forces agreement basically led to the u.s. departure. this is the enormous blow to the project of establishing u.s. hegemony in the middle east. other blows are increasing u.s. independence of turkey. egypt where advocates of american hegemony in the middle east initially welcomed the democratic revolution in tahrir square. we have an egyptian strong man, general sisi elected 93.3% of the vote, something democratic politicians can only envy who is quoted in the "new york times" as saying, and i quote, he is suffering in torture and the general made one of his first foreign policy trips before he became president to meet with vladmir putin in russia. so u.s. hegemony in the middle east looks fairly insecure. in europe as we know from the news, russia pushed back against the expansion of u.s. military force and influence in its neighborhood with its short war in georgia in 2008 and this year, 2014, its seizure of ukraine and fomenting of trouble in eastern ukraine. shows that russia is not satisfied with u.s. hegemony in europe. in china as we know from the news has been steadily pushing back against american power in its region east of asia. so how does the hegemony strategy stand now on software, the rules of world order? now that the hard military underpinning of it is under assault or under question in the middle east, in europe and in east asia? well, the liberal world order is not doing very well either. the so-called brics, useful but somewhat misleading term for rising powers, brazil, russia, india, china, are now associated with something which liberal critics call sovereignism. they are pushing back against the north atlantic democracies ideas that sovereignty need to be weakened. many are postcolonial countries and formerly european colonies and see this as new form of western imperialism. the washington consensus is widely rejected among developing countries including brazil, and even india under its new premiere modi, to read the western press he is like margaret thatcher and ronald reagan and supreme market champion has come to power. in fact india will continue to be more statist and nationalist in many areas even it was somewhat less in the past. finally there is the possibility of anti-american balancing, something which proponents of the hegemony strategy had dismiss ad decade or two ago but with the, increasingly close alignment of russia and china and even india, whose premiere was blacklisted as a supporter of anti-muslim riots and vowed that he will not set foot in the u.s. except to attend the united nations. you do have the major populations centers of the old world, the two biggest countries, china and india, in terms of population and largest country in terms of geography, russia, alienated from the united states and it is very difficult to see american hegemony surviving that. finally two other factors. inadequate resources, according to projections of the results of the budget sequester that was recently agreed upon in congress, u.s. defense spending will go down to slightly more than 2% of gdp in the 2020s, which is probably adequate for most of our actual defense needs but i would suggest it is woefully inadequate if you wish to be the eurasian hegemon in perpetuity. the public rebelled in 2004, 2005, 2006 and against costs of iraq and afghan wars. that is one of the main reasons return to democrats in power in 2008. barack obama became the democratic nominee largely because unlike hillary clinton, he had opposed the iraq war. and most recently we've seen first the british public and then the american congress rebel preemptively against the idea of deeper nato military involvement in syria. so inertia accounts for a lot in politics. it will take some time to go from one, paradigm and strategy to another. but i think that if this is not the beginning of the end for the hegemony strategy at least we can begin to go back to where we were at the end of the cold war and discuss what would alternatives be like? i discussed that in my article for the national interest. i won't go into detail except to make a couple of points. the last time there was a real serious attempt by american leaders to think through what u.s. strategy would be in a multipolar world i think was the nixon administration. now you could argue that the presidency of george herbert walker bush envisioned something like this because of the loss of the election in 1992 it was never really developed. the clearly the second bush went in a quite different direction. so you really have to go back to richard nixon who said in the interview with "time" magazine in 1971, i believe in a world in which the united states is powerful. i think it will be a safer world and better world if we have a strong, healthy, united states, europe, soviet union, china, japan, each balancing the other, not playing one against the other an even balance. now thanks to the influence of the hegemony strategy even in a democratic primary, any presidential candidate who said that the united states itself should be balanced by other great powers would be considered, you know, just beyond the scope of reasonable discussion and yet this was the hawk, richard nixon, in the 1970s. once more nixon was arguably in the mainstream tradition of 20th century american foreign policy. in his 1910 lecture, theodore roosevelt said it would be a master stroke with the great powers weren't on peace, would form a league of peace amongst themselves and prevent by force of necessary its being broken by others. this view was shared by woodrow wilson who is sometimes caricatured and he made many mistakes, but the plan for the league of nations there would be a great power directorate or concert. it was not a purely utopian experiment. franklin roosevelt, if anything was as much of a real is as his -- realist as his cousin theodore. he mocked the pact of 1928 that tried to outlaw war. war can not be outlawed by resolution alone. in 1942 roosevelt, who came up with the phrase, united nations but didn't put a whole lot of stock in the actual details of what became the u.n. world organization, he left that to his secretary of state cordell hull. he envisioned great power concert with the regional hegemones policing the world and keeping peace after the war against germany and japan. he said the real decisions should be made by the united states, great britain, russia and china, who would be the powers for many years to come and it would have to police the world. so in different ways, in different decade, what theodore roosevelt, franklin roosevelt, richard nixon and perhaps the first bush shared in common was the assumption that if you want world peace it has to be primarily peace among the great powers and that means that their legitimate prerogatives as great powers including their prerogatives in their own regions will be recognized by the others including the united states. so it's completely different perspective from the bipartisan policy we have followed since the 1990s of trying to encircle and pin down all of the great powers in their own regions. i call it quadruple containment. the phrase is development of the phrase, dual containment from the cold war. quadruple containment means that we contain our allies as well as our enemies. if you look at four major powers, the two major powers of europe, germany and russia, the two major powers of east asia, japan and china, we contained germany and japan by keeping them as military weak dependent protectorates and at the same time we encircle other powers in the region, russia and china on their own borders. now the problem with this strategy is, quite apart from their pushing back and the unwillingness of the american people to pay for that, is it requires american leaders to engage in a, orwellian kind of news speak. so that if any power, anywhere in the world, no matter how remote from north america objects to being encircled by american military forces or allies on its own borders that power is guilty of aggression in trying to overturn the world order. this would have seemed crazy i think, not only to richard nixon but to fdr and tr, and to most american statesmen through most of american history. so i don't want to go on too long. we can have a conversation. just a few final thoughts about beyond the hegemony strategy and i developed this at more length in my national interest essay, the promise of american nationalism, i think the "brics" are going to win the debate about the rules of world order. if we have not persuaded china, india, brazil, russia, you know, russia's a somewhat second-tier country but china and india at any rate are going to be two of the three major nation states along with the united states in the 21st century, if we have not persuaded them to abandon economic nationalism, and we've not persuaded them to water down their sovereign claims and claims against foreign intervention, then the fact that we have won over the support of members of the european union, europe is not the world. the north atlantic is not the world in the 21st century. so, and i think we should consider if you can't beat them join them. in fact, much of the american public, and at least half of the american political spectrum is on the side of the so-called brics with this so-called sovereign tim. the united states did not ratify the international criminal court. the bush administration withdrew the u.s. the united states did not ratify the law of the sea treaty. we're now in the somewhat orwellian position of denouncing china for not observing the norms in the south china sea of the law of the sea treaty which the american congress rejected. so, in a way backing away from the more extreme versions of what is being called the liberal world order is actually a return to america's practice. i would argue it's not a matter of liberal democracies versus authoritarian states. it is a largely a matter of large populous countries which of tend to be the great economic and military powers versus small countries. small countries, including the united states, in its very origins have a much deeper stake in a rule governed world order than large countries do. this is true even when it comes to globalization. i will end with a few remarks about trade. the fact the countries most dependent on the global economy are not the ones that prosper from it the most, the united states, germany and japan. the larger the country is in general the smaller the share of its economy that is involved in international trade. if you're singapore or finland you have much higher share and you're much more dependent on foreign trade. when it comes to multilateral regimes, you can, if you're china, india and the united states, which according to most projections in the year 2050 will be the three largest economies by gdp, a trilateral deal among them will open up more trade and investment you know, than any kind of doha round or anything like that where you have to line up dozens or hundreds of lesser states. so while it is conventional wisdom that we want a rules-based international trading system the fact is that a results-based system in which a few larger economies including the european union just cuts deals with each other can accomplish a great deal of economic integration by less involved bureaucratic means. let me finish by quoting ambassador jean kirkpatrick whom i quote in my article. by the way, this is my privilege to know jean kirkpatrick fairly well and one thing that she returned to again and again and again was something she had learned from one of her mentors, the political scientist at yale harold laswell. she often repeated it and i have never forgotten it. she said, when you're designing the constitution, imagine your worst enemies are in power. she applied this to rules for world order. i think one of the things we've done is, we've designed a constitution that empowers the temporarily-dominant nation, the united states and we haven't thought about what this means for us in the future when we may no longer have that position of dominance. but what i want to quote is from kirkpatrick's full 1990 in the national interest entitled, a normal country in a normal time. she wrote, the united states performed heroically at a sometime when heroism was required, al true is i cannily during the long years when freedom was endangered but she argued it was now time for the u.s. to adapt to multipolar world while focusing more on nation-building at home. she said with a return to normal times, we can again become a normal nation and take care of pressing problems of education, family, industry and technology. we can be an independent nation in a world of independent nations. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for anyone who is just tuning in. that was michael lind of the new america foundation talking about his new article in the national interest, the promise of american nationalism. and now i would like to anyone in the audience who wants to ask a question to raise their hand and to identify themselves, please, for our television audience as well. jim? >> jim henderson with fox news. >> hold on a second. they need to get you with the fox news. >> jim pinkerton with fox. mike, that was really, really interesting. i did however hear much about the obama administration and where they fit in this. furthermore seems to me while you're quite right about quadruple containment being very ambitious, seems to me the obama administration has made quintuple containment if you add carbon dioxide which appears to be the among the most important domestic and international initiatives that they have. >> in my view the obama administration continues the hegemony strategy that was settled on as the consensus in the clinton and george w. bush administrations. is changed its tactical and operational approach but has not changed the strategy. so it is not questioned the basic premise that the u.s. will continue to be the military hedge -- hegemon. because of public backlash of cost of iraq war and because of genuine concerns about the costs of blood and treasure, it has tried to achieve what david colayo, international relations scholar in a different context once called hegemony on the cheap. so we will continue to intervene in the middle east but we will do so by sending drones to extra judiciary assassinate criminal suspects rather than to invade countries and try to remake them. the united states will reaffirm its alliances in east asia the so-called pivot to, the so-called pivot to asia. but it will not offer china any vision of an integrated security system other than perpetual subordination to the united states in its own region. so i think it's a difference of tactics and important difference but not a fundamental difference of strategy. in terms of carbon, the obama administration, i think is following the lead of germany and some other industrial countries in thinking that the great economic challenge is to promote rapid decarbonization of energy supplies to avert the consequences of global warming. now, at the same time, with if you look at the world outside of the north atlantic democracies, this project is not being carried out by the countries that would have to carry it out for it to really be effective, that is, india and china particular. and of course china has just signed the biggest trade deal in human history with russia, to import natural gas which many environmentalists are trying to prevent being produced at all by fracking in the united states. you know what everyone thinks about the severe, urgency of global warming, it's clear that if you fairly rapidly moved to replace coal as the source of energy and electricity generation with a natural gas, you would slash the amount of greenhouse gases even though you would continue to have some slower growth. so, is also clear that if you really, really are serious about combating global warming, as a result of greenhouse gases, you would favor nuclear energy, which is expensive in the initial investment but once it is up and running and much cheaper than renewable energy sources like hydro and solar power and wind power. . . >> the obama administration strategy as fine tuning the prevailing foreign policy strategy. but i want to raise the question and really maybe challenge you on the point you were making originally in their remarks that maybe we're at a moment where we're beginning to see this consensus collapse. you mentioned the nixon/kissinger period, and there i think you're correct, but it was a pretty unique moment in the sense that there were real challenges in the end, in the course of the vietnam war. the protests here in the united states, a real sense that the united states needed a new strategy. and there was a willingness, perhaps, of a very experienced president with strong advisers around him to think about alternatives. and looking ahead, i just don't see that emerging in washington. jacob, you called michael one of the most creative people in washington, but, you know, creativity in washington is sort of an oxymoron. [laughter] and i look ahead and look at, you know, both republican and presidential candidates for 2016, i don't see the likelihood of somebody necessarily challenging that consensus. so how realistic is it to argue or believe that we're likely -- short of another kind of iraq-style debacle -- to see a new strategy emerge in the near future? and i just, would just simply say it's striking to me so soon after that iraq experience and afghanistan that you have an administration that's pursuing the same strategy as you argue it is, that it's coming under real criticism from both parties as being too weak, too prudent and not strong enough. >> well, when you put your finger on the basic problem which is, it's very difficult for great powers to retrench. for both external and domestic political reasons domestically. any retrenchment, no matter how prudent, will be attacked as weakness. particularly in democracy. so democracies probably have more difficulty backing down carefully from overexposed positions than autocracies do. you can just turn on a dime, and who's going to question, you know, the authoritarian government? but that is kind of a trap. that is, as i said, if a candidate in the republican or democratic presidential primaries used the kind of language about the in a multipolar world that those well-known hawks richard nixon and theodore roosevelt used, they would be attacked east from within -- either from within their own party or from the other party. and another concern which does bother me because i want the united states to be as secure and as respected as possible is even if you're engaged in prudent retrenchment, will other countries view this as weakness? so even if you were overexposed in the first place, how do you back down? so there's an enormous temptation simply to maintain the overexposed position, and you don't have to worry about sending signals of weakness to your opponents or being attacked at home. but the actual economic and political underpinnings of your power are just eroded and eroded and eroded. essentially, you could argue this is what happened to britain and france after world war ii. in the '70s, britain was sending troops to yemen and the persian gulf. at some point someone needs to tap a country on the shoulder and say, well, maybe, you know, you should think about scaling back, if not retiring. but, you know, the concern would be that you need to have an exit strategy. that's just the way i would put it. we needed an exit strategy from the cold war in the 1990s at which point we could say germany and japan and south korea are not going to be our protect rates for the next hundred years, and russia and china -- given, you know, the appropriate decisions on their part -- can become, if not allies, at least other great powers and that there will be some kind of system of order which is not america's allies versus america's enemies with these trip wires drawn between them. we missed the opportunity to do that in the 1990s, and i don't know really how you can do it at this point without assuming weakness. if president george herbert walker bush had proposed turning the organization for security and cooperation in europe into a larger structure and then gradually letting the warsaw pact and nato dissolve, that would have been bargaining from a position of strength. if the next president proposes this following ukraine, following the south china sea incidents, it will look like weakness on america's part. and, but having said that, that's the situation we are in, and i do think that the face-saving way to back down from what i do think is an overextended strategy is to propose some kind of regional security structures in which all regional powers and the united states as an extra-regional power if we have interests in these regions and i think we do, can participate as respected equals instead of on an ally/enemy basis. and you're quite right, this is still completely provocative idea in washington, and you're not going to hear it in 2016. maybe you won't hear it in 2020. but at some point i think we have to think of what is the exit strategy from this permanent cold war alliance system which has now gone on a generation after the cold war. >> mike, pbs "newshour". >> you just alluded to this, but you're a fan of t.r. who's very much in the hamilton school of realism. t.r. was a great advocate of mahan whom you criticize. we have the specific situation now in the south china sea/east china sea in which beijing is extending its perimeter way, way beyond its borders. how specifically is the united states, if they stick to the principle of free navigation, open access, maritime access, how is the united states supposed to deal with this? >> well, that's a very good question. i criticize mahan because i think that his view of world power as depending on control of sea lanes was already obsolete in his own period. if you look at leo amery who was a parish strategist of that period -- british strategist of that period in responding to mckinders' theory of your ace ya being -- eurasia, he famously said it doesn't really matter where a country is located. the country that has the power of science and technology and engineering is going to be the leading military power. so my first response would be if we're really going to have a rivalry with china, it's not going to be decided by whose navy controls which sea lanes. it's going to be decided by whose factories, whose credit system, whose infrastructure, whose r&d is more fundamental in the long run. particularly if, as seems likely, it would be a cold war in which just as during the soviet-american cold war, yes, the navy has to plan for these naval confrontations, but frankly, i don't think it's a great investment of effort on the part of the u.s. military to plan for limited and able wars with the people's republic of china on the assumption that these would not turn into all-out war very, very, very quickly. if we have a sustained confrontation with china -- and we may well have one -- more likely to take the form of a cold war with arms races, proxy battles in areas remote, possibly, from china such as africa, such as central america. again, we tend to forget about our own neighborhood, but that's always contested in great power struggles. so i just think that -- and one more point about the south china sea. during world war ii, the united states proposed to give the islands to china, our ally during the war. it would give them responsibility for it. franklin roosevelt hoped that china would be the hegemon of the east asia and, in fact, part of his plan for the four policemen -- russia, the british empire, china and the u.s. policing the post-1945 war -- was that china would be the hegemon of indochina and replace the french. since fdr thought american interests would be better served by hegemonic china in asia than the european powers, the british or the french. and let's be clear, roosevelt was a realist. the china he was talking about, this was chang chi check's china. i've read the book, "the chinese economy." it's pretty much like the modern chinese economy. it's a plan for a mercantilist, state-driven industrialization which violates all of the rules of neoclassical economics and is a developmental state. so that's just one of the paradoxes of our time. the china that we are afraid of, a developmental capitalist state that dominates east asia, is what we actually wanted during world war ii when it was simply not considered by anyone, i think in the 1940 or even during the cold war, that the united states would permanently be not a major power with interests in asia, but perpetually the major asian power. >> i think it's time to go to, perhaps a, a premiere exponent of neoclassical economics which michael has just derided. chris preble from the cato institute. >> thank you, jacob. thank you, michael. michael, as you know, i hope you're right that we are at an inflection point, but i agree with barred burke that i'm -- ambassador burke that i'm afraid you're not. and maybe that's because i'm listening to people like robert cay began and charles krauthammer who say, no, we're not. the question is, what piece of evidence would convince them that the time has come to change course? you cite resistance from others, other great powers, the unwillingness to resources here at home and the resistance from the public at large. there are still some of them who say we could clearly resource this without with any difficulty at all. simply raise taxes or cut either spending. we -- other spending. and where's the actual evidence of balancing by other great powers? can you point to something there? because it seems to me we still don't have sufficient evidence to convince the other side that it's time to change course. >> well, that's a good point, particularly about the other great powers. now, it was once observed to me that in one of the crises over north korea the closer you got to north korea, the more relaxed everyone was about it. it was actually in washington where people were much more exorcised, you know, than in south korea. and i think that's the case with russia. the germans have made it clear that they're very dubious about another cold war with russia. i read that the czechs are debating raising their military spending, i believe it's to 1.5% of gdp. well, if this really is a moment and vertebra shah is this -- russia is this great threat it's being portrayed as, i assume the czechs would be debating 15% of gdp, you know? [laughter] they seem fairly relaxed. if we look at the neighbors of this china that we're supposed to be so frightened by, china is now the number one trading partner of south korea, and it's up there among -- japan has increasing trade and integration. so i think we have to take all this with a grain of salt. and one of the dangers of our alliance system is that it enables irresponsible behavior for domestic political reasons. on the part of nationalists in japan and south korea and not so much in germany at in this point. but it allows the leaders to talk tough and, you know, poke either russia or china, at the same time while profiting from their increasing economic integration, and that's fine, it's sort of a game. i'm from texas, you know, we have a rivalry with oklahoma. oklahoma calls texas baja,]) oklahoma. so we know that this is not a serious security threat. so, now in terms of what pieces of evidence would convince hard-line neoconservatives that the united states does not have a stake in global hegemony, well, i gave up. when i left the neoconservative movement, i gave up trying to analyze the hard-lineerer mind. but i think even they would say at some point that it's clear that the united states is not you are suing the policy they -- pursuing the policy they favor. and it would probably have to do with the defense budget. in the 1990s robert kagan and bill kristol published an article calling for was it permanent 4% or 6% of gdp being spent on defense? >> [inaudible] >> the u.s. has now -- at the end of the cold war, we went down to about 3% of gdp, which is respectable. it's a little more than britain and france, which are -- have the greatest military spending in western europe. >> [inaudible] >> a lot more now. and then it shot up again after 9/11. but under current budget plans, as i understand it, it's arcing downwards. it's even below 3% in the 2020s absent changes. so i think even the supporters of the hegemonny strategy would say at some point that it just cannot be carried out realistically. now, that doesn't heene you won't still nominally have these alliances with japan or south korea, they may last indefinitely. but the other thing that may mark a clear break from the present period is if there are enough challenges to u.s. hegemony in europe, eurasia and asia by russia and china and the u.s. backs down enough, that will create a new situation, new facts on the ground. and that, remember, a lot of foreign policy is psychological. it's intimidation. and this is why i'm concerned. that is, i think it's very likely the u.s. will back down again and again and again because of what the australian diplomat hugh white calls the asymmetry of resolve; thatc÷!$s, something that's very important for them like crimea to russia is just not that important to the united states, so it's not going to be worth going to war about. and that's why we need an exit strategy where we need to say here is our american vision of a europe that is not divided between american allies and american enemies and an asia that's not divided between american protect traits and outsiders. so it's not seen as backing down or unilateral retreat, but it's seen as building a new order with former enemies. >> the next question is from james mann who has written several books on the realists and neo-cons and on the obama administration and told me he's just completed a short biography on george w. bush. so -- [laughter] >> michael, thanks for this. i had one question on something you haven't mentioned but that i read is in your article. which is immigration. i'd be curious to know how it fits into your thinking in your article both, maybe it applies equally, as to low skill immigration, paradigm in central america, and high skill, i guess, india. >> well, i approach this from the view of strategy in general. if you have a rule-governed global market with relatively free flows of capital and if not of labor, then you can have a shrinking population, and you're -- as long as per capita gdp is going up, then your country can get richer and richer. you know, so that japan, say, could shrink and have fewer and fewer people every decade, but those fewer people would be richer because productivity growth in japan is growing up, and they're better off. in a mercantilist world, in a world where some or most powers are treating economics as an instrument of statecraft rather than as a rule-governed, zero sum gain, then the logic is quite different because of the high degree of overlap between population and military power. it's not perfect overlap. you have large countries like india which are relatively weak, and you have small countries which punch beyond their weight as britain's done since the industrial revolution. but in the long term, as productivity diffuses and converges among countries, all things being equal a country with a larger population is going to be more powerful both this trade and in military -- in trade and in military than a smaller country. now, this goes -- that's the geopolitics of it. what you see happening in the countries of the developed world is a very deep backlash against immigration in the united states on the right and in europe even more so. now, artily this is a back -- partly this is a backlash against a particular kind of immigration, muslim immigrants, rather than necessarily against others. but in the european case, it's against immigrants too. having said that, and perhaps this will be my most visionary counterintuitive prediction of this talk, i think that in the 21st century this defensiveness towards immigrants is going to be replaced among many nations, if not all, by competition for immigrants. which will be seen as a source of gdp growth and also of military power, frankly, and of a revenue base. right now only a minority of countries have population growth rates above the replacement level. most countries are scheduled the stabilize and then start declining. it's largely parts of africa, parts of central and south asia. even china, you know, is beyond the demographic transition. now, it seems inconceivable at this point that you could have the major nations of europe and east asia become relatively immigrant friendly. obviously, there's tensions in the united states, but relatively immigrant-friendly nations the way the united states and some other western hemisphere countries are, but i think that if the alternative is loss of military security as well as of economic clout, then you're going to see a shift. and this will be really one of the most radicalç changes in world society in centuries. because the pattern until recently was that the major countries of europe and asia sent people, they didn't import them. now where the birthrates are so low, the only way they can stabilize their population is by imor thing people. at the same time, that raises questions, okay, if you're going to bring in people merely to stabilize your population much less expand, in order not to deepen divides along ethnic lines within your territory, you need to have assimilation and inte galatian of immigrants. this is a place where maybe i'm showing my biases here. i think the united states, you know, can -- had a pretty good model, at least until recently, both economic integration and cultural integration integration of immigrants. economically if you have a booming economy and jobs for the middle class and so on, it is much easier for outsiders to get a stake in society. at the same time, the melting pot idea did not require immigrants to cut off all subnational identities, but we had the hyphenated american. you were irish-american, jewish-american, have both identities. this is still quite alien to the other industrial nations, and i don't know which way they'll go. >> [inaudible] i have a hard time seeing japan in this, which for a long time has had low growth, and you don't see the impact on changing immigration policies at all. >> well, then to the extent that population is a basis for power, they will slip down the world power rankings as well as the gdp rankings which is not to say that they will be poor, you know? luxembourg, i think, has the highest per capita living standard in western europe. so countries may make that choice. >> michael, i wanted to ask you about something very contemporary now which is we've had bob kagan's essay in "the new republic" declaring that superpowers can't go on vacation. today there was an op-ed by walter russell mead, whom you know well, in "the wall street journal" declaring that america can't go on break and that we're seeing the dangerous consequences of a lack of resolve in american foreign policy and failing to stand up to vladimir putin. and mead's thesis was that putin is, in a sense, rescue us from our own sins, awakening us to our pad behavior that we need -- our bad behavior that we need to reform and buck up, start exercising more vigorously, take a much harder stance towards foreign foes. so even though the president obama, whether you think he's a realist or not, he certainly enunciates realist, some realist themes. this is a real you pushback, i think, in washington against the notion of realism in american foreign policy. there's a very explicit denunciation in both kagan's piece and in walter russell mead's piece and by charles krauthammer of the idea that america can, in fact, act more prudently abroad. they would characterize it as cowardice and defeatism. and many of the things that you are talking about in your earlier really date back to the paul wolfowitz document, don't they? in george h.w. administration when he came out and was slapped down for espousing a strategy after the cold war this which the -- in which the the united states would retain hegemony in all parts of the world. it seems to me that this consensus may not exist in the american public, and the obama administration, as i see it at least, is waffling. but the consensus among elites, i mean, i'm also -- this is also coming to mind because strobe talbott introduced bob kagan the other day, is and they had a discourse where, essentially, no one really disa agreed with what kagan was saying. it seems to me you do have a consensus at the elite level that whether we call it liberal internationalism or neoconservativism or some hybrid really is still dominant at least among the foreign policy elite. would you disagree with that? >> no, no. i think there is this biartisan consensus. i think it will start showing cracks. but the problem with it now, it's not that it's fissuring in, it's still a solid consensus. the problem is the enormous gap between claim that we need to show resolve and the actual actions we will take. so, you know, we have to stand up to russia over crimea and ukraine. okay, so we might send some advisers to a baltic republic, right? well, putin retaliates against that by eliminating american-manned space flights for a decade. it's amazing. it's amazing. the united states no longer has manned space flight capability. we were hitching rides to the international space station on russian rockets. oh, and it gets better. the united states doesn't make many of the rocket engines it needs for our own spy satellites, which is just as well because the spy satellite the u.s. is temporarily using to communicate with its african forces is a chinese satellite. [laughter] right? so on the one hand, we have the leaders of the foreign policy intelligence ya saying -- intelligent ya saying we just stand up to russia and china, and at the same time they've spent a generation dismantling the military industrial complex. the united states does not build a single civilian ocean-going ship thanks to president ronald reagan. from 1930s under franklin roosevelt all the way up to the reagan administration, the united states government had a simple policy: whatever subsidies are offered to civilian ship makers by other countries, the federal government will match. no questions asked. the reagan administration came in, we're strong, we're number one, we're going to win the cold war. but they decided that this was a waste of money, so we would get rid of the subsidies. consequently, the united states apart from specialized navy ships and domestic barges protected by the jones act on inland waterways, we have to borrow all of our ships, all right? so that is my answer to all of these triumphalists, you know? teddy roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick. he didn't stay denounce your rivals and ask if you can borrow or buy a stick. [laughter] >> aaron -- [inaudible] >> from much of what you've said, it seems to me the best friend a neo-con could ask for is mr. putin, because there was sort of a natural withering away of this overblown role we were playing toward end of the cold war. in fact, there was a conversation between senior bush's either while vice president or just after becoming president with francois mitterand where bush is meandering around saying -- mitterand says it would help a lot if you could explain to me what this new role for nato is, and bush starts saying, well, we've got to think in political terms about a new role in this period. he doesn't know, he doesn't have an answer. and mitterand, while we don't have an enemy, and he said, yes, isn't it inconvenient not having an enemy? putin now has basically come forward and is the answer to every neo-con's dream, because he's changed the rules of the game at least rhetorically. and made it much more difficult for anyone to calmly talk about the sort of standing down of american power. >> i think that's right. but, again, the question is what are the concrete actions if the united states is going to respond? now, it would not be a bad thing if this were a sputnik moment, and the response was -- as it was to sputnik -- let's upgrade our education, let's invest in infrastructure, let's redouble funding for r&d. because as i suggested earlier, if you're really going to have genuine great power rivalries, and we want to have great power relations, but we may end up being on rival sides, then at the end of the day the country with the best technological, economic base and the deepest pockets in terms of credit is going to be able to hold out longer, particularly if you have cold wars which are primarily wars of economic attrition. with the neoconservatives and, i think, many of the neo-liberal hawks have forgotten that foreign policy has more than one instrument. the military is not the only instrument. and we've allowed our other instruments to decay by focusing on having marines in australia to contain china or, you know, putting some nato troops in estonia or something like that. i'll give you an example. the united states during the cold war competed with the soviet union in the terms of foreign aid and foreign lending. africa is going to be two billion people by the end of 2100. two billion. enormous needs for infrastructure. the chinese are building highways and ports and railroads in africa around the indian ocean and so on while we have people on the left and the right in the u.s. congress trying to abolish the u.s. export-import bank which on a much, much, much smaller scale helps to finance infrastructure be and manufacturing with inputs from u.s. exporters in the rest of the world, right. as i, if you look at what's going on in eurasia now, this is one of the greatest periods of infrastructure construction in history. pipelines, high-speed rail from china potentially to europe, and congress cannot agree to come up even with a tiny, modest pilot program version of a national infrastructure bank much smaller than the european investment bank or then the state develop banks that are possessed by brazil, by india, by russia, by china, by all of these other countries. so i don't want to suggest by any means that we should relax and that we won't have great power conflicts, but we need to stop thinking in terms of sending divisions here and submarines there. a lot of the struggle -- and we knew this during the cold war. the cold war was, first and foremost, an economic struggle. the reason the soviets cracked was their economy cracked. and we were so rich and so prosperous and so innovative that for a fraction of the money they spent on the military, we could outspend them. at the height of the cold war, we spent no more than about 15% of gdp. that's how rich we were. that's how britain won the napoleonic wars. it was much smaller than france, but it had better credit and a more prosperous economy. it's, your example in the world, it's ideological war, it's propaganda, you know? even in the past few months these, well, this revelation now about the nsa taking faces from the internet, the revelation that the cia and the afghanistan/pakistan was using hospital operations as a cover for getting dna from potential terror suspects including osama bin laden's family. this is enormously damaging, you know, to america's image in the world. so, you know, i share some of the concerns of mainstream foreign policy establishment with america's power and resolve, but their thinking in this kind of board -- they're thinking in this kind of board game manner where it's like moving troops here and there. and what we need is a conversation, okay, assuming we really do face great power challenges, let's look at every dimension of power including economic power and the power of influence and example. and not simply think it's a matter of sending an increasingly whittleed down military as a symbolic presence here or there. >> michael, as a final question, let's test the powers of creativity that i mentioned and ambassador burke commented upon. 2050. what does america look like domestically, and what's its standing in the world? >> well, there have been a number of studies of what the world will look like in terms of gdp in 2050, and they tend to agree that the four major economies will be the united states, india, china -- at least in terms of gdp -- and the your even union. and -- european union. and if we're looking at the middle of the 21st century, it's only a few decades from now. the united states will still be in a very enviable position, it will be the only big country that's rich. so unlike robert kagan and many of the neoconservatives, i think we're in fairly secure world. the united states really does not have to control the south china sea or, you know, the marshes of prussia in other words to be a world -- in order to be a world power. we're the only country on the scale of india and china, they're going to be much poorer per capita and have less dispose able power. and the fourth area of major wealth, the european union will, i think like us today, there will be some mix of cooperation and local sovereignty, and it will not act as an entity in world affairs. probably by that time you will have a somewhat more liberalized, mellowed russian nation. and russia is part of europe. it has always been part of europe. this idea that it's not a russian company. the next time i hear somebody say germany is europe's largest company, no, russia is. absent some major change in british policy, britain will have more people than germany. now, these things can change as a result of policy, but if you're looking at a large, rich europe in which the two large nation-states are russia and britain, that's somewhat different. from this german-dominated eurozone. so i think there's reason for cautious optimism. and the fact is, this is the world that we sought to create in the world conflicts of the 21st century. we wanted china to be free from colonial domination. we wanted india to be independent. we wanted a whole europe that wasn't divided by an iron curtain. and having achieved it, we're now saying it's so dangerous that, you know, we can't demobilize, we can't pull back, you know, we can't abandon anything. so, you know, maybe what we should do is declare victory in the world wars. [laughter] >> well, thank you, michael. having known him for many years, i was able to assure my colleague, paul saunders here, that in some meetings, you know, you get these air gaps where the room sort of goes silent. but i assured him that with michael, there is never a dull moment. and we have barely scratched the surface with his talk which you may either find daunting or invigorating. but i am very grateful to michael both for his cover story and for speaking with us today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] con >> and we're back with derek morgan who's the domestic economic policy vice president over at the heritage foundation. immigration reform is our topic here.rati mr. morgan, what are the prospects for immigration reform before the november 2014 elections?he p >> guest: well, i think it's pretty clear that there won't be any kind of comprehensive bill like was passed in the senate. that seems to be dead on arrival ined the house, and even though they've kind of recalibrated their expectations to try to get something much smaller done, but even that is going to be a difficult task in the republican house. right now there's just not a loh of trust for president obama on immigration or many other matters, so i think thet ob prospects are very dim rightw. now. ryu59ujtráy sect tear, was up on -- secretary was up on capitol hill. talking about the administration's deportationport policy. what are they looking at right now? are what impact do you think that has on this debate? >> guest: i think what we runsgu arees looking for in the house s a president who will enforce the law, follow the letter of the law and also when looking at deportations consider things like this report that just cames out from the center for immigration studies. instead of being deported. so i think the deportation review will have to be multifaceted. there's some on the left who seem to think that any deportation is bad, but on the other side, i think republicans are going to have to see a willingness to enforce the laws. >> host: the administration has said we're going to put a hold on releasing this review to give speaker john boehner more breathing room to the try to work on immigration reform. >> guest: yes. the cynic in me would say it perhaps coincides with the political calendar when you have a number of republicans that are going to be facing primary challenges. after those subside, the conventional wisdom goes republicans would be more likely to sign on to some form of immigration reform. >> host: the republican party appears to be a bit torn over immigration reform. you've got business, chamber of commerce, others saying we need to do immigration reform, and if republicans don't do it, don't even think about running a candidate in 2016. you've got then other people are saying you've got to secure the border first before you tackle immigration reform. >> guest: that's right. >> host: from your perspective at the heritage foundation, what does immigration reform do to our economy? >> guest: well, i'd say immigration is generally a very good thing for the united states. it headaches us stronger. -- makes us stronger. we get the best and brightest from all over the world, and that's great for our economy. however, it isn't only an economic issue, it's also a rule of law issue. so in that vein, we have to be sure that those who are coming are following the law. and really it's a matter of fairness too. so the president has advocated for an amnesty approach where he would forgive those who broke the law and came to the united states and are now undocumented. he's decided that he wanted to push in that senate bill and others that, in fact, they would be allowed to stay. and that's not fair to those who follow the rules. so in mexico a poll was done by pew, i believe it was, and they polled people in mexico who would consider coming to united states, and a little under half said they would consider coming to united states. but just under half who said they would come to the u.s. said they would not do so without authorization. so you have millions of people who would like to come to the united states but don't because it's against our laws. if we provide amnesty, we're not being fair to those people. >> host: bipartisan policy tweeted in this out: without immigration, the u.s. would grow slower and age faster. without immigration america's population would stop growing around 2040 and would age 30% faster. >> guest: uh-huh. yeah, the immigration is important for demographic reasons. not quite the silver bullet that some of its proponents purport, increase population, and our fertility right now in the united states is under replacement, so that means without immigration we would, indeed, lose population, and that's why legal immigration is an important part of growing this country. >> host: on the economy side of it, for our economy to grow. immigration works usa, they put out this: less than 5% of high school dropouts today are willing to do physically demanding, low skill work. over the next decade, the u.s. will need three million workers to fill these low-skill jobs. only 1.7 million new workers, skilled and unskilled, will enter the labor force in these years. >> yeah. i think this really points to a larger cultural problem. and i've talked to many people about this across the country s and day that see the same thing. unfortunately, we seem to be denigrating the value of work itself. the fact is that hard, demanding physical labor is honorable work. it's not to be looked down on. there was an adviser to a president who once said we need immigration reform because he didn't want his son picking tomatoes. i think that's denigrating to work. the fact is that people who are out there in the fields doing that kind of work are serving all of us in the economy. so i think we just actually need a broader conversation about the value of work in the country as a whole. and to give you one more example, there's about 80 different means-tested welfare programs today, and only one or two have a work requirement, and president obama's actually scaled those back. so i think we need to, as a country, talk about the value of work and encourage work in all of our welfare programs. >> host: what impact do immigrants coming into this country illegally or legally have on our government programs? >> guest: well, this is a question we're very curious about. robert rector, who works at heritage, wrote a report last year, one of the nation's top welfare experts. he looked at the census data and calculated how much taxes undocumented workers pay and how much benefits and services they receive, and he added it up over the lifetime, and he found it was a significant deficit. and that counts expenditures at all levels of government, local, state and federal. so it accounts federal welfare programs, but also state schools and roads and things like that, they found a trillion dollar deficit. >> host: we're talking about the economic impact of immigration reform with derrick morgan of the heritage foundation. we have a forty line this -- fourth line for business owners, 202-585-3883 is your line. lowell in fredericksburg, virginia, republican caller. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. my question is, what should i do? i'm always out, and i'm shopping for things as i take care of the family, and people have these cards, and i'll have a basket of food, and their basket's always much longer than mine. they use this card, and they get free food. and when they don't have enough on the card, they pull out#qpn d of $100 bills that is often difficult to get out of their pocket. and they peel off, you know, they're all laughing. and then just recently when we -- >> host: walt, what does this have to do with immigration reform? >> caller: yes, i'm asking all of these individualings are, in fact, illegal immigrants. >> host: and how do you know that? >> guest: well, they don't speak english, they usually are reluctant when they see even a guard. they are kind of shunning away from them. and i could positively be wrong. it smacks in the face of being right versus wrong. and thank you for taking my question. >> host: all right. let's ask mr. morgan then. the you're an illegal immigrant, can you get food stamps? >> guest: unfortunately, there's a lot of fraud in our food stamp programs, and we've gone from stamps to these electronic cards. and there's some who think it's actually easier to commit fraud with those cards now. so, you know, we don't know if the people who lowell's seeing are legal or illegal, but the fact remains that there is a lot of fraud in the food stamp program. one of the things we'd like to see at heritage is a food requirement for food stamps. it goes back to the old admonition, if you shall not work, you shall not eat. we should require that and encourage people to work for food stamps. >> host: robin is next, green ridge, missouri. democratic caller. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. i would like to respond about the immigration. around here where i live we are overran with illegal mexicans and illegal russians. ask like the guy be -- and like the guy before me, the way that we tell is they're very shifty when it comes to the law. they don't speak no english, and and like he said, they have a food stamp card. and also they work our jobs, and they don't get paid by a check, they get paid cash. so on top of getting paid on cash -- and i know this because there's a company in sedalia that hires all these people. they keep enough legal people in there in case immigration comes in. then they have these americans in there doing the job. they hide the immigrants. but, and i know this because i was there. i seen that with my own eyes. >> host: and so, robin, what's the impact a on your local economy? >> guest: okay, the impact is these people, they do work our jobs and kicks the american people out because they work for wages, and they, and also they get loans to start businesses, they get loans to buy land and build houses here. and they talk about it too. i mean, it's nothing, it's not a secret. >> host: okay. let me just begin with one thing that robin said though, i mean, there are immigrants that come to this country legally that -- to become a legal immigrant, you don't have to speak english, correct? >> guest: that's right. to become a citizen, you should have some proficiency, but not to be a green cardholder, that's right. and one thing she did say which struck me is this concept that of workplace enforcement. in fact, it was actually promised in 1986 when congress decided it was going to pass an amnesty at that time and say let's wipe the books clean, we have some people who are here illegally, let's make them legal and in exchange we're going to secure the border and have workplace enforcement. in fact, the american people are still waiting for those promises. so businesses that employ illegal labor really have not faced the consequences that they ought to under the law. >> host: we'll go next to dave in rome, georgia, democratic caller. >> caller: yes, thank you. you just hit the nail on the held, sir. this whole problem has come from a republican administration, reagan administration, which devastated the united states. let me explain about what i'm saying. reagan granted amnesty, just straight out amnesty. they said three, but those ten million now are the ones that are here. basically, what i'm trying to say is this: now you have a problem, you have the republican party, they are against immigration. they are against anything that they used to be for. really it's killing this country. they messed the country up, george bush. reagan messed it up, and reagan should have been impeached but because here had a house -- he had a house with tip o'neill who was also irish. could you explain to me why how many immigrants are illegal or legal, came from reagan, the administration that granted amnesty. thank you. >> host: all right, dave. dave's a democrat in rome, georgia. >> guest: dave, i think looking back at that 1986 proposal, there were republican and democratic supporters. it was kind of a bipartisan policy. and president reagan did sign it. i think he later regretted that. attorney general ed meese, who also works at heritage, he's explained before that reagan thought that was a mistake. you can forgive the mistake once if we try a proposal to grant an amnesty and see if we can then, you know, clear out the illegal population and start over again, but we have tried that now. so if we tried that again, i think it'd be with shame on us at this point. you mentioned about three million, we think. the fraud rates, i've seen some study that is show up to 25% were fraudulent inductee into that amnesty, and now we're looking at a pop haitian of over ten -- population of over ten million. no one knows exactly, but we have a pretty good idea from census data and dhs estimates. a lot of people think those estimates are short, but we know there's at least more than ten million. >> host: the u.s. chamber disagrees. welcoming immigrants is good for our economy and our society. immigrants do not typically compete with americans for jobs and, in fact, create more jobs through entrepreneurship, economic activity and tax increases. immigrants serve as a complement to the u.s.-born workers and help fillet boar shortages across the still spectrum and in key sectors. >> guest: there's not a whole lot i disagree with there. i know some would. the fact is legal immigration, done right, can be really, really good for our economy. it can be good because we're admitting folks who have great talents all over the world, and they come the united states. and because of our rule of law, because of our economic freedom that we enjoy in our country, they can be really successful here and start companies like google and others. and that's terrific. i know at heritage we would like to increase the amount of high skilled innovation to try and encourage these kinds of companies and economies to form. so i think -- i disagree potentially is the fact i don't think you have to do amnesty in order to get those benefits from strong legal, high-skilled immigration. >> host: well, then how do you get that factor into our chi without some sort of pathway to citizenship. >> >> guest: right now the united states anytimes more permanent residents on a path than the rest of the world combined. not very many countries have that kind of an immigration system. you can come from anywhere in the world and become an american. it's hard to become japanese or french, but you can become an american. and that's great. most people don't realize it, we're talking about a billion legal immigrants every year. so we do have adequate room for people to come in now. i think it's a good debate to have as should we increase the amount of skilled immigration and maybe reduce lower-skilled immigration, those kinds of debates would be good. but right now everything's being held hostage over the question of what to do with those who are here illegally now, any of these common sense reforms we can do. >> host: derek in stillwater, minnesota, independent caller. hi, derek. >> caller: good morning. i have two quick comments and i have a question, because i know the heritage is somewhat of a think tank, so let's see what he can do about this. quick question is the chamber has absolutely no credibility on in this issue. they've been pushing for cheap labor, and they don't care if it's illegal or legal. so let's not talking about it as illegal immigration. of course immigration is good. our whole country's made up for it except for the american indians, except the chamber has no credibility period. second, the biggest incompetent thing i've seen this my 43 years in the united states as a citizen is the fact that the one thing the government's supposed to do is protect their borders and defend their nation. we have 19 million reasons why they are completely inept there doing that. one basic thing they're supposed to do. so here's my question. we have 19 million, let's call it 15 million illegal immigrants. has there ever been a discussion, i have never heard it, but has there ever been a discussion about why don't we set up a refugee camp in mexico and kind of sweep through the nation and get with everybody into some sort of u.n. refugee camp? because, obviously, we have a huge problem. it undermines our labor prices, etc. and so torte. thank you very much. >> guest: i think it's pretty amazing we've had callers all outside of the beltway republican, democratic and independent that are really animated on this topic, and it's a lot different here inside the beltway when most of the powerful interest groups all want immigration reform, they want large increases in legal immigration. i think it's always good to talk to the american people, so i appreciate that call. in terms of protecting the border, i couldn't agree with you more. our nation's not a nation if we can't protect our borders. and we at heritage have written about how we can do things like involving more local law enforcement that know the area really well. we can have more high-tech solutions as well. so i think it's more a matter of wanting to accomplish the goal and fixing that goal and sticking to it that is the main question. and i think also, frankly, at some point if we could have a guest worker ram and regularize those who want to come in this and do work, say, for an agricultural season and return home, i think that would also help us be able to secure the border better, because we'd with able to know who's come anything and who's going out. so there's a couple of common sense solutions that we could use on the border but right now, unfortunately, politicians aren't wanting to do that. >> host: "the washington post" has a poll from march of 2014. when they asked republicans only if a candidate for u.s. congress southerns a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, would that make you more likely to vote for the candidate, less likely or wouldn't make a difference, 60% of republicans less likely to vote for that candidate. >> guest: yeah. i think that's, you know, that's -- it's eye opening, really, when you see the differences between the two. what people really want is fairness, you know? they want to know that there's a set of rules, and we're going to follow those rules. they don't want washington picking winners and losers on immigration any more than they do on energy policy, for example, where unfortunately this administration has decided to support some ventures like solyndra and others that have end up failing, so they're picking and choosing. we like to have a set of unitomorrow rules, let everybody compete, and don't -- >> you can watch the rest of this discussion online at c-span.org. going to take you live now to the floor of the u.s. senate. the senate gaveling in in just a few moments back from a ten-day me hoyle holiday break. they'll be starting the day with general speeches, and then at 5:30 they'll be voting to advance the nomination of keith harper to be ambassador to the united nations human rights council. if confirmed, he would be the first native american to serve as a u.s. ambassador. later in the week in the senate expecting to vote on advancing the nomination of sylvia purrwell to be the new secretary of health and human services. also possible this week, consideration of a bill establishing a program to support mental health courts. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. most merciful god, you have been better to us than we deserve. accept the grateful labors of our lawmakers, as they seek to meet the challenges of our times.
thank you, michael. as you know, michael, i hope you're right that we are at an inflection point, but i agree with ambassador burton, that i'm afraid you're not. maybe it's because i'm too busy listen to robert kagen and krauthammer saying no, we're not. we're doing fine the question is, what piece of evidence would convince them that the time has come to change course? you cite resistance from others, other great powers, the unwillingness to resources at home, and resistance to the public at large. there are still some that say we can clearly resource it. sfrply raise taxes or cut other spending. where is the u.s. public resistance. we don't have people in marching in the street as we did after vietnam. where is the evidence of balancing by other great powers? can you point to something there? it seems we don't have sufficient evidence to convince the other side that it's time to change course. >> well, that's a good point, particularly about the other great powers. now, it was one observed to me that in one of the crises over in north korea, the closer you got to north korea, the more relaxed everyone was about it. it was actually in washington people were more exercised than in south korea. and i think that's the case with russia. the germans have made it clear that they're dubious about another cold war with russia. i've read that the czechs are debating raising their military spending, i believe, to 1.5% of gdp. if this is a moment and russia is a great threat that it's being portrayed as, i assume the czechs would be debating maybe 15% of gdp, you know? we had 50% of the gdp during world war ii. they seem fairly relaxed. if we look at the neighbors of the china that we're supposed to be so frightened by, china is now the number one trading partner of south korea, and it's up there among the -- japan is increasing trade integration. so i think we have to take all of this with a grain of salt. one of the dangers of our alliance system is that it enables irresponsible behavior for domestic political reasons. on the part of nationalists in japan, south korea, and not so much in germany at this point. but it allows the leaders to talk tough and to, you know, poke either russia or china. at the same time, while profiting from their increasing economic integration. and that's fine. it's sort of a game. i'm from texas, you know, we have a rivalry with oklahoma. oklahoma calls texas baja oklahoma. so, you know, we know it's not a serious security threat. so now terms behalf pieces of evidence would convince the hard lined neo conservatives that the united states does not have a stake in global hegemony, i gave up trying to analyze it. i think even they would say at some point that it's clear that the united states is not pursuing of policy they favor. it would probably have to do with the defense budget. in the 1990s, robert kagan and bill crystal published an article, 4% or 6% of gdp being spent on defense. the u.s. is now -- at the end of the cold war, we went down to about 3% of gdp, which is respectable. it's a little more than britain and france. which have the greatest spending in western europe. it's a lot more now. and it shot up again after 9/11. under current budget plans, as i understand it -- it's arcing downwards to even bow low 3% in the 20s, it ebbs and changes. so i think even the supporters of the hegemony strategy would say at some point it cannot be carried out realistically. now that doesn't mean you won't still nominally have the alliances with japan or china think may last indefinitely. the other thing that may mark a clear break from the present period is if there are enough challenges to u.s. hegemony and the u.s. backs down enough, it will create a new situation. new facts on the ground and that -- remember, a lot of foreign policy is psychological. it's intimidation. and this is why i'm concerned. that is, i think it's very likely the u.s. will back down again and again and again because of what the australian diplomat calls asymmetry of resolve, that is something that is very important for them. like crimea to russia. it's just not that important for the united states. it's not worth going to war about. that's why we need an exit strategy, or we need to say here is our american vision of a europe that is not divided between american allies and american enemies. and in asia it's not divided between american protectorates and outsiders. and i think that's how we -- so it's not seen as backing down or unilateral retreat but building a new border with former enemies. >> the next question from james mann, who has written several books on the realists and neocons and on the obama administration, and told me he just completed a short biography on george w. bush. >> michael, thanks for this. i have one question you haven't mentioned but i read is in our article, which is immigration. i would be curious to know how it fits in your thinking and article. both -- and maybe it applies equally -- as to low skilled immigration, paradigm central america, and high-skilled paradigm i guess, india. >> i approach this from the view of strategy in general. if you have a rule governed global market with relatively free flows of capital and of labor, then you can have a shrinking population, and you're -- as long as per capita gdp is going up, then your country can get richer and richer. you know, so that japan, say, could shrink. fewer and fewer people every decade but the fewer people would be richer because the productivity growth is going up and they're better off. in a mercantilist world, in a world where some or most powers are treating economics as an instrument of state craft rather than a rule governed zerosome game, then the logic is different because the high degree of overlap between population and military power. it's not perfect overlap. you have large countries like india which are relatively weak. you have small companies britain has done since the industrial revolution, but in the long term, as productivity defuses and converges among country, all things being equal, a country with a larger population is going to be more powerful both in trade and the military than a smaller country. that's the geopolitics of it. what you see happening in the countries of the developed world is a very deep backlash against immigration the united states on the right and in europe even more so. now partly this is a backlash against a particular kind of immigration, muslim immigrants, rather than necessarily against ohs. but in the european case, it's against eastern european immigrants, too. you know, having said that, even though this will be my most visionary counterintuitive prediction of this talk, i think that in the 21st century, this defensiveness is going to be replaced among many nations, if not all, by competition for immigrants, which will be seen as a source of gdp growth, and also of military power, frankly, and the revenue base. right now, only a minority of countries have population rates above the replacement level. most countries are scheduled to stabilize and then start declining. largely parts of africa, central and south asia, even china is beyond the demographic transition. now seems inconceivable at this point that you could have the major nations of europe and east asia become relatively immigrant-friendly. obviously there's tensions in the united states. relatively immigrant-friendly nations. the way the united states and some other western hemisphere countries are. if the alternative is loss of military security as well as economic clout, then you're going to see a shift. this will be really, the most radical changes in world society in centuries. the pattern until recently was that the major countries of europe and asia sent people. they didn't import them. now birthrights are so low the only way they can stabilize the population is by importing people. at the same time, it raises question, okay, if you're going to bring in people merely to stabilize the population, much less to expand, in order not to deepen divides or ethnic lines within your territory, you need to have assimilation and integration of immigrants. this is a place where maybe i'm showing my biases here, i think the united states, you know, can had a pretty good model, at least until recently, both economic integration and cultural integration of immigrants. economically, if you have a booming economy and jobs for the middle class and so on, it's easier for outsider to get a stake in society. at the same time, the melting pot idea did not require immigrants to cut off all sub- national identities. but we had the hyphenated america. you were irish-american, you were greek-american. you were jewish-american. sweden-american. you could have both identities. this is still quite alien to most of the industrial nations. and i don't know which way they'll go. >> what would you say make senses for the news i have a hard time seeing japan in this -- which for a long time, has had low growth and you don't see the impact of changing immigration policies at all. >> to the extent that population is a basis for power, they will slip down the world power rankings as well as the gdp rankings, which is not to say they will be poor. you know, luxemburg, i think, has the highest per capita living standard in western europe. so countries may make the choice. >> michael, i wanted to ask you about something very contemporary now, which is we've had bob kagan's essay in the "new republic." declaring that superpowers can't go on vacation. today there was an op-ed by walter russell immediate, whom you know well in the "wall street journal" declaring that america can't go on break and we're seeing the dangerous consequences of a lack of resolve in american foreign policy in failing to stand up to vladmir putin. and the thesis was that putin, in a sense, is rescuing us from our own sins, awakening us to our bad behavior that we need to reform, and buck up, start exercising more vigorously, take a much harder stance toward foreign foes. even though president obama, whether you think he's a realist or not, he certainly enunciates realists -- some realist themes. this is a real pushback, i think, in washington against the notion of realism in american foreign policy. there's a very explicit denunciation in kagan's piece and walter russell meade's piece and by charles krauthammer of the idea that america can in fact act more prudently abroad. they would characterize it as cowardice and defeatism. many of the things you're talking about in your earlier really date back to the paul wolf wit wolfowitzs document in the george h.w. administration when he slapped down for espousing a strategy for the cold war in which the united states would retain hegemony in all parts of the world. it seems to me that the consensus may not consist in the american public. and the obama administration, as i see it at least, is waffling. but the consensus among elite -- i'm also -- this is also coming to mind because strobe tal bet introduced the other day and no one disagreed with what kagan was saying. it seems you have a consensus at the elite level that whether we call it liberal internationalism or neoconservative or some hybrid really is still dominance, at least among the foreign policy elite. would you disagree with that? >> no. i think there's a bipartisan consensus. it will start showing cracks. but the problem now -- it's not that it's fishering. it's still a solid consensus. the problem is the enormous gap between the claim we need to show resolve and the actual actions we will take. so, you know, we have to stand up to russia over crimea and ukraine. okay. so we might send some advisers to a baltic republic, right? putin retaliates by eliminating american-manned space flight for a decade. it's amazing. it's amazing. the united states no longer has manned space flight capability. we were hitching rides to the international space station on russian rockets. oh, and it gets better. the united states doesn't make many of rocket engines it needs for our own spy satellites, which is just as well, because the spy satellite the u.s. is temporarily using to communicate with the african forces is a chinese satellite. right? so on the one hand, we have the leaders of the foreign policy intelligence saying we must rule, we must stand up to russia and china. and at the same time, they is spent a generation dismantling the american military industrial complex. the united states does not build a single civilian ocean-going ship. thanks to president ronald reagan, from 1930s under franklin roosevelt all the way up to the reagan administration, the united states government had a simple policy. whatever subsidizes are offered to civilian shipmakers by other countries, the federal government will match. no questions asked. the reagan administration came in, we're stronger. number one, we're going to win the cold war. they decided this was a waste of money, so we would get rid of the subsidizes. consequently, the united states, apart from specialized navy ships and domestic barges protected by the jones ability on inland waterways, we have to borrow all of our ships, all right? that's my answer to all of these triumphialists. teddy roosevelt said "speak softly and carry a big stick." he didn't say denounce your rivals and ask if you can borrow or buy a stick. >> from much of what you have said it seems to me that the best friend a neoconcould ask for is mr. putin, because there was sort of a natural withering away of the overblown role that we were playing toward the end of the cold war. in fact, there have a conversation between senior bush vice president or just after becoming president where bush is meandering around talking about we have -- he says it would help if you could explain what this new role for nato is that you're talking about. # and bush starts saying we have to think in political terms about a new role in the period. he doesn't know. while we dope have an enemy. and he says, yes, isn't it inconvenient not having an enemy in putin has basically come forward. as a answer to every neocon's dream. he changed the rule of the game at least rhetorically. and made it much more difficult for anyone to talk about the standing down of american power. >> i think that's right. again, the question is what are the concrete actions if the united states is going to respond? now, it would not a bad thing if it were a sputnik moment and the response was, as it was to sputnik, let's upgrade our education, invest in infrastructure, redouble for r&d. as i suggested earlier, if you're going to have a genuine great power riv rlryes, but we may end up being on rival sides but at end of the day couldn't tri wntry with the bes technological base will hold out longer particularly if you have cold wars, wars of economic attrition. with the neoconservatives, and i think many of the neoliberal hawks have forgotten is that foreign policy has more than one instrument. the military is not the only instrument. and we have allowed our other instruments to decay by focusing on having marines in australia to contain china or, you know, putting some nato troops in estonia or something like that. i'll give you an example. the united states during the cold war, competed with the soviet union in terms of foreign aid and lending. africa is going to have 2 billion people by the year 2100. those are 2 billion. enormous needs for infrastructure. the chinese are building highways and ports and railroads in africa around the indian ocean and so on. while we have people on the left and the right in the u.s. congress trying to abolish the export-import bank. which on a mump, much, smaller scale helps to finance infrastructure and manufacturing with inputs from u.s. exporters in the rest of the world, right? as, you know, if you look at what is going on in eurasia now it's one of the greatest periods of infrastructure construction in history. pipelines, high-speed rail from china potentially 0 europe. and congress cannot agree to come up even with a tiny, modest pilot program nation of a national infrastructure bank. much smaller than the european investment bank or the state development banks that are possessed by brazil, india, russia, china, by all of these other countries. so i don't want to suggest by any means that we should relax and that we won't have great power conflicts, but we need to stop thinking in terms of sending divisions here and submarines there. the cold war was first and foremost an economic struggle. the reason the soviets cracked was their economy cracked. we were rich, prosperous, and innovative for a fraction of the money they spend on the military we could outspend them. that's how britain won the knee poll onic wars. it was much smaller than france. but it had better credit and more prosperous economy. it's the example in the world. it's ideological war. it's propaganda. even in the past of a few months, the revelation now about the nsa. taking faces from the internet. the revolution that the cia and afghanistan and pakistan was using hospital operations as a cover for getting dna from potential terrorist suspect. including bin laden's family. this is enormously damaging. you know, to america's image in the world. i share some of the concern of main stream foreign policy establishment with america's power and resolve. they're thinking in this kind of board game manner where it's just like moving troops here and there. and we need is a conversation assuming we face great power challenges, let's look at every dimension of power, including power and the power of influence and example. and not simply think it's a matter of sending an increasingly whittled down military ace symbolic presence here or there. >> michael, as a final question, let's test those powers of creativity i mentioned in ambassador burt commented on. it's 2015 what does america look like domestically and what is its standing in the world? >> well, there's been a number of studies of what the would will look like in terms of gdp in 2015. they tend to agree that the four major economies will be the united states, india, china, at least in terms of gdp, and the european union. and if we're looking at the middle of the 21st century, it's only a few decades from now, the united states will still be in an enviable position. it will be the only big country that is rich and vice versa. unlike robert kagan and the many of the neoconservatives. i think we're in a fairly secure world. the united states does not really have to control the south china sea or the marshes of prussia in order to be a world power. the source of our world power is we're the only first-world country that is only the scale of india and china. they would be big and important but they're going to be poorer per capita and have less disposable power. on the fourth area of major wealth, the european union, i think, will be some mix of cooperation and local sovereignty. it will not act as an entity in world affairs. probably by that time you will have a somewhat more liberalized mellowed russian nation. russia is part of europe. it's always been part of europe. the idea that russia is not a european country. the next time i hear them say germany is europe's largest country, no, russia is europe's large effort country. and interestingly enough by 2015, absence of major change in british immigration policy britain will have more people than germany. these things can change as a result of policy. if you look at the large, rich europe, in which the two largest nation states are russia and britain, that's somewhat different, you know, from the german dominated eurozone. i think there's reason for cautious optimism. and the fact is this is the world that we sought to create and the world conflict of the 21st century. we wanted china to be free from colonial domination. we wanted india to be independent. we wanted a whole europe that wasn't divided by an iron curtain. having achieved it, we're now saying it's so dangerous that we can't demobilize, we can't pull back, you know, we can't abandon anything. so, you know, maybe what we should do is declare a victory in the world wars. >> well, thank you, michael. having known him for many years, i was able to assure my colleague, paul saunders here, that in some meetings, you know, you get these air gaps where the room sort of goes silent. i assured him that with michael, there's never a dull moment, and we have barely scratched the surface, which you invigorating. i'm grateful to michael both for his cover story and for speaking with us today. [ applause ] friday, here on c-span 3 a conference on the state of the european union, with discussions about the euro currency, europe's relationship with the united states, and the european response to the ukraine crisis, live coverage 8:45 a.m. eastern. russia and united states is a nation which believes in its mission. and even our missions are similar. we believe in freedom. we believe in distribution of core values, which suddenly disappeared in '90 and 2000s but it didn't go anywhere, you know, it was still there. and so the biggest nation for russia during all of those years was the victory day. that is our main national holiday and that's what unites the whole nation, the fight against fashi fascism. and how it was presented to the nation by president putin is that in ukraine, those are western sponsored as iffists who came to power and he illustrated that with flex of former ukrainian liberation army who were with us in world war ii, he used us to prove these are factious fighting against both russian and ukrainian nation. it's misinterpretation we are looking just to protect russians or russian speaking minority. no, for the majority of russians we are continuing world war ii and we are liberating, really liberating ukraine, from the factious threat. >> this weekend on c-span, a look into politics of putin's russia, saturday, 10:00 eastern on book tv, live two-day coverage of the chicago tribute printers row lit fest. c-span 3 american history tv, 70th anniversary of the d-day invasion of normandy, 10:30 eastern. next, discussion of computer threats to businesses, government cybersecurity regulations and business opportunities in providing computer security services. part of bloomberg government's day-long summit tuesday on computer security. this portion is two hours. >> thank you, admiral. we're going to have another panel come up right now. i'd like to interduroduce my colleague. tim lavin. defining what cyberthreats exist out there, pardon me, where they are what can be done to protect all of us. and i will -- with that, turn it over to tim. >> thank you, trish. good morning, everyone. we have an excellent panel here this morning. we have wade baker, manage principal of research and intelligence from verizon. we have mike allen, founder and manager director of beacon global strategies. mike leiter, and bob butler from the center for new american security adjunct senior fellow with technology in the national security program. to start, i think it's safe to say that the past year has not been a great one for cybersecurity. we had target, ebay, neiman-marcus, snapchat, chinese hackers, iranian hackers. what accounts for what seems like a surge in malicious online activity of all kinds recently? wade, start with you. >> i would actually say it's a combination of things, some of which is a change in the threat environment. i think there's an increase in attacks that comes through increasing move online. we use a huge number of devices and we access more things from more places at all times, so that just increases the surface area over time and keeps doing that. i also think that the mechanisms by which we come to know those things are also increasing. they're not happening at a higher frequency but we're seeing a higher proportion of them because of accountability and all kinds of disclosure and other things like that. >> i don't think it's a particularly rise. i think it is more cognizance of what happens actually happening is early as 2011, the u.s. intelligence community's talking about the role of china and cyberespionage. i think 2013 was the year of the retailer attack. they're increase willing going after our payment systems i think gradually, businesses, members of congress, and those of us in washington, in the washington policy community, are becoming more and more aware of nation state pilferage of our trade secrets. and it's something that we need to continue to talk about until we make decisive progress on legislati legislation, standards and other things we need protect the country. >> when you look at most serious threats facing american businesses, where are they coming from, who's behind them? what's the motivation tend to be? is it financial, espionage, some sort of ideological attachment, some combination therefore? what have you guys seen? >> from standpoint as security practitioner at io, we have 600 or so clients, my sense is there's, if you're a product company, there is an issue of i.p. and folks see that as an opportunity to get to level parody quickly. inside of that space, a lot of maneuvering in supply chain tampering as well as breach reconnaissance. in the network services businesses, i see the risk as certainly theft of pii, personal identifiable information, as well as compliance failure. a compliance failure, that's a big problem, or reputational risk. i think it depends on the business value, proposition of the company. i think you trace it back through threat intelligence in terms of intent and capability. >> it's no different from the noncyberworld. it's everything, it's all of the above. if you're russian organized crime, you used to muscle guys to fet a certain business in an area, you don't have to muscle, you have a steal credit card numbers and quadruple, times a hundred, the gains you had before. if you're china, distinction that we call between espionage and economic gain is a distinction that they don't see at all. we call it espionage. they see it as making their industry's more competitive with the west. and it's stealing intellectual property, trade secrets, negotiating information. if you're iran, it's less economic and more a tool of national power, disrupt bank of america because it has america in the title, and use distributed denial service attacks to make their life more difficult. it is everything we see in the physical world, with all of the same motivations, just being able to do it using asymmetric tool to reach a vastly wider audience of adversarial clients. >> verizon has dug into that question pretty deeply. are there trends that you see that would be edifying for american companies to think about, whether in terms of method of attack or intent? are there trends that you think that they should be paying attention to? >> yeah. and these things, ebb and flow over time. we've been able to take a ten-year slice of data and dig into, what do we know about incidents that have happened over the last decade. if you think ten years ago, what was going on in the spring/summer of 2004, i think it was when you had the internet worms, you came out of the summer, previous year where you had blaster and then you had netski and bagel. the purpose of a lot of what we were dealing with and worried about keeping servers on the line and not being knocked off the internet. since then organized crime has come of age and the tools that they're creating are amazing. i mean some of them are very, very automated, and the population of attackers that can harm every one of us, just at a push i've button, has grown because of the tools. there's this community and come modization of tools at all different levels. i think it's changing the game. and the trends are spreading out of that over the last ten years. >> wade's exactly right. worms of 2004, it's almost quaint. if you haven't done so, go cut and paste two or three paragraphs in the doj indictment of the chinese and put that in your next memo to the ceo and members of the board to show the sophistication in which the chinese are doing social engineering, sending e-mails. i think you can't but be shocked at the degree to which people are thinking through this to make economic or national espionage games. >> i'd like to get back to china in a second. when. you guys look at the, i think you called year of the retail hack, are there sort of brood, big picture lessons that we can draw from some of those high profile attacks with target, snapchat, that apply to corporations more generally? what to do, what not to do, how to respond? >> so my sense, in looking at target or adobe or any of the big breaches, i think there's a tendency to get lulled into this compliance area, right? i mean they had just competed a great compliance cert but two, three months later we see malwear implants. peel, big issue with people. people leaving, coming and going out of a security operation center, getting people trained, overworked, folks paying attention to alerts, know what to do with alert. extended enterprise, supply chain. we saw then tri through foszzio, how do we deal with supply chain and extended enterprise over time. it's a series of factors. there are lessons learned. the challenge i fine is by the time we identify the risk and looking back retrospectively, adversaries have move on. and so the gap is widening as you work through closing the risks that you just identified from the last breach. >> a vice president at symantec got a lot after tension a couple of weeks ago for an interview in the "wall street journal" in which he said anti-virus is dead. i'm not going to focus on stopping intrusions because i -- it's going to keep happening, i'm going to focus on detection and recovery. is that a prudent approach, do you guys think? >> i think overtime what we have to be able to do is share information to increase what's in our filters writ large, not only across the private sector but what the government can share with the private sector and the private sector can share with each other. i do think there's a lot to that statement when you read the indictment and see that plain old spear fishing which we've been hearing about over the past few years the cause of what the breaches were in alcoa and other things in pennsylvania when you see the same techniques and tactics, it's a reasonable conclusion to draw they'll definitely get in. but a lot of capability on the bench that's not been put out on the field yet. we have to work towards that so we might be a -- a rising tide might be able to lift all boats so we can spread around information so we're in better shape. >> i'm going it take a risk and say that potentially that quote by the press is not 100% reflective of symantec's strategy. symantec is a sponsor here. listen, anti-virus, as a solution to your cyberthreat is dead. anti-virus, as you know one of the arrows in the quiver, and especially for kind of the less sophisticated user, average customer, you know, average mother in iowa who isn't a cyberexpert, she should still have anti-virus protection, that will be part of a lot of strategy. you're alcoa, if you're boeing you need anti-virus but you need 20 other things, 10 of which are technical, 5 of which have to do with business process and 5 of which have to do deal with your people. anti-viruss a smaller arrow than five, ten years ago. >> you've got to work across the spectrum of planning where you're involved with protection and prevention activities which drives you back to threat intelligence and detection. you want to be on the he left side the exploit, right? as opposed to being on the right side of the exploit or the boom. you have to ready. network is breached, we can identify what we can, but you've got shift risks and do risk mitigation as well. i agree, you absolutely should be invested in doing detection and better jobs and up front surveillance but you have to be prepared for the consequence management on the backside. >> one thing about target, target's a good target because of its name. but the lesson for me from target is, people have to understand how good a company target is for security. >> yep. >> target has been more involved with industrial security practice than almost any company in the country. target was still the victim of a huge breach. target is not a traditional company many thought would be targeted. it's not rsa, all of whom also have been breached you have a company that's really good, wouldn't be a traditional target, and they're getting hit successfully. that means there is no company, because of the subject matter or expertise which doesn't face this as a real business risk. >> in terms of -- target's great example -- in terms of the businesses getting hit by one of the attacks, target's share price dropped, seems like it's bounced back. s this the new normal, consumers say this happens to everybody, we get pissed off we have to change our password, et cetera, but they come back and accept the fact this is part of the landscape of commerce in 2014? >> so this is something that has interested me for quite some time, is what is the real impact? of course, when talking about national security, that's a different question than internet fraud. so, but specifically, and something like a target incident, studies have shown that they do tend to bounce back. i think that might be changing. i do an experiment actually with my family on -- when we get together on holidays. over the past several years i've asked whatever the largest breach was in my world, have you guys heard of this? and never before target have they ever said yes. but everybody at the table said yes. i thought that was really interesting. i don't know if there's something it's changing of the per session. without at outrage you're not going to have people leaving in droves, maybe multiple timed, maybe matters more with business to business type of relationships when you lose that trust than it does with consumers, all of those things are factors in this. >> i think you have to look at the value of the organization, what the business value or the security value or what you're trying to market, right? so, again, if you're a product company, you're one trick product, right, that's a problem? that's a real problem. you probably won't recover easily. but if you have established branding in a broad array of products and services, i agree, i think -- you have a good reputation, i think you're in better shape. i will tell you that, a lot has to deal with how you handle the situation. in terms of the speed of recovery, in terms of revenue and profit. you know, i think there's case study going back, when i was serbing in government we looked at this in terms of reputation and what it took in terms of public imaging going forward. what boards did what ceos did, what sea level did, across, and those that had a strategy, that reached out, actually probably in a better position than most. >> i think the shoe has probably dropped on target, look back and now assess the damage done. i think a lot of these cases the shoe hasn't yet dropped. so, as bob said, if you are a product company and the intellectual property and sensitive trade material has been stolen on the product but a competitor hasn't built that product, hasn't gone to market on that product, it not at all clear how it will affect you and youred by and business opportunity. when we saw in the manufacturing companies in western pennsylvania took some time in economically it's been quite bad. the second piece is, i think there's probably going to be because we're americans, we're so proud of our productiveness, we're going to end up with a lot of litigation about this. a key point on the five companies, none of them reported to the s.e.c. about the breaches. i -- i am saying this because i know they know this. if you're a plaintiff's bar lawyer, wait a minute, you knew about the breaches for how many years and didn't report to the s.e.c. it might have a material impact on the stock price? there's going to be a mini industry which sprouts up around the breaches that's going to -- the stock value front as well and that's going to drive an additional degree of economic impact for companies. >> speaking of problem for product companies one of the things you hear in the tech world how the internet of thing is coming to life, companies are building products more and more that connect to the internet, whether it's your toothbrush, thermost thermostat. there's going to be 50 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. is it not rational to panic and assume that all of these things are going to be compromised in some way, or am i paranoid about this? >> the chinese need a lot of server capacity to steal that data. >> i spend a lot of time looking at marriage of physical and cyber and data center, with industrial control systems, i. t. i think we've got to do a lot more work here as i look at what we have left open and the fact that we can -- we still organizationally consider things separate, we have facility managers running, data infrastructure, i.t. managers running the i.t. stacks and a lot of times they're not talking. technologic technologically, we're not there. from the adversary's perspective, you see a foreign intelligence service running through those things right. >> three thoughts with regards it the technology trends and internet of things. as we become more interconnected, we're seeing new invoeiation, cloud computing and virtualization. there's a need to create the transparency, right, to make people comfortable where their data is but we have to up the game in security. i think in the world of i.t. consumerization and mobile devices, smartphones and tab gets, here we have another challenge because i think, as we move forward in time, adversaries are going to exploit in global interconnected and environment, in big kay way. we're just beginning to see it with the malwear. as we look at i.p. adregs all over the place we've got to get ahead of that think about it from innovation efficiency effectiveness perspective but baking in as best we can risk mitigation activities. we're st. louis doing it reactive. >> the internet of things question. i try not to get too worked up about the latest threat and the trends and prefer to stand back and study them. that is concerning to me, kind of going back to your question, just by the blend of lots of separate threads converging there. so, so in the security defense area, i can't say that we've been highly successful yet in defending just a network, you know, like i castle. we haven't fully mastered that yet. now talking about not just defending the castle but the country and the entire empire spread out everywhere, all over the place, it just a different game. and the devices can't run all of the a.v. and ips and things that we load on them that take 90% of the processing power on our computers. it's going to fundamentally change things and that's the part that concerned me about it. your toothbrush, maybe it already exists but it doesn't, somebody's go owe spend how much tie is spent on their tooth. >> it does exist. >> it produces natural point of tension. bring your own defense policies, moving to cloud infrastructure. >> right. >> doing more sass, all of these things produce great efficiency for business. allows people to be more mobile, work from home, have relationships with supply chains and ways you could never imagine without this technology. from that sense, if you're a business, you're trying to increase sales, coverage, productivity, you're pushing this really hard. you have the pain in the tail risks, cybertypes saying, not so fast. it's a natural point of tension. and when you goent know what the repercussions of loss will be for some period, you say, security people, you fix that, we'll go down this bring your own device policy, come back to us when you have a solution and we're not sheing down the business. that leads to hard choices. >> is there more than the government could be doing to help businesses protect themselves? mike, you worked on the house intelligence community. what do you think we need from congress to protect businesses? >> look, i'm not saying that congress through an information sharing bill will absolutely solve the problem completely. i agree with what mike said earlier, you have to use a holistic approach, figure out what to do with standards, people, policy, and procedures within different companies. but like i said earlier, the government is in possession of information that if shared with the private sector, could help them stave off certain cyberattacks. the government, as you heard from at rogers through foreign intelligence mission has come into possession of certain malwear in other information that is of use to the private sector, that alone, people like to say, well, that's not very much, or it's not a finite amount of information, it's going to continue to evolve, and that's absolutely true. what congress needs to be able to do is try and eliminate the barriers to information sharing. it has to most people have written about the antitrust problems, most of those have been debunked so far. but certainly we need to be able to give liability protection to companies. this is where we had a lot of the controversy in the house of representatives on the legislation which passed twice with bipartisan majorities, by the way. but that was before edward snowden. one of the casualties of snowden, in addition to the tremendous foreign intelligence laws and billions of dollars and maybe less confidence in the u.s. intelligence services, is that now it's sort of the dpoeft in the machine. we were beginning to appoint where the president was raising cyberespionage as a key issue in our bilateral relationship with china, finally moving forward on cyberlegislation but post-snowden, that has in a sense affected all of this for the worst and really stymied progress across the board on cybersecurity legislation. >> go ahead. >> i was going to build on the points, i, you know, based on my perspective in the government and industry, we worked on this information sharing program back in the pentagon. certainly saw some downside but a lot of benefit in terms of building trust and to me we have got to move faster in that space. just based on what we just talked about with the threat. >> that's right. >> i also think that that trust, what i see, especially in the private sector, as you build into your either supply chain or a customer base, you're doing joint solutioning, right? not one organization, one person can handle what you need to do with regards to threat mitigation. if you internally try to do it it's really hard. it's information sharing that enables a level of trust where you can do some joint solutioning, and the government needs to reach out and we -- the industry also needs to reach the other way. and we need to develop much more rapidly cross sector sharing. >> i think the government can be a help but there's a huge capacity deficit and a trust deficit. and if companies are looking to the government to solve this problem they might well shut down the job right now. the nsa, fbi, they can throw everyone they wanted and still couldn't do 1/100, 1/1000 of what companies need to do to protect themselves. second, trust michael said, i won't belabor it, snowden destroyed any progressive legislation in this run. be careful what you wish for. pushing the government to be stronger, they did what the indictments, if in the indictments are the first step of multistage international effort to really coalesce pressure against china, that's a good thing. but many of the companies i talked to post doj indictment said, whoa. i've got a lot of business in china, i'm trying to do business in china, what about my data? >> how worried should companies be about that? where does this dispute go? does it keep escalating? >> companies should be very nebbous because there's a lot of uncertainty. do i think the chinese are going to start indicting u.s. officials? that could happen, how much does it matter to a company? not that much. do i think chinese will make it more difficult for u.s. companies to do business in china? they already have. two days after the indictments, requirement for information technology, companies to operate in china in a way they couldn't before. other companies that view china as one of the most significant growth markets over the next decade, looking at this very nervously. i don't think that americans should necessarily worry about their employees getting locked up tomorrow in shanghai or beijing, but are there further obstacles? could this escalate? i think if they're not looking at possibilities, again, they're crazy. >> on that cheerful note, i want to leave a few minutes here for questions i'm think we have a couple of microphones here, if anybody has something they want to ask, raise your hand. >> so you talk a lot about what organizations, corporations should do to protect, defend, collaborate, to share. what's your perspective on the what the technology provider do, what's the customer provider relationship expectations about what's baked in for capables when i buy the solutions? why do we keep hearing about bug fixes for products that were rushed to market instead of engineered bettor start with? >> you want to take that one? >> i'll take it from a couple of different angles. one is in the customer technology provider relationship, i think there's a lot more attention on service level agreements, what's in it, what's out of it, and depends where you sit in termss of responsibility and accountability. i think the challenge is we typically want to avoid risk and so we try to write in insurances within the slas to make sure that we're not liable. we haven't gotten to a point, going back to early point on trust, how we collaborate. i do see that, as especially in consulting as well as with a company, we are getting more and more into this issue as we get into deeper discussions on audits. which is helping us. >> relooking at slas, how to work together i see it also with as we're working through compliance regimes. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac
there's never a dull moment, and we have barely scratched the surface, which you invigorating. i'm grateful to michael both for his cover story and for speaking with us today. [ applause ] friday, here on c-span 3 a conference on the state of the european union, with discussions about the euro currency, europe's relationship with the united states, and the european response to the ukraine crisis, live coverage 8:45 a.m. eastern. russia and united states is a nation which believes in its mission. and even our missions are similar. we believe in freedom. we believe in distribution of core values, which suddenly disappeared in '90 and 2000s but it didn't go anywhere, you know, it was still there. and so the biggest nation for russia during all of those years was the victory day. that is our main national holiday and that's what unites the whole nation, the fight against fashi fascism. and how it was presented to the nation by president putin is that in ukraine, those are western sponsored as iffists who came to power and he illustrated that with flex of former ukrainian liberation army who were with us in world war ii, he used us to prove these are factious fighting against both russian and ukrainian nation. it's misinterpretation we are looking just to protect russians or russian speaking minority. no, for the majority of russians we are continuing world war ii and we are liberating, really liberating ukraine, from the factious threat. >> this weekend on c-span, a look into politics of putin's russia, saturday, 10:00 eastern on book tv, live two-day coverage of the chicago tribute printers row lit fest. c-span 3 american history tv, 70th anniversary of the d-day invasion of normandy, 10:30 eastern. next, discussion of computer threats to businesses, government cybersecurity regulations and business opportunities in providing computer security services. part of bloomberg government's day-long summit tuesday on computer security. this portion is two hours. >> thank you, admiral. we're going to have another panel come up right now. i'd like to interduroduce my colleague. tim lavin. defining what cyberthreats exist out there, pardon me, where they are what can be done to protect all of us. and i will -- with that, turn it over to tim. >> thank you, trish. good morning, everyone. we have an excellent panel here this morning. we have wade baker, manage principal of research and intelligence from verizon. we have mike allen, founder and manager director of beacon global strategies. mike leiter, and bob butler from the center for new american security adjunct senior fellow with technology in the national security program. to start, i think it's safe to say that the past year has not been a great one for cybersecurity. we had target, ebay, neiman-marcus, snapchat, chinese hackers, iranian hackers. what accounts for what seems like a surge in malicious online activity of all kinds recently? wade, start with you. >> i would actually say it's a combination of things, some of which is a change in the threat environment. i think there's an increase in attacks that comes through increasing move online. we use a huge number of devices and we access more things from more places at all times, so that just increases the surface area over time and keeps doing that. i also think that the mechanisms by which we come to know those things are also increasing. they're not happening at a higher frequency but we're seeing a higher proportion of them because of accountability and all kinds of disclosure and other things like that. >> i don't think it's a particularly rise. i think it is more cognizance of what happens actually happening is early as 2011, the u.s. intelligence community's talking about the role of china and cyberespionage. i think 2013 was the year of the retailer attack. they're increase willing going after our payment systems i think gradually, businesses, members of congress, and those of us in washington, in the washington policy community, are becoming more and more aware of nation state pilferage of our trade secrets. and it's something that we need to continue to talk about until we make decisive progress on legislati legislation, standards and other things we need protect the country. >> when you look at most serious threats facing american businesses, where are they coming from, who's behind them? what's the motivation tend to be? is it financial, espionage, some sort of ideological attachment, some combination therefore? what have you guys seen? >> from standpoint as security practitioner at io, we have 600 or so clients, my sense is there's, if you're a product company, there is an issue of i.p. and folks see that as an opportunity to get to level parody quickly. inside of that space, a lot of maneuvering in supply chain tampering as well as breach reconnaissance. in the network services businesses, i see the risk as certainly theft of pii, personal identifiable information, as well as compliance failure. a compliance failure, that's a big problem, or reputational risk. i think it depends on the business value, proposition of the company. i think you trace it back through threat intelligence in terms of intent and capability. >> it's no different from the noncyberworld. it's everything, it's all of the above. if you're russian organized crime, you used to muscle guys to fet a certain business in an area, you don't have to muscle, you have a steal credit card numbers and quadruple, times a hundred, the gains you had before. if you're china, distinction that we call between espionage and economic gain is a distinction that they don't see at all. we call it espionage. they see it as making their industry's more competitive with the west. and it's stealing intellectual property, trade secrets, negotiating information. if you're iran, it's less economic and more a tool of national power, disrupt bank of america because it has america in the title, and use distributed denial service attacks to make their life more difficult. it is everything we see in the physical world, with all of the same motivations, just being able to do it using asymmetric tool to reach a vastly wider audience of adversarial clients. >> verizon has dug into that question pretty deeply. are there trends that you see that would be edifying for american companies to think about, whether in terms of method of attack or intent? are there trends that you think that they should be paying attention to? >> yeah. and these things, ebb and flow over time. we've been able to take a ten-year slice of data and dig into, what do we know about incidents that have happened over the last decade. if you think ten years ago, what was going on in the spring/summer of 2004, i think it was when you had the internet worms, you came out of the summer, previous year where you had blaster and then you had netski and bagel. the purpose of a lot of what we were dealing with and worried about keeping servers on the line and not being knocked off the internet. since then organized crime has come of age and the tools that they're creating are amazing. i mean some of them are very, very automated, and the population of attackers that can harm every one of us, just at a push i've button, has grown because of the tools. there's this community and come modization of tools at all different levels. i think it's changing the game. and the trends are spreading out of that over the last ten years. >> wade's exactly right. worms of 2004, it's almost quaint. if you haven't done so, go cut and paste two or three paragraphs in the doj indictment of the chinese and put that in your next memo to the ceo and members of the board to show the sophistication in which the chinese are doing social engineering, sending e-mails. i think you can't but be shocked at the degree to which people are thinking through this to make economic or national espionage games. >> i'd like to get back to china in a second. when. you guys look at the, i think you called year of the retail hack, are there sort of brood, big picture lessons that we can draw from some of those high profile attacks with target, snapchat, that apply to corporations more generally? what to do, what not to do, how to respond? >> so my sense, in looking at target or adobe or any of the big breaches, i think there's a tendency to get lulled into this compliance area, right? i mean they had just competed a great compliance cert but two, three months later we see malwear implants. peel, big issue with people. people leaving, coming and going out of a security operation center, getting people trained, overworked, folks paying attention to alerts, know what to do with alert. extended enterprise, supply chain. we saw then tri through foszzio, how do we deal with supply chain and extended enterprise over time. it's a series of factors. there are lessons learned. the challenge i fine is by the time we identify the risk and looking back retrospectively, adversaries have move on. and so the gap is widening as you work through closing the risks that you just identified from the last breach. >> a vice president at symantec got a lot after tension a couple of weeks ago for an interview in the "wall street journal" in which he said anti-virus is dead. i'm not going to focus on stopping intrusions because i -- it's going to keep happening, i'm going to focus on detection and recovery. is that a prudent approach, do you guys think? >> i think overtime what we have to be able to do is share information to increase what's in our filters writ large, not only across the private sector but what the government can share with the private sector and the private sector can share with each other. i do think there's a lot to that statement when you read the indictment and see that plain old spear fishing which we've been hearing about over the past few years the cause of what the breaches were in alcoa and other things in pennsylvania when you see the same techniques and tactics, it's a reasonable conclusion to draw they'll definitely get in. but a lot of capability on the bench that's not been put out on the field yet. we have to work towards that so we might be a -- a rising tide might be able to lift all boats so we can spread around information so we're in better shape. >> i'm going it take a risk and say that potentially that quote by the press is not 100% reflective of symantec's strategy. symantec is a sponsor here. listen, anti-virus, as a solution to your cyberthreat is dead. anti-virus, as you know one of the arrows in the quiver, and especially for kind of the less sophisticated user, average customer, you know, average mother in iowa who isn't a cyberexpert, she should still have anti-virus protection, that will be part of a lot of strategy. you're alcoa, if you're boeing you need anti-virus but you need 20 other things, 10 of which are technical, 5 of which have to do with business process and 5 of which have to do deal with your people. anti-viruss a smaller arrow than five, ten years ago. >> you've got to work across the spectrum of planning where you're involved with protection and prevention activities which drives you back to threat intelligence and detection. you want to be on the he left side the exploit, right? as opposed to being on the right side of the exploit or the boom. you have to ready. network is breached, we can identify what we can, but you've got shift risks and do risk mitigation as well. i agree, you absolutely should be invested in doing detection and better jobs and up front surveillance but you have to be prepared for the consequence management on the backside. >> one thing about target, target's a good target because of its name. but the lesson for me from target is, people have to understand how good a company target is for security. >> yep. >> target has been more involved with industrial security practice than almost any company in the country. target was still the victim of a huge breach. target is not a traditional company many thought would be targeted. it's not rsa, all of whom also have been breached you have a company that's really good, wouldn't be a traditional target, and they're getting hit successfully. that means there is no company, because of the subject matter or expertise which doesn't face this as a real business risk. >> in terms of -- target's great example -- in terms of the businesses getting hit by one of the attacks, target's share price dropped, seems like it's bounced back. s this the new normal, consumers say this happens to everybody, we get pissed off we have to change our password, et cetera, but they come back and accept the fact this is part of the landscape of commerce in 2014? >> so this is something that has interested me for quite some time, is what is the real impact? of course, when talking about national security, that's a different question than internet fraud. so, but specifically, and something like a target incident, studies have shown that they do tend to bounce back. i think that might be changing. i do an experiment actually with my family on -- when we get together on holidays. over the past several years i've asked whatever the largest breach was in my world, have you guys heard of this? and never before target have they ever said yes. but everybody at the table said yes. i thought that was really interesting. i don't know if there's something it's changing of the per session. without at outrage you're not going to have people leaving in droves, maybe multiple timed, maybe matters more with business to business type of relationships when you lose that trust than it does with consumers, all of those things are factors in this. >> i think you have to look at the value of the organization, what the business value or the security value or what you're trying to market, right? so, again, if you're a product company, you're one trick product, right, that's a problem? that's a real problem. you probably won't recover easily. but if you have established branding in a broad array of products and services, i agree, i think -- you have a good reputation, i think you're in better shape. i will tell you that, a lot has to deal with how you handle the situation. in terms of the speed of recovery, in terms of revenue and profit. you know, i think there's case study going back, when i was serbing in government we looked at this in terms of reputation and what it took in terms of public imaging going forward. what boards did what ceos did, what sea level did, across, and those that had a strategy, that reached out, actually probably in a better position than most. >> i think the shoe has probably dropped on target, look back and now assess the damage done. i think a lot of these cases the shoe hasn't yet dropped. so, as bob said, if you are a product company and the intellectual property and sensitive trade material has been stolen on the product but a competitor hasn't built that product, hasn't gone to market on that product, it not at all clear how it will affect you and youred by and business opportunity. when we saw in the manufacturing companies in western pennsylvania took some time in economically it's been quite bad. the second piece is, i think there's probably going to be because we're americans, we're so proud of our productiveness, we're going to end up with a lot of litigation about this. a key point on the five companies, none of them reported to the s.e.c. about the breaches. i -- i am saying this because i know they know this. if you're a plaintiff's bar lawyer, wait a minute, you knew about the breaches for how many years and didn't report to the s.e.c. it might have a material impact on the stock price? there's going to be a mini industry which sprouts up around the breaches that's going to -- the stock value front as well and that's going to drive an additional degree of economic impact for companies. >> speaking of problem for product companies one of the things you hear in the tech world how the internet of thing is coming to life, companies are building products more and more that connect to the internet, whether it's your toothbrush, thermost thermostat. there's going to be 50 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. is it not rational to panic and assume that all of these things are going to be compromised in some way, or am i paranoid about this? >> the chinese need a lot of server capacity to steal that data. >> i spend a lot of time looking at marriage of physical and cyber and data center, with industrial control systems, i. t. i think we've got to do a lot more work here as i look at what we have left open and the fact that we can -- we still organizationally consider things separate, we have facility managers running, data infrastructure, i.t. managers running the i.t. stacks and a lot of times they're not talking. technologic technologically, we're not there. from the adversary's perspective, you see a foreign intelligence service running through those things right. >> three thoughts with regards it the technology trends and internet of things. as we become more interconnected, we're seeing new invoeiation, cloud computing and virtualization. there's a need to create the transparency, right, to make people comfortable where their data is but we have to up the game in security. i think in the world of i.t. consumerization and mobile devices, smartphones and tab gets, here we have another challenge because i think, as we move forward in time, adversaries are going to exploit in global interconnected and environment, in big kay way. we're just beginning to see it with the malwear. as we look at i.p. adregs all over the place we've got to get ahead of that think about it from innovation efficiency effectiveness perspective but baking in as best we can risk mitigation activities. we're st. louis doing it reactive. >> the internet of things question. i try not to get too worked up about the latest threat and the trends and prefer to stand back and study them. that is concerning to me, kind of going back to your question, just by the blend of lots of separate threads converging there. so, so in the security defense area, i can't say that we've been highly successful yet in defending just a network, you know, like i castle. we haven't fully mastered that yet. now talking about not just defending the castle but the country and the entire empire spread out everywhere, all over the place, it just a different game. and the devices can't run all of the a.v. and ips and things that we load on them that take 90% of the processing power on our computers. it's going to fundamentally change things and that's the part that concerned me about it. your toothbrush, maybe it already exists but it doesn't, somebody's go owe spend how much tie is spent on their tooth. >> it does exist. >> it produces natural point of tension. bring your own defense policies, moving to cloud infrastructure. >> right. >> doing more sass, all of these things produce great efficiency for business. allows people to be more mobile, work from home, have relationships with supply chains and ways you could never imagine without this technology. from that sense, if you're a business, you're trying to increase sales, coverage, productivity, you're pushing this really hard. you have the pain in the tail risks, cybertypes saying, not so fast. it's a natural point of tension. and when you goent know what the repercussions of loss will be for some period, you say, security people, you fix that, we'll go down this bring your own device policy, come back to us when you have a solution and we're not sheing down the business. that leads to hard choices. >> is there more than the government could be doing to help businesses protect themselves? mike, you worked on the house intelligence community. what do you think we need from congress to protect businesses? >> look, i'm not saying that congress through an information sharing bill will absolutely solve the problem completely. i agree with what mike said earlier, you have to use a holistic approach, figure out what to do with standards, people, policy, and procedures within different companies. but like i said earlier, the government is in possession of information that if shared with the private sector, could help them stave off certain cyberattacks. the government, as you heard from at rogers through foreign intelligence mission has come into possession of certain malwear in other information that is of use to the private sector, that alone, people like to say, well, that's not very much, or it's not a finite amount of information, it's going to continue to evolve, and that's absolutely true. what congress needs to be able to do is try and eliminate the barriers to information sharing. it has to most people have written about the antitrust problems, most of those have been debunked so far. but certainly we need to be able to give liability protection to companies. this is where we had a lot of the controversy in the house of representatives on the legislation which passed twice with bipartisan majorities, by the way. but that was before edward snowden. one of the casualties of snowden, in addition to the tremendous foreign intelligence laws and billions of dollars and maybe less confidence in the u.s. intelligence services, is that now it's sort of the dpoeft in the machine. we were beginning to appoint where the president was raising cyberespionage as a key issue in our bilateral relationship with china, finally moving forward on cyberlegislation but post-snowden, that has in a sense affected all of this for the worst and really stymied progress across the board on cybersecurity legislation. >> go ahead. >> i was going to build on the points, i, you know, based on my perspective in the government and industry, we worked on this information sharing program back in the pentagon. certainly saw some downside but a lot of benefit in terms of building trust and to me we have got to move faster in that space. just based on what we just talked about with the threat. >> that's right. >> i also think that that trust, what i see, especially in the private sector, as you build into your either supply chain or a customer base, you're doing joint solutioning, right? not one organization, one person can handle what you need to do with regards to threat mitigation. if you internally try to do it it's really hard. it's information sharing that enables a level of trust where you can do some joint solutioning, and the government needs to reach out and we -- the industry also needs to reach the other way. and we need to develop much more rapidly cross sector sharing. >> i think the government can be a help but there's a huge capacity deficit and a trust deficit. and if companies are looking to the government to solve this problem they might well shut down the job right now. the nsa, fbi, they can throw everyone they wanted and still couldn't do 1/100, 1/1000 of what companies need to do to protect themselves. second, trust michael said, i won't belabor it, snowden destroyed any progressive legislation in this run. be careful what you wish for. pushing the government to be stronger, they did what the indictments, if in the indictments are the first step of multistage international effort to really coalesce pressure against china, that's a good thing. but many of the companies i talked to post doj indictment said, whoa. i've got a lot of business in china, i'm trying to do business in china, what about my data? >> how worried should companies be about that? where does this dispute go? does it keep escalating? >> companies should be very nebbous because there's a lot of uncertainty. do i think the chinese are going to start indicting u.s. officials? that could happen, how much does it matter to a company? not that much. do i think chinese will make it more difficult for u.s. companies to do business in china? they already have. two days after the indictments, requirement for information technology, companies to operate in china in a way they couldn't before. other companies that view china as one of the most significant growth markets over the next decade, looking at this very nervously. i don't think that americans should necessarily worry about their employees getting locked up tomorrow in shanghai or beijing, but are there further obstacles? could this escalate? i think if they're not looking at possibilities, again, they're crazy. >> on that cheerful note, i want to leave a few minutes here for questions i'm think we have a couple of microphones here, if anybody has something they want to ask, raise your hand. >> so you talk a lot about what organizations, corporations should do to protect, defend, collaborate, to share. what's your perspective on the what the technology provider do, what's the customer provider relationship expectations about what's baked in for capables when i buy the solutions? why do we keep hearing about bug fixes for products that were rushed to market instead of engineered bettor start with? >> you want to take that one? >> i'll take it from a couple of different angles. one is in the customer technology provider relationship, i think there's a lot more attention on service level agreements, what's in it, what's out of it, and depends where you sit in termss of responsibility and accountability. i think the challenge is we typically want to avoid risk and so we try to write in insurances within the slas to make sure that we're not liable. we haven't gotten to a point, going back to early point on trust, how we collaborate. i do see that, as especially in consulting as well as with a company, we are getting more and more into this issue as we get into deeper discussions on audits. which is helping us. >> relooking at slas, how to work together i see it also with as we're working through compliance regimes. captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac
degree is demonstrable. the cost of earning that degree, however, has become rehibitively expensive for many as college costs have risen. average tuition for out of state students reached $22,200 this academic year and at private universities average tuition is over $30,000 annually. many students leave with a bachelor's degree in hand, but burdened with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. many students leave college without graduating and lacking the paper credential they hoped put them towards middle class stability or better. well intentioned policies have failed to drive down college costs. an easy flow of federal student aid has enabled students to take out sizable student loans with little, if any credit check or consideration for their future earnings potential. some have even argued that such policies have enabled universities to raise tuition, creating a vicious lending and spending cycle. federal higher education subsidies have increased substantially over the past decade and now represent 71% of all student aid. according to the college board, during the 2012/2013 academic year 40% of all student aid was in the form of student loans. the college board notes over the past ten years, the number of students borrowing through federal student loans increased by 69% from 5.9 million students during 2002 to over 10 million today. approximately 60% of students who earned a bachelor's degree during the 2011/'12 academic year left school more than $26,000 in debt. and as the chairman mentioned, total cumulative student loan debt exceeds more than $1 trillion which is more than credit card debt. increases in debt have been driven by increases in college cost. in the last 30 years tuition inflation and fees increased by 153%. tuition and fees at public universities increased in real terms by 231%. that's an increase that's greater than increases in the cost of health care. increases in tuition and fees over the past 30 years suggest that growth in federal subsidies such as loans and grants has done little to mitigate the college cost problem. in order to make college more affordable, federal policy should do three things. stop the higher education spending spree, understand the true cost of federal student loans and decouple finanederal financing. continuing to increase federal subsidies will fail to drive down college costs. in 2014, the $33 billion pell grant program provided grants to 9 million college students making it the largest share of federal education budget. it grew the pell grant by expanding eligibility and funding resulting in a doubling of the number of pell recipients since 2008. in order to control higher education spending, pel grant funding should be targeted to lower income. it should use fair value accounting practices to get an accurate measure of what those programs are costing taxpayers to ensure the loans use a nonsubsidizing interest rate. in a report released last month, cbo calculated the four largest student loan programs, unsubsidized stafford loans and parent plus loans will cost taxpayers money, not result in a net gain and negative subsidies for the federal government as is often claimed. while the report states that the four loan programs will yield the savings of $135 billion from 2015 to 2024, cbo calculates in the same report that using fair value accounting measures, the four loans would have a cost of $88 billion over the next ten years, not including administrative costs. in other words, the four largest student loan programs represent an $88 billion taxpayer finance subsidy. cbo explains the utility of using fair value accounting to fully understand the cost of federal lending stating that the government is exposed to market risk when the economy is weak because borrowers default on their debt obligations more frequently and recoveries from be orers are lower. fair value estimates take this market risk into account and, as a result, more accurate reflection of the cost of student federal loans. congress should not expand the federal student loan program without requiring that fair value accounting be used to calculate the cost of these loans. any program should use a subsidized interest rate, absent and fair value accounting it is impossible to tell the extent to which the student loan program is providing a subsidy to borrowers. specifically, the department of education should be required to use fair value accounting estimates calculated by cbo and adjust loan rates accordingly going forward on an annual basis. this will help determine whether they are costing money for taxpayers and ensure the programs break even. finally, a federal policymakers want to drive down college costs and increase access to higher education for those historically underserved by the traditional four-year system. the single most important reform that can be made is decouple federal financing from accreditation. continuing is simply increase federal subsidies for higher education will fail to solve the college cost problem. moreover such subsidies shift from paying for college from the student who directly ben fits from attending college to the taxpayer, transferring the burden of student loan financing from university graduates who will earn significantly more over the course of a lifetime than someone with a high school diploma to the three-quarters of taxpayers who do not hold bachelors degree is inequitable. higher education opportunities, policymakers should stop the federal spending spree, employ fair value accounting practices. thank you. >> thank you, ms. burke. my apologies mr. geremia and ms. burke. i never left a committee and it was a call i had to take and i know of your story after columbia, i appreciate that. and ms. burke, sorry to you at the beginning of your remarks. mr. hoover, start with you. your testimony and others on the panel point out, obviously, that financial futures of students depend on fair, responsible servicing practices, but students aren't able to choose who will service their student loan, they're selected by lenders often paid by the number of loans they service rather than the quality of that servicing. talk about that structure. i know from your testimony you don't consider that the right structure. explore with us the better way to do this, sort of an analysis of that structure the way it is now and the better way to do that, if you would explain your thoughts that way. >> thank you, senator brown. currently, the servicers contractors, a volume of loans is signed to the servicers based on metrics. there are three metrics that are based on satisfaction. school satisfaction, customer satisfaction, borrower satisfaction and satisfaction from fsa and some other federal agencies. the other two metrics are the percentage of loan defaults and percentage of the dollars and defaults. those are metrics that for each of the servicers are measured to get their volume of loans. the loans are assigned to these servicers, the student does not know to whom the servicer, their loan has been serviced. they, the federal, the department of education has done a good job of trying not to have mixed borrowers. they're trying to have all the loans for a student with one servicer. however, there are some students who have loans that are still ffel loans that were not sold to the department. there are still cases where students have more than one servicer. what i'm suggesting is that the servicers are contractors. they can still service the federal loans, but they need to be invizable to the students. because when a student calls, a student needs to understand it's a federal loan they're repaying. they go to studentloans.gov and they do their counseling and know everything about their loans there and continue the trajectory of being able to start the repayment of their federal loan. when they go there, if they have an inquiry, there is technology today that would transfer that call to the contractors. the contractors can still be the servicers. just needs to be invisible to the students because students are getting e-mails from the various servicers and they do not understand who these agencies are. they think it is spam mail or junk. that's my suggestion. >> how could your experience going after getting your degree for your masters at columbia, how could yours be better and different based on that structure and the way that you were treated and your interaction with servicer? >> i think, i believe the best way would be a little bit more information about how much interest i would pay over time. i wasn't quite sure about the process, even though i went through interviews, exit interviews. i wasn't sure of what the total debt would look like at the time. and, so, i wish i actually had a conversation with someone. of my servers. i think yesterday might have been the first time that i actually had a telephone call or a conversation. so, definitely more in person conversations or phone interviews. yeah. >> good. mr. hubbard, you represent a group of people that have had some significant legal issues, if you will. if a servicer is found to repeatedly violate their federal contracts or federal laws, should there be consequences and what should they be to the servicer? >> thank you for the question, chairman. this is a critical question. right now there are many bad actors out there. some are under the table. the recent sallie mae case was a good example, a clear signal to the industry that these kind of issues will not be accepted. they will not be tolerated. $60 million being paid out is a sign that if you are going to take advantage of the system, you're going to abuse service members and their loans, then it will not be tolerated. i think absolutely compliance is a critical step in that process. >> okay. >> ms. hoover, the 2014 report said they might consider providing notices prior to and following a change in servicer so the consumer can monitor the transition to ensure there are no servicing interruptions. many consumers were unaware of the servicing change until problems arose, unquote. talk about your views on borrowers experiences with servicers and the cost from servicers lack of or poor communications. >> i have to say the experiences i had with my students were limited in this respect because i, for the number of years, my students have been in the direct loan program and already had one contractor. i have not had and that's because of my student body, but i do believe that the complaints had been registered with the consumer bureau are true and, as we monitor, as our student begin to be more into this multiple servicer environment, i should listen to it very carefully. so far i have not heard that from my actual students as graduates. >> anybody else want to comment on that. mr. hubbard? >> i think this brings up a very important point and that's just a level of opaqueness in the system. when you're a student and you have different loans, you might not even know where those loans are. you don't even see them if you go on to logon to some dashboard to figure out what those loans are and how much you even owe, that could be a challenge to figure out sometimes. having an aggravated view of this loan data would be important. >> senator warren. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for holding this hearing. we should be doing everything we can to help student loan borrowers repay their loans and part of that is improving loan servicing. but if we want to make sure people can repay their student loan debts, shouldn't we start by doing what we can to reduce the size of their debt loads. right now the federal government is collecting loans at 6%, at 8%, at 9%, at 10% and even higher. so, what i'd like to do is i'd like to just ask a question about whether or not you could talk about the impact on people, if we refinanced their student loans. down to lower rates. i thought, mr. geremia, you might start that. >> thank you, senator. thank you, mr. chairman. it would be a wonderful opportunity to have the ability, opportunity to refinance my student loan. as i move into my 30s and would like to begin a family and buy a home, i would like to be able to have that opportunity. >> yeah. >> and you talked about, mr. geremia, you have a home mortgage at what interest rate sph. >> i do not have a home mortgage. >> you have a car loan? >> i have a car loan at 1.9% interest rate. and many car loans are offered at 0%. >> you want to be careful about those. >> yeah. so -- >> read closely. >> so, it would make sense to me that maybe there are more options available to refinance at perhaps a lower rate. >> thank you. mr. hubbard, could you speak just a little bit about what the impact would be on people's live physical we brought down the interest rate on student loans? >> thank you for the question, senator. this is a huge problem right now. if you look at individuals who go into the service with existing debt to begin with and then they're in the service, they have deployments, they have loss and protections and taken advantage of and they can't even do anything about it. when you're in a combat zone, are you really thinking about your student loans? that's a problem. on the back end, as you are potentially going for your education, you're say, a reservist. you might not have the gi bill. you're taking out large loans and taking out the loans with very little information at your disposal and might have just been coming off active duty and very difficult to have access to anyone who knew about getting that right information. so, that makes it very complicated. you're not able to buy a house when you come out of your education. you're not able to invest in your retirement. that impact is when the gi bill, the investment of the gi bill is completely lost when you're mirrored in student debt. when you see what an individual can do without student debt, when they take advantage of the gi bill, it's impressive. it really is impressive. you've got 25 to 30 year olds buying houses for the first time. they're very young. they're investing in the future. the impact of this is on the larger economy. but i would actually like to point out something that is not often looked at and that's the issue of security. national security is a big problem with existing debt for veterans and service members. a service member loses a clearance as a result of their high credit. their high-student debts. that is a direct impact to the national security of the united states. so, that's something i think is worth looking at. one thing that is an issue that would be great, refinance would be terrific for service members. unfortunately, the protections offered are lost when a student, a veteran goes to refinance their loans. that's something that hasn't been addressed. >> makes a very powerful point and i appreciate it. what we're talking about here is how the impact of student loan debt on individuals and also as you rightly point out, the impact on the larger economy. we've got studies now showing that it's causing people not to be able to buy homes. they're not able to start small businesses. they're not able to start their economic futures and build something strong. this is why more than 30 senators have introduced the bank on students emergency refinancing bill. we want to lower interest rates so that more people have a fair shot at getting started at life. i want to pick up on the point you made, though, mr. hubbard. you know, in march, the consumer financial protection bureau put out a report analyzing complaints from veterans about financial products and the report suggests that private student loan debt collectors may be making misleading or intimidating statements to coerce veterans into paying their debts, including threatening to contact a service member's chain of command or repercussions under the military code of justice for failure to pay. and in march the gao released a report raising issues regarding the oversight of contractors who collect on federal student loan debt. mr. hubbard, are you concerned that the federal student loan debt collectors are also using military service members service to pressure them to repay? >> it's a great question, senator. i'm not only concerned, i'm absolutely outraged. this is something that is unacceptable. the sallie mae case was a clear signal that this was not something that will be accepted in our society. when an individual goes into service, that is not an opportunity for a servicer to take advantage and abuse those service members because they don't have the right information. if you have an individual who doesn't have access to clear information and then somebody calls them offering what they believe is information, taking advantage of them, that is just simply unacceptable. >> well, thank you very much. you know, i remain deeply concerned that debt collectors for the federal student loan program are breaking the rules and misleading borrowers. if a borrower fails to pay a loan, the federal government should be able to collect. but contractors must be following the law and should not take advantage of people. i think this is an issue that deserves very serious attention. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator warren, senator reid. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you and senator warren for your extraordinary leadership on this issue which is critical to not just individual progress, but to our economy overall. i want to recognize everybody, particularly robert geremia. you're from rhode island, aren't you? >> yes, sir. originally. >> where in rhode island? >> yes. south kingston, rhode island. >> are you related to kennedy geremia? >> no. >> only rhode island can you have this conversation. i played pee-wee softball he's your uncle, your cousin. >> yes, distant cousin, sir. >> see, i knew it. no, no, he is. you, after graduating rigyou we on to columbia and teaching wilson high school in washington, but i have a question. federal law requires that the individual borrower be informed of his or her rights for repayment options before they enter the program and as they graduate. do you think you get effective sort of advice, information, counseling. you had the full range about full repayment options and public service and can you comment? >> thank you, senator. yes. i did receive counseling. i do not believe, especially with my graduate loans that was particularly effective. it involved unexercised, going through the motions and clicking on boxes. there really isn't that, hey, do you have a question kind of, that one-on-one interaction. at rhode island college during my undergraduate years. i felt like i had that opportunity. things were a little bit more clear spelled out. and, of course, there was your parents. our parents were helping out. as we advance in our careers and our lives and sort of looking to fine tune teaching skills, yes. i read through it, it wasn't clear. it wasn't effective. especially for someone like myself who is trying to pay rent, trying to teach 100 students, grade their essays, finish a master's thesis. yes. >> one of the rhode island college, i was there for the graduation, the tuition is still roughly $8,000 a year. in fact, we have a federal limit on what you can borrow as an undergraduate. there is no limit at graduate school. so the counseling for graduate has to be more focused, more intense and more effective because they are really talking about big sums of money. no limit money there is no limit on that. but i appreciate that very much. ms. hubbard, thank you for your service. thank you for your testimony. under the service members relief act, there are lots of -- they used to call it the soldiers and sailors civil relief but now it's the service members there are many rights that service members have, but they have to be aware of the rights. how good did the department of defense, or do you think they do about informing service member, particularly those who are about to leave the service about their rights as veterans or their rights as service members? >> well, there is a couple of pieces of that puzzle. and i think this is a great question. so thank you for that. >> yes, sir. >> senator. the department of defense is certainly responsible to some degree for making sure that their people are taken care of. on the other end of things, if a servicer is giving them false information, simply lying to them, who is to say that the chain of command, some captain is an expert on education loans? they're probably not. there is definitely individuals within the department of defense that are, but can they reach every single individual? i doubt it. unfortunately, servicers are reaching every single individual, and they are giving them false information. for that member of the military to be able to reach out and find their own information with, say, through an aggregated dashboard or something similar, that would hopefully allow them to alert some red flags. those red flags would bring that person to go out and seek that information from that dod education expert. and hopefully that could circumvent the process of those servicers simply lying to those service members. >> again, this is a rough historical analogy. but in the old days you used to be able to put places off limits because they treated soldiers and airmen and marines and sailors badly. i urge secretary hague toll think about this. maybe there has to be a consistent effort of identifying services who are consistently not just, you know, negligent, but doing worse. and maybe that's what, you know, that dashboard or at least in the company or the battalion or the squadron you can have, don't go there. i think that's important. ms. hoover, can i ask a question. it goes right back to the services. we don't have -- i think we have sometimes become overreliant on major entities to do the servicing. and that has an inherent failure. do you have any advice about how we can provide better services to ones that don't sort of try to take advantage of students? just a general question. >> how we can do better with the servicers? thank you, senator. as i indicated in my testimony, i still believe there needs to be one place of contact for all borrowers, and that the contractors be invisible to the students. i think if the student -- if the servicers were mandated to be contracts with identical processes and policies, a lot of this confusion could be eliminated. and that's where i keep coming back to one place, keep it simple, and therefore when the contracts are renewed for servicing, maybe they can be offered to entities outside. because credit cards and mortgage servicers have some excellent technology and don't have the default rights that we have that are inherent today. >> thank you very much. thank you very much. >> thanks, senator reed. we will try to do a second round if we can before votes. question for all of you. federal student loans are seen as safer than private loans because they offer repayment options. but we often hear that federal loans lack comprehensive and consistent servicing standards. so i'd like each of you just yes or no question on this. to regulators, the cfpp, do the regulators need to establish standards so that borrowser have more protection, ms. hoover? >> yes. >> geremia? >> no. >> let me talk for a moment about credit rating. student loan borrowers are typically young. not always, but typically young, typically limited credit history. they enter this marketplace if the servicer doesn't serve them quite right, they end up -- if the servicer makes mistakes, report loans or a payment plan is delayed, borrowers can be penalized for irresponsibly managing their debt, if you will. mr. geremia, how do servicers affect credit cards and credit scores, excuse me. how do servicers affect credit scores and inability to access credit later in their lives? >> well, i would imagine that if there were issues repaying, there was a default payment, that would affect credit scores down the line, and therefore would inhibit ability to make home purchases, car purchase, even apply for jobs or government jobs. thank you. >> mr. hubbard, you talked about a soldier in combat. you talked about veterans, soldiers and sailers and airmen and women coming home and facing student loan -- various student loan kinds of problems, and how it's much more difficult to launch their economic lives, as senator warren said. talk to me what a credit score means to current and former military personnel who may have to pass credit checks in order in terms of security clearance and getting their economic lives in order, or both if you would. >> thank you for the question, senator there is two sides of this coin there is the security issue and there is the economic issue. on the security side, if an individual has a bad credit score, they're not going to get a good clearance. they're not going to get a clearance. that might be critical to their future in the military or even their personal future on the private side. >> have you seen anile examples of that? >> yes, absolutely. >> okay. >> and then alternatively, the economic -- the economic issue is huge. the investment that america has made in service members is ultimately crippled when these individuals cannot invest in themselves and then further on in the economy. when they can't buy a home, that money is lost. it is lost to servicers, and it is taken out of the economy and not reinvested. >> and you see in terms of government investment, you see a soldier who is, for whatever reason, has now has a lower credit score. sometimes reasons beyond his or her control. you see the government, you see that -- that soldier eligible for a promotion, eligible perhaps the military is looking to provide, to give them security clearance for this new position, this new rank, and they're denied because of the credit score. and the government investment then goes to waste in that sense? >> it does. it goes to waste. this comes to a question of common sense. if we have good individuals who are strong soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, they do well, but they have a bad credit score, what it looks like is they're not responsible. when if you take it back and look at the context, a servicer might have taken advantage of this individual, flat-out lied to them, and allowed this person to take out more loans than they were capable of, or completely inflated the rate on them, they go deploy, they've got $50,000 in loans. they come back, it's $75,000. that is a big problem. >> and there is no real for the soldier looking to get security clearance for a new position, there is no real appeal on this, i assume, to the military of well, my credit score is lower because of x, y and z that i had nothing to do with. >> well, there are appeals, but it doesn't take away the doubt. and the doubt once seeded is very difficult to scrub. >> thank you. senator warren? >> thank you. so we've talked a lot today about how federal investigators have uncovered serious problems with student loans, servicers, and collectors. just recently, the gao raised questions about federal debt collectors that are breaking the rules and federal regulators have cited sallie mae for violating federal laws by overcharging service members on their student loans. now when loan servicers break the rules, they push borrowers to do things that are good for the bottom line of the servicer, but not good for the borrower. and ultimately, if students are not able to repay, then it's the taxpayers who will pick up the bill here. part of the problem as you've pointed out is the rules are complex, and it makes it hard for borrowers to know what they should expect from their servicers. but i want to ask the question from a little different angle. and that is when a borrower thinks that something is wrong, thinks that maybe they haven't been told the truth or that someone has broken the law, where do they turn? where do they go now? ms. hoover, how about i start with you. >> most of the time the students now are going back to their financial aid office, because they are so confused about where else to go. and -- but the tragedy is that sometimes students don't do anything. >> well, fair enough. >> but in a small school like mine, we do due diligence, and we continue corresponding with our students who are delinquent. so they do come back to us. but again, i'm a small school. and that is not realistic for large schools. >> and the further people get out of school, i'm sure the less likely it is that they're going back to their old financial aid offices to be able to get any help. so basically what you're telling me is they don't have much of any place to turn, or at least don't know much of any place to turn. >> until we had the consumer bureau protection agency. but again, the students are not aware of that. and it's, again, just the lack of not understanding of where to go. >> mr. hubbard, how about for vets? >> well, i would like to point out one scenario, if i can, senator. there was a service member cited by the cfpb after they solicited comment on this very particular topic. and this individual went to lower -- under sacra went to lower their loans to 6%. the servicer looked at their loans. everything that was below 6% was raised. >> oh my -- >> that 6% did not get lowered. this individual is an example of what happens. this particular issue was found out by the cfpb, which is the primary route for individuals to make that complaint. since the consumer bureau has come out and been soliciting this information, these stories have come out in droves. and stories like that, they make me sick. >> as they very well should. borrowers shouldn't bear the responsibility for keeping servicers in line. federal contracts should include accountability and oversight protections that require servicers to perform to a high standard. but at the very least, if borrowers have questions or they believe they've been mistreated, should it be clear where they can turn for some kind of relief. i want to ask about one other issue, if i can. and that is you may know that sallie mae has been touting its status as the federal student loan servicer with the lowest default rates. and in february, i wrote a letter to sallie mae asking for data about the company's default prevention strategies. i asked for these data not because -- because not all strategies to reduce defaults are going to provide a path to success for repayment. and some may even leave borrowers deeper in debt. sallie mae responded to my letter, but cited only a few limited pieces of information about its direct portfolio. it did not provide the data needed to evaluate their default prevention program. and as a result, i've asked the department of education to provide default prevention data for sallie mae and other federal loan servicers. so far no answer. so i want to try this from another direction. mr. hubbard, do you believe that borrowers are getting sound advice from servicers like sallie mae about what to do when they get behind on their payments? >> thank you for the question, senator. off the bat, the single metric of the lowest default rate is pure nonsense. just because you have low default rate doesn't mean that the individuals are not mirrored in high amounts of debt. if i make a low payment every day for the rest of my life, i won't default, but i will be paying forever. i will never get a house. i will never have the money to start a family. i will never have the money to start a business. i will never be able to put back into the economy what the american economy has given to me. that's a huge problem. in addition to that, just because an individual goes out of their way to find out information doesn't mean on the back end it's not being treated properly. we found issue after issue with sallie mae in particular with tons of complaints coming into the cfpb. they were the number one complaint servicer of any servicer by a long shot. just because they have a low default rate. well, congratulations. but you still have a ton of debt for student veterans who are dealing with that debt and it's impacting them in their daily lives. >> well put, mr. hubbard. you know, about a quarter of sallie mae's loan portfolio is in deferment or forbearance. and these borrowers are trying to get their heads above water by deferring their payments. but as you point out, the interest continues to accumulate. this is going to add to their debt burden, and ultimately may drown them. we need real data to tell us which strategies work as a life preserver and which work as an anchor for borrowers. also, better data can help drive stronger accountable for sallie mae and other loan providers. i hope we continue to push for that. mr. chairman, thank you. and thank you all for being here today and sharing your stories. thank you. >> thanks, senator warren. and to the witnesses, thank you all for joining us. there is a vote called. ms. hoover, mr. hubbard, mr. geremia and there will be written questions from members who were here or not here. and please answer them within a week if you can. thank you. the reason we are trying to focus on the speaker is because it is the speaker with the full majesty and weight of his position who yesterday made certain allegations, which at this point at least he has not yet answered to. would you prefer i -- well, i was going to yell to mr. wright. >> you don't normally have that in the 26 hours that you presented this case to the public. but the interesting fact is the whole tenor of your remarks going back to 1970 and going back to 1972, taking out of context on mr. bowen, you were there for one and one purpose alone, in my opinion, and that was to imply that members of this side were unamerican in their activities. you stopped, you waited, your motions. will you respond? you knew that there was nobody here. you knew that there was nobody here. >> camscam. put those two men from your perspective. give us your perspective on the two of them. >> well, speaker o'neal was really a giant. he knew the politics of the house. he knew the politics of the house and he kept much of it to himself in terms of other members. but he obviously received a great amount of intelligence all day long from members what was going on in different places. and he always believed that the politics was the art of the possible. that nobody got their way all the time, and he was a broker within the democratic caucus and within the house. and what you saw was newt gingrich, who made a conscious decision that they would always be in the minority because they worked with the majority. and so he started attacking bob michael, the leader, and john rhodes and everybody on that side. >> in his own party. >> in his own party, because he just said the only avenue to the majority is through confrontation. and we're going to take them down. and this was an argument about the misuse of tv now coming to the floor where he would ask these rhetorical questions and make these charges. and he knew in fact that the chamber was empty. but at that time remember the camera was very tight on the speaker at the time, wherever they were. and the rule came to show the chamber either had people in it or was empty. and of course it changes the whole dynamics. but that was a process that now many years later has torn this institution apart, and has really paralyzed the institution. >> congressman george miller, sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. c-span's new book sundays at eight including financial journalist gretchen morgenson. >> what role should the government play in subsidizing finance? we want to talk about it and the populace agrees it's something we should subsidize, then put it on the balance sheet and make it clear and make it evident, and make everybody aware of how much it's costing. but when you deliver it through these third party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver the subsidy through a public company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. >> read more with gretchen morgenson and other interviews from our book notes and q&a programs from public affairs books, now available for a father's day gift at your favorite book seller. michael lind, policy director at the new america foundation recently wrote a cover story for the journal national interest where he argues for revamped policies on immigration, trade and defense. he discussed his proposals which he call news democratic nationalism at an event hosted by the center for the national interest. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> hi, i'm jacob heilbrunn, the editor of the national interest, which has a website with a number of new articles every day, and we also publish a bimonthly magazine and cover story this month is by michael lind. michael lind is the director of the economic growth program at the new america foundation. michael has a long affiliation with the national interest. during his tenure, he published -- when i was there, he published an article on german unification in 1990, if my memory serves me right. he went on to become the executive editor of the national interest under its then editor owen harries. michael participated in the many of the foreign policy controversies of the 90s, went on to become an editor at harper's, then a senior editor at the new republic, a year at the new yorker and then returned to washington at the new america foundation where he has in the past two decades written a number of books, both on american domestic and foreign policy. and he is also quite a renaissance man, having written a children's book and is a published poet. and i would say one of the most creative minds that i have known in washington. now, michael's piece today is called "the promise of american nationalism." and in it he pro poes a sweeping revision of american foreign and domestic policy, focusing on trade, immigration, and our approach to the outside world. and with that, i'd like to ask michael to speak for about 20 to 30 minutes and give us a press of his thoughts on the foreign policy and domestic policy debate right now. >> thank you, jacob. as you mentioned, this is a return for me in a sense to the national interest, where it was my privilege to serve as the executive editor a quarter century ago under owen harries when at a time at the end of the cold war the national interest, more than any other publication i think was responsible for one of the great debates of american foreign policy history, the national interest had a series of essays by people representing different potential strategies for the united states in the post cold war world. from patrick buchanan, a neo isolationist strategist to samuel huntington and jane kirkpatrick, calling for the united states to become an ordinary country again. as it happens and unfortunately as i will argue, the essay that turned out to be the most prescient, at least in terms of outlining what would become the new consensus in u.s. foreign policy was by charles krauthammer and was published in foreign affairs in 1991, the unit polar moment. krauthammer was speaking for a wing of the neo conservatives. at the time i considered myself a neo conservatives. there were a number of neo-conservatives, including patrick and moynihan who wanted a much more entrenchment in u.s. foreign policy. but krauthammer spoke has emerged as the predominant consensus in u.s. foreign policy. he argued that the united states at the end of the cold war was the sole super power. that the u.s. had such enormous advantages compared to all other great powers in the world, that it was ridiculous to act with excessive restraint, which was underestimating our own strength, and he made an argument which is repeated to this day by defenders of american hegemony which is the only alternative to the u.s. being the sole superpower with total domination of the world is chaos and anarchy. this became the consensus in the united states not just because charles krauthammer wrote an article but i would argue because a series of events shifted elite consensus toward this position. the first was the gulf war, where what appeared to be a very easy, quick victory, gave a lot of americans what i think in retrospect was an exaggerated sense of a u.s. military power in being able to solve major problems around the world. that sense of u.s. triumphalism was then underlined in the course of the balkan wars in the clinton years, which were also significant for bringing over much of the progressive political community to what had been a kind of neo conservative foreign policy position. madeline albright famously asking general colin powell why we have this military if we're not willing to use it in humanitarian interventions. so by the end of the clinton years, you had what was clearly a new consensus uniting so-called neo liberal hawks, humanitarian interventionists with the neo conservists, and the realists, the neo isolationists were simply marginalized. this was a new consensus and it has endured until recently. now, the german philosopher hagel says the owl of minerva flies at dusk, which is a fancy way of saying that as a period is drawing to an end, you can see the actual shape of it is. i may be mistaken but i think the period of this particular consensus, even if it is not in the near future, the end is in sight. so looking back we can describe this consensus of the hegemonic census as it evolved and became shared by the foreign policy of elites of both parties in the '90s and the 2,000s. and i would argue they had two components. there was a pattern of power, and a system of world order the hardware and the software, hard power and soft power. the geopolitical military strategy that underpinned it was u.s. hegemony. now, what do i mean by that? the united states fought world war i, world war ii and the cold war with the objective of preventing a eurasian hegemon, which is an alliance of hostile powers which would control the three significant regions of eurasian continent. the consensus much to the surprise of many of us in the more realist camp that emerged in washington by the year 2000 was the way to avert a hostile eurasian hegemon was for the united states to become the hegemon. it had to be the hegemon of europe, of the middle east and it had to be the hegemon of east asia. and it would thereby repeat the formation of any kind of hostile power, but also it would prevent balance of power struggles within these three critical regions, which if they were left to fester, would draw the united states in. and so the conversion of the u.s. from one super power in a bipolar world in which europe, the middle east and east asia were contested into the hegemon of europe, the middle east and east asia took place gradually as a result of various conflicts. the u.s. expanded into the vacuum made possible by the collapse of soef outpower in the middle east with the gulf war. in europe, although the presidency of george herbert walker bush had promised gorbachev as that the nato would not expand natoeer eastward, the clinton administration reneged on this promise and did so. and finally, in asia, the united states simply kept its cold war alliances in place with no practical plan for revising them or incorporating china into some kind of new regional order. although china was invited to join the world economy. if there is a single statement of the bipartisan hegemony strategy that sums it up, i think it would be george w. bush's speech at west point in 2002, where he said competition between great nations is inevitable, but armed conflict in our world is not. america has and intends to keep military strengths beyond challenge, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, in limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace. and if you parse this, what he's actually saying is that the united states will be unique in being the supreme military overlord of the world. other great powers, voluntarily america hopes, will cede the responsibility for attaining their security interests in their own regions to washington, and they will specialize in trade and other pursuits of peace. in effect, what this was doing was offering all of the existing and rising great powers in the world the deal which had been offered to defeated japan and west germany after world war ii. that is in return for becoming u.s. military protectorates you can concentrate on trade and foreign markets within a rule govern system that is established and supported and policed by the united states, so that to the extent that there was a logic to this strategy and it wasn't simply response to opportunistic exploitation of power vacuums after the soviet decline, the idea was that the united states as this kind of hobbsian sovereign would create a world in which really there would not need to be any other great powers because the united states would be doing the policing everywhere in every region. and the other great powers would be one-dimensional powers. they would be economic powers. and china's incorporation into the world order in this american view would take place under these circumstances. it would be kind of a bigger version of japan or of first west germany and then united germany. the u.s. encouraged china to join the wto, to become integrated in the world economy. at the same time the u.s. insisted on maintaining its cold war alliances in east asia. so that was the hard military underpinnings. the united states would conclude these three 20th century struggles to prevent eurasian hegemony by establishing eurasian hegemony for the indefinite future. the rules of world order that it would promote in recent years have been come to known as the liberal world order. the term is bandied about as though there is some consensus about it. i think the liberal world order in the sense in which the bipartisan u.s. foreign policy elite has used the term since the 2000s began actually is a fairly novel thing. it's not the old 1945 united nations charter world order. it's something new. it has two components. this is the new liberal world order, if you want. instead of the old world order. the new liberal world order de -- redefines sovereignty and weakens it compared to the 1945 u.n. charter. which the u.n. charter recognized basic human rights and it also made genocide a crime of universal jurisdiction. but other than that, both in practice and in theory, the united states accepted a high degree of sovereignty for most of the other states in the world and beginning more with the europeans than the americans in the early 21st century, the idea of the responsibility to protect justified interventions by outside powers, particularly in the united states, in countries which were not actually guilty of genocide, as i say, that has always been an exception in the u.n. charter, but for various lesser offense, including simply suppressing rebels, massacres, ethnic cleansing, all of which are terrible things, but were seen as internal events for the most part in the post-1945 era, but now were seen as proposed exceptions to the rule of sovereignty along with actual genocide. the other part of the liberal world order as it was pushed by washington was a kind of economic liberalism which was much more thorough going than anything that washington had promoted after world war ii. after 1945, the u.s. tried to create an integrated world economy so you wouldn't have rival imperial blocks. and particularly among the industrial nations through the general agreement on trade and tariff, the u.s. led an effort successfully to pretty much reduce or eliminate tariffs on exports and imports. but what was called the washington consensus was much more radical in the 1990s and the 2000s. it required that all countries adopt a particular model of capitalism associated with reagan and clinton america and with thatcher's and britain's -- blair's britain. you would have deregulation of finance. most forms of pro industry support would be delegitimatized including tariffs. and most radical of all, you would have regulatory harmization of countries. that digs into basic economic policy sovereignty it if your rules are removed from national particle i ments and transferred to an international legal regime, but that was the consensus in the united states until recently and i think among foreign policy leaders in both parties that remains the consensus. now, in practice, the washington consensus was observed more by the u.s. and a few other countries, including britain than by the other leading industrial economies and america's major allies, japan and germany, particularly japan which like south korea, taiwan and other american protect rats in east asia have followed a highly successful and fairly ruthless version of clean air act classic mercantilism in industry promotion at the expense in some cases the industries of their trading partners. that was america's vision of hegemony. the u.s. would be the dominant military power in europe, the middle east and asia, and it would promote a new world order based on weakened sovereignty in the name of human rights and responsibility to protect, and also a much more thorough going version of economic liberalism than had earlier been the case. now, skeptics throughout this quarter century period, since this hegemony trat strategy coalesced, and i'm one of them, have long thought it would fail for three reasons. first, other powers, particularly other great powers would reject u.s. hegemony in their regions. second, the united states would not adequately resource its own strategy. and third, the u.s. public would rebel. all three of these have now come to pass in 2014. to begin with the rejection of u.s. hegemony in these eurasian regions, it was clearly the plan of the architects of the iraq and afghan wars that iraq and afghanistan and perhaps some other middle eastern central asian states would become permanent bases for u.s. power projection in the way that japan and south korea have done in east asia. this was not to be. the united states so alienated the iraqi people and the afghan people that there is some question as to whether we'll remain in afghanistan and under what circumstances. and in iraq the refusal to do a status of forces agreements has essentially led to u.s. departure. so this is an enormous blow to this project of establishing u.s. hegemony in the middle east. other blows include the increasing independence of the u.s. from turkey, and now egypt where advocates of american hegemony in the middle east had initially welcomed the democratic revolution in tahrir square. we now have an egyptian strong man, general al sisi who was elected by 93% of the vote, something democratic politicians can only envy who was quoted in "the new york times" as saying, and i quote, sisi is suffering and torture. uand the general made one of his first foreign policy trips before he became president to meet with vladimir putin in russia, so u.s. hegemony in the middle east looks fairly insecure. in europe, as we know from the news, russia first pushed back against the expansion of u.s. military force and influence in its neighborhood with its short war in georgia in 2008, and then in this year, 2014, its seizure of ukraine, and fomenting of trouble in eastern ukraine shows that russia is not satisfied with u.s. hegemony in europe. and in china, as we know from the news, has been steadily pushing back against american power in its region, east asia. so how does the hegemony strategy stand now on the software, the rules of world order, all right, now that the hard military underpinning of it is under assault or under question in the middle east and europe and in east asia? well, the liberal world order is not doing very well either. the so-called brics, a useful but somewhat misleading term for rising powers, brazil, russia, india and china, are now associated with something which liberal critics call sovereigntism, that is they're pushing back against the north atlantic's idea, that sovereignty needs to be weakened. many of these countries were former european colonies. and see this as a new form of western imperialism. the western consensus is widely rejected among developing countries, including brazil, and even india under its new premier modhi, to read the western press you would think he's like margaret thatcher, ronald rea n reagan. in fact, india will continue to more statist and nationalist in its areas. finally there's the possibility of anti-american balancing something which proponents of the hegemony strategy had dismissed a decade or two ago, but with increasingly close alignment of russia and china, and even india whose premier was blacklisted as a supporter of anti-muslim riots and has vowed that he will not set foot in the u.s. except to attend the united nations. you do have the major population centers of the old world, the two biggest countries, china and india, in terms of population, in the largest country, in terms of geography, russia, alienated from the united states. and it's very difficult to see american hegemony surviving that. finally two other factors, inadequate resources, including to projections of the results of the budget guest they're was recently agreed upon in congress, u.s. defense spend willing go down to more than slightly more than 2% of gdp in the 2020s, which is probably adequate for most of our actual defense needs, but i would suggest it's woefully inadequate if you wish to be the eurasian hegemon if perpetuity. you would need to spend more money. finally, public support, the public rebelled against the costs of the wars, that was the main reasons for the return of the democrats to power in congress in 2008. barack obama became the democratic nominee largely because unlike hillary clinton, he had opposed the iraq war and most recently we've seen first the british public and then the american congress rebelled preemptively against the idea of deeper nato military involvement in syria. so inertia counts for a lot in politics and it will take some time to go from one paradigm in strategy to another, but i think that if this is not the beginning of the end for the hegemony strategy, at least we can begin to go back to where we were at the end of the cold war and discuss what would alternatives be like. i discussed that in my article for the national interest. i won't go into detail except to make a couple of points. the last time there was a real serious attempt by american leaders to think through what u.s. strategy would be in a multipolar world i think of the nixon administration. you could argue that the presidency of george herbert walker bush envisioned something like this. but because of the loss of 1992, it was never clearly developed. clearly the second bush went quite a different direction. so you really have to go back to richard nixon, who said in the interview with "time" magazine in 1971 "i believe in a world in which the united states is powerful. i think it will be a safer world and better world if we have a strong, healthy united states, europe, soviet union, china, japan, each balancing the other, not playing one against the other, an even balance." now thanks to the influence of the hegemony strategy, even in a democratic primary, any presidential candidate who said that the united states itself should be balanced by other great powers would be considered, you know, just beyond the scope of reasonable discussion. and yet this was the hawk richard nixon in the 1970s. and what's more, nixon arguably was in the mainstream tradition of 20th century american foreign policy. in his 1910 nobel prize lecture, theodore roosevelt said it would be a master stroke if those great powers honestly bent on peace would form a league of peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent by force if necessary, its been broken by others. this view was shared by woodrow wilson, who was sometimes caricatured, and he made many mistakes. but the actual plan for the league of nations was that there would be a great power directorate or concert, that it wasn't a purely utopian experiment. franklin roosevelt was as much of a realist as his cousin theodore. he mocked the kellogg briand pact of 1928 trying to outlaw war, saying war cannot be outlawed by resolution alone. roosevelt who came up with the phrase of united nations and didn't put a whole lot of stock in the actual details of what became the u.n. world organization, he left that to secretary of state kordell hall. he even envisioned great power concert with the regional hegemons policing the world, keeping the peace after the end of the war against germany and japan. he said the real decisions should be made by the united states, great britain, russia and china who would be the powers for many years to come, and it would have to police the world. so in different ways, in different decades, what theodore roosevelt, franklin roosevelt and richard nixon and perhaps the first bush shared in common was the assumption that if you want world peace, it has to primarily be peace among the great powers. and that means that their legitimate prerogatives as great powers, including their prerogatives in their own regions will be recognized by the others, including the united states. so it's a completely different perspective from the bipartisan policy we have followed since the 1990s of trying to encircle and pin down all of the great powers in their own regions. i call it quadruple containment. that phrase is a development of the phrase dual containment from the cold war. quadruple containment means that we contain our allies as well as our enemies. if you look at four major powers, the two major powers of europe, germany and russia, and the two major powers of east asia, japan and china, we contain germany and japan by keeping them as militarily weak, dependent protect rats indefinitely. and at the same time we encircle the other powers in those regions, russia and china on their own borders. now, the problem with the strategy is quite apart from their pushing back and the unwillingness of the american people to pay for this is it requires american leaders to engage in a orwellian kind of new speak so that if any power anywhere in the world, no matter how remote from north america objects to being encircled by american military forces or allies on its own borders, that power is guilty of aggression and trying to overturn the world order. this would have seemed crazy, i think, not only to richard nixon, but to fdr and tr and to most american statesmen through most of american history. so i don't want to go on too long. we can have a conversation. just a few final thoughts about beyond the hegemony strategy and i developed this at more length in my national interest essay, the promise of american nationalism. i think the brics are going to win the debate about the rules of world order. that is, if we have not persuaded china, india, brazil, russia, you know, russia is a somewhat second tier country, but china and india at any rate are going to be two of the three major nation states along with the united states in the 21st century. if we've not persuaded them to abandon economic nationalism and we've not persuaded them to water down their sovereign claims and claims against foreign intervention, then the fact that we've went over the support of members of the european union, you know, europe is not the world. the north atlantic is not the world in the 21st century. so -- and i think we should consider, if you can't beat them, join them. in fact much of the american public and at least half of the american political spectrum is on the side of the so-called brics when it comes to this new sovereign. tism. the united states did not ratify the international criminal court. the bush administration withdrew the u.s. the united states did not ratify the law of the sea treaty. we are in the somewhat orwellian position of denouncing china for not observing the norms of the law of the sea treaty which the american congress rejected. so in a way, backing way from the more extreme versions of what is being called the liberal world order is actually a return to america's practice. and i would argue it's not a matter of liberal democracy versus authoritarian states. it's largely a matter of large populous countries which tend to be the great economic and military powers versus small countries. small countries, including the united states when it was in its very origins have a much deeper stake in a rule governed world order than large countries do. and this is true even when it comes to globalization. and i'll just end with a few remarks about trade. the fact is the countries that are the most dependent on the global economy are not the ones that prosper from it the most. the united states, germany, and japan. the larger the country is in general, the smaller the share of its economy that is involved in international trade. whereas if you're a singapore or finland, you have much higher share and you're much more dependent on foreign trade. when it comes to multilateral regimes, if you are china, india, and united states, which according to most projections in the year 2050 will be the three largest economies by gdp, a trilateral deal among them will open up more trade and investment, you know, than any kind of doja round. or anything like that where you have to line up dozens or hundreds of lesser states. so while it's the conventional wisdom that we want a rules based international trading system, the fact is a results-based system in which a few large economies, including the european union just cuts deals with each other can accomplish a great deal of economic integration by a less involved bureaucratic means. let me finish by quoting ambassador jean kirkpatrick whom i quote in my article. by the way, it's my privilege to know jean kirkpatrick fairly well, and one thing that she returned to again and again and again was something she had learned from one of her mentors, the political scientist at yale, harold laswell. and she often repeated this, and i've never forgotten it. she said when you're designing a constitution, imagine that your worst enemies are in power, and she applied this to rules for world order, and i think one of things we've done is we've designed a constitution that empowers the temporarily dominant nation, the united states and we have not thought about what this means for us in the future when we may no longer have that position of dominance. but what i want to quote is from kirkpatrick's fall 1990 article in "the national interest" entitled "a normal country in a normal time." she wrote, the united states performed heroically in a time term when heroism was required. altruistically during a time when freedom was endangered. it is now time for the u.s. to adapt to a multipolar world. she said with a return to normal times, we can again become a normal nation and take care of pressing problems of education, family, and industry and technology. we can be an independent nation in a world of independent nations. thank you. [ applause ] >> well, thank you. for anyone who is just tuning in, that was michael lind of the new america foundation, talking about his new article, the promise of american nationalism. now i would like to ask anyone in the audience who wants to a ask a question to raise their hand and to identify themselves please for our television audience as well. >> jim. >> i'm jim pinkerton with fox news. >> hold on one second. they need to get you a microphone. >> jim pinkerton with fox. mike, that was really really interesting. i did not, however, hear very much about the obama administration and where they fit in this. and furthermore, it seems to me that while you are quite right about a quadruple containment being very ambitious, it seems to me that the obama administration has made a quintuple containment if you add carbon dioxide which appears to be among the most important domestic and international initiatives that they have. >> in my view, the obama administration continues the hegemony strategy that was settled on as the consensus in the clinton and george w. bush administrations. it has changed its tactical and operational approach. but has not changed the strategy. it does not question the basic premise that the u.s. will continue to be the military hegemon of europe and the middle east and of east asia. but because of the public backlash against the cost of the iraq war, and also because of genuine concerns about the costs in blood and treasure, it has tried to achieve what david caleo once called hegemony on the cheap so that we will continue to intervene in the middle east, but we will do so by sending drones to extra judicially assassinate criminal suspects, rather than to invade countries and try to remake them. the united states will reaffirm its alliances in east asia, the so-called pivot to -- the so-called pivot to asia. but it will not offer china any vision of an integrated security system other than perpetual subordination to the united states in its own region, so i think it's a difference of tactics, and it's an important difference. but it's not a fundamental difference of strategy. in terms of carbon, the obama administration i think is following the lead of germany and some other industrial countries in thinking that the great economic challenge is to promote rapid decarbonization of energy supplies, to avert the consequences of global warming. now, at the same time if you look at the world outside of the north atlantic democracies, this project is not being carried out by the countries that would have to carry it out for it really to be effective. that is, india and china in particular. and, of course, china has just signed the biggest trade deal in human history with russia to import natural gas which many environmentalists are trying to prevent from being produced at all by fraccing in the united states. what everyone thinks about the severity and urgency of global warming, it's clear that if you fairly rapidly moved to replace coal as the source of energy and electricity generation with natural gas, you would slash the amount of greenhouse gases, even though you would continue to have some slower growth. so it's also clear that if you really, really are serious about combatting global warming, as a result of greenhouse gases, you would favor nuclear energy, which is expensive in the initial investment, but once it's up and running, it's much cheaper than renewable energy sources, like hydro and solar power and wind power. so i just kind of wonder about the logic of people who purport to want to decarbonize the energy mix of the global economy as quickly as possible but reject the two most practical ways of doing it which is replacing coal with natural gas and with ramping up nuclear energy. >> ambassador burton? >> i very much agree with your answer just now on describing maybe the obama administration's strategy as fine-tuning the prevailing foreign policy strategy, but i want to raise the question and really maybe challenge you on the point you were making originally in your remarks that maybe we're at a moment where we're beginning to see this consensus collapse. you mentioned the nixon-kissinger period, there, i think, you're correct but it was a pretty unique moment in the sense that there were real challenges at the end of the -- in the course of the vietnam war, protests here in the united states, a real sense that united states needed a new strategy, and there was a willingness, perhaps, of a very experienced president with strong advisers around him to think about alternatives. in looking ahead, i just don't see that emerging in washington. jacob, you called michael one of the most creative people in washington, but, you know, creative in washington is sort of an oxy moron and if i look ahead and look at both republican and presidential candidates for 2016, i don't see the likelihood of somebody necessarily challenging that consensus. so how realistic is it to argue or believe that we're likely short of another kind of iraq-style debacle to see a new strategy emerge in the near future? and i just simply say it's striking to me so soon after that iraq experience and afghanistan that you have an administration that's pursuing the same strategy as you argue it is, that it's coming under real criticism from both parties as being too weak, too prudent, and not strong enough. >> you put your finger on the basic problem which it's very difficult for great powers to retrench for both external and domestic political reasons domestically, any retrenchment no matter how prescribed is attacked as weakness. backing down carefully from over exposed positions than aut tack crow siz do, you can turn on a dime, who's going question the authoritarian government. that is kind of a trap. that is as i said, if a candidate in the republican or democratic presidential primaries use the kind of language about the u.s. in a multipolar world that the well-known hawks would be attacked, either from within their own party or by the other party. and other concern which does bother me because i want the united states to be as secure and as respected as possible is, even if you are engaged in prudent retrenchment, will other countries view this as weakness? so even if you were overexposed in the first place, how do you back down? so there's an enormous temptation simply to maintain the overexposed position and you don't have to worry about sending signals of weakness to your opponents or being attacked at home, but the actual economic and political underpinnings of your power are eroded and eroded. essentially you could argue this is what what happened in britain and france after world war ii. in the '70s britain was sending troops into the yemen and the persian gulf. france is still sending troops to malli. at some point, someone needs to tap a country on the shoulder and say well, you should think about scaling back if not retiring. the concern would be that you need to have an exit strategy. that's just the way i would put it. we needed an exit strategy from the cold war in the 1990s, which at which point we could say that germany and japan and south korea are not going to be our protector to rates for the next hundred years and russia and china, given, you know, the appropriate decisions on their part can become if not allies, at least other great powers and there will be some kind of system of order which is not america's allies versus america's enemies with these trip wires drawn between them. we missed the opportunity to do that in the 1990s, and i don't know really how you can do it at this point without it seeming weakness. if president george herbert walker bush had proposed turning the organization for security and cooperation in europe into a larger structure and then gradually letting the warsaw pact and nato dissolve, that would have been bargaining from a position of strength. if the next president proposes this following ukraine, following the south china sea incidents, it will look like weakness on america's part, and having said that, that's the situation we are in and i do think that the face-saving way to back down from what i do think is an overextended strategy is to propose some kind of regional security structures in which all regional powers and the united states as an extra regional power, if we have interests in these regions, and i think we do, can participate as respected equals, instead of on an ally-enemy basis, and you are quite right. this is still completely provocative idea in washington and you are not going to hear it in 2016. maybe you won't hear it in 2020, but at some point, i think we have to think of what is the exit strategy from this permanent cold war alliance system, which has now gone on a generation after the cold war. >> mike mesetic, pbs news hours. >> you just alluded to this, but you are a fan of t.r., who is very much in the hamilton school of realism. t.r. was a great advocate of mahan, whom you criticize. we have the specific situation now in the south china sea, east china sea, in which beijing is extending its per rim way, way, beyond its borders. how specifically is the united states, if they stick to the principle of free navigation, open access, maritime access, how is the united states supposed to deal with this? >> well, that's a very good question. i criticize mahan because i think his view of world power is depending on control of sea lanes was already obsolete in his own period. if you look at leo amery, who was a british strategist of this period, in responding to the theory of euro asia being the center of everything, he famously said, i paraphrase, it doesn't really matter where the country is located. the country that has the power of science, technology and engineering is goading to the leading military power. if we're going to have a rivalry with china, it's not going to be decided by whose navy controls which sea linesen it's going to be decided by whose factories, whose credit systems, who infrastructure, who r&d is more fundamental in the long run. particularly if it seems likely it would be a cold war in which just as in the soviet-american cold war, the navy has to plan for these naval confrontations, but frankly, i don't think it's a great investment of effort on the part of the u.s. military to plan for limited naval wars with the people's republic of china. on the assumption sthooes these would not turn into all-out war very, very quickly. if we have a sustained confrontation with china and we may well have one, it's more likely to take the form of a cold war with arms races, proxy battles in areas remote possibly from china, such as africa, such as central america, again. we tend to forget about our own neighborhood but that's always contested in great power struggles. so i just think that this -- and one more point about the south china sea. during world war ii, the united states proposed to give the islands to china, our ally during the war. it would give them responsibility for it. franklin roosevelt hoped that china would be the hegemony of east asia and part of his plan for the four policemen, russia, the british empire, china and u.s. policing the post 1945 war, was china would be the hegemon of indoe china than by the french. since fdr thought american interests would be better served by hegemonic china. the let's be clear, rose very roosevelt was a realist. the china he was talking about, it was an authoritarian state. it was an authoritarian state. i read the book "the chinese economy." it's pretty much like at modern economy. t a plan for a state-driven industrialization, which violates all the rules of neoclassical economics and is a developmental state. so that's just one of the paradoxes of our time. the china we're afraid of, a developmental capitalist state that dominates east asia, is what we actually wanted during world war ii, when it was simply not considered by anyone, i think, in the 1940s or even during the cold war, that the united states would permanently be not a major power with interests within asia. time to go to neoclassical economics which michael just derived. >> thank you, jacob. thank you, michael. as you know, michael, i hope you're right that we are at an inflection point, but i agree with ambassador burton, that i'm afraid you're not. maybe it's because i'm too busy listen to robert kagen and krauthammer saying no, we're not. we're doing fine the question is, what piece of evidence would convince them that the time has come to change course? you cite resistance from others, other great powers, the unwillingness to resources at home, and resistance to the public at large. there are still some that say we can clearly resource it. sfrply raise taxes or cut other spending. where is the u.s. public resistance. we don't have people in marching in the street as we did after vietnam. where is the evidence of balancing by other great powers? can you point to something there? it seems we don't have sufficient evidence to convince the other side that it's time to change course. >> well, that's a good point, particularly about the other great powers. now, it was one observed to me that in one of the crises over in north korea, the closer you got to north korea, the more relaxed everyone was about it. it was actually in washington people were more exercised than in south korea. and i think that's the case with russia. the germans have made it clear that they're dubious about another cold war with russia. i've read that the czechs are debating raising their military spending, i believe, to 1.5% of gdp. if this is a moment and russia is a great threat that it's being portrayed as, i assume the czechs would be debating maybe 15% of gdp, you know? we had 50% of the gdp during world war ii. they seem fairly relaxed. if we look at the neighbors of the china that we're supposed to be so frightened by, china is now the number one trading partner of south korea, and it's up there among the -- japan is increasing trade integration. so i think we have to take all of this with a grain of salt. one of the dangers of our alliance system is that it enables irresponsible behavior for domestic political reasons. on the part of nationalists in japan, south korea, and not so much in germany at this point. but it allows the leaders to talk tough and to, you know, poke either russia or china. at the same time, while profiting from their increasing economic integration. and that's fine. it's sort of a game. i'm from texas, you know, we have a rivalry with oklahoma. oklahoma calls texas baja oklahoma. so, you know, we know it's not a serious security threat. so now terms behalf pieces of evidence would convince the hard lined neo conservatives that the united states does not have a stake in global hegemony, i gave up trying to analyze it. i think even they would say at some point that it's clear that the united states is not pursuing of policy they favor. it would probably have to do with the defense budget. in the 1990s, robert kagan and bill crystal published an article, 4% or 6% of gdp being spent on defense. the u.s. is now -- at the end of the cold war, we went down to about 3% of gdp, which is respectable. it's a little more than britain and france. which have the greatest spending in western europe. it's a lot more now. and it shot up again after 9/11. under current budget plans, as i understand it -- it's arcing downwards to even bow low 3% in the 20s, it ebbs and changes. so i think even the supporters of the hegemony strategy would say at some point it cannot be carried out realistically. now that doesn't mean you won't still nominally have the alliances with japan or china think may last indefinitely. the other thing that may mark a clear break from the present period is if there are enough challenges to u.s. hegemony and the u.s. backs down enough, it will create a new situation. new facts on the ground and that -- remember, a lot of foreign policy is psychological. it's intimidation. and this is why i'm concerned. that is, i think it's very likely the u.s. will back down again and again and again because of what the australian diplomat calls asymmetry of resolve, that is something that is very important for them. like crimea to russia. it's just not that important for the united states. it's not worth going to war about. that's why we need an exit strategy, or we need to say here is our american vision of a europe that is not divided between american allies and american enemies. and in asia it's not divided between american protectorates and outsiders. and i think that's how we -- so it's not seen as backing down or unilateral retreat but building a new border with former enemies. >> the next question from james mann, who has written several books on the realists and neocons and on the obama administration, and told me he just completed a short biography on george w. bush. >> michael, thanks for this. i have one question you haven't mentioned but i read is in our article, which is immigration. i would be curious to know how it fits in your thinking and article. both -- and maybe it applies equally -- as to low skilled immigration, paradigm central america, and high-skilled paradigm i guess, india. >> i approach this from the view of strategy in general. if you have a rule governed global market with relatively free flows of capital and of labor, then you can have a shrinking population, and you're -- as long as per capita gdp is going up, then your country can get richer and richer. you know, so that japan, say, could shrink. fewer and fewer people every decade but the fewer people would be richer because the productivity growth is going up and they're better off. in a mercantilist world, in a world where some or most powers are treating economics as an instrument of state craft rather than a rule governed zerosome game, then the logic is different because the high degree of overlap between population and military power. it's not perfect overlap. you have large countries like india which are relatively weak. you have small companies britain has done since the industrial revolution, but in the long term, as productivity defuses and converges among country, all things being equal, a country with a larger population is going to be more powerful both in trade and the military than a smaller country. that's the geopolitics of it. what you see happening in the countries of the developed world is a very deep backlash against immigration the united states on the right and in europe even more so. now partly this is a backlash against a particular kind of immigration, muslim immigrants, rather than necessarily against ohs. but in the european case, it's against eastern european immigrants, too. you know, having said that, even though this will be my most visionary counterintuitive prediction of this talk, i think that in the 21st century, this defensiveness is going to be replaced among many nations, if not all, by competition for immigrants, which will be seen as a source of gdp growth, and also of military power, frankly, and the revenue base. right now, only a minority of countries have population rates above the replacement level. most countries are scheduled to stabilize and then start declining. largely parts of africa, central and south asia, even china is beyond the demographic transition. now seems inconceivable at this point that you could have the major nations of europe and east asia become relatively immigrant-friendly. obviously there's tensions in the united states. relatively immigrant-friendly nations. the way the united states and some other western hemisphere countries are. if the alternative is loss of military security as well as economic clout, then you're going to see a shift. this will be really, the most radical changes in world society in centuries. the pattern until recently was that the major countries of europe and asia sent people. they didn't import them. now birthrights are so low the only way they can stabilize the population is by importing people. at the same time, it raises question, okay, if you're going to bring in people merely to stabilize the population, much less to expand, in order not to deepen divides or ethnic lines within your territory, you need to have assimilation and integration of immigrants. this is a place where maybe i'm showing my biases here, i think the united states, you know, can had a pretty good model, at least until recently, both economic integration and cultural integration of immigrants. economically, if you have a booming economy and jobs for the middle class and so on, it's easier for outsider to get a stake in society. at the same time, the melting pot idea did not require immigrants to cut off all sub- national identities. but we had the hyphenated america. you were irish-american, you were greek-american. you were jewish-american. sweden-american. you could have both identities. this is still quite alien to most of the industrial nations. and i don't know which way they'll go. >> what would you say make senses for the news i have a hard time seeing japan in this -- which for a long time, has had low growth and you don't see the impact of changing immigration policies at all. >> to the extent that population is a basis for power, they will slip down the world power rankings as well as the gdp rankings, which is not to say they will be poor. you know, luxemburg, i think, has the highest per capita living standard in western europe. so countries may make the choice. >> michael, i wanted to ask you about something very contemporary now, which is we've had bob kagan's essay in the "new republic." declaring that superpowers can't go on vacation. today there was an op-ed by walter russell immediate, whom you know well in the "wall street journal" declaring that america can't go on break and we're seeing the dangerous consequences of a lack of resolve in american foreign policy in failing to stand up to vladmir putin. and the thesis was that putin, in a sense, is rescuing us from our own sins, awakening us to our bad behavior that we need to reform, and buck up, start exercising more vigorously, take a much harder stance toward foreign foes. even though president obama, whether you think he's a realist or not, he certainly enunciates realists -- some realist themes. this is a real pushback, i think, in washington against the notion of realism in american foreign policy. there's a very explicit denunciation in kagan's piece and walter russell meade's piece and by charles krauthammer of the idea that america can in fact act more prudently abroad. they would characterize it as cowardice and defeatism. many of the things you're talking about in your earlier really date back to the paul wolf wit wolfowitzs document in the george h.w. administration when he slapped down for espousing a strategy for the cold war in which the united states would retain hegemony in all parts of the world. it seems to me that the consensus may not consist in the american public. and the obama administration, as i see it at least, is waffling. but the consensus among elite -- i'm also -- this is also coming to mind because strobe tal bet introduced the other day and no one disagreed with what kagan was saying. it seems you have a consensus at the elite level that whether we call it liberal internationalism or neoconservative or some hybrid really is still dominance, at least among the foreign policy elite. would you disagree with that? >> no. i think there's a bipartisan consensus. it will start showing cracks. but the problem now -- it's not that it's fishering. it's still a solid consensus. the problem is the enormous gap between the claim we need to show resolve and the actual actions we will take. so, you know, we have to stand up to russia over crimea and ukraine. okay. so we might send some advisers to a baltic republic, right? putin retaliates by eliminating american-manned space flight for a decade. it's amazing. it's amazing. the united states no longer has manned space flight capability. we were hitching rides to the international space station on russian rockets. oh, and it gets better. the united states doesn't make many of rocket engines it needs for our own spy satellites, which is just as well, because the spy satellite the u.s. is temporarily using to communicate with the african forces is a chinese satellite. right? so on the one hand, we have the leaders of the foreign policy intelligence saying we must rule, we must stand up to russia and china. and at the same time, they is spent a generation dismantling the american military industrial complex. the united states does not build a single civilian ocean-going ship. thanks to president ronald reagan, from 1930s under franklin roosevelt all the way up to the reagan administration, the united states government had a simple policy. whatever subsidizes are offered to civilian shipmakers by other countries, the federal government will match. no questions asked. the reagan administration came in, we're stronger. number one, we're going to win the cold war. they decided this was a waste of money, so we would get rid of the subsidizes. consequently, the united states, apart from specialized navy ships and domestic barges protected by the jones ability on inland waterways, we have to borrow all of our ships, all right? that's my answer to all of these triumphialists. teddy roosevelt said "speak softly and carry a big stick." he didn't say denounce your rivals and ask if you can borrow or buy a stick. >> from much of what you have said it seems to me that the best friend a neoconcould ask for is mr. putin, because there was sort of a natural withering away of the overblown role that we were playing toward the end of the cold war. in fact, there have a conversation between senior bush vice president or just after becoming president where bush is meandering around talking about we have -- he says it would help if you could explain what this new role for nato is that you're talking about. # and bush starts saying we have to think in political terms about a new role in the period. he doesn't know. while we dope have an enemy. and he says, yes, isn't it inconvenient not having an enemy in putin has basically come forward. as a answer to every neocon's dream. he changed the rule of the game at least rhetorically. and made it much more difficult for anyone to talk about the standing down of american power. >> i think that's right. again, the question is what are the concrete actions if the united states is going to respond? now, it would not a bad thing if it were a sputnik moment and the response was, as it was to sputnik, let's upgrade our education, invest in infrastructure, redouble for r&d. as i suggested earlier, if you're going to have a genuine great power riv rlryes, but we may end up being on rival sides but at end of the day couldn't tri wntry with the bes technological base will hold out longer particularly if you have cold wars, wars of economic attrition. with the neoconservatives, and i think many of the neoliberal hawks have forgotten is that foreign policy has more than one instrument. the military is not the only instrument. and we have allowed our other instruments to decay by focusing on having marines in australia to contain china or, you know, putting some nato troops in estonia or something like that. i'll give you an example. the united states during the cold war, competed with the soviet union in terms of foreign aid and lending. africa is going to have 2 billion people by the year 2100. those are 2 billion. enormous needs for infrastructure. the chinese are building highways and ports and railroads in africa around the indian ocean and so on. while we have people on the left and the right in the u.s. congress trying to abolish the export-import bank. which on a mump, much, smaller scale helps to finance infrastructure and manufacturing with inputs from u.s. exporters in the rest of the world, right? as, you know, if you look at what is going on in eurasia now it's one of the greatest periods of infrastructure construction in history. pipelines, high-speed rail from china potentially 0 europe. and congress cannot agree to come up even with a tiny, modest pilot program nation of a national infrastructure bank. much smaller than the european investment bank or the state development banks that are possessed by brazil, india, russia, china, by all of these other countries. so i don't want to suggest by any means that we should relax and that we won't have great power conflicts, but we need to stop thinking in terms of sending divisions here and submarines there. the cold war was first and foremost an economic struggle. the reason the soviets cracked was their economy cracked. we were rich, prosperous, and innovative for a fraction of the money they spend on the military we could outspend them. that's how britain won the knee poll onic wars. it was much smaller than france. but it had better credit and more prosperous economy. it's the example in the world. it's ideological war. it's propaganda. even in the past of a few months, the revelation now about the nsa. taking faces from the internet. the revolution that the cia and afghanistan and pakistan was using hospital operations as a cover for getting dna from potential terrorist suspect. including bin laden's family. this is enormously damaging. you know, to america's image in the world. i share some of the concern of main stream foreign policy establishment with america's power and resolve. they're thinking in this kind of board game manner where it's just like moving troops here and there. and we need is a conversation assuming we face great power challenges, let's look at every dimension of power, including power and the power of influence and example. and not simply think it's a matter of sending an increasingly whittled down military ace symbolic presence here or there. >> michael, as a final question, let's test those powers of creativity i mentioned in ambassador burt commented on. it's 2015 what does america look like domestically and what is its standing in the world? >> well, there's been a number of studies of what the would will look like in terms of gdp in 2015. they tend to agree that the four major economies will be the united states, india, china, at least in terms of gdp, and the european union. and if we're looking at the middle of the 21st century, it's only a few decades from now, the united states will still be in an enviable position. it will be the only big country that is rich and vice versa. unlike robert kagan and the many of the neoconservatives. i think we're in a fairly secure world. the united states does not really have to control the south china sea or the marshes of prussia in order to be a world power. the source of our world power is we're the only first-world country that is only the scale of india and china. they would be big and important but they're going to be poorer per capita and have less disposable power. on the fourth area of major wealth, the european union, i think, will be some mix of cooperation and local sovereignty. it will not act as an entity in world affairs. probably by that time you will have a somewhat more liberalized mellowed russian nation. russia is part of europe. it's always been part of europe. the idea that russia is not a european country. the next time i hear them say germany is europe's largest country, no, russia is europe's large effort country. and interestingly enough by 2015, absence of major change in british immigration policy britain will have more people than germany. these things can change as a result of policy. if you look at the large, rich europe, in which the two largest nation states are russia and britain, that's somewhat different, you know, from the german dominated eurozone. i think there's reason for cautious optimism. and the fact is this is the world that we sought to create and the world conflict of the 21st century. we wanted china to be free from colonial domination. we wanted india to be independent. we wanted a whole europe that wasn't divided by an iron curtain. having achieved it, we're now saying it's so dangerous that we can't demobilize, we can't pull back, you know, we can't abandon anything. so, you know, maybe what we should do is declare a victory in the world wars. >> well, thank you, michael. having known him for many years, i was able to assure my colleague, paul saunders here, that in some meetings, you know, you get these air gaps where the room sort of goes silent. i assured him that with michael,
>> i fear it is going to be difficult to satisfy my friend on this point. i think we should proceed taking the jobs. eight -- what i think would be an excellent reform, one that we committed to in the coalition agreement, and that is to say that if members of parliament are seriously in breach of standards and judged to be so, then they should not have to wait for a general election to receive a verdict of their constituents. watching primen minister's questions from the british house of commons. question time it airs live every wednesday at seven :00 a.m. eastern -- at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you can watch anytime online at c-span.org, or you can find video of past prime minister's questions and other british public affairs programs. next, a discussion about ukraine from the conservative political action conference. later, a senate hearing on syria. after that, a supreme court oral caseent on a death penalty . entityore than one manages the key identifiers of the internet, then by nature the internet will no longer be one net. at the heart of the domain name system is the root services system. in orderpreciate that to resolve names on the internet, there is an actual root system that makes that work for the entire planet. in the root, all names are resolved to make sure that when , forype www. c-span.org example, or any other website name, you go to the exact site that c-span wants you to go to all the time, every time, for the last two decades. monday, on the communicators at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. a look now at the crisis in ukraine at the annual conservative political action conference on saturday, former under secretary of state paula dobry and ski -- halle dobr ianski moderated a panel. this is 25 minutes. >> good afternoon everyone. we are going to spend some time focusing on the crisis in ukraine. i want to take a minute and just give you a little bit of context to what is happening. let's go back to last year. in november of last year, then president yanukovych turned down the opportunity to become associated with the european union. that association would have resulted in economic reforms and political change in ukraine. ukraine is in dire economic straits. make a reals could difference in its way forward. as a result of his unwillingness to sign association, massive protests took out on the streets in kiev and throughout ukraine. people were protesting and put their lives on the line, once because they wanted to become associated with the west, with the european union, and secondly , they were also protesting against corruption, because corruption has played and set the ukraine back. fast forward to february of this year. three diplomats from europe went to ukraine to try to broker a peace between the opposition and those demonstrating on the street, and with then president yanukovych. you had the polis foreign polishr, -- you had the others.minister and the russian ambassador was on the scene. an agreement was concluded very a that was signed by then president yanukovych. the agreement calls for a change in the constitution, an agreement to go forward with thereic reforms, and that would be new presidential elections to be held before .ecember at the end of 2014 there were other terms that were established between the opposition and then president yanukovych. it was signed by president yanukovych and those three diplomats. what happened then was in the .ews president yanukovych disappeared. he ended up in moscow. then, the next thing we saw was that there was a russian aggression into crimea. is comes at such a crucial time. ukraine is politically ripped and economically in very dire straits. what will this mean for the west? states and the we have a great panel and i want to invite him to come out and join. who is aiff mays foreign affairs contributor to the washington times. [applause] we also have paul saunders who exec -- who is executive for -- and also associate publisher for the magazine, "the national interest." [applause] gentlemen. let me go to you immediately. the question on everyone's mind, first and foremost, is why did -- presidenttine putin support this advance and aggression into the crimea? it flies in the face of international legal agreements, including the osce and the budapest memorandum which the u.s., u.k. and russia signed when ukraine give up its nuclear weapons. the agreement was the protection of ukraine's sovereignty. paul, why? >> speaking from a russian perspective in trying to explain your thinking, rather than from my own point of view as an american, to boil it down to one reason, i think russia has been quite frustrated over the last 20 years by the way that europe has developed. many russians feel that russia does not have the kind of role in europeand security that they liked. they are especially concerned whichthe fate of ukraine, has very close historical, cultural and other ties to russia. i think what you see here is essentially president putin trying to tell the united states , you can't europe decide the future of ukraine unilaterally. you need to consult with me. >> are the measures you could use which are in conformity with international norms? this flies in the face of -- >> i would take a harder line. the basic reason he does this is because he can. czars, russia had an empire. under the commissar, russia had an empire. he knows -- that is the way he looks at it. palin was here recently. i want to give her a compliment because it turns out she could see russia clearly from her house. [applause] she also saw vladimir putin didrly, more clearly than to american presidents. president bush famously looked into putin's eyes and saw in his sole something akin to thomas jefferson when he should've seen something to ivan the terrible or catherine the great. recess with a russia which assumes the new question, that russia wants to live by international norms, that they want to abide international law. vladimir putin is an aspiring democrat, when in fact he is a very convinced autocrat who thinks that the way we try to govern the world, this idea of an international community is very silly. in 2008 he chopped off a piece of georgia. --you listen to condi rice now they're going to chop off at least the crimea from the ukraine. >> let me ask you this. why does this matter to the united states and to the west? should we care about what is happening? tell us why. >> we better care. now, president putin is deciding what he should do next. this is not the extent of his ambitions. we better think out whether or not we're going to send a strong message of our own, or whether we sent a weak message. he is not the only tyrant in the world who's looking at this and learning lessons. among those lessons is this. under the budapest memorandum's you mentioned, yes, ukraine's territorial integrity was guaranteed, in exchange for which the give up its nuclear weapons. you don't give up your weapons the matter what the western community says. >> i have to agree completely with you. it undermines the nonproliferation treaty. you absolutely have a ron watching the situation very closely, as in asia countries like japan are also watching. >> and china which is throwing its weight around asia as well now. >> paul, do you want to jump in? >> i guess i would say a couple of things. certainly, i agree very much that it does matter. there's no question that it matters. we are really talking here about the future of europe, and beyond that the future of the international system. i would differ a little bit with cliff on the question of russia doing this because it can. there are a lot of things that russia can do that it does not do. russia could be sending s 300 missiles to iran. at this point it is not. russia is defending and geranium lawsuit because they signed a contract to deliver those missiles. at the request of united states they did not. they also decided that they wanted to keep the money, which did not please the iranians very much. they certainly have the option to deliver those missiles. the iranians would be quite pleased with that. russia is not doing that. -- whatwe need to russia has done is entirely inappropriate. it violates international norms. it violates a lot of agreements, but the question of russia doing things because it can, i think that is not a helpful way to think about it. >> gentlemen, let's talk about the united states, the west, looking at options as to how we can have potential influence. first, the question is do we have influence on the situation and this crisis? secondly, if we do, are the political instruments? are the economic instruments? do we use sanctions? are there other options on the table? >> i think it is true that president putin has most of the high cards, particularly when it comes to crimea. he is probably also considering whether he should take parts of eastern ukraine along with it or treatd how he is going to western ukraine. i think he can have an impact on that and his thinking further down the road. my view of it is this. we shouldn't be taking steps simply to punish russia. rather, this is a good occasion for us to takes depths to strengthen america, which will send the most important message. first, we do not begin to take a peace dividend and bring our military down to pre-world war ii levels. we don't do that. bad idea, very bad idea. now is not the time to lay off soldiers so we can hire more irs officials. this is not what we want to be doing. secondly, i would say president obama has said just a few years ago that he was going to have an all of the above energy policy. it hasn't happened. we should be utilizing every source of energy we possibly can. the keystone pipeline from canada, encouraging entrepreneurship, all of our gas. we should begin exporting to europe to reduce the dependence europe now has on russia, and eastern europe in particular. you may agree with me. here is something a little more radical. g7 was expanded to g-8, and russia was included. it did not belong. it is not productive enough, it is not a democracy. i think we should be discussing that it does not belong in the g-8. she turned the club into an association of democracies and not pretend that those who join will become democracies if they are rewarded in advance. >> what about the wto? wose two have singled out the russia has used economic instruments to strangle ukraine. what about the wto? is that on your list? >> everything on my list will strengthen the united states and bolster american leadership, economic power, military power, diplomatic power in the world. i think the united states has to shoulder the burden of leadership because there's nobody else that can do it. the international community is not going to do it. >> let's see if paul agrees. >> i certainly agree on the military, i certainly agree on american energy. i think those are two critical areas. on the g-8, we can decide in this room that it is something we want to do. there are six other countries there. $120 billionbout from exports to russia. 80,pe has about a hundred -- has about it on an $80 billion to 200 billion dollars of foreign aid to russia. i'm not sure the foreign minister of france is prepared to consider canceling the sale of two mistral helicopter hair. to the a carriers russian navy. i think we're getting a little bit out in front of the europeans on that issue. >> freezing assets has also been put on the table. freezing assets of those russians complicit in these actions. >> freezing assets, i think, frankly, is a little bit of a comical idea on the part of the administration. with the united states congress ago an passing 15 months act which gave the u.s. government the state department and treasury department the ability to do that. what ill intentioned self-respecting russian after 15 months would still have significant assets in the united states? earlier this week, the administration announced they would extend the authority to this issue. they said we have created this authority, but we are not naming any specific ibo at this point. there have already been three anybody who did not take their assets out in the to work onths to get that. i imagine a number of them called the bankers fairly quickly. i don't consider that to be a credible policy. at extenduld look some of the things that cliff was saying, let's talk about europe. partnersean allies and are trying to develop their own energy resources. i certainly think the united states should get behind that. there are some american companies exploring for shale gas in western ukraine. that could make a huge difference in terms of ukraine's energy dependence on russia. i think that is certainly something that should be supported. we also need to think after the situation, and i'm sure we will hear from our allies about the disappearances and -- the disposition of our forces in europe. that is something we should consider very carefully. >> let me ask both of you, the foreign minister of sweden tweeted this morning that the helsinki monitor's tried to get into crimea and they were not able to cross in to actually verify the allegations going on. those statements may that the russians and russian speaking ukrainians, that their lives are in jeopardy. they sent monitors but they could not get in. the first question is that he tweeted that and said that there is a movement of russian troops in the area. what does that portend? no monitors, troop movements, where is this going? >> let's first understand that it is more than a violation of international norms. when you send your troops into a foreign country, especially when they are not wearing proper insignia, that is a violation of the most basic international law. that is an aggression, there's no question. it is possible that resident putin knows exactly what he is going to do tomorrow, the next day and a day after. it is also possible he's trying to see and judge and then decide. what i don't know is that whether or not he thinks that i would want the ukraine as part of my sphere of influence or part of russia proper. he could think it is better not to have that and simply let the government of ukraine know that no decision should be taken at displeases him. there are a number of possibilities he is looking at. it is hard to fathom his strategy exactly. cut the eastern ukraine off from western ukraine, he could leave the western ukraine as a ward of the european union for a very long time. europe and america would have to pour money in. he might want to do that. he might reconsider and that. i don't know if he's making a decision to do that. i think crimea is probably him.stically lost to >> will this aggression go further and split ukraine? >> we have eight days until the referendum in crimea. country and this effective administration, i think eight days would be enough time to try to work with moscow and others to point crimea in the direction of much greater hadnomy, somewhat like it under ukraine's 1992 constitution and ukraine had -- when crimea had much greater autonomy than it has now. with the leadership that we currently have, i think that it is very unlikely that that heavy lift will be accomplished in eight days. ukrainelook at eastern and compare it to crimea, crimea is roughly the size of the state of maryland, geographically. there are about 2 million people there, so the population density is not too high. eastern ukraine is a totally different situation. sending the russian military into eastern ukraine, into major urban centers where the , and inon is divided many cases more divided than crimea, that could potentially be very costly. it is certainly very different -- is surely a different russiansthan sending into crimea, which certainly was and of the russian empire the russian republic of the soviet union. that is until 1954. it is just a different situation, and president putin may come to that point. i think that cliff is correct in suggesting that he probably has not decided, but i think for the russian leadership that would be a much tougher decision than the decision to go into crimea. >> cliff, you want to make a point? >> the outcome of the referendum is not clear. 60% of the population of ukraine does identify as russian rather than ukrainian. where long been a place russian military retires. it is like colorado springs on the black sea for russians. is also the basic stalinist rule that who votes does not count, who counts the vote counts. i think we know how the referendum will come out. that is the most predictable part of it. the rest seems to be open to different outcomes. >> it is what the audience knowing that there have been quite a few polls taken in the ukraine itself. by the way, for both east and west, the numbers have come up higher in a variety of polls when ukrainians vote russian ukrainians and ukrainian speaking ukrainians, when they up and asked if they want to be associated with the east or west, always the west has come out ahead. you, isn, let me ask this a new cold war? is that what we are witnessing? [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> is this a in cold war? >> i don't think it has to be. that is one possible outcome. i think we have to be careful moving forward in how we are thinking about this situation. you know, there is one school of thought, which is that we need to isolate russia.
"history of money." and talk about new technology will change every day life. thursday night a discussion about the future of politics with former maryland governor. and on friday at 8:00 p.m. stern "in-depth" with reza aslan. an entire week on the civil war. monday a look at the overland campaign in virginia. on tuesday, the battle of' stevens. wednesday night the 150 anniversary of the battle of crater and general sherman's march to the sea. find our television schedule one c-span.org.nce at call us at 202-626-3400. join the c-span conversation. and like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. during his weekly address president obama talked about his administrations efforts to make college education more affordable. doug collins gave the republican response. democrats to said act quickly to pass the bill. >> over the next couple of weeks schools across their country will open for doors. students will suit up for sports, marching band and the school play. moms an dads will snap those first day of school pictures. i want to talk about one of the most important things any of you can do this year. and that's to begin to prepare yourself for an education beyond high school. we know that in today's economy whether you go to a four-year college, a community college or a training program, some highest education is the ticket to middle-class. and there are also much more likely to have a job in the first place. the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor's degree is less than 1/3 of the rate for those without a high school diploma. but for too families across the country paying for higher education is a constant struggle. earlier this year, elizabeth cooper wrote to tell me me about middle-class family is hard to afford college. she tells me not poor enough for people to worry about but not rich enough u enough to be cared about. michellers i know the feeling. we only finished paying off our student loans 10 years ago. i want to make sure students like her cannot rack up big debts. we expanded grants and college tax credits for students and families. we took action to offer millions of students a chance to cap their student loan at 1010% of their income. and congress should let student refinance their loan just like the parents can refinance their mortgage. as long as college costs keep rising, we can't keep throwing money. colleges have to do their part to bring down costs as well. that's why we proposed a plan to tie federal financial said to a college's performance and create a scorecard so that students and has ts to see which school the most bang for your buck. in january more than 100 college presidents came to the white house to increase opportunities for underserved students. since then we met with even more leaders who want to create new community based partnerships an support school counselors and this week my secretary of education announced a series of economyments to support student who is need extra academic help getting through college. this is a challenge i take personally an to all you young people now that you're heading back to school. your education is something you to take personally also. it's up to you to push yourself to take hard classes and read challenging books. science shows when you struggle to solve a problem you're forming new connections in your brain. so when you're thinking hard you're getting smarter. which means this year challenge yourself to reach higher and set your sights on college and the years ahead. your country is counting on you. and don't forget to have some fun along the way too. thanks, everybody. good luck on the year. >> a small community ofless than 1,500. family often go to camp, kayak or just catch a few trout. at the local high school we had a good honest conversation about growing the economy, creating more jobs and ex-panting opportunities for all americans. i listened to workers and parents who were living paycheck to paycheck share their concerns about the future of their family and also about country. like most americans my constituents are frustrated with the status quo. they wish washington would start meddling in things that aren't broken and start fixing the things that are. they think it's too much talk. they want to know why can't our leaders just do their jobs of i know how they feel because my republican colleagues in the house and i have made the american people's priority our priority. and that every child get a good education. the democrats in the senate decided no to do nothing. our bills are collecting dust. they passed a common sense solution without doing the hard work to pass their own. that's just irresponsible. there's no other word for it. republicans have led efforts to enact job training legislation that helps people get back to work. we've given veterans outdated federal broccoli timely care to what they need. nd we prevented major highways from shutting down. president obama, his own party controls the senate and they need to get to work. more than 75% of them have originated in the house. republicans aren't going to slow down. we're going to keep passing common sense solutions for american families. we're going to keep the pressure on the senate democrats to do their job. thank you so much for listening. >> hi, i'm greta bronner and this week on the "washington journal" we're going to be focusing on president lyndon's johnson's vision. tune in at 7:00 a.m. eastern time and join the conversation by calling us or sending us an e-mail at c-span.org. u can send us a tweet on @cspanwj. >> next a look at the conflicts between russia and ukraine. talks include the potential implications for the u.s. this was held by the center for national interest. it's an hour and a half. >> well, thank you very much, everyone, for joining us today. it is always a pleasure to have such a big crowd in the middle of august and on one level, i am very grate to feel have all of you here. on another level, i wish we had a little bit less perhaps to talk about. but i think we'll have a very good discussion today. we've got two excellent speakers. i'm paul saunders for those who don't know me. i'm the executive director for the national interest. i'm here to talk about russia's motives and policies in ukraine. we have got two really terrific speakers both of whom have written recently for our magazine "the national interest." to my right is an associate professor in newport, rhode island, a former editor of "the national interest" magazine and has a cover story in the previous issue of the magazine that discusses some of russia's otives in ukraine. mick gronion directs the institute for democracy in corporation in new york, an organization that is connected to the russian government and under nick -- >> informly. >> informly, ok. ondernick is a former advisor to russian government officials and has ery good insights into russian thinking and foreign policy. he's also written very frequently for the magazine particularly on our website one of his more recent pieces which got a lot of attention "what's at stake in ukraine." so we're very pleased to have both of them with us today. we do also have just out today actually the new issue of our magazine which we're very excited about with an important cover story about henry kissinger's new book, as a matter of fact. nickday we will start with on my left. each speaker will have 10 minutes. i will be firm and enforcing the 10 minutes because we'd like to preserve an opportunity for discussions among everybody here today. ondernick, please. >> thank you, folks. as always it's a pleasure to be here because i am repeating that this is the best place to discuss politics because of audience because of the people who really learn the roots of this institution and because always you have very good people who can argue your position and i like when somebody's challenging my positions which i'm formulating. i would like to be very short, but i would like to start from a couple of expo situations of the meetings which is wildly going through the circles an through american media. it is important that we understand what is the narrative in washington. you have to know what is the narrative in moscow. rst, one of the biggest lies big lie of putin. it's just absurd. everything that happened in ukraine is happened because of yono kovic he was the riding source for this negotiation with the european union. to hen they came emple u. found e treaty, this guy out that europeans are ready to pay $1 billion. and these corrupt guys decided that it's a joke. and they're friends and family. by the way, all these people today running ukraine were part democratic corrupt ifferent government. long time corrupted person under many, many investigations. yes. another member of previous circle of small number of corrupt officials in ukraine which means talks about purification, new starting, fight against corruption. it's a joke. and this is perceived in most as a joke. another thing that putin may be yanocovic idn't want to sign that treaty. like i said it's lie. just e.u. couldn't offer anything. after which, and you'll know is most famous phrase are my good father which yanokovic coulden turn down. yanokovice result why decided not to sign. but he didn't mean he wanted to sign that. he just wanted to sus spence. t, you know, in reality most consider that after mediation of he european partners, authored several calls offered by president young violence. as a result. of negotiator and on behalf three foreign ministers. and ovic was betrayed by left the country. it led you to the authors who is the power. f you look at this opportunity and declare its independence. . it's a joke whasm kind of annexation? >> no power legitimate pow tpwher kids cry mean government decides that they don't want to fall taller. from western part of ukraine. is it the hero? they decided that it's the time to solve their own fate which is in their own hands. you know, some people consider that this is against ukrainian coast officials. it's another joke. we know we do not kill. we know the kosovo case against serbian constitution and you goss slavian constitution. anyone who was in the constitution it's going to be and now it could be urn british and because british crumb the united states was broke. it was desigh for them to be independent. this is at least the narrative -- i'm not going to because it will take too long. i don't want college. i will be ready to answer the questions. second part which i would like to raise a cup of -- couple of sanctions. >> i think one of the worst things we are facing at this moment and in international regulations. this is for training that one great forward is deciding to punish another great forward. -- has uclear challenged japan to pacific to all these places. and even some leaders of this great power are, you know, announcing that they isolated and promised us. it's another joke. it is perceived in moscow as a joke. >> how can you isolate russia. it's unbelievable. why when the leader of this country is not talking about these kind of things. there is a great immediate meting. before that i'm a dub deal. they shuled give him $400 billion deal with china. now, by the way, last week ussia sibed mem random for negotiations with iraq. it will have a very serious cons questions. because if you're out under desertion. you have no incentives to work alongside with the others who there. this could be crazy for russia to follow the line. he same thing -- other countries. ich whom russia is, you know improving and increasing. it's the relations. a lot of articles were published and the national interest about america's policies, unintended cons questions. how washington is pushing russia and the embrace of china? sometimes times -- it's not a good thing to throw both both. many other states mentioned dock. that play -- i don't flunk and i just emphasize on this i have the national interest and but another important thing is that initially washington decided ha moscow is not going to retaliate. but it's not true. moscow isly rally. -- italy. gor furrer in a -- or go further. china, iran, and, you know, russian retaliation to europe was very celebrate it. very cautious but very shark and ery low and this is the most sensitive area. many countries are just sbess pratt. baltics the most noises peopling in the woorled there. and they told them. they said the most noisy people they are hurt. ends with more. and not toin trouble enforce sanctions on the friend term.e weighing for their that's why some this second for sub nomy is the most stanive. at the same time i pished i have more shirts. if you can store some songs. you can go to friends an family. they are just. learned that sanctions is one is one of the best in russia. economy didn't make it work. you went flew all of the seasons. russia. russia's lost as result of sanctions, harley a tasty woman. might be 1-b. this would increed. but this response of moving him gave a below for 10. e.u. e russian trade with is 15000. only elect table fish this. all the things beat them show. >> i toik like them said -- it is television. finnish prime minister are complaining that they're fwining to stop going. after him on the russian sell ision appearsed yol william. think said honestly blood is everywhere. and said that jen is very economy. the growth in europe is no becoming lower and hay are in trouble. russia is one of the biggest consumer in market if not the biggest in the area. first or second. i don't know. money? ink is the if you can't punish this kind tri. t's not of course -- it's very interesting. i would like to say a couple of words about the words and phrases used by american olitics. >> we've passed 10 minutes. > i'm coming underway. the curn russia, leaders they have another culture. if even they are very unhappy with american policy. they never became personal. they never used condescending words against america. not amongst your leaders. once america keeps up with the tradition, that and at this moment we are witnessing unfortunate to this. into relations. the last thing i would like to say, is russia has a very clear end in ukraine. > clear for everybody. it was scheduled five years ago. a year ago. >> this is russia's washington -- they're watching him close. it depends on -- they don't have anything and there you are totally incorrupt and then kill an they are totally military, economically, and washington and europe. the jurep not happier. .hey said the problem so many different people like . ssinger, and many others the turk made doubleization of power. that's it. a very mo and russia is going to go up to the end in achieving. it goes of this is very cloorly formulated in moscow. if america didn't say anything about american aids. >> do you think -- which gives me an opportunity to see that to defeat russia. to help control over russian resources. as tfings in the 1990's. and use is this. further irconfrontation is dirty. i can only understand it. but everybody in we understood the classic race for a fight. for itself slow began and teach. i would like for them to finish each craig. why toast flead? because america has winners. i would like for everybody to remember this. >> thank you. >> all right. nick. >> thank you. ake it away. >> paul noted that i'm at the u.s. olive work hall. i'm actually on leave. and i am speaking in my own personal capacity. we have a war college since that out of course is known for the department offense. we've reached a point in this crisis where today acrording to news reports we may have the first incidents ofment and ushing the military yunes. the ukrainian government making blases were destroyed. so we reached to a point and this is.ook back somber, faced. spokesman and smokes woman. nd cam out and said. this is not -- we've had very clear indications all along that kraine matored the -- russia . uld enforce his way if and it doesn't mean that the united states has to agree with those red lines but sometimely, we, the united states have been much better surprise. they're reaction -- we wait for events to develop on the ground and then we react to them. without a sense of why these things matter in the big picture. it was very clear at that event that ukraine mattered under to a person point and the assessment was that if russia was willing to loan the $15 billion to support the ukraineian policy bills. we, you cray. you know the situation where you have been educated apparently to the status of. there hasn't been much of a conversation bluzz of why. rerp moat relaxed. we had these loan storms to know where ukraine apanchtly has become scry lent. 's and european policy makes it. while that is taking place. i don't think from my purge o genlt. that has been met. that you sut len di found a splay. he's not and with that because of reacting to two events. it makes me much more difficult to be able to find a way out. , can kor. if we can't articulate it too fash. what resources we're willing to commet that. makes it much more difficult to any le to engage any c-span. with that in mind, we will have to deal with. i'm going to mention a mention. and we've already had a flu ofment. nd former pracktigser ins. that has the hue take status. >> he's -- more power deballs to the regions where they have a much greater. as a. we haven't answered this yesterday. barley from your marries. . o we to -- provide continued western support. you will have to do this. and and say whatever you wish to o we will support that way which is what the factor is the. we have sat extreme mixed messages. support for the westward path and then when the details need to be filled in in terms of actual commitment. . e becomes a got -- and i think we need to be much clearer now. and to lay out exactly what happened. we are prepared to do one arm-we have to play our first you -- ian military, theyer combat operations against each other. . beyond obviously decrying those actions and condemning them. and again to people in the government in kiev, they need to have crystal clear showness sit. and that raises questions, of course, but i do think that there are going to be gaps opening up between pretorial yit based on the economic data is now on the i tilling point that goes into russia. there been no gross in perhaps the beginnings of an intern session. this comes at. it's sun tage -- and you make the several years in economic terms whasm will happen to peeze unless you have the impact of that economic situation begin to take hold in the days or weeks ahead. if the ukrainian rather on its second reading. . that would suspend which would then. to help me. which of course, would certainly restrict the animal by surprise. they would definitely pull yuped into reserks. sounds like the new trance atlantic. we want to be seen as a low cost or low cost, low income join. we have a political problem. those issues need to be worked out in the contest o a trance atlantic relationship between washington and new york which has been and we are not dealing . th a particularly with human. relaxes with. they definitely know it's not the. n the weeks an months i again. we need to look at, you know, another question which is simplistic. certainly a number of statements ve to do and certainly split equal political fishers which is whaun did the her love it. and with regard to russia. because it is clear that we can not go back assuming that we can reach that's a reset. d informs the reset of 2009, 2010. you frainr >> trust me. was think the -- you've gained nuffs traction and took ukraine. and this competitive life. in terms of his outrage. thed a mintstrations policy defend dent. . maybe a younger cor bet. this that could have been the river off the track. balancing about between east and nord. in ukraine yum when you -- what this is the u.s. policy. >> it's chirp toy ayess and to say whatever the gorse government. that is the perm approach that the additional will take. if it's not then that need to be communicated. the other players is this. e programs goes through that 4:30 not ally of zun- morning. . i love you -- and him and president obama don't get along. sb. but moving beyond that is d sensual direct of the cooling in i ks in that make leg roarer needed these two operations that but that is a real championship book. ccording the petses which is if? we lopt lost in the pay rain. she's fired on tuesday and wednesday. partner lie moscow and washington have different roenicke other than programs very childy relations. as the governor elites in both countries remain the same. yeah's that the way your oornl. to which relakeses with -- >> it it's the story on that line. ertainly on that nayo, ally. they thads sickle years awe of. turks have agreed i believe that ey want to snls through blew screen. the downscreen are full speed .head on the soum try by the of .he indians was we're sacrifice their rip with mom. and. . hopefully more than happen to get on -- and certainly asian not only did you trying to go to court. ss she wondering afterwards. to see if in the combocking just doims and you're definding new read.ees or sibblingt she has effort ink russian earth o . . exercise in the cent ma. the 2 pn 00, and to deal with our countries over ukraine and ultimately it does come down to other question and we need to articulate why you crane matters and what its interest is to the united states and this band-aid approach and that reactive approach of reacting to a media crises won't serve us well in the next crucial months ahead. >> thank you very much, nick. and thank you both for your comments. t me maybe ask both of you a very pointed question just to start off the discussion. do you think russia will invade ukraine? and if so, what do you think would be the trigger for something like that? >> you know, initially at the beginning of the crisis when president applied to council of federation to get power for use of force in case of russians and russia's people will be in dangerous. plus for sing nal to russia and used their force. it was clearly formulated. since that time after crimean as i , donnask might be formulated in my article. another option, you know, prevailed because russia can achieve the goals outdirect invasion. craft. is a near to ukrainians are fighting each other in kiev, everywhere. they're like private armies fighting with the jeans. i think everything i depend bringing it to you? who's going to dirs. stay down horses. the di situation will then be made. as a result of this kind of event. it's real. it's not showing all it is in the frame. gaza i don't know. .verything but school is -- they destroyed. people killed. . they bait 100,000 for people to cross the russian. but this too nine ladies in state department are showing fantastic level of cynicism. either this is ignorance, total ig no, sir on the ack dress. i would like to know it is about appointing not idiots but probably then since. this is the reaction from the governors. i sbi -- there is a very serious approach. all en russia can -- and leaders of political party. reck. direct military military supplies. but forting in jame. but still trying to find an or tango we only need two. washington's two is in silence. >> you implied and i don't know whether you men to imply it. that if the rebels courses clapts. it looks like they're about to be defeated. >> mike? >> it is quite possible because ou know sh we know the these different battalions. and by the way there are a lot of outfits i didn't wore. nd how is it called -- calamuski. they think to take that tease people within read. -- i ve to go to with don't know it's hard. the spsh forces. i don't 92. it's by thomas. it's not -- it could sound absurd but when i'm watching, you know, some of your senators and congressman men from copses. i hear so many, you know, lunatic drinks that we are discussing which kind of proposal. i'm probably not going do punish here. circumstance, it's there -- and you mentioned is the krainian media still putting center. that but they're older than the ledger effect by rub yak. out of the people who organize more in odessa. in the other places. do we chillout. in this seeded, which they are king a grate, small business any cal. and toms against his words. what does that del me. these ain't lawyer? >> the girl was not the song with her >> a lot of people are demanding mpingt. and it's always complaining for bun.source to kill, to if you charge people. and so d football average, they are very different prospectives n united states. . morgan was starting to go up, way. .ere here he is who needs nick, if you could programs briefly with bond also into my question. do you think the russians -- i middle eastern, i was wrong about cry anywherea. interest would semble by ail gent. i was wrong about that. but sure, let me give you a stab atat this. on the one hand we've seen in ukraine as we've seen in other parts of the world. the 21st century post podern northwestern. i guess your question is more of traditional 20th several. identify unless serb conditions are met. one is if there is a complete collapse in the sense that there's a human tarnle energy which is we mentioned he wanted to be a president violence. he had looked at the one he does to that. . ere would certainly be ink and all right we've been hairing something for. . the other wild card is d date if the ukrainian government does cut off the energy transit or mething happens to the enemy infrastructure. hat's been a real. . they are receiving their natural gas through ukraine from yushian services. and that helping you keep an eye popping afternoon. . on a day i think it changes the .ilt -- silt wation -- don't hold me back to a prediction on this either. >> thank you very much, nick. let's open it up to questions. does anyone -- ambassador burke. . have a mike >> thank you. i want to kind of challenge a couple of your central thesis today. and the first being that and i think most important being that -- that somehow washington is the only place that counts in kind of thinking about a solution to this problem on the western side of this equation. thatthink you're waking up this crisis. from the very start by the way, this began, if you will, between a kind of confrontation for better for worst between the and from the association agreement. but i think in tems of how it's developed, the europeans have crits cal aut. at one point they could happen the story that never happened in the course of this crisis. i don't -- the y lines in disarray is ar very important fact. for the most part, the united states an europe has senior stayed very close to challenge. this is because the idea that washington has forced these sort of craven europeans into a tough sanctions policy. the fact of the matter is i think if you look at the sanctions and how they can ranch et it up. basically because most pornly hill. i think you've seen over time the emergency of some real issue. impart that i think that is ridiculous minute. had to do with malaysian airliner and the aftermath and he treatment of the victim victims. >> i think they'll show you boys. if i could focus just even more ed it t on the country will. >> we've seen attitudes in that country towards rush yab and. why do the polls show that there's almost 80% of his aproves. that's unheard of in recent years. so there's been this important opinion shift and if anything sent a strong message to the . ssian government it was the e.u.'s decision to take over e.u. sanctions which were more comprehensive than the u.s. sanctions. and that was driven not only by the leadership of angela merkel but also by the british, the . ench and even the italians that leads me to conclude in your last remarks needs or wants. when you outline you were some sort of neutral status for ukraine. .ome protection for the russian i think maybe you shouldn't that look washington for a lot of reason has a lot of other issues on its plead. he may not be able to get a very good audience. but what i would tell you to do is go to berlin and maybe that is the party that needs to take the lead here, and if the russian government looks at this purely through the lens of this is some kind of american run operation, you may lose a good bet to achieve a diplomatic solution to avoid a full-scale confrontation that would come from your escalated intervention in ukraine. >> ok. >> i agree and i think president putin understands there is no love for and -- from angela merkel. and he is on the phone with her more often then with mr. obama. obama said a very interesting thing in his interview with the new york times, which i read at least -- i don't know what was the perception of the others -- he said it is not going to be a cold war with russia -- very strange, very interesting, but the rest of my term i will not be able to deal with russia on any issue, something i am explaining the meaning of what he said, which means moscow must write off washington as a constructive force, but this is not the case in kiev. by the way, since secretary rumsfeld, europe is delighted -- divided. new europe and old europe. and people in moscow would like to get money. they would like to get euros, but they are not listening to washington. washington clearly formulated its position in favor of ukraine and that russian language must be the second national language. they accepted the idea. this country is federalized and nothing happened. and that's it. this is a case of how to get out of the crisis. everybody is saving their face. russia is saving their face, and kiev is saving their face. as far as it concerns europe as a whole, i don't think, again, that -- this is from armenia. it might be the president. it's a joke. [laughter] i don't think that by themselves europeans would like to impose any sanctions. this is under enormous pressure of washington. all of this is intervention. that is why they are doing this. russia is not libya, to leave behind. >> we have the finnish ambassador here, who i think has some useful comments on europe and european positions. i understand madam ambassador that your president may have just met with president putin if i am not mistaken. we have a microphone. >> thank you for this discussion. i was thinking i would not comment on anything. but i cannot help it. i cannot help commenting. the european union is 28 countries. when we have a discussion, it is always lively. we are not necessarily the same opinion. we are reaching compromise. the foreign ministers of the european union released a press release before i came here. the european union is increasingly concerned about the crisis in ukraine and the humanitarian impact. it underscores its unwavering support to the sovereignty and unity of ukraine. and we stand side by side with the u.s. with the sanctions. and indeed, if you look at the economic relations, the u.s. is much more involved with the economic cooperation than with russia, so the sanctions are coming to our per for leo. we are trying to understand. the sanctions are much bigger in some countries than in other countries. mine is one where the impact is relatively big. when the milk is not coming from finland or other countries, there is simply no milk because there is not production of the milk or you get very expensive milk. or her belarusian milk or kazakhstan milk. the sanctions seem to be getting more severe in russia. russia has been asking for a big financial package. >> $41 billion. >> to work in the russian economy, not to be stored in russian coffers. >> my issue is -- i was looking, of course, at some of the decisions what we have been all of the crisis saying that it is a simple case that russia has violated the principles of international law and international commitment. i remember in 1975, the soviet union was looking at what was nonchangeable. the u.s. and the west were claiming a backseat in the final act. it was a compromise, and i think a good compromise. you referred to the finnish prime minister. if you look at the finnish media, and i was looking directly at the finnish media, of course we have this discussion about the impact of the sanctions, but at the same time, the prime minister was saying that we stand firmly as an eu member in the sanctions. president putin is in the hot seat today. i have not gotten the insights yet, but i was looking the first seven minutes, in the beginning, my president did call to discuss the ukrainian crisis. in the seven minutes of the first press release the press was thrown out of the room. the press was coming to discuss the horrible situation in ukraine and whether we could find a political solution to this. my question would be -- and it's important to hear that this forum is assisting. it's sad to hear that the positions are so far away at the moment when we would need solutions and military support and there is a violation of some of the principles. at the same time, we should really find a solution where ukraine, russia, united states and european union are sitting at the table and really looking at the possibilities, how do we get out of that. the european union has firmly decided to assist. the ukraine could not commit to fulfilling the criteria. this is now a different situation. we have been looking very carefully and there has been already action on that side also. i think we need urgently a political solution, and that is the key issue. my question to you, i would say it is not in russia's interest to have a divided europe or ukraine. or for ukraine to be unstable for a long time. ukraine is too important. so what is the action now to get to the table and reach a solution? what are the red lines you foresee? >> thank you. i agree with what you said. since helsinki, 13 new countries have emerged. more than 20 or 25 in europe, which means borders are not unchangeable. they are changing. and as i said, russia's action in crimea is absolutely in accordance with international law. this is clear. this is crystal clear. territorial integrity and the right of a nation for self-determination. that is what involved. and great powers, this is their habit. they are picking. if they like this, they take this. if they don't like this, they don't take this. second, i would like to tell you one thing which really very seriously struck me. it's for you to understand the modern russia. the grandson of molotov said on one of the programs that now he is the chairman of the education committee in russian parliament. very influential member of the circle of people. he said isn't it a shame that russia supported the koreans, the vietnamese, arabs, latin americans, and the only ones they are not supporting our the russians in ukraine. russia supported all of them. by the way, america also is supporting so-called rebels in syria. cia is training them. we have nothing against that because this is a humanitarian catastrophe. it could be an absolute mess in the region. we knew it would happen when you acted in libya, when you acted in europe, and now we see how the situation is developing. and again, this is not our choice. the ball is in the western court. russia's position is clear. i think on one of the tv programs i said what is necessary to do. it's very clearly known in washington, when you college wanted to use force -- janokowicz wanted to use force, they picked up the phone and said don't do that. it's very easy. but you need to have political support and leadership qualities. this is the lack of political leadership, and this is commonplace, unfortunately, in western political discourse. unfortunately, the tribe of leaders is multiplying, unfortunately. >> chance freeman was next. >> i think the problem with sanctions is that they entrench differences. they create market distortions, which in turn create vested interests in their continuation. they are hard to remove. unless they are clearly linked to a negotiation with clear objectives, that is the inevitable result. they also of course create fear, and we have seen that here, in a great deal of the public sphere. my question from the beginning has been, since it would seem to be in the interest of all concerned to remove ukraine is a point of contention between east and west and help ukraine achieve viability as a state and prosperity, why isn't anyone talking about the president of the austrian state retreating. it took austria out of the east and west, established it as a neutral country. if that model were applied to ukraine, there's no eu, no nato membership. everybody in russia and the eu in particular are helping -- are pitching in to help ukraine with problems. why would that not be a logical solution, and why isn't this being discussed? we spend a lot of time talking about how we got in the mess we are in end no time talking about how to get out of it. so my question is what is wrong with the austrian state treaty model? >> nick, perhaps we could start with you. >> in theory, there is nothing wrong with it, but that is what politicians on all sides would have to say they are ready to agree to. the block on our side is excepting the austrian model essentially says yes, there are limits to the growth of the community. for the last 20 years we have said the community can have unlimited growth, keep growing, keep going eastward. the austrian treaty said there is a limit to europe, a limit to the west, and here it is. i don't know that we have the political will on our side for someone to come out and say that, to say this is the line over which nato does not cross. the president when he voted for the 2007 bill, which essentially said nato membership should continue going east as far as possible, he would have to then -- and his vice president and his former secretary of state who i voted for would have to say our vote in 2007 is -- we are repudiating it. it's a feasible option, but i there is a political cost. a and i don't know and that it is for this town to a and a say this is the limit and in a and in and in for the eu, this is the limit for nato. i don't know that is a winning hand to play. >> i am sure russia will be very much in favor of this kind of treaty. by the way, during that period, every one was envious of finland because they were getting the best of both worlds. finland splurged and became one of the most advanced countries in the world due to their status. you could teach people in key of some lessons on this. >> madam ambassador, i understand you might want to respond to that, please. >> i wish finland were a model for ukraine, but our history is completely different. we had our own parliament before we were independent. we had a democratic parliament. >> we had a russian czar who left all of this in place in finland. >> we were fighting a war also. the other one was after our independence, we were never conquered. we were one of the few countries in europe was not occupied. so the situation was -- of course we had a reality check after the second world war. but we were able to create very good relations to east and west. we have been now since 1995 as a member of the european union, we have the least corrupted democratic system in the world. >> and everybody is envious of you, including me. >> it's not at all comparable. i wish it was. >> i have four people on my list. >> it's also a very advanced country. >> and the two keiths. i will write both down. we have five questions, 20 minutes. i want to make sure everybody has a chance to ask a question and get a response, so if i could encourage the two of you, really, to limit yourselves in giving answers. and they want to ask one question about the sanctions. just a one minute response. we had a discussion about the impact of russia's agricultural sanctions on europe. you in your remarks said that russia's sanctions were very targeted. were those sanctions also targeted at the united states, because as i think back on the history of the u.s.-russia relationship, one very notable participant in our american debate was then senator joe biden, who for many years was in favor of russia's wto accession and at some point became opposed, and it related to a very specific issue of chicken. american chicken exports to russia. do you believe that the russian government was attempting to send any kind of signal to the vice president through the state of delaware? has russian policy finally cracked it? >> we have a very serious program. 40% of our market was this poultry. now the number is 6% or even less. all in all, it's about one billion agricultural products. but i want 10 seconds to say another important thing that i will emphasize. what putin did in agriculture was long overdue. but he couldn't do it because he was afraid prices would go up, some problems would happen. in order to stimulate local agriculture. but now, this is a fantastic incentive to do this, and people can take this because they have to do that. it was a silver lining. this was a chance. no crisis should go unused. >> would you say that it is mainly to the benefit of people who like president putin and live in rural areas and mainly at the cost of some people in urban areas who do not particularly like the president? >> no, because the limitations concern some products, we get a lot of substitutes from different places. there is a long line of countries and companies who want to sell their product in russian market. there are a lot of sellers, a few buyers. this is the reality. >> let's move on. i wanted to get my question in. let's start with ruth. >> let me claim spiritual purity because i thought what happened in kosovo was not good. we said that because it was preamp your language, territorial and -- free ambulatory -- preambular language, it was not a matter of territorial integrity. i was also not in favor of nato. i think you are seriously but perhaps mistakenly underestimating the spoiling for a fight of putin's own personality. this is a guy who likes crisis. this is not an ecumenical, evenhanded, contemplative what would it mean if france started landing troops in québec, announcing that the people were oppressed and mistreated? that's the analogy. it's not simply the spontaneous uprising of an unhappy people. it is an outward imposition of a revolution and in that sense, a very dangerous, strategically dangerous spoiling for a fight from putin. this is not coming from the bottom-up, in my view. >> let's take susan's question and then get responses. >> that's a useful segue. you were mentioning, both of you, the narratives on both sides. there is a narrative in washington that putin's aspirations for ukraine are part of a doctrine that may unfold throughout the former soviet union. i wonder what you would answer to the person who spoke to me yesterday and said the baltics are next and it would happen before the end of the year, and what would you say about that? >> let's try really to keep it brief. >> i think it's the fantasies of sikorsky and fantasies of the baltic republic leaders, because nobody is thinking to grab these territories. nobody needs them. they don't have any strategic, economic, or any other kind of interest. i was in kazakhstan, and i was asked the same question. next is cause extent, next is this, next is that, and i said yes, i know the fear and that right away people will say what was said here. i am not going to repeat what was said until nazarbayev is a front runner for eurasian integration in former soviet space. he has nothing to worry about. he wants integration. people are living. russia is still very safe and protected and no problems. because we are solving problems when problems are becoming ripe. no problems. and everybody understands. i know that this is a provocative discussion that maybe nato article five is not usable for the baltics. and even zukowski made an ugly and derogatory statement that they were doing different kinds of sexual services to americans but that they don't feel themselves secure. russia has nothing to do with these crazy people over there. it will take several generations for them to recover. >> i think it is less that it's going to be a test of the baltic states because there are legal commitments there, but it is a reminder that you don't make promises you don't intend to keep. i think the ukrainians are discovering that a virtual article five is not the same thing as an actual article five. i think sometimes people are led to believe that. i think that's really where the dividing line is is the russians are not going to cross. they have an awareness of where redlines are and they are not going to cross that. they have tools in the baltic states and economies are one of them. but i don't think you're going to see an overt military challenge. >> we have andy and then keith. >> thanks. i will just make a couple of comments and you are free to respond. i have apologized for being late. i missed your presentation. >> it's unforgivable. >> i know, and i'm going to be punished. you said that people in the state department are cynics, and maybe rightly so. i would respond that you're minister of foreign affairs is a pathological liar, and your president as well. it is well known by everyone that material from the russian federation, war material, has been crossing the border for months. it has been denied as a bald face lie by the russian government. now, there are problems with media, but i have to say, i spent six weeks of the past four months traveling through central asia and south pockets and had an opportunity to watch more russian tv than i ever wanted to. i also spent three days in moscow in july, and in the 35 years i have been traveling to the soviet union and russia, never have i seen such unbelievable media propaganda as has been going on in russia in the past six months. i was there on july 13th when one of the most absurd stories was propagated. a woman claimed that when ukrainian authorities took over they hauled out the local population and had them witness [indiscernible] of a three-year-old boy. i was watching this going, please, someone is kidding me. i think what is being perpetrated to the russian population is really at odds with reality. if we look to the future, i think we are in agreement that the best solution is for there to be some kind of peaceful negotiation to get out of this, because we are on the precipice of a total catastrophe. if there is an escalation between russia and ukraine, that is a complete catastrophe for ukraine, first and foremost, but for russia as well. it has been striking to me as to why the negotiating solution has not been pursued with greater vigor. if i were to call our government and the west, i think we do need to sit down and be more realistic about what it could mean, and also simply that -- there are four scenarios. one, all-out invasion. least likely. two most likely scenarios aren't escalation that would not withstand sanctions or that would be met with increased sanctions, or supporting the insurgency and bleeding ukraine dry. and the ukrainian economy is not in a position to take a whole lot more of this. i would expect that would be the strategy of moscow, which is why i think it is more imperative than urgent for key of to try to reach a negotiated solution to get out of this. now, trying to figure out what is russia's policy to see -- well, ok, stelkov has disappeared but he is replaced by a ukrainian. another guy disappears and is replaced by a ukrainian. humanitarian convoy, don't quite know what the story is there. there was a claim of a military convoy that came across the border and was destroyed by the ukrainian military. >> nick mentioned that. so, since we have just seven minutes, why don't we take comments from everybody i have left on my list, and then we will give you a chance to respond briefly at the end. >> first, on the economic side, i am an economist. the russian economy is about 6% of the eu. we have a situation where the russian economy is now in recession and higher levels than the ukrainians. if russians really think the sanctions are cost less, i find that -- i don't understand that. it's quite expensive for russia. my sense was they were willing to incur the costs. but i would like to say what i think which is that russia is not a serious country. it has a conventional military about the size of germany's in poland's put together. this is a country that does not respect its agreements, so i think the view is you cannot deal wuth them. >> thank you very much. let's go to keith darden next. >> keith darden, american university. what do you see as the future of the insurgency? five years down the road, what kind of ukraine do we have and how would that compare -- it seems that russia's involvement has not been producing a less nato aligned ukraine, and that the country has so many pathologies on its own that in action might be the best way to achieve a desirable result. >> we had one gentleman at the end very briefly, and then we will give everybody a second. >> to make everybody's life easier, i am just going to give a comment. moscow is popping up in a number of comments here. i am going to refrain from the legal discussion, whether it is proper or not. i think what this shows is that what happened in coso's case is what you are saying it's sort of the opening of a pandora's box. essentially, we have entered a phase of very dangerous reorganization. various players can use this approach and make all of their cases. since we are trying to have some progress when it comes to our own problem, that is one solution, but the problem is how long will it take and what sort of dialogue? the other question, if you have time. this is diplomacy. there was a mentioning of the regime change. that is one of the things that very often appears. is it realistic to talk about at this point? is it realistic to expect that someone who comes after this government might be more sensible or easier to talk with when it comes to russian-american relations. >> thank you very much. i think we have several very important comments and questions from the group here. it's three minutes until 2:00. we should really end at 2:00. if each of you could just take literally one minute and make any final closing points you would like to make. >> it's easier to answer the question that was asked about what would happen with ukraine is russia just forget about ukraine. you know, i put that in my article, which was on national interests. we could have the worst aggressive anti-russian country at russian borders. for the year since the last census until the census which was organized several years ago, 5 million russians disappeared and ukraine. it's going to be forced ukraine organization, and the russians will be kicked out. that is one option. the other is an extreme nationalistic russia and nato. this is exactly what russia expects. this is the biggest nightmare, which could be if moscow is thinking this way. i wrote about that, and this is exactly -- i know how it's going to be because if anybody reads ukrainian history books, you can read that this war in nme since the beginning of ukraine russians. everybody is guilty. done form which was ukraine was done by russians. second, russia -- >> very brief. >> russia knows the economy hardships and problems. nobody has the rosy glasses. this is the choice. decreasing your economic influence or distraction of russia is a country. this is the choice. this is the choice for russia. liberalsy, russian many provocations and russian media. people are uniting around the leader. the pain of russia is different in europe and america. it don't forget that. it is very important. only one case. i happen to see that. that was denounced. i agree that there is a serious propaganda war. the truth is the first in a propaganda war. that is the level of lie here. in media. you have more outlets. >> anti-razor critical point. we have a compromise solution on the table. if you have people in the west who say, why compromise of putin will be gone in two years. on the russian side, why compromise on ukraine if ukraine will collapse and that europeans leblanc. -- europeans will blink. as long as the prime minister think there's a military solution in the east, as long as he thinks that russia can be convinced to sell gas at the border. those are some illusions that he may have to part with. the prime minister is still quite influential. the president is not the sole actor we have to can bentz. -- convinced. >> thank you very much. i think a very provocative discussion. clear what amakes big gap we have to bridge. thank you. >> on newsmakers today, our rock -- stephanie treat schriock. >> when democrats have talked about similar issues they have in the midterm election. young women is one of the groups that get mentioned most often. turn outmore likely to in the presidential year than a nonpresidential year. what are they doing to ensure that that group is going to show up at the polls? >> it's such an important part of a midterm game that we're playing here. how do we ensure that voters get out to vote. there are a lot of young women voters that we need to get to. ago, we started our women vote program. we are not something that started recently. over those two decades now, we have been doing research on how women are thinking about voting. -- best to get their information. we are able to mobilize an education women voters across the country. at north carolina, your sings of our television spots. we're talking about issues that they want to talk about. areave candidates who supporting the issues that they see are going to provide them opportunities moving forward. that is a bi
cases are still spiking. the warnings in michigan, in south florida. what the governor said about victims of virus, drawing an immediate correction. and tonight, how and when will america re-open? what the president said late today about making that decision. and this evening, is part of the re-opening dependent on testing for antibodies, looking to see if many americans have been exposed to the requires and might have some immunity? tonight, our team on the cutting edge of this, a simple pinprick. we ask, how will they get tens of millions of tests ready for americans to give them some kind rkar 1ilon americans out of wo the growing lines for food in california, texas, florida. many struggling to get unemployment checks. and is there a new tool now for some to get them more quickly. and the urgent plea tonight about church services. boris johnson, amid news he's now able to take a few steps before having to rest. your money, the fbi without a new warning about widespread scams in the age of the virus. what you need to know. good evening. and we have made it through another week together. tonight, even as the death toll continues to grow, another horrific 24 hours in new york alone. 7,700 lives lost in one day. there are still much needed signs tonight that the curve might be flattening. but the governor of new york is urging caution, and president trump tonight on the decision of when and how to get america back to work, acknowledging, i know i've got make the biggest decision of my life. every night, of course, we bring you the numbers here this evening the coronavirus has taken the lives of more than 18,000 people in this country. more than 2,000 at in the last 24 hours. in new york city, the difficult images tonight, the morgues are so full they have acknowledged they're burying unclaimed bodies on hart island at a much faster pace. what we learned about patients in the icu. more patients leaving than arriving in new york. but across the country, numbers surging. boston's convention center. an emotional massachusetts governor charles baker warning there are a very difficult couple op weeks ahead. texas governor greg sange have ak. country. and what will it take to get america back open on the other side of this? every night we have been reporting on testing from antibodies, immunity for americans who might have been exposed, not knowing. could americans be carry some sort of proof they have immunity from the virus. what dr. anthony fauci said about that today. we'll carefully get through it all tonight. we begin with abc's whit johnson here in new york. >> reporter: tonight, inside these heart hit icus, finally a promising sign. for the first time since the outbreak began in new york, more people leaving those intensive care units than going in. the rate of hospitalizations down. >> as someone who searches for solace in all this grief, the leveling off of the number of lives lost is a somewhat hopeful sign. >> reporter: the death toll slightly lower but appearing to hold steady at a staggering loss -- 777 people dying in the last 24 hours. morgues filling so quickly, crews are digging more space at hart island, the city's cemetery to bury unclaimed bodies. the crisis playing out in maternity wards. inside maimonides hospital in brooklyn, the scare of a lifetime for iris nolasco. diagnosed with covid-19, 30 weeks pregnant, doctors ordering an emergency c-section. >> i just prayed to god to protect my baby and the people that i had a home. i thought that i would die then. >> reporter: her next memory special but short lived. the sound of her baby girl crying. but doctors immediately separating the two, taking the newborn away to the nicu to shield her from the virus. >> the only way i've seen my baby is through a camera. and i was able to open it 24/7 and see how my baby is doing -- breathing, smiling sometimes, yawning. >> reporter: iris, connected to her daughter through a baby monitor only. little isabella michelle, still in the hospital but improving. iris is now recovering at home, hoping their first official meeting is just days away. >> i just hope that i'll be able to hold her and then just protect her. once this is over, i just want to spend every second with her and create that bond that we are missing now. >> reporter: tonight, as we've been reporting, a terrible toll on african-americans in this country. and in new york city, 34% of coronavirus deaths in the latino community. for millions of americans, life on hold. but the message, stay home and stay the course. >> it's really about the encouraging signs that we see, but as encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak. >> reporter: but still an emergency in so many cities. today the detroit convention center turned field hospital now treating covid patients. the state now taking more drastic steps, banning travel between homes starting tomorrow. >> our most vulnerable citizens are dying in helpless manner. >> reporter: in maryland, the governor warning there are tough days ahead. >> we are ramping up the curve. this is going to be one of our ring angerous times ever this k reopening schools in may. and saying this. >> this particular pandemic is one where i don't think nationwide there's been a single fatality under 25. for whatever reason it just doesn't seem to threaten, you know, kids. >> reporter: but the cdc saying at least 8 people under 24 have died in the u.s. states reporting two infants, two teenagers, and young adults among the victims. like 22-year-old israel sauz, who died a short time week after he and his wife welcomed a new baby. tonight the white house confirming the president is creating a task force focused on reopening the country, saying he'll announce early next week members of the medical and business communities will help decide how to move forward. >> and i've got to make the biggest decision of my life. and i've only started thinking about that. i mean, you know, i have made a lot of big decisions over my life this is by far the biggest decision of my life. because i have to say, okay, let's go. this is what we're going to do. >> reporter: but on the front lines, the battle continues to save lives. right here yesterday, we met nurse mary kate funaro, working in the same brooklyn icu where her father, a physician, was being treated for covid-19. she was caring for others, not him. difficult for both. >> of course i was not able to go in the his room because i didn't want to cross contaminate. and i waved from him outside the glass. >> reporter: tonight, her dad on the other side of the glass, like so many health-care workers jumping back in to fight. was there ever a thought you might not make it. >> i had many thoughts like that. i just could not breathe. quite frankly i was trying. but on top of that, to see my daughter at the same time was very difficult. >> we're glad to see him back and well, and the fact that father and daughter watched each other through that glass, what a powerful thing. i want the get back to the what the president said today, what he acknowledged would be his most difficult decision about how and when to re-open this country. he was asked about reports of new federal projections if stay at home ordered were lifted after these 30 days. >> >> reporter: david, those projections reported by "the new yo be dramatic spike i infelipresident saying he hen listen to his medical experts and in the end, make his own decision. david? >> whit johnson leading us off on a friday night. thank you. as many said, one of the keys to re-opening the country may be testing for antibodies so see if americans had been exposed and have immunity. it would offer reassurance as families consider going back. tonight, a test for antibodies, a simple pinprick. tonight, the government, do they have the ability to get tens of millions of tests and get ready? here's abc's kaylee hartung tonight. >> reporter: tonight, on the front lines of a key battle in the fight to get america back to work. a line of people in northern california waiting for an antibody test to determine whether they have been exposed to the coronavirus without knowing it, and may now be immune. >> the key to reopening is going to be testing. >> reporter: the antibody testing in california, part of a usc-stanford study, requires just a drop of blood, a simple pinprick. they say it costs about 10 bucks and results are available in about 10 minutes. $10, 10 minutes per test and you are gathering incredibly valuable information. >> we can do this on a very large scale if we want to. >> reporter: the federal government has deploy a nationwide test. new york state, the epicenter of the crisis, is developing its own. but they're only able to perform a few thousand tests a week. >> it's not enough if you want to re-open on a meaningful scale and re-open quickly. we need an unprecedented mobilization where government can produce these tests in the millions. >> reporter: today governor cuomo calling on president trump to use the defense production act to make private companies produce antibody tests. but today from the white house -- >> there's not a lot of issues with testing. >> reporter: the president has downplayed the need for nationwide testing to diagnose covid-19 or detect whether a person has had the virus and is now possibly immune. >> we want to have it, and we're going to see if we have it. do you need it? no. is it a nice thing to do? yes. we're talking about 325 million people, and that's not going happen. >> reporter: but dr. anthony fauci says testing is key and today announced the federal government is closing in on an antibody test. >> within a period of a week or so, we're going to have a rather large number of tests that are available. >> reporter: president trump now making this pledge -- >> we're confident that the production will scale up to tens of millions of tests very quickly. >> a lot of eyes will be watching to see if that actually comes to fruition. kaylee with us tonight. the president and dr. fauci both asked today whether americans may have to one day carry proof they have immunity from the virus. >> yeah, david. imagine that day, when americans would carry around a certificate of immunity. he said it's possible. it's something they're discussing. he says we need to know the difference of someone who's vulnerable to infection and who's not. >> kaylee hartung who's recovered from coronavirus herself. we're glad to see that. staggering death tolls across the country. thousands out of work. the desperate plea from many church leader as we head into this weekend. >> they have enough food hear>>d bankacssheountn los angeles, these are the real people in the numbers. someosei jobs. >> they don't know where their next meal is going come from. >> reporter: here in san antonio, they were lined up for free food before the sun rose. and this picture says everything. >> i've had a long day. i've been here since wednesday at 6:00 pm. >> reporter: just try getting an unemployment check. joanne bullock in miami says the websites aren't always working, so people in need are having to leave their homes and get in line. >> i've been trying to do unemployment online, and i couldn't get through, but then i did get through, but then it blocked me out. >> reporter: for americans turning to god this easter sunday, they're being encouraged the stay home. >> this is one time when frankly i feel we are going god's will by not going church. >> reporter: new york cardinal timothy dolan agrees. >> continuing the life and presence and mercy and grace of jesus that goes on, in some ways in an even more vigorous way than if the buildings were open. >> reporter: but some of the faithful aren't listening. authorities across the country are blaming a number of outbreaks on large gatherings at funerals and church service. inans, fht over the services this easter sunday, and then lawmakers ordered them back on. >> it is a shockingly irresponsible decision that will put every kansan's life at risk. >> reporter: one thing everyone, including the president agrees on -- it is time for prayer. >> i'm a christian. heal our country. let's get healed before we do this. >> reporter: to get these stimulus checks out faster the treasury is announcing a new web portal. you can enter your direct deposit information, and get the stimulus money a whole lot sooner. david? >> steve, let's hope it works. eye-opening news on british prime minster boris johnson and how serious his condition was. james longman from london. >> reporter: tonight, officials acknowledge boris johnson is only in an early stage of recovery. news that he's now been able to do short walks between periods of rest suggest how serious his condition was. a spokesman says he waved to doctors and nurses. this morning, johnson's father paints a grim picture. if you use that american picture, he almost took one for the team. >> reporter: saying his son is not out of woods. not far from where boris johnso. 980 dead in the last 24 hours, higher than italy on its worst day. in the vatican, the pope leading the faithful into a very different easter weekend, preaching this good friday in a near empty st. peter's square. his prayers for vstrength and compassion seem especially poignant. it's hard to tell when boris johnson will be back at 10 downing street leading the country out of crisis. when we come back, the fbi warning about wid spreed scams. and severe storms set to hit this easter weekend. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression... some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. while most of the world is being asked to stay inside, there are people out there giving it their all. so, to everyone who is helping to keep us safe against covid-19 day in and day out, sall of us at amgen say, ...ng to keep us safe against covid-19 thank you. we do things differently and aother money managers, don't understand why. because our way works great for us! but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? nope. we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? we don't have those. so, what's in it for you? our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. there will be parties and family gatherings. there will be parades and sporting events and concerts. to help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. spend a few minutes online today to impact the next 10 years of healthcare, infrastructure and education. go to 2020census.gov and respond today to make america's tomorrow brighter. it's time to shape our future. tonight, a warning from the fbi amid this emergency about scams.inthe fbi as thousands of american consumer says they have been the target of covid-19 scams. the ftc reporting more than 15,000 complaints, nearly doubling the number recorded last week. almost $12 million in losses and counting. the fbi making arrest after arrest, including keith middlebrook. >> i've created the cure for cov 19. c.o.v.i.d. 19. this is it right here. >> reporter: there's no cure. he's been arrested. tonight the state of missouri is suing televangelist jim baker after h t sted a cure19. a potio my a bottle you could buy for $80. baker's company says it was his guests who touted the product, but they have stopped offering it litigation is pending. then there are the suspect robocalls. and websites promising to deliver a coronavirus vaccine for a fee when no such vaccine exists. folks should ignore online offers for cures and test kits. stop of this stuff can be truly dangerous. when we come back, the severe storms the easter weekend. in a moment. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. proof of less joint pain... ...and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, 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adams: a question i often get asked is, "why should young people care about the spread of coronavirus?" well we know that people with underlying medical conditions over the age of 60 are at highest risk, but they've got to get it from somebody. dr. anthony fauci: social distancing is really physical separation of people. dr. deborah birx: it's what we refer to when we ask people to stay at least six feet apart. dr. anthony fauci: not going to bars, not going to restaurants, not going to theaters where there are a lot of people... it all just means physical separation so you have a space between you and others who might actually be infected or infect you. dr. jerome adams: we all have a role to play in preventing person-to-person spread of this disease which can be deadly for vulnerable groups. for more information on how you can social distance please go to coronavirus.gov easter weekend. east easter sunday. 50 million in the past from texas to the carolinas. when we come back, the moment you saw right here. now the story behind it. who is our person of the week? (vo) was that a pivotal historical moment ♪ we just went stumbling past? here we are dancing in the rumbling dark so come a little closer give me something to grasp give me your beautiful, crumbling heart we're working every dread day that is given us feeling like the person people meet really isn't us like we're going to buckle underneath the trouble like any minute now the struggle's going to finish us and then we smile at all our friends eand ing i'll stand weetrain station 'cause i can see your faces there is so much peace to be found in people's faces. i love people's faces. ♪ we can't offer much during this time of crisis, but we can offer what we have. so from all of us working early mornings on the farm, long days in the plant, or late nights stocking shelves doing all we can to get you the milk you need. we hope it makes your breakfast a little brighter. your snacks more nutritious. and reminds you when it comes to caring, there is no expiration date. milk. love what's real. i heard there guwere fleas out here.r? and t-t-t-t-t-icks! and mosquitoooooooooooes! listen up, scaredy cats. we all have k9 advantix ii to protect us. it kills and repels fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, too. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. finally tonight here we all saw that moment last night here and we wanted to story behind it. our persons of the week. it was the moment we first brought you last night here. the doors open at the medical sent near brooklyn. after paul saunders recovering from coronavirus, returning to his rounds. [ applause ] he was not expecting this. >> thank you very much. totally unexpected and undeserved but thank you all for coming to work and for working so hard and all this time. so all appreciated by everybody, but thank you very much. >> and welcome back. >> happy to be back. >> reporter: and now we wonder, that doctor who was on the front lines that even while he was recovering, dr. saunders was checking in on his patients. >> one of the hardest thing about not being here is you feel like you're letting everyone down inside the hospital. everyone's working so hard and the whole time i was home i'm just anxious to get back and just get back, get back to work. >> reporter: there are so many heroes. we have seen those lines applauding health-care workers. but tonight, with this image from a nurse recording as she walked through it. nurse victoria them back. >> thank you! >> reporter: this evening, victoria sending us a message after finishing another shift. telling us that moment mattered. >> it was incredible to have the support during the pandemic. it's been a devastating few weeks and the support we received make it worth it. we're in this together and we'll get through this together. >> heroes everywhere. where would with be without ♪ limu emu & doug [ siren ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ now your health, your safety. this is abc7 news. >> 70 people, 68 members of the shelter as well as two staff members who had tested positive for covid-19. navirus at a san francisco homeless larry beil. we'll have more on that outbreak in just a moment. first, today's headlines and numbers. this is a grim milestone as the number of deaths around the world from this virus topped 100,000 today. the united states accounts for more than 18,000 of those deaths. italy also has more than 18,000. more than 1.6 million people have been infected so far. there is, though, a glimmer of hope here. the same tracker from johns hopkins university shows about 375,000 people have recovered from the virus. now we're following that massive outbak
cases are still spiking. the warnings in michigan, in south florida, what the governor there said about victims of this virus, drawing an immediate correction. and tonight, how and when will america reopen? what the president said late today about making that decision. and this evening, is part of that reopening dependent on testing for antibodies? looking to see if many americans have been expose to the virus and might have some immunity. tonight, our team on the cutting edge of this, the experimental test, a simple pinprick. what dr. fauci and the president said on this kind of testing today, as we ask, how will they get tens of thousands of tests ready for americans to give them some kind of an assurance before returning to work? nearly 17 million americans out of work, and the growing lines for food in california, texas, florida. many struggling to get unemployment checks. and is there a new tool now for some to get them more quickly? and the urgent plea tonight from many church leaders about services this weekend. news tonight on boris johnson, how serious his condition was. amid news he's now able to take a few steps before having to rest. and your money, the fbi out a new warning about widespread scams in the age of the virus. what you need to know. good evening. and we have made it through another week together. tonight, even as the death toll continues to grow, another horrific 24 hours in new york alone. 777 lives lost in one day. there are still much-needed signs tonight that the curve might be flattening. but the governor of new york is urging caution, and president trump tonight on the decision of when and how to get america back to work. acknowledging, i know i've got to make the biggest decision of my life. every night, of course, we bring you the numbers here. and this evening the coronavirus has taken the lives of more than 18,000 people in this country. more than 2,000 in the past 24 hours. in new york city, the difficult images tonight. the morgues are so full, they have acknowledged they're burying unclaimed bodies on hart island at a much faster pace. there are glimmers of hope tonight. what we learned about patients in the icu. more patients leaving than arriving in icus across new york. but elsewhere in the country, the numbers are still surging. a temporary hospital opening in boston's convention center. and an emotional massachusetts governor charles baker warning there are a very difficult couple of weeks ahead there. kentucky reporting its largest single day increase of cases and deaths. texas governor greg abbott saying we have not yet reached the peak. the long lines growing longer tonight for food across this country. and what will it take to get america back open on the other side of this? every night we have been reporting on testing for antibodies, immunity for americans who might have been exposed to the virus and not know it. there's news on this tonight. and could americans be carrying some sort of proof they they have immunity from the virus? what dr. anthony fauci said about that today. we'll carefully get through it all again tonight. and egin wit johnson here prsi for the first time since the outbreak began in new york, more people leaving those intensive care units than going in. the rate of hospitalizations down. >> as someone who searches for solace in all this grief, the leveling off of the number of lives lost is a somewhat hopeful sign. >> reporter: the death toll slightly lower but appearing to hold steady at a staggering loss -- 777 people dying in the last 24 hours. morgues filling so quickly, crews are digging more space at hart island, the city's cemetery used to bury unclaimed bodies. the crisis also playing out in maternity wards. we were taken inside maimonides hospital in brooklyn, the scare of a lifetime for iris nolasco. diagnosed with covid-19, 30 weeks pregnant, doctors ordering an emergency c-section. >> i just prayed to god to protect my baby and the people that i had at home. i thought that i would die then. >> reporter: her next memory special but short-lived. the sound of her baby girl crying. but doctors immediately separating the two, taking the newborn away to the nicu to shield her from the virus. >> the only way i've seen my baby is through a camera. and i was able to open it 24/7 and see how my baby is doing -- breathing, smiling sometimes, yawning. >> reporter: iris, connected to her daughter through a baby monitor only. little isabella michelle, still in the hospital but improving. iris is now recovering at home, hoping their first official meeting is just days away. >> i just hope that i'll be able to hold her and then just protect her. once this is over, i just want to spend every second with her and create that bond that we are missing now. >> reporter: tonight, as we've been reporting, a terrible toll on african-americans in this country. and in new york city, 34% of coronavirus deaths in the latino community. for millions of americans, life on hold. but the message, stay home and stay the course. >> it's really about the encouraging signs that we see, but as encouraging as they are, we have not reached the peak. >> reporter: but still an emergency in so many cities. today the detroit convention center turned field hospital now treating covid patients. the state now taking more drastic steps, banning travel between homes starting tomorrow. >> our most vulnerable citizens are dying in a helpless manner. >> reporter: in maryland, the governor warning there are tough days ahead. >> we are ramping up the curve. this is going to be one of our most dangerous times ever this weekend and over the next week or so. >> reporter: but in florida, which was slower than other states to order restrictions, the governor considering reopening schools in may. and saying this. >> this particular pandemic is one where i don't think nationwide there's been a single fatality under 25. for whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to threaten, you know, kids. >> reporter: but the cdc saying at least 8 people under 24 have died in the u.s. states reporting two infants, two teenagers, and young adults among the victims. like 22-year-old israel sauz, who died a short time after he and his wife welcomed a new baby. tonight the white house confirming the president is creating a task force focused on reopening the country, saying he'll announce early next week members of the medical and business communities will help decide how to move forward. >> and i've got to make the biggest decision of my life. and i've only started thinking about that. i mean, you know, i have made a lot of big decisions over my life. you understand that. this is by far the biggest decision of my life. because i have to say, okay, let's go. this is what we're going to do. >> reporter: but on the front lines, the battle continues to save lives. right here yesterday, we met nurse mary kate funaro, working in the same brooklyn icu where her father, a physician, was being treated for covid-19. she was caring for others, not him. difficult for both. >> unfortunately i was not able to go inside of his room, because i didn't want to cross contaminate. so i waved to him from outside the glass. >> reporter: today, her dad, dr. richard funaro, is out of the hospital and like so many health care workers, jumping back in the fight to beat this virus. when you saw your daughter outside the glass in the icu, was there ever a moment where you thought you might not make it? >> i had many moments like that. in fact, at least two days' worth. i just could not breathe. quite frankly i was frightened. but on top of that, to see my daughter at the same time was very difficult. >> we're glad to see him back and well, and the fact that father and daughter watched each other through that glass, what a powerful thing. whit, i do want to get back to what the president did say late today, about what he acknowledged would be his most difficult decision about how and when to reopen this country. he was asked about reports of new federal projections of what would happen if stay at home orders were lifted after these 30 days. >> reporter: david, those projections reported by "the new york times" showed there would be a dramatic spike in infections if those orders were lifted. president trump saying he hadn't seen them but that he would listen to his medical experts and in the end make his own decision. david? >> whit johnson leading us off on a friday night. whit, thank you. as many have said, one of the keys to reopening the country may be testing for antibodies to see if americans had been exposed to the virus and might have some immunity. it would offer some reassurance as families decide if it's safe to go back to work. tonight we're with the researchers with the experimental test checking for antibodies, a simple pinprick. tonight, the government, do they have the ability to get tens of millions of tests ready and quickly? here's abc's kaylee hartung tonight. >> reporter: tonight, on the front lines of a key battle in the fight to get america back to work. a line of people in northern california waiting for an antibody test to determine whether they have been exposed to the coronavirus without knowing it and may now be immune. >> the key to reopening is going to be testing. >> reporter: the antibody testing in california, part of a usc-stanford study, requires just a drop of blood, a simple pinprick. they say it costs about 10 bucks and results are available in about 10 minutes. $10, 10 minutes per test, and you are gathering incredibly valuable information. >> we can do this on a very large scale if we want to. >> reporter: the federal government has yet to deploy a nationwide test. new york state, the epicenter of the crisis, is developing its own, but they're only able to perform a few thousand tests a week. >> it's not enough if you want to reopen on a meaningful scale and reopen quickly. we need an unprecedented mobilization, where government can produce these tests in the millions. >> reporter: today governor cuomo calling on president trump to use the defense production act to make private companies produce antibody tests. but today from the white house -- >> there's not a lot of issues with testing. >> reporter: the president has downplayed the need for nationwide testing to diagnose covid-19 or detect whether a person has had the virus and is now possibly immune. >> we want to have it, and we're going to see if we have it. do you need it? no. is it a nice thing to do? yes. we're talking about 325 million people, and that's not going to happen. >> reporter: but dr. anthony fauci says testing is key and today announced the federal government is closing in on an antibody test. >> within a period of a week or so, we're going to have a rather large number of tests that are available. >> reporter: president trump now making this pledge. >> we're confident that the production will scale up to tens of millions of tests very quickly. >> a lot of eyes will be watching to see if that actually comes to fruition. kaylee with us tonight. the president and dr. fauci both asked today whether americans might one day have to carry some sort of proof that they have immunity from the virus. >> reporter: yeah, david. dr. fauci was asked if he could imagine that day, when americans would carry around a certificate of immunity. he said it's possible. it's something they're discussing. he says we need to make sure we know the difference betweeen someone who's vulnerable to infection and who's not. >> kaylee hartung, who's recovered from coronavirus herself. and we're glad to see that. kaylee, thanks for reporting tonight. the staggering toll on families across the country. nearly 17 million out of work. the urgent need for food. the desperate plea from church leaders as we head into this weekend. here's steve osunsami. >> they have enough food here for 20,000 individuals. >> reporter: the lines at food banks across the country are stretching forever. this one today in los angeles. these are the real people in the numbers. some of the nearly 17 million americans who just lost their jobs. >> they don't know where their next meal is going to come from. >> reporter: here in san antonio, they were lined up for free food before the sun rose, and this picture says everything. >> i've had a long day. i've been here since wednesday n unemployment check. joanne bullock in miami says the websites aren't always working, so people in need are having to leave their homes and get in line. >> i've been trying to do unemployment online, and i couldn't get through, but then i did get through, but then it blocked me out. >> reporter: for americans turning to god for help this easter sunday, they're being encouraged to stay home. >> this is one time when i believe that, frankly, we are going god's will by not going church. >> reporter: new york cardinal timothy dolan agrees. >> continuing the life and presence and mercy and grace of jesus, that goes on, in some ways in an even more vigorous way than if the buildings were open. >> reporter: but some of the faithful aren't listening. authorities across the country are blaming a number of outbreaks on large gatherings at funerals and church services. in kansas, a fight over the lord. the governor cancelled church services this easter sunday, and then lawmakers ordered them back on. >> a shockingly irresponsible decision that will put every kansas life at risk. >> reporter: one thing everyone on -- it is time for prayer. >> i'm a christian. heal our country. let's get healed before we do this. >> reporter: to get these stimulus checks out a lot faster, the treasury is announcing a new web portal. if you are not required to file your income tax, you can enter your direct deposit information and get the stimulus money a whole lot sooner. david? >> steve, let's hope it works. there is eye-opening news on british prime minster boris johnson and how serious his condition was. james longman from london. >> reporter: tonight, officials acknowledge boris johnson is only in an early stage of recovery. news that he's now been able to do short walks between periods of rest suggests how serious his condition was. a spokesman saying he waved to doctors and nurses as he was moved out of the icu. this morning, johnson's father painting a grim picture. >> if you use that american expression, he almost took one for the team. >> reporter: saying his son is still not out of woods. not far from where boris johnson recovers, gratitude for health workers on the front line. the british government will also be conscious of growing anger. 980 dead in the last 24 hours, higher even than italy on its worst day. in the vatican, the pope leading the faithful into a very different easter weekend, preaching this good friday in a near-empty st. peter's square. his prayers for strength and compassion now seem especially poignant. david, it's still too early to know when boris johnson will be out of this hospital, back in 10 downing street and leading this country out of the crisis. david? >> james, thank you. when we come back, the fbi with a warning about widespread scams. and severe storms set to hit this easter weekend. end. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression... or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. while most of the world is being asked to stay inside, there are people out there giving it their all. so, to everyone who is helping to keep us safe against covid-19 day in and day out, all of us at amgen say, ... thank you. we do things differently and aother money managers, don't understand why. because our way works great for us! but not for your clients. that's why we're a fiduciary, obligated to put clients first. so, what do you provide? cookie cutter portfolios? nope. we tailor portfolios to our client's needs. but you do sell investments that earn you high commissions, right? we don't have those. so, what's in it for you? our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. there will be parties and family gatherings. there will be parades and sporting events and concerts. to help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. spend a few minutes online today to impact the next 10 years of healthcare, infrastructure and education. go to 2020census.gov and respond today to make america's tomorrow brighter. it's time to shape our future. tonight, a warning from the fbi amid this emergency about scams. here's pierre thomas. >> reporter: tonight, a stark warning from the fbi as thousands of american consumers say they have been the target of covid-19 scams. the ftc reporting today more than 15,000 complaints, nearly doubling the number recorded last week. almost $12 million in losses and counting. the fbi making arrest middlebrook. >> i've created the cure for cov 19. c-o-v-i-d 19. the coronavirus. this is it right here. >> reporter: there's no cure. he's been arrested and charged with attempted wire fraud. accused of advertising a false claim to lure investors. tonight the state of missouri is suing televangelist jim bakker after his tv show promoted a silver solution cure for covid-19. a potion in a bottle that you could buy for $80. bakker's company says it was his guests who touted the product, but they have stopped offering it. the litigation is pending. and then there are those suspect robocalls. >> we can qualify you to get a free diabetic monitor and a complimentary testing kit for coronavirus. >> reporter: and websites promising to deliver a coronavirus vaccine for a fee when no such vaccine exists. david, folks at home should ignore online offers for cures, vaccinations, and home test kits. some of this stuff can be truly dangerous. >> pierre, thank you. when we come back, the severe storms this easter weekend. in a moment. a moment. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis... ...with humira. proof of less joint pain... ...and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. humira is proven to help stop further joint damage, ...and it's the #1-prescribed biologic for psa. want more proof? ask your rheumatologist about humira citrate-free. i heard there guwere fleas out here.r? and t-t-t-t-t-icks! and mosquitoooooooooooes! listen up, scaredy cats. we all have k9 advantix ii to protect us. it kills and repels fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, too. and ford is built to lend a hand especially now with 6-month payment relief. buy a new ford, we'll defer 3 payments and make 3 payments for peace of mind for up to 6 months. shop at ford.com or contact your ford dealer to find out more about home delivery and other vehicle service options. you have a lot to take care of... let us help take care of you. dr. dto do a lot right now.re that we're asking americans so we're asking everyone to be selfless for others so that we can protect those who are most susceptible to this virus. dr. jerome adams: a question i often get asked is, "why should young people care about the spread of coronavirus?" well we know that people with underlying medical conditions over the age of 60 are at highest risk, but they've got to get it from somebody. dr. anthony fauci: social distancing is really physical separation of people. dr. deborah birx: it's what we refer to when we ask people to stay at least six feet apart. dr. anthony fauci: not going to bars, not going to restaurants, not going to theaters where there are a lot of people... it all just means physical separation so you have a space between you and others who might actually be infected or infect you. dr. jerome adams: we all have a role to play in preventing person-to-person spread of this disease which can be deadly for vulnerable groups. for more information on how you can social distance please go to coronavirus.gov the severe weather threat this easter weekend. texas in the threat zone tomorrrow before the system moves east for easter sunday. 50 million in the path from texas to the carolinas. when we come back, the moment you saw right here. now the story behind it. who is our person of the week? (vo) was that a pivotal historical moment ♪ we just went stumbling past? here we are dancing in the rumbling dark so come a little closer give me something to grasp give me your beautiful, crumbling heart we're working every dread day that is given us feeling like the person people meet really isn't us like we're going to buckle underneath the trouble like any minute now the struggle's going to finish us and then we smile at all our friends even when i'm weak and i'm breaking i'll stand weeping at the train station 'cause i can see your faces there is so much peace to be found in people's faces. i love people's faces. ♪ we can't offer much during this time of crisis, but we can offer what we have. so from all of us working early mornings on the farm, long days in the plant, or late nights stocking shelves doing all we can to get you the milk you need. we hope it makes your breakfast a little brighter. your snacks more nutritious. and reminds you when it comes to caring, there is no expiration date. milk. love what's real. i heard there guwere fleas out here.r? and t-t-t-t-t-icks! and mosquitoooooooooooes! listen up, scaredy cats. we all have k9 advantix ii to protect us. it kills and repels fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, too. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. finally tonight here, we all saw that moment last night here, and we wanted the story behind it. our persons of the week. it was the moment we first brought you last night here. the doors opening at maimonedes medical center in brooklyn. dr. paul saunders recovering from coronavirus, returning to his rounds. [ applause ] he was not expecting this. >> thank you very much. totally unexpected and undeserved, but thank you all for coming to work and for working so hard all this time. so, all appreciated by everybody, but thank you very much. >> and welcome back. >> happy to be back. >> reporter: and now we learn that that doctor who was on the front lines, that even while he was recovering, dr. saunders was checking in on his patients. >> one of the hardest things about not being here is you feel like you're letting everyone down inside the hospital. everyone's working so hard and the whole time i was home, i'm just anxious to get back and just to get back, get back to work. >> reporter: there are so many heroes. we have seen those lines applauding health care workers. but tonight, this image from a nurse recording as she walked through it. nurse victoria schlit from north shore university hospital in manhattan, new york, thanking them back. >> thank you. >> reporter: this evening, victoria sending us a message after finishing another shift. >> hey, david. >> reporter: telling us that moment mattered. >> it was an incredible feeling to see the support of our local heroes thanking the staff for our hard work. it's been a devastating few weeks and the support we received make it worth it. we're in this together and we'll get through this together. >> heroes everywhere. where would we be without them? i really appreciate you being here again this week, and we'll see you back here on monday. good night. it's going to be a beautiful weekend and the worst thing you can do is go outside and enjoy it. >> reporter: i'm melanie woodrow. how authorities are combatting coronavirus in nursing homes around the bay area. >> reporter: i'm eric thomas in oakland. this street will be blocked off tomorrow along with several others so you can get out and exercise is it still maintain a straight distance. that story straight ahead. >> announcer: now, your health, your safety. this is abc 7 news. good evening, thank you for joining us. i'm dan ashley. >> and i'm ama daetz joining us live from my home. there is going to be a lot of temptation to take a break from your shelter in place to enjoy the holiday weekend. but all the experts say, don't. >> being home this weekend is of vital importance to all of us, a way to protect our communities, our neighbors, and our families. >> this just in, the contra costa county fairgrounds in antioch is going to turned into an overflow medical care site for coronavirus patients. it could handle a maximum of 43 patients if needed. sonoma county just issued a blanket order which means that anyone who is suspected of having coronavirus and their close contacts must quarantine themselves. and good news, $100 million to help provide childcare services for essential workers during the pandemic. it's part of emergency statewide legislation. today san francisco mayor london breed revealed an outbreak of coronavirus cases at the city's biggest homeless shelter. mse south located on fifth street. 70 people have tested positive. 68 residents and two staff. >> we know that from the very, very beginning, congregant living settings like our single room occupancy hotels, we knew those had the potential of being hotspots. and so we have
epicenter in the u.s. and from where. how lock it was here before we learned of the first cases. and tonight, concerns about growing hot spots across america. ten family members infected within days of a birthday dinner in philadelphia. the father spending 17 days on a ventilator, given an experimental drug. from louisiana to michigan to chicago, where at least 350 inmates and staff are infected at the cook county jail. the sign reading, "we matter too." tonight, the long lines across this country for food, and the new numbers. another 6.6 million americans filing for unemployment. now more than 1 arve anif ye ao hel fh fd or that. ons, toni we are also focused on the smaller communities in this country. the hospitals in rural america. one hospital with just four ventilators. in wuhan, china, tonight, life after the lockdown. protective gear, new rules. and you'll see the experimental technology allowing police to measure body temperatures, scanning the crowd for fevers. and your questions tonight. dr. jen ashton on what it might be like when america tries to go back to work. what steps will we have to take here? good evening and it's great to have you with us on this thursday night. and as we come on tonight, a new and grim milestone in this country. the number of deaths has now topped 16,000. and in new york state, more cases than any other country in the world outside the u.s. and we did learn today of new research indicating just when the virus might have arrived here in new york city, here for weeks before the first reported cases. we're going to drill down on that in just a moment here. the death toll tonight in this country, more than 16,000 people in the u.s. it's staggering when you think about these numbers. more than 7,000 lives lost in new york state alone. scientists have long pointed out that the death toll often lags behind the surge. patients in the hospital, of course, for days or weeks, then dying from this. you can see that death toll right there in new york steadily rising and those new highs three days in a row. but i wanted to show you something else tonight, because there is a glimmer of hope. look at this. also from new york state, and it shows the rate of increase of new cases in the state steadily falling in recent days. of course, let's hope that holds and that it will eventually be reflected in the death rate. we can hope. scientists say this shows that the social distancing is working. tonight here, we're going to take you inside a new york city hospital where doctors are using a rare treatment to save the lives of patients in their 30s and 40s when ventilators simply aren't enough. and the threat now spreading to new hot spots including new yonyk hospital cheering as a convey of nurses from elsewhere arrived today. emergencies tonight in philadelphia, baltimore, washington, d.c. and parts of louisiana. in detroit and south florida. and the heartbreaking images in so many places across america tonight. the long lines for food. the new unemployment numbers out tonight, more than 16 million americans now out of work, needing help. when will the checks arrive? antibodies, will that be one way to help get this country back working, back to some sort of normalcy? what dr. anthony fauci said about this today. and we begin tonight with abc's whit johnson here in new york. >> reporter: tonight, the battle to save lives growing more desperate. >> making considerably more progress. >> reporter: inside this icu, at maimonides hospital in brooklyn, doctors deploying a rare treatment on covid patients in their 30s and 40s still faili i on ventilators. >> in this current epidemic, it's used as a last resort when ventilators are not enough. >> reporter: heart surgeon dr. paul saunders, a covid survivor himself, performing "ecmo", temporarily drawing blood out of the body to help oxygenate red blood cells in patients whose lungs aren't functioning. >> with such limited resources, we have to be very careful as to who we're going to offer this to. and making sure those patients are ones that really have a good chance of a good benefit. >> reporter: emotions running high for nurse mary kate funaro. working in the same icu where her father, a doctor, was being treated for the virus. he's now back home, feeling better. >> unfortunately i was not able to go inside his room, didn't want to cross contaminate. between other covid-19 patients and him. so i waved to him from outside the glass. >> reporter: but in new york state, the death toll reaching new heights by the day. coronavirus killing nearly 800 people in just 24 hours. >> we've lost over 7,000 lives to this crisis. that is so shocking and painful and breathtaking, i don't even have the words for it. >> reporter: overwhelmed hospitals scrambling this ki so patients on bunks in large trucks to be transported. the virus surging in new york's suburbs. in suffolk county, long island, covid-19 claiming the lives of two nurses. construction of a 1,000-bed field hospital now under way. today, dozens of nurses from upstate arriving to help. new research now suggests the virus was circulating in the new york area by mid-february, weeks before the first confirmed case. researchers suspect that travelers brought it mainly from europe, not asia. >> new york was seeded before they really knew what was going on, and that's why they're in the difficult situation that they're in right now. >> reporter: back in early march, we heard from americans who said they weren't screened on their way back from italy, a growing hot zone at the time. >> as of right now, we have not experienced any sort of extra check based on anything regarding the coronavirus. >> reporter: tonight, the government is taking its first step toward getting more americans back to work. the cdc issuing new guidelines for essential workers who have been exposed to the virus. but are asymptomatic, like temperature checks before shifts. ore em still sweeping i across the country. in illinois, the death toll topping 500. the virus exploding behind bars of the cook county jail in chicago. at least 350 inmates and staff infected. most of the inmates haven't been tested. and a devastating toll for nursing home residents. in new york state, more than 1,200 dead and thousands infected. at one home in richmond, virginia, 39 residents have died from the virus, now the deadliest known outbreak in the country. >> it appears that it's a death trap. it app that y. inhe sense that we can't see him, we can't go and take him >> reporter: don't, tonight, doctors are closely watching cases in d.c., baltimore and philadelphia, where mike and kelly dewan saw first-hand how quickly the virus spreads. within days of a birthday dinner for his daughters, ten members of the family were sick. the entire family, grandparents too. but mike deteriorated quickly. >> labored breathing. like, i can't get a deep breath, i can't breathe. >> reporter: after 17 days on a ventilator and that experimental ebola drug, mike woke up and is now recovering. >> i think about it every day. >> reporter: and a special day for paul saunders, that doctor in brooklyn we just met today. his colleagues greeting him with cheers. his first full day back in the icu, after defeating coronavirus himself, now continuing the fight to save others. >> thank you very much. totally unexpected and undeserved. >> he said that was unexpected, undeserved but we all know it is very deserving. they applauded him and continue to do so even after he said that. a powerful moment today. whit johnson with us from mt. sinai hospital tonight. and i know a battle for those doctors every day. but new york is really siege some glilers of home tonight. the rate of hospitalizations also slowing. >>oftazations i beginni to flatten considerably, so, they want to see that trend continue and then decline, a sign that new york state could be nearing its apex, but as you mentioned earlier, that painful death rate still very high, officials are hoping that will soon come down, as well. david? >> all right, whit johnson leading us off tonight. thank you. of course, we have been reporting here on the long lines, not just for unemployment benefits, but for food. and tonight, the numbers that explain the need for food are only growing. 6.6 million americans filed unemployment claims last week alone. the three-week total now, nearly 17 million. 1 in 10 workers in america now without a paycheck. abc's victor oquendo witnessing those long lines today i with millions of americans still waiting for those stimulus checks and 10% of americans out of a job in three weeks, long lines for food becoming a new normal. these cars lined up in los angeles. >> certainly, it is a point that is so needed, that this many people did show up. >> reporter: in san diego, help for military families. >> i'm in a very high pregnancy, so it really helps a lot. >> reporter: and in plano, texas, where cheryl jackson runs a food pantry -- >> i am so thankful to every person that's got out of their house and donated one box of cereal for another family to be able to eat. i'm grateful. >> reporter: the hernandez family in miami, grateful, too. how much does this help you? >> let me tell you, now it's getting worse, because you g to the supermarkets and you don't see nothing. now the shelves are empty. >> reporter: they just picked up enough food to last their children a few days. miami-dade county public schools distributing more than 700,000 meals since schools were shuttered. >> there was never a lapse. kids never were left without support, without nourishment. >> reporter: so many families need those stimulus checks. by one count, nearly a third of americans couldn't afford to pay their rent this month. for small businesses, the payment protection program still struggling to meet demand. >> you know, just waiting -- just waiting game for us now. >> i'm trying to file for this, file for this, but nothing comes through yet. >> reporter: the federal reserve announcing today they are pumping $2.3 trillion into the economy so banks can keep lending. >> we want to make sure that customers know, the banks will get to all of them. >> reporter: for those whose jobs are considered essential, many are risking their lives for that paycheck. 59-year-old vitalina williams worked as a cashier part time at this salem, massachusetts, grocery store, also checking receipts at a nearby walmart. she died on saturday after a week in the hospital. >> my last memory of her, seeing her sitting there, in her coat, and her blue little hat, and leaving her at the emergency room. >> reporter: she's believed to be the first grocery worker in the state to die with the virus. >> and we have seen this with grocery store workers around the country. victor with us live from miami tonight. we see that line of cars right there behind you, victor. food drive at a school. and i know authorities throughout miami-dade are trying to set up based on the need they're seeing already in other places? >> reporter: that's right, david. they are bracing for the worst, preparing a, quote, mass feeding operation that would help those most in need. and as a contingency plan, they've ordered 500,000 mres, meals ready to eat, like what you'd see in the military. david? >> victor, thank you. and later, right here tonight, how you can help if you are able to. in the meantime, we also cannot forget the smaller communities across the country, the virus now reaching deep into rural america, where they already faced a shortage of health care, with hospitals closing. tonight, one hospital with just four ventilators. here's steve osunsami. >> reporter: in rural america tonight, where many thought the coronavirus would never hit home, nearly two-thirds of rural counties are reporting outbreaks of covid-19. this e.r. doc in rural mississippi says his state already struggles with fewer doctors per patient, and now this. >> i have this image of a tsunami out in the gulf of mexico that's about to wash over our state. >> reporter: at the williamsburg regional hospital in south carolina, that tsunami has arrived. they are still recovering from a flood and dr. troy gamble says he only has four ventilators. >> many of the patients we've had, we've had to intubate and send elsewhere. >> reporter: these are americans who have to drive an hour or more to the closest hospital. 120 rural medical facilities have closed in the past decade. and it's not just the south. in six rural counties in michigan, the number of covid-19 cases has nearbily doubled in the last week. this hospital in rural holyoke, colorado, is short on masks. >> we're not the urban settings. we are often not the first people to get things. >> in southeast georgia, shawndel gatling is recovering. >> we love you! >> reporter: she's finally leaving her small country hospital, where already 49 people have died. >> that is a great image to see. but we have to keep these rural hospitals in mind, as we carefully go through this story, day after day, steve. and dr. deborah birx at the white house has warned already that the number of kroechs cases in rural america could actually be undercounted. >> reporter: david, authorities explain it this way. that if it takes you an honor to get to the closest medical facility, then it takes that long or longer to get to the closest test for covid-19. they say this explains the undercount. david? >> really important story tonight. thank you, steve. overseas, members of our team traveling to wuhan, china, tonight. that city now open, but with new rules and experimental technology allowing police to scan the crowd for body temperatures, looking for fevers. here's our foreign correspondent ian pannell tonight. >> reporter: tonight, a city on the mend, surging back to life. this timelapse showing just how rng c s returned to wuhan's stres. but this i that keeps watch everywhere. local police boasting of new technology deployed. helmets with a video thermometer they claim allows officers to scan the temperatures of more than 100 airport passengers in just two minutes. it's not clear if this experimental tech is a practical tool. wuhan,eeing lifeafter the lifted. nervous residents still wearing protective gear. travelers even being colded for not wearing masks properly. and now new signs requiring patients scan a health code which will allow some to travel on the subway. even on the yangtze river security che city's light show. wuhan comes as the uk is facing several more weeks of lockdown. amid breaking news tonight, that prime minister boris johnson has been moved from intensive care and is in, quote, extremely good spirits. david, the government says that the lockdown stays in place until britain moving beyond the peak, but the chief scientific officer is saying that still could be weeks away. so, britain's very much in the dark tonight, with no end in sight. david? >> all right, ian pannell, thank you. and of course, you saw what they're doing in wuhan. so, what will we have to do here in the u.s., what kind of testing will we all get tested before we can return to work? what dr. anthony fauci said about that today, and dr. jen ash season to standing by with that. so toyota is here to help. to ensure your toyota is in top condition, many toyota service centers are open to serve you- with certified technicians and genuine toyota parts. and no-contact vehicle drop-off. we're here for you. contact your local toyota dealer to see how they can help. toyota to see hoi heard there theyguwere fleas out here.r? and t-t-t-t-t-icks! and mosquitoooooooooooes! listen up, scaredy cats. we all have k9 advantix ii to protect us. it kills and repels fleas, ticks and mosquitoes, too. there will be parties and family gatherings. there will be parades and sporting events and concerts. to help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. spend a few 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questions, dr. jen ashton is back tonight. and we've talked about this a lot, the idea for test for antibodies at some point to see if we have some sort of immunity. and dr. fauci was asked today, will we need to do this to return to work, to return as a society, and he indicated it's something we might have to be prepared for. >> well, likely, david, what we're going to need to do is widespread testing to see who is susceptible, who is infected and who has recovered, and then some strategic quarantine, contact tracing with particular attention to high-risk populations and area, some degree of social distancing likely until a vaccine is ready. >> all right, jen ashton with us again tonight. thank you, jen. and we are also tracking severe thunderstorms tonight from texas all the way up to the from texas all the way up to the northeast in a moment. my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. once weekly 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( ♪ ) ask your doctor about living longer with kisqali. we're also tracking those severe storms from texas up to the northeast. at least six tornadoes in arkansas and indiana. and now winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour overnight from chicago to new york to boston. we'll be tracking it. when we come back tonight, you saw those food lines, and if you're able, how you can help. ♪ fifty years ago, humpback whales were nearly extinct. they rebounded because a decision was made to protect them. making the right decisions today for your long-term financial future can protect you and your family, and preserve your legacy. ask a financial advisor how retirement and life insurance solutions from pacific life can help you plan for your future. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. people at higher risk, must take extra precautions. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. you are at higher risk if you are over 65, or if you have any serious underlying medical conditions, like heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, or if your immune system is compromised for any reason. if you're at higher risk, wash your hands frequently with soap and water for twenty seconds. avoid touching your face. disinfect frequently touched objects. and wash up after being in public spaces. and when it comes to social situations...less is better. stay six feet or two arm lengths away from other people. better still, stay home if you can. if you're sick, please stay home and away from others. and if you think you've been exposed to the virus, call your health care provider before going to their office. in challenging times, the choices you make are critical. please visit coronavirus.gov for more information. i thought i had my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis under control. turns out, it was controlling me. seemed like my symptoms were taking over our time together. i knew i needed to talk to my doctor. think he'll make it? that's when i learned humira can help get and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. with humira, control is possible. dot st ahainctn. treou, ta finally tonight here, america strong. the generosity and it is needed. americans heing their neighbors, helping to put foot on the table. tonight, the heroes across america. fee ready. sara watson, a special education teacher, cofounding feed the front line, to feed hospital workers, raising money, placing orders, trying to save local restaurants, too. >> i've been making all theri's this is helping them keep employees on their staff and immediately go toe a hospital and see the people these meals are going to feed. >> thank you! >> thank you! >> tonight, sara sending this message to us. >> hi, david. >> telling us, it's not just houston. the idea is growing. >> we're now in houston, dallas, charlotte, nashville and we've served up over 5,000 meals this week. >> in centerville, virginia, you'll remember sal, an air force veteran taking donations to make meals for hospital workers. now, they're taking donations to feed families, too. >> hi, david. >> telling us, families are placing orders to help the hospital workers, but they also want to send food to families in need. >> they're basically ordering our food and saying, hey, can you bring it to my neighbor? >> and feeding america. the nation's largest hunger relief organization, tonight, listen to what they told us. >> i've never witnessed the system being more strained than it is right now. our estimations are that we will need to serve an additional 17.1 million people through this crisis. >> americans across this country answering the call. >> glad to be helping everybody in need right now. >> helping to put food o the table. the regional food bank of oklahoma city. that's john in operations. and lloyd vine says, they are a determined few. >> for the past couple of weeks, it's been myself and about eight other staff members. >> as americans across this country reach out to help their neighbors. >> thank god they're doing this. this is really the only source of food we're getting at the moment. >> and that is all you need to hear. thank god they're doing this. so, we love hearing from all of those volunteers across the country today. we're going to stay on this. our neighbors need us. and so if you are able, it's feedingamerica.org/feedthelove. i'm david muir. i hope to see you right back here tomorrow. good night. ♪[ siren ] & doug give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ now your health, your safety. this is abc7 news. dahave seen soy p feeling littfo. >> pandemics hitting people hard, and the need is greater than ever. today there were long lines as people waited at a food giveaway in the south bay, and there is still not enough. good afternoon and thank you for joining us. i'm ama daetz live from my home. >> and i'm larry beil. today abc tv stations across the country are participating in a day of hope. and we found out just how great the need is today. it's immense and growing with every day. with more bay area residents hungry and seeking help because of job loss, food banks and community groups are stepping up. we're highlighting some of those efforts as part of abc's day of hope, in partnership with