Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20240622 : vimars

Now we know that china russia, venezuela voted to approve this. They will vote to lift the u. S. Sanctions. The only power we have left to override the president s veto, and groups like aipac who i have met with the past several days who have to appeal to democrats, this is a bad deal. That is the only way that this whole process can be stopped. Why does it need to be stopped . It allows them to continue their Nuclear Weapons program. That is not why we passed the sanctions over the last decade. We passed the sanctions to dismantle their nuclear capability. The idea that it is for peaceful, Energy Purposes is laughable. The icbm capability can continue to go forward. You develop that to deliver a nuclear warhead. It will start a middle east arms race. When i was in saudi, they said, why are you negotiating with iran . Our allies are confused and do not know if they are still allies. They are strongly opposed to this. Now we see a Nuclear Arms Race in the middle east, egypt will look at it, turkey. Lastly, hundreds of billions of dollars that will be lifted and given to the largest state sponsor of terror with hamas hezbollah, the influence in the western hemisphere, venezuela and other countries. We saw the saudi ambassador assassination plot. They conduct Cyber Attacks routinely on our financial sector. This will pour hundreds of billions into this operation. I think it is quite frankly our biggest foreignpolicy mistake in my lifetime, and i think it rivals neville chamberlains negotiations with hitler. If the president s argument is, it is this deal or war, but your assessment is, at this deal actually does is protects their nuclear infrastructure, allows them to become a stronger Nuclear Breakout state pours times of money into the regime and makes them more dangerous you argue the best course of action would be for the United States not to participate in the vienna action and that would allow the next president more freedom . Rep. Mccaul the only thing in the realm of possibility is to make it vetoproof. I think Chuck Schumer is a key player in this, in the senate, and we are working very hard to make this a bipartisan opposition to the president s policies. The more the American People here about this deal as they chant death to america, they are celebrating on the streets of tehran as they changed in the streets. I think that speaks volumes, and if we cannot accomplish that, then i think the only thing left is the next president. And i think that will make the next 2016 election that much more important. This is going to be a driving issue when we go home in august over the recess, and i think it will be a driving issue in the 2016 debate. At least i hope so. Lets just round out the discussion because why thats what i really appreciated from your remarks with how copperheads they were. Comprehensive they were. Dealing with terrorism overseas and domestically. Some of the legislation, part of that is how to deal with this so let me ask you a sense of the question where you have gotten some criticism from your friends on the right. If you were going to create a countering violent extremism capability in the hs, what is to prevent this administration from using that to go after political opponents, maybe conservative it conservative groups much in the way that the administration has been accused of using it . Rep. Mccaul the intent of the legislation is to go against radical islam ists, against radical ideology. If it occurred, you would see a pretty good response from me. That is not the intention of the bill. When i talked to secretary jeh johnson and others, their priority is radical islamists. They can go to the muslim communities to do that out reach necessary to find the next tamerlan tsarnaev. Chattanooga had a lot of flags going up before they kill people. If we can identify those flags before hand and d radicalize, that would be very helpful. This is really a two front deal. When i met with centcom, one of their biggest priorities is Homeland Security. Mine is protecting homeland from within but also, protecting homeland by eliminating threats outside. For instance, these what i call isis cyber commanders sending directives out on a routine basis to attack. The idea that we cannot take them out overseas, i have been pressing them to buy identify , i cannot name the names, but identify who they are at the internet cafes, and take them out. Not to say that that will end it. There will be others that will follow. I think at the end of the day, it is a war ideology. That is why the counter violent extremism is so important to provide the counter narrative to a radical ideology. We are in a longterm struggle that i do not know if it will end during our lives. Just affirmed that when it is done right, that can work. I was in st. Louis were two individuals were arrested for providing Material Support to isis. The community was complete utterly outraged, and they actually were extremely cooperative and wanted to engage with state and local and fbi officials because they wanted to protect their community and their children. I agree with you, when it is done right, it is a positive and a strengthening force in the community, not a divisive thing. Rep. Mccaul we will be able to identify radicalization early on and stop it. I want to try to squeeze in maybe one or two questions from the audience but i want to get one more point before we do that. Something that we have dealt with for a very long time, the role of the Homeland Security committee in the house and the difficulties and the importance of consolidating authorities and jurisdiction, just get your view on that. Rep. Mccaul i think unlike the house arms service, which has authority over the entire department of defense, my committee was built on a compromise after 9 11, so it shares jurisdiction with so many other committees that not only is the oversight cumbersome because we find officials have to testify all the time and cannot do their job. Secondly, it makes it more difficult to legislate. I think it is detrimental, the 9 11 commission came back again. This is one of the biggest threats to the United States and congress. We talk about silo and information in the executive branch and not communicating yet the congress, we have done that through our committees. Jurisdiction is the holy grail in congress, and i think it is something that needs to be fixed. I intend to present this to the next congress in the rules package but i think the argument needs to be made, and i think it needs to be done. We have a question over here. If you would just state your name and affiliation before you ask your question, that would be great. Thank you very much. My name is laura dr. Laura core, and im a subject Matter Expert in terrorist radicalization and dera dicalization. We are doing a lot of research for what you are talking about. How can we help . When it comes to online sanctuaries, twitter is a serious issue. Google and facebook have a Faster Response time. If you complain about a twitter handle, it takes weeks if not months for an account that is blatantly recruiting for different groups, to be taken down. An hour later, the same handle comes up. In the next few months, will you be addressing how to perhaps influenced twitter to be comparable to its counterpart and not be used as a platform for terrorism and recruitment and radicalization . Thank you. Rep. Mccaul great question. You can help support my legislation getting through and groups like heritage, that supported. I think it is common sense to counter violent extremism. We met the day before the shooting, ironically, and i think it is desperately needed. It is not a focus of the administration and it needs to be. With respect to, this is the hightech challenge. Bin laden, it was all careers and caves. Now it is this younger generation. Terrorists are very savvy online with their propaganda. They are in their 20s and they change their handles, they change their twitter accounts so trying to stay in front of them, we can argue about changing the law to include a backdoor into devices, but thats kind of dicey on the private seaside. We are looking more for a Technology Solution. My first meeting is friday morning, with the hightech sector, the leaders like google and twitter. And Homeland Security, fbi and doj, to see what kind of solution can we provide. I can get into a little bit more depth in the q and a. We see these situations from syria into the United States. We saw in garland, new york, in boston. For all i know, this guy in chattanooga could have and im not saying he did, because we are still to the forensics could have been communicating in what we call dark space. They will go to another platform like ask fm, knowing that it is secure, it is dark, which means that even with a court order we cannot see that communication. There are again 200,000 tweets, isis tweets per day. When it is an dark space, we cannot see that communication whatsoever. Theres a lot of communication going on between cyber commanders in syria and americans, thousands of followers in the United States about attack in america. We cannot shine a light on the communications through the darkness. As a policy maker, Civil Liberties, by the sea, this all has to be part of the equation but we have to find a Technology Solution to this so that we can better stop it. Otherwise, we cannot see the communications, we cannot stop it. If the guy in chattanooga was operating in dark space with the guy in syria, that would make it good case of why we need to fix that problem. I talked to the director of fbi and jeh johnson, this is one of their biggest concerns that they cannot lawfully monitor these communications. We will take one last question out here. Thank you. I think we can all agree that trying to monitor cyberspace is futile, lawfully or unlawfully. Given that it is a war of ideology, is there any plan on the table for policy to try and exploit that ideology . That seems to be the crux of it is, recruits will be replenished as long as they can be reached out to. Do we have a way to counter this ideology, use it against them . Rep. Mccaul it is a great question. When you go to what i was proposing in terms of a ground force, it has got to be under American Leadership with our guys and that it, and it is time for the city of arab nations to provide that ground force. They will do so if there is a strategy. When the infidel sets foot, the last resort, we try to do this or redo 100,000 u. S. Or we do hundred thousand u. S. Comment groups combat groups. That is an option that should be on the table. When i talked to centcom, you inflame them because the infidel is on their land. I think there is a smart approach, a smart way to do this without inflaming them, and indigenous force were the sunni moderates defeat sunni extremists. That seems to me, under American Leadership. The counter narrative is not there. That is the purpose of my bill to counter violent extremism at home. The state department does not have the counter narrative to defeated abroad. When i met centcom the dod has a lot of this Technology Capability to do it. The ambassador was there at the meeting. I was urging them to start this counter narrative so that they can know, you can go to syria it is not disneyland. You are going to get put on the front lines, probably blown up. Frontline did a great special. I am always watching pbs. A special on enslaving isis women and bartering them off for weapons and 500. It is horrific what they do. The videos i see every week are just chilling. The lack of humanity, and that is a counter narrative that needs to be out there more. At the end of the day, it is providing stability in these countries. Power vacuums, when they fall, it breeds terrorism. After we saw the air of spring, arab spring, we saw libya. Pulled out of africa, completely out of iraq and syria. Without a counter narrative and a strategy to deal with it, it is going to continue to breathe and thrive. That is the problem, is it has metastasized so greatly globally. That is what worries me. Im going to ask you all to join with me in a small round of administrative jujitsu. Im going to ask you to join me in thanking congressman mccall. Mccaul, for his talk, which has been informative. I would ask for our panel to just jump up as soon as he leaves the stage and we will not lose any time. Please join me and thinking congressman mccaul. [applause] in thanking congressman mccaul. [applause] do you remember i told you the story that i lost secretary renfield rumsfelds bio . I just lost all their bios, but fortunately i know all these guys. This is a terrific panel because what you have here is just a net of expertise and knowledge which is really kind of unusual to bring together. So you had this minor job in the white house . Working on the Homeland Security Council Staff as an advisor. Somebody that really worked at this on the inside at the highest level. General meese was not just the attorney general of the United States but for many years, one of our most distinguished scholars. Among the things he has done in addition to dealing with these issues is he recently served on a very important commission that reviewed the counterterrorism functions of the fbi. Here is somebody with years and years of knowledge and experience who has had the opportunity to do an indepth investigation. Our third panelist is a test with Homeland Security. All the federal agencies state local, and international partners. You have three amazing perspectives. And i will ask each of them to make some remarks, and then we will get into as much cute and a the end as we can. Q and a at the end as we can. Thank you for coming today. Im going to use my time to lay out some of the statistics and trends the u. S. Has been seen in its long war against islamic terrorism, and give general recommendations echoing what general mccall. This data tells me that the u. S. Has faced more tears plots and attacks test terrorist plots and attacks this year than we have any prior year, and we are only in july. This is the most dynamic. Of terrorist activity that the u. S. Has seen since 9 11, of the publicly available information. There could be classified information. The fbi, they state they are tracking hundreds of individuals. It is clear that we have a very serious problem. At the outset, i just want to describe quickly what it is we do, what the criteria are that we look at when, is it a terror plot. It has to be a concrete plot with actual action taken. If someone wants to travel abroad support isis, we do not consider that a terrorist plots against the u. S. Homeland. A terrorist act is defined by statute and would be motivated by an islamic ideology. Generally, we also look for an official statement by the government and Law Enforcement to indicate that this was an act of terror, usually indicated by criminal charges. That is not always the case. Take the fort hood shooting. That was characterized as workplace violence, not an act of terror. With these criteria in mind, we have been watching and recorded 72 islamist terror plots since 9 11, not including chattanooga since we are still watching for some of those criteria. Of these plots, five were successful. U. S. Law enforcement help foiled 59 and International Loss Law Enforcement foiled 10, and we got lucky three times. These plots involved 171 individuals in total and at least 27 of these individuals were trained in terrorist camps abroad. 61 of the 72 plot were homegrown terror plot. These folks were here in the United States when they were radicalized. They did not get their ideology why they were staying abroad. They were staying here in the United States. 28 were foiled by Law Enforcement things. What exactly were they targeting . The number one homeland target has been the u. S. Military either personnel or actual basis. 19 plots or attacks have gone after our military. The second most common target is new york city, with 16 plots followed by Mass Gatherings at 12 plot. Mass transit situations are the fourth target and washington dc and Law Enforcement tie for the fifth most common target. The recent plots have been unique. All the plots this year have been inspired by or directed by isis, while most prior attacks were done by individuals who were inspired by or directed by al qaeda, one of their affiliates, or some other ideology. To have all 10 plots in the past six months will be connected to one group shows the influence isis has. It is not a coincidence that we have seen this spike in terrorism as isis has risen to prominence. During the past year, we have seen a spike in plots against Law Enforcement and our military, which makes sense since isis has specifically called for violence against them. The question is, what do we do about this . My panelists will have the opportunity to dive into some details, but i want to use to touch on two broad ideas. It is critical that the United States take a proactive approach. When we treat terrorism just like a crime that we can combat with Law Enforcement tools, we can deter it, we can punish it after the fact, we misunderstand the nature of the threat. Terrorists are happy to, and sometimes even want to die in pursuit of their goal. The bigger bang they make, the more likely they are to get us to change our behavior, so they are looking for those big opportunities. They are looking to hurt us, and criminal punishment after the path after the fact is not a deterrent. Theyre also looking for soft targets that are easily attacked. Take the most recent lot in boston. Plot in boston. Or look at tunisia, the attack on the resort. These are soft targets, not guarded by