Former department of Homeland Security adviser for the obama administration. Ok, thank you. Thats exactly right. Now we have to recognize the Senior Member here. Well, it is a treat to welcome former colleagues, current colleagues. Ive worked with every member of this panel in some form or another, inside and outside of government. Its a treat to welcome everyone here on behalf of the center of law and security on the nyu school of law that i am privileged to serve as a distinguished senior fellow at. Welcome to this program and welcome to my colleagues. This is really a treat for me to be joined together with you once again to talk about a really important and timely subject, the issue of National Security and how the executive branch and the legislative branch address some of the most Critical Issues of our time, and i will do some very brief introductions in a minute, but you will understand the theme here is every single one of these distinguished Public Servants served in the executive branch and the National Security community and the searching topic for today is how has that service informed your view as legislators . And how can we be best poised from both branches to confront some of these most thorny issues that we face . So thank you one and all for being here. Very quickly, we have to my far left, no pun intended, will herd. [laughter] represents the 23rd district in texas, elected to congress in 2014. He serves on the House Appropriations committee and the Permanent Select Committee on intelligence. Most importantly for this panel, before serving in congress he served as an undercover officer in the cia, the middle east, and in south asia, and, near and dear to my heart, hes my cochair on the aspen Cyber Security group. Hes one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful members on Cyber Security issues and the issues of emerging technology. Were very fortunate to have him here. Next to congressman herd, alyssa slotkin, representing the 8th district of michigan, elected to congress in 2018. Representative slotkin serves on the house Homeland Security committee, before being elected representative slotkin worked for the cia in the middle east and served as acting assistant security where we spent many hours around the situation room table. This will not be like that. And, last but not least, congressman kim. Andy kim represents the Third District of new jersey, elected to congress in 2018, representative kim serves on the House Armed Services committee and the house Small Business committee. Before being elected, representative kim worked on the National Security staff, again, with yours truly, as an expert on the middle east, south asia, afghanistan. He served as a strategic adviser in afghanistan alongside generals David Petraeus and general john allen and so we are very, very lucky to have all of them here with us today and the citizens of texas, michigan and new jersey are very fortunate indeed. I will be your moderator for this. Im lisa monaco. I should have done that at the front end. In addition to my service at nyu i was president obamas Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser. So lets get started and get rolling. I know some of you have to leave a little bit early to do the peoples business. So crossing the divide, thats the title of our program, going from the executive branch to congress. I will lob a softball at everyone and try and get your response to this. Youve all served in the executive branch. Youve all served in the National Security community. Youve made the pivot to the legislative branch. How has that informed your service in being a productive and effective legislator in the time of tremendous National Security tumult . Ill start with you, will. Rep. Herd sure, lisa, thank you. Its a pleasure to be here with my esteemed colleagues. Were lucky to have this kind of experience here in congress at an important time. As an operator within the cia, youre the collectors of last resort, and our job is to inform policymakers. We are very clear. Our job was not to suggest or project policy. The transition was interesting for me because for almost a decade it was doing the things that we were not supposed to be doing. But having granular understanding of these positions, living in india and pakistan for two years looking at these issues from a different perspective, being in new york city and understanding how these foreign issues impact and spending a year and a half in afghanistan where i managed all of our undercover operations, you have a working knowledge of the topic thats important. While isis was not a thing when i was in the cia, al qaeda obviously was. The same principles and theories in dealing with al qaeda is what you can do with isis. As a core collector, my job was to talk to a lot of different people to try to understand. The closest to find the truth, talk to enough people and where everybody overlaps, thats as close to the truth as youll get. So i have brought that to washington. So you have to act as a case officer for any members of congress . Well, i have had more surveillance as a member of congress than did i in the cia. At least in the cia i knew who my enemies are. When i came in, i won in 14, so starting in 2015 being a young junior member, right, the number of folks who had been around here for a while, that come and seek you out for advice and perspective, that has happened more in my time in congress than i expected when i first got in. While everybody may not understand what should we do next in syria and what should we have done, they may understand and recognize that its a problem. Great. Hello, everyone, and thank you, lisa. Im thrilled to be up here with my colleagues. The biggest thing that was a transition is that the executive branch is a chain of command organization, and the legislative branch is 425 entrepreneurs, and nobody is each others boss. The only people who can fire us are the people in our districts, not anyone in leadership, not any committee chair. I am still adjusting to that culture, i would say. In the executive branch, you can have vociferous debate on a policy issue, and we certainly did. I worked in the bush and obama administration, vociferous debate on what to do. If you cant work it out, it moves its way up the chain, and ultimately there are Decision Makers more senior than you that make a decision, and you all go on with your lives, you can say i didnt win that battle or i did, but we have a path forward when we move forward, with 435 entrepreneurs its a huge game of consensus building. Youre constantly using your relationships to meet people and say do you want to work on something together . Do you care about this issue . Im interested in doing something for parents with autistic children. Are you interested in that . Its a consensusbased thing, which can be harder and less clear. And then the culture one degree down from that, in the executive branch, you may meet some characters from time to time, but there is a real mission focus. Everyone comes to the table and says, ok, were doing this for a specific reason, i know the mission, and im trying to get it done. I used to say to the people at the pentagon, if im leading a meeting and a bunch of my staff, if im running a meeting and there was one person around the table who started talking about, well, i should lead because im really good at this, and i should have that portfolio because me, me, me, me, that would literally be a reason for me to be like if its about the you and not the mission, you can get up out of here. But in congress then somebody else says, what about me . In congress thats every meeting. Theres always somebody, well, im great at this and should lead on this. Culturally its been difficult culturally its been difficult for us to transition and i think its important and all of us have this back ground of having the mission focus and change on that mission focus. We bring it which is a good thing even if its a cultural adjustment. Thank you. A couple things to build on. One aspect of this that was incredibly important to me and i think probably shared across this table the three of us all served in National Security in nonpartisan ways. We were career Public Servants in our different institutions and i think thats something that ive been wondering about coming into this body of am i able to approach National Security with the same lens . For me i actually feel like i have been able to more than i netly was expecting to do so. Armed services committee, if you were to print out a transcript of the hearings, blot out the names and you wont know who is a democrat or a republican based on the questions that theyre asking. I think theres a certain professionalism that im happy to be a part of, trying to find ways to broaden that out. I think coming from my background, i had a very specific expertise in iraq, afghanistan, counterterrorism issues. So while im somebody who worked in the National Security space, i cant claim im an expert on latin american issues or things i may come into contact with in congress. I have a deep Network Across the field of a lot i have worked with that can really help me get up to speed faster than some of my colleagues. My interests in building out this kind of catalog of experts outside of capitol hill i think is something im trying to build upon. Also, because of my previous experience, i just we have, and im sure the three of us can all say to this point there are certain fundamental tools of National Security i dont think are utilized as well as they should be on the hill. For instance, we just dont have the ability for the level of situational intel and to utilize that in the way we used to get briefed every day and have a certain amount of Situational Awareness to build off of. Here everything is reactionary. You rarely go and read intel unless something horrible has happened in the world and you need to figure out what did we know two weeks ago. I dont feel that puts us in as strong a position in congress if everything that were doing is much more reactionary. How are we going to be able to do our oversight efforts . For me as lisa introduced, i worked in afghanistan eight years ago, and i was the guy that was in the room helping brief the members of congress on that front. It was very interesting for me two weeks ago to go back to afghanistan, get a briefing in my old office and sort of be on the other side of that. How did those people do . They did very well. More importantly, how did you do . Its one of those things where you have a better sense of when youre getting talking points told to you. After having written them and gone through those and delivered them and it helps me just try to figure out ways that i can get at a deeper truth, be able to expose that, and i think that gets to the final point which is a part of this job thats different we have to speak more human about National Security and Foreign Policy. Thats something i wish everybody does. Cut out the acronyms, get to the point. I did a town hall about afghanistan, how do i talk to people in south jersey, the jersey shore, on why they should focus in on whats happening after an 18 year war. And talk about it in that way. I hope it will make that dialogue richer in our country. Thats a good pivot to current events. Lets get into some of that and lets start with some news of the day, syria. Youve all, i think to varying degrees spoken out against or expressed concerns about the decision to remove troops from syria. So im interested in your unique perspectives on that given the roles youve had and whether the reports most recently that those troops are not being removed entirely from the theater but, in fact, being moved to iraq. Does that change your view at all . And is there Anything Congress can do about it . Thats a kind of compound question. Lets start with you, alyssa. Sure. Im sorry, representative slotkin. Thats quite all right. So i will be honest, ive been surprised how much this issue has resonated even in midmichigan. The issue, i think, of the president having a conversation with the turks, with president erdogan, and then removing our forces, forcing the kurds to sort of flee the area where they had been working with us has resonated with people not because people have a ton of detail on who is involved with who and the history there but because i think theres a firm belief the american handshake has to mean something, and that loyalty has to mean something. And the pictures starting with or ending with today where we have American Military vehicles being pelted with fruits and vegetables as they cross into iraq, i just dont remember a time when ive seen that in my lifetime, and i have my husband was in the army for 30 years. My stepdaughter is in now. Those are wrenching pictures for us. But i think the thing that concerns me the most, we have a situation right now with the kurds that is devastating, but when weve shirked our responsibility it sends a message to every future partner and ally that they should think twice about shaking the hands with the americans. And i try to remind people why was it that we were working with this kurdish group. What are the origins of it . And the origins of it are the iraq war, which i did three tours over there and americans said very clearly i think both sides of the aisle they do not want American Forces on the front lines in long entrenched, expensive wars in the middle east. And so we shifted our strategy to work by, with, and through allies and that whole proposition is that we go to these other armies, we go to these different groups and say if you fight as the infantry we will provide overhead cover, intelligence, equipment, and support. And that is the bargain that we struck with these kurds, and that is the way we keep people like my stepdaughter out of fighting again in places like syria and iraq. But if that whole concept just has a big hole punched in it, our ability to make those deals and to have those conversations in the future goes down and the likelihood that when theres a real threat, it will be American Forces out there again goes up. And so i think it has been a seriously, seriously devastating week for American Foreign policy or a couple of weeks. We are all talking about sanctions packages. Theres a couple of different packages. I personally am in favor of humanitarian assistance for the kurds, in particular for the kurds in Northern Iraq who are receiving a lot of their cousins who are coming over the border. Im going on a codicil that is going to the middle east, that are having these conversations with senior leaders. Unfortunately, in our system, unfortunately fortunately, in our system, the president has a lot of power over Foreign Policy. And congress can sort of come in behind and deal with the money and the sanctions, but there isnt a ton we can do, and we end up watching scenes with everybody else like we saw today. Anything you want to add to that . Sometimes we forget, weve got to go back to september 10th 2001. I was in the headquarters of the cia, and i remember, in august, analysts being like, somethings going to happen, but we dont know what. People sleeping in their cars, their offices, trying to figure out what happened. And then we know what happened on the 11th, and a lot of people have forgotten that, right . The reason that weve had to be in afghanistan and weve had to be in places like syria is to prevent another day like that from happening. And on september 12th, if you would have told me, and i was the fourth or fifth or sixth employee in ctcso that prosecuted the war in afghanistan, after 9 11, if you would of told me on the number 12 there would not be another attack on our homeland for 17 years i would have said you were crazy. And the reason we havent been able to do that, while we havent seen that, is because the men and women in our diplomatic corps, in our Intelligence Services, theyve stop that from happening. Thats why we are there. Ive made it very clear, these terms of this peace deal, i thought it was more of a surrender than a peace deal. I think this is a terrible decision thats the deal between . Between us and erdogan, right . We still havent seen all the details of that deal, and why is it bad we screwed our friends, and its not just the u. S. Handshake not counting, this is impacting all western alliances. I was in paris, the ministry of defense, 12 hours after the tweets that were sent about this deal, and i can tell you our partners in france had some opinions on this topic. They are part of the coalition against isis. They are, they have 1300 troops. They have been intimately involved. And so if your friends dont trust you, and your enemies dont fear you, its a pretty bad situation to be in. I can make an argument that this recent announcement by the japanese to not participate in the u. S. Led effort to protect ships in the middle east is probably a bad indication that either they thought it was going to be too much of a pain in the rear, or they didnt or whether they could count on us, and is that an indication of how our allies are concerned with us . We are creating a humanitarian crisis in that part of the role world that has dealt with too many humanitarian crises. We have spent years in treasure Building Infrastructure in that part of syria, and we left it or we bombed it. That doesnt make any sense. What can we do now . Unfortunately, congress has a lot of power to prevent action. Congress has a lot of power to defund stuff, right . Congress has power to approve stuff. But its really hard to compel action when there is inaction. And the broader quest