Have a lot of article two people in this room. Even though the title as i understand this is the imperial presidency. Understand that republicans have always sort of deferred to the administration, to the executive branch for Foreign Policy issues. I agree with some of the speakers that on the other Hand Congress has its appropriate roam. Well, administrations have negotiated the u. N. Security Council Sanctions and its my bleach that the administration does have the ability on your own accord to deal with those sanctions. The executive branching also has their own executive sanctions that they put in place against iran and i believe obviously they have the right to dole deal with those as they choose. On the other hand, there are congressionally mandated sanctions that congress put in place. As a matter of fact, Congress Puts them in place with the administration in essence kicking and screaming all along the way, saying that somehow or another this was going to be damaging with our relationship with iran. I think most of you would believe that its those sanctions that actually brought iran to the table. So i crafted a piece of legislation with significant bipartisan support which basically says if the administration comes to a final deal were by the way, the final deal would not happen until the end of june. Thats when you have all the details and annexes. We would just ask them to let that agreement lay before us for 60 days. Let us read all the classified annexes. Let us have the classified briefings that we would need to have and then let congress on the congressionally mandated sanctions, the one we put in place. Have the right to either approve, disapprove or take no action. Now, if i was the white house, i would embrace that. I would say i Want Congress to be with me. I want this agreement to stand the test of time. As a matter of fact, i would say instead of all this back and forth that youre seeing right now, if they said look, we agree. We agree that since you brought them to the table and since you proved provided us with a National Security waiver that we thought they would use, i think you know they plan to suspend those sanctions until way beyond the time theyre in office. So were saying we would like to be able to weigh in theyre pushing back, some of my senator fans. Many of them are being lobbied heavily but the administration. Again, i look at this and say this is in fact, the kind of role that congress ought to play, especially on the mandated sanctions that we put in place. I believe, in spite of some of the drama that weve had over the last two weeks internally. I believe ultimately we will have a vetoproof majority to make that happen and to the previous speakers, i believe thats exactly the kind of role that Congress Needs to play. I want to close with this. I really do believe that we have an opportunity in congress especially in the United States senate, to move ourselves more closely to the place that people originally thought congress was going to play in our governance system. I have to say bob menendez, who has been the democratic leader was chairman up until we won this last election. Hes done an outstanding job, in my opinion, of elevating the Foreign Relations committee. Im trying to build on that. I believe the Foreign Relations committee in the senate has been the place, if you, will through decades, where respect has been given because of the sober thoughtful way that we went about our business and i just want to tell you its a huge huge privilege. I was at an event last week and with a lot of my old friends from college and you know how those things go. It was a lot of fun. Im glad there were no tweets. But they kept coming up to me. They kept coming up to me and saying thank you. Thank you so much. For what you do. They heard all weekend the things that were going back and forth between the white house and other senators and they just kept coming up and saying thank you. And i want to say to all of you and especially to john and linda and those from tennessee, thank you. What a privilege it is to serve in the United States senate. To find myself after eight years and three months as chairman of the Foreign Relations committee. And all i can say to all of you who put so much time and effort into making sure theres integrity in what we as a Republican Party do across our country, i wake up every day trying to make those kinds of decisions and conduct myself in a manner that will cause the respect that should be shown to the Foreign Relations committee but also to the United States in general to be there and to cause our citizens to have faith in the system that each of you wakes up each day and tries to defend so thank you and i look forward to your questions. [applause] thank you. Jim bob from indiana. This president has been notorious in recent years in their willingness to enforce only those laws that they actually agreed with and not enforce those that they disagreed with. And it would be apparent that the legislation legislation that youre pursuing, as meritorious as it is, may very well fall into that category so even if it were passed and even if it were passed over the vote of the president , he can be expected, regretfully, to not enforce those that he simply doesnt agree with. What do you think congresss role then is in making sure that the president actually obeys the law . Senator corker yeah, so first of all, i dont want to get i dont want to be counting our chickens before they hatch. My first job is to have a successful mark up and to get 67 votes and to get the house to pass it. This is something that theres time to make happen. Final deal again will not occur until at least the end of june. My guest is that this week, one of the reasons we moved our markup back until the first part of april, im pretty sure the administration, theyre already sending out signals is going to say we really didnt meanwhile march 24th, we meant the end of march. We have work to do but look, i cannot calculate our actions based on them not ware carrying out the laws that we create. We have to create the laws. As far as what we do on a host of issues, one of the things our base, if you will, to use a term thats thrown around here a lot. They expect us to somehow, if the president doesnt do things that we believe lawfully should be doing, they expect us to do things on the senate floor to affect that and especially when were in the minority thats quite a problem. If you raise an issue on the senate floor, especially being in the minority that says we disapprove of this action and then were voted down because there are more democrats than republicans, you basically have built a case for them doing it. Theyll say the senate was on our side. So we had that problem. Now, of course, we can vote again look, the real way of dealing with this is through the court system, right . So you find an aggrieved party some place in the country, you figure out a way to support that aggrieved party, wherever they are in the country. You cause a case to come up through the system, which is exactly whats happening right now on the health care bill, right . Its actually whats happening right now on the immigration issue and its slow and its very unsatisfactory to the base, but theres really no other way to deal with it. If you have a suggestion, tell me but its that old, slow rule of law way that you deal with things. Its not very satisfying to the American People but it works. If you have some suggestion id love to hear it. Apparently you dont. Senator, i have a client and friend who recently toured the kurdish areas of iraq and has come back to say that theyre in desperate need of arms so this can defend helps from i issues. Do you think thats going to move forward within the senate . Senator corker i was just in kurdistan with the president. Theyre wonderful friends of the United States. Have been from the very beginning and lets face it, theyre the people right now on the ground that we can most depend upon. When the oil field of occur kirk were taken and the iraqi army fled, it was the peshmerga that came in and took it back. They now control a big part of the oil that used to be the iraqis. Were going to debate over that. I dont think its quite as bad as this gentleman laid out, just for what its worth. They come see us often and when they came to see me here in washington, i was pretty upset about the delivery schedule of arms and equipment to them. As ive gotten there on the ground dealing with generals that i know well, ok. And generals who i know have an affinity towards talking to guys like me and telling us the truth, i dont think its quite as bad as people say it is. I think the deliveries are going into baghdad there were stories it was taking a month or so for that equipment to get to kurdistan. Im its not that way at all. Theres a movement to over time supply them directly. My guess is that will be the case. I will say we have to be a little concerned about things getting out of balance. When i say getting out of balance i think we still want iraq to be one country and a big part of our friends, the kurds lobbying for the things that theyre lobbying for is they potentially could be building a case for separation, as you well know, which is problematic on the turkish side too. We have to be pretty judicious and thoughtful about the way we go about this ill Say Something a little more provocative, though. I stayed in our billiondollar embassy there because its the only place you can stay thats safe and i met with a body who certainly is a breath of fresh air from maliki, who was so terrible as a Prime Minister. By the way, maliki was a Prime Minister that we helped put in place. We need to be honest about that. He was a terrible Prime Minister but every single thing that we are doing right now in iraq, everything, is to irans benefit. Everything. And its and i support obviously what were doing to try to route isis out but every day we wake up in iraq with our 3,100 folks that are there. Were making the country a better place for iran. The parliament is infiltrated. Salamani is truly a celebrity. Hes out with the shiah militia. Theyre doing the things theyre going to push out against isis. Its a pretty sad thing to know of all the limbs that were dismembered, the lives that were lost, people today that are dealing with the psychological issues they are. The huge amounts of treasury that were spent. Its sad to be there today and to understand that were again doing things that need to be done but were making the country every single day a better place for iran. Yes . Mr. Chairman, how can foreign states in our union turn red like tennessee . We need some good counsel here. Senator corker im sorry, what did you say . Tennessee is a wonderful red state. What can other states do to [inaudible] senator corker yeah. I dont i mean, thats more in your line of work. First of all, i think i will get back to my line of work. I think for us to continue to be successful, we have to show that we can legislate responsibly and conduct ourselves in an appropriate way. I think it is our responsibility as people elected to positions of great responsibility to carry ourselves in a manner that causes the nation to look to us in a manner that says they would like to have more people like us. As far as states turning in that direction, i will leave it to all of you who are on a daily basis more evolved in evolved involved in that. Senator, ann gruner from virginia. Im wondering if you could shed any insight into the administrations refusal to provide weapons to the ukrainians. Im going to say this one more time. We passed a bill to do that unanimously in the senate. Unanimously. I think that that first of all first of all, i wake up every day not with the thought that im going to get a piece of hide of this administration. I dont. That is not my thought. My thought is they act differently. They think differently, but the executive branch, lets face it, carries out Foreign Policy. What can i do to move in a positive direction . I dont say this to throw out names, but i talked yesterday with the vice president. I talked yesterday with their secretary of state who is in the midst of negotiations taking place in europe. My point is i try to work with i them. I understand they are in charge today. Im disappointed often. Every now and then i have to send an email to the chief of staff, who i deal with a great deal, and just say you guys are just so hard to help. They just are. To your question, i think this president has never ever been comfortable being commanderinchief. Hes just not comfortable. I know the decisions you make as commanderinchief are heavy and more complicated than meets the eye. Theres a lot of things going on in the background. He has made decision memo after decision memo after decision memo sitting on the desk. I know they are there. I know they are there. And he just cannot bring himself to do it. In his mind and a few people around him, youve got to understand, his body of advisors is very small. It is not the people that the that have the titles, you understand. Very small group of people. What they have been concerned about since day one is if they take actions like that, you will cause russia to move ahead more forcefully when its just the opposite. It is psychology. By the way, thereve been some stories about how theyve been embarrassed that putin continues to do what they do because they keep talking nicely to him. [laughter] but it is just silly. They have such difficulties, such difficulties number one making a decision. And when they make a decision, it is very difficult to carry it out. I know we were going to deliver trucks to a general in syria that we decided would be the leader of the Free Syrian Army that we were going to support. It took months and months just to get trucks. They have great difficulty in making decisions and after they make them and try to execute, it is like a gang that cannot shoot straight. They cannot make it happen. It is very disappointing and hurts our credibility tremendously. Look, i dont think any of us that ukraine, that if russia decides to take ukraine forcefully, they can decide to take ukraine. At least raise the price. At least show there is a degree of support. To me its something very important. Weve been unwilling to do it. Yesterday they finally shook loose a decision they agree to a long time ago and that is to train the National Guard finally, finally. So many times this administration makes decisions after that point in time when it would have been effective. You understand . That window is closed. I will give you another one. The other day we had chairman of the joint chiefs, ash carter and secretary kerry in. They sent over an authorization to use military force scribble syria. You all know we have a train and syrians outside of the country and we will bring them back to tackle isis. We are going to train 5000 over time, which is a pittance. One of the things they are not going to do yet, assad is barrelbombing. 220,000 people are dead in syria, partially. Some of the things we didnt do what we made a difference. A lot of dead people. So many millions displaced. You know what they have not asked for . They have not asked for the authorization when those people coming to come into syria after they have been trained they do not have the authorization to protect them from the sods assads barrel bombs. Again, they are worried that his provocative and ill go back to the issue of fresh again. They dont be provocative. Can you address yemen . There is another bombing come a 120 dead in a mosque. Senator corker one of the things we had this agreement right now with the ron at is a shortterm agreement. We have alleviated some of the sanctions on iran as weve been going through this interim agreement, which allows them to get 770 million a month of their own money that is trapped overseas. In other words, they sell their oil, it stays in the country is selling to, and it has hurt their economy. They could do some kind of trade. Again, they have been relieved of a little bit of money. Theyve got a little bit of money coming in. There is 130 billion of distilled stuff. And so, the concern that many people like me have if we fail in these negotiations, in other words we dont do some things that keeps iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon by the way you all understand what the real premises, right . We are going to do an agreement with iran that we hope holds them in abeyance. A great concern about covert activities, grave concern about research and development. A lot of concerns. As a matter of fact, our negotiators have told us their negotiators in iran can pass a Lie Detector Test that you were no previous military dimensions to Irans Nuclear activities which we all know is not true. We know they were involved in moving towards a Nuclear Weapon and up until 2003 when they became nervous about what were doing in iraq and maybe would do the same thing to them. Think about that. The negotiators we are negotiating with were totally unaware of the efforts because they were taking place through the rmg. Again, this is what make people nervous. I get back to the yemen issue. Not only have a continuing to develop missile Delivery Systems, some of the most sophisticated in the world not covered by this agreement, but they are the biggest exporter of terrorism. What we are concerned about is we get a bad deal. Either way, the deal is predicated on the fact that they will change their ways. We were hoping that during that 10year period, it will change the way they operate. It is my believe that they think in the next 10 years, they may catch up in a weakened state they can carry on activities. To me that is bs and put the negotiation is all about. Back to the point of yemen. They obviously support of the newsies supported the huzis. They obviously supported hamas. They support hezbollah. They are destabilizing the region. So with being a screwdriver turn away from the Nuclear Weapon obviously proliferation by saudi arabia and other places that wont develop their own. They will bite off the shelf or anothe