State saying, hey you know what . , how about representing the people of our state, colorado, minnesota, or whatever state it might be. And we have got to begin the conversation with many of the superdelegates who signed on with secretary clinton very early on. And if, i think the objective evidence, and people say we still have time to go, we have through june 14. If the evidence is there, that we are by far the strongest candidate, we will win some of those folks over. Dan of the guardian . Dan, hey dan. [inaudible] looking back, what prompted you to achieve this . [indiscernible] Bernie Sanders not into legacy, dam. Right now in the next month and a half we are fighting to win every delegate that we can. I have my legacy will be that i was a very good president of the United States. [laughter] mary alice here . There you are. If you do not secure the majority of pledged delegates, do you still believe that superdelegates should switch and back you as you are projecting the opinion of the voters . Bernie sanders well, you know its a funny thing. , right now, we have state after state where i have won landslide victories and superdelegates of said we dont have to , listen to the people. By the way, i hope you will win win the pledged delegates, but at the end of the day the responsibility of those delegates is to decide what is the best for this country and what is best for the democratic party. And if those superdelegates include the Bernie Sanders is the best candidate, the strong as candidate to beat trump and any other candidate, we would welcome their support. Danny freeman, nbc . [indiscernible] in california you said youre going to hold a lot of big rallies. Have there been any Lessons Learned from states like new york were you predicted you would do better that you apply to these upcoming primaries . Bernie sanders good question. I thanks for giving me the virginity to enter that in this opportunity to answer that. New york state, what are we, 42 , 43 of the vote . 3 million independents in new york state disenfranchised. They could not vote because of the crime of writing down the they were independents. I think thats absurd. I cant tell you, and i will not tell you, if they were allowed to vote, and by the way, in most polls, in most contests, we do far, far better than clinton in the independent vote. Sometimes when you get two out of three votes. I cannot tell you that we would have won. I dont know. No question, though, that we would have done much, much better. So we walk into not only are we , taking on i dont mean to cry here, but we know we are getting into. We know what the rules are we , accept them. We are doing the best that we can. But please appreciate that in state after state, where independents cannot vote, we are at a real disadvantage. And its a little bit absurd because independents do vote in a general election. So democrats want the strongest candidate out there to take on a republican, i think its pretty dumb to be excluding independents, and i hope we will fight whether i win or not, to , change those rules. Frankly, in hindsight it is always, you know you could , always think about things that you could have done better. I will tell you about that. At the end thats true for any campaign. Im sure if you talk to clintons campaign, they will tell you the things they could have done better. But i am enormously proud of the campaign that we have run up to this and i hope it gets better. Point, any of you here who would bet that on may 1, Bernie Sanders would have won 17 primaries and caucuses . If you had the odds, a year ago i think you wouldnt be sitting , here. Very wealthy individuals. If you have guessed that is odds, you would be very wealthy individuals. We are very proud of the campaign he ran. Is really here . Millie . Ok, yes. What did you want . And that may be the last question. We have got to catch a plane here. Can you talk a little bit more about what clinton said about reaching out to sanders supporters . Bernie sanders pardon me . Ok, ok. All right, listen thank you very , much. We got to catch a plane to get heres a look from cnns state of the union. Sen. Sanders in a senatoradvocate sanders has been a passionate advocate. Its good for the democratic party, but there comes a time when you have to look at the reality. I was much closer and pledged delegates to senator , but than is the case now eventually i decided i had to withdraw and support senator obama. The goal is to make sure we had a democrat in the white house. I will be aggressive in reaching out to senator sanders supporters, but we have so much more in common. And far more than they do with donald trump or any republican. Tomorrow our road to the. Hite house coverage continues live at 7 00 p. M. On cspan2. Senator ted cruz speaks at a Campaign Rally in indianapolis. See thatve at 7 30 pm, on cspan. Madam secretary. Of ourdly give 72 delegate votes to the next president of the United States. If you have been watching cspan regularly over the last couple of months, you have seen our student cam contest winners. This is where we invite high school and junior high students to talk about issues of importance. They send invidious and it is a contest. Send in the video. It is a contest. Today, we are going to talk with our grand prize winner, olivia oklahoma. She was given a check for 5,000 for her video. We want to show you a portion of it. [video clip] spendingcretionary received 1. 1 trillion. The second section is mandatory spending, 2. 45 trillion in 2015. Lastly, interest on the federal debt. This totaled 3. 8 trillion. In order to pay for these things, the government has to take in money somehow. You have revenue and asked thence. The u. S. Se of government, revenue is created through taxation. When the money taken in through is putoesnt equal what out through spending, we have deficit. Borrowing can be a temporary solution to an unbalanced budget, but it is the cause of a greater problem. Debt is the sum total of all past deficits and futurents all of the generations, my generation, are going to have to pay that. Dear candidates, i would like to know how you, if elected president , will deal with the debt crisis. Host where did you come up with the idea to do this. I wanted to do something related to. I discovered what a big problem the government funding of other areas is. That got me interested in the National Debt as a whole. There is not just one solution. A big effort to be and we are going to have to try multiple things. At the end of my video, i threw it out to the candidates, but please get this nation back under control. Have you gotten more involved or do you follow politics more since working on the project . Since doing all of the research, whenever i hear somebody talking about the debt or something along those lines, i was like oh, i know what you are talking about. How did you find out about student cam . I am in film at my high school. My teacher has all of his students enter this competition every year. This year it rolled around and he was like get to work. Host it was a forced assignment. [laughter] are you going to give him a cut of your prize money . Guest i might buy him a gift card or something. Host have you gotten the check . I got it in the mail last week. You andat year are where are you going to college . I am a sophomore. I dont know where i want to go. I would love to go to film school in california or new york. She is the grand prize winner of this years student now a Senate Hearing on the United States human rights and diplomatic tories. Priorities. The state departments testified. They identified Central America, asti, cuba, and turkey places in most need of assistance. This is about one hour 15 minutes. Good morning, this is a ofring on the Committee Global womens issues and the purpose of this hearing is to review the resources, priorities , and programs in fiscal year 2017 budget requests from the president and u. S. Department your of western Hemisphere Affairs in the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor. Panell have an official with three witnesses. The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor. The Principal Deputy assistant secretary of state for western Hemisphere Affairs. Miss elizabeth hogan, the acting assistant administrator for latin america and the Caribbean Agency for international development. I want to thank all of you for being with us, we appreciate your time and commitment to further the important work of this committee. I also want to thank your staff for working with the committee and members of my staff to making this hearing possible. Today is an opportunity to learn more about the nations priorities in the western hemisphere in promoting democracy and human rights around the world. There are many challenges we need to collaborate on. Building strong Democratic Institutions and building is in the moral and Strategic Interests of the United States and she to be one of our top priorities. It is important for u. S. Programs to be aligned with our priorities and not just in the western hemisphere. It is also important that u. S. Taxpayer dollars are not wasted that instead used to address significant challenges to National Security interest. I believe congress can continue to work in a constructive way to enhance the departments efforts. I hope you address these issues in your testimonies and with that, i turn it over to our Ranking Member. I asked that my entire statement be placed in the record and i will summarize. This is an important hearing and i want to extend my welcome to our guest and witnesses guests and witnesses. Our subcommittee is a very important one that has a range of matters, including the countries of the western hemisphere as well as Global Responsibility for democracy, human rights and womens issues. While we face numerous challenges in the western hemisphere ranging from narcotics trafficking to assisting countries in the wake of natural disasters, the region is making tremendous progress and it is rife with opportunity, due in large part to the support of the United States. I know the chairman and i are friends, but we disagree strongly on cuba, so i will say that president obamas to change a field plus decision to change a fail policy is working with me and i hope it will turn out to be so for the cuban people and the human rights activists there. It is an unprecedented moment and i hope the cuban people make the most of it that the government understands that they have to change. We have also witnessed progress in columbia due in large part to the support of the u. S. Negotiations between the government and they continue to move forward. A look at argentina where the United States is poised to build stronger ties. I visited recently and was so depressed and disgusted with what i saw in that kershner government. I have hope now and i really believe as we see the new government saying they will pay back the bonds and make investors at least partially whole, it is an important point. In mexico, we continue to build upon and rhea horse our relationship with our close neighbor and reinforce our relationship with our close neighbor and i am very concerned about threats posed by the spread of the zika virus and i think we will be hearing more on that. This is an emergency. We should not be quibbling about it. Our people are going to get sick. We already have in florida, 99 cases. It is going to happen as sure as we are sitting here and in short order. We need to leave the world, and i know there are no sure answers. We will stumble and fall, but as they say, what is important is get back up and make sure we dont repeat those mistakes because in any kind of human relations, let alone foreign relations, we make mistakes. I support funding for programs that support human rights defenders and Simple Society organizations that promote religious freedom, strengthen accountability and the rule of law. We begin with a testimony from our panel and we will have a vote at 11 00. We will get into the pretty heavier statements the record. For the record. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member boxer and distinguished members of the subcommittee, i am pleased to present fiscal plans for the year 2017. Our request for 970 million will promote the interests of the United States while significantly improving the quality of life are those we help. We have identified five priorities to focus our assistance where we can have the greatest impact, prosperity, good governance, promoting a sustainable and equitable peace in colombia, longterm development in haiti, advancing democracy and human rights across the americas and addressing environmental threats to livelihoods. One of our highest priorities is Central America, particularly in el salvador, guatemala and honduras. We know that Opening Doors for citizens, especially will bolster our efforts for more prosperous societies. Our programs include efforts to support Small Businesses and entrepreneurs, encourage private investment, train youth in job skills and improve agricultural productivity. These efforts to grow prosperity are only sustainable in an environment where Democratic Values and institutions flourish, human rights are respected and Civil Society and the media can play their rightful role. Our programs are aimed at reforming to root out corruption, strengthening Civil Societys ability to hold governments accountable, fostering a culture of respect for human rights, especially for historically marginalized roofs and improving fiscal transparency groups and improving fiscal transparency. It will ultimately be difficult for our efforts to take root in societies plagued by insecurity. We are using tacit approaches in the most violence prone communities to create safe spaces, provide job and life skills training and provide police for the residents. With sustained committments, we will help the northern triangle develop into a safer and more prosperous region for all those who live there. Such sustained commitment yields results, as we have seen with the notable strides made in columbia. In 2017, we are requesting 187 Million Dollars to expand upon current programming to help the colombian government established a stronger presence, provide postconflict reconciliation and justice, improve Economic Growth and sustainably manage the countrys natural resources. It programs will build upon current successes, especially for marginalized population. Along with Central America and columbia, haiti remains a high priority. Our fy 17 request will continue our efforts to help haiti grow into a stable and economically viable country. We remain focused on promoting Economic Growth, job creation, and agricultural advances, providing basic health care and Education Services and improving the transparency of government institutions and the responsiveness citizens. While more remains to be done, we are committed to supporting the haitian people as they build a more secure future. Throughout the region, our democracy and human rights friends address fundamental issues including anticorruption anticorruption, and the rule of law and the support for Civil Society. We work to ensure that governments are open and accountable and use public runs responsibly and effectively and deliver Critical Services to citizens. We are also committed to serving human rights wherever we work, underpinning all of these efforts is support and protection for a strong Civil Society that can hold governments accountable. Another challenge facing the region is the negative impact of extreme weather events. Our mitigation and adaptation efforts helped reduce devastation to life, property and economic activity. We are also seeing the development and the one at of advanced Clean Technology and revelatory environments. We have one goal in mind with democracy and human rights everything that we do, to empower countries to assume responsibility for their own development and grow beyond the need for national assistant. We use science, technology and private sector partnerships to find new solutions and scale up what works. For every dollar we spend in the region in 2014, we mobilized ive times that in every sector resources. We take our responsibility to the taxpayer seriously and we are committed to accountability, transparency and oversight of our programs. We use a full range of monitoring and evaluation tools to track progress and ensure the programs are meeting goals and delivering results. With sustained commitment from countries in the region to advance their own developing goals and our government support, we are well paced for success. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on fiscal year 2017 for assistance request for the western hemisphere and thank you for your ongoing support of our diplomatic efforts in the hemisphere. The administrations approach to the region improves security, strengthens the rule of law, promotes the sea and human rights,racy and human advances partnerships, and promotes prosperity and inclusive growth for all its citizens. U. S. Assistance is a critical tool that supports these goals. In our request for Central America and mexico, the to address the underlying conditions driving migration from Central America through mexico and to the Uni