Proud of the fact that people love us for our macadamia nuts and chocolate. I think when you talk about hawaii and being on the hill there is almost expectation you come with wearing a lei or come with chocolate covered mac nuts. That is what your fellow colleagues oh, yeah, you would be surprised. So i bring them out once in a while. You talked a little bit earlier what you would like to do on the Armed Services committee more broadly. How long do you hope to serve and what are your broader goals here in congress . Im 47 now. So i got elected at 47. I got elected in the legislature when i was 27, served for 20 years. As i mentioned earlier, the commitment our family has made is that were going to put in, if given the opportunity and privilege, to put in another 30 years 20 years. So that would make me7. That is not too old. So yeah, if given the opportunity to stay here i think it is critical for hawaii, especially in this particular seat, to develop senority and as you know, this place, for the most part works on senority. When we started you mentioned serving on the college newspaper, university of hawaii and being a Political Science major. What about your kids, what are they interested, what would you like to see them do . You know, id love for them not to get into politics. [laughter]. I tell people, especially young people, that, you know, you can always run for politics later but get a life, get a job, raise a family and maybe, few years down the road come back and possibly run for office. So i hope they dont have aspirations to follow me right out of college because it was really tough for my wife and me early on. Then they wouldnt get the chance to meet george takei. We almost called you at that kay. Tell us that story about the campaign. Mark tacano, who everybody gets us confused as well as member from california, a sophomore. He and i met through Tammy Duckworth and you know, it was duckworth, honda, and takano, supporting takei. Well, mark mark takano, george. George endorsed me in the primary. The headline read, takei and at that can know endorse takei. It is funny, people get us confused just by name. Is it at that kay, takei or in fact takano . All three of us get confused. We have pleasure calling ourselves friends. I will see george takei in a few months. Well go up to new york. You know he is debuting in a new broadway show, focused on the japanese American Experience and looking forward to that show. We hope we continue to get it right, kong plan mark takai, hawaii. Thanks for being with us. Aloha. Most important thing to me in the candidate having a candidate which would address the most important issue facing the country which is the National Debt and entitlements. Knows we have to reform entitlements. She just doesnt have the guts to come out and say it. Trump doesnt understand that. He said he will not do anything about entitlements which will squeeze entire budget. They know it but dont have the guts to say anything about it. Im a Small Business owner, job creator, were excited about having a job creator in the white house. Im 71 years of age and im still actively engaged in the practice of law. Most important issues to me in this years election are First National security for obvious reasons. But the second one is balancing the budget and eliminating the federal deficit. It is inconceivable to me that these candidates can be running and no one, not one, has addressed balancing the budget and reducing the deficit. That is critical to our children and grandchildrens future. Thank you. I think it has been really great having this attention on our city in cleveland. It brought a lot of business and world attention from other countries, just recognizing the great city and, yeah, i think it will be really great bringing a lot of money into the city and stuff. Yeah, i think it is, put cleveland on the map not only in our country but around the world. The issues important to me are the economy and getting america back on the right track. Stop subsidizing other governments like south koreas military and japan. You know, start having america work for americans. That is why i support trump. This morning in cleveland former new york city mayor Rudy Giuliani and new york congressman peter king speak to new york delegates. Well it live for you at 9 00 a. M. Eastern right here on cspan2. Also at 9 00, the atlantic host as discussion on political campaigns at their Convention Headquarters in cleveland. Thats live on cspan3. On tuesday cia director john brennan said he would have to be fired before he would use torture as an interrogation tactic. He spoke at an event of the intelligence and National Security alliance. Director brennan was responding to a question referring to the statements by donald trump that as president he would direct agencies to use enhanced interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists. This is an hour. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, president chuck alsa. [applause] okay. Im going to get you quieted down here. This is the most responsive audience ever, okay . Give yourself a hand. [applause] okay. I hope yall enjoy your dinner. The one thing i got i always say, we just cant pull off events like this without our sponsors. So i want to add my thanks to tishs thanks to thanks to all of our sponsors for supporting this dinner. So lets give them a hand again. [applause] so it is my pleasure, you know when we do these sponsorship things, to invite and introduce jill singer, who is Senior Vice President with at t to introduce our speakers. Jill is Vice President for National Security at at t, government solutions. She has extensive experience in government and industry. Her last two government posts were as. Cio for nro and deputy cio at cia. Jill is also a member of the insa board of advisors. Jill, thank you for your support. Thank you for at ts support and come on up and introduce our speakers. [applause] chuck, thank you and thanks to insa for hosting this event this evening. Thanks to all of you for participating. I believe well have a great conversation in just a moment. At t is pleased to be a sponsor of the Leadership Dinner and a conversation with director brennan. At t is an iconic american brand and this year we celebrate our 140th birthday. Were very proud to say that we have supported the federal government for almost all of those 140 years. Moreover, we are proud to say that we have supported the predecessor organization to todays u. S. Intelligence community for over 90 years. Its a long time going back. [applause] thank you. As we look forward at t is excited to harness innovative information and Communications Technologies such is as the internet of things in support of intelligence. And we also look forward to our increased participation in the intelligence and National Security alliance. It is now my pleasure to introduce our speakers for the evening. Dr. Jennifer sims is a widely respected expert on u. S. Intelligence and one who has seen it through the eyes of the executive branch, academia and congress. As noted earlier by tish, she is the nonresident senior fellow for National Intelligence at the Chicago Council on global affairs, developing and running National Security and law in cooperation with depaul university. Prior to the Chicago Council jennifer was a professor and director of Intelligence Studies at georgetown washs school of Foreign Service for nine years. Between 1994 and 2001, she served as Deputy Assistant secretary of state for intelligence coordination and then served as the state departments first coordinator for intelligence resources and planning. Jennifer received the highest civilian honor, National Distinguished service medal, in 1998 for her work at state department. Now my pages are stuck together, momentarily. Prior to the state department jennifer served as defense and Foreign Policy advisor to senator John Danforth and the Senate Select committee on intelligence. That is from 1990 to 1994. She received her masters from ober land college and masters and doctorate in european politics and National Security policy from school of advanced International Studies at johns hopkins. Dr. Sims, thank you very much for being here and moderating. [applause] joining her on stage, joining her on stage is the honorable john brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence agency. Hears been the director of cia since 2013, so for the past three years. During his tenure director brennan has initiate ad sweeping modernization including the agencys first new directorate in over 50 years, the directorate of Digital Innovation which will position the cia to optimally carry out its mission in the Digital Domain of the future. He also pursued efforts to advance diversity of cia senior ranks and exclusivity of the agencys workforce. Director brennans Public Service began 36 years ago at the cia. And predecessor to todays directorate of analysis. He specialized in near east and south asia before directing counterterrorismnal necessary in the early 1990s. John graduated from Fordham University with a bachelors in Political Science and later attended the university of texas at austin where he earned his masters degree in government with a concentration on middleeastern studies. And, we never miss an opportunity to highlight that in his brief respite from Public Service, john served as chairman of insa in 2007 to 2008. Director brennan, thank you for your leadership and for your generosity of your time tonight. And with that i will turn it over to dr. Sims. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, it really warms my heart to be back with insa, an organization that i think does fabulous work binding industry with government and intelligence professionals in academia. Its a wonderful organization, thank you so much for having me here, and john, thank you to you too, joining us for a conversation tonight. That is what i would like to have, a conversation that looks back as well as forward. We worked together eight years ago on the Obama Transition Team and we had the opportunity at that time to look at where the Intelligence Community stood and also where cia was in its mission. Looking back now, these eight years, can you look back on the progress weve made, imagining that were here now, all of us, part of that next transition team, what would you say to them about both the strength and weaknesses of the cia, and the larger Intelligence Community . Well, first of all thank you for inviting me here tonight. I have a special place in my heart for insa since i was serving as chairman here. It was eight years ago. The time has gone by very quickly. I must say i never been objected to an interrogation i assume those lights would be the type of light we would be subjected too. [laughter]. I dont know if this is turnabout of something here. But i do think back and in fact we were meeting today the at agency, preparing for the new change of the administration that is going to be takes place and reminiscing in my own mind and sharing some of my perspectives what we had to deal with at the time as we were ushering in a new administration, a whole new National Security team, changing from one Political Party that was in charge of the white house at the time to a different Political Party. And i must say i give the Bush Administration a lot of credit for just how much they did in order to insure the smoothest transition possible. And that is what were trying to do right now at cia along with odni and others to insure that the transition from the Obama Administration to the next one will be as smooth and strong as possible. Intelligence i think is the continuity that really is relied upon as far as individuals who on inauguration day, all of sudden they will have responsibility for dealing with all of the worlds challenges and all the issues that the United States is involved in. So when i look back over last eight years, there has been such tremendous change in the global landscape, looking just in the middle east, an area that i have worked on. The arab spring had not happened at that time. The instability that has wracked so many countries, authoritarian regimes that have fallen, countries like syria and iraq taken over large part by a terrorist organization as well as challenges we face more so now than in the past on the cyber front which is why we set up a new directorate inside of the cia we can talk about but my advice to the new administration is that there are a lot of things that are going on in the world that in many respects are interconnected to one another as we deal with russia, on ukraine. There are implications how we deal with russia on many other issues as well. And although from the outside some things may look like they are, they could be more easily addressed and resolved, these are the most complex issues ive had to deal with in my 36 years in National Security. And so the new team will be inheriting a series of challenges that need to be addressed simultaneously, need to be addressed comprehensively and they really need to be able to get up to speed quickly because the world is not going to wait for them to understand all the intricacies and complexities theyre having to deal with. Woe had a tremendous event in turkey still ongoing apparently. And one of the challenges is, and i know liaison is a difficult subject to talk about in an open forum, but, when you have major changes underway and nato ally like that, how do you deal with that from an intelligence perspective . How do you work with the turks in these moments . Well, we have a lot of interaction with our turkish partners on a number of fronts, first of all because they are where theyre located as far as next to syria and all the challenges that presents to them, counterterrorism interaction is. Constant and on going. They are a critical partner. First thing you do when you have a situation like that you try to ascertain the facts. A lot of times in the early hours it is very difficult. Because a lot of information is coming in, and it is hard to distinguish between the rumors out there, that seem to gain strength, just by virtue of their being passed around and also trying to understand what the situation is as far as the government, but also as far as u. S. Personnel. One of the first things that the u. S. Government thinks about, what the status of our Embassy Staff in ankara as well as istanbul. What are the security concerns that our folks have. But also, what is it that we need to be mindful of as the situation was very dynamic and that we didnt want to either jump to conclusions about you know, who was in charge or whatever. But i think, what was clear to me is that as a, as a nato partner, and as a government that has a democratically elected president and government, that the attempted push by the some elements of the military was something that really threatened civil order inside of turkey and thats why there was very strong condemnation of the effort by not just this government, by others and strong signals of support that were sent. Can i ask, did we see it coming . We [laughter] there have been a number of developments in the turkish political scene over the last several years with now president erdogan, previously Prime Minister erdogan, with the consolidation of power and authority. It also sits astride a very unsettled area. And with the challenges that the pkk and the kurdish terrorists present to turkey. So we know that there have been stresses and strains on the government and there has been a number of actions that the government has taken to try to address some of the, what they perceived as opposition, domestically. So we were aware of the pressures that the government was under as well as some of the sentiments people expressed but we made sure that our policymakers were kept informed about developments in turkey and thats where most of our intelligence assessments go as opposed to here. Right. But good try anyway, jennifer. Got it, got it. But this raises a interesting question because the terrorist attack in nice, we had a series of bad events and i dont need to list them for all of us here, we know what they are, but if we define success against terrorists and isis in particular, as countering these individual threats, and certainly we do have to try to stop terrorist incidents, but we need to understand what winning is against isis. How do you achieve decision advantage, how do you achieve intelligence advantage, against this kind of adversary in a larger sense . How do we win, and what is intelligences role in helping us get there. This phenomenon of isil is much different than al qaeda was, given the sheer number of individuals who are involved in the organization both in syria and iraq as well as in franchises around the world. Its growth was quite fast and expansive. And there is a phenomenon that is going on right now in the region that has taken full advantage of the unstable environment. Youre right, there is the need for both tacti