Congressional authorization. This is about an hour and a half. Thank you. We are all assembled here and ready to go. Welcome, all of you. Dennis, for the introduction. I think it is really appropriate we are having this conversation here tonight at the national archives. Because much of the controversy around this topic, the role of in International Crises stem from the words on the parchment papers you can see all around your. Article one section eight of the constitution gives the power to declare war, raise funds, and treaties, ratifies verifies the appointments of key president ial nominee is when it comes to assembling a foreignpolicy team. Article two,hand, section two, makes it clear the president is the commanderinchief of the military and the militia and gives him the power to repel attacks against the United States and the authority to make treaties and nominations. So, therein, the tension begins. As a great constitutional professor, edward corwin, i get to reference him. He once wrote that what the constitution does and all that it does is to confer on the president certain powers capable of affecting our Foreign Relations and certain other powers of the same general kind on the senate, and so other powers on congress. But which of these organs shall have the decisive and final voice in determining the course of the american nation is left for events to resolve. So, invents, and we happen to be in the middle will the middle of one right now, is intended to shape how we regard the correct and proper role of congress when it comes to its role in International Crises and Foreign Policymaking. We will talk about events tonight. Maybe we will talk about current events. To do that, we have a great panel. I want to introduce them a little bit. I know you have all of their biographies. We have the honorable dennis , the longestserving republican speaker of the house in history. First elected in 1986, representing the 14th Congressional District of illinois, former state legislator, history and government. A pretty fine football and wrestling coach. Certainly one of the most loved and patient people ever to have wielded the gavel in the house. He is now in the Public Policy and law practice at dixon and schapiro. Chris shays who represented the district in connecticut for 20 years in the last republican standing when new englands entire congressional delegation finally went all democrat. He worked closely with members on domestic aisle and foreignpolicy funds, former peace corps volunteer, chairman of wartime ground tracking contracting. Every democrats favorite republican, which is maybe why he is here as an x congressman. Woodward, what can you say about the nations most prolific and celebrated investigative journalists, other than now at his age, he is better looking age,Robert Redford at his Robert Redford who was impersonated him you have no idea how many women i disappointed. [laughter] not a subject i want to go to. [laughter] i wanted to get that out in the open. For a generation of people like me who wanted to grow up to be journalists, who wanted to be bob, based on his extraordinary body of work. The reporting he did on watergate. He won the 2002 pulitzer prize. Extraordinary coverage of the events of 9 11, plus he is the author and coauthor most of these are bestsellers. He probably has produced the most remarkable audio work of. Ny living american reporter and john tanner, we are delighted to have him on the panel. Former representatives of tennessees eighth Congressional District for 22 years until 2010. Much appreciated in the house as cofounder and the inspirational leader of the democratic blue dog coalition. He is now on the board of the center for strategic and International Studies and the committee for responsible budget. Please join me in welcoming what i think is a great panel area panel. [applause] does the general question to get us going and then we will work to some other things. Historians divide the question the supremacy of the executive branch and the legislative branch tend to divide into periods. There was an era in which the 1898,ent was dominant. At largely congressional supremacy, the conduct of Foreign Policy. 1890 nine through most of the postworld war ii years, the ther balance swung back to president , maybe with the exception of Woodrow Wilsons attempt to ratify the treaty of her side. Then we get to post vietnam with the war powers act, the balance gets murky and the contest 20 congressional roll the congressional roll and the authority of the president begins to be a question everyone asked who is up and who is down . I would like to start with that. What is your assessment of the relative strength in the role of congress when it comes to shaping the conduct of American Foreign policy versus the role that the president plays . Maybe, mr. Speaker, i will start with you on that one. Talking about the balance of power, there is a basic ounce of power in the first place. And finally the appropriations process goes through and people weigh and balance of a will parse out appropriations to make that work. There is always a check and balance between administration and the congress. I would say congress has dominated over the administration. The administration, they have the department of state that actually sets the parameters, sets the program, and where they feel they need to address what that policy should be. That really has a major effect. The Defense Department is very active. First of all, you most difficult vote is whether we should use force. If our adversaries think we will not use force, they will use it, and then we will have to use it. So, my answer to you is, i have this inherent feeling that ultimately it has to be the president. That we have to give the power to the president and then we have got to work hard to make sure he does what we want. Or she. Lets go to mr. Tanner and then, bob, back to you. Go ahead. Been a controversy between the branches since, as you suggested, the constitution was signed. We are in a very different world now than we were then. In a aid that we are not perpetual war, but perpetual from the standpoint of the foreseeable future against aretate operatives who but weand we are know that they pose a threat. 9 11 is as fresh today as almost 13 years later as it was then. There is standpoint, no one for congress to declare war on, so to speak. From that president or the executive branch has to, within the boundaries set by the conduct Foreign Policy, and its not a question of instilling troops into a hostile environment. They are already there. So, it is a question of how it is managed, and the congress, through the Intelligence Committee and defense committees and so forth, really has i think an opportunity and a responsibility to diligently work with the executive as the policies unfold, in whatever put you last. Every president back to nixon, you have watched this review have a unique perspective on that. How do you assess that . What has changed about that thationship in that time, duration of president s from nixon to barack obama . All, this is the gray zone, the constitutional gray zone. If you go into the constitution and then the practice, it is inevitably a shared power between the executive and congress and it was intended that way. But i think since world war ii, the last declared war, it is very clear the president has the upper hand as commanderinchief. He can employ the force as he sees fit. Remember the george w. Toh administration talking the group of academics and they were saying, well, the constitution says congress will declare war. And i said, yeah, but the practice is the president kind of does it. Finally there was such a academic resistance to this, i said, look. George bush can invade mexico. Omorrow if he wants and someone stood up in the back in despair and said, dont give him any ideas. [laughter] he has thatice, power. And the reality is, yes, as says, congress controls the purse strings, but once it president launches a war, either on his own or with some sort of backing through resolutions from the congress, it would be very difficult and in fact any practical sense impossible, unless it was a very, very unpopular war for funds. S to withdraw because the withdrawing the funds would not just stop the war, but it would take food and ammunition away from our troops. Practically speaking, i dont think the congress is going to do that. I think it is the president congressf the power in and congress, 10 , maybe. Were looking at the relative balance in the separation of powers here, and i think it is almost a cliche to say were in so much a more divisive, polarized time now. However the current political . Andscape affected this , there was art time of unprecedented unity post9 11. You were there. You probably had to think through that day. All kinds of complicated things about the future of this country and where we are going. Wilke is through that day and walk us through the aftermath of ,ow you and the other leaders the bipartisan leadership of the congress came together and worked with the president. I remember you being in the rose garden and all being together at one point and really rallying the country. But what did that feel like and how is that different from some of the political animosity that we see . I remember it felt kind of lonesome. But, yeah, i was in my office, the morning. Around 9 00, in akamai door. Mr. Speaker, something happened in new york. Went small plane or into the trade towers. This is not an accident. This is an act of terrorism. We do not know who it was or why it was. It was there. The background that day, we were have a joint session of Congress Schedule that morning with the Prime Minister of australia. I am thinking, this is not a safe situation do have the whole government of the United States the president was gone. He was in florida, as we know. The senate was not there yet. I was trying to get a hold of Vice President cheney, and he was in the white house with secretary pineda trying to get aircraft back on the ground. Our communication was not there. Thinking, do we create an International Incident with australia if i canceled john howard and give a National Address before the congress . Should we put the Supreme Court and the joint chiefs of staff and the president s cabinet and ambassador corr, the senate, the house, all in one building . All of this was going to my head. I am standing at my window, looking down at the mall. I see the smoke right across the mall. I said to the young fellow who runs my office. I said that smoke is not supposed to be there. What happened . He came back to me and said, you know, i dont know, but i will find out. Plane went into the pentagon. So, i started thinking to myself, this is not a good situation. I unilaterally decided to Cancel Congress for the day and call president o was the pro tem of the house, porter goss, later the cia director. I said i want the chaplain to come in and say a prayer. Thellow the chaplain into. Ouse chamber all of a sudden, two of my security guys, big guys grabbed me and are going down the back alleys, the back halls of congress, down through the tunnel and into the rayburn building in the back of an suv, and we take off through the back streets. I say, what is going on . He said, there was a fourth plane coming from the capitol. They saw a fourth plane. It happened to be a plane that was a cia plane doing reconnaissance. It was unmarked. Nobody knew what it was. The white house, it was the same thing they were going to tell those people take your shoes off and run nor was the advice for the day run north was the advice for the day. I ended up out at Andrews Air Force base. Finally get ahold of the Vice President. He said, there are three, maybe four planes down, maybe five points. They know there is a plane and the pentagon, two planes in new york. We think there is a plane in pennsylvania, we think there is a belaying down in kentucky. There never was a plane down in kentucky, but they thought that. Is that there were three planes coming across the atlantic with transponders not working. We do not want to shoot them down, but we have to get them on the ground. Kl flight from canada we have the transponder on. We need to get that plane down. That was what their focus was. And he said, we will send you to weigh not disclosed location. We go to the not disclosed location, which i cant tell you. [laughter] but we are there. Yep park shows up, daschle shows gephardt shows up, showse shows up, armey up. Anybodytching tv like else. Cnn. We talk to the Vice President two or three times. He is giving is what happens. The president is safe. He is someplace else. Finally he says the last call, you says, you are going to come into ec at 6 30. At president will come in 6 00. Your helicopters will take you to the north side of the capitol. Were all flying from the undisclosed location. Thead been talking through day in a bipartisan, bicameral way, what are some of the things were going to have to do and what are the problems were going to face the ipo we were not even sure all of the problems we would have to face yet. Were scheduled to go to the front and east side of capitol and give a 22nd pitch to the cameras. I walk around, following daschle. As we walked around to the front of the capital capitol, there are members of Congress Standing in front of the capitol. House members, democrats, republicans, all there. Ofwas kind of a show solidarity. It was heartening to see that. So, daschle went out and did his 15 or 20 seconds. I went out and said, we are going to come back to work tomorrow. Congress has a lot of stuff to do. We have to figure out how the of this country dont again. As i turned around and walked back, somebody broke out in a cappella todd was america god bless america. I dont think it was planned. A chill went down my back. For the next two months, every night we were together, we had to do the patriot act. We had to get the Airlines Flying again. We had to do reinsurance. We had to rebuild new york and other places. We could not do anything until we created this. We did it out of whole cloth. So, we Work Together and with understood we had to do it. We had 21 billion the president said we could spend to rebuild new york and the pentagon. We worked together. We have the appropriations people there every night. We worked where the problems were. We got the airlines, had to get the Airlines Flying again. They were spread all over the world. E did all those things we just focused. And you know, we never thought about partisan issues. We did not have time. Partisans did not play a part of it. We just had to get the country going again. That is the important thing. When it comes down to international issues, when it is crisis time, politics does not have a place to play in it. National security has a place to play in it. We created that. We created homeland security. We did a lot of things during that time. We had election after that and things change. But i think that was an incredible time. Members of committees, members of leadership, both house and senate, we met almost every night and worked things out. Mr. Speaker, i wanted to hear the story because, given Public Opinion about congress right now, which we all know is not very high, that response to crisis is what americans think is the best of the institutions we are talking about here, the presidency and the Congress Working together in a bipartisan way to address approximate crisis. My question for everybody here what has happened to that . Why have we lost that ability . You think back. To gete point i want from you you think about the president s in office during the cold war. There was a proximate threat, a detailed terry and threat we were facing then. It seemed to bring americans together. At the end of the day, we did not have a lot of the Political Polarization because people said, look, we are in a bipolar world. We have to stand together as americans. The question is, why do we not seem to do that . Look at benghazi. We have the controversy today. Everything about Foreign Policy seems to low up into yet another political controversy. Why is that and what is that about . Will try to be brief. Even though it is hard. [laughter] in 1962, from my own Congressional District in tennessee came a case in the Supreme Court called baker versus clark. It was a marvel, tragic the jewish and. Believe it or not, these state had notssee legislator reapportioned itself based on population since 1901. The case came from memphis. It said congressional and house and state senates, seats based on population, they had to have approximately the same number of people because it involved the process and equal protection of the law. So, that became the law of the land. At that time, the Supreme Court said, that is the legislative branch. We are the judicial branch. Separation of powers. 51 yearst time, some ago, the congress has been reapportioned every time, and census, soithout a what is happened is the middle has virtually disappeared. Now areople in congress trapped in a system that is broken. It is called the gerrymander. Time it is reapportioned, you have more and more people in either red or blue districts. What happens to the member then is the threat to that members reelection is not in november. It is in the party primary, and so the democrats are looking over their left shoulder, if you want to use those terms, the republicans are looking over their right shoulder, and the political kill zone is the middle. Where you have to go