 All of you to Carnegie and it is a special pleasure to welcome my former boss Former Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss his extraordinary new memoir every day is extra. It's really great to have you here Thank you Bill. It's great to be here Recovering diplomats like me have a bad habit of droning on at the beginning of events like this But I promise I'll be brief and just offer two or three really quick observations first I can't think of an American public servant who's done more over the last half century To shape the evolution of our society or of America's role in the world than John Kerry From his military service in Vietnam through the turbulence of our own society During the Vietnam and Watergate years through five terms as a US senator from Massachusetts and his own candidacy for president To four consequential years as Secretary of State John Kerry has embodied the very best of American public service Second as many in this audience who served with him can attest I can't think of a public servant whoever worked harder or with greater drive and passion than John Kerry He really has lived and worked as if every day was extra Never wasting a single day never letting any stone go on terms never letting any diplomatic opportunity Go untested always convinced that it's better to get caught trying than not to try at all and Third and finally I cannot think of a public servant better place to help us understand how to navigate Through this deeply uncertain moment In our nation's history drawing on the lessons of an earlier deeply uncertain moment as John Kerry's rich life and wonderful Memoir remind us. It's going to take hard work and honesty from all of us to recover our balance and recapture our promise So our plan this evening is very straightforward I'll get the conversation started with two or three questions and then open it up to all of you at the end of the Discussion at about 6 30. I'd ask all of you to hold your seats while secretary goes downstairs To sign books. I urge you to buy as many as you can carry It's not too late for Russia Sean or back to school gifts And it's certainly not too early for a Christmas shopping So thanks again for joining us and please join me in a very warm welcome for John But thanks so much again Let me start with the title every day is extra How'd you choose it and how is that insight shaped your approach to public service over all these years? Well, every day is extra is what Donald Trump thought when Mueller was appointed Just figured that out actually No, every day and actually there's a very short Authors note and I and I struggled actually as all authors do I thought two of the hardest things to think about where it was the forward and then the afterward and And my publisher well advised me You know don't tackle it to you've written the book because then you can really have a sense of Kind of what you were trying to say and what it is but in the end There is an afterward and I and I it's a meaningful one. I hope and it's a short one Which is kind of where we go from here and what we have to take out of this book the title itself comes from a saying that My crew in Vietnam and others who were not on the crew but who came home As we began to think about opposing the war and what we needed to do to end it We realized that that we were obviously the lucky ones and While we came home a lot of people didn't so we had this saying that every day is extra. You know, we're lucky We're living extra days because I could have been killed on any given number of days and That is both a gift and a mystery as I write but it's also a huge obligation Frankly, and we sense that that you need to live a life of purpose and in the end the lesson is that Every day is extra is sort of Reminds you that there are just much worse things than flunking a test or you know missing a plane or Losing a debate or losing an election and then in the end the worst thing of all Would be to be See a lot of problems around you and be indifferent to them So that's the meaning of the title folks and you do not have to go to war. You don't have to be a vietnam veteran. You don't have to be recovering diplomat and politician to understand that Everybody can live by that saying and everybody should I'm an optimist Obama president Obama used to constantly John Would you get this optimistic you're too optimistic say no, Mr. President. You're too pessimistic I'm you know, this is the truth is that I am an optimist and I'll tell you before I close my comments why I'm an optimist because we have to talk about some tough things before that But then I'll tell you why I truly am an optimist, but that's what the title is that Thank you all for being here. I'm looking around and seeing faces. It used to shout at me Kerry. You're wrong about this. You got a Anyway, I see I saw the people who are laughing when I said that you know who you are I know who you are Those were just the State Department staff meetings. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for being here. It really means a lot I look forward to chatting with you about this book One thing I'll say about the book very quickly if I can because I was thinking about this because at first when I heard Woodward's But it's coming out. I said, oh shit It's a technical publishing term This was really good planning But then after you know Thinking about it and after listening to to it and reading a lot of the excerpts and what it's all about is Woodward and I'm not kidding you when I say this Woodward's book is the normal Bob Woodward brilliant piece of reporting that collects the truth from everywhere despite the denials and And he's just too smart a reporter at this stage of his life and also has a good publisher and You know the lawyers are not going to let him do this folks if they can't back it up And so that hundreds of hours of tapes and so forth You can you know, who are you going to believe Bob Woodward or Nileshaw? It's an easy one so that said He lays out the problem But he doesn't it depressed if you just have the problem you can be pretty depressed I really believe that my book which is not a policy tone. It is not your traditional You know, it's not present at the creation. It's not Kissinger diplomacy But and not just because they wrote a great book and I can't do that. It's because I Didn't we didn't want it to be I didn't want it to be the publisher didn't want that This is a journey. This is the stories of a journey of a lifetime of a young American life started in the end of World War two and carries through the 1950s and the changes and you know, we even talk about the music and the changes and things that happen as You know Buddy Holly came and went and Elvis came and went and the Beatles came and it just was all part of this journey and You can't think of it any other way The cultural transformation the summer of love out in California When I was in my first year of Navy training and so forth the grateful dead at the Fillmore West Rolling Stones, I mean how many people can say there's a forest dump in an atmosphere There's a there's truly a forest dump component to my life and I'll tell you I'm gonna digress I'll tell you a quick story some of you may remember that I appeared for duty with a broken nose when I was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee just before I was about to take a trip to go to the Middle East so here's the deal I It is for us Gumpian because I described my meeting president Kennedy and calling and mr. Kennedy I didn't know you say mr. President and the conversation we had I described the Going sailing with him on Narragansett Bay And I described the meeting and introducing John Lennon at a big anti-war rally in so it's already pretty far as accomplished and Having Richard Nixon personally going after me when I was in Washington and so on and so forth But I was out in Ketchum, Idaho where we go for Christmas and we have an annual pick up hockey game Brumhockey and it's from age four to age 74. Whatever. It's a huge run of the different levels of skating and This fellow came out with his son and they were taking part in the in the in this affair And I'm skating down going after the ball we play with the ball not a puck and this guy falls right in front of me and I Decide rather crash into him I'm going to try and dive over him and slide on the ice So I'm diving over him head first and he starts to get up before my legs have cleared him So it's a legs up face down situation You could hear the nose crack all across the ice and and I turn around I come up I know it's bleeding a little bit. I know it's broken. I said goddamn my nose is broken and I turn around and there is Tom Hanks who's broken my nose And I feel so what how do you say I say well life is like a box of chocolates You know, you never know who's going to break your nose Or maybe better stupid is as stupid does you know, but bottom line is I swear to God he broke my nose and And I went straight to the hospital and I saw him again I don't know months later and he said I owe you one said yeah you do But I showed up but the next about three days later I had to take off to go to the Middle East for negotiating all that stuff And I put these big sunglasses on to hide. I literally looked like a raccoon Big black eyes for months and it was the first time the president Chastised me for a being you know Accessibly Athletically inclined the second time was obviously when I broke my leg in Judy in outside of Geneva Just before the Iran negotiations were over but in the reading of this book. I think in that journey you will First of all, I think it's honest I talk about a lot of things that are very personal and and Try to give everybody a sense of who I really am and then It goes through these Gargantuan ships and periods in our lives and my successes and failures as I try to navigate those early years and then ultimately Coming to the Senate and working with a lot of you who are here to Shed light on Oliver North and Iran Contra and the BCCI and Shut the banks and make Washington work and do what it's supposed to do So ironically, you know most of my class my class was Jay Rockefeller Tom Harkin Paul Simon Tom Harkin Paul Simon Jay Rockefeller Al Gore myself and then the one single Republican is the only member of our class who is still in Washington as a senator Mitch McConnell First senator elected from his state since reconstruction in party So that was the group of us and and they all decided to go run for president within about four years or eight years of being there it wasn't for 18 years before I decided to run for a lot of different reasons and Thanks to all of you. We came within one state Micro close But this book tries to draw the lessons Acknowledge the mistakes and most importantly, this is really what's important about it. This is why it's the It's the antidote to what? Bob Woodward lays out This book describes how we accept and fight many times Unsuccessfully more times successfully to make our democracy work and Never have we needed to do that more than right now We're in trouble And I don't try to be a trouble monger or to be a you know somebody who tries to scare people but I'm telling you folks And I write about this in the last chapter in the book. I mean I wish I could Find legal standing to bring a case against Donald Trump for the lives that will be lost and the property that will be damaged in the billions of dollars because of his decision on climate change This is life and death Our democracy matters that much and what is happening in the sloppiness of the diplomacy that's going on with Kim Jong-un the sloppiness of His reckless statements in Europe at a time where Europe is already weakened somewhat and matters to us more than ever Since the end of World War two. I mean these things matter enormously and we got a fight for them and We proved in the course of the and I lay it out in this book You know when I came back from the war it was not an easy thing to stand up people forget that today When I stood up against Richard Nixon There was a huge division in the country and it was not a pathway to running for office or being involved in public life It was a pathway to you know, and I was arrested for civil disobedience and demonstrating against the war So it was divisive and I certainly earned some enemies for a lifetime through that experience And we saw some of them come to the forefront in 04. That's what that was about wasn't about my record it was about them being angry that I opposed the war and Told the truth and Ken Burns's movie has now helped reinforce that truth But the point I'm making to you is that when Nixon was unleashing the FBI on people when Nixon was Engaged in prosecuting an enemy's list when Nixon was involved in cheating and lying and perverting the you know subverting the Constitution and when when he was in the midst of attacking the Justice Department and firing the Attorney General the Special prosecutor and then you know the acting Attorney General resigns only at Richardson I mean this was a process of dissembling of the American government and people were thinking about it that way We were in the midst of the southern strategy the exploitation of People by virtue of race in full force You know all you have to do is listen to the Nixon tapes to hear The bigotry and the hate that came out despicable and then of course there were pipe bombs blowing up in buildings and people carrying guns and shooting people in the streets and Detroit was lit on fire with riots in Los Angeles and so forth people forget this and People wondered about American institutions Guess what? We not only made it through it. We got stronger and the nation came out of it brilliantly in the end And we go through these crisis. I think people forget how really strong the American people are and we can get through this period which is Certainly the most dangerous moment for our country since all of that and more dangerous in some ways because Henry Kissinger and Nixon were not You know, they were smart and farm policy. Let's be honest about with exception. I mean they tried to get out of the war They took too long they could have in the end They wound up basically bombing as John Nugger Ponte said and I quote him in the book They had to bomb the north into accepting the concessions that we had made to the North Vietnamese You know as a fundamentally a kind of Surreptitious surrender in ways to get out of there. He knew we had to do that thinking there'd be a longer decent interval than there was But the bottom line is I think this book explains how we make it all work, and I'll just end on this note to you 54.2 Remember that figure sear it in your brain at least for the next two months 54.2 is the percentage of American eligible voters who came out and voted in the last election When I ran in 04 it was 60 point four percent turnout Eligible voters when Obama was elected in 08. It was 62.3 percent when he was reelected. It was 58 point five percent The message of that is When was the last time it was 54.2? Al Gore You've got to come out and vote You've got to and we've got to make sure Millennials kids all those folks, you know term, you know when Trump won 9% of the vote of Obama's vote actually went to Trump 7% of Obama's vote didn't turn out That's the difference in the race so it's not the people who came out the vote for Donald Trump Who are the story of this campaign and where we are today? It's the story of the people who didn't come out and that's the lesson of this book You have to work to make democracy work You have to stand up to the big money you have to call even a president Reagan out on BCCI or on Contras or whatever You know it matters that people believe in rule of law and stand up and fight for it That's a much longer Sort of response to your intro bill, but I think it's the heart It's the heart of this book folks and it's the heart of what really is the solution to the problem We face today. There's no problem. We face on this planet that we can't cure human beings But you need the leadership to put the choices in front of people and right now. I don't see those choices being put people I just see division and And You know sort of an arrogance and a dissembling and obviously a level of lying That is utterly stunning. In fact just plain pathological and that's part of the danger So and another another part of this solution that you write about Vividly in the book is your early years in the Senate and the capacity of Your you and your colleagues to work across partisan lines and certainly we were all reminded of that You know John McCain's memorial service at the National Cathedral You and he worked together to immortalize relations with Vietnam to help heal the wounds in both of our Countries, how do we recapture that spirit? Somebody asked me today. I think it was Judy Woodruff in an interview Who's gonna who's gonna bring those people back or something and I said God and the American people It was the only two people who can do this or people silly power and the only Entity that can do this. I can't do it. No, you can't but but voting doing what I just talked about If we have the course correction that we can get this year folks We get people in there who are gonna do the regular order like John McCain asked for and what we ought to be engaged in There's no other way. I Said to people the other night somewhere the rules of the Senate aren't exceedingly different from the way they were 50 years and 80 years ago Yeah, something's changed on the voting of judges and there's been a you know legislative nuclear explosion But other than that the rules are the same how you bring a bill to the floor what you do What your powers are as a senator what the presiding officer has to do and so on and so forth the problem is nobody does that There's no real Legislating taking place real Legislating taking place now. I can remember Robert Byrd had us there through Friday night and Saturday morning And we were voting in real legislative succession and nobody knew what a member was gonna come up And you bring it up and there'd be a real amendment and you debate it and you fought it and ultimately there was the given take of Legislating where you get that sausage made even though it's ugly to watch it being done. It comes out okay And it lasts That's how it's done. Many of you were part of those battles And I remember being at Ted Kennedy's house some night you'd have John Warner there and Mack Matthias and Orrin Hatch and a few Democrats and we'd sit around and we'd laugh and we'd have fun and to be jokes but we would also talk about health care or talk about some country or a war whatever it was and Out of that discussion the next day could come an amendment that would pass or an agreement We're gonna try and end this nonsense or whatever it was you can't do that now You're almost punished for the notion that you walk across the aisle to work with somebody else you're part of the enemy That's got to stop folks and how's it stop? We need leaders who make it stop You need I mean I believe that if Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer got together and they all agreed Some night look this is crazy. We're destroying this institution What are the 10 things we need to do in order to have regular order and start to move? Let's all agree. We're gonna do it. We're not gonna have this game you go back to your caucuses and you tell them folks We're not gonna tolerate this anymore. You want me chairman of the committee. This is how it is You make it work It's called leadership And right now we're just floundering around with this completely divided America. Why because we went through a period by the way I'm gonna be an equal opportunity dispenser of Blame for this It's not one party that's to blame for it. Both have had their share of being excessive In response to something that happened previously now I can't tell you whether something that happened previously was just the John towers rejection Or whether it was Robert Bork's rejection but over the 1990s certainly in the in the heat of the gingrich revolution Something changed in the Senate and you began to see this All or nothing this kind of the trooper in this take hold and We saw a different kind of senator come over from the house Those of you who were there know that's true and and the dynamic just shifted and then Because a Lot of promises were made that we never kept both sides But the principal ones of the last few years have been this conservative movement that has been towards You know constantly saying we're gonna end Roe v. Wade. We're gonna have lower taxes We're gonna get rid of regulation We're gonna have smaller government and those were the promises the mid-1990s and go read the contract with America. Okay, so There was excess particularly in the impeachment process take note and You know people got bitten in the rear end the House and Senate changed but The Gingrich revolution didn't deliver any of those things and then you had the Tea Party and You had a reiteration with greater adamancy of the same kind of promises now get rid of government get government out of your hair Liberate you smell run the list then you had Freedom caucus because they didn't deliver and then guess what happened yet a hostile takeover of the Republican Party by Donald Trump You also had a fight going over on our side of the fence between Hillary and Bernie and between the left sort of direction versus you know how you get elected in America terms of the You know center and the needs to be rational about how you create jobs and what you do and you have to pay for a few things here And there those are minor things in governance, but they matter but the bottom line is that We got a lot of pissed off citizens And you cannot pretend to be involved in public life for this country if you don't understand why people are pissed off and They're pissed off because none of the promises have been delivered on either side of the fence and And particularly when you add to that the changes globally in the way we live You know we're witnessing industrial revolution size Changes both culturally and physically in the workplace and economically, but It's happening at digital pace And when you add to that the global transformation It's no longer a world where the United States could make a decision about the economy or about whatever and make a mistake But still win no longer It's far more after the end of World War two when we set up all these International institutions which greatly favored our value system obviously and which Putin and she now pushing back against very hard They're trying to create a new narrative for this century And we're not being sensitive and thoughtful enough about how important that narrative is to actually getting things done on the planet and To sustaining it So we have to really get back to work in order to restore Our primacy of leadership around those values and obviously this guy is going in exactly the opposite direction With great dangers to the interests of our country That's the bottom line But people have not done better Politics is all about making people's lives better I mean Tip O'Neill used to say to us all politics is local right, but it's not just local I learned all politics is local and personal and It's also about perceptions. I had a professor in college who caught me that all politics is about felt needs and We have not responded either side Washington is not responded Congress has not responded to provide for the felt needs of the citizens of our country And it's their real needs to by the way, but all you have to do is feel them and they're real But when you look at what's happened to wages First uptick in wages in the last round here, but I don't know if it's sustainable because of what's happening with the trade war stuff It's probably going to start to shred And I'm glad President Obama went out and talked about the reality of when it began and how it happened But my friends here's the deal People at the end of 2008 when the economic crisis hit which we Democrats walked the plank on We lost the house over it a lot of friends lost their seats in the house because they dared to vote what we had to do The Republicans whose party it was that brought the travesty ran away from it And only Arlen Specter and a few others stood up and Arlen Specter lost his seat too over that courageous vote That's the cowardice of what has happened in American politics today and right now today while every one of those guys up there on the hill They absolutely know how sick the situation is how unbalanced and unhinged it is how dangerous it is But they are happier To ignore their oath of months of office to uphold the Constitution and save the Institutions of America. They're happier protecting their power their party and their president and that's a disgrace So that's where we find ourselves and it's all happened for extremely understandable explainable reasons and Just as it's explainable and understandable The antidote to it is Is there in the waiting now? We got what how many seats? About well, we need 23 obviously win, but I think there are I forget the number. I think anywhere between 45 to 60 Competitive seats and God knows what what's gonna happen if everybody does their job goes out and works We got so much more to talk about this evening, and I don't want to monopolize the question So let me open it up to all of you if you'd raise your hand wait for the mic Hello, mr. Secretary. My name is max bone and I'm a student of international affairs at the George Washington University For your entire term as Secretary of State You are very involved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo especially the past two years trying to get Kabila To have an election and not run for another term now after it being delayed multiple times Many people being worried that he was going to run for another term He has announced that he's not however many are worried about his successor if he'll be any better And also about the legitimacy of the election So I'm curious in your view if it is a victory for the international community that he has decided not to run And if we should step back or if we should could or if we should continue to put pressure And also if the Trump administration Especially with ambassadors hate with ambassador Haley's advocacy has done a sufficient job. Thank you Well, thank you for the question I'm delighted that wasn't Kabila has made the decision he's made and I argued to him as strongly as I could that He's a young enough man that he can Honor the Constitution of the country and help the country to become much stronger That some friend of his I mean, you know, I mean Putin is one example with Medvedev, but it's probably not the best example in the world But you can create a Structure where somebody else is coming in for a period of time and you can go on if that's what you want to do But I told him I thought that he could play a tremendous role as an ex-president Who had kept the Constitution process intact and stood up for his country by Leading private sector efforts to develop his country And to begin to attract investment around the fact that they're building stability in the country And he could be a terrific ambassador for that. There are all kinds of ways to help You don't have to just be the president. Um, I think that he Hopefully will do that, but I don't think by any means we should step back I think the power of the united states now uses the example what we did in In nigeria With buhari I went there twice during the course of that process read them the riot act the first time I went with a major Warning about what would happen if they either of them advocated violence or played games with the process and buhari afterwards Literally credited us the united states with our With our advocacy for having allowed nigeria to have an election that was fair in which The other the incumbent president whom he defeated actually Folded and went away and conceded not unlike what we accomplished with with musharif in Pakistan the same way so our engagement our leadership traditionally At the un within the international community within the african union and other places where we had credibility and impact Makes a dramatic difference Obviously the problem here is There's just not a lot of credibility to the efforts of this administration I'm not sure it's on their radar screen or they're able to I'd love it if nicky hailey would tackle that She could have some impact because she's had some visibility And and I think she could help Leverage attention on it. So I would urge her to try to do that Thank you I'm famed on my member of a tonighty council as an iranian american who lived in this country for 46 years I was extremely delighted to see the iran nuclear finally being signed and thank you for your tireless work It was a perfect timing perfect team from iran Now that the president Trump has gotten out of this deal with the signature and do you really believe that the iranians Will come to the table again and trust the united state to sign another deal with this administration And the second question is will you be running for the presidential office? Well, let me I'm not let me answer the first question if I can for you just very quickly Not on your life or mine Will they come to the table with this president? It's impossible politically physically now Which which underscores the fact that I think the administration is not Looking for you know a renegotiation what they're looking for is regime change And and the you know once again, first of all the united states of america does not do regime change well I would have hoped people might have learned that by now Last evidence of that is is libya And our efforts elsewhere in the middle east um But it displays a remarkable level of ignorance of of uh the region and the dynamics and the and and the Reality on the ground in iran let alone the reality in our european allies and in the Russians and chinese it also uh ignores a massive reality about The politics of iran itself which is tragic because Anyone who has studied iran or who has a sense of the country understands that the revolution of 79 Has had its opponents and detractors within good morning Has had its detractors within the country It's not a monolith at all And all you have to do is see the green movement and the elections unfolding and the demonstrations to understand that It is authoritarian and it can be pretty brutal and tough And that means that people take great risks when they when they try to step out But ruhani clearly was clearly in the more moderate wing of iran and it's all relative but of iran And was trying to move people in a in a different direction And the hardliners the irgc and others even the ayatollah said to them Don't negotiate with the great satan You can't trust them It was a huge leap of faith for them to get to the place where they agreed to negotiate And they agreed to negotiate largely based on their sense that both president obama And i were on the up and up and bill burns and their respect and wendy sherman and the people they were dealing with Were on the up and up and they could trust us and they learned very quickly. We negotiated in good faith We got around to do a lot frankly really amazing things unheard of things in terms of the turnaround on their program and um I regret to say that because of what donald trump has done it's impossible politically For anybody to turn around and just capitulate and cave in and come back to the united states and now Negotiate because we were pressured into because we got out of the thing no way The best you can hope for is that administration can come in with credibility and people with credibility can re-engage with them And try to bring them back in some form And that itself will involve a new negotiation because they will want to negotiate The secondary sanctions and the banking situation, which they never benefited from frankly And we will want to negotiate yemen hezbollah other things now because the dynamic has changed So I think there's a different thing that would unfold, but Here's the danger everybody Countries in the region were telling me I probably bill. I'm sure bill. I know bill And the president and hillary That the only way you guys can deal with the ran is you got to bomb them I heard those words out of the mouth of president yubarak. I heard them from king of dala Uh, I mean there were and I heard them from bb nanyahu all of whom said you got to bomb them And a couple of them were actually importuning the white house during that time To give them a green light to go do it and president obama did not he resisted that So, you know, I mean before you've even done diplomacy they were saying you got to go bomb We at least argued at least you've got to exhaust the remedies of diplomacy to earn the credibility So that if you have to go to the un you have got people with you and so forth, but Um So I have no doubt that by virtue of the the pursuit of this agreement We avoided a war in the region. We avoided conflict And nothing i'm telling you would be as as ugly As a prolonged asymmetrical War with Iran and it will be asymmetrical They know we can prop a bunch of bombs on them and ruin their their buildings and knock them down, etc But how many of you have forgotten co bar towers? And a whole bunch of them might be following after that not to mention problems in the subways of paris and london and Whatever whoever joined in that effort if we were alone It'll be us alone and that will not be pretty now that said um The dangers of this are that I mean look if you're the best negotiator in the world Which someone claims to be It seems to me the much smarter approach to this would have been Threatened to do what you what he did but Use it to get the europeans And the chinese and the russians all do agree They rather than do that We're going to go put a lot of pressure on them about yemen about hezbollah about transfer of weapons And you say to them. Okay. I'm gonna stay in it for the next two years I mean, it's a 15-year period before anything changes. They physically cannot make a bomb for 15 years. You know that And then they can only do it if they want us to know what they're doing because we will know whatever they're doing They started to use higher enrichment to go do something. We'll know it but Under these circumstances i'm telling you that what the president should have done is said to them And then you'd have had the un with you You'd have had everybody agreed on the strategy And you stay in Keep them from having any right to go do anything with enrichment or make a weapon But put the pressure on them for what's happening in yemen what's happening in these other places Which is a legitimate concern. By the way, we were always concerned about those things We never we kept the sanctions In place on weapons and we raised them We kept the sanctions in place on the transfer of weapons to yemen and we raised those sanctions We kept the sanctions in place on human rights And we kept the sanctions in place and what they're doing fooling around with hezbollah and hezbollah is a terrorist organization So we were never soft on any of that We just had I think a reasonable realistic strategy about how you actually get from here to there And and I think it's laid out in the book pretty clearly Hi, thank you. My name is hanny nasser with the embassy of canada as you know This administration has taken certain economic actions against close allies and partners I wanted to get your views on administration's goal of advancing priorities without these partners as they Take certain actions, but also what role does congress the senate have in Especially in in trade negotiations. Thank you Well, congress is obviously supposed to uh, what congress has the final say on the trade negotiations Because congress has to pass whatever it is whether they review it early or review it late It depends on the structure of the agreement, but uh, congress Has a very significant role in terms of trade I think that but don't expect this congress right now to step in and save everybody from anybody They seem excessively intimidated by the president Because the great fear that people have today is not general elections. It's primaries And the result has been you've had a shift because of the mean they're two great evils in the american political system today That are tearing us apart One is the amount of money in american politics And the second is the gerrymandering of the united states congress Which prevents people from having a genuinely democratic general election So what's happened now in this transformation is in the house and senate They terrorize members with the threat Of a primary with all the trumpistas now, but even before trump. He didn't start that you had the uh You know, you had the one of the caucuses would Motivate me. Ted Cruz was out there screaming to people about you know, we're gonna primary you and who was it david Was his name from uh, Louisiana Not bitter. Yeah, I guess it was bitter. Uh, he he uh, you know, they used to they used to raise pack money against their own colleagues in the caucus And and and so people just want to avoid all that except for bob corker and jeff flake who decided to Go elsewhere because of it And now ben sass who's speaking a little bit so Uh, I don't see much happening. Unfortunately, and i'm afraid canada. I mean, I cannot believe Who are at war with canada economically? That's just stunning to me how how How lined up we are with canada how we share so much How important the relationship is and likewise mexico I mean, I spent time creating in north america caucus we wanted canada Mexico and the united states to be closer and joined more and acting more as a block Even in the context of trade as we could have transitioned into a new era of our trade Relationships, but now he's blown that too. If you're the world's greatest negotiator Can you negotiate better with canada and mexico as part of the entity and then go out to the world and say Here's how we think it's got to be in order to deal with north america. That is far more powerful than then Dissing everybody and you could substitute a p for the d and say on And you it's just astonishing to me What what what they're doing and the price is going to get paid folks China's lining up the next round of countervailing tariffs And uh, we will lose jobs It will be higher cost to the american consumer and there's a breakpoint here where you don't get this on the slow It starts to speed up That's just the way it works. It does take a special kind of diplomacy to alienate the canadians Yes, ma'am As a political status quo hypothetically How would you provide uh, especially using the resources of the department of state both accountability for governments which commit foreign attacks And also begin to establish an actual deterrent against cyber warfare Well, I tell you uh, what I would do a couple things that a president should do right now One is On climate change we can come back to that one afterwards, but on this subject I I worked very hard. I came to the senate in 1984 election when reagan won massachusetts and You know massachusetts gets a this is a digression but gets a bad name Everybody says oh, it's so totally blue and it's a hardcore You know far left democratic states. It's really not folks We've had in the last of our governors of our last seven Seven of our last Eight or nine governors. I guess we had the ball patrick and one other. That's it. They've all been republican in massachusetts We were the second state in the nation to have a property tax rebellion called prop two and a half after prop 13 in california And ronald reagan carried massachusetts twice by record levels And the only reason we got stuck with the mcgovernment sort of sense. Oh this state voted for mcgovernment It was the narrowest margin any democrat had ever carried massachusetts by Against reagan. It just happened to fall in a column that could have gotten the other way and been 50 states So that and then ted kennedy obviously Sort of reinforced but there's this sense that that's where i supported When I first came into the senate the grand runman hollings effort because I thought we needed to balance the budget I thought we were in trouble economically and indeed in the 1990s We balanced the budget and massachusetts supported ultimately teddy supported that So we're not this, you know place over there where we can be impervious to the normal currency and we By the way, we had louis day hicks And we had major opposition to school busing And and the racial issue has torn our state as it has a lot of other states So I say all of that as a Just to kind of underscore to you that Uh You know you can't just sort of be automatic about what's going to happen in in the state as a result Now you're where are you there you're the center part of your question was the not the Cyber so let me come back. Yeah, I just wanted to finish that piece of so We need to we have huge technology in massachusetts with huge technology capacity in california texas new york other states What we need to do and what I was describing 84 about was because Back then we had the nuclear freeze and we had a lot of focus on the mx missile and on arms control And I was hugely motivated by arms control And I'd been the nuclear chemical biological warfare school in the navy and I You know knew enough about the throw weights and the You know radiation and clouds and so forth that it just was Beyond comprehension to me that we had 50 000 warheads each aimed at each other What did we do? We got together the great powerful nations of the world And we sat down and got Rational about it for the first time and started in the opposite direction and we had arms control agreements My great goal in the senate for years was to be a member of the arms control observer group With sam nun and with john warner in these guys And it was where the action was today I think far more realistically dangerous Far more of a threat to our country on a daily basis and to other countries Is the potential of the cyber attack and cyber warfare In a world where we all depend on technology where Computers are running our air traffic control system our water treatment facilities our nuclear plants Our run the list Transportation railroad gates that open and shut You know you run the list of these things And it ought to be scary to everybody we need to begin immediately a new era of arms control in cyber And the united states ought to be leading russia china france some middle eastern countries Every country with this higher level cyber capacity ought to be at the table And we have to come together and hammer out a global agreement About transparency accountability rules of the road and remedies enforcement And at the same way we have on arms control like an npt People have to sign up to it And i'm going to be pushing this out there as hard as i can because You know we actually sat in the in the situation room in the white house with president obama And discussed responses to russia for the hacking And i can't go into the details of it except to say to you that You know because classified but We talked about some pretty scary awful things that we could do The part of the problem was we also knew they could probably do it So now you're seeing a new age Of this administration talking about going into space Weapons That's insanity I fought that back when we were in the senate I led the fight to stop anti satellite testing And we won that fight folks. We won it. I thought we'd put it to bed Now it rears. It's like dracula. You have to put you know some sort of stake through it I got a better idea where you put the stake, but we you know we got to do this You have to have a cyber arms control Regiment and you've got to have a method by which you're going to agree on how you're all going to police it and enforce it And if we keep going with the arms race we've got in cyber now I'm going to all live in a much more dangerous world because without firing a shot You could bring the financial system of a country to a dead stop And the recovery from that. I don't even know how you begin to Trillions of dollars being monkeyed around with and changed It's very very tough scary stuff. So that's where I think we have to go in cyber Let's get somebody in the back here. Give them a shot The back ventures This is I'm afraid this is going to be the last question Thank you young king from voice of america So, uh, how do you assess the latest development with north korea and um What do you think about trump administration criticizing? Obama administration strategic patients policy technically men do nothing I'm sorry. I couldn't hear the last part of it. So, uh, president trump administration criticizing obama administration's strategic patients policy Technically men are doing nothing on north korea. Oh on north korea. Yeah, okay, and the very beginning you began you said what do you think of The latest development with north korea. What is the I mean do you consider A statement by king zhangan about how much they love each other the latest development I don't consider that a development Uh, he's got nuclear weapons and our intelligence committee has told us that he's growing those weapons That's the development. We ought to be paying attention to And the fact is that all this gooey back and forth. I think is called North korean rope a dope Uh I mean think about it folks You go to have a summit With scant preparation No Communicate pre-agreed upon no understanding of how you're going to define Nuclears at denuclearization No understanding of where you're going to go with respect to the accounting for whatever exists as weaponry What is the declaration they're prepared to do? How would you How would you Document that declaration and how will you then begin to deal with that declaration? There isn't one Single detail they came out of this incredible summit because frankly president trump Just wanted the reality tv event of having a big summit with all the flags in a meeting And they come out and say god. He's a really good guy. I like him so much now and he likes me Well anybody in this room who spent any period of time reading about kim zhangan Would think twice before they run around saying those kinds of things based on a single meeting Uh, just ask the people who Literally threw up because they were forced Uh and fainted because they were forced to watch the public execution of people But with them using 122 millimeter anti-aircraft guns against human beings Uh, there's ugly stuff And uh, there is no sign whatsoever That what happened in singapore was anything more than kim zhangan getting something that his father And his grandfather both wanted Both tried to get and never got because the preceding presidents republican and democrat alike Were unwilling to give them a meeting to legitimize them unless they had something positive moving forward on denuclearization on the talks on a structure And we went through it once before in the 1990s when clinton did come up with the agreed upon framework of the 1990s And they cheated so You know, what's the old saying, you know Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me I just think that this is uh A difficult now would I now let me be fair This is important I'm an advocate of engagement. You all know that about me I would have pushed to try to have a conversation. I think that's good I'm glad he wanted to have a summit rather than engage in the back and forth tweeting and rhetoric that they had I just wish that it had been implemented and worked on In a way that advanced the process So that you come out with something and you know what your roadmap is and where you're heading That's that's the problem here. It's not that you wanted to talk and I would have probably been an advocate for breaking the The gridlock of always requiring everything you needed as long as you've got enough to know you're really sustaining the process And I would have supported A temporary halt in the exercises in order to try to create the atmosphere within which you could try to do that What I fear is that north korea got more out of it In a way that helps them and now they're just going to I mean i'm told through the intel stuff that would have been public not going into anything private But the public intel stuff says they're still building they're building more they're moving them around they're hiding them and That's dangerous. That's not a good situation. So that's where we are Let me close close if I can by honor. I want to honor bill's admonition last question. I know We have another part of this so but let me Try to share with you a sense of this of this optimism And I believe in it I believe in it partly because what I saw when I was at the state department over the four years I was privileged to be there I believe in this optimism because I there's so many good people in this country Who want To tap into the best of who we are and of what we believe And because I've seen what we can do when we put our energy into the effort to make our country what we believe it is and want it to be I also am Powerfully influenced by the realities of the world we're living in and around us folks measured against history We are curing diseases today that we never imagined we'd cure I mean smallpox, tuberculosis, forms of cancer We have we have highly Targeted personalized cancer treatments now because of the genome project, etc We're living longer than we've ever lived before as human beings We live a higher quality of life in the united states in europe and certain parts of the world than any people ever dreamed They would live we earn more money. We are able to move around freely able to take part in the political process, etc If you're a woman somewhere in the world today, you are 50 percent more likely to give birth If you're pregnant to give birth and live through it You're 50 percent more likely that your child lives through it and will be fed and go to school We are in the verge of having the first generation of children born AIDS free in Africa Why because we started pep far because we put money Into the antiretroviral drugs and we've done the building of a health care structure Ebola I sat in that in that situation room and we were told a million people are going to die between now And and christmas in four months And we refused to accept that idea and president obama Committed 3 000 troops to go to west africa. We worked with the french and the british We stopped Ebola in its tracks with a fraction of those number of people dying You look at what's happening globally in terms of violence. Yeah, it was horrible It was the most sickening thing I ever saw in my life Was the video of that jordanian pilot being burned to death In in in a cage and and then the second or equally as sickening was seeing uh fully It was head cut off and so forth. So we see horrible acts of violence. They're despicable And and they scare everybody which is what they're meant to do But when you take the totality of what's happening even with the bombs going off in certain places at certain times and and the conflicts we have Far far fewer people are dying today Of violence in the world then at any time in human history and particularly in the last century 30 million russians died six million jews run the list and that was state on state violence In this century, we're seeing a different kind of violence. We're seeing Non-state actors of the principal actors of of discord and dissension and and except for putin and russia It's rare that you are seeing a state Act against another state or try to take territory doing so the psyche has changed psychology has changed the reality has changed moreover 450 million people have been brought out of poverty in china New middle class Same not quite the same number about 400 million in india Are are are now a new middle class, but it's true south korea 15 years ago We were giving aid to south korea when i was in the senate now south korea is delivering aid to countries in the world So i see a march of progress until this moment I've also seen a march of democracy a march of freedom a march of look at what lecualenza did look at what baklav havl did and they were inspired by us And that's what we have to get back to folks remembering who we are and and believing not in this tribalism and this You know This dirty populism that is being used by trump et al to scare people But by leaving believing in the power of people But the power of people to do good things because we're putting good things on the table that we ought to be doing And and you know severe poverty when i was in college was 50 percent of the world Severe poverty today is less than 10 percent of the world It's amazing what's happening. That's why i am hopeful we go through crises We go through terrible moments the darkest of all must have been you know And and i read a lot about it still as world war two and the darkness of the world during that period of time And we've made mistakes since then in vietnam and in in various other countries But we've learned from them i think And i think the american people are prepared to be engaged with the world engaged to try to make a difference but they want common sense and honesty in Sharing with them what the plan is how we're going to make a difference and what we're going to do And and you know detoxville noticed when he came to america in the 1800s and wrote his famous treaties He said you know there's something different in america the american people are different And they're different because they do charity They give to other people they take care of other people and lots of other countries that doesn't happen So i am convinced our value system is worth fighting for And i believe deeply in what i used to talk about as a as a secretary and as a senator and which others You know you hear more people sort of tapping into this now that What separates us from everybody else on the planet? Is the fact that we do not define people by by cast or by race or by Religion or color scheme this was not supposed to Some people now are But that's not america america has the idea that all men and women are created equal And that's the idea around which we've organized ourselves since we were founded as a country. We are an experiment folks Remember that We are still an experiment. We don't know how this turns out But i know what we were warned to think about by none less than ben franklin When he walked down the steps of constitution hall after they had worked late into the night and finally Resolved what the structure of our government would be and put it to paper And a woman shouted at him tell us dr. Franklin. What do we have? A monarchy or a republic and he looked at her and he said a republic if you can keep it That's that's the mission folks and that's why i'm optimistic because i not only think we can keep it I think we have Obligation to try to make sure that other people get the same shot we get Not a bad motivation. Mr. Secretary. Thanks for ending on such a No, just on behalf of all of us all of us I want to thank you for ending on such a powerful and positive note Thanks for a terrific book And thanks for everything that you've done and continue to do for thanks drill very much. Thank you all See a few of you. I hope