 We were established by the U.S. Congress in 1984 as a public nonpartisan institute dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. On behalf of the United States Institute of Peace, we are delighted, very pleased to welcome all of you for a special fireside conversation on the Israel-Gaza conflict with Senator Tom Cotton and a member of the U.S. IP Board, Roger Zeichem. As many of you know, we have a newsmaker series. This is when we invite distinguished members of Congress to speak with distinguished members of the Washington political class. In our case, we're lucky that the distinguished member of the Senate, Senator Cotton, and the distinguished member of the political class, Roger, is with us on the board. The aim of these series is to have a set of discussions where we express views on issues. We hope that these views are respected. We know that the most important thing in a democracy is that people feel that they can say what they want to say in the way that we want to say them, and this is an opportunity for that to happen here. It's my privilege to introduce our distinguished guest, Senator Cotton, who was elected as the Senator for Arkansas in 2014. After two years of service in the House of Representatives, Senator Cotton is a decorated Iraq war veteran with four years of active service in the U.S. Army and three years of service in the Army Reserve. The Senator serves on the Senate Judiciary Intelligence and Armed Services Committees and is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Terrorism and the Subcommittee on Air Land. In these roles, Senator Cotton is a strong advocate for diplomacy, for international human rights. And the need for clear-eyed American leadership abroad. The Senator has demonstrated commitment to peace, to partnership and stability and is one of our country's most trusted voices on foreign policy and national security issues. We are also pleased to welcome USIP Board Member Roger Zeichen, who will be moderating our fireside discussion. Roger currently serves as the Washington Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant of Defense and as the General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. In 2022, Roger was nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate as a member of the Board of USIP. Thank you all for being with us today. Roger, with your permission, we hand to you. Fantastic. Thanks, Leece, for that kind introduction and really an honor to have the opportunity to participate in this series, particularly with Senator Cotton, who will kick things off with some observations on the subject of tonight's discussion. And then I'll follow up with questions and discussion points for the balance of our time. Senator. Well, thanks, Roger, for having me here and thanks to the Institute of Peace, Leece. Thank you very much for the kind introduction and for what you do here. It's true that we confirmed Roger to the position during your board. I knew this was coming. I knew, goodness. Thus far, it doesn't seem to be cause for regret, although it is. Many years ahead of him for us to regret that station. But, Roger, thanks very much for your work, not just here with the Institute of Peace, but at the Reagan Foundation as well. We're at the Institute of Peace and peace is one of the highest goods in foreign policy. That's what most foreign policy, at least here in the United States, aims towards and usually what we want to achieve. But we also see around the world, yet again, that peace does not seem to be the natural condition of mankind. Peace is not something that just flowers without being cultivated and preserved and actively sought. In fact, if you look across the sweep of history, it would seem that war is the natural condition of mankind, although perhaps paradoxically so, because it also seems that no particular war, big or small, is inevitable, even if war itself is inevitable. War typically occurs through the failure of leaders from various countries to actively cultivate and pursue peace, which takes an expenditure of effort and resources just as surely as it does to win a war, although much less expenditure of resources and time and effort. Whether you see the failure of deterrence in Ukraine almost two years ago now or with Hamas and Gaza just a couple of months ago, we see the wages of what happens whenever we fail to actively cultivate and pursue peace and realize, at the namesake of your other employer, that what Ronald Reagan says, peace has to be achieved through strength. It has to be achieved through making those who are dissatisfied with the state of the world, with their lot in the world, who would upend that state of affairs through violence if necessary to know they have no chance to succeed. And time and again, when we see the preservation of peace fail, it's almost always because of a failure of deterrence, a failure to scare the bad guys straight. And it's very costly once that happens. As we've seen in Ukraine over the last two years, you've seen Gaza and Israel over the last two months or so. So I'm very hopeful that both those conflicts and other conflicts can be brought to a quick and satisfactory outcome. But at the same time, I think it's a lesson that here at the Institute of Peace, we can always keep in mind as well that it's not something that's just natural, not something that we enjoy without effort and time and resources. Well, why don't we pick up there? And of course, the subject discussion tonight is October 7th and the war that broke out in Gaza after Hamas's attack on Israel. And curious to get your take on framing that war as Israel's 9-11. You, of course, served in the military after 9-11, I've written a book. In part, reflecting on those who served and the impact. And I am curious if you think that is the right parallel for how Americans should think about what October 7th means to Israel and more broadly in the region. Is that a helpful construct? Well, I mean, you could say that it's really 15 9-11s for Israel, given the small size of that nation and the number who lost their lives there. And I'd also say the immediate visceral impact on Israel is probably even greater than what we experienced here in this country in 9-11 because of our size. Both the number of people we have and the scale of our territory. There are plenty of people living in Arkansas, for that matter, living in Washington State in Oregon or other wise around the world who probably didn't have any immediate impact when those airplanes hit the tower or the Pentagon or Flight 93 went down. They didn't know anybody killed on it. They hadn't served with people who were at the NYPD or FDNY who went as first responders. They were appalled. They wanted vengeance. They wanted sense of safety again. They might have been affected by it in years afterwards, whether they served in the military themselves or just had to live through some of the aftermath of the practices that we adopted in this country like the TSA. That kind of pales in comparison though to what Israel experienced on October 7th. Again, because of its small size, but it's small population of a 10 million in geography. Also because of its universal military service, there's almost no Israeli probably that wasn't immediately impacted by it. Or at most one degree removed. If you didn't know someone or weren't related to someone who was murdered or maimed or kidnapped, you probably knew someone who knew someone. And then certainly you knew people who were immediately deployed in the war. And you see that ripple across Israel's society, still very much so. So probably the impact it had was even more than the impact that 9-11 had on us. Now that said, I would say that the better comparison I think might be with Pearl Harbor, Al-Qaeda was a terrorist group. It used very unconventional asymmetric methods of flying airplanes loaded with a lot of jet fuel into towers in the Pentagon. Hamas is a terrorist group. Hamas is also a governing entity as well. It has governing responsibility for territory. And just like Imperial Japan did. And it launched a surprise attack on another sovereign nation. The response that we had to Pearl Harbor is probably more apt response to what Israel has towards Gaza or to Hamas governing Gaza, which is unconditional surrender. Now unconditional surrender for a lot of the people of Hamas probably means they're going to get killed because they're not going to be surrendering anytime soon. But I would look at Pearl Harbor maybe as the more apt comparison. And I would say that what we did in Germany and Japan and the standards to which we hail ourselves is the standards to which we should hold Israel and nothing higher. I want to get to that in a bit because you're hitting on American policy and how we're engaging with Israeli leadership on that. But interesting, you referenced Pearl Harbor and the end state. Always the strategist and thinking about the end of the conflict and where we go from here. Of course Israel is articulated as destruction of Hamas. How far off to get your take on, is it realizable? Do they have the right strategy in place to accomplish that? Here we are, plus 60 days plus into this conflict. It's nowhere seems to kind of suggest we're coming to a close. Tens of thousands is reported by Hamas and controlled entities in Gaza killed. Rockets still being fired from Gaza into sovereign territory in Israel. Israeli IDF objective, do you think it's something that can be achieved? I do. I mean, some people say, oh, Hamas is an idea, an ideology, it can't be defeated. As I said, it's also a terrorist group and a governing entity. And it has all the hallmarks of a governing entity inside of Gaza. Why do they have this massive tunnel network? Why do you not see that elsewhere in the world? It's because elsewhere, terrorist groups don't control the territory. They don't actually have sovereign control over it. They're not able to tunnel in hundreds of kilometers underneath their territory to protect themselves from retaliatory attacks. So Hamas can absolutely be destroyed as a governing entity and as a militant group. Its leaders can be killed or captured, its fighters can be killed or captured, its weapon caches can be destroyed, its tunnels can be flooded or destroyed. It absolutely can be destroyed. And I think Israel is on pace to doing that. Going back to the 9-11 analogy, which of course is a great intelligence failure, the 9-11 Commission, others, the Silverman-Rod report in the United States, studied that deeply because it missed the intel. Reporting, of course, on the Intelligence Committee, but public reporting suggests that Israeli intelligence entities anticipated this, filed a report, knew this was coming, the policy of your political leadership missed it and didn't pay attention to it. Are you surprised that Israel and their technological prowess and military prowess missed something that clearly presented a huge threat, not just to their military, but to their people? Well, I will say it was a failure. The government of Israel has acknowledged that as well. And they promise that there'll be a full accounting for that after the war is over or something that's commonplace in Israel, maybe less so than in many Western democracies. So I don't want to prejudge all the particular details about what that might ultimately find. I'll give some observations though, just kind of common sense observations and not classified information that we've been briefed on or anything. As is often the case, I think part of the failure is going to be a failure of human intelligence. A failure to maintain the kind of network of agents inside of Gaza and inside Hamas that could alert Israel that certain factions inside of Hamas were taking very careful, deliberate steps to avoid electronic surveillance and detection, and they were up to no good. That is the case with many intelligence failures throughout history, and especially throughout modern history. It seems to be accelerating in our lifetime is that you have voices that sit comfortably in places like Washington and say, oh, well, we don't need to go to all the risk and all the danger and the potential for failure, failure to actually produce any intelligence to develop spies in other countries. We can rely on West Bank technology sitting in front of a computer in Washington, D.C. And that's true. You can do that for some things. And that's important. And there are some things that intelligence collection is very good at without human intelligence. I mean, there's only so long you can hide a satellite or so long that you can hide naval ships or missile sites, electronic surveillance, satellite surveillance, very good for those things. But it's less good for the plans of what the bad guys are up to. There's a reason why intelligence professionals always say like, oh, plans and intentions of leaders are the hardest thing to get. They're like, yeah, they make it very hard to get it. Like Vladimir Putin is not on his iPhone, he's not on a computer, he's not surfing the web. The way he and others like him communicate make it very hard to have any clear insight into what they're thinking. However, you can oftentimes, especially for leaders of nation states, maybe not terrorist groups, you can often infer their plans fairly enough based on what they say publicly and what they commit their national resources to. That's one thing, I think a failure of human intelligence and over reliance, which our country is often guilty of as well as technical or electronic surveillance and intelligence. A second failure, and again, this is a very common feature as well of intelligence failures. It seems to be a failure of imagination. You look at Yaya Sinwar, a man who has no doubt been plotting something like this for years. Probably since he got out of that Israeli jail, maybe since he was put into the Israeli jail. In some parts of Israeli society that maybe Hamas had moderated, maybe Hamas wanted to become a responsible governing authority and Gaza, or at least it was sufficiently deterred and it didn't want to risk the kind of punishing retaliatory war that Israel has launched now. It's the same failure you see with the Biden administration and their views on Iran and all of Iran's proxies. The idea, as it sometimes called in the intelligent world, mirror imaging. That these people want exactly what we want. They're exactly like we are. Maybe they're just misguided or even misunderstood. That's not the case. We should believe what they say, especially when they commit a lot of resources to it. I was in a Senate hearing recently and someone said, I wonder what the Houthis want. My response was, well, their flag says death to Israel and death to Jews. Maybe we should take that seriously. I think a failure of imagination about exactly what the bad guys are up to was probably at work here as well. Again, it's common throughout history. The way Western leaders underestimated the ambitions not only of Adolf Hitler, but also of the Kaiser before World War I. Just to press the point on that, I want to definitely go to Iran. We can't have Senator Kahn here without commenting on Iran here. But there was this notion of, I think, containment that we could contain Hamas and then you look what was going on geopolitically in the region. It was the Abraham Accords. Let's focus on what I think Prime Minister is talking about as the existential threat to Tehran. That was a blind spot, but it almost just got the strategy wrong. That this was some sort of a challenge that didn't need tending to. And clearly part of the tragedy since October 7th is that we could leadership, frankly, took its eye off the ball. We'd love to get your reaction to that and then talk about the resilience of the Abraham Accords because you were quite involved and supportive of the Abraham Accords. And here we are 60-plus days into this conflict. And I'm curious to get your take, given all the tensions, regional, international, the diplomatic challenges, whether you see that framework holding in this environment. I do see the Abraham Accords holding. And I do think at some point the momentum behind an expansion of the other Arab nations will continue as well. The same strategic imperatives and logic that was driving that, that drove it back in 2019 and 2020 are still there despite Hamas's atrocities against Israel. In some cases you might say it's even more there. Furthermore, it's not like any of these Arab nations have any sympathy for Hamas. They view Hamas as one of the more armed, militant offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, which most of them have very little use for because it's a threat to their own people and to their own governments. So I do think the Abraham Accords, even if it doesn't happen on the time that one might have expected on October 6th, will remain solid and they'll continue to grow as well. I do think that one of the reasons this attack happened on October 7th is because the Ayatollahs in Tehran were worried about that momentum. And they wanted to take steps to forestall it. That may not be the only reason. That may not be the main reason. I think time will tell as probably more Hamas leaders are captured and interrogated. You're referencing the possibility of a Saudi-Israel deal. Most particularly, yes. Most particularly, but not just that, but most particularly. Again, time will probably tell and we'll get more insight into exactly what Hamas, the key decision-makers inside of Hamas decided like, why did this happen on October 7th? Why didn't it happen last February? Why didn't it wait until next June or what have you? I do think that the momentum behind Abraham Accord was one reason. I mean, I think the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war was another reason. I mean, I remember waking up on the morning of October 7th and just seeing the initial headlines that were very incomplete. We now sadly know about significant rocket and missile attacks from Gaza and my immediate reaction was this is Tehran letting their dog off the chain to try to disrupt the momentum of the Abraham Accord discussions. Obviously, when the full scale of the atrocities became clear throughout the day later, something more than that, but I do think that was part of it. So, we're talking about deterrence and there's definitely a story here of the erosion of deterrence overall. But if you look in the north, north of Israel, there is this focus and we've had skirmishes across the border, but it's escalated but not to the point where I think either side would call it a northern front has opened up between Hezbollah and Israel. So, want to get your take on that and perhaps focus on terms that surprise you. I mean, you surprise given where Tehran perhaps wants to go, that would perhaps be the next place to go to unleash chaos. And second, the United States has been most active from a military standpoint, at least publicly, on this front, sending in one at times two carrier strike groups to deter. We'll get to the Houthis in Yemen who've introduced themselves into this conflict in a moment. But I'd love to get your take on how you see Hezbollah and overall what has or has not happened in the northern front. Well, the people who live in northern Israel have had to be evacuated from it. Probably don't view it as a very limited conflict right now. And I think there's a big question whether any Israeli government in the future, whether it's from the far left to the far right, can accept a world in which Jews are not welcome to live on the northern border of Israel or, for that matter, on the southern border of Israel. I mean, that in a way kind of cedes one of the key points of Zionism, that Jews should be able to live safely in their homeland and not just in Tel Aviv or Haifa, but, you know, in Sederide or in northern Israel as well. So, I think it's an open question whether, and the reason why it would be an open question for Israeli governments from the far left to the far right is whether the people of Israel will ever accept basically the fact that there might be no-go zones inside their country. I think at the moment, probably Israel would like to finish the war against Hamas and Gaza before a new full front opens up, even if there's some fighting against Hezbollah or against attacks from Yemen, originating from Yemen and Syria. I suspect as well that Hezbollah may have concerns as well about opening up an entire new front. I remember Hassan Nasrallah famously said after the 2006 war that if he had known Israel was going to respond the way it did, he wouldn't have launched it in the first place. And then finally, there's Iran. I mean, Hezbollah's rockets and missiles, which dwarf Hamas is, it's kind of like Iran's gun at the temple to Israel. And if they pull that gun, then they don't have that gun anymore. So deterrence for them, at that point, would depend solely on Iran and Israel would no longer, not only have no reason not to go for the jugular against Hezbollah, they wouldn't have no reason not to go for the jugular or at least go for significant retaliatory strikes against Iran itself. Hezbollah has already attacked. Hezbollah, you know, it's reported over 150,000 more sophisticated and it's not just rockets, it's missiles, and it's not just northern Israel, right? I mean, their ranges extend way beyond. Yeah, all of Israel. Right now it's limited to certain zones inside northern Israel, but all of Israel. But I think Iran sees Hezbollah as its main deterrent to Israel against strikes on Iran itself or on, you know, its personnel or facilities throughout the Middle East. So I want to talk shift slightly to the U.S.'s response and the regional issues that have emerged to date reporting 78 attacks on U.S. forces from October 1760, U.S. servicemen injured, either Iraq or Syria. My understanding of the Biden administration is they don't in any way connect this to October 7th, at least publicly stating it as such. You were on Fox News Sunday not too long ago calling for a quote-unquote massive retaliation and would target the Iranians who are operating in Iraq and Syria. There's been some response from the administration. I don't think anybody can accuse them of responding massively, retaliating massively. Give me your take on how you would address this nexus if at all between the targeting of U.S. forces by these, some at least Iranian proxies on U.S. forces in Iraq and in Syria. Well, I think it goes without saying that Iran is not scared of the United States. Their leaders are not scared of Joe Biden and I just want to make this point that's not policy argument, that's not partisan jousting, that's not an opinion, that is a fact. Iran has responded to their attacks on several occasions only to have more attacks. That's by definition the failure of deterrence. And we just saw it again this weekend escalating even further now attacks directly on our embassy compound in Baghdad. And I think your question may be a little dated because I think it's a lot more than 78 attacks since October 7th to go along with the 80 attacks from the time the president took office up till October 7th. Iran has had a proxy strategy for over 30 years now. They've built up in some cases created and funded and trained and armed and equipped groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Yemen and paramilitary groups in Iraq and Syria. Those groups attack Americans. When we respond when we don't respond it's really bad but when we respond only by striking these especially empty proxy warehouses all we do is validate Iran's proxy strategy. Like when we blow up a weapons cache of a paramilitary group in Syria in Tehran they're high fighting. See it works. They're not going to hold us accountable for all this. When we all know and even senior administration officials admit publicly and on the record that Iran is accountable for all these attacks. So if you want the attacks to stop you have to attack something that Iran holds dear itself. What Iran did when he killed Iran's terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020 or maybe a more apt analogy is what Ronald Reagan did in 1986 after Libyan back terrorists blew up a nightclub in Berlin frequented by American service members. He almost killed Mammar Gaddafi and blew up much of their military infrastructure in Libya or maybe most app is what Ronald Reagan did in the tanker wars in 1987 and 1988. Iran was part of its war with Iraq was mining the Persian Gulf. There was a lot of reasons. We flag tankers with American flags which we almost never do so our navy could escort them. Ultimately one of those tankers hit an Iranian mine. Reagan blew up a couple oil platforms the next day he walked just a couple blocks from here he walked out to Marine one on the South Lawn reporter said are we at war with Iran now? He said no we're not at war with Iran. They wouldn't be stupid enough to go to war with us. He basically was right about that. He blew up an actual American naval vessel and then he sank half of their navy. Then they stopped mining the Persian Gulf and in fact just like six months later the Iran-Iraq war was over because they were afraid that what Ronald Reagan would do next maybe side fully with Iraq in that war. If you want the attacks on our troops to stop if you want to prevent a mass casualty attack which I'm afraid is going to happen soon you have to take firm and decisive action to prevent what Iran holds most dear. It's key leaders running around the region promoting and supporting these groups or it's military facilities ships aircraft refineries something critical that Iran does not want to lose only then is Iran going to pull in its horns. Sort of having the Biden administration adopt the Reagan approach to the Gulf you've been taking some action in the Congress I wonder if you would expand upon it because the line between certainly what Israel's enduring with the continued rocket attacks on its sovereign territory we're talking about Kuzvala's arsenal the attacks on US forces in Syria and Iraq and then of course with the Houthis which have shown pretty sophisticated stuff it's coming from Iran providing these capabilities to their proxies and you've put forward the no ICMs or drones for Iran Act seems seems like a good idea give us a sense of the prospect of that of course is tied I think to what lapsed in terms of Iran related sanctions and came out of the JCPOA. Well don't forget that those Iranian missiles and drones are also going to Russia to attack innocent civilians in Ukraine as well. It is you know October I think it was October 18th around about then that another deadline from the failed Iran nuclear deal passed and it was the sunsetting of international multilateral sanctions on Iran's missile program so imagine that like 11 days after the attack by Hamas and Israel we allowed sanctions on Iran's missile programs to expire again just because President Biden and those around him who were those same people around Barack Obama who are so invested in the failed Iran nuclear deal it's just one example of how there really has not been a single bit of change in our Iran policy from October 6th it's like the attack never happened as it relates to Iran and how we're interacting with Iran and our policy towards the country. We've got a couple more minutes here and I want to hit on two more items first going back to as it relates to Israel we recently had Secretary of Defense speak at the Reagan National Defense Forum and his comments were book-ended in terms of as it relates to the Gaza war with strong support for Israel on both ends but in between you had a lot of language in terms of US and his role in speaking to Israelis pressing at Israelis those are his words to protect civilians and to ensure the robust flow of humanitarian aid and you said I have personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties and to shun irresponsible rhetoric and to prevent violence by settlers in West Bank to dramatically expand access to humanitarian aid he was celebrated but in some corners for that language and then criticized in others for being kind of making public the sorts of feedback that you would expect allies from one another behind closed doors what's your view in terms of what Israel has done vis-a-vis protecting civilians as it carries out its campaign to destroy Hamas I mean, Count me as a critic of Secretary Austin's statement there the last thing Israel needs is patronizing lectures about the laws of war or civilian casualties Israel goes far above and beyond its requirements under the laws of war to try to minimize civilian casualties that's hard to do when Hamas is hiding in hospitals and schools and residential areas it's hard to do when they're holding hostages so they won't be attacked Hamas is to blame for civilian casualties because they didn't just commit war crimes on October 7th they continue to commit them every single day in addition to firing rockets and missiles indiscriminately into Israel and I would just go back again to what I said that October 7th is more akin to Pearl Harbor we were not wringing our hands about civilian casualties in Germany and Japan in the 1940s we killed over 100,000 Japanese on the night of March 9th and 10th 1945 and the fire bombing of Tokyo that was not a nuclear weapon 100,000 a single night Israel goes above and beyond its requirements I don't remember an Iraq or Afghanistan sending text messages to civilians in neighborhoods about an attack coming in which obviously will get to Hamas I don't remember dropping leaflets telling people where to go in fact as recently as the Battle of Mosul there wasn't much of that going on so I think Israel should be commended for what it does to try to avoid civilian casualties they don't need patronizing lectures from Joe Biden or his cabinet let's move to one other item which we've had a chance to speak about in the past so central to this discussion but somehow does not get the consistent attention I think it merits 30 Americans were killed on October 7th they remained 8 American hostages as far as we know in Gaza being held by Hamas or other terrorist organizations two questions because of that alone does this make this war, America's war and two what are we not doing that we should be doing to free American hostages and I'll just note we talk about 444 days we all know that references the number of days you had American hostages in Tehran most Americans wouldn't understand what 65 means which I believe is the number of days Americans held hostages yeah I think it may be the worst terror attack in terms of Americans killed since 9-11 itself and the administration seems to overlook that they don't make much of it publicly in terms of what we're going to do to respond I've said that we have in the last two months we have specially trained forces in our military who are specifically prepared to go in and hostage rescue we need to make those available if it would help Israel now Israel has control of the authority of Gaza we wouldn't go in unilaterally but if Israel if we have an opportunity to help Israel to get back not just its own citizens but our citizens and our special operations forces who are specifically trained in hostage rescue then of course we should make them available and also from the very beginning President Biden should have been much more forceful in their million dollar condos and Doha but also with Tehran about what would happen if Americans weren't released but apparently the leadership of Hamas fears the Philippines and Thailand more than they fear the United States of America since those nations got their hostages back I want to pursue that point I've heard you say that elsewhere if you look at the raw numbers Hamas has released Israelis a rather moral enemy you mentioned the international workers who have been released Russians who have been released yet US citizens have not certainly you've had three I believe what more can be done obviously there's a military option but for the reasons you've outlined it's complex what else can the United States do on that front well I mean I think that's one of the fundamental things to do I mean there's a reason why the hostages got released the day Ronald Reagan took office and I know some people who apologize for the Carter administration say well that's not the case look the Aytollas are not afraid of Jimmy Carter they were afraid of Ronald Reagan and right now Hamas and their masters in Tehran are simply not afraid of Joe Biden that's why Americans haven't been released I bet they are afraid of Vladimir Putin alright last question and really thank you Senator for the time there's some work for Congress to do there is pending before the Congress a supplemental which includes funding for Ukraine President Zelensky is in town I believe he's meeting with senators if he didn't do it today tomorrow and also funding for Israel it's all in one package as well as some other funding items your news maker here at the United States Institute of Peace do you want to make some news and tell us when that funding package will go through and we can all join in your festive attire here and celebrate congressional support I do not foresee it passing this month before Congress recesses I said festive Senator that's not festive so the president proposed legislation that would address four different issues Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and our border and Republicans have insisted from the very beginning that we have credible and serious changes to border policy which is allowing a total crisis there just to stress how big a crisis is there were several days last week when 12,000 illegal migrants entered our country across the border 12,000 to put that in perspective Jay Johnson who was Barack Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security said that 1,000 would overload the system 1,000 or put it in a different way in one week at that rate the number of illegal migrants who cross this country would become like the fourth or fifth largest city in Arkansas and thus far the Democrats simply have not been serious about negotiating for the kind of genuine changes to policy that would help us secure a border again mostly on asylum and parole and until that happens I don't see the legislation passing as a whole now I support all parts of it I support Ukraine, I don't support Joe Biden's Ukraine policy of course I support Israel I think we need to strengthen our defenses in the western Pacific and help Taiwan do the same and of course I want to solve the crisis at our border I'm happy to pass that all in one package I'm happy to pass it in more than one deal but we have to make sure that Joe Biden cares as much as about our border as he cares about another nation's border which doesn't seem to do so I guess we'll have to wait till after Christmas for that gift ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking Senator Cotton for being here at USIP for our Newsmaker series, thank you sir Thanks Roger