>> good morning. good morning, cpac. they are so convinced that it will never happen to them that they mock the old person who the one person in town who saw it first hand, they call him crazy, enough, who still believes in

ghost stories. and then, they're all dead. and then jason, his body disappears. and only the old guy who saw it coming saw that the body is gone. can we have sequel after sequel. it happens time and again in movie theater after movie theater and country after country. make no mistake. stop trying to hook up in some cabin in the woods and prepare. because jason is coming. he's right behind you and this time he's coming with a hammer and a sickle. that of people think democratic socialism is just a new coat of paint on the old fdr democratic policies. fromet me give you a quote a vaux column. ratic socialismoc

explained by a democratic-socialist." the author writes, "there's truth in the long run, democrat us -- democratic-socialist want to and capitalism." ma'am, we trace the call. it's coming from inside the house. and the senate! from the column, "many many sea pushing for policies like medicare for all and decide we must be something like new deal liberals, who are simply confused about the meaning of socialism. but that's not true. medicare for all is an attractive example. medicare for all is not socialism. that would just only nationalize the insurance, not the whole health care system. but democratic socialists ultimately want something more like the british national health service. so why aren't they going for that? we could ask ourselves why weren't we going for medicare

for all when we talk about obamacare. because we currently don't have the support to push for and win such an ambitious program. medicare for all, in the eyes of long, uneven the process of building that support and eventually overthrowing capitalism." this is the philosophy of the candidates the democrats are now saying are the future of the party and the future of america. today, we must dismiss two fallacies. the first one is that capitalism doesn't work. the second is that socialism doesn't work. let me be the first to tell you that socialism does indeed work. in fact, it works perfectly as designed every single time. we have been having this debate for 170 years now.

we look at socialism and say, look, it doesn't work. look at all the poor and starving people. look at all the piles of dead bodies. and they say capitalism doesn't work. look at all the fat rich people. look at all the inequality. well, yes, we have to look at the goals of both. the goal of socialism is a quality for all -- equality for all, equality of outcome. that,al of socialism is the goal of capitalism, being the opposite, must be the opposite, inequality of outcome. yes, the precise and natural result of the free market. capitalism is the inequality of outcomes. to put it another way, capitalism acknowledges and encourages merit. you cannot have merit without an equality. if you want to get rid of inequality, you must first get rid of merit.

but capitalism safeguards the promise and hope of inequality. this is why we all studied in school. we knew if we got an a even of we knewot a d or an f, that we would prosper. that's why we strive to create and invent. not just to better our world, but to better ourselves and our station. that is the promise and the hope of inequality. with socialism, it doesn't matter how hard you work, how inventive you are. everyone and everywhere is equally miserable. in a free-market society, there can never be equality. and that's ok. it's theat i mean is

greatest system ever to be devised by man, to lift entire continents out of equal misery and poverty. capitalism has made the world, yes, more unequal. but we've done it by lifting billions of people out of poverty. and yet there still remains -- [applause] there still remains a pocket of people who are miserable because the free market hasn't gotten there yet. but it will. but while there are people misery and misery, the rate of children dying because of capitalism, children dying before the age of five has dropped by over half. yet 70% of people believe health care and poverty has gotten worse. why is that?

cable news will access over a plane crash for months. but just the life-saving improvements of life before the age of five that has been made since 1990 is the equivalent of 27 major plane crashes full of children every single day. after a shooting, we all hear how the media will say guns on the problem. but the lives saved due to just a few improvements made in medicine and the last decade alone is the equivalent of erasing every gun murder, every gun related deaths for over 630 years. and yet you never hear about it. all we hear about is how capitalism is causing an equality. you hear its fewer people suffering and dying than ever before. not on television.

there are still more to save, but while socialism is making everybody except the elite in venezuela equally starving and desperate, the free market is busy quietly bringing clean water and electricity to the poorest parts of the world. we've been having the wrong debate. we've let them control and frame this discussion and cast shame on capitalism by pointing at inequality. they are judging a system that has flaws but works by comparing it to a system that has never worked and never existed. it is all because at some point, the left has come to believe the great myth about us and our species. to them, mankind is a virus. to them, masculinity is toxic and femininity is weakness. to them, the world is perfect if we could just get rid of man.

and it all comes from the inescapable reality of our free market, the one thing that is absolute proof of our depravity, the inequality of outcomes. but the promise of fluid inequality is why people came to america in the first place. we didn't come here to escape from the rich. we came here to escape the system that doomed us to poverty and our children to poverty. it is the recognition that inequality is a fact of nature, but through merit and equal justice, you can change your status and create a better future for your children. they say they seek equality because it would be more fair. but here is the truth. the trick of the language that has been used now for two

centuries, socialism is about equality but it is not about fairness. capitalism is not about equality, but fairness and justice are its objectives. when it comes to economics, equality and fairness are not synonyms. the stated goal of socialism is to achieve equality for all. the true goal of capitalism is to achieve liberty and justice for all. and that is why the left doesn't like our pledge of allegiance. that and god. [applause] it is an observable truth that equality does not exist in nature. it doesn't exist in beehives, in roses or tales of peacocks. -- tails of peacocks. and equality does not exist in man. if you don't believe me, go

ahead, challenge lebron james to game of one-on-one. challenge kasparov to game of the chest. challenge ben shapiro to debate anything. [laughter] equality is not our natural state. one incredible awesome thing but -- about each of us is that we are all unique individuals endowed by a creator with our own set of superpower skills and talents. [applause] we all have, we all have our own weaknesses and challenges, and thank god for this would be a very boring world. you were blessed to be born in america, where we all have the opportunity to first lift ourselves out of misery and poverty, and then voluntarily help the rest of the world. there is nothing wrong with you. there is nothing wrong with your desire to achieve, your desire

to work hard, to compete, and yes, to win. there's nothing wrong with your expectation to be rewarded for your work and then to enjoy those rewards as you see fit , which, of course, may include helping the less fortunate. you are the only one that has the power to write your own story. your destiny is your journey to make. here is the truth that made america great. all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and in plain english, property. no matter, no matter what government edicts are passed by any government, that cannot be taken away from you. they cannot be taken away by fascists, authoritarians, socialists, and yes, even democratic socialists.

for slavery by majority vote is still slavery. [applause] you are the only one that can take away your rights through poor choices. and even then you have the right of redemption, to begin again, to pull yourself out of the mud and reach again for the heavens. capitalism, yes, it does have its flaws, especially now that it has lost its moorings. the free market and justice must always be blindfolded. being black, white, rich, left, right, it should neither save you nor continue. judge me by the content of my character, not the color of my skin or the color of my hat. [applause]

we're americans. we are americans and we will change the world for the better once again. when we look to a bright future and recognize that it is precisely the system of inequality of outcomes, coupled with individual compassion and empathy that made america great. and it is still the conservative movement's embrace of our human nature, our human nature, and an economic system that incentivizes achievement that makes us great. ours is a system that respects human liberty and ingenuity. ours is the system that generates prosperity for mankind. socialism aims to make mankind what we are not and can never be. it works to achieve a state of being that doesn't exist in the natural world, and it does fit

can,es it the only way it the only way it ever does, by making us all equally enslaved, equally poor, and all equally dead. we are americans. but with all humility and without any more hesitation, we must stand up and declare that we are conservatives in the tradition of washington and lincoln and reagan. and we must stand for the bill of rights which grants each of us liberty. we must stand for the rich and for the poor. [applause] stand for those who have always been here, and those ancestors that came on the mayflower. and we will stand for those who are coming here legally today. their hopes are our hopes. their success is our success, and it will come because we

stand for blind and equal justice. and we stand for the glorious promise of the natural inequality of outcomes for mankind. god bless. [applause] ♪ [applause] used inities have been this country. and all of that changes today. we figured out that the left is using us to secure votes and to keep themselves in power and keep themselves rich. >> affirmative action will resonate with people here. >> there are 7 billion people in the world, the majority of them would face -- if only they

could. minorities do not belong to the left. we belong to nobody but ourselves and to god. >> no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied. >> we are separating ourselves from the victim narrative. >> the democratic party has been able to dictate for too long. who we are. >> its mentality you don't have to think a certain way just because you look a certain way. >> it's not racism that's keeping us out of the american dream. it is the lie we've been told. >> we have to put this to the top to the present who was -- the president who is willing to do it. >> they will never take our vote. >> this is our official declaration of independence from the left. this is the beginning of the revolution and we are going to save america. >> we remind america of the

fierce urgency of now. now is the time. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome director of communications at turning point usa and founder of the lexus movement, candace owns. owens.ace [applause] candace: thank you, guys. it's such an honor to be here, it really truly is. i think it really starts at the beginning. two years ago, i thought that the left championed minority voices. i thought that the left championed women and always wanted to give us a platform.

then i publicly declared myself a conservative and i found out the hard way that's not exactly true. if you are a minority in this country and you don't subscribe toyour emotions, if you want have intellectual discussions and you want to have a debate. there's a place for you on the left. in fact, you will be rejected. in fact, they will actually try to destroy you and the way they tried to destroy me over the last two years. i questioned, at the time, is it really possible that a man that was loved by the media, donald j. trump -- they loved him, loved by black america. every hip-hop song, they wanted to be like trump. the on-site and jay-z were sipping poolside by mar-a-lago. he was the dream. obama said the american dream was to be like trump. was it really possible that

within 24 hours of declaring his candidacy for the white house, he became a racist, was that really possible? i knew that was not possible. there was no way that was possible. i started asking myself other questions. withn earth is it possible a party that instituted slavery, and the jim crow laws -- how do they have the black vote? the right gave up culture. that is how it was possible. we gave up culture. [applause] over the course of the last 50 or 60 years, it seems we have pop culture altogether on the right. to a certain degree that is

understandable. there is not a climate that is more hostile to conservative principles in the entertainment industry. we see that when the vice president is mock for being faithful to his wife. loves jesus he christ, he is mock. -- mocked. you're not going to win any accolades in hollywood if you start to perpetuate conservative principles. the left has invested come infected and infested culture at every single layer. [applause] why kamala harris who will never be president of the united states -- [cheering and applause]

e talking about tupac and big music that never came out that she smoked marijuana to in college because she thinks that black people are stupid. how insulting is that? [applause] clinton, whoillary is still not the president of the united states -- [cheering] this is why she offered my as thety hot sauce reason to vote for her. hot sauce, and a jay-z and beyoncé concert. she never talked policy with us because they have failed black america for the last 60 years. [applause] is that the left and

the democrats never ever, ever want to face black america yearse based on our issues after year. if they fix to issues, they would have nothing to stomp on and they could just keep calling the other side racist. they want black america to stay broken. they want to continue to give us ups.outs and not hand years, themillion left predicts, donald j. trump. they are also not predicting a minority awakening. they never thought they could ever use the -- ever lose the black vote. they have taken our vote for granted for so long. but things are starting to change and the magic secret is -- i will to you how i have been able to change so many hearts and minds in the minority

community. the secret is i simply tell them the truth. the truth is on our side as conservatives. one -- america is not a racist country. [applause] the people that continue to tell us that have a vested interest in racism. they are actively courting nigerians to do racist acts in this country a la jussie smollett. truth number two, abortion is murder. [applause] asked myself all the time -- why does it seem to you that

progressive policies always lead to progressive results in -- regressive results in the black community? we have black women representing 6%-7% population of the country and yet black women account for more than 40% of abortions in america. it is sickening but we are talking about here. in new york city, more black babies are a boarded then born live. a hard-hitting truth. the most unsafe place for a black child is not on the streets, not when they see a police officer, it is in their mothers will. more than half of the black

population -- the black population would be doubled today if it were not for abortion. we have lost 18 million black babies since 1973. the left needs god. [applause] truth number 3 -- racially motivated police brutality is a myth. it is simply a mess. -- a myth. the number one issue facing black america is that fathers have been removed from the home. they have been incentivizing father absence. when the single motherhood rate jumps from 23% in the 1960's to have aing 74% today, we problem. and it is a problem that the

left does not want to talk about. the destruction and the breakdown of the family. number 4 -- there are 3.6 million black children living below the poverty line. there are 4 million hispanic children that live below the poverty line. and yet democrats want us to put illegals first. i say, no thank you, build the wall. [applause] [chanting: " build the wall"] what is incomprehensible has been happening to the black community. i do not want a green new deal, i want a black new deal. and the good news is, alexandria

cortez, is that can be free. first and foremost, stop selling us our own oppression. stop taking away our self-confidence by telling us that we cannot because of racism or slavery. i have never been a slave in this country. stop telling us to obsess over our past when we should be obsessing over our future. stop having a culture which tells us that we should want to be hip-hop artists and basketball players when we should want to be doctors and lawyers. you need -- we need to stop idolizing people like lebron james and instead begin to idolize people like dr. ben --.zza rice and dr.

how about, give us school choice? that would be nice. stop murdering our offspring. the theme today is what makes america great. i will tell you the answer. it is our philosophy. margaret thatcher said it asked -- europe was created by history and america was created by a philosophy. our philosophy so perfectly laid out for us by thomas payne ahead of the civil war is common sense and freedom. it was common sense then that governedies were not by the british monarchy. it is common sense today that the black community and the hispanic community should not be governed by liberal ideology. it is time for a blexit. [applause] it is common sense of the left does not care about racism,

sexism, misogyny, they do not care about any of that stuff. what they care about is a politicking of fear. the left has called to me a nazi becauseist, a i really have that look going for me. [laughter] the words have completely lost their meaning. that common sense to me conservatives need to start invading culture. the party that believes first and foremost in god. in case you forgot, it was our belief in god and judeo-christian values that inspired culture in the first place. [applause] florence is arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world. it -- there was an explosion of

100%nd design and almost inspired by god, christianity, and the church. conservatives, we are culture, we can invade culture, we can inspire and touch communities. conservative principles can inspire great works of art and movements. but we have to say we are going to fight the cultural war. when i first started on youtube, i was mocked at the left and right. i thought there was no place for humor. i could not make youtube videos. we had to be more stern, more serious. that is incorrect. wheree to meet people they are at. we have to be funny. we have to be satirical. aoc is billboard that great because she is giving us a lot of content right now. [laughter] i want to wrap this up by

pleading with all of you to realize that the left is terrified right now because it takes just 5%. if we move the black vote 5%, the path of least resistance for the left is awakening the minority community. abuse, been lied to used, and we are suffering. if we make an effort ahead of 2020 to embrace the black community, we can say this country. i want to thank matt for this opportunity to the on the stage. it has been a tough year constantly fighting and punching bag. i would not be here if it were not for the grace of god coming your support, and your comments that help me lift my head when it has been a bad day. i want to thank charlie kirk and turning point usa, the greatest conservative organization.

and above all else, i want to thank god. a year and a half ago i was on youtube. how quickly your life can transform when you stop viewing yourself as a victim but instead view yourself as a victor with a piece of the american dream. god bless. >> ladies and gentlemen is a conversation with representative nuñez and is hosted by washington examiner byron york.

>> good morning and thank you all for joining us. a going to talk today a bit about the russia investigation. there has always been two russian investigations. the one searching for that most elusive of those creatures, collusion. and it is run by the special counsel robert mueller and the justice department and the senate intelligence committee. we hear about it 24/7. but then, there is a second russia investigation. that is the one looking into what the united states government, what its intelligence agencies and lawn or spent agencies did in targeting the presidential campaign in 2016. we have here two men who have played key roles into looking at that. representative devin nunes from california.

californiañez from and the president of judicial watch. a lot of fans out there. representative nuñez, we are going to start with you. you invented the investigation. you have seen and it through to a number of elevations -- revelations. where does it stand now? your committee spent yesterday questioning michael cohen behind closed doors. i wanted to ask you where you think things are going now. >> from the beginning of the investigation, it was a narrative that was created to first go after a presidential campaign and be an october surprise. that is what it was about. the clinton campaign with their dirty ops, and then sadly, what

we discovered is that they said that to the fbi and then it was used against a presidential campaign and now a sitting administration. you have to look at everything as almost a fictional movie script. theerday, we had president's former lawyer in, not for the first time but the second. he had already come in behind closed doors. he was already busted for lying to congress. closeday, it was behind doors because they want it to be secret so they can run out and talk to all of the mainstream media who are in search of that ever elusive animal, collusion. you held it in a secret room, a skiff where you can discuss the most classified information. michael cohen does not have a

classified -- does not have a security clearance. the members know classified things but you cannot tell michael: because he does not have a clearance. >> it is a way to keep everything secret even though there is nothing that he knows that would be classified and there is nothing that we could share with him that would be classified. that is why i say this was all about building out a narrative. -- even over and over his lawyer last night said that he is not changing his position. he testified a year and a half ago that he did not have any evidence of collusion or obstruction and it is the same today. his lawyer said that last night on television. you really have to wear your that there is a secret code that donald trump toxin and that is

what michael cohen knows. , you are a leader in doing this sort of investigation outside of government. you have perfected the art of using a lawsuit to shake loose information. what are you trying to shake loose right now? >> we want to know about the deep state effort to overthrow the president of the united states. in many ways, it is remarkable -- the president is a crime victim who was targeted illegally by the obama administration. [applause] aboutory this week is not cohen's testimony but about the abuse of congress targeting him and violating his rights by destroying his attorney-client privileges, taking documents they do not have a right to. -- by illicitly

bringing him in and taking documents he had no right to. judicial watch is getting these documents out. the trouble with congress is that they are able sometimes to get documents but cannot release them. legalal watch uses a process to get these documents out showing the fact of the weres and showing their never any hearings about the targeting of president trump. showing that christopher steele was paid with fbi funds seemingly in a joint operation with the clinton campaign and the dnc. this is all coming out through independent investigations. we have heard elements of it but theo devin nuñez documents are only coming out through independent investigations this byte objections of this justice department and fbi which i think remains a challenge for those of us seeking transparency. may come a to build on what tom said, people need to

understand what they are doing here. they're not going to find collusion or obstruction. made an important point. they are using these documents that they are getting because now, what they are going to target is all of trump's businesses. get as many documents as you can come at that you have these secret documents that no one has seen before and then there will be a new, supposed crime. over thero oversight robert mueller investigation. king mueller. this is one of the reasons we cannot get access to the information. a zombieeller has run investigation for well over a year. they have known for well over a year that there was no russian collusion. he has been allowed to rampage over the countryside targeting ancillary individuals.

and no one is shutting it down. mueller needs to be shut down. and there is a common outlier. there is a debate about the transparency report. this justice department has no business writing reports on the president's conduct as president. his conduct of foreign. his decision to fire comey. we are ready have one shady dossier. to try to illicitly overthrow our president. it is not about russia but about protecting our republic. hillary clinton may as well have gaveled the hearings into session this week because her ghost is looming over this. but for this investigation, she would be on the dock. >> these hearings are the direct result ofyou used to be chairmae

house intelligence committee and now you are the ranking member. that is an anonymous difference. the democrats are using the power the voters gave them. as far as your investigation, how can you carry on without the power that you had as chairman? >> luckily, the only thing we do not have now is subpoena power but we can still investigate. outhe final phase of our investigation. the wor tom is doing is very helpful to get documents out. -- i think there needs to be the white house will have to ultimately get involved to declassify all documents. [applause] and i am not sure that i disagree with tom -- i don't think mueller has any report to put out that is worthwhile but if he does put out a report, you are going to see people claiming -- we have to have this made public.

that is fine. but i want everything that he did made public, every email, everything that they wiretapped, everything that he used to be made public for all of america to see. report -- the mueller none of the corruption behind the formation and operation of the mueller investigation is going to be part of this report and this is why we need congress, to the extent they are able to, to provide oversight and that is why we have judicial watch. we are the only ones providing oversight of the mueller investigation. the courts are extremely deferential to the prosecutors in the justice department. this is a big test for the new attorney general. not only will he stand up to

president trump but will he stand up for president trump and the rule of law. >> let me go now to the congressman. yearsg back on these two of the trump administration that you were the chairman, i think one of the things that really surprised a number of republicans outside of congress was when you began to try to the out what the fbi, what justice department had done in the trump administration. you are a republican chairman. they are a republican led justice department. and you are getting stonewalled. i think a lot of republicans were kind of surprised. republican that this justice department was stonewalling you on this. what do you think was going on? , the trumpblicans administration never had control of the justice department. that is really what happened. >> they appointed the attorney general. attorney general sessions

came in and his biggest problem was they had set him up. wey came to him and said have this information so you have to recuse based on the rules of the justice department. that was the single biggest mistake that attorney general sessions ever made and it really set back everything. the attorney general at the time, he of all people knew when they came to him and said we have a counterintelligence investigation into the trump campaign promise he should have looked and said what the --is wrong with you people? get out. you are fired. he had to know that the cramped campaign was not colluding with russia. >> it has been frustrating for judicial watch. state that has refused to exercise their prerogatives in terms of getting the information out, it has been worse for us in terms of

transparen twith the clinton gmf the obama administration knew that the whole world was watching. when president trump came to power, they thought they could do anything they want. sessions had recused himself. the justice department and the fbi are institutional lists. -- institutionalists. there is always a good legal argument not to be transparent but it does not help get rid of corruption. for instance, while they are going full bore, this justice department against president trump, we are still litigating clinton a males. they are opposing us in every way. a federal court judge handed us -- we will be questioning the lawyer of hillary clinton. the justice department will not, congress will not.

this was over the objections of the justice department. these agencies are targeting the accident for removal. institutionally while protecting hillary clinton. the collusion continues. >> and don't forget, to add an exclamation point to this, remember come it took our investigation to uncover the house intelligence committee, the republicans. we are the ones that uncovered through spore, the number one justicefficial in the department sitting next door to rod rosenstein's office. he was there until we uncovered that his wife was working for fusion gps and he was acting as an fbi informant meeting with christopher steele after christopher steele had been fired. that is how high the corruption went. you had people implanted at the top of the justice department. new ag will

get in there and clean things out. there is a two-year delay. >> text messages. the fbi does not think they should be released under foia. those messages you might be interested in from andrew mccabe, etc., congress may have some of them. >> the bigger point we should remind everyone that the very fact that we know that the dossier was assigned and paid for by the clinton campaign, we would not have known that without the house investigation. i went to say that republicans specifically because remember the democrats opposed every single move that we made. >> and to make my own little plea for radical transparency in this entire investigation, we need to see pretty much everything that both the senate,

the house, and the special counsel uncover in this. and as an example, your committee, when you were chairman, it interviewed 50 plus figures in your own russia investigation including michael cohen and roger stone. there are transcripts. and the committee voted unanimously, including democrats, last fall to make them public. but you had to send them to the intelligence community for clearance. just in case they might have something classified in them. and most of these were not classified. they were private people like michael cohen and roger stone and a lot of foot dragging has taken place. we still have not seen these. what can you now, as a minority member of congress, due to make these transparent? >> this is not the fault of congress. we sent these last fall to the

od and i. supposedly checking with everyone including the special counsel, sharing this testimony. ok? that was september. here we are, march. and there is absolutely no reason why this has not been released publicly. but, at the end of the day, this is the white house. the white house needs to pick up the phone and call the dni and say -- enough. congress said release it. get it out. >> why have they not done that? >> that is a good question for the president when he is here tomorrow. is the exception that proves the rule of oversight. typically, chairman do not do the work that nuñez has done and that is why we are in the position that we are in.

this is a failure by the administration and by congress. it has been six months since we first learned about the coup discussions at the justice department and the fbi. not one congressional hearing -- judicial watch filed a lawsuit. we are doing the heavy lifting. no help from congress or the administration. forget about the national emergency on the border. i think there is one. there is a national emergency in terms of the effort by the agencies to overthrow the president through these illicit coup discussions. if there were generals and this,ls talking like there would be more attention. but instead, they are getting a pass. by rent is the exception -- byron is the exception to the

rule in terms of oversight. i would like to ask each of you in closing to give us a preview of the next two years. the special counsel is still in business no matter what the rumors say. how does this end in the next couple of years? >> i believe it is going to end once you have full, radical transparency. including, and i will finish up with this, and tom mentioned this, the media was in on this from the beginning. [applause] say that the only people in washington who did not have the dossier from the clinton campaign were house republicans in the trump campaign. everyone else had it. everyone in the media had the in june, july,g august, september, october, november of 2016.

and you know it. top secret any -- you do not have to surveillance anybody. look at the press releases the clinton campaign was putting out. the tweets the clinton campaign was putting out. and all of the stories that the media was writing that ultimately they took the reports and fed them into the fbi and the fbi opened the investigation. this all needs to come out and as soon as it does, i think we can get the doj and the fbi back on the road to recovery. if they do not do this, you will have generations of conservatives and republicans in this country who will not trust doj or fbi and that is not a good place for this country to be. [applause] watch'sjudicial perspective, there is going to be more accountability for hillary clinton, more exposure of the deep state math --

machinations against president trump. of the same, more but the big x factor is the president. his direct involvement on this transparency and anticorruption issues can lead to historic transformation of the doj and the fbi. if left to their own devices, we will not get the information in a timely enough weight or there will not be sufficient accountability. the president, i would encourage to be the best president he can be and exercise the full authority he has to direct the justice department, which is not a fourth branch of government, that works for him and clean house. his personal involvement as it was initially with the release of the nuñez memo led to the release of the foia applications. i am convinced that if he did not fire comey, we would not know about the deep state efforts against him.

more of that and we will have a big change. >> much more to come. i want to thank everyone for coming here and allowing us to talk. thank you very much. >> thank you. gentlemen, this is a line in the sand. a debate about the role of the u.s. in syria. moderated by the foreign desks, lisa duck evtari.

>> good morning, everyone. we thought we would start out this morning with a nice, light subject like syria to get your day going. i have the pleasure of sharing the stage this morning with the host of the nationally syndicated buck sexton show. 126 radio stations across the country. he has been a frequent guest of rush limbaugh and sean hannity. he is also a columnist for the hell.com as well. ciare this, he was a analyst in the counterterrorism office. nypds also worked for the intelligence division on counterterrorism cases. [applause] is ao my immediate left former white house chief

speechwriter and fox news contributor and a columnist at the washington post. under george h.w. bush when he was a writer on two state of the union addresses. and before that, he worked for donald rumsfeld. he was in the pentagon when it was hit on 9/11. traveled a quarter of a million miles around the world and he is a book called "courting disaster." and he is a resident fellow at the american enterprise institute. [applause] a little over two months ago, president trump tweeted -- we were originally going to be there for three months, referring to syria and that was seven years ago. , isis became president was going wild. now, isis is largely defeated

and other local countries including turkey should be easily able to take care of whatever remains. we are coming home. [applause] get the conversation going, i'm going to start with a lightning round question. answer yes or no. could we have accomplished what we set to accomplish in syria? >> we are accomplishing. what we are setting out to do but we are not done. >> yes or no? >> almost. >> yes, we have accomplished the mission. >> i'm going to come back to you because it sounds like you are not as resolute on your answer. i think there is a lot of controversy in the last seven or eight years regarding our involvement in syria. it is not just this moment of withdrawal. --what dotions were

we want out of this situation in syria? are we there just for isis? a you think there was ever clear-cut goal or strategy in syria? >> yes, i think there is a clear-cut goal which is to reverse the damaging effect of barack obama's precipitous withdrawal from iraq which allowed isis to recover. taking us back to a story that explains why i think that's why i support president trump's decision to keep 400 troops in syria. house,was in the white president bush called me into the oval office and said i want you to write a speech revealing the existence of the cia's terrorist interrogation program. the time, access, at that was the single most classified, covert operation in the u.s. government. i was given access to all of the intelligence produced by that program.

i got to know the interrogator it -- interrogators. i met the man who actually waterboarded. -- waterboarded the person. after he was waterboarded, he of cooperation with our intelligence community. the guys who waterboarded him would sit in his cell and keep him company. one day they were talking in his cell and he was explaining to thatcia officer why it was they were going to prevail. and he said that americans have powerful weapons but they have a weapon that is more powerful than anything we have which is patience. and he said, and this is a quote, from the mastermind of 9/11, we will win because

americans do not realize that we do not need to defeat you militarily. we only need to fight long enough for you to diffie yourself by quitting. that is the man that brought down the twin towers. that was a prophetic statement. in 2011, barack obama made it come true. of our forcesl from our rocket against the advice of all of his military commanders. at the time, they had controlled no territory. they had 700 fighters under arms according to john brennan who was cia director at the time. within a short period of time, they went from 700 fighters to 40,000 fighters. they invaded iraq and took over therea of iraq in syria size of great britain and they began to focus on external operations against. they spread out there motorist tentacles into -- murderous tentacles into to the nine countries.

these ad attacks killed over 2000 people and injured 10,000 mark. when donald trump into office, he inherited this mess from barack obama and he took the gloves off of our military, he unleashed them on isis and drove them from the caliphate and he deserves credit for that. not defeated. they still have 30,000 fighters under arms because they did not fight to the death in those cities and they stole $400 million from iraqi banks which they have invested around the middle east. we have our boots now back on the next of the terrorists thanks to donald trump. if we change that, they will do what they did when barack obama was present. validear this and it is a argument. we are goingwhere

to get a little jerry springer for you all because this is a point where i know my guests do not agree. i want to post this to you -- to what end -- how do we define victory in a situation where over 400,000 people have died? it has produced 5 million refugees. it does not look like there will be any stability in syria in the near future. to what end do we stay there? that instability will be a breeding ground for terrorism. in syria, the destruction of the territorial caliphate that led to all of the horrors that my friend and colleague laid out for you. i would also offered you that when you're going to try to end an endless war, there will be risks and trade-offs. the alternative is endless war. the 9/11cause of attacks when i was in college that i joined the central intelligence agency.

and that is also why i found myself in iraq and afghanistan multiple years later. how are those projects looking now? president trump came into office because he understood that these are not things going the way we were told things would go. in the case of syria, if you look at a map right now, what is happening right now is this is a proxy war nightmare. the russians, the iranians, the turks. there is an area now that does not get any coverage in northern syria where there is a group now qaeda inc which is al syria. now had taken territory and there is a proxy war going on for that region. never mind isis. we are not going to be out of this country for decades if we sit in place. to the point about 400 troops, it was a few thousand troops. the official troops.

some of you know what i'm talking about. those are the official numbers in that country. we have drawn down to 400. heading in the right direction. president trump is right on the strategy. has been willing to talk to his advisers about and put on the timeline. assadjective -- the regime is not going anywhere. iran is not going anywhere. these other proxy fighters are not leaving the region no matter what. that we can do without establishing a permanent military presence. just look at a timeline of u.s. troops in iraq, afghanistan. go missions go up and they down. it was over 100,000 under barack obama in afghanistan. now it is under 10,000. is this a place you would like to send your children to fight? i would not like to go back because this is a board that we ar that we cannot

win. everyone wants to go to the meetings and sound smart. we cannot win these conflicts if you think winning means rebuilding these countries for the people inside of them. and so to your point about syria and what we are doing there, i hope we have no permanent u.s. military presence on the ground because i am telling you another emergency welcome come up, the turks and the kurds will be at each other's throats or something will happen, your sons and daughters will be walking around on the streets wondering why are we here again? enough is enough. it has been decades. we are done. >> let me respond to that. here is the thing. i understand that after 18 years of war, a lot of people are tired of war and i get that. and people ask the question,

when can we come home? and the answer is, is that we do not get to decide when the war ends because the enemy gets a vote. if we stop fighting and they do not good for america. in traditional wars that we have fought over our history, victory is pretty easy when you're fighting a traditional enemy to define. victory is a signing ceremony on the uss missouri. uniforms and their sign a surrender document. isis will never sign a surrender document nor will al qaeda. because they are in osama bin laden's war, they are fighting a infidels and --. fighting, we lose. we do not get to choose when the war ends but we do get a choice.

we get to choose where it is fought. it can be fought over there or over here. in the desertst of syria and the mountains of afghanistan or in the streets of new york and in the pentagon where i was when the planes hit on 9/11. that is the choice we get in the only one. we have to keep fighting to make sure those people never come back and commit an attack like they did on 9/11. -- anduld offer that that is the position that has been taken in a bipartisan fashion for a long time in d.c. we have had millions of veterans serve and come back. we need to set up permanent somalia, iraq, somalia. in the philippines. how many places are we going to say -- we need to fight them over there so they do not get us over here? >> wherever they are.

we will have to do a lot of military deployments for as long as any of us in this room are alive. we can allally, acknowledge that it is not a traditional enemy. employing there definition of the enemy dictating when the war is over. our enemies will forever be in syria -- when you have external that point,yria, to when you have 400 troops remaining, what would be your it advice the president -- to the president? >> here is the question we get from people --why do we have to fight all of these wars? why can they not fight their own wars? fair question. int is what we are doing syria. go back in history to the 1980's when one of our greatest presidents, ronald reagan, came

and office. we were just at the end of the vietnam era when we had deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to fight communism and there was no hunger in the american public for going out with massive deployments to fight wars in foreign countries that soviet communism was on the march. ronald reagan came up with the reagan doctrine which is we are not going to send our troops everywhere. we are going to send advisors and trainers to train indigenous forces. andso, on the nicaraguan -- so, we armed the contras. the we are doing today is reagan doctrine. our troops are not fighting other than the cia folks. the 2000 troops we have in syria not doing the fighting. they are mostly special operation forces, artillery forces and forward air controllers. we have trained up kurdish and

arab fighters who are doing the fighting. the american trainers planned the missions. intelligencewith and targeting. artillery and air cover. and the indigenous forces are doing the fighting. anyone who has spent any time with indigenous forces and u.s. military embedded together will tell you that 400 is really just a placeholder for a conflict the size of syria. the problem is the placeholder gets a lot larger. we were down to how many thousands in afghanistan and obama ramped it up to 100,000? and to what end? -- obama ramped it up to 100,000, and to what end? we do not have a long-term presence in iraq. we should not try to have a long-term presence in syria. all it takes is one incident -- to borrow the point about

reagan. we were on a peacemaker -- a piece -- a peacekeeping mission in lebanon. we were trying to keep the fighters apart in lebanon, right next door to syria. many of the same factions we see at each other's throats today. , we lost almost 300 american servicemen because suicide bombers went after the marine barracks in one day. and reagan realized this is a hornets nest. this is not our fight. and we left. another lesson from reagan that you should not forget. cited thema bin laden u.s. withdrawal from beirut as the reason why he attacked us on 9/11 because he said the americans are weak and decadent and do not have the stomach for the fight and they will withdraw if we attack. that decision actually help to into the 9/11 attack. >> unfortunately, we have to

leave the conversation there. hopefully, we have solved the problem in syria for you in 20 minutes. thank you to both our wonderful panelists. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is a conversation about the opioid crisis with kellyanne conway, sarah carter, and hosted i capital research center's scott walker. center'sital research scott walker. [applause] >> it is great to be here to talk about this critical problem

in america. the numbers are just stunning. cdc says a better part of the000 deaths each year, vast majority from overdose cases. what is happening? is it getting better or worse? >> thank you cpac for having me again. and veryeally glad happy that cpac is shining a light on this issue. the public declared a public health emergency in the first year in office. both the president and the first lady work on this public policy crisis. it is indiscriminate. the opioid and drug supply and drug divan crisis -- and drug demand crisis does not discriminate. in every notes and cranny in this country. as harrowing as these numbers are, the good news is that the --us on interdiction, more

more access to treatment and the focus on the money being given to those education and prevention, is starting to bend the curve in the right direction. hr six was a piece of legislation passed last year. it passed in the senate, 98-1. every single democratic senator running for president in 2020, albeit unsuccessfully, voted for that legislation. i want you to remember that when they tell you that we do not need a wall at the southern border or more resources for drug interdiction. they are already on record with their vote saying that we have a drug crisis in this country. they voted for a whole bunch of measures in hr six. and ctc have interdicted

fentanyl. it is being laced into other drugs. i want to tell the youth out there watching and here in the hall, you can save a life. .ou can destigmatize you are worth more then taking some street pill. you do not know the source. are mainlypioids being manufactured in china and being brought into this country through different ports of entry, through the mail and delete -- and illegally as well. those that want to abolish ice would be giving up the tons of fentanyl that they have interdicted. i have to thank the officers that have interdicted these drugs. kellyanne brought up the

border aspect of the crisis. this is something you know a lot about. what are the most important things being done at the border? >> right now, just the attention that we have been able to bring to the border crisis. the administration, for the first time in my career, and i have spent much of my career covering the u.s.-southern border. all the wayng back to the daily bulletin in california. crisis has been going on for decades. this is a national emergency. our children are dieting. their parents are dying. mothers are dying. babies are being born exposed to drugs. and it is the worst crisis we have ever seen. i am listening to kellyanne and thinking, for the first time, and i say this over and over again, and i know you have the world on your shoulders because you have focused so much on the

opioid crisis and have done so much incredible work to draw attention to that, but sometimes it does not even feel like enough. it is so big out there. i have parents who say to me -- i had no idea that there were drugs on the streets that look just like xanax or percocet but are actuallythey fentanyl-heroin. our kids are having parties that they call "skittles parties." they put pills into a bowl and they randomly take pills. and some of these children, unbeknownst to them, are taking a xanax that is actually a contraband xanax and they are dying immediately. there is no chance to save their life. a do not make it to the hospital. one mistake, one time, and their lives are lost. i really think we need public

service announcements. i think kids need to be told what is going on. i do not think there is enough attention to that. i think this is probably one of the most important things and crises of our time. i have spent so much time on the u.s.-mexico border. i can tell you how porous it is. when i first began covering the 2003, andk in 2004, border patrol agents, immigration and customs enforcement, they would tell me over and over again -- it is like theater. no one is listening to us. not even in the administration. but put me out on a spot and i would go out with them and i would be sitting all alone. i cannot even call for backup. and i can hear, and see people coming across the border or sensors going off. point, believe me, border patrol agents stopped chasing them.

this was a while back. ity said, i cannot do because i put my life on the line and then i get charmed -- charged with something if there is an altercation. when is something going to be done? [applause] >> kellyanne, what are the most important tools the administration can use? >> thank you, sara, i don't know if they realize how much work you've been doing on the border. i don't know if we had the ad queued up. but the ads that have been running and continue to run that have been sponsored in partnership with outside groups. these are public service announcements to really bring home, i don't know if we have it. i'm not sure. we do have it, don't have time to show it. maybe we can share it with cpac members in a different way. but they've been running every

of impressions actually. we are really focused on 18 to 24 years old with the halo audiences of 15 to 30 years old. as i've said before, this crisis is indiscriminate by age, as well. and what's tricky about opioids is simple. it's legally prescribed, so that tiny bottle can be deceptive. it bears the label of the family doctor and the local pharmacy and it was legally prescribed to help someone manage his or her pain. the issue is the overprescription, and i'm happy to say that under the president's leadership, in cons certificate with many different governors and health state officials and the whole of governor approach, much of the overprescription is starting to melt away because whether it's through guilt, professional, responsibility, fear of more, -- fear of more liability, whatever the combination is, it's working because we're getting fewer pills into the supply chain. number two, there's something called national takeback day,

its going on about eight, eight and a half years. it's the last saturday in april and it's coming up and the last saturday in october. this is important because it's the day when you can bring your unused, expired, unneeded drugs to police stations, local pharmacies, many other places. one thing we're doing in the administration, we're trying to make every day takeback day so you don't have to have the pills sitting around six months until the next take back day. many community pharmacists, many chain pharmacies, certainly our national safety council, provides ways for the public to dispose of these drugs safely and legally before, you know, in between the takeback days. the first lady has really brought great attention to an issue that sara just touched upon that i would like to amplify for a moment. the first lady, mrs. melania trump, is very committed to the

babies. one in babies born in this 100 country are already exposed or chemically dependent on some type of drug or substance. that's 150 babies each day struggling to take their first breaths. and since we already have the most pro-life president in american history -- [applause] got to get that in there. this is a national extension of that is trying to help those newborns. there is additional funding and additional awareness in the legislation that i talked about before that the democrats all voted for in the house and the senate. every single democrat that voted and every single democratic senator did vote, voted for that legislation and i don't want you to forget it. the other tools that are important is for people to understand pain management need not always mean pain medication and that we're not talking about the millions and millions of americans, my own mother

included -- hi, mom -- who rely upon pain medication to get through their daily lives. that's chronic pain medication. we're talking, opioids are meant to be temporary pain relieve for collegiate or high school athlete injury, for the dental procedure. most opioids prescribed to youth are prescribed for dental procedures and routine surgeries. we are talking about the management of temporary pain. what people need to do, we're all told know your own body, you do have the right to say no to overprescribing. when your pain is managed, you can bring those drugs somewhere else, but i want to tell you, the really great news, we don't believe that treatment and recovery stops in the doctor's office or in the treatment center. we're trying a whole of government approach to treat the whole person. the displaced worker grant program, for example, the things we're doing at the department of labor, vision centers at hud, private companies like mike mandel from my pillow is here

. he set up a recovery center in minnesota. thank you, mike. belden industries in indiana, if you fail a drug test, instead of losing your job, which means the -- you lose the pathway to recovery for many people, also. instead of losing your job, belden industries and other employers like them will let you keep that job, but you must immediately enter a treatment program. and they're working with local community colleges, and they're working with the local health professionals. unshattered is a nonprofit that helps women get back on their feet and helps to employ them, helps connect them with educational employment opportunities. so we're trying to treat the whole person and frankly, the issue has just been ignored for many, many years and we're not going to turn a blind eye to it. it's truly the equivalent of an airplane falling from the sky every day. i want you to think about that because if an airplane was

falling from the sky every single day, we would stop and say, why are the airplanes falling from the sky? so essentially the president is saying, pay attention to it that way. join me, he's saying, in doing each of our individual smart part in combatting the single worst drug crisis in american history. >> and i wanted to say off of that, when you talked to parents who lost their children, what is one of the biggest lessons they learned, they say take away the shame. it is our responsibility to face this because if we're too ashamed to face the truth, too ashamed to listen to our children and to listen to our family members, then the drug cartels are going to win, right? because they are moving these narcotics in. this is not just about the pharma industry, although you know, there's bear a lot of responsibility on overprescription and we've heard that before. but what about the drug cartels, sinaloa, juarez, the china

market? you know, the russian market of fentanyl and the movement of these narcotics into the united states? we have to say no more. you are not allowed to poison our kids. you can try, but we are going to fight you every single day. we are not going to allow you to do this. we are going to back up policies that will change this and you know, and then things will change. if we choose to ignore what's happening to our country, we are going to lose a generation of children. i can tell you that. i've never seen anything quite like this than when i went to the epicenter in ohio and other states who are facing this crisis, where the morgues were so overflowing with bodies that they had to rent freezer trailers to put the children in the freezer trailers outside of the mortuary. i never saw anything like this. i never saw the way people cried and begged and pleaded for someone to just pay attention

. and even those that are working under cover in the dea, you know, in places like ohio. i mean, ohio, for crying out loud, middle america, and they're saying it's being divided up by the drug cartels? the drug cartels own territory in our own country. so think about that and think about what this crisis is doing and think about what this administration is doing because for the first time, we're actually seeing an administration that cares enough to do something about it and not just ignore it. [applause] kellyanne, there are people, no doubt in this room at this moment, who are facing this crisis in their own families. what would you say to them? >> first, you're not alone, we see you, hear you and we're with you. the we is the whole of government approach across the federal government horizontally, and vertically it's the federal, state and local. and we don't substitute our judgment for what the health

care providers, locally, and law enforcement and the families believe is the best way to combat this crisis. the best thing you can do is break through the stigma and the silence and let people know, learn how to detect the misuse and the overuse and the abuse, and also, i think, to really raise awareness because we've got a masterful job in this country raising awareness against drunk driving, for example, or about different types of cancer. we've raised awareness, we've raised raised money for that, heart disease, thank god. but this is a bigger killer now than cancer, than breast cancer, than accidents, than gun violence. all these different problems that we have, killers that we have been able to raise awareness about. and so, for me, i think that number one thing to do is make sure people know two words in our everyday lexicon. and the president has been on

the front lines of this as well. number one is fentanyl. f-e-n-t-a-n-y-l. i talk about not biased coverage. that's easy to see if you want. but incomplete coverage. if this country doesn't know what fentanyl is, then lots of folks are falling down on the job and giving the news you can actually use, relevant to you. chinese fentanyl. it's an instant killer, the grain that can kill you. 28 states have seen a massive increase in deaths from synthetic opioids, which includes fentanyl. number two, narcan or naloxone. the surgeon issued this, that naloxone, we know how to use it. it's an overdose reversing drug come a very easy to use. we are getting it increasingly

ymca's, ourls, libraries, places where the public is traversing. god forbid, if sara is overdosing, it can help reduce it. you can save a life. and finally, to understand that, in dozens and dozens, most states over 30 states or so have the good samaritan law. so, if somebody's overdosing, you can drive that individual no questions asked, no liability to you. and that's saving lives because in the past people would open up the car door and fire up the engine away and the blueing corpse would roll out near the emergency room door. now you can go to a fire station, a police station, a hospital, and that's saving lives. you know, in many of the fire stations across this country, those fire stations are two, three, four times more likely to receive a call to respond to a drug overdose then a fire. >> yeah.

>> so they have been learning how to help administer care, life saving care and do that warm hand off to health professionals. there's so much you can do in your own community and it begins with each of us. i think since it's the crisis next door, the solutions are next door, as well. thank you for that. >> yeah, this is a crisis that we're all dealing with, every one of our families, kellyanne's right. every friend. i'm sure we know someone in our neighborhood or someone in our family that's dealing with this. i wanted to add something to that. we did a nonprofit film, did a nonprofit film last year called "not in vain." you can see it at notinvainusa.com if you want to learn more about the crisis and connect with the people affected by it. i think this is so important, this is a top priority for this administration and it had to be and i know they're holding themselves accountable for it because they're doing everything

they can, but this is a top priority for each one of us as americans, if we want to save our country and we want to stop the poison that's flowing in and killing our citizens and our children. and we should not allow it to happen and remember, look at this as this is an attack, this is an attack on your kids and every time they go to school, in middle school, there's somebody there trying to recruit them, they're children, they don't always make the right decisions. we have to guide them. we have to teach them. and we have to be there to watch over them as a nation and as parents. so, please do that, please. >> well, thank you, sara. that's a great last word and everyone should definitely see the film "not in vain" and thank you all for what you're doing in this critical crisis. thank you. >> thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, our next topic, nationhood and the border crisis, a conversation with senator ted cruz and rich lowry of the national review.