needs to be a trial in the senate. let the process work his way up. let the is not guilty, process work its way out. team --coverage of the impeachment inquiry on c-span, c-span, your unfiltered view of inquiry.-- impeachment >> president trump is back in -- united states after his he had a brief meeting -- here is the speech from president trump to the troops on thanksgiving. [interesting conversations -- indistinct conversations]

-- >> president trump is back in the united states after his thanksgiving day visit to afghanistan. air force one landed in florida, where the president is ending the holiday weekend. he spent several hours with u.s. troops and had a brief meeting with afghanistan's president. here's his speech to the troops. president trump: you having a good time, everybody? >> what do you say to the troops. president trump: we love them. we say happy thanksgiving. thank you very much. it is great to be in afghanistan with our troops. and we had a wonderful thanksgiving lunch. it was abbreviated a little bit but we served lunch and had lunch. and these are great people and it is also wonderful to be with the president of afghanistan. president ghani, thank you very much. it is an honor. we have had tremendous success in the past few months with our military. isis has been very, very badly hit, very severely hit, and we had al-baghdadi down in a different part of the world, we took him out. the father of isis, the founder and he was trying to rebuild it. that did not work out too well

for him. but we had tremendous success with isis over the past 3, 4 months. and we are down to a very small number. and likewise with al qaeda. we are down to a very small number. and the taliban wants to make a deal. we will see if they make a deal. if they do, they do. if they don't, they don't. and you know, for a period of time, we wanted to make a deal. we did not want to do it because of what they did, that is not a good thing they did with killing a soldier. an american soldier from puerto rico. and they killed him. they killed a united nations soldier, and they killed -- they killed a total of 12 people. they said it was good negotiating power. i said no, that was bad negotiating power. that was not good what they did. since then we hit them hard. they have never been hit this hard. in the history of the war they have never been hit this hard, so now they want to make a deal and we will see what happens. if they make it, fine. if they do not make it, that is not fine.

we will be doing everything we are doing and actually more. at the same time, we are bringing down the number of troops substantially. but we are able to, because of the weaponry and the flow of the things that we have in place, we can do actually more damage with even fewer troops. we are bringing it down very substantially and it is a good number, and we will say at such times that we have a deal or we have victory. and if they want to make a deal very badly -- this is really for the media, i guess, more than anybody, because the president knows what i say. if the taliban wants to make a deal, and we are meeting with them and say there have to be a cease-fire. they did not want to do a cease-fire but now they do want to do a cease-fire, i believe. it will work out that way and we will see what happens. we have made tremendous progress. >> thank you very much, mr. president. 52 compared to thousands.

we are doing a tremendous job. a big part of that job is isis. certainly the biggest, as is al qaeda, and we got them down to very low numbers. we will have that totally taken care of in a very short time, and we'll see what happens. the taliban wants to make a deal. we will see if they want to make a deal. it has to be a real deal, but we will see. they only want to make a deal because you are doing a great job. that is the only reason. i want to thank you and the afghan soldiers for really -- i have spoken to a lot of you today and you say they are really fighting hard. i was really impressed with that, actually, so i want to thank you. in general, again -- and in general, gain -- and again, to be at bagram airfield, i have heard so much about it. this is an incredible place. this is some airfield, some fortress. i want to thank all the

afghanistan troops -- we have a number of them around, standing around, saying hello. we appreciate it. i'll have to say to you, at ease. let's enjoy ourselves for a few minutes. i want to introduce a couple of people. there is nowhere i would rather celebrate this thanksgiving then with the toughest, strongest, bravest warriors on the face of the earth. you are indeed that. you know, when i took office -- if you can believe it, almost three years ago, they depleted our military. our military was depleted in terms of equipment. they are all shaking their heads. that's right. we have all of those brand-new helicopters, brand-new ships, brand-new, incredible submarines. probably the most powerful submarines, probably the most powerful weapon in the world is what we are building. the former submarines, nothing is even close. we have things that nobody has seen, nobody has heard about. we will keep it that way. we have spent $2.5 trillion, very close to that number. very shortly it will be at $2.5

trillion. while i don't love what that does to my budget, because i am a budget person, we have to have strong military budget because [inaudible] with what is going on in the world today, very important. $2.5 trillion, and nobody beats our great army, navy, air force, coast guard, marines, and we think soon we will be adding a thing called space. you know about that, right? space. [cheering] president trump: we are going to have space covered very well. we are covering it now but we will have to cover it to a much greater extent and you will be hearing about that in the coming days and weeks. i have just come from serving thanksgiving dinner to some of you. i recognize already some of you in the audience, with general millie and the folks. we had a good time. i sat down, had a gorgeous piece of turkey.

and i was all set to go, and i had some of the mashed potatoes. i had a bite of mashed potatoes, but i never got to the turkey because general murray said, come on, sir, let's take some pictures. i never got my turkey. it is the first time on thanksgiving that i have never had anything called turkey. [laughter] but that's ok. it looked awfully good. i should have started with that instead of the mashed potatoes. i made a mistake. but i hope everyone enjoys the fantastic meal. it certainly did look good, and hopefully everyone can get some well-deserved rest this holiday. your family, they are home and they love you so much. we flew 8331 miles to be here today for one simple reason, to tell you in person that this thanksgiving is a special thanksgiving, we are doing so well. our country is the strongest economically it has ever been. we have never done so well. we have the greatest economy

anywhere in the world, so it is nice to know that you are fighting for something that is doing well as opposed to something not doing well just a number of years ago. our stock market reached the highest level ever in the history of the exchanges. all three. if you look at all three, it is incredible. it is incredible what is happening. it just broke a record. it stretched 130 days, so we are less than three years. 30 times we have broken the all-time record. to me, it means something different, it means jobs. it means 401(k)s. people come up with 401(k)s, they say, sir, you have made me feel like a genius. thank you so much. they feel good. i just want to say that we thank god for your help and all the things you have done. you are very special people, and you don't even know how much the

people of our country love and respect you. and they do, that is why i am here. i am just bringing the message. the courageous american warriors in afghanistan and across the region are leading the fight to vanquish america's enemies and defeat the forces of radical islamic terrorism. i would say it so often during the campaign. together, we are making tremendous progress. just a few weeks ago. as you know and as president ghani mentioned, u.s. special forces brought the world's number one most wanted terrorist to justice, one that some said were more important than osama bin laden. i would say look, different in a way. he was an organizer. al-baghdadi was an organizer. he was the founder of isis. he was the father, if you want to call him that, of isis. i think he was not so happy a

few weeks ago when he saw those incredible 67 men, in that case, just calm pouring down on to -- come pouring down on to where he was staying. and that didn't work out too good. and we have a new national hero. you know who that is, right? conan is our new great hero. and conan was at the white house the other day. you might have seen him. it was something, but the animal noticed al-baghdadi, the founder, the leader of isis, the the man that was trying to reinstitute isis -- because we defeated, we have 100% of the isis caliphate in syria is now ours. he is dead. his second is dead. the third, we have our sights on the third. the third, i don't think he wants the job. [laughter] president trump: the third, you know what, maybe i will go work in a store or something. [laughter]

president trump: but that -- but baghdadi was a monster who raped, murdered, and tortured the innocent, including many americans. when you saw those folks, those great people in the orange jumpsuits, often times standing on a beach with a thug behind them and a big knife, that was all al-baghdadi, but he is gone. the american warriors executed a masterful raid and punched his ticket to hell. [cheering] president trump: shortly after we got baghdadi, we focused on some other elements in the area and we also started leaving the area. because it is secure. but we did not leave it until we kept the oil. makes sense, right? i have been saying for a long time, keep the oil. i hate to say it -- i used to

say it with a place called iraq too. keep the oil. they didn't listen to me. i was a civilian, they did not listen to me, now they have to listen. but we kept it. now we can help the kurds, help our partners. we can have it developed. it is where they got their wealth, it is where they got their money. we kept it. we will go back in if we have to as it arises, but thousands of prisoners, we would like europe to take those prisoners. they have not stepped up to the plate at all. many come from france, many come from germany, they come from different countries in europe who have not stepped up to the plate. that is not good. we have to talk to them, john, because they should be taking those people back and trying them. and if we didn't do it, they would be going back to germany, and and they would go back to france and the u.k. and all of the places where they came, that is where they want to go back, and they should take them. weeks ago, we also announced

that the forces are coming back, they are coming back home, we are reducing over here, but because of technology and all of the things we have, we are able to reduce in afghanistan, very substantially, actually, and do even more devastating attacks on you the enemy. that is part of the $2.5 trillion we have coming. finest equipment in the world -- we build the greatest equipment anywhere in the world by far. and we are selling that equipment now to many, many countries that are our allies. the enemies would decide usually not to do it. history has said, don't sell the good equipment to the enemy. our message to the bloodthirsty terrorists is clear. you will not escape your wretched fate because it the -- because the long reach and awesome power of the united states military is unstoppable. we have the most powerful military in the world, by far, and we will keep it that way.

we're going to keep it that way. >> heroes and future programs on c-span, today at 10:00 eastern, a ways and means committee on the difficulty in caring for aging americans, including the lack of reasonably priced long-term care for senior citizens and their caregivers. danson testifies on the environmental impacts of plastic pollution at a house natural resources subcommittee hearing. sunday night at 9:00, for campaign 2020, c-span speaks with deval patrick and michael bennet. former governor deval patrick talks about his background, his friendship with president obama, his aspirations if elected, and his late entry into the crowded democratic field. at 930 time, senator michael bennet on why he decided to run for president, his leadership

style and his stance on policy issues. watch c-span this weekend. former u.s. ambassador's to persia and -- persian gulf countries talked about security in the region. this event was hosted at the university of michigan for school of public policy. john: hello, everybody. and welcome. i would like first to add my thanks to the wiser family as a well as to the academy of diplomacy which we've been fortunate to partner with to bring today's topic. today's topic is timely and extremely important. we're going to talk about u.s.-iran negotiations, politics and security in the gulf more generally. and of course, those issues are linked to a