[music] Paris Dennard: [0:17] Good evening. First of all, thank you all for coming. My name is Paris Dennard. I am the Events Director here at the McCain Institute. This is our first debate here in Phoenix, so we're very excited to have all of you here. [applause] Paris: [0:31] Yes, thank you. Thank you. Before we begin, let me remind you this is going to be live streamed online. So I want all of you to, if you have a smartphone or some type of device, put it on silent or vibrate. However, don't turn it off, because I want you to use it throughout the entirety of tonight's debate. [0:51] If you have not liked us on Facebook, if you're not following us on Instagram, if you're not following us on Twitter, Google+, our YouTube page, please do so. You can find us, very simply, at "McCainInstitute." [1:06] And so, throughout tonight's debate, please be sure to utilize all of the hashtags of MIDebatesDrones as you begin. So, without further ado, I'd like to bring up to the podium our Executive Director of the McCain Institute, Ambassador Kurt Volker. Thank you. [applause] Ambassador Kurt Volker: [1:28] Thank you very much. And let me let our debaters, uh, take their seats here, in the room. And, uh, Aaron, if you just want to take a chair over there, that would be great. [1:40] And, uh, welcome. Uh, welcome to this evening's debate concerning the use of lethal drone strikes. Right at the outset, I want to say thank you to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and to the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations for joining us in putting this, uh, debate together here, in Phoenix, first time that we have the opportunity as McCain Institute to do that here. [2:02] Um, as I was introduced, my name is Kurt Volker. I have the good fortune to be the Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, which is a part of Arizona State University, and we have a presence both in Washington, DC and here, in Tempe, Arizona. [2:19] Our mission is to advance character-driven leadership at home and around the world, contribute to humanitarian action, and to make better designs for better decisions in national and international policy, and you can find us at mccaininstitute.org. [2:35] Tonight's debate is part of a series of structured, timed debates on some of the most difficult foreign policy issues facing our nation. We've had previous debates on Syria, on Afghanistan, on Iran, on the defense budget, and tonight we'll be looking at the issue of lethal drone strikes. Uh, through our debate series, we aim to illuminate the key challenges that our country has to deal with. [3:03] We aim scrupulously to avoid partisanship and to get deeply into the difficult decisions that our leaders and our decision makers need to make. [3:14] Before kicking off the debate this evening, I want to introduce Paul Johnson from the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations for him to say a few words of welcome as well. Paul Johnson: [3:25] Thank you, Ambassador. My name is Paul Johnson, I'm the President of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations. We're an Arizona-based membership organization that attempts to educate our leaders here in Arizona and our members about foreign policy issues and we're thrilled to be one of the co-sponsors of this first McCain Institute debate that takes place here in Arizona on such a fascinating topic. [3:48] I got a little bit of a preview of some of the things that are going to be talked about, uh, this evening, and it really is going to be fascinating. So our thanks go out to uh Senator and Mrs. McCain, Ambassador Volker, and Claire Merkel for including the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations in this, and we look forward to a vigorous and interesting debate. Thank you. [applause] Ambassador Volker: [4:12] Thank you Paul, and if I could now I'd like to introduce the man whose family uh has given the name to this institute and whose tradition of character-driven leadership and service to our nation has inspired everything that we seek to do. Senator McCain. [applause] Senator John McCain: [4:30] Thank you very much, thank you all for being here. And I especially want to thank uh, the individuals on this panel. Um, they're highly qualified, they're informed, and the debate and discussion that you are about to observe is exactly what's going to happen on the floor of the United States Senate and in the House of Representatives. This is an issue that needs to be decided by the President and the Congress, and it's a serious one. [5:01] And that is, it's got a lot to do with how the United States uses its power and under what circumstances. And so I'm, I'm really looking forward to our participants and I must also tell you that there's a subset, by the way, of this, and I don't know if we're going to have time to talk about it, but there's a huge bureaucratic fight going on right now in Washington as to whether drones are controlled by the CIA, or by the Department of Defense, and it's been fascinating to watch them try to slit each other's throats, so... [laughter] Senator McCain: [5:35] Ah, I really want to thank our, our panel for being here. And believe me, this debate is something that needs to be held all over America, but particularly in the halls of Congress working with the President of the United States because it is of the utmost seriousness, except for those of you that think that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are going away. [6:02] This issue and this challenge is going to be with us for a long time. I thank all of you for being here, I had a 45-minute uh prepared remarks on the North Korean nuclear buildup. I will save that for the next time we are together. [laughter] Senator McCain: [6:15] Thank you. [applause] Ambassador Volker: [6:22] Thank you Senator, and I want to mention as well we are thrilled not only to have Senator McCain but Mrs. Cindy McCain as well, and I also see... [applause] Ambassador Volker: [6:34] ...I also see one of our member of the board of trustees, Miss Sharon Harper, and I know another is due to join us, or I see him now, Jeff Cunningham, if there's any others I missed, I apologize. And, uh, let's get rolling here. [6:46] Um, tonight's debate is going to focus on the issue of lethal drone strikes. Are they an effective tool in fighting terrorists? People have already taken so many American lives, or are they creating more terrorists? Can we be sure we're killing only those people who are true terrorist combatants? [7:04] Or are we relying too heavily on loose intelligence and hitting too many innocents in the process? And what will be our view of other powers such as Russia, or China, or Iran, start using their own lethal drone strikes against their own perceived terrorists? And what does this say about us a nation, if we're a country with a permanent hit list administered by the President himself. We have four distinguished debaters here tonight. [7:30] A former colleague who is Ambassador to Pakistan, another who is a lieutenant general overseeing drone operations, law professors from Arizona State University and Pepperdine University who are expert in this issue of drone strikes. This is meant to be a structured and timed debate in order to give fair and equal hearing to all points of view, but we do want it to be lively, and dynamic, and interactive. [7:52] You will have an opportunity to ask questions, and uh, I encourage you to do so and also to really put it as a question and uh let our debaters express the arguments, ah, as they are set to do. [8:06] As Paris has said, phones on silent, but do tweet. Hashtag #MI, McCain Institute, hashtag #MIDebateDrones. After the opening of the debate, as I said, there will be questions, and uh, right now let me take the ah, opportunity to introduce our distinguished moderator, a professor here at Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and a broadcast journalist himself, Aaron Brown. Thank you. [applause] Aaron Brown: [8:43] Thank you. That's great. Senator McCain, it is, uh, it's wonderful to see you. Uh, I will say that Senator McCain was a frequent and perfect guest on the show I anchored. He was interesting always and available almost always, and that's what we care about. It's nice to see you. [9:05] I was thinking today about all of this and I thought um, of welcoming you to the Cronkite School, how pleased Walter would be at a night like this. [9:16] A thoughtful, civil, and important conversation about an issue facing all of us as Americans, it's the kind of conversation Walter would relish being a part of, and I like to think that he is somewhere in the larger audience uh listening to our work today.