I look forward to seeing your ongoing efforts to continue to work to empower women because I think that is a critical piece of what we need to do and what we need to do if we are going to provide economic opportunities around the world.

women's health, women's education, women's empowerment, pay dividends many times over.

You are going to be serving Europe at a very critical time, when I think the future of the EU, of NATO, and of the transatlantic alliance is really at stake.

I think it would be helpful to engage this committee in understanding what you are thinking about.

I hope that it is the will of this body to do some repair on the budget, so that the message that we send is not one that we are reducing America's traditional commitment to those issues.

We want to be part of that discussion.

I want to begin with you, Mr. Goldstein, and thank you for taking time to meet with me yesterday.

We need to work with the technology companies, which I believe currently is at an inflexion point, to determine how we can interdict and figure out how to stop this from occurring.

It was an honor to work with him to make sure that there are provisions in the NDAA that will make sure that this comparison test is done before there is any retirement of the A-10.

I think this is really important given the timing that you have just talked about about this comparison test and what the A-10 is doing right now against the fight against ISIS.

I want to also thank Mr. Francis for his very good insight as to how we could try to really bring back some real oversight over this and the cost overruns.

We want our allies on the ground to know they can rely on us. We want our enemies to fear us.

messaging is a critical part of countering violent extremism, but it is more effective when it is done not by the U.S. Government

I think we have to recognize that the question of regime change in Syria has a real impact on counter-terrorism.

It is just not getting better until we can innovate, and there needs to be more room for innovation particularly in countering violent extremism and in capacity building.

My assessment, based on everything we have heard in this committee and other places, is that we are not and that we ought to be doing much more there.

Usually it costs us more money when we do continuing resolutions. It does not save money; it costs more.

I wanted to follow up on some of the questions that Senator Portman asked about the heroin and fentanyl interdiction at the Southern border.