not to revisit it. >> if somebody can't handle a twitter account, they can't handle the nuclear cover. all the progress we've made goes out the window. donald trump's closing argument is what he hand delivered. the answer is everything. >> throughout his campaign donald trump has shown utter contempt for the values that make this nation great. and then suddenly he's going to be the champion of working people? come on. come on, man. >> whether you voted for trump or clinton, you've got to miss the come on, mans, from the campaign. we're also waiting to hear from the current president of the united states. president trump is at a luncheon with ambassadors who have seats the national security council. the president voicing his frustration the security council would not condemn syria for using chemical weapons against its own people.

we'll bring you that when we get it. coming into the room right now, the 44th president of the united states. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. hey! thank you. everybody have a seat. have a seat. so what's been going on while i've been gone? i -- it is wonderful to be home. it is wonderful to be at the university of chicago. it is wonderful to be on the south side of chicago. [ cheers and applause ] >> and it is wonderful to be with these young people here.

and what i want to do is just maybe speak very briefly at the top about why we're here and then i want to spend most of the time that we're together hearing from these remarkable young people who are i think representative of some amazing young people who are in the audience as well. i was telling these guys that it was a little over 30 years ago that i came to chicago. i was 25 years old. i had gotten out of college filled with idealism and absolutely certain that somehow i was going to change the world. but i had no idea how or where or what i was going to be doing.

and so i worked first to pay off some student loans. and then i went to work at the city colleges of new york on their harlem campus with some student organizing. and then there were a group of churches out on the south side who had come together to try to deal with the steel plants that had closed in the area and the economic devastation that had been taking place, but also the racial tensions and turnover that was happening. they formed an organization and hired me as a community organizer. i did not really know what that meant or how to do it. but i accepted the job. and for the next three years i lived right here in hyde park but i worked in communities like

roseland and well pullman. working class neighborhoods. many of which had changed rapidly from white to black in the late '60s, '70s. and full of wonderful people who were proud of their communities, proud of the steps they had taken to try to move into the middle class, but were also worried about their futures, because in some cases their kids weren't doing as well as they had. in some cases these communities have been badly neglected for a very long time. the distribution of city services were unequal. schools were underfunded. there was a lack of opportunity. and for three years i tried to do something about it. and i am the first to acknowledge that i did not set the world on fire. nor did i transform these

communities in any significant way, although we did some good things. but it did change me. this community gave me a lot more than i was able to give in return, because this community taught me that ordinary people, when working together, can do extraordinary things. this community taught me that everybody has a story to tell. that is important. this experience taught me that beneath the surface differences of people that there were common hopes and common dreams and common aspirations. common values. that stitched us together as

americans. and so even though i, after three years, left for law school, the lessons that had been taught to me here as an organizer are ones that stayed with me. and effectively gave me the foundation for my subsequent political career and the themes that i would talk about as a state legislator and as a u.s. senator and ultimately as president of the united states. now, i tell you that history because on the back end now of my presidency, now that it's completed, i'm spending a lot of time thinking about what is the most important thing i can do for my next job?

and what i'm convinced is that although there are all kinds of issues that i care about and all kinds of issues that i intend to work on, the single most important thing i can do is to help in any way i can prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world. because the one thing that i'm absolutely convinced of is that yes, we confront a whole range of challenges from economic inequality and lack of opportunity to a criminal justice system that too often is skewed in ways that are unproductive to climate change

to, you know, issues related to violence. all those problems are serious. they're daunting. but they're not insoluable. what is preventing us from tackling them and making more progress really has to do with our politics and our civic life. it has to do with the fact that because of things like political gerrymandering our parties have moved further and further apart and it's harder and harder to find common ground. because of money and politics. special interest dominate the debates in washington in ways that don't match up with what the broad majority of americans feel. because of changes in the media,

we now have a situation in which everybody's listening to people who already agree with them and are further and further reinforcing their own realities to the neglect of a common reality that allows us to have a healthy debate and then try to find common ground and actually move solutions forward. and so when i said in 2004 that red states or blue states, they're the united states of america, that was aspirational comment, but i think it's -- and it's it's one that i still believe that when you talk to individuals one-on-one, people, there's a lot more people that

have in common than divides them. but honestly it's not true when it comes to our politics and civil life. maybe more pernicious is people are not involved and they give up. as a consequence we have some of the lowest voting rates of any democracy and low participation rates than translate into a further gap between who's governing us and what we believe. the only folks who are going to be able to solve that problem are going to be young people, the next generation. and i have been encouraged everywhere i go in the united states, but also everywhere around the world to see how sharp and astute and tolerant and thoughtful and

entrepreneurial our young people are. a lot more sophisticated than i was at their age. and so the question then becomes what are the ways in which we can create pathways for them to take leadership, for them to get involved? are there ways in which we can knockdown some of the barriers that are discouraging young people about a life of service? and if there are, i want to work with them to knockdown those barriers. and to get this next generation and to accelerate their move towards leadership. because if that happens, i think we're going to be just fine. and i end up being incredibly optimistic. so with that, what i'd like to do is to have our panelists here today each tell them -- tell us

a little bit about themselves and what i've asked them ahead of time, and i did give them the question ahead of time, i asked them to describe for me what it is that they see among their peers that they think discourages voting, participation, paying attention to some of the issues, getting involved. do they have some immediate suggestions of the kinds of things that would get young people more involved and engaged and discover their voices. once we've gone through the entire panel, then we're just going to open it up and we're going to see how it works. and hopefully it will be interesting. i'll find it interesting. hopefully you'll find it interesting. all right? so we're going to start with

kelsey. >> thank you, mr. president. good morning. i am a senior where i have spent the last four years studying marketing with minors in sociology and leadership studies i've been very involved on campus and looking forward to graduating in less than two weeks and pursuing my masters. my passion for working with college students does stem from the ability to work with activists and to work with community engagement and really understanding that college students during that transformative time is the opportunity for students to learn about these important issues and really find their voice. understanding that we can't get on discouraged when someone doesn't go our way immediately but really being able to work towards that end common goal. >> fantastic. okay. [ cheers and applause ] >> good morning, everyone. my name is ramel. i grew up in milwaukee

wisconsin. i am a u.s. army veteran. i major in sociology at roosevelt university. i work as -- currently i'm a research assistant. both single and community based collaborative research projects. we've worked on projects ranging from landlord/tenant issues to youth leadership programs and currently we're working on a project about the day labor market in chicago. the city of chicago. it's a pleasure to be here. >> thank you. >> good morning. i'm tiffany. i was raised on the south side of chicago in a low income household. i graduated valedictorian in the top ten from kenwood academy. [ cheers and applause ] >> broncos in the house. i graduated number one from chicago state university with my bachelor in chemistry. and graduated from chicago state

a second time with my doctorate in pharmacy [ cheers and applause ] . >> thank you. i've been a community pharmacy manager on the south side of chicago and for the past three years and i'm also author of "ten tactics to tackle studying." the guide to leelementary schoo high school and undergraduate success. [ cheers and applause ] >> i am max and you can see what they've made me follow now. i have been involved in civic engagement and civic life here at the university of chicago through the institute of politics which has been an absolute blessing and a fantastic resource to all of us. the summer of after my first year here they gave stipends so that 16 of us could go to des moines for the summer of 2015 to

work with certain press agencies or with campaigns and that was an eye opening experience to campaign directly and how far you can move the needle by moving one vote in the caucus. i've also been involved on campus with student government and college republicans. >> fantastic. >> hello, everyone. my name is ayana. i'm the baby of the panel. i'm currently a senior at kenwood academy high school. [ cheers and applause ] >> and throughout my high school career i've been in student organizations and outside of high school i've been involved in community based organization to volunteer my time with the youth. in the fall i will be attending college in dallas, texas. with multiple scholarships in my name and i'm also an entrepreneur with my own

clothing line. >> okay. [ cheers and applause ] >> my name is arish. i live on the northwest side of chicago. i arrived as a proud immigrant around the age of 14 with my mom and sister from india. attended public schools and then went to the university of illinois chicago. [ cheers and applause ] >> both for my undergraduate studies and for my masters in urban planning and policy. after graduating, i did become an organizer with somebody in the audience i want to point out. ramen. he's a mentor of mine. that led me to run for office and most recently now i work for new america chicago where we sort of do what we're doing today. we infuse new ideas, so i'm

really looking forward to this. >> fantastic. all right. so as you can see, we have an extraordinary group here of sharp young people. but you also notice that they kind of avoided my question. so -- but that's good, because it tees up the next segment. look, in the presidential election, you have maybe half of your peers voting. in midterm elections, about a third of your peers vote. i suspect that if you ask a lot of young people about a wide range of issues, regardless of where they sit ideologically,

they would say yeah, i'm very concerned about the economy, i'm very concerned about foreign policy, i'm very concerned about this or that or the other. but a lot of them feel as if their involvement would not make a difference. it's not worth their time. and in fact, they're discouraged but feel disempowered. so all of you have already shown yourselves to be willing to get out there and be involved and to make a difference. and i'm curious as to what is it you think that prompted you to get involved in some fashion? and also when you talk to your friends, what is it that you think is preventing them from doing so that might make a difference? we don't have to go in order. so if anybody wants to start.

>> although i am in high school, you know, a lot of my peers -- i'm ea senior so some of my pees were able to vote this year, but overall i'm grateful that i vt opportunity to take courses at kenwood academy high school that involve political science. we take african-american studies et cetera, but not a lot of schools have that opportunity. so i would say awareness is something that holds a lot of our youth back from getting involved because i am privileged so therefore i step up. and i encourage others to get involved and to have a voice. but i think the youth feel like they don't have a voice. so that plays a huge factor as to why the results are the way they are, if that makes sense. >> it makes a lot of sense. do you think as you were coming up, you know, social studies,

civic education, what kids are getting in the classroom would make a difference? do you think that it would make more of a difference if young people had the opportunities to volunteer with organizations, to engage in community service? what is it you think that would make the biggest difference in young people saying you know what, if i volunteer for this organization, i might make a difference in my community. or if i participate on this issue? somebody might hear my voice and might actually make a difference. what do you think would be most effective in encouraging people. >> i feel like in order to encourage the youth, it involves to have a strong support system behind it to bring the youth up. so for instance, in school, we are taught social studies, but we tend to focus on mathematic,

science, english. tests, exams, et cetera. so social studies and civic education tends to be pushed to the side. so i feel like it should be encouraged in the school systems because the majority of our youth are in school of course. and then from there build outside programs. so from there -- >> i agree with her. i went to kenwood too. that was kind of the start of me getting my foot in the door to want to expand and do outside things. i think also funding after-school programs and summer programs, because i had two to three jobs ever since eighth grade every summer. because, one, you make money. so that was one. but also to help my resume, help me get my feet wet to allow me to see different opportunities, to see if i liked being a

counselor, if i wanted to be a cheer leading coach, if i wanted to be a tutor. just trying different things every summer helped me to kind of hone in as to what i want to do with the rest of my life. and then after-school programs, the funding for that, it helps keep the kids off the street hopefully and chicago will have less violence since they'll have something to do. then you're also enriching their lives in skpool aft lives in school and after school and in the summer. >> i'm sorry, the -- i know you -- didn't you work -- was it in the bronx that you worked during the summer and what prompted you to first of all describe what the experience was and then give us a sense of what inspired you to do something like that. >> so i have been blessed at loyola to be involved in a break immergz program that sends

students to breaks. the spring break i spent in the south bronx working with an elementary school. we took a group of ten students and were there to enrich those students lives for the week we were there. what's so unique is we understand the privilege that we have to be welcomed into these communities. we are not there to support them. we are supporting them. we are there to learn from them, to know the sprexperiences that these students are having but how wonderful the elementary school kids are. i remember the principal coming up to us and said i hope you all realize this is the only week out of the year the students get to finger paint because it is too messy. a very simple thing but really goes to show the impact that young people can have in these communities. >> you were going to say something and obviously your service in the military is an

example of public service that thankfully everybody now appreciates. that wasn't always the case. what i discovered obvious lie was that once our veterans take off the uniform and leave service, sometimes people forget how much talent is there and the need to tap in to the amazing young people that have served in our military so that they can work in tin the community. you've been able to make that transition. talk about your mindset both when you went into the military and after you left. how did that change your perception in terms of your responsibilities to your community and how you might be able to make a difference.

>> well, when i joined the military, i joined six months out of high school. i was working full-time. i wasn't in school. i wasn't in college. where i come from, being in college is a big deal. graduating is a bigger deal. it's all about graduating high school, get a job, do stuff like that. and i was in the military and i realized there's so much more to that. and that i am being afforded this wonderful opportunity to engage with so many different people from all over the country, have so many different views, but we all share the same goal. i realize if i wanted to make a larger contribution, i was going to have to go to school. and so that's what i did. i served my initial contract. i received a honor discharge march of 2014. i moved to chicago in june of 2014. i was in roosevelt in august of

2014. i didn't do it by myself. when i got out of the military, i was part of this program called veterans upward bound. it's a precollege program for veterans that need to brush up on their academic skills before they enter college. and that -- being a part of that literally saved me taking extra courses, remedial courses. so i benefited immensely from that. and i was fortunate enough to get research assistant position at roosevelt and that really, like, that really got me going. i was working with different projects, youth, landlords. i mean, it was amazing because these are regular folks. and that's something i definitely wanted to get involved in. and to answer your question about what i think is preventing youth, i believe that we need to connect personal issues -- personal problems with public

issues. i feel like sometimes, you know, you're working two jobs and you can't afford day care it's not because you're lazy. so if we can establish some sort of connection, demonstrate some sort of connection and i'm really big on collecting data and numbers and 80% of people are experiencing this in your community and you just don't know it yet. you don't see it, but here's the numbers, here are the facts. so i believe that is a huge thing that we can do to help that. >> you're making a terrific point. one of the things that i learned when i was organizing, and this is true for i think a lot of young would be do gooders, you show up in a neighborhood and your initial instinct is to tell people what they should be interested in. instead of spending the first six months listening and finding out what they actually are

interested in. and then connecting [ cheers and applause ] >> then connecting their immediate needs to policies that are having influence on those areas of concern. and the more that you can make concrete for people, the fact that reason there aren't enough after-school programs is not just because they're impossible to set up but you have to do with the budget and here are the people who are making the decisions about the budgets. and the reason there's a lack of childcare is not because of, you know, you're the only single mom who needs childcare. everybody needs childcare. but there aren't enough facilities in place with trained

childcare providers and this is what a change in public policy could do to provide everybody support. that's when you start bringing people together and their voices are amplified. because one voice by itself rarely changes something. two voices have a better shot. 20 voices, we're getting somewhere. and it begins with that listening process that you're talking about. people feel like they're being heard at the outset. so i think that's a great point. max, were you somebody that was always interested in politics generally or is this something that kind of came to you? and since you've been active in college republicans, two questions around that.

number one, do you feel as if on college campuses sometimes you're not heard as much as you'd like to be? and because i think there's certainly a perception sometimes among young people who are on the more conservative end of the spectrum that colleges are a bastion of political correctness and how do you sort of sort through that? but also have you found ways in which you can connect and have a conversation with the college democrat and the person who has a different point of view so that we can encourage better conversations and better knowing and hopefully more progress? >> yes. so i think being interested in politics, i don't know that i came from a particularly politically active family. my mother was involved in the

pta when i was a child. >> pta is a lot of work. >> in connecticut it is blood sport. { laughter } >> i think the message that something like that would send, she didn't need to do that. she did that because the educational system and more broadly the community that was fostered in the town was important to her and something worth giving her time to and something worth, you know, going out and -- no one pays you to do this and you take a great deal of flack. so i certainly honor that commitment. and i think, you know, in eighth grade, which was your first election, we -- in social studies we were told -- >> can i just say, i'm old.

{ laughter } >> but please continue. in eighth grade. wow. go ahead. >> in eighth grade we were -- all right. i'll pick a different age. no. each of the beginning of the year we picked a campaign to follow, you know, sort of through to fruition and each week we did a report for our teacher on how the candidate had been featured in the news, any polling information we had a accumulated. we never got them back, but we -- it was an interesting process in that it taught us to care about the news in a time when, you know, maybe that wasn't something that you went home and watched. and it was something that made you more cognizant of the issues. i was fortunate enough to go to high school in new hampshire.

even our -- it's just part of the whole issue that every four years they care or that people care about what new hampshire has to say. i think that one of the things that is a shame in that process is there is a group that is as active every four years because they're influential. they're big in the towns they're from. but you said don't move vote, but move act. because you have a lot of people that engage with the process every four years and are sort of gone for the in between period. then you have some who if you're brought up that way and brought up to believe that your opinion is going to count for something, then go on to do big things. i had a friend who i went to high school with and he's been from new hampshire her whole life. she's 20 now and she's a state rep. because, you know, she ran for an open seat and that's just how it goes up there. there's a commitment. in terms of being involved in

politics, i was fortunate enough to take a year between high school and college and i worked in washington, d.c. in the senate and that's an eye opening experience because it forces you to confront in a real way what you believe and why and you gain a lot of information very, very quickly. i'm immensely grateful for the opportunity. then after coming here, that sort of changed my world view. i thought i would come here and be an economist like every first year believes. that coupled with my time at the institute of politics was a good structured force to show there were many, many venues for us to engage civically. as for being a republican on the college campus, yesterday nbc ran an article about this on their website and it didn't say who we were. just that the composition was one republican and the rest were democrats or progressives.

i had maybe three people send me the article and say is it you? { laughter } and it is if you're watching. { laughter } >> but i would say it depends on the setting whether it's something particularly forthcoming. at the institute of politics itself, i think most people know at this point and certainly in the beginning of 2016 when caucus season is going us. those of us who have been in iowa and can keel caucus smmath which as you know is not real math, but when you would watch the votes tally, but there were venues where i wouldn't have brought it up or wouldn't have been particularly forthcoming with t. i think people suspected to it. i i'll leave that to the other student government people in the room to confirm or not. but -- i don't necessarily know

what i was afraid of, but i think that there's a sense that if you harbor a view that doesn't jive with the majority view that you can expect some level of ostra sizization for certain people, where you can assume certain people to believe the aspects of your beliefs you mayor may not hold. i don't think anyone sitting in this room agrees on their party with their people 100% of their time. i might be wrong. so i think that being a republican on a college campus is in and of itself sort of an honor because most people don't agree with you and when you engage in the dorms and in the dining halls and with those people who are able to see you, the person, and then you the person with political views, you're forced to know yourself well and to do soul searching well and so understand why it is that you think what you think

and what parts of your past impact what you believe now and might believe, you know, tomorrow. i think the other thing is there is's significant empathy gap. not just here but everywhere. i think most people haven't had in their homes for dinner in a real way somebody who is significantly different from them, either politically or racially for for whatever reason. so i think that the liberal bastion of college campuses can be true. the school is certainly committed to accepting, you know, our thoughts. but a broader society problem is -- take the count map in 2016. you had a lot of the counties where secretary clinton won over 80% of the vote. the rest of the true for the president now. there's not understanding.

we're not talking -- it's not just that we're reading different news. it's that we don't talk to each other anymore. it would be good civic engagement at some point will require a level of civility. there's a lot of problems with our politics that begin at home. i think we blame politicians a lot for the failure of us, of each of us to grasp each other well. so your mentor when you were a new senator, dick luger. >> love that guy. >> and ufltimately lost his primary for that reason. >> he did. he talked to me. >> because they couldn't stand to see someone bridge a gap on a human level.

a lot of people see politics, especially in this generation and say this is ugly, this is mean, this is something that you have pretty experienced people doing and if the country is a ship and politicians are sailors, maybe the boat moves like a degree either way, but i think the lack of results stems from a lack of us understanding each other well. marco rubio said it pretty well. you can't really run a country when half of it hates the other. somehow we're going to have to find ways to bridge that. >> sure. bridge the -- on this stage, other than me, i guess you're the other guy who's run for office. >> the oldest. >> well, i wasn't going to say you're the oldest. i was going to say you're the other guy who ran for office. i know you lost, but i did too once. right here in this community. >> i got some great too.

>> there you go. what prompted you to run for office, which is a different kind of engagement and what did you take from the experience? did you feel discouraged by it? did you feel like this was fun or if it wasn't fun then it was worth it? you would encourage other young people to take their shot? tell me a little bit about your thought process there. >> for me i want to start with the first time i ever did something that is considered civically engaged. i was an immigrant. i couldn't vote until after iraq war had already started. the first thing i ever thought i'm doing for that country was actually protesting the iraq war because i felt passionate we were on the wrong side of history there. i think you were also at that point. >> i agreed with you at the time. >> so i couldn't vote, but i felt like a lot of the times

civic engagement in a sense gets stuck in the dynamic of voting or electoral engagement and doesn't always expand. i think we have to sort of expand it, too, maybe what your mother did or being on a board for nonprofit. there are tough positions to have or a lot of work there, and i think i would hope moving forward we're sort of thinking about civic engagement beyond voting. but to directly answer the question around why i went from protesting to working on nonprofit and organizing, electoral politics is one of the many routes i'll engage in and for me that happened in 2010. it was after i was done organizing that i saw a lot of

the jarrigon used against us. when i ran, it was too -- i don't have -- my last name is patel. there's not a lot of patels in office. >> lot of patels in india, though. i'm just saying there are a lot more patels than there are obamas. >> agreed. { laughter } >> i had a hussein joke, but i'm not going to make it. so at some point i sort of felt that both or more than -- i don't want to get stuck in this two-party sort of language, but there's a lot of different personalities and in politics that young people get drawn to. they can't really go beiyond th questions you're allowed to ask within. i wanted to be able to protest and run a small business and do

the organizing and be able to figure out which is the most effective way that i want to, one, live my life and be happy, but also sort much inspire a whole generation of folks that look like me or come from a muslim background. i want them to, most young people of color that they can literally do anything. that was one of the major reasons. also illinois has an establishment politics that is really old. not old in age, but old in thinking. and there's a monopoly of power, money, ideas that only come from few families or sometimes a few zip codes. and i wanted to say that it's not how we should move forward. >> okay. couple of thoughts based on some of the things that folks have said. first of all, what you said about there are a lot of different ways to engage i think

is important. because sometimes people think if you're not running for office or it's not election day, there's no other ways of getting involved. and the pta is a perfect example of the kind of thing that we want to encourage. there are a bunch of writers out there and social scientists and thinkers that would argue that one of the problems we had our politics right now is that the mediating institutions, the unions, the churches, the pta groups, the rotary club, a lot of the voluntary organizations that used to exist, sororities and fraternities that used to bring people in together to then work on issues, that those have

declined. and the statistics show that people are less likely to be involved in various organizations in their community than they used to be. what that means is people don't have some of the same habits of being together on a common project that they used to. we've become a more individualistic soeciety. that has some spillover effects but also in terms of empathy because you're interacting with fewer people on a regular basis. the second thing, though, has to do with how we get information. so i want to throw this out and see what people think. i think a lot of us who have been in politics for a while do see a change from 20 years ago,

certainly 30 years ago, where it used to be everybody kind of had the same information. and we had different opinions about it, but there were a common baseline of facts. and that the internet in some ways has accelerated this sense of people having entirely separate conversations. and if this generation is getting all of its information through its phones that you really don't have to confront people who have different opinions or have a different experience or a different outlook. if you're liberal, then you're on msnbc and conservative you're on fox news. you're reading "wall street journal" or you're reading "the new york times." or whatever your choices are. or maybe you're just looking at

c cat videos, which is fine. { laughter } >> so one question i have for all of you is how do you guys get your information about the news and what's happening out there and are there ways in which you think we could do a better job of creating a common conversation? now that you've got 600 cable stations and you've got all these different news outlets that basically are offering one set of opinions. and if tlahey're two sets of opinions, they're just yelling at each other. and the internet's worse. it's become more and more polarized. how much do you think that affects how people think about issues and are there ways that

that could be changed given that most of your information and certainly for the younger people coming up behind you even more they're getting their information primarily off their phones. >> i think social media has its pros and its cons in situations like this. for instance, when it comes to gaining information about what's going on in the world, it's way faster on social media than it is on a news cast. but on the other hand, it can be a downfall because what if you're passing the wrong information or the information isn't presented in the way it should be? so that causes a clash in our generation. and i think it should go back to the old school which -- >> no phones. >> right. i think phones, social media should be eliminated because the younger generation -- wait, wait, wait. { laughter } >> i think i should rephrase myself. i think when it comes to politics and important

information that can influence younger generations, it should be organic. so politicians should actually reach out and actually physically talk to the community. so it can't be any misconception on the information being passed. because social media going to twitter or facebook, anybody can hack your social media page. that causes a lot of problems. and to actually go out to the community, the community will feel more welcomed. and i think that goes back to actually getting involved because to have somebody shake your hand and to actually look at you and talk to you is a more heartfelt feeling to actually listen to what that person has to say. >> that's interesting. >> i think one of the other things you bring up, you said one of the things i was thinking, going back to the basics. i think one of the things that i see the most important is people being able to listen to understand rather than listen to

respond. there doesn't have to be an immediate response. let's understand where both viewpoints are coming from. >> i learned that in marriage, by the way. { laughter } >> just a tip for you young people. { laughter } >> listening to understand rather than listening to respond. that will save you a lot of heart ache and grief. { laughter } >> sorry. >> you're fine. >> just a little tip there. >> no. but i think it's something that our generation, we find it easier to hide behind facebook screens, behind twitter, but really being able to have those in-person conversations and to listen to the other side is the only way at the end of the day. >> we've been listening to former president of the united states, barack obama. little round table. the president holding court. students around him. talks about his view, they should get involved and seeking their input. let's bring it around the table. interesting from the president because we were told going in he did not want to get involved in any of the issues of the day.

the repeal and replace obamacare. didn't touch it. 100 days of the trump administration. didn't touch it. danced around you should get involved. talked about political gerrymandering. he talked about voter turnout. had conversations with the children about that. but if we're look for what we would call a safe soft landing back into the public sphere, that was it. >> it was. it was mostly the student there is who are very articulate. very well spoken. very brave to be sitting there and talking with the president in that way. yeah, i think if you were a democrat sort of looking for him in this rallying cry for democrats to be involved and engage, that wasn't it. it's ail also interesting in te obama and his role in the democratic party, he's got to figure out how to get people engaged. a lot of democrats feel that he

should be doing that in office. that there is no binge because he really didn't mind being a party of one. >> didn't tend to the garden of the levers of government. the infrastructure of government. he gave no indication that he's planning on getting deeply involved in it now. he said he's look for his best job. a lot of issues i care about, but that community act vicivism. >> and i don't think that's where he should be. the party needs to figure out who it is in post obama era. i remember that the democratic party in the '90s spent all this time trying to figure out who our next bill clinton was. he wasn't exactly noh oet syste th -- the system that we're in, when you're out of power, you're out of power. until then, they're going to be a series of leaders, a series --

but that's the way it works. there may be a 75 way primary in 2020 which if i were democrats i would want something like that. >> elizabeth warren book tour. we haven't seen him in 13 weeks. if you go on the internet, you see he's had some -- paerappare on a really nice yacht. >> i had not been invited. >> so what do we make? >> i think it is a challenge for all people who have served as president to figure out what is their post presidency going to be about. you saw with george w. bush he really took a back seat. he almost disappeared. now he's emerged as a painter. and somebody who occasionally, and when you see with president bush that every so often he'll weigh in. it carries weight because it is so rare. you saw with bill clinton, obviously the huge public face

of the clinton foundation. obviously turned out to be problematic for his wife, but he spent a lot of time engaging with the world. i'm not sure what we've seen today is really exactly the answer for barack obama. he needs to -- i think be doing something, not just having a forum. >> the thing that is striking is bill clinton, then george w. bush, now barack obama. he's 55 years old. three terms to leave as young men. >> this is a fairly subdued opener and it should be. i think the people who love him and love listening to him and think oh my gosh, really enjoyed his presidency. the people who are devoteees but annoyed that he did not sort of foster this new generation will continue to be annoyed. i wonder if -- i think he will want to do more and be more active and be more political.

>> he's sorting that out as we go. that's it for us. thanks for dealing us through the life event. wolf blitzer in the chair after a quick break. all finished. umm... you wouldn't want your painter to quit part way, i think you missed a spot. so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? aleve, live whole not part. you want this color over the whole house?

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daily life a guessing game. and bloating made will i have pain and bloating today? my doctor recommended ibgard to manage my ibs. take control. ask your doctor about nonprescription ibgard. hello i'm wolf blitzer. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we're keeping a very close watch right now in the white house where a little bit later we expect to see the white house press secretary sean spicer. h'll be briefing reporters. we'll go there live once that briefing starts. one of the things we expect to hear more about is china now promising grating cooperation as far as north korea is concerned as the threats continue from kim jong-un's government. that commitment came in a phone call with the chinese president xi jinping. just a short while ago at