electorate of where america's place is in the world today. and this is going to have very -- it's shifting the politics in this country. but i will also step back even further for just one moment, among western democracies in those countries that associate themselves with it, we're seeing this in those countries as well. you know, hungary just elected a prime minister again and gave him a greater far-right majority. we know what's going on in israel, we see this going on in france and germany, in the netherlands. we see -- because people are feeling threatened. back to america. let's talk about how this is going to affect the politics, the politicians and the policies that they're going to start promoting in elections. and it has been, you know, for

example, we spoke about the tea party panel last -- yesterday. i don't know how many people were there for that, but you already see that a lot of those push button issues that fomented that anger within the tea party were issues that are now being co-opted by the establishment republican party, you know? fiscal responsibility, school choice, issues like that. but now we're going to see that the major parties are going to start to adopt it and so are the candidates. they're going to adapt a portion of that. and it's very understandable. people, unemployment is still rather high. corporations are making a lot of money because they are more productive, but they're being more productive with fewer people. so they're not hiring back a lot of the people that were let go during the recession.

so on the economics front, how our candidates are going to address these issues is going to have a major impact. you know, i'm glad you brought up immigration, mary. the immigration reform, this is why you have people like john mccain who were in the very early stages were all for the dream act. they were for immigration. the establishment republican party in many senses was for it. then a shift changes. and i will say that this shift you cannot only blame the tea party. there's many conservative democrats who are out there today who also feel this threatening, this threat against their jobs and their well being. and so there is, there is some cross-party pollination, if i may, on that issue. each foreign policy -- even foreign policy, and i know it's not a big motivator in

elections, but it's going to play a lot in the way the candidates coming forward are going to be handling our foreign policy. for example, how does everybody feel about drone policy? everybody happy with it? well, you know why that is kind of all you hear about in our fight against al-qaeda and many of the other terrorists? because on the domestic front obama can do that on his own. to do a greater, to have a greater impact in this fight to secure our country against terrorism, we would need to do many of the elements that we did during the cold war where we used soft power, where our embassies were around the world even in communist countries were

little springs of american authors, american music, american culture. none of that is around today in the countries where we need it the most, and those are places where they don't like us. this has an impact in the sense that if you're, let's say, the arab world. the only thing they see now from america are drones. they don't see the writers, they don't see the progressives. they don't see the culture of women. they don't see our music as much. they don't -- even though the internet is there, it's not coming through our official molds of communication. and why is that? because domestically it's becoming very difficult to fund those things. you don't see an immediate impact from these, and congress is going to have a difficult time with the mood of the electorate today with the threatening sense that we have

as americans to fund these things. you're going to send my money over there so those countries can read about our authors when we need that money here? that's the sense we're having. so this dynamic of the threatened american is playing into a our elections very much, and it's going to affect the way the candidates move forward. this is not something that's going to be solved in an election. so in that sense, you know, i'm not a big proponent of another bush/clinton election, i have to be honest with you. but whoever the candidates are, these issues are going to live for a while in our nation. they're not going to be solved quickly. and those candidates that can navigate these waters are going to be the most successful. the ones that can give america a

sense of confidence to move forward and a sense that it's not over. thank you. mrs. -- [applause] >> well, i think i'm on far left in order here, but i think i might be on the far right when it comes to this panel. [laughter] >> you're on their far right, so it's perfect. [laughter] >> a few things that haven't been mentioned and then i'll talk about some of the things that have been mentioned. we're in 2014. it may seem to some that we're in 2015 pause everybody's really -- because everybody's really focused and interested and rivetted by the presidential races already and who's in, who's out, who's reading tea leaves and who's meeting with whom. but i think 2014 is something that we have to focus on, and that's going to have a lot of effect on what happens vis-a-vis 2016.

2014, most experts, most people conclude that the republicans will keep the house. i think that is true. but then the question when it comes to the house becomes what happens with john boehner? if the republicans do keep the house, who will be the next speaker? i think that's going to have a huge impact on legislative agenda in the next coming years. i happen to think john boehner still has fight in him, and i happen to think he's going to stay again. but with i think he genuinely does not know what he's going to do. also we've had an enormous amount of retirements of some house veterans including committee chairs in the last couple of months that have been announced. so we're going to have an entirely new makeup in many committees. we're going to see some pretty ferocious dog fights as to who are going to be the new chairs, the new ranking members in the

house. it's going to be a new world order in the house of representatives. then we've got the u.s. senate. until a few months ago, the basic consensus was that the democrats had a lead and were likely to keep it. that's become less of a prediction in the last several weeks. republicans have been able to field some pretty good candidates the -- this year and people who can win generals. there's a lot of red state democrats that are concerned that are in races that are running as far away as they possibly can from president obama. won't be seen in public with him no matter what is offered. so i think that's something that we're going to, we're going to have to watch very closely, and it's going to tell us the effect

of obamacare. i don't think it's going to be nearly as bad ask all about obamacare as a lot of my republican colleagues believe, but i also don't think it's the panacea and the utopia that a lot of democrats want to paint it as. and we still have a lot of information and cross-tax when it comes to obamacare that need to be dissected. of the seven million that enrolled, how many have paid? how old are they? how many were already pre-insured? how many are newly insured? there's a lot of things that need to be known before we know if this thing is going to work, how it's going to work, and then there is a host of exemptions and delays that have been put in place that at some point are going to have to be addressed and resolved. obviously, it's going to happen after the elections, but at some point that's going to have to be

confronted. also i think the social issues are so very interesting as to how they're shaping up. there's several states including my state of florida that's got the legalized marijuana issue on the ballot. what we're seeing with the gay rights movement, there's probably going to be -- there might be a majority of states that allow gay rights and gay marriage by the time 2016 rolls around not because of the political front, but because of the judicial front. and so how much of an issue will that still be in 2016? i think another very interesting aspect of 2014 is going to be the overall shape of the republican party. we saw in 2010, we saw in 2012 a lot of veteran mainstream republicans, frankly, get caught asleep at the wheel.

i call can it getting lugared. they got richard lugared. [laughter] they never went to their home states, they didn't even have houses there, you know? they became washington commodities. they didn't work at it hard. they didn't raise the money, they didn't spend the time, they didn't spend the resources, they didn't shake the flesh, they didn't eat the rubber chicken. well, that's not happening this year. [laughter] you've got a lot of veteran mainstream republicans that are being challenged in primaries, and they're winning. mike enzi beat liz cheney even before the primary. mitch mcconnell, wily as he is, i predict he survives. i think lindsey graham is going to do just fine. so i think we're going to see a resurgence of folks, of the mainstream republicans come back, fight hard and shake up what the branding and definition of the republican party has been in the last couple of years.

and that in turn is going to have an effect in 2016. then just let me talk a little bit about the, quote-unquote, sheldon edelson primary. you know, the reason -- there's something called the republican jewish committee. it's been around since 1985. it is an important organization. it goes above and beyond sheldon edelson. it discusses very important issues, and top republican lawmakers, candidates have been showing up to these conferences for decades not to see sheldon edelson or kiss his ring, but because it's an important issue the same way that many, many republicans and democrats show up every year to the aipac

annual conference and the same way that many democrats trek over to the saban conference. that one is named for one very powerful, very wealthy billionaire jewish contributor, and i can tell you everybody from president barack obama to president clinton to secretary of state hillary clinton trekked to his conferences. so it really is, i think, demeaning to the rjc which is a very well established and important organization to just claim it as the sheldon edelson primary. that does not mean that money is not important. it does not mean that sheldon edelson isn't important. it doesn't mean that george soros isn't important. it doesn't mean that saban's checkbook isn't important. but also let us remember that this is an entire organization that has existed and will exist before and after sheldon edelson.

on jeb bush which you all want to know about, he's a longtime friend of mine. he's also my tenant. e saw him -- i saw him yesterday, in fact, at lunch -- >> does he live in new hampshire, by any chance? laugh. >> no, he doesn't, he lives in coral gables, florida. and i think, you know, i suspect that that's part of what shapes his immigration views, the fact that it's an immigrant community, and a lot of times the immigration debate can be about faceless government statistics. how many people cross a border, how many depor tees, how many children of undocumented born here. it can be all about faceless numbers. but when you live in an immigrant community, when you speak spanish fluently, frankly, when you watch spanish tv, you

know these stories, and you know there's people, there's mothers, women who get raped by human smugglers when they're crossing the border and risk their lives maybe swimming across a river or taking a raft to the united states. and a lot of times leave children behind that they may not see for a decade. and it's in the hope that they can come here and find work and help support those families and loved ones they've left behind. have they broken the law? yes, absolutely. is it an act of love? i would tell you it's hard to argue. when i tell you those circumstances, that it's not an act of love for those families. so i think where he is, where he lives, the stories he knows shapes some of that perception. ..

the woman he's been married to for 40 years now, and his children. what effect it's going to have on them. running for president today means doing it as a family. it's not just one person. it affects the entire family's life, the entire family's privacy. he's also said he wants to be able to do it joyfully. he wants to be able to offer a positive vision. he wants to be able to offer solutions. he has said he's going to sit down, think about it over the summer, think about it later this year, and make a decision.

the guy, i know him. he means what he says and he says what he means. i don't think he's doing this -- we've gotten accustomed in politics to the art of the political speak. people who are trying to promote the sale of the book or maybe trying to get a gig on cable news, which is not a bad deed, you know? get themselves on "dancing with the stars," who knows? trying to find themselves some relevancy. frankly, i don't think jeb bush needs that, he's a very serious guy. who is doing very well. businesswise, who's got a fulfilled life, and so i think it is about that location to service -- location for service, and is it the right thing for the family and the country? we will know. i get calls about this all the

time from reporters, from donors, from everybody. in fact, my least favorite calls are the ones which ask me, what happens if marco rubio and jeb bush run? they are both friends of mine so at that point i will go into a fetal position and just cry. so after hyperventilating and having anxiety about these jeb bush, marco rubio, marco rubio versus jeb bush questions, for a while. i've now decided there's nothing i can do about it. i think all the decision comes from within them. i don't think it's about who else is running. so for the meantime i'm going to be in colorado talking to all of you. at some point next year they will tell you what the hell they're going to do and i'm going to serve him some coffee and we'll go from there. [applause] >> the person, my last point,

the person who has been mentioned in terms of political crystal ball is hillary clinton. i think everybody assumes that she will run, and she has frozen the field. and i think, if anything, and there is more pressure on her to announce a decision quickly. because she is the, well, i will say the dog in the room because i don't want to call it the elephant in the room because she's a democrat. but she's basically has got the entire democratic field frozen. and so i suspect we are going to hear and we should hear from hillary clinton shortly after the 2014 elections. if she's not running, and everybody else, a lot of other people give it as a fact that she's going to run, i'm not sure. guess what?

she does have a book to sell. presidential speculation, boy, it's good for business. the three clinton's are making and event appearances in the next four days in eight states. folks, that ain't for free. i'm telling you, presidential speculation has been very good. they don't need the money, but i know and i like bill clinton very much and i can tell you, clinton's never met a dollars they haven't liked. and more power to them. >> i hate to taken by want to make sure that there's an opportunity for the other panelists to comment on the comments of their fellow panelist. i also would invite people are interested in asking questions to come up to the to mics. as soon as we hear any repartee here, i will open the field for questions. [inaudible] of course you can clap for her.

absolutely. [applause] >> very well-deserved. i want to point out that i agree with ana, the most important thing is bourbon or scotch. it's here. i started already. because that's the only way to get through this. there are a couple things that i can with all respect, i can't leave an responded. first off i want to surprise some people say i agree completely with ana on obamacare. i don't think that it is, or what i call the affordable care act which was painted as obamacare in order to demonize it. you don't your social security called roosevelt security. this was done deliberately, and again, as is often the case, the right wing succeeded in branding something in order to demonize it before it even had a chance to go into effect. having said that, i agree that i don't think it's going to play

out as the inevitable negative that a lot of, the expenditures are paying it already in many of these competitive races. i will say though that i think we're going to continue to see this as one of those issues that some democrats, shamefully, shamefully are running away from. win if, in fact, they stood up out and said yes, i cast that vote. people, more than anyone else, can sense of hocrisy. when democrats who have cast a vote, we saw this in iraq and didn't backpedal on that, that's really where the voters say i don't care what your position is, i just want you to stand up for what you believe in. even if i disagree with you. that's what we're going to see here is where people are and whether they're willing to own their position. i also have to respectfully disagree with ana on how to characterize the jewish republican event.

if shelton hills is not the centerpiece of that those people would not have shown up in the numbers, it would not have had the attention it got. that's a fact. >> we been going every year. it is an annual event. i was on it 2008. >> i know that, as a just democrat. but let me just say the difference here is that people who came came with an agenda. it is not a pack. they came with an agenda to be noticed by one particular individual. and they achieved that. having -- >> it's kind of funny to me that when one of the largest democratic donors as a middle east conference, which by the way is named after him and he has the middle east center -- >> he also has power rangers. >> and univision. he's got a lot of money. when he is the conference and people like barack obama and hillary clinton and bill clinton show up, that's about politics.

when the republican jewish committee has a conference, that's about money. >> how much money does he give? is all about money. how much money does he give? >> he's been given -- he gives many millions of dollars. >> has ever go into the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of our? >> it probably is in the tens of nights of dollars. >> not in a cycle of the. no one compares to shelton. >> he had no one to give you last time. he's a hillary clinton person, not a barack obama person. >> this could go on for a long time and want to make sure the other panelists have a chance. chance. >> they turn our microphones off. >> turned back on. >> mr. chairman, i paid for this microphone. [laughter] i want to request that are painless not interrupt each other, that they give each other a chance to speak, but do not interrupt.

[applause] to david, do you want to finish? >> i yield the floor to my colleague. >> let daniel and mary had a comment and then i will open it up for questions. >> my only comment was it is all about money, and that is the tragedy. if this is what is the crystal ball and it's all about money, then let's get back to square one. >> i have, you know, i'm a republican. although i have -- it's going to kill me. i have to agree with david. [laughter] v. abelson, newt gingrich is one of my clients is last presidential run, and the candidates did go there for money. i have to be honest with you. i don't find anything wrong with that. presidential races are expensive. and candidates on both sides do this. so let's not pretend that my

candidate is, they all do it. that said, i just wanted to touch on two things. the establishment republicans are making a comeback. that's granted. and then i talked about this a little bit before, because they are starting to co-opt, many of the messages that the tea party had that were more normal, if i could use that term. regarding hillary clinton, this is a phenomenal act that we are seeing right now. if she does not run for president, the democrats are going to be in a freefall for a while. and it will be very interesting to see on that side of the aisle what happens. thank you. >> let's go to our questions. young man, are you a student? okay, then go ahead. >> get close enough so i can be

heard. it occurs to me, ironic, that with a great lawyer as a president, chief justice powers is the card up the sleep of politics. he's an ied for the peoples vision of democracy because he keeps the money flowing. >> do you have a question to? >> the question is do you see them as an improvised explosive device dynamiting democracy? >> money and politics, right to? >> yes and he does so because in a free spot he is a job for life. -- he's in the sweet spot. he speaks as a controller of the rest of the justices of the supreme court. and i'm very glad that chief justice, that justice ginsburg is there as an opponent. the question is, is powers there to undermine -- >> roberts spent is roberts there to undermine the democracy

he is supposedly protecting? >> i will just say that it's not really addressed the question head on, but if you only wanted campaign finance reform, how about this for an idea? you allow anybody to donate as much money as they want to any candidate they want but you do it transparently. in 24 hours, it needs to be online so everyone can see. that would tell you more about a candidate than any 30-second commercial you will ever see. house that? [applause] >> it's unfortunately, it sounds great, but it is unfortunately inadequate in an era where you independent expenditures, where the money doesn't go to the candidate or what that is about treating private. more of that money actually is in the process, wanted to go strictly to candidates. how do you do without? >> you are correct. when campaign finance reform first became an issue, molly

ivins was still alive, and we debated that very issue. although as a consultant i have to say, in the interests of transparent to i make a fortune on these. as a matter fact i was recently subpoenaed by the moreland commission in new york for not divulging who the donors were to one of these organizations. that said, i have to agree. i would prefer to see a world in which they do not exist, but then the people to donate as much as they want to the parties into the candidates, and make a totally transparent, put it online. as i said before, it will tell you more about the candidate than anything else. thank you. >> first of all, i look at the political scene and i'm reminded of richard hofstadter's anti-intellectualism in american life. a question for ms. hughes. you spoke with praise of the

governor as a powerful woman in politics. are you equally enthused about governor nikki haley and governor jan brewer? >> no. [applause] >> good answer. >> of course not. >> why? >> for different reasons. one, i simply disagree with the priorities that they have run, on which they run their states. so it's pretty fundamental. my feminism is very broad, but it is not without an underpinning of clear values and priorities. so i can say to ana, i love what

she does on "meet the press," because it's good for women, all women, that she is as capable as she is. but i also enjoy from my couch disagreeing with her. and that's the way i feel about those two governors. >> i have to agree with her because i think the end of sexism and the definition of modern feminism is having the freedom to choose based on qualifications, based on character, based on experience, based on the person, not based on gender, not based on race, not based on those issues. that is where we have made progress and broken the ceiling, with its the freedom to choose. >> over here. young man, are you a student? you step up. you get to come first. sorry. [laughter] >> we will come back to you. we're not going to go away without you getting to ask a

question. >> go ahead. >> first off i just want to say thank you to all the panelists. it's always good to hear a nice debate. being a student here and being canvassed on local issues and russia voters i'm always struck by the disillusionment as well as just the frustration. young voters and mono generation on the federal government, going forward, looking into your crystal ball, how do you see young voters playing into the political atmosphere? and you can look on this in a variety of different ways, such as a shift of focus from all the frustrations about the federal government to see more progress at the local and state governments, as well as the increasing price of education, and then if you have a lot, give graduates from college that are educated versus the number who haven't gone to college, i think you can kind of look at these

issues in a few different ways. i'm interested to hear what you have to say on this. >> can i go back to a question to you, if i may? did you vote in the last presidential election? >> i did spen spend a good askiu don't have to into, did you support the president? >> i did at that point, yes. >> as we know so many young voters played a part in helping to elect barack obama in 2008, and reelect him in 2012. you are now, 2012 when he was reelected. you are now dismayed with the president? >> in the past two, three years i've definitely, i've become much more aware of political issues in general through my work with political or position. so at that point i was a completely educated voter. as you know, many voters can be swayed rather easily with a couple of sentences or something they hear they like. so i think that plays into it as well. >> to this point, and they think to answer your question, the degree to which millennials are

going to be involved in the process going forward, in the turnout, we saw the drop off in 2010 from 2008 among young voters. that explains in great measure, not entirely, but certainly significantly why republicans did so well in the last round of midterms. young voters said they did that come up when the president was not at the top of the ticket. a lot of young voters have also, who supported the president art now also incredibly disappointed that the world has not changed dramatically because he was president. and i share their pain. in the words of bill clinton, i feel their pain. because i, too, thought we would have a transformational shift with barack obama. i really believed it was possible. the problem we've got is that shift and change happens incrementally in the system very slowly. you do not get immediate results. and if young people are

expecting that from one round of elections of one candidate, they are going to be disappointed. that's both a problem and to challenge for people to say, okay, we've got to be in this for the long haul, and to his credit, the president from day one, as a candidate in 2007, said this is not about me. it's about you. i cannot do this. we have to do this together. yes, we can. not yes, i can. that will be the question. will millennials adopt that view? we have to do this ourselves, not rely on our elected -- i don't know. >> i can't fault millennials or any age group for being disappointed, disillusioned and dismayed. the dysfunction going on in washington, d.c. is depressing for everybody. you've got a congress that can't work with each other. you've got a president that can't work with congress.

and the bottom line is that very little that affects our lives in a positive way is being done, and the american people perceive that. i think it's felt even more by people of your age group, not to mention the unemployment, the people in your age group. when you voted two years ago you probably have two more years of college. now you're getting closer to needing a job. you know, i would be a dismayed voter, too. >> as a republican i love to say that old saying, to be on mtv, and not be liberal, to be without heart, to be older and not be conservative to be without mine, but that doesn't apply here. this goes back to the point i was making. when we first started the panel. there's an economic shift globally right now with the u.s. losing its status in the world. that's affecting us in the job

market. that's just not because the u.s. is losing its stature because china is coming at the there are technological reasons, globalization reasons, and it, just use a very bad analogy, when we had the industrial revolution we did the shift from and a great society to the industrial revolution. we displaced a lot of farmworkers. vermont wanted to ban farm machinery to protect jobs. today, we're looking at a very similar situation. you know, everybody thinks washington should have a solution. it's going to be very difficult to find a political solution at this moment if we don't really know where the economy is going and how it's going to shake out. we don't really know. with technology moving ahead so quickly that it's creating, it's creating productivity in the marketplace without the need for people. so a lot of people are being

displaced. this is not going to be a solution that we will be able, this is not going to be a problem we have a solution for immediate. we are going to blame republicans just as much as we blame democrats. i see the frustration that you're going through is going to be very similar to matter who's in office. until this shakes out. and the guiding hope here is that somebody like one of these brilliant entrepreneurial minds finds a way to make technology work for the less skilled person. so a less skilled person using technology can have a higher skilled positions, and we create jobs in that way. but to look at washington, to blame obama and highly for this, to think that a tax fix is the panacea. it's not. these are difficult challenges for washington but it's going to

be difficult to see how either party looks to solve these. >> just one thing. i want is the one thing about the generational look at this. first of all, the dip in the midterm elections in 2010 were as much a result of the failure of unmarried women who had voted at an extraordinarily high rate in 2008, did not vote in 2010 as it was your generation. so you are not, your generation, any generation that is of college age tends not to vote in midterm elections. so that -- activism is a function of community. when you are mobile, and this is the danger, in the comment over here, when we are unconnected to each other, our activism is diffuse and we can't do much as a society. but the thing that is on you all to figure out is how you

integrate the communal aspect of activism where one person has a conversation with another about what's best for the committee or the country, and not displace it with your online attachment. because the disconnection that comes with online, faux activism of online, signing petitions online, that won't do. that won't do. thank you. [applause] >> i have a short statement. spent please go to a question. we are running out of time. >> i have a question i would like david and daniel to answer. it's a question about daniel, your comment about americans have fear. americans are scared of this, scared of that. where did that fear come from? who is stoking that fear?

i have an idea and this coming from one side of the political spectrum. no, i don't believe it is -- >> you've asked your question. david and dan, go ahead. >> koch. >> check, hello? okay. it's coming from a grassroots movement. people, whether they're republicans or democrats, have felt the pain of not having a job, not getting rehired after the recession. this is not, this is not something -- certain candidates may fail because they think they have a solution. that's fair. if i believe i have a solution and my jobs program, or my tax plan is going to solve that, i have every right to speak about that. regardless of what side of the aisle. i don't subscribe to the fact

that this is being stoked by a party. this is a problem that we are seeing a respective of social demographics. it's at the very high income the top of the socioeconomic scale is not really feeling this. but most other people are. >> let's -- please. >> i agree that the fear israel. there's no question about it. people are afraid. they were afraid during the cold war. the bombs were about to draw. fear has always been good politics. not mrs. alito democracy but good politics. but that fear is, in fact, being stoked by americans for prosperity -- come on, it's a shameless. americans for prosperity from two people whose combined wealth is $80 billion. they are not sending checks out. they are writing checks to

consultants, exactly, and they are spending a fortune to impact the electoral outcome, which benefits their bottom line. it's not creating more jobs, except for consultants. and, in fact, the fear that people have, the loss of jobs is real but is being inflamed and used as a political weapon, as a tool. and it is shameful. and if these people had any shame, and they don't because as you saw, one of the koch brothers wrote an editorial saying he resented being attacked for what he's doing. "the wall street journal" just this last week, poor man. he resents being attacked. well, he better be willing to be attacked for doing what he has done, and continues to do. because he's put his name out there, he and his brother, and if they're doing what they're doing, they better be able to

take the heat. because they deserve it. applau[applause] >> my question is for misuse. ana can you touched on it a little bit, you mentioned renaissance of women governors in new england over the last couple of years. i come from the state of texas where we are in ago that will raise as rick perry has decided not to run again. the democratic party is running a big, big push to turn the state into a battleground state, essentially a purple state. and their nominee for the executive's botched -- exec is that is wendy davis. what you believe are her chances were a party has not won a statewide election in several cycles but also a woman in texas? do you all think this will be a successful movement by the party, even in the light a sense of the word? >> her chances are few. i mean, short of great being

caught, it could happen. [laughter] >> i actually think that wendy has a shot. it's definite uphill. i understand where train was coming from. i think it's up -- she's already demonstrated that she is an extraordinary person, and i think that the evaluation that we would make because we are political is that we have not elected any democrat statewide in texas and a longtime. but it is a state that embraced and richards. it is a state that is costly changing in its electorate is changing. i think that there is a movement which is different than a gubernatorial campaign. the movement is what is important and what will either help wendy make the case enough to get over, or build something that will help in the future.

but i think that it is a shot but there's no doubt that it is very tough. but i would say we will have to see how much that the movement carries. >> is changing, and it's going to change in the near future. the next four to six years of statewide, democrats will be elected. i promise you that. >> let's see if we can get the last two folks were up your with questions but it did ask a quick question over here and directed if you will to a particular panel member. >> well, my question is, washington has become so hateful, and it's trickling down into our society. win in your crystal ball will you see the democrats and the republicans begin to work together so that we can fix america? and we can have these type of intelligent debates about criticizing and demeaning each

other. >> and who wants to start? >> you know, politics is a pendulum, and i think we are on the far edge of uncivil discourse right now in politics. and i am an optimist ended you think that the pendulum will swing back. it will be, frankly, when voters start demanding it. and what i tell people is, you know, get out of your comfort zone. don't just listen to people and speak with people and read people who think just like you. it's okay, you can have a republican friend. you can have a democrat friend. i tell all my gay friends, you know what? you want to get this issue moved? befriends an old, white, straight male to show them it's

not contagious. they will be fine. i think that we all have to do our part by getting out of her comfort sewn, engaging with people different than us can celebrate diversity and demanding it from our elected officials. >> the problem is we are accused of recruiting when we do that. that's always the problem. but to the point i associate myself completely with what ana says. we have reached a low point, can't go any lower than 5% approval for the congress. that is, both parties. most democrats and republicans. this little red devil is not my feeling about republicans. this is a simple for my friend who is a conference participant. i don't think republicans are demons. i don't think that conservatives are inherently the enemy. but i will tell you that that was a strategy that was put into place by my good friend, former

clients, newt gingrich, when he came into the house of representatives. because he used language and he said language is going to define us. he said when we take back the house, in order to do that we can't just do the democrats. we have to destroy them. and it changed the tone. newt gingrich's revolution set the bar, lowered the bar for the discourse, the level we see what the. whether he is willing to accept responsibility, it was tactically smart. because it polarized things and it to be very and changed democratic house majority, turned it upside down and the republicans did when. so the problem with the politics of polarization and demonization is they often work. that's what it's hard to say there's going to be an end to it anytime soon because voters are not outraged by it. >> i would just say that nixon

was the one who started this. that was the southern strategy. but just to say when this going to end, the voters need to feel better about themselves. and right now, we do a lot of boy and i see this. this is the trend line that they see. as long as we feel threatened, voters are going to be argumentative as to how to solve it. they're going to want to protect their own base. that's one thing. part of this comes from the voters. the other thing that troubles me, when i first got to washington, he was in the late '80s and republicans and democrats used to buy each other drinks at the monocle. today, that's so infrequent. and one of the factors that you see is a lot of republicans, a lot of congressmen almost ashamed to say i live part-time in washington. but there's a factor that really worked when they did, the whole

concept. act and they worked together because you know why? because their lives hung out together. they were all in washington. their kids went to school together. they had a social connection. it was social fabric their, that today if i congressmen i keep my family back in the district and i sleep in my office. you don't have that. you don't have that personal touch and feel to reach across the aisle and say our kids are in this together, let's talk. >> i have to make one quick comment. when you leave the room, please exit by the right door. there's a crowd of people coming into for the next session. now quickly, i want to make sure you get your question asked. >> my question is but the best addressed to annan of our. i watched everyone other republican debates in 2012, almost entirely for the inner cayman value.

>> did you seek therapy after that? [laughter] spent in 2016 will republicans allow a panel that will be that entertaining or is there some method to screen out some of the fringe candidates and booksellers? >> you know, we live in a country where the constitution allows anybody who is a natural born citizen and over 35 to run. so it's not going to be about who we weed out. i mean, can they run? yes. will they have the resources to be able to sustain it for a while? that's the question. the rnc has made an effort and is making an effort to try to bring some sanity to the debate process. we shall see if it's -- if it succeeds. >> last comment. >> i want to leave her on a

positive note. there is an example in washington. a group of legislators to do exactly what he has described, and they are the 20 women in the united states the senate [cheers and applause] we have legislation in this country, a budget. we have protections for personal safety because they work together. so without holding you, it's a lovely note to end on. >> let's thank our wonderful panel. [applause] nice job. >> [inaudible conversations]

>> and the boston marathon underway day when you after a bomb attack at the finish line that killed three people. today, specters are going through saturday checkpoints and organizers holding a moment of silence their members of congress tweeted about the race. >> and here on the c-span networks today will be live at 4:00 eastern time for remarks by supreme court justice stephen breyer on human rights. that's hosted by georgetown university law center in washington, d.c. at 8:00 eastern the future of free speech with some of the nations top of first amendment authors and scholars that will

sit down for debate of the national constitution center. all this week while congresses operate we will have a booktv in prime time. that tonight on booktv during prime time. >> if you start with the basics which is everybody acknowledges consumers have the right, everybody acknowledges consumer has the right to make it according of free to air content themselves. everybody acknowledges there's nothing wrong with the combination of an antenna impact than a vcr, now a dvr. the debate seems to be about one that equipment is located

because nobody has appealed the finding of facts which was the each individual consumer controls their own antenna. the antenna actually is dead, and tell the consumer and strokes the antenna to tune into a certain frequency but each individual consumer makes their own copy, unique, distinct, never mingles with anyone else's and watches, transmits it for them so. none of those facts have been appealed or disputed ever. so it comes down to we as a country and as a system, can we permit this idea of private conduct which the courts have consistently found yes, we do. and congress has been encouraging the idea of consumption of local television. so the idea that a new way of capturing this signal by an individual should somehow be inhibited is absolutely in fact wrong, incorrect policy, and is

devastating blow to innovation in the next step of our industry, which is movement of all of these diagnoses away from consumers homes into the cloud. >> to do this if you will take up whether aereo is violating copyright law by transmitting broadcast networks over the internet without permission. here from aereo head chet kanojia tonight on "the communicators" at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> we should have finished al-qaeda in 2001. our general who was there, but more than just a general i think all of us think back, we were attacked on 9/11, 3000 americans died from more americans than died in pearl harbor, and we had al-qaeda and we had osama bin laden trapped in some mountains called tora bora. we didn't finish him off. and then we let -- let him escape of the other side of the

mound because we said that's pakistani territory. wait, think for a moment. can you imagine during world war ii when we had the battle of midway which change the entire war against japan, he sailed across the international date line in the pacific and attacked the japanese, destroyed their fleet, 1942. he went across the international date line. supposing you turn back and say, that's the international date line and japan has said it would to cross the a national dateline we will take this part of the pacific of you take that and we will live happily ever after. we get to these mountains in the middle of nowhere and we allow al-qaeda to escape? makes no sense but our entire country had become more legalistic. we should've gone and finished it right in. >> this month, booktv's book club selection is bing west, the

"the wrong way." breed the book and join in the discussion. live sunday may 4, look for our next into the guest, former gang member turned author and poet. his works include the award-winning always running and this 2011 release they called you back. booktv every weekend on c-span2. >> next, a discussion about press freedom and the public's right to information versus national security with editors from "the new york times," the "washington post," the nation and "the new yorker" as was the general counsel for the office of the director of national intelligence. this is from the sources and secrets conference in new york city. it's about one hour. ..

because i people here and i think that would stand out if i didn't call. let me begin with you. the topic here today is where do we go from here and in september, the times did a

story, your first nsa story of this round from mr. snowden. they were to gather a lot of information. let's imagine that you are going in to see bob that you want to get to the nsa's point of view and any challenges. so make the argument to him about the story. you're telling him this is what we have and what the response? >> i'm assuming that bob has said to me do not have "the new york times" published this story because this is part of the

crown jewels of our secret intelligence programs into classified program. it will begin edging to the national security if the times publishes the story. and what i would say is that the public has a very compelling reason to know about the scope of the eavesdropping. so it's the same argument that bill keller who was my predecessor in the job and my friend, and he and i together made that argument in 2005 to the bush administration about why the times felt we needed to publish a story on the eavesdropping by the nsa. it's the same reason that the public and president obama actually has given a voice to this argument themselves that there has to be a balancing

between the national security and the public's right to know the dimensions of the programs. you're having a conversation with jill. is that we don't make that statement until we know it is a story. when the frustrations i had in this job is a reluctance on the part of some reporters than others that share with us what they intend to say. the first conversations we had with reporters about the snowden material or were they sent us document and we were told we are going to publish these documents tell us what concerns you have. we sat we aren't going to kill you that just tell us what concerns. that led to a story that was significantly damaging in

accurate. but assuming we've gotten details about the story i think i totally agree with jill's framing of the problem of the need for the secrecy and the public disclosure. the philosophical question that this poses is a variation in moderating the first panel who gets to make that decision and why. for better or worse the intelligence community and executive branch is subject to significant accountability. we have accountability to the congress. people may question whether that is good enough for structured properly but we still have a degree of accountability.

having said that i understand the way the system is set up we don't have the power to tell the press what it to publish and not to publish. i am occasionally troubled by the press you tell us the names of the countries where you do this particular activity is going to damage the notion that we are not persuaded and that leads to the question of who elected you. i don't think that the only people that have accountability or responsibility in the united states are elected that there is a first amendment in this country and there is a long-established practice of the press putting pressure on power. that is part of what we do not just talking about dog cartoons but putting pressure on power

and if you look historically at these issues time and time again that the decision not to publish, the decision to shut up and not to -- to not have transparency is very often the wrong one. are there instances the press makes a mistake or goes too far? shorter that it's nothing like the history of governance records of mistakes and catastrophes and without the adequate pressure on the government from the press, we are lost. lost. >> you have done a number of stories in the "washington post" and from the documents. what have you heard here that gives you pause? >> i feel that we have an important role in the american

society. we have a role that has been specified in the constitution and it's just as important as the governments role. i respect the need to protect national security but i also recognize in the press we have to serve as a watchdog on the government and we have a role to play if we always refer to the governments judgment about what should be published then we probably won't be publishing very much, certainly not anything that would call into question the policies of the government and in this instance is not just a matter of one source or method or anything like that what we have here is a national policy that shifted the balance in a very significant way between privacy and national security and there is a tension between the two and we don't know what that balance is but

there is a role in helping the public understand what is at date and much of it was done in secret and there have been no substantial public debates and i think what's happened here is that the stories have ignited a debate and i think it is important and the public has acknowledged. >> feel free. >> i take it as part of your frustration and many people in the government frustration is both writes does the press have to be the balancer to make the decisions about balance when they don't have the experience or knowledge? >> i agreed with what david said

the press plays the role as a watchdog and i agree the first amendment is what gives them that right. what i'm calling for is a little more humility on the part of the press in the terms of how they approach these issues. there is no question that there are some issues of public importance that have come out and our leade are later being dd and frankly i said publicly i wish that we would have found a way to bring the issues to the public before they started because then perhaps we could have had the discussion in a way that is not in fact gone into a lot of details one of the earlier don't have anything to do with public policy at all and are extremely damaging to the national security and that is the point. >> before i get to jill, then we will turn over to katrina.

>> i'm squirming over the desire that we have more humility because seeing the decisions and how they are made from the inside, they are excruciating decisions often when we get a request from the government not to publish something on national security grounds, our reaction is we got this material and we are rushing to publication we just hit the pause button and in the case of the story that i mentioned on the board of trustees stopping and they held up that story that has placed a lot of public criticism, so excuse me but i don't feel a lack of humility. >> he said the press exhibits too much humility holding back and could assess the times

holding that story for 2005. do you feel the press is too responsible tax >> the relationship of the free press to the government should be an adversarial one. we are living in a momen lookine the oversight mechanisms of the country legislative executive and judicial have broken down and the media has a more important role to play. i think what david noted is imagined a country no the countg stories that have been the result of a adversarial media operating in the spirit of what is verifiable but first and foremost what is in the public's interest. they said i wish that you have printed it so you have the

pentagon papers as an example of a story we might not have known if we hadn't had what someone called at the unfiltered leaks of the life blood investigative journalism and i would have a democracy so when it comes to the press especially at this moment is with all due respect the press has to be a watchdog and not with hubris not saying we know it's in the public interest but it's the stories that we wouldn't have otherwise known. one of the discussions is where do we go from here because with the oversight mechanisms broken, what is the role in the press and if i might add one thing the underlining political problem that we face and it was o was oe previous panel someone talked about how america and its greatness hain itsgreatness hase at different moments, justice brennan in a non- ported speech at the university on national security jurisprudence raised

the question of what happens if the country doesn't emerge as it did after the japanese internment or after other moments of violations of civil liberty when the press was able to expose it but also bring the country back into a spirit that we have been tough if we were living with perpetual war. there is just too much. if you look at the media overall what are we talking about? you have pretty respectable institutions represented here. that's not an across-the-board factor of life as you flip across the dial or up and down the internet there are some other remarkable ones and innovation in journalism. they are starting a venture and

i wish them all the best. the government doesn't need less pressure it needs more pressure in order for us to be who we want to be. >> often it is because in part the press didn't play its role aggressively or skeptically enough. so does everybody here. >> more personal x.. >> the new yorker was a matter of opinion clashing opinion that the journalism prior to iraq could have been better. i am extremely proud of the journalism once it started to happen. if there had been more reporting on intelligence this nation

would be in a better position geopolitically and the ramifications of that disaster will on to us for decades to come. i am not suggesting for a second that that decision was already made in the white house but that is not a happy chapter. >> there was a journalist there were some institutions and i would say that in the nation there's been a traditional skepticism and adversarial relationship that moved us to raise tough questions that led us to oppose the war in iraq but in my mind it isn't about left and right. it's not a matter of left and right and to do the work as the watchdog as the founders hoped the media would do is different.

different. it's accountability journalism coming and i think that is not an ideological spectrum issue is about the role of the free press. >> that there were differences. the administration did accept some of the things that went on in the bush administration but one of the earlier panels talked about guantánamo. would you agree with that? that the facility holding people without a trial. >> do you agree? the >> i don't necessarily agree that it is inevitably in all circumstances wrong to hold people without a trial. i think that is a sort of standard law of the war and we are trying in the course of the administration to determine who needs to be held to protect the

nation and who doesn't because there are some dangerous people there but i do think that guantánamo for a variety of reasons became a symbol of overreach. >> most people in the press would say that we shouldn't report on the troops that may endanger lives. what else wouldn't you publish? i don't have a list that we wouldn't publish. we evaluate each. we have standards that we try to adhere to in determining how we approach these things. >> i wasn't there at the time.

>> do you have a rule in your mind >> there are certain standards obviously in any story where you think there are ways that are put into danger you evaluate and try to be as conservative as possible without censoring an important story. in the case of the secret prisons there's been strong reporting in the "washington post." those are the kind of decisions about whether to disclose the names of countries where they are excruciating because in retrospect we have 2020 vision but those are precisely the kind of issues that you deal with in the jobs where you're not going

to hold the stories of the existence is going to be disclosed if you are then asked to hold a level of specificity about where and the name of the programs into that kind of thing and therefore there is a hamper for that. >> sometimes the government will use the specter of the lives at risk as a kind of cautioning method. my guess is that this is the situation in afghanistan in the abuse or the destruction of the koran that would incite violence throughout the muslim world in an unpredictable violent way.

it's not easy to hear even if you can rationally say it wasn't in the journalism. you have to take this seriously and not be arrogant and dismissive out of hand. for a lot of people in the public who are very skeptical about journalists and journalism for reason that we can get into they do come up with elected them as the arbiters but not all arbiters in society are elected. that is a part of the democratic society that we live in and even those editors take their job seriously, thoughtfully and with some precision or they don't. being elected isn't a guarantee of rational behavior.

>> i want to respond to if there were the suggestion in david's comment that the government thinks up this argument about the lives at risk. i can't speak for anything however long it's been. i can say when people have deployed the argument that putting the publishing that's been based on a genuine assessment that it would in fact put lives at risk. that is different from pointing to the publication to say -- the >> there is an invocation between two damage. he is centrally perjured himself before congress. he was careful but the fact he hasn't been out to re-sign.

the overclassification of material go back to the moynihan report which was important for treatmenimported fromthe treatmd reduction of secrecy. often the overclassification leads to journalists seeking leaks and finding other ways to get that information and so often classification is about covering the backside of officials and avoiding embarrassment. one other related point. the fight now in congress between the cia and the senate so much seems to have to do with the release of a report that should have been released to the american people many moons ago to infect show it has interrogation tortured has not provided the national security benefits that have been preferred as a reason for torture for the american people and i think in that is the needd

to be skeptical. >> i want to answer but let me give you the context of what he's going to respond to. last month james clapper appeared before the committee and he was asked about whether they collected the data and he said not willingly. and as we have since learned it was somewhat misleading. the errors that occur in their articles doesn't mean that reporters are wide. i was a part of this whole process. i know full well that he made a mistake and he knows he made a mistake when he was asked the question he was thinking about a different kind of program.

the point was he didn't lie, he made a mistake and it angers me immensely people throw this term around in the context where it would be perfectly fair to say made a statement or even misled the people but to accuse him of why he is not, it is wrong and unjustified. he was thinking of the program because if you look at the rest of his answer he talks about something as inadvertent he was thinking of the incidental collection under section 702. i agree and i disagree on the overclassification. i just gave a speech earlier this week which i talked at length the classification

results in a substantial measure from a desire of people to present embarrassment or to avoid political consequences or anything like that it i is muche mundane as a result of number one the pressures within the community to avoid risk you never want to be the person responsible and the bureaucratic inertia that goes to the classification process, but i've never seen something where that was classified without any good reason because somebody didn't want this to come out. as to make the basic question that ran through the panel previously was the argument that the government often will say national security will be harmed. tell us how specifically national security has been harmed by mr. snowden's revelations. >> i think it's important to break it down into parts.

i'm still going to call them snowden's revelations. there is a series of things that have been revealed about the nature of how we have interpreted the authorities, the manner in which we have overseen those authorities, generally the kind of collection activities that take place. as i said earlier i would wish that we had found a way to get those discussions into the public. it's true that the mechanisms that were set up by the congress in the open didn't know about the use and i would quarrel with the assertion it's just that they wish they had come to different answers than they did but there are a whole other series that go into specific activities about the targets that we collect and stories that

haven't distinguishe distinguisl between what we have the capability to do and what we are legally authorized to do and accurately do. i know that glenn greenwald ridiculed us and we have seen the people that we very much want to attract are taking note of these but there is no question as a result some of the specifics we are going to lose collection capabilities so that is as concrete as i can get without revealing information myself. any reporting on intelligence and intelligence methods scares the potential sources.

that's why it goes back to the balancing process. some of the stories that focus on policy issues are ones where the press could make the judgment that the balance of the transparency were into publishing the story. >> iem eight big b leader in history. i think probably everyone on the panel is. after the pentagon papers case in which president nixon into the solicitor general stood before the court and made the argument that the publication of the papers harmed national security ten years after he argued the case he was asked to

name a specific area publication of the papers have harmed national security and he admitted which goes a lot he said there have been no harm to national security. i don't know that in this case. i'm not trying to be predictive or irritant but that is this issue. >> if yo you had a top-secret clearance i'd be glad to show you the cuts but you don't and you can't answer there is a certain element of you can either take what we say or you can ignore it but that is your call to make. i never make the call to ignore. i would take it under consideration. >> i think we can have a disagreement about what is in the public's interest and the intelligence community we will argue something is outweighed by the damage that it would cause

to national security and we would say it is an important matter and we showed in fact disclose it. ..

i think the press does not always have all the information that we have and has a different set of institutional biases and that it does publish things that in my judgment risk harm to national security. but,. >> but it is important to say that the fact that we can't ex-post this happened as a result of this disclosure is not the right way to ask the question. we don't, we ban drunk driving in this country. we ban drunk driving because drunk driving increases the risks of accidents. that doesn't mean that any particular drunk driftdriving -- >> is journalism drunk driving. >> that is not what i'm saying at all. that doesn't mean any particular drunk driver causes an accident. in the same way we classify information because release of that information risks harm to the national security. >> first of all the nation will go for comment, we always do. former national security correspondent jeremy scale hill,

who wrote blackwater. because of blackwater, people in the national security sources came to him because they were troubled by the privatization of warfare and lack of accountability. and out of that came his book, "dirty wars." we would go for comment and seek comment from the relative agencies. we never in the history of the nation held the story. that speaks to a different kind of publication. laura was moving about the impact of the chill. i think jane mayer written about the freeze on sources. unfiltered leaks being the source of investigative reporting. carl bernstein has said he could not do the watergate story today if those confidential sources didn't have trust in his ability to protect him. i wanted to ask, i'm curious because i think in julian assange, putting aside everything, a reporter, if he had been tried in this country, i believe bill keller of the new york types and "the guardian," russ bridger would

have also been held, could have been prosecuted. i'm just curious, jill's thoughts about that. what responsibility does a news publication have to a source? >> well the responsibility that a news organization has to a source is to really live up to the word that is given and, by one of our journalists to a source and and "the new york times" right now, my colleague jim is in excruciating position where in one of the seven leak investigations, criminal leak investigations that the obama administration has pursued there's a subpoena involving jim and some material he developed for a book he wrote and, unless u.s. supreme court decides to intervene in that case, he is facing the very real threat of

having to choose between going to jail or giving information that leads to the disclosure of his source to whom he made the pledge to protect his confidentiality. so there you are. and jim has said to me, you know, we worked very closely together for years. i was very happy to join him in boston a few weeks ago. he was given a major first amendment award and, you know, showing support for him at this time is very important. >> critical. >> but he has told me has been doing national security reporting in washington for decades. that the climate has been never been like this or more difficult than it is right now. >> but, bob, that begs, that begs the question and it was the theme of several other discussions this morning where, and in fact jane mayer did use the phrase, frozen. it is not chilled anymore.

national security reporters -- >> gosh, i don't see any concrete evidence of that. it is a different standard for reporting. >> and i'm the one who sees the intelligence, david. >> but she is going to sources. she is saying sources are freezing up. >> but she is saying that. why do i have to take her word on it? >> i assume you know since you have telephone records, right? [laughter] >> that is actually not true. that is actually not true but -- >> it is not true? >> but you know, i have to say from my perspective i pick up the paper every day, every single day and i read articles that are attributed to unnamed intelligence sources talking about classified documents, to senior officials to government officials. it certainly doesn't look to me if sources are dried up. they're always going to be sources who are going to be reluctant to talk. i reread brandenburg v. hayes on the train up here. justice white in 1972, one of

the arguments that the press makes that relations between press and government has never been worse. unprecedented flood of subpoenas to the press. somehow the press struggled to manage on. if i can just make a minute here, i think a little historical perspective is worthwhile. one. reasons why there was no history of subpoenas of reports for the first 50 or 60 years after the espionage act because the press had a very cozy relationship with the government. they didn't report on things. basically, vietnam and watergate changed that and the press institutionally adopted a much more adversarial tone. i happen to this that's good. i think that's right, there ought to be adversary approach between the press and government but adversariness, is that a word? adversity, whatever, it's a two-way process and if, if the, it is my personal opinion, jim ricen called me out on this, people who leaked classified information and commit crimes if

we catch them it is not always easy we ought to prosecute them and they ought to go to jail. >> do you agree jim ricen ought to be prosecuted -- >> jim rise enis not being prosecuted. >> being asked to reveal sources. >> he is not being prosecuted. he is being subpoenaed to give evidence as other people. the courts have determined, to this date at least he doesn't have a privilege against giving that information. there was discussion in the last panel after media shield law. that is law that president obama endorsed. i'm not going to speculate as how that would have applied to his particular case. but if there is a media shield law passioned that is another thing the courts can do to enforce it. >> right. >> but there has never been a reporter prosecuted. i don't think there ever will be a reporter prosecuted. i think every president is aware of adage not getting getting into an argument with somebody who buys printers ink by the

barrel. this is practical matter. it is different in my mind to go after people responsible for leaking information. >> marty, there have been a series of pieces including a book by the former counsel to the "new york times" during the pentagon papers case who made the argument which others have echoed that the obama administration has been more antipress than the nixon administration. and in fact has been, has chilled or frozen a lot of information coming out so the press can perform its check and balance function. do you agree with that? >> well i'm not sure that i have the appropriate historical perspective on that but i'm very leery of broad generalizations about anybody being more antipress or less antipress or anything like that. i'm opposed to generally broad generalizations about a lot of things. in the case of stories, you know, we evaluate each one independently. we try to take into account the national security conversations

that the nsa and the intelligence community generally has or, the defense establishment has. we look at each one of these things. i realize that they have an interest as well and we all have to come to independent, independent decisions. i view our role as being independent. the word adversarial is not one that i'm drawn to but being independent, we make our own decisions. we're not collaborators certainly but we're not automatic adversaries either. we come to our independent judgments about what we should do. i realize that engenders enormous hostility on the part of the administration, particularly on the kind of subjects we've been talking about here today which are the most sensitive subjects that we can deal in. and we all come to our, we call come to our judgments and i don't know whether they're more antipress, not antipress. i do know talking to our reporters they feel a chill. not as if nothing is happening. i also have to keep in mind we're all sitting here of our

own free will. we have not been incarcerated, thankfully. and, and the press is perhaps more free, probably more free in the united states than in any other country in the world. but that that is a freedom thatn be extinguished very quickly as we've seen in many other countries and we have to be careful. >> david, you spent time with president obama and did a long piece recently. what is your take whether he has been more aggressively, more aggressive in being construed antipress. >> his culture and style and there is actuality. clearly in terms of his language, his ease with the tribe known as reporters, he is way more at ease and can speak common language with, for all kinds of reince that we know because of his background than richard m. nixon. if you listen to the nixon tape when the subject of reporters

comes up it is almost up there with blacks and jews, right? throw henry kissinger into the pot. some of this is generational. some of this is, the craziness that was the nixon administration. and if you're to walk the halls of the obama white house, at least, when you're there, you know, you have a the principle in effect, there is a kind of ease. this one went to the same university as that one and this one knows that one and this one is this age, so on. proof is in the pudding though. the proof is in the pudding. and i found, of the many things that talked about with president obama, and he revealing no secrets, he says many of the same thing in potted form in speeches, he has the cultural need, and the political need to express that he knows what your side of the story is. on the one hand, that he gives a great first amendment, written,

university of chicago, not the conservative side of the university of chicago, understanding of an editor's and a reporter's cultural understanding of freedom of the press. on the other hand, then he does that kind of prove sort turn -- professorial turn, you leave there and you have mist in your hand. len downey's report you are referring to as james goodell's book is pretty tough and pretty convincing. one thing to be buddy, buddy and what are the rules? and they're grim. there is not something i admire about that administration, this administration. >> before we turn to the audience for 10 minutes of questions, let me go back to the title of the panel, where do we to from here? we have an adversarial relationship, everyone agrees on that, right? where else do we grow from here? >> i think we need to find a new way to engage the national

security challenges in this word. we should have never start ad global war on terror. you don't wage war against terror. it is tactic and horrific ideology and i think president obama is enmeshed, this is not policy you but enmeshed in a metastasizing national security state. it has grown and grown. also in a culture where to be tough is the be all, end all, even lyndon johnson couldn't sustain attacks for winding down vietnam. he had to be tough and hard-headed. i think we need to revive a way to revive oversight mechanisms which i do think are broken in this country and i think we need to look hard at scaling back a mission creep, a secrecy creep, and overclassification creep and restore the balance that is terribly off balance in these times. >> bob, are you going to the same place that katrina is? >> well, no but not necessarily for the reason that you think. i think i'm, would rather focus more on the specifics of where

do we go from here in terms of relationships between the media and the government. there's been over the years on and off a very useful set of informal conferences under the aegis of the aspen institute where members of the media and members of the government have gotten together and just talked off the record for a couple days in an effort to try to arrive, not necessarily at a common understanding because generally speaking what happens at these things the press comes in and says, we want you to tell us how we can get more classified information out of you and the government cops in and says, we want you to tell us how to stop you from getting classified information but at least a common understanding where we're coming from. it is going to be an adversary relationship despite what marty says because it is the job of the press to try to find out things government doesn't want it to find out it is job of government to try to prevent the

press from finding out those things. i don't mean that in the sense of political or avoiding embarassment, there are many, many things that the government needs to be believe to be kept secret in the national interest. there is full recognition that the fact that the press is almost invariably going to balance that interest different than the government does. and so there is going to be necessarily an adversarial relationship and the question is what kind of prove successes can we set up to insure the adversarial relationship is a productive one, rather than a destructive one? >> let's get a couple questions from the audience. just raise your hand. do we have microphones? questions? yes. >> alex jones from the shore ren teen center at harvard. one of the things that said, was very, that struck me anyway, was the comment that the political implications of hard government action in these situations is

perhaps even a better restraint on government than a shield law would be. after the pentagon papers the supreme court opened the door wide for "the times" and post and others to be prosecuted under the espionage act. it didn't happen and it was perceived because of the nixon's administration calculation of the political impact of it. my question for this group going forward is, if per adventure jim risen refuses to names and goes to jail, what will be the political and journalistic implications of that and likely impact of that on journalism, on these issues, on nsa and so forth. >> jill? >> i think it will, obviously have a very unfortunate impact and even though it is true as bob emphasizes in his earlier remarks that jim hip self is not being prosecuted -- himself, is

not being prosecuted in the underlying leak case, it still creates an appearance in the public that the job of reporting is being criminalized. and i think that's a terrible thing. as an unhealthy thing for our society. >> katrina. >> i wanted to pick up on something glen greenwald said i think was important about the global impact of the snowden revelations and the change in peep's thinking around the world, the consciousness and how that may have more impact that actual legislative change and shield laws. i would not discount and i'm not advocating or disadvocating if that's a word, there might be a wave of leaking as an act of civil disobedience. that that could be something feel is, standing up for the truevalues or upholding what is being trampled as they see it in agencies they work in or trampling of this constitution.

>> so i think it's important to remember that if jim risen is held in contempt and goes to jail, it will not be the first reporter whom that happens t happens once a decade. the press manages to thrive. it is not clear to me this particular instance will have the kind of cataclysmic effect that is ad attributed to it here. on katrina's prediction, i sure hope it is not so. i, i quail at the thought of 29-year-old individuals who think they know more about national security and constitutional rights than the established processes making determinations about what can and can not be released publicly. that's yes said that i think that people who are leaking ought to be prosecuted. there ought to be deterrent to people who leak. >> what is the right age? >> i was going to say, thomas drake wasn't 29, someone came forward and jane wrote -- >> age doesn't matter. i happened to pick that one.

>> but it is -- >> president obama's, right, i understand that i understand it is a complicated matter but i think, again, if we go back to the snowden case, please tell me what the damage has been to the public wheel? what has been -- >> but i told you. we are seeing our adversaries saying, gee, if we communicate this way, we're going to be intercepted. if they stop communicating that way, we don't know where they have gone. so we can't, you know, we don't know what we're missing. but that is happening david. >> have any lives been endangered or harmed? >> i mean, i don't know that know the answer to that. i'm a lawyer. i'm not the, i'm not the operational guy. i know of instances where there have been concerns about lives being endangered. i know that there was one where we did, in fact talk to the

media organization in question and they did in fact pull something back where lives would have been endangered. i can't say, but i don't think, that is not the standard that i apply, have lives been endangered. >> i think, folks, i want to thank the panel. wait, we have one more question. this will be the last question. >> whoops. my name is eleanor block. i'm a retired professor of sociology at cuny. i am, my husband and i have two sons. our oldest son is at harvard college and our youngest son is developmentally disabled. he works at nyu and the bronfman center and the colombia ll and works at peruvian emba system he is mentally retarded. i have letters extolling him

incredibly. he is looking for one day of work. could be unpaid or, voluntary or paid. i wonder -- >> why don't we meet afterwards? we'll talk about. >> since it not germain. i knew you were ending. >> i want to thank the panel and audience and this is our last panel. [applause] >> and president obama leaving tomorrow for a week-long trip in asia. stopping in washington state to observe the damage from the last month's mudslides, heading to south korea, japan, malaysia and the philippines. president obama will be the first sitting u.s. president to visit malasia, since lyndon

johnson was there in 1966. here is more about the trip. >> president obama is headed on a trip to asia. joining us now to discuss that topic is michael green. he is the senior vice president for asia at the center for strategic and international studies and professor at georgetown university. thank you for being with us this morning. >> guest: good u morning. >> host: tell us the importance of the u trip. this was rescheduled during the because of the government shutdown guest guest president was going last fall and they had to postpone that when it happened with bill clinton this makeup trip. he is going to japan, korea, malaysia, philippines and southeast asia. since president bush the president has gone once a year at least to asia. it is americans say the most important region in the a worldo us today, in polling. after the united states, second and third largest economies. china, japan and asia and it's a

dangerous place. the korean peninsula is the most heavily armed region in the world. china's power is growing. so a steady hand from the u.s. and a reassuring presence are much appreciated across the country that the president will visit. >> host: so these four countries, japan, south korea, malaysia, and the philippines. why those four specifically? >> guest: we have a lot of important allies and partners in the region and these four, this time, because the president will go to china later this year, so he will have a chance to talk to the chinese leaders. there able summit then of other states. so these countries are in effect the maritime states along china's ocean border that are feeling pressure from china frankly over territorial disputes and felt somewhat neglected in u.s. foreign policy. japan's our biggest and most important ally in many ways. hosts the most troops we have,

air force, navy, marines. korea, is a long-standing close ally, standing on the front lines of freedom if you will next to the north koreans. the philippines has been pressed hard by chinese. on territorial disputes and suffer a big natural disaster. malaysia has not had an american president visit since lyndon jobs sown in 1966. it is a growing economy and a leading voice in southeast asia. >> host: you mentioned china earlier. despite the president is not specifically going to china this trip, he will go later how much is about china and chinese relations? >> guest: a lot of it is about china. china is growing rapidly. china is the largest trading partner for all the countries that the president will visit. not like that they want trouble with the chinese. they're feeling enormous pressure as chinese force grow.

they are claiming small rocks and islands along the islands that stretch from japan down to the philippines and the president has put a lot of attention on asia but he's not really senton a consistent signl about how we think about china my view. at types he said we want a new model of great and powerful relations and some respect for core interests and other times he was pretty tough, standing up for allies when they have been pressured. one key thing he will have to find way to the region to explain how we are standing by our allies and do not tolerate pressure on them as chinese power grows, but at the same time we like our friends and allies want to cooperate with china and want mutual benefit in whole range of areas in economic and climate change. this is whole balancing act. he will have to try to make the message clear while not actually visiting china. >> host: this story is playing out on every front page. i want to read a snippet from

"the washington post" and ask you for your thoughts. on one level the president has a long list of tasks awaiting him. will try to make headway on trade negotiations with japan. foster a closer alliance with the government and move majority of malaysia and shore up support for the president of the philippines but it is also by its very nature an interim step in the administration's larger project of seeking to rebalance its relationship with the most economically and socially dynamic region of the world at a time when china continues to expand its influence there. i want to ask you specifically about this idea of rebalancing or pivoting to asia we've been hearing since 2011? >> guest: it was the so-called pivot was announced in 2010. then the white house called it the rebalance. the basic idea we've been spending too much time on iraq afghanistan and the middle east and need to pay attention to asia where as i said the economic dynamics are incredibly important and the dangers are very real. there's a lot of drama, a lot of

spin to this pivot. i worked in the bush white house almost five years in charge of asia. not like we ignored asia but the administration wanted to try to put an exclamation point on the focus on the region. hillary clinton as secretary of state was very well-liked throughout much of the region because she really traveled and spent a lot of time on it. there are questions in the region about the second term of the obama administration. many are asking whether secretary kerry has the same level of interest. he spent a lot of time in the middle east for example. so the president's trying to say, no, no we still are committed and this is important to us. there will be specific things that will tell whether that's true. one is this trade agreement, tpp, that is being negotiated with 11 other country notice region, the most most important and biggest which is japan. questions about the defense budget is being cut at a time defense budgets in the region especially china's, are growing. there are a lot of questions he will have tos answer about our commitment. just going is so important.

the president of the united states on a trip like this carries so much attention and, and influence that just going out there in itself is a great opportunity for him. >> if you start with the basics, everything acknowledges that consumers have the right to an antenna, everybody acknowledges consumer has the right to make it recording free over the air content for themselves. everybody acknowledges there is nothing wrong with a combination of antenna and back then a vcr, now a dvr the debate seems to be where the equipment is located because nobody has appealed the finding of facts which was each individual consumer crows their own antenna the antenna actually is dead until the consumer logs in and instructs the antenna to tune to a particular frequency. each individual consumer makes their own cop picks unique, distinct, never mingled with anybody else's and watches it

and transmits it to themselves. none of those facts have been appealed or disputed ever. it comes down to, we as a country and as a system, do we permit this idea of private conduct which courts consistently founders yes, we do. and congress has been encouraging the idea of consumption of local broadcast television. so the idea that a new way of capturing this signal by an individual should somehow be prohibited is absolutely incorrect, wrong, incorrect policy and a devastating blow to innovation in the next step of our industry which is, movement of all of these technologies away from the consumer's home into the cloud. >> tuesday, the supreme court will take up whether aereo is violating copyright law by transmitting broadcast networks over the internet without permission. hear from the aereo head tonight on "the communicators," at

8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> and all this week while congress is on break we'll have booktv in prime time on c-span2. tonight a look at shavery and emancipation, starting at 8:30 eastern with greg grandon the author of empire, and necessity, slavery, freedom and redemption in the new world. the story of the american maroons and david brion davis, the problem of savory in the age of emancipation. in booktv in prime time. president and ceo of northrop grumman, wes bush, says he is in favor of immigration reform so his company can hire overseas talent. he was featured speaker at the economic club of washington, d.c. where he spoke for about 40 minutes.