issue of why we are all here is that the processes and working. affordable care act and i'm very much involved in it and they gave it my level best. alone republicans standing. [applause] >> i know that for a fact. my former chief of staff asked me do you know where this is all going? i said i really don't. i had to take it to the end and decide the end of the road and ask where you draw that line and what you can support of what you can't and i couldn't. it requires bipartisan and that is why the process matters. when you have both sides weighing in on a significant issue is the largest domestic initiative in our history. sitting at the table working through you identify major problems with issues. if you think about our history with the voting rights act and the civil rights act and how they came to pass it was bipartisan. social security and medicare.

how do we get these amendments ratified to the constitution and the 19th of them and the right to vote. because of the united states congress willingness to work together on major land arc initiatives and that is not happening today. unfortunately it happened with the affordable care act. it should've been a process by which everyone was engaged on both sides make a difference. we won't get into why it didn't but unfortunately it didn't. ultimately the people are paying the price today. that is why think so many people are saying we prefer gridlock because they say there are so many problems with implementation. not to say there wouldn't be some problems with a major initiative of this kind but let's just say there would be less of them. you have more interest to make sure we have those sites working on a major proposition of this kind. >> i now i have party spoken but i can't -- i have to tell you the story.

[laughter] senator wyden and died in the previous congress put together a bipartisan health care bill. we called it the healthy americans act and mary landrieu called it the noah's arc bill because you go wanted to buy two every time i got a republican sponsor senator wyden had to get a democratic sponsor. every time he got it democrat to sign i had get a republican. we got up to 19 co-sponsors. i had 10 republicans in the nine democrats prevail among my co-sponsors were ministers of leadership trent lott back, lamar anderson -- lamar alexander. the election occurs in president obama selected. health care is on the agenda. i get a phonecall from tom daschle saying we help us and i said well of course. but tom i want to see -- a seat at the table.

he said absolutely. you have got a seat at the table. tom daschle ran afoul of the confirmation process and did not get to be secretary of hhs. a new team came in. i got a phonecall and i will not tell you the name. i want to visit with you about health care. great. come on in. an individual came in and said really appreciate all the work you have done on health care. thank you. really appreciate your interest. thank you. love to have your support as we work to get this bill done. would be glad to do it by wanting to get very clear it's not going to be a healthy americans act. it's not going to be your bill. it's going to be our bill and what i'm here to do is to say i want you to support our bill. i said there are some things in the bill i really believe in. we are going to write the bill. and i said do you mind if i tell ron? ron wyden and he said that's why

i'm here. okay so i picked up the phone and i called senator wyden and i said i've just been told by x that our bill is dead on arrival and he says he and mcveigh have been working on me to get me to abandon it and i won't so he figures if he works on you and you will tell me to abandon it then we will abandon it. we had 19 co-sponsors including two members of leadership who were willing to work on a bipartisan solution because we believed that the current health care structure was impossible, terrible, bad for americans and needed to be changed. we were frozen out of the conversation and told to go away and it was passed with 60 democratic votes and not a single one of the 10 republican co-sponsors was ever asked to participate in the process of

putting it together. so this was one place where i chalk it up not to anything. i'm not rush limbaugh. i'm not somebody who says he hopes the president will fail. this was an example of the presidents in experience of dealing with the congress. he had a great opportunity and he muffed it. >> i don't know how many times i used to hear that if ted had in any united states senator at the time they would have worked it out because you was a master at writing legislation and understanding the give-and-take of the legislative process. that is why he thought it was so great today that our day began with profound symbolism and visiting the kennedy institute and seeing what the senate was all about and what it's going to be all about and that interaction and would inspire so many young people to run for public office knowing out that

process works in knowing how he made it work. >> i have to chime in for just a second because even in the house there was tremendous respect on both sides for ted kennedy because of the way he operated. i guess speaking in broader terms about people that used to be in the senate and the house that operated from that vantage point where they really wanted to try to get the right thing done and if they couldn't get their way they were not going to lie on the tracks and call a news conference and stomp their feet and try to get you in your next election. he never did that and i think that's, just to build on what olympia is saying was one of the great things about him. >> is there a ted kennedy in the senate now? someone who is kind of a master legislator, respected on both sides? is there a young senator someone who seems like a prospective ted

kennedy? >> lamar alexander. >> lamar alexander? >> i would agree. >> and the other nominees? >> no. >> it would be easier for you had a list to look at. >> can i give you a name that will surprise everybody? chuck schumer. i was the ranking member of the rules committee and chuck was the chairman. everybody said to me this is going to be terrible. before it was dianne feinstein and diane is wonderful and we worked everything out without difficulties or problems and she was wonderful. he said no, diane has moved on to intelligence and you have chuck schumer and he is tough and is just going to be awful.

i never asked chuck for anything that he didn't give me. i made sure all of my requests were reasonable but okay this is reasonable and i would go to chuck and sit down and chuck would say yet okay. we can work that out. i know he has a reputation of a brass knuckles, brass knuckles back alley fighter and he is as tough a partisan as you are going to come across but chuck is transactional. he can make a deal and i think if chuck were the majority leader or i would prefer minority leader and lamar alexander was the majority leader i think you would see a very different senate. >> a couple more quick names. orrin hatch is one in the house bill shuster and hal rogers are a couple of names.

they may not be household names but they are within the institution itself respected as people who really want to work with you to try to accomplish. >> it's interesting that senators schumer and senator alexander happened to be the two people that have been working together on the processes in the senate to get things going. let's report on the results of our second on line audience question. we asked would you support a two-year budget so congress can focus on budget issues have to soften? what did you tell us? lots of support, 87% yes, 13% now in favor of a two-year budget. let's ask our third and final audience poll question which is this. would congress be more productive if members of their family spent more time in watching 10? you can vote at their web site bipartisan policy.org's {/

but our poll we asked members of congress should move their families to washington and 6-1 americans said they should leave their families in the district. there was much more concerned about members losing touch with what the constituents wanted and there was about forging relationships. i wonder if that's just a hurdle that you can't overcome when it comes to spending more time in washington or when voters have such a consensus. >> i think the notion of leaving the family back home is a relatively new phenomenon. historically families eyes move to washington and certainly it was expected. in the senate for a six year term the idea that your family would be someplace else and the senate was in. teddy used to talk about it and said they were in five days a week so the idea that your family would be someplace else was just unthinkable.

it was a chance as well to have a chance to have dinner with your family if you could couldn't you talked about it and we did this with my children as well. we would have picnics on the capital lawn. the senate would be in session and sometimes there would be a band in the old days when the marine band would play on the capital on. do you remember that? we would sit under a tree and have a picnic and then go back and for a vote. it was the idea that you could have a civilized life but you also have the sense of a normal family life. it also allowed you to meet other senators to meet their families, to meet their spouses. and the senate spouse club where we would have regular luncheons. i had wonderful across the aisle wonderful relationship with senator bennett's wife and other spouses. that made a difference in how our spouses interacted with each other. all of those things make a

difference. you get to know each other as human beings so i think it's a terrific idea to spend time in washington. they are -- you are there to do a job and it's to represent your constitueconstitue nts in washington. that is what the job is and the more you think about being in a workplace of not getting along with your co-workers, how productive can you be? if you don't know your co-workers names how productive can you be? so i'm very much in favor of it. >> i think it must be -- [applause] this audience agrees with you and it must be hard on a member of congress not to have a family living in washington but when your constituents are very suspicious of the idea would you do? can you book them and say no it's really important to have in there? >> first of all bears the distinction and a big difference. the term of the senator and the term of the u.s. house of representatives member which is two years. you win in november. in texas he win in november and

a year later you are filing for office again. my dad was elected to congress in 1961. mom and dad had eight kids. we were lucky to have a home back in san antonio much less one in san antonio and one in d.c.. we would visit dad in the summer to at a time because he lived in an apartment. but i'm just saying when i was in congress i still remember the congresswoman from new mexico was in charge of taking a survey or a pull. 75% of the members of the house did not have their families in washington. it's not that you don't want them there. one i think it's a financial situation. it's really really difficult. secondly, you are running for office and you will be back home whether you like it or not during that campaign year which is every other year. so as much as i would like to see it because it does make for a more complete member to have

family there, it makes you a better person and able to get along and you will see other members. henry and i, we doubled, remember? my step kids and your kids and such that they were just visiting back then. i can see the advantages and just the practicalities of it, the two-year term in the financial constraints and challenges would bake it really difficult read. >> charlie and i are good examples. conservative, liberal. we get along great read we didn't agree on a whole lot of things and we are congress but we always got along and i probably got mad at him a couple of times and vice versa but we did have opportunities to hang out like that. it really helps when you are trying to work on something and it might be two out of 10 issues that you might agree on but it's more than you have now in washington. so those kinds of things do matter. if you are for continuing

dysfunction in washington and gridlock then you probably don't want numbers to spend more time in washington. if you want them to work together and get along more you will want them to be in washington more because you do build those relationships that make it harder to just be ugly for political purposes and just lends itself to more compromise. see here are questions from our audience from kate atkins from the harvard kennedy school. she writes what message do you have for the millennial generation both as voters in individuals who might run for office or otherwise engage with government? with responsibilities and incentives do they have to get involved and how should they get involved? congressman flake lets start with you and i wonder also if there might be some attitude among some young people that why would they want to get involved in the political system where it's so hard to get things done and they're such a personal cost? >> i think millennials have argued rubin if you look at the

last presidential campaign that they are interested. they want to be involved. they want to be engaged. they don't necessarily know fully what all of that means but what they do know is who they want to be seated in the white house or in the congress representing them in their particular communities and their particular areas. and i do believe that as they grow and particularly in this age where they have access to all of this hardware to communicate with each other, believe you are going to see some turns very soon in terms of how they connect to one another and how they go to the polls and how they see themselves in relationship to other people who are surrounding them. i do believe that you will see a much greater turnout in the future. they see themselves as the future and i think if we go

operate with them in push them and help them to understand politics better than they do i think that we will find this would be a generation that made really change the whole scope of politics as we know it today. >> millennials are elected to office and increasingly taking positions of authority. will they be different from the current generation terms of how they were? >> i think they will. >> they will be. they want different things. >> what will be different? >> i think they come out of institutions, universities and other places. they have a different mind-set about what life is about and most of them are relatively mature. they have exceptional communication skills. they will be able to speak in such ways that they can present themselves and people understand

what they mean by what they say. i do believe we are going to see a dramatic change in the next two or three years and i am using just populations of young people as they deal with them so much. their ideas are great ideas but at this point they need to find a way to get people. >> senators if millennials ruled the world how different would they be? >> i think they will learn not to take their cues from the current climate in washington. i've definitely gotten that impression from young people as i have traveled across the country and speaking at college campuses. they constantly ask me the question about what they can do to change it and how best can they they contribute and they do wonder whether or not they should participate in running for public office or public service. i tell them absolutely you must because they always asked me the tricky question. well if you let the united

states then why are you asking us to get involved? [laughter] well i say that is a good question but i say i'm in another stage in mike and and thus contribute this way than convincing people that you can change the current -- they are very earlier in their lives and they have an entire lifetime ahead of them as well as their country so they need to be involved and to make an impact because of what is at stake. it will have profound implications with them going forward given the enormity of the dead and other problems that have been long deferred frankly. they want to be involved. i'm so impressed. they wants to be problem solvers and they are looking at the world around them. they are aware and they want to change this political system. now we just have to encourage them to run for office and keep that in mind as one of the

options of engaging in public service. my generation and president kennedy and we need to have a whole new generation of young people thinking about it especially in these times where there are so many issues that have a tremendous impact on their future as we know. >> lets look at the results from the third question we pose to our on line audience. we asked the congress be more productive members of their family spent more time in washington and here is will we heard from you. yes, 61%, no 39% so little at odds in what we found for the nationwide survey for americans. we have several e-mails and comments that go to campaign finance and what kind of factor that plays in dysfunction. here is one from robert hartsville of oklahoma city. he wrote us can we get money out of politics and by the way also integrate members of congress in d.c. over the weekend to reduce

vacations. he has a lot of things who would like to discuss and from pam pennell to porter maine she writes of seen amounts of money are squandered to buy media sound bites aimed at distracting voters and discrediting opponents. because elected officials are bubbled into their benefactors the idea of voting based on the goal of representing constituents is lost. his campaign finance the most critical component of both congressional reform and restoring public confidence in government? senator bennett what do you think? >> okay. here we go. if i could wave a magic wand i would repeal mccain-feingold. think of the presidents we elected under the old system starting here with john f. kennedy whose father had all the money in the world. a kennedy quipped when the election was very close and he

said my father said he would buy me the presidency but he was not going to buy a landslide. can you get money out of politics? the answer is no. you cannot. and it's like trying to stop water from running down the hill. you can build a dam. you can store a little of it in place for a while and deferred it but it's going to run downhill one way or the other. what we have done with campaign finance reform and i realized them pretty much alone on this but here we go. what we have done in the name of campaign finance reform is weaken the parties and take the control of the campaign away from the capitalists because it's improper to give that much money to the party. it's improper to give that much money to a candidate but since we have something pesky in the constitution called the first amendment you can express

yourself in a political campaign and if he can't give the money to the party and he can't give the money to the candidate as much as you want then you became shelden adelson and you buy your own ad. pretty soon the outside expenditures take over the campaign and distort the campaign. the people who buy those ads are 1-800-nasty and b, bad marketers. they produce bad ads and that's part of the whole circumstance where everybody is turned off about politics and i don't want to have anything to do with it. the woman new hampshire who said i don't vote for any of them. it only encourages them. [laughter] they hate politics because of the way it's been done and you can go back to the old days when the parties that were professional and knew how to do the right kinds of campaigns in

intelligence kinds of ads and candidates that could say no they are not going to run that ad in my campaign because it's going to make me look bad i think we would have a whole better situation than we have now because now it's get money out of politics, you're not going to get money out of politics. all we are doing is distorting the direction in which the money goes and empowering people who otherwise would have their influence tamp down by the power of the parties themselves. the parties are weaker now than they have ever been in american history. i look back at the candidates that were elected before we started campaign finance reform people like dwight eisenhower and jack kennedy. we did pretty well in those days. the final passage of

mccain-feingold occurred and they said now this will be big money out of politics and the first election fought after that was between al gore and george w. bush and yeah that was an election where there was not very much big money. that was an election where we saw all of the benefits that came out of that. you have touched on a hot-button with me and i appreciate the opportunity. now you can boo and hiss all that you want. that's the position that i take. >> is unfortunate you don't have any means to share with us. we do have a system now where we control money to parties that we don't control spending by billionaires. should be loose and the restrictions on the party or eliminate them altogether to strengthen the party's? what do others on the panel think about that idea? >> the supreme court will be dealing with that because their art administrations of what we can as an individual.

the primary and the general. the parties are restricted to a certain amount but super pacs are not. that is where all this is heading. you are not going to get the money out of politics or elections. it's going to find its way in some fashion. you're just going to find a way of doing it. the question is can you do some things that might level the playing field? i'm not real crazy about just saying no limits at all. you should be able to give me $5 million and no restrictions. i don't know if that's the solution. just because a super pac can be created and do that in shift the monies over and you don't even know who the donors but disclosure we could be doing those things. at least you would know where that money is coming from for that multi-million dollar ad. we can even do that in congress.

you just don't get rid of the money. it's going to find its way in one way or another. >> at incorporated is an important issue for us at the bipartisan policy center as well looking at areas recommendations but given the supreme court decision it's a higher hurdle now. citizens united which did unleash the force of the super pacs which i hate to bring up a sore subject of mccain-feingold my provision was a mccain-feingold attempting to address the issue and trying -- drawing distinction between ads that were electioneering ads that influence the outcome of an election. those were a position on an issue. the first of trading -- supreme court challenge and then the court took it in another 100 years back and said corporations were people and that ultimately

led to the super pacs. i think it is important to demand accountability and disclosure of donors to these organizations. that is one way of having transparency. many of these organizations that have one donor or thousands and i think that would help to some degree. short of a constitutional amendment the amount of citizens united you have to look at otherwise. if you get lit rid of leadership pacts, think it was down to three in the senate when i left and we thought that would be it. who did not have a leadership pac. leadership pacts are designed to give more money in addition to your own re-election campaign in to get to colleagues who are running in the candidates and so forth created senators and members of the house more than

half had leisure tax as well so it's more money in more time commitment by members of congress who raise money beyond their own re-election campaign. there are-somethings some things we can do and looking at others for emphasizing small donors and may be get tax credits and that sort of thing to help ring in smaller donors to have a greater emphasis on their participation. >> susan i have to leave a little early but i do want to point out during this discussion that this group has discussed at great length in the last year the amount of time that senators and house members have to spend raising money not just campaigns for their parties for their senate house and pacs in all of that. something has to be done to cut back on that because they spend in many cases -- [applause] up to half of their time in washington raising money. >> that's a result of mccain-feingold.

for most of the first half of my career the most i could ask anybody contribute to my campaign was a thousand dollars. do you know how many phonecalls you have to make at $1000 apiece to get enough money to run a senatorial campaign? now it went up and we have indexed it and now it's 2500. so you don't spend quite as much time on the phone but the example of eugene mccarthy who probably took out lyndon johnson in 1968 election, eugene mccarthy .25 people and raise $100,000 for each one of them fully disclose who they were. ..

>> pardon me? >> the public financing, he is saying. do you want to respond? >> well, no, -- >> well, -- >> the amount of money, but the dow is growing exponentially. people developed -- you know,

found a loophole in existing campaign laws at the time. at think what bob is referring to is not allowing political parties to accept soft money. so he has leveraged these other groups. so i think that the sphere of influence went to these outside organizations as opposed to the political parties who could not, you know, get leverage with candid it's running for political office. that is something maybe we have to look at again in terms of whether or not you want political parties to, you know, accept, you know, certain contributions. have to really look at that. the question is more money in the system. the flood gate is open with citizens united which, again, struck down. my provision was attempting to address the organization. they ran an ad 60 days before an election and identified the individual by name and said,

well, tell centers note to vote, you know, this way. i was up for reelection. that would be considered a political ad, and it would be restricted to the amount of money they could receive and also have to disclose there contributors and donors' names. but unfortunately that was struck down. if they did not identify me by name just tell your senator to vote x, y, and see. then you would not be considered part of an election and would not have to, you know, form a political action committee. >> i want to say one thing, it is such a complicated issue and something we are discussing is a commission, but the problem with just allowing unlimited contributions to a candid it is exactly the problem we are seeing right now. it would allow a few very wealthy individuals to bankroll some handpicked candidates who would absolutely stack the deck, and you would only have their

hand-picked candid it's able to afford to run for office. we are sitting here talking about gerrymandering, and our concern about districts that don't represent really the faces of america or the face of their particular state. i think this would, in another way has the potential to totally corrupt the process. i think we need to think about other ways. i do think there have been unintended consequences from some campaign finance reform, but we need to think of other ways. maybe television time actually gets donated. why does it cost so much? this is a public service. i'm sorry for all the television people watching this, but maybe there is some sort of contribution back to the public good or other kinds of things. i'm very concerned. i just cannot let that go. [applause] >> i think bonnie gorman who is in our audience has a question

with the solution to our book problems. we're almost at a time. she writes, when an arm better consensus makers and man. what electing more women to congress help? >> that is yours. [applause] that's the way it is. >> but i wonder if -- we have now a record number of women in the u.s. senate. they do seem to behave -- not that they are conservatives or liberals. they do seem to behave in a different way and the men do. what is your perspective on that ? they get together for dinner. >> and they still do. we get to know each other very well. we have regular dinners, personal dinners. whenever we say there's stays there. we have never had a disclosure. on occasion we write the female

justices of the supreme court and in turn and bite us to the supreme court for dinner. it is more personal, but we can talk about families and friends or what's going on, issues, whatever the case may be. the point is it builds, i think, a collaborative environment which you can, you know, ultimately build on when you are looking at issues down the road. i think you saw that during the budget process as well as during the shutdown when the women of the senate decided to take matters into their own hands and change the direction. so we have that, you know, camaraderie builds from years of just working together and also having time personally to spend together. >> of final comments from north carolina. he writes, the main reason their is a divide is because half the people believe the government has problems and the other half

believe it is a solution. our last word. i want to thank the bipartisan policy center that cochairs the commission on political reform. the edward m. kennedy institute and john f. kennedy library and our great audience here in boston and online. thank you for being with us. [applause] we hope you won't stand up yet. we up to see you on june 21st for the release of the final recommendations and asked the panel to stay seated. i welcome former secretary, co-chair of the commission to the stage for closing daunts. >> thank you. it was terrific. outstanding. i wish you had some strong views it really disturbs me. i want to think again on behalf of the bp see, the kennedy institute, heather and the kennedy library in much ray

grayson and our great moderator who has been responsible for all of the stories. [applause] i served in the house for 18 years, and there are words inscribed above the speaker's chair by daniel webster. i used to look at this periodically. they said the following. let us develop the resources of our land, called forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its interests to see whether we also in our day and our generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered. and i thought to myself, that is the point of government, the point where we are here, to perform something worthy to be remembered. even in disagreement in a vibrant democracy, the goal is always to engage the issues in a way that our descendants would be proud, get the job done and also bear fruit to the ancestors of our past.

recognizing this is not just abstract issues. america's leaders are a stake. our ability to be a beacon of hope for the world and do the right thing for our citizens is very much dependent upon a strong and effective system of government at all levels. so today we talked about congressional reform. over the past year we talked about political polarization, weighs how we vote and shoes are elected officials, had increase opportunities for public service to develop the next generation of leaders. and we have been hard at work behind the scenes as most of the folks appear talked-about to figure out recommendations for the future, but we need the input of the public. we want continued feedback on twitter, facebook, as to grant, or the old fashion snail mail to let us know what you think constructively we can do to help

our political system, our democracy become more resilient. over the next three months we will continue to discuss these issues with your input. the commission will reconvene in washington on june 24th to announce recommendations and report to the nation, the congress, the white house. reforms to improve our political system and then the follow-up necessary to actually get things done. after the commission releases recommendations we need your continued support to urge our leaders to implement the solutions. you can sign up on a bipartisan policy center website as a citizen for political reform and help advocate for political reform across the country. as we close today i remembered what john f. kennedy wrote in profiles in courage, the stories of past courage can teach. they can offer help. they can provide inspiration, but they cannot supply encourages self. for this each person must look

into his or her own soul. you will take plenty of courage to make change, and i hope all of us will find the courage to strengthen our democracy and ensure that america can continue to do things were ready to be remembered. thank you very much for being here. appreciate it very much. >> president obama will appear momentarily. a mudslide killed 41 people, and two are still missing. president obama i arrived this afternoon and took an aerial to work. he was joined by the governor and two senators. kra tv rights that after four weeks the debris which is still

30 feet deep in some places looks much the same despite thousands of hours of work by emergency responders and volunteers. we see some of the responders and volunteers as we wait for president obama. his remarks will be live. as we wait consumer federation of america held a summit. the white house. >> we are honored to have the senior policy adviser for nutrition policy at the white house and serves as executive director for let's move leading the first lady's work to help raise a healthier generation of children.

>> all right. well, good afternoon, everybody. i just had a chance to tour some of the damage from last month's mudslide, and most importantly i had a chance to spend some time with the families whose loved ones have been lost. i also had a chance to think some of the first responder's suit, firefighters, police officers, search and rescue crews and members of the washington national guard who have been working around the clock to help this community recover from this devastating incident. the governor, senators, congresswoman, congressman, and the rest of the elected officials who are here have been relentless as making sure that oso had the resources that it

needs to and from the day of the tragedy i instructed my team to make sure that they get what they need to make sure that this search and rescue mission is going forward the way it should. the incident management assistance team was on the ground immediately after the mudslide, and a search and rescue team was deployed to help locate and recover victims. we immediately approved an emergency declaration that provides additional resources to state and local responders. approving a major disaster declaration to help residents and business owners rebuild and help state and local and tribal governments with emergency worker. today that work continues. we are -- there are still families who are searching for love alums. there are families who have lost everything, and it will be a difficult road ahead. that's why i wanted to come here, to let you know that the

country is thinking about all of you and has been throughout this tragedy. we are not going anywhere. we will be here as long as it takes because while very few americans have ever heard of oso before the disaster struck we have all been inspired by the incredible way that the community has come together and shown the love and support that they have for each other in ways large and small. over the past month we have seen neighbors and complete strangers done everything from chain saws terror rain jackets to help the recovery effort. we have seen families could meals for rescue workers, volunteers pull 15-hour days searching through my up dead 7 feet deep. one resident said we are oso, and we just do it. that is what this community is all about. the outstanding work, he had

shouldered this burden in an incredible way. we are very proud of him as we are of all the local responders. you know, this is family. these are folks to love this land and you can see why because it's gorgeous. they're is a way of life here that is represented. and to see the strength in adversity of this community, i think, should inspire all of us because this is also what america is all about. when times get tough we look tougher each other. we get each other's backs and recover and build can come back stronger, and we are always reminded that we are greater together. we will support each other every step of the way. i have to say that the families that i met with showed

incredible strength and grace through unimaginable pain and difficulty says. uniformly they all want to say thank-you to the first responders. they were deeply appreciative of the effort that everybody is made, and i know that many of the first responders have heard that directly, but it does not hurt to repeat that we are very appreciative of what you've done , and i also want to say that some terrific lessons were learned in the midst of very hard times during this process because almost uniquely we had not just coordination between state, local, and federal officials but also coordination between volunteers and officials and i know that it required some improvisation and some kinks getting worked out, but it was important for the family members themselves, the community to be handed -- hands-on and

participate in this process. particularly a community like this one where folks are party and know how to do things and take great pride in being self-reliant. it was important that there were not just by standards in this process but evolved every step of the way. one last point i make, i received a number of letters from residents over the last several weeks. one in particular struck me. it was from a fire fighter who i may have met today. he did not identify himself, but he pointed out how those who are operating heavy machinery during this whole process did so with an incredible care and delicacy because they understood that

this wasn't an ordinary job. this was not just a matter of moving earth. this was a matter of making sure that we were honoring and respecting the lives that had been impacted. and to things were of no in that letter. number one, that this firefighter pointed out properly the incredible work that has been done under tough circumstances. number two, he was pointing out what others are doing, not what he was doing. and it to see a community come together like this and not be interested in who is getting credit but making sure that the job gets done, you know, that says a lot about the character of this place. we are very proud of all of you. michele and i grieve with you.

the whole country is thinking about you, and we're going to make sure that we are there every step of the lay as we go through the grieving, morning, recovery. we will be strong right alongside you. thank you very much. god bless you. god bless america. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] who. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [applause] >> and from there in washington state the president now headstay asia up where he starts off the trip in japan and then south korea and the philippines. he finishes the trip early next week. president obama will go -- be

the fourth sitting u.s. president to visit malaysia since lyndon johnson in 1966. the supreme court heard oral argument today against a service that allows people to record and watch broadcast television on their computers and smart phones . the television network abc sued the company arguing that it is violating copyright law. after this morning's argument the attorney for nbc and area spoke with reporters. >> arguing counsel for the networks today. i just want to say that obviously we're very glad to get before the court today. the case on the petition that we filed, the separate -- second circuit's decision because we thought it was profoundly wrong and a real threat to the nature of the broadcast industry as we

know it, so we were happy to be in court today. we are obviously very pleased with the way that the court consider the argument. they understood, i think, the technology. they understood the stakes very well. obviously there were focused principally on the interpretation of statute. we conveyed to them are relatively straightforward position which is that the service cannot provide live tv over the internet to thousands of strangers without engaging in a public performance. it really is as simple as that, and the statute protects public performance rights that aren't issues and area of technology and service which clearly violates the public performance. [inaudible question] >> well, i don't think we really perceive a weakness. we presented this case ultimately as a question of statutory interpretation for the

court which is certainly the when the corps will process this case. they are obviously concerned about the consequences for the broadcast industry and for other technologies, but they also understand that there is a fundamental difference between a service that provides content and something that provides essentially a story service. as we told the court and some ways it's like the analogy, the difference between a car dealer and a valet parking service. one of them provides cars to the public and the other provides your car back to you, not the provision of cars. i think you can make potentially similar distinctions in this case. ultimately what we urge the court to do is decide and leave those other questions for another day. [inaudible question] >> i don't really think i would

do anything differently, which is not to say that any argument cannot be improved but justice said that the principal point of oral argument at this stage is really tac answer the questions. the briefing does a lot of blame the groundwork. we felt like the justices had good questions and happy to try to point them in the right direction. >> any questions -- [inaudible question] >> well, one of the questions in this case does implicate how the copyright laws are going to apply in the digital age. we certainly think that there is nothing about the digital age that makes the copyright law obsolete, but some of the arguments being made on the other side of this case suggests that as long as the content is provided by the push of a button and a provider of the content is not doing anything. that really could revolutionize the technology in the digital age. our view is that congress

clearly addressed this issue in '76, technology neutral terms. i don't know that it could have been much more clear. it did not want to allow public performances by any device or process, and congress went further and said in a device or, -- process now or later developed. so congress has spoken on this very clearly. [inaudible question] >> i don't think that it -- you know, i think copyright cases in my experience are not left right cases. the court interprets these as questions of statutory interpretation. some justices maybe start with more concerns about the content providers, but i don't really think that has any political balance whatsoever. i think what is a stake in this case is really the nature of

broadcast television as we know it. because if a company can somehow provide content to lots of paying strangers without engaging in a public performance , i think the network, at least some of them will have to rethink the way that they provide content. i think that traditional understanding has been certainly since 1976 that when somebody like a cable company retransmits broadcasts over the airwaves from the airways ticket will consumers they are certainly engaging in public performance. if that changes, particularly in a way that suggests that over the air broadcasts are uniquely vulnerable i do think that companies are going to have to take that into account in determining whether provide their content and what formats the use. [inaudible question] >> well, you know, obviously i have been to more than one argument with more than one person who had a different impression about how the

argument went. i certainly think the justices were asking the right questions, and i think we provided the court with the straightforward interpretation of the performance right. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> hi. my name is david frederick, outside counsel for aerial. the supreme court today heard arguments in abc versus aerial. from our perspective the issue in the case was whether consumers who always had a right to have an antenna and dvr in their home and make copies of local, over the air broadcast television, that right should be addressed simply by moving the antenna and dvr to the cloud. the court decision today will have significant consequences for cloud computing. we are confident, cautiously optimistic based on when the hearing went today that the court understood that when a

person washing over the air broadcast television in his or her home is in beijing in a private performance and not a public performance that would implicate the copyright act. thank you very much. >> they key so much. [inaudible conversations] >> book tv and primetime continues tonight. stories from the white house. at 8:00 eastern dan jenkins on her book year abigail.

>> last day as chairman of the national transportation safety board is on friday. she spoke at the national press club yesterday about her five years. i'm going to show you about 30 minutes of the remarks at the national press club. even see the rest. >> good morning and welcome. i am an adjunct professor at the george washington university school of media and public affairs, a former international bureau chief for the associated press and the 100 1/7 president of the national press club. the national press club is the world's leading professional

organization for journalists committed top profession's future to programming with events such as this while posturing of free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club please visit our website. and to donate to programs offered to the public through our national journalism institute, please visit press got word / institute. on behalf of our members worldwide and would like to welcome our speaker and those of you attending today's event. our head table includes guests of our speaker as well as working journalists who are club members. if you hear applause in our audience knows that members of the general public are attending and it does not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic conductivity. i would also like to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences. you can follow the action on twitter using-tank in pc lunch.

after our guest speech concludes we will have a question and answer session. now it's time to introduce our head table guests. i would like each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. from your right, aviation week editor in chief, john boyd commander of the new secure on transportation. phil cassidy, journal of commerce senior editor, who bloomberg news aviation reporter and guest of our speaker. john wells, a senior executive at edelman and in speakers' committee member who helped organize today's events. the national transportation safety board director of public affairs and guest of our speaker . washington bureau chief of the buffalo news, chairman of the npc speakers' committee and past

president of the national press club. stepping over our speaker for a moment, angela riley king, bloomberg news white house correspondent, speakers' committee member who helped organize today's event and last year's national press club president. thank you. jan browne, airplane crash survivor and guest of our speaker. bloomberg news transportation reporter. recently retired from nbc news and automotive news, washington correspondent. [applause] in the ten years since president george w. bush appointed deborah to the national transportation safety board she has used her bully pulpit stylite a long list of transportation and safety issues. motorcycle buses -- excuse me, motor coach buses, motorcycle

riders, regional airlines, drug drivers, distracted drivers, pilots and train operators and even bowling have found themselves in her cross hairs. she even holds a commercial driver's license to better understand the industry she investigates. her agency which is responsible for investigating transportation crashes and accidents and determining there causes also issues recommendations on safety . during her term the board helped put distracted driving into the lexicon hand reform regional airline safety following a devastating crash in an offline. as she wraps up she is working to figure out how to safely transport oil by rail. this week she will leave the board to become ceo of the national safety council. she says she will continue our focus on transportation, safety

-- excuse me, even with the broader focus and solely on transportation safety. she leaves behind an open investigation including probes into the cause of battery fires in the boeing 787 dream liner, what happened with the airlines crash that killed two and a crash landing in san francisco and looking at the deadliest accident in the history of new york's metro-north railroad. early in her career. here to give her farewell remarks as chairman of the national transportation safety board, please help me give 01 national press club welcome to debra person. [applause] >> thanks you for that gracious introduction, and thank-you to all of the very busy people who have made time to come be with

me today. thank you for the introduction and the invitation to come back to the national press club. does anyone remember when a reliable source before it was remodeled in the 1990's? there were a little brass plates that had quotes on them that were all over the walls. perhaps some of -- some of you that our reporters my still have some of those breastplates. a lot of those plates have "some about the independent press has a check on how government. government says where i spent most of my working career, but i spent much of it at the national transportation safety board says where independence is critical. to we investigate, report, and go where facts lead us? yes.

is that something similar to what you and the press do? i think it is. but your primary responsibility is to inform the public. our primary responsibility is to investigate, to reduce future risk. when do we intersect? one press becomes news. today that's what i like to talk about. i'd like to talk about risk, especially unlikely rest and why we pay attention to them and when they become news. so let me start with a story about a secluded village that is high on amounts of and a prosperous kingdom where life is treasured. the only way to visit this secluded village was to be hoisted up in a rope drawn basket accompanied by a village elder.

one day a visitor notices as he is approaching the basket that the rope is badly frayed. he rationalizes that surely such a place would never put a risk their own elders and the visitors. but once the basket is off the ground and the wind starts to pick up, the baskets weighing, and he sure that the rope has just a little too much give to it, he rationalizes that they must find extra special road that has a lot of give because of the windy conditions near the village. finally, halfway up the top of the mountain and hundreds of feet from the ground the rope is squeaking, and he feels like he has to say something. so he turns to the village elders in the basket next demand says, how often to they're replace the rope?

and the village elder thanks for a moment and says, whenever breaks, i guess. so do you think that that is a good governance? are perhaps more relevant for the audience today, when the rope breaks would you write a story about it? i can see your headlines now. beware. village of death. so let's make the question a little bit harder. maybe rope is very expensive, and 10,000 passengers make the trek up in that basket of for the rope breaks. now should you wait until the rope breaks? what if the rope costs as much as solid gold?

should you wait until the rope breaks? sure, we could add all sorts of different variables, but what if you or someone that you loved is that 10,000 visitors? or what if you read the story of the 10,000 visitors. the stranger becomes someone and we all now, and the trouble is by that time the rope has already broken. let me tell you what happens when the rope breaks in real life. twenty-five years ago the ntsb investigated the crash landing in sioux city have a united airlines dc-10, flight 232. deck crew of this airplane did an amazing job in a no-win situation. now if anyone here in the room is star trek fan, this is the

kobayashi more root of dc-10 stimulated -- simulators. the flight took off from denver, bound for chicago, and on the way that tail-mounted engine exploded, severing all of their hydraulics. although the plane to wing-mounted engines were still operable, the crew had no control over the very essential control surfaces of the airplane crew members settled back to visually inspect the tail and wings while others methodically tried to access the control surfaces to no avail. they kept the plane flying using that different -- difference in trust between the two engines. the captain realize that they would have to perform a crash landing and he informed the crew. the crew then had the task of

repairing the past -- preparing the passengers on the fly for that landing, but there was no way to prepare those passengers. there were children under two on board, and they were permitted to sit on their parents' laps. so as the passengers and the cabin crew waited for the brace signal a senior flight attendant picked up the microphone and reminded the parents to buckle their babies by wrapping them and towels and blankets and placing them on the floor and praising them with their hands and legs. and that is exactly what to mothers did. lori michaelson and sylvia, but the plane's final approach speed was over 240 miles-per-hour. the right wing, on the runway. the plane cartwheeled, broke into three pieces, caught on

fire, and ended up in a cornfield. that crew could not control the landing. nobody could. those mothers could not hold on to their babies. amazingly 185 people survived the crash, but tragically 111 people lost their lives. in the aftermath of the crash and the burning fuse lush lori and mark michelson could not find their 11 month old daughter, sabrina. they had to make a choice that no parent should ever have to make, whether to an escort there for and 6-year-old sons out of that burning aircraft to safety board said stay to look for sabrina.

and the thick smoke then made their choice. they got their boys out of that airplane safely. mark ran back to search for sabrina. he heard her cry, but only once soviet tried to return to the plan to find her son, but that senior flight attendant who had prepared them for the crash landing blocked her path and told her she could not return to the burning aircraft. she said calpers would find a baby. sylvia looked up at that flight attendants and said, you told me to put my baby on the floor, and i did. now he's gone. ever since then and that senior flight attendant has been on a crusade to ban lap-held children on flights, advocating forcibly on the issue, testifying before congress, and some journalists, maybe some in this room have drawn attention to the issue telling stories of flight 232 and others.

ten years earlier in 1979 the ntsb recommended that the research and issue a rule making on restraint of small children. we recommended restraints for lap-old children after the sioux city accident. we have been recommending it ever cents. some people say that the risk is small. i say no. a baby a small. we secure laptops and coffee pots, but we do not secure our most precious cargo, our children. are there other risks that the ntsb should also pay attention to? of course. how many people die in large airplane crashes? just a handful in the last four years.

but 30,000 people have died every year on our nation's highway. to you think that we should back off for the aviation safety? most people don't. most people want those troops replaced before the break, not after, but now. safety is never just about the numbers. 1500 people die on the titanic sank. there was room in the lifeboats for scarcely have a board, but because of ill-defined evacuation procedures some of those lifeboats left half-empty. in response 100 years ago this year 13 nations concluded work on the safety of life at sea. then world war one broke out

followed by the spanish flu pandemic where tens of millions died. did we forget the titanic, no. the story had been told in newspapers, in part, in poetry. people learned what happened to strangers and the web to. did we forget about it? no. today there are 159 countries that have signed on to that agreement. once the rope breaks you cannot let it brick again. people expect some things from the government, and a good and improving standard of safety is one of those things that they expect from their government. that is because who we are transcends statistics and facts. it has to do with how our brains

are wired. i would like to ask you to think back for the journalist in the room, i want you to think back to an interaction with your first editor that is -- has released a quick you and for the rest of us think about your first boss. i would like you to think on and interaction a you really remember. okay. you've got that memory. for those that are in the audience, how many of those memories were good? abcaeight. how many of those memories were bad? neutral? okay. i saw a lot of hands go up for bad and only one for good. i think that that really helps to prove a point, and that has

to do with how we remember things. the main villain influences the encoding of apathetic memory or in layman's terms bad memories stick. think about it. there will be their own reviews. what are they going to remember? they will remember the tenth that said something that. that's like -- that's why companies spend an awful lot of money trying to help their employees through changed because there are an awful lot of people who say we tried something different 20 years ago and it did not work. they remember that. we have evolved that way to survive. if you're a cave man and a saber tooth tiger eats your friend a mile east of the cave is really important to remember not to go to that place a mile east of the cave.

we learn by seeing how. when you raise your hands before in response to my question a set of motor neurons fire. they tell your muscles what to do. when you lower it another set of motor neurons fired, but something else happened just now when you watched me raise my hands. some of your motor neurons fire began as if she had raise your hand. these are called mirror neurons. and they are key to learning and teaching. if you're teaching your child -- child to a tie their cheap -- shoelaces you do it first, show them how to do it and in a copy of. think how much easier that is then for of a child to have to try to learn to tie not all by themselves in a new way. so this is very helpful.

your teaching someone the throw a spear or build a fire it's another reason why we have survived. but there is more. when i scratch my hand sensory neurons fire in your brain. in some it's just because you're watching me. the only reason that you don't feel it in your hand is because you have a combination of sensory and mirror neurons, but if you non your hand so there is no feedback you would actually feel your hand being scratched. the spanish phrase for i'm sorry is the santo. it means i feel it. it is not just a colorful phrase . it's about human beings at the core when we see suffering or hear about suffering we feel it.

at some level we might override it. amfac rehab up mix of mirror and normal neurons to do just that. but we are hard wired for empathy. by the way, if you want more on mirror neurons check out the talks on it. i have borrowed from them shamelessly. so what the mirror neurons have to do with replacing the rope? we know that bad things stick with people, and we know that we empathize. so we have to replace the rope. we know that there are some risks that we can't personally control. that means sometimes we have to check cooperate to replace the road. fortunately we are wired to do just that. we form societies to teach each other where the predators' live. we eventually read the area of

predators. we band together against enemy tribes, and we teach each other brick to find food so that we don't starve. this contrasts, the idea that some people are weeded out and a few that remain get all the goodies. nobody wants that rope to break, so the other, safer villages get more visitors so the visitors to the secluded mountaintop i and the villages cut off from the kingdom and with as a way. because the person in the basket could be you are someone you love. in fact, part of your brain may think it is. you demand that they replace the rope. twenty-five years ago united flight 232 crashed.

last year flight 214 crashed in san francisco. with more than 300 people aboard the flight the plane struck a sea wall short of the runway, appear what it and ended up thousands of feet down the runway. only three people died, not 111. in part because the crashes were very different, but in part because a lot has been proven with safety since 1989. these were the first three fatalities in the united states in more than four years. 99 percent of the passengers on flight 214 survived. i know you have all seen footage of it. it was a catastrophic crash. but do you think that that statistic comforts the families

of the three people who were lost? for them this crash was the ultimate tragedy. this summer the ntsb expects to issue its final report on the crash in the hopes of preventing more treasurys because the next life lost could be yours, could be mine, or it could be any of ours. our brains tell us so. i began telling you about to mothers, sylvia and lori who could not hold their babies in place in 1989. there is more to the story because there was another passenger. he heard little sabrina's cry and fell to around in the overhead bin which at this time was on the floor because the plan was upside down. he fell to around in the thick smoke until he could grab a leg

and pulled her out into his arm. eventually he got outside of the airplane and handed sabrina to a woman in a cornfield to reunite her with the michelson's. later the michelson's were able to think jerry for doing the right thing, for doing what his human empathy and pelton to do, for acting in a selfless way that so many act when others are in need of assistance. but like so many heroes when jerry was interviewed he said, i'm not a euro because you would have done the same thing. there was no hero. somebody who has never forgotten that. the senior flight attendants that day was jan brown. i am honored to share the stage with her today.

i got a call. not to remove the issue of child passenger safety in aviation off of our most wanted list. she always mentioned have been every time she talks about this issue saying, this year have and would have been 16 and may be getting his driver's license. this year have and what have been 18 and may be leaving home for college for the first time. well, this year and would have been 27 and maybe his circumstances would have been different. he would have been a reporter covering some other speakers here today. so that's why we protect against events and what people want to write and read and watch the

stories because we are wired to do it, because it could have been us, and to some of our neurons' it was. making sure that the rope gets replaced and we know it's the right thing to do. we would not accept cars without seat belts to the. we would not accept airliners without evacuation slides. yesterday's tragic lesson are today's safety wish lists and tomorrows unacceptable risks. in that ten years that i started working with the ntsb i have seen more news segments that talk about pro-active solutions, people replacing the rope before it breaks. to the reporters reporting on a disaster is covering your be to. but preventing it gives you a

pulitzer. ..