to handle huge numbers of people appeared that every individual who is and can be helping with the program i counted a plus. our program has the involvement of judges, u.s. attorney's office in our u.s. attorney is here that the involvement of probation and the u.s. marshals service. and we have been in operation now for about eight years and that is good. one of the things that i want to talk about this morning is a term that judge gleason used, no

entry. the focus has to be there. i don't mean for people who have violated the law and committed infractions. i am talking about intervening and lives before they get to the criminal justice system. i am talking about interrupting the school to prison pipeline. i am talking about the reality of the communities in which people live and grow. as chair of the criminal justice section, we are looking at a program, putting together a program april 28th. this is a shameless plug. a part of the program is going to be pre-stage with the macarthur foundation coming out and talking to us about explaining to us about the role of narrow science in helping us to address some of these critical criminal justice

issues. dr. keri russell from harvard will comment and talk about the role that environment plays on brain development or lack thereof. when he talks about is the impact of growing up in high violent, high poverty, communities that are also high density communities and the effect that has on brain development. what he says is individual to live for long periods of time in environments like that have constant and unrelenting stress on the brain which can lead to a mineral connection between bad and certain behaviors. as a society, we have to be mindful of that. we have to look what is happening to children in schools and why we have burgeoning criminal justice budget. if we are in fact diverting resources from the early development, preschool or

whatever, knowing that kids don't have reinforcement of the anti-families about mentor to sort of guide them and all they see is the kind of negative behaviors we are talking about today, that we are not really interacting not flow. what we've been talking about today is really great, but it is all back in. we have got to start focusing front and because the amount of dollars we spend front end will be far less than we required to spend back and do the kinds of things we are doing on the front end. i know that is not an easy task, but i think everything we do to try and influence that will be positive. somebody mentioned mental health earlier, a huge issue because we have now repose and i think the commissioners that we now

propose a lot of mental health treatment in jails and prisons and people are coming into jails and prisons, some of them because they haven't gotten treatment on the front end. so we need to -- policy leaders need to address that. people talk about the number of children who have parents in prison. dr. john hagan from northwestern whose a scholar with the american bar foundation and consultation -- not the department of health and human services still added that lantana forgotten the name of it. thank you. the executive conference at the white house about four years ago. people have been studying the effect on the educational outcomes of children of incarcerated parents and what that research says is that children of incarcerated parents have higher incidences, first of

all, entry into the criminal justice system have lower rates of graduation from highest court and thus will have lower risk going into college. children of incarcerated parents have higher degrees of asthma, diabetes, hypertension, hiv/aids, certain allergies and a whole range of things. if you think about what i just said, then think about the cost of treating not in the community or more importantly think about the cost of not treating not. the other startling thing that came out of that was that while the rates in the outcomes are lower if a parent is in prison, for boys, the father is in prison, the rate goes way down. you heard this morning that they're a higher numbers of

mothers in prison. if the mother is in incarcerated parents, the rate of graduation all goes down closer to single digits and that is something we have to be concerned about. i hope that shocks you. if you have the level of people that can't get an education and go into the workforce, you have that many people who are not able to contribute and citizens of the workforce. two other quick things and i've got a lot of things, but i'll talk about them in my closing remarks be at the american bar association criminal justice section is working on a range of programs that tell you about tomorrow. not today. what i want to mention today because we are working on this program at the request of the justice department and there is a lawyer and there's certain things that the judge i cannot do. so we have a lawyer, the

criminal justice section out of florida. and he along with the criminal justice section led by his initiative and other collaborative partners are at the request of the justice department, working on what is called clemency project 2014. you have heard about sentences for low-level drug offenders. there are a bunch of them in prison. the justice department at the request of the president has reviewed these folks who would receive lower sentences today as a result of reform laws. and let's see if something can be done. let's see if some of these people merit clemency. i want to take you back to 20 years ago when i was a trial judge. two young men arrested for street drug dealing. their cases got separated. they were tried separately. defendant number one tried on a

drug offense, but acquitted, moved on with his life. and because of his criminal history, he was lucky not a mandatory life in prison without parole. i taken note that the judge to follow the path with a mandatory minimum, that is what i did. he went to jail for life. for those in this program, april 15 of 2015, president obama granted clemency. you have to serve 10 years before you qualify. the whole army of lawyers is looking at 60,000 petitions they have received, getting worse around the country to take on these things provide no. once again, that is sort of a backend issue. there is so much work to be done in communities, the policy level, legislative level, judicial level in every level.

none of us in here can do everything, but everyone of us in here can do some pain. everyone of us i believe are obligated to do the things we can do. i want to go back quickly to our u.s. attorney who understands it is so important for kids trapped in communities of poverty to see someone off in time who looks like them who has not taken the road that leads to jail or prison, but who is doing something that is positive tells them that you have worth and if you apply yourself, you too can succeed. so in addition to being smart on crime, he is also talking to children, giving him a model in his spare in the schools and communities at 7:00 in the morning talking to children. it is important for kids to understand that there is an expect tatian and the realization that they can do

better than enter into the criminal justice system to get an education or a job or whatever. we have to do more. i rambled a little bit, but i need to say to you this morning that all of us can do something and i will end with a quote attributed largely to talk to king that the moral universe is towards justice. it does not end of its own coalition. it only benefit those of you sitting in this room and those in the audience beyond this are pushing and pulling to make certain that the arc bends towards justice. thank you. [applause] microphone? i think we have almost 10 minutes. yes, okay.

>> afternoon. i am a researcher with the pew trust in washington and i remember speaking with you in the past about this question. i was hoping for you to elaborate and also you, too judge donald berger trial court days. i want to ask about probation sentences and why they've been going down so sharply. about 90% of all defendants used to be about less than half. obviously. i would be curious to know from your experience how was it for me to want to sentence a defendant to probation that be prevented from doing that either because of the statute of the statue to what the guidelines manual told you to do. >> i will try to give you the one-hour answer to that.

yes. i mean, pre-guidelines, depending on whose numbers you take, anywhere from 40% to 50% on incarcerated sentences. one major problem is 994 jay, title 28 sentencing reform act is a congress that wasn't actually feeling warm and fuzzy towards criminal defendants. this is the 1984 sentencing reform act designed to restrict the discussion. i 94 nevertheless says that commissions shall ensure any appropriateness of incarceration was not committed out resumption of probation for folks to reverse two defenders haven't committed a crime of violence or otherwise serious offense could be better.

we know that means it is a presumption of incarceration people who were first defenders in the offense of conviction has a seriousness that can do that, doesn't have a serious akin to that that attempts a crime of violence. what is the regional commission do? it decides not just to ignore that presumption of probation. it defines a good bit to find every single white collar defense as serious issue. if you read the introduction of the guidelines, "-end-quotes 994 jay and it provides a definition of the word serious end quote and goes on to say out of bound for every single one of them. opposite of what congress is intended. another problem is that the data. if someone takes a day to make

bail, back at looked and then they do fine. our drug court for youthful offender court did that as a time served sentence. that doesn't look like a probationary sentence. they tell the commissioners over and over again because they are fond of saying even when given the opportunity, judges don't have posed sections that are probationary period that is because the data can be compounding. someone does one day in prison, that is not a probationary sentence. that is a prison term. they need to fix the data as well. there's more answers, but those are one affects the data, people actually listen to the commission. when not book says you can't give probation, there's a lot of judges around the country that are not going to give probation.

>> i would agree with that. the current data shows that post-booker, judges are generally still sentencing in conformity with the guidelines. >> my name is daryl and i'm a specialist legal progress center for american progress and i think one of the biggest elephant in the room is privatization of the prison industry. i know one of the panelists this morning mentioned i don't think think -- i wanted to ask i knows many states have contracts with the cca corporations, the correctional corporations of america. how do these contracts hurdle true criminal justice reform if they are contractors guaranteed and there has to be a certain amount of ricin populations in the state and also i just want to personally thank judge donald

for all the work you've done. i just want to highlight the connection here. >> thank you. since judge gleeson is leaving the bench in two days, white intake that one. >> i hear that question a lot, so i have to believe that is a real problem. i hang around in the federal guide in as many impediments as i've seen, you know, even getting agreed upon reform will get a 100 to one ratio, everyone agrees like turning the queen mary around to change things lately. but i have not once actually seen or heard that the kind of prison industrial complex notion to actually impinge on federal sentencing policy are reform. i believe because i hear about it all the time but that must be

an issue in the states. federally, i don't think people are worried about that problem. i might be wrong. a lot of decisions may be well above my pay grade. i haven't seen that issue infused into the policy debate in the federal arena. >> okay, one final question. >> my name is joe tolman, professor of law at the district of columbia. i run a clinic during efforts to reverse the school prison pipeline. one quick comment in response to judge gleeson what you said. a 1980 for congress killed the act. i don't know if anybody mentioned that in place to 1950s to 1984 and allowed alternative sentencing for people who are younger than 22 at the time of conviction. 26? sorry, 26. a commonsense piece of law that

was part of the wave of mass incarceration beginning. the rest of my comments and a question directed to you, you are absolutely right about the front end versus the backend. we need to look at the systemic rushers and early periodic screening diagnosis in the medicaid program, special ed program. people feel they are budgeted to do the work that would have meaningful interventions required by law to do the kind of work you are talking about in a broadway. give any number of examples of that. in doing the reform work you are suggesting, we need to look at systemic pressures and figure out ways so that the incentives that they are to do with the lie requires. people are violating left and right and those are two examples. and this is a question to do what you're talking about, we need to look at systemic

pressures and leverage points to create change in those other systems. >> okay, if that is the question, i would say yes. very good. over here. >> just one last comment. i apologize. judge gleeson, i am an attorney adviser at the defender services office in your know was that the committee of the judicial conference and we are in mourning that he is leaving the judiciary, so i just had to publicly state that. it was wonderful. but they thank you for your work on many fronts. [applause] >> i do want to give judge was an opportunity. >> thank you. this is an invigorating experience and kind of

renewed -- renews our wish to go back and accomplish more. >> any final words? >> thank you are having me and for having this wonderful program. >> thank you, all. [applause] >> thank you for that very and might in an important presentation. just before we conclude for lunch, and take a break for lunch, i did want to take just one moment to acknowledge once again judge donald who is also a cochair for the summit together with judge renfrew so thank you very much. we look forward to your feedback through the e-mails so we can continue to enhance the program. we will now break for lunch and will welcome you back in approximately one hour just after 1:40, closer to 2:00. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> if you miss the conversation, you can watch it anytime online at c-span.org. more live coverage coming up shortly here on c-span2 for the national press club, hosting the

general manager and ceo of the d.c. metro, paul we develop. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us next to >> joining us next to talk about the history of independent and third-party presidential candidates, we have larry sabado, director of the center for politics at the university of virginia and also founder off the crystal ball, the newsletter that gives detailed analysis about races all across the country including the presidential race. good morning. >> guest: good morning. >> host: with the talk of former new york governor michaea bloomberg potentially jumping into the presidential race. it is brought up the issue ofit third-party and independent candidates. this is in a new occurrence. talk a little bit about theest:

current climate how things might be different.de >> guest: i am not sure they will be different than past independent runs in the end. we don't know for sure that there will be any beyond the usual third-party such as libertarian party that will probably end up being on all 50 ballots. the reason people are speculating clearly is because of the trump phenomenon on the republican side. if donald child gets the nomination and he is the favorite but not at the prohibitive favorite. but if he gets the nomination, you are going to have a lot of distance additional opposition on the republican side. and that romney i think it's just the tip of the iceberg. so it is entirely possible you will have establishment republicans, big donors sponsoring a ticket, maybe call it the real republican ticket

and you try and get it on as many state ballots as possible. maybe all 50, maybe 40, 45, whatever. what does the ticket do? first it would be composed of republican figures who are well's respect to and probably at the end of their careers than willing to take a lot of abuse and that they are not running for anything else because they certainly won't win theo might election. they will attract millions of republicans who might not be able for one reason or another to back donald trump. those votes may well ensure that the democratic nominee wins the presidential election. but there's a secondary effect that is important to republicans. let's say the ticket win 7 million or 10 million votes or whatever it turns out to be. but those are probably transferable of march part 2 republican u.s. candidates,

republican governor candidates. and in the case of the senate of course it is a highly competitive battle. the senate can go either way because of the seats that have been the the races that are competitive. so those votes could be critical if republicans maintain control of the senate. you mentioned bloomberg. so let's talk about one other possibility. it is march. the elections in november. a lot of things can happen between now and then. michael bloomberg apparently has looked into it and had some research done and i have no idea what he will not doing. if you force me to guess, i was you would not run simply because there really is not a past event to refer him. i just don't see any way that he could possibly accumulate 270 electoral votes.

i can see them getting a lot ofy those and those votes would come from all over the place. disproportionally they would hurt the democratic nominee, which is what i don't think he wants to do given his own record di gun control and lots of other things. so you know, this could go in a million different ways. it will be interesting and exciting. the campaign so far has brokenod every rule that i know of, so it may break the rules on third-party and independent candidates, too. >> host: would want to bring our viewers. democrats can call in at (202)748-8000. independents can call in at (202)748-8002. larry, you talked a little bit about some other reason that michael bloomberg may or may not get into this race.

a former independent candidate, ralph nader talked a little bit in 2008 about his can turn about the conditioncondition s of the u.s. constitutional government. let's take a look at that. >> our constitution if its different parts is being disregarded, violated, nullified or twisted out of any semblance. the declaration of war authorities done with. it's been shrunk to an invisible level. for a conversation with the new general manager and ceo of the dc metro. >> as we often call it natural or choice words i will not use on the stage. we will get into those issues soon.

i would like to welcome the audiences and remind you that you can follow the action on twitter using the hash tag npc live. now it is time to introduce the guests and i asked each of you stand briefly as your name is announced and please hold your applause until i finish introducing begin tire table. from your right, david shepherd eight reporter at reuters. mark the transportation reporter at wamu. freelance radio reporter. editor at families usa. bruce johnson news anchor at wusa. damn scaffold dan scaffold director of communications at metro. marcia wiedefeld, the wife of the speaker. bloomberg news, the past npc president and vice chair of the speakers committee. skipping over the speaker for a moment, the reporter for the

defense daily and a member of the speakers committee to organize today's luncheon. the executive director of the metropolitan washington council of governments. daniel, the chairman of the greater washington board of trade. paula read the justice reed justice reporter at cbs news. and reporter of the gray sheet and board of governors. thank you. [applause] >> a fatality during a smoke related incident, fiscal attacks on pastors, derailments, the drop in ridership and other events might be keeps our guest wiedefeld at the night. the communication improvements for first responders and to work with vendors to develop a real-time smartphone app shortly made that he is more exciting for the new general manager and ceo of the washington metropolis

in area transit authority. hired in november, mr. white house's courier has been a public and private sector transit. previously he was the ceo of the thurgood marshall international airport to read he is credited with leading the growth as the busiest past airport of the three in the metro washington region. now the attention is on the second busiest subway system in the united states. in the citywide bus system, 40 years after the first metro car to people to work and tourists to sites. today they predict unpredictable times to reach their destinations. the own time performance, which measures how evenly stationed the trains are has been consistently below target since the opening of the silver mile. silver mile. ongoing track word outside of rush hour halls the system in the maintenance challenges including broken elevators and escalators creates distress for passengers especially in wheelchairs or on crutches.

mr. wiedefeld rides to union station and has witnessed the frustration of time added when the escalator isn't working or the annoyance when the announcements were garbled. in addition to the maintenance issues, mr. wiedefeld will usher through a critical period into contract in the contract negotiations that are scheduled to begin this summer. please welcome to the national press club stage the washington area transit agency general manager and ceo paul wiedefeld. [applause] >> thank you for joining us today. my first question, you've been in office about three months now and clearly there are a barrage of issues facing the system. how are you going to tackle and actually solve the problems facing the matrox flex -- the

metro? >> i did want to introduce my board members that are here. michael goldman, malcolm augustine come and over there from washington, d.c. and most importantly to introduce the first person i met which is the station manager. my first day on the job i got to meet her. she is a good worker. free phrase the question. [laughter] >> i'm wondering your observations and plan. you have been in office for three months. the things we were talking about the broken escalators and elevators and the funding issues have had problems that have led to incidents of death. how are you going to tackle

them? >> first thing i did when coming on board is i spent the whole month basically reaching out to stakeholders to understand the issues a little bit better and it's everything from employees to the leaders of business coming elected officials and writers to give me a feel for that. at the same time, we started in december and january in particular we had have a number of outside consultants come in to help get our arms around some of these issues and then my own assessment based on my experience in different positions i got to got a good flavor of it during the blizzard when i got a good sense of some of the things we've are dealing with. from the start, my priority is to announce safety, social liability and fiscal management in order. just today we started to roll out some of that specific initiatives that we are doing and i will get into them further. but it starts with me and

getting of the entire organization to understand the priorities and to start to organize and deal with these issues and in an efficient way and to get particularly the operators and the station managers and mechanics to understand what we are up against and get their support and work from that and and up with our supervisors and superintendents because that's a lot of where the issues get determined from the customer's perspective so folks know that ended the and at the same time i'm focused on the overall management team as well so that's how we are starting the process and i can get into the specifics on that i'm sure you have other questions. >> let's address the first one that came out you had one kind of laying some of this stuff out. the writers have seen people come before the promises and the promises sometimes take years or never get done. how is this going to happen and

how fast is it going to have them? >> my approach is again, starting nuts and bolts and not so much on the larger things we are trying to bring in the past. to me when i look at the service liability for instance, you know, it's fairly simple. it's the cars and the vehicles in line every day. it's the track and the operations leaning operation station managers, so we've basically set up three teams and we meet weekly on what they are doing and what the plan is and what we are doing to achieve it. but i found in what i found in each of the categories is probably much worse than i expected and maybe even publicly we've been talking about so we have to go right at these issues and we have issues for instance in the car is a lot of the debate and the discussion overtime has been about parts.

that's one part of it how we move them in the yard it's everything from how we are inefficiently programming using our employees the most efficiently and we have the whole team working on that issue. on the track issued the same thing. when you look at the track issue and the work we are doing when you start to throw it away we have 30 very sharp curves and the systems of that's got to be the first priority and leads to issues but it's not only fixing what we see that it's thinking much more realistically about what we do so for instance on the track work, we have a lot of passengers that are aged and broken in whatever they are doing. what i found, i went out with my engineer and ceo on the side and when i went out there and looked in the tunnel and met some of the workers giving this work about what is the cause and why are some of these breaking down? is a drainage system that isn't working so it's not just go out

and fix it. it's like oh, let's can have this one at a time. we have a quick left over we left sitting there. we sold a lot of our parts and it's sitting there to me it is just money sitting there we have to get out very quickly. eventually the contractor does take it from us but we moved it to her three times and it doesn't make sense. the way that i am getting at these things is again not coming out with a five-year plan. we have those things in place. it's really again the nuts and bolts of where we can start to make the changes that will impact the customer in the immediate term. longer term -- >> you said something on a stage that is rare. you're telling us that the problems are actually worse than we may think they are. >> in terms of the way they've

been presented and framed maybe it's just the way that i look at them and how i plan to solve them is different and maybe they had been planned before from that perspective. i don't think from my estimation they been trained correctly in the public dialogue with the board. >> the hard truth. the idea that you need to know what they are before you can fix them. you mentioned the five-year plan. it seems they've heard about this but they don't have that what has actually happened. how are you going to show them there are improvements coming? spinnaker that is an area that we haven't done a good job in framing that out and to be frank, i've asked for that exact thing. where are we on basically where

we have to catch up with work that we have put off over time and then where are we on the good repairs once you get to a certain stage. so i'm going to come out with basically what that is and where we are to me coming here is what we said we are going to do and here's where we are. we have a backlog of work. what is it, and then once we get through the backlog, what is the plan going forward and we have to be very clear on what that is and then we have to think strategically about how we address it so i get into thinking about -- we have an effort under way to do that to define it for people so they can understand it but more importantly let's think strategically how we address it. in my estimation we've tried to meet everybody happy and we've pretty much made everybody not happy in some of the approaches we've taken. i think when you look at other systems around the country you have to make smart decisions but there is a discussion that needs

to be had and how much quicker can we get it if we have a little bit of pain here to get things done quicker? one of the things i hear constantly i won't use the weekend service because it is so consistent but maybe it's time to look at how we do the weekend service and are there other things we can do and at the same with midday work we come upon a problem and it rolls right into the period so i'm basically giving a total assessment of what we are doing and how we are doing it so that will be part of going forward strategy so it's not just something there is a five-year plan but it's specifically talking about this is what i need to do to get us back up to this state and at that point here is what you will see going forward. >> and in two months we will have this done or one year it's going to be done and then they can judge you. >> we started the websites today, the customer report accounting system basically where there's 50 items we are

starting to work on and some of them were before i got on board, but a lot of them we are just starting to do now so that's going to be something some of these are updated weekly at a minimum and then things will come and go. i only want to put things on there that i'm comfortable yes i know what we're we are doing and this is the schedule and then judge against that. there will always be issues with schedules, i get that but it's important to be transparent about it and then also turn up the accountability. >> you mentioned fiscal management. there's only a finite amount of money that you have so when you are trying to fix things, where does that come out if you maybe want to improve the 20 minutes you have to wait for a train on sunday that has to come out somewhere else. how do you find the money? >> first and foremost, safety will be the priority so we have to do that. we have to bring, to get to some of these issues we have to bring

the basics up so that will be through the next priority and then we go out from there. anything that we touch it gets expensive very quickly particularly speaking of rail there is access but on the rail side given the physical limitation of the system any time we touch it it is very expensive in terms of just getting out there and then the challenges we face with a 40-year-old system that in some cases it just wasn't kept up. >> the plan talked about safety. there's a couple issues there. one is the safety when you are on the train from no derailments and things like that but we also raised concerns about stabbings were shootings were rapes or sexual-harassment that has happened. what is the plan and are you going to boost the number of officers on the train?

>> the personal security safety issue numerically it is a very safe system. six cars per 1 million passengers and if you look in most communities that is a very safe number and that means nothing to the person or to the community when they see one of these tragic word drastic events that occurs so what we've done is work with the chief of police and basically we've gone back and said what is it that we can do differently than we've done in the past and one of the first things i noticed with our security is that it tends to be abysmal at times. they blend into the crowd so we have an event where anything of occurs. but we are getting more people and we have a class that comes out in april and in september

for people. we've realigned the resources to basically free sum things up that the uniform police officers were doing on the field and we made it very clear they want the officers on the platforms popping into cars and out and giving people the sense that it's under control and the bus operator the same. it's a nightwatch program in effect where we are having the officers come up to greet the operator and we are also doing that in the control system. that clearly it's one of the biggest ones for us but even when we do all that it is a much larger issue. one of the things we have reached out to is the schools

where we want to go out and meet particularly with the students and we are going to bring not only the police but the operators and the station owners and other people like that so we can make a connection this is your mother, this is your grandfather, whatever it is a. is about one of the things we wanted to do when we started to do that. they worked closely with the district and we had some of their personnel dealing with us on a day-to-day operations center. so it's every day with the police and the system in the social media that we could all watch. we have an excellent closed-circuit television station now and the reality is

even at the bus stops we are going to see it and basically we've been getting them but we want to prevent it. >> we are in a city with a lot of fiscal security. it seems a soft target with all this noticeable security often times you walk into a natural station and there is one employee, one person and i can count on one hand how many times i've seen them on the side of the tunnel. what is your plan to raise that were the colors? >> to get more people out there. a lot of times, again, i would see police officers around the station kiosk. that is a different policing

strategy so that's what i think it is is getting that police officers into the system. >> back to the fiscal management for a second. you had a memo that talked about the travel in the paperclips. what is this an effort to? the month that you spend and you spent and allocated $500 from food and travel you are burning it's much quicker than you thought and it's a normal budgeting process we have to manage the operating budget of three tightly so we monitor it very tightly and at this point we just want to say with the expenses that we incur we have to make sure that we are thinking back on the expenditures. >> let's talk about the blizzard for a second, a bold choice to shut down for two or three days.

can you give us more rationale why it shut down the system? >> it gets to the larger issue that if we are serious about safety and we have to start making decisions based on safety and across the entire agency every employee that i've met, they basically say that's the first time we've done this because someone understood the safety concerns they had as operators. so part of it is just a recognition that we cannot ignore the safety implications of a storm like that. if you recall when we were preparing for the storm it was not only the snow and attracting vehicles in the snow and in the yard but they were calling for 40-mile per hour winds and we had a power source with very limited backup power and if it goes out, then we basically have

people moved into locations if we kept the underground open. the other part we wanted to do which is the first time, we harbored that the eagles and the large portions so that let's us get back up and serve as much quicker. if you go back and look at some of the history of the snowstorms we had large mechanical issues after trying to go through snow because the age of some of the equipment and it would create other issues for us. we didn't have that this time. so anyway, it was something that i think was the right thing to do from the safety standpoint from the customers. the worst thing we could have done is have people out there gets to think they could travel like that as we knew at the time and have to go in to rescue them because they were pulling resources away from getting the system up and running, so that

is the position that was the right decision to make. >> staying with the safety issue and there's a lot of times you can get into the natural system and see a crowded platform at the gallery place or something like that but there are issues with construction where there's only a few feet between falling off the edge. do you have any plans to address that and try to walk through the station's? >> one of the things we are doing is we have created a new class of employees that are working particularly at the busy station. the reality isn't the physical limitations are very tight and it gets compounded when you have a major event so what we have to

do is particularly for incidents we want people to understand before they get down to the station or before they go through the mezzanine that there is an issue that we start to hold people they are so we do that in some instances and one of the things we are looking at is putting information out on the stream level so that's one of the things we are basically trying to figure out right now and we can tell people what's going on before they get down there because that is part of the issue and they are stuck. the other thing is we have proposed doing tap in and tap out. sometimes people come to a station and there's an issue and in fact they've already paid and figure out i'm going to stay here or they wait it out and they are frustrated because they

paid and they don't get the service they demand. so we are looking at a 15 minute grace period to help lead to some of the pressures of people don't feel they have to stay and took a something's going on here but me get out and do another plan. >> i know that i've done that myself. i understand that. talk about the situations if i walk in and i see that there is a 20 minute wait and i pull out my app for uber and lyft that are causing competition for you. do you find it complementary? >> i look at that -- one, there are certain things i have no control over and i have no control over the price of fuel, $1.60 or 70 cents, what can i do about that? to impact uber and lyft were bike sharing, all those things impact us. that isn't what i want to focus on its let's us provide the best

service we can within that context. that's where we should be focusing, not some of these things i have no control over. so that's the one level. the other level is thinking about them in the overall transportation plan. there's nothing wrong with that. it's not an either or next car or any of that. it is all part of a system, so we think of it as a system and wiki are two words that. then are there other opportunities to use that and other things we can be doing this more efficient like tapping into the resources and that is the way to try to beat them so it is maybe a little different philosophy. >> i think i've recently read that there is a giant in the matter of stations you just kind of hinted at this doesn't reflect the larger state of the country's infrastructure.

are we an example of what is going on when it comes to transportation funding? >> whether it is transit, you name it you look at the industry groups and they have a long list of needs that have been mac and kicked down the road and at some point they come back to haunt us. you look at them and there's all kinds of infrastructure things that have been ignored that need to be fixed, so that is a national debate. there is little interest in virginia and maryland. is there any way that you think you'll ever see a dedicated tax for the metro system? >> the way that i view the

system we are in a region that is competing globally. unless we start to think in those terms it puts us in a very difficult position to compete. so if we fund on a local level than then you will think much more locally. if you find in any regional level you will tend to think more regionally and structure are round about an event start to have an understanding of what you're trying to do as a region so from that perspective, it is important to look at the nature transit around the country and we are the only one that doesn't have some sort of a regional mechanism like that it provides the stability and the budgeting.

it becomes an expensive system to maintain and operate and unless you have that it makes it very difficult. >> in relative terms, matrox is pretty young compared to the others out there. >> i think that to compare the look at the trends a little bit differently than other places so that comparison is a little tough and there are lessons to be learned as in london for instance. there's a lot of things that we can learn from there but the funding and the public policy decisions in both europe and some of the countries that are not quite applicable i think we can learn from other systems in

the country. my experience has been every one of the systems have the issues if you look a little bit deeper to have issues they have to go through because again if we get to some of these core issues we should be at a minimum the best system in the u.s. which is what it means for the system we should definitely be there for sure as we reach to meet the models that is a bit further. >> why are only the best for the united states? sputnik we had a new system and we have a capital construction mentality and the agency and

we've now moved into the silver lining that we moved into the public works environment taking care of the basics. >> there are many examples of customer service representatives , but it's often there are operators but abandoned the station and there's no one there to help. do they have a customer service problem? >> i have seen fantastic customer service so by and large they do very well. do they have issues, yes. have we brought brought the employees into solutions, no and that's what i talked about

earlier. what i'm trying to build up a staff at the staff level and the operation frontline level system we have a class of employees that come in every two weeks into the thing i say to all of those employees is what i want you to do when you go out to watch a game or whatever if somebody asks you where do you work will well they think that's cool or i think if you ask someone where they work you may have a whole different view of them. it starts with the line employees and allows the managers to buy into that.

there are rules we could abide by in the system. >> can you do that without raising salaries. >> if you treat people with respect, it goes a long way is my experience. these are great jobs there is no doubt about it. but more importantly, it is building that relationship with the other employees so for instance when i make a decision thinking of them not just okay i have to try to do this because that's what other people are doing but it's really thinking about them at the same time.

>> you have some big decisions you have to make so far and you've been pretty decisive in your three months from the snowstorm to the police expansion and others. how is your approach and a group effort to bring it together is it you saying we have to do this? >> right now it is a little bit heavy handed on my part. i just came out with a new organizational structure. my experience is thinking about the agency overtime it's what i want and then manage more of a matrix dollar pjs i get out and particularly i want my managers to do that. one of the things i found that the agency is quite a bit of silos on the issues with the new organizational structure tearing

that down, so the people that work for me directly and the people under them are half well give you could -- atwell. >> one of the questioners wants to know what has been the worst fiasco as a passenger? >> we had a breakfast meeting, it is interesting because i had a 9:00 back on the headquarters and when i was there i couldn't find the people that were managing it. i couldn't get the urgency of what we were dealing with so when i got back to the meeting and i looked at the pages that i

was getting, we had these things going on and that was it so i was sort of lost a little bit but i think they started to understand that they have been over the years a little bowl to some of the issues so i have to bring that into focus that this is unacceptable and that we need to be proactive when things occur and that's all the customer experience part of it and i was lucky enough to be recognized by a number of customers to inform them of what was going on so that was probably one that sticks out in my mind. >> she want to tell me your experience? >> i have had so many there's one gentleman that there was one gentleman that is a trained operator that's just fantastic providing information and fact i asked him to come down to the office and we would get to meet

him, so that's fantastic. i have seen the police do tremendous work. we had a terrell incident -- terrible incidents not long ago within individual and it was a friday night and it was a three-hour ordeal. no one on the line was dealing with wind was dealing with that issue and most of them were not working. but he handled it very complex and tragic incident with utmost professionalism to deal with the situation to get to the customers and then rebuilding the service as quick as they can so again i'm very thrilled with the passion i see in the people. it needs to be directed and brought out that it's definitely there. >> you referenced, in a few minutes ago and you seem to be talking more about transparency in the matrox system.

currently though, information about the crimes and the matrox is not available whether they make it publicly available going forward? >> we will make public whatever we have particularly with the youth crimes but i'm still learning about in the region. but what we do we will be as open as we can if it jeopardizes an investigation. spent the same question about transparency. will they make public the approved agencies across the nation? i'm getting as many as i can from you right now. when will they join some of the other transit agencies in the procurement awards and responders to value the bid on the website?

you're your making the crowd very happy. why does it take so long to replace broken escalators and i think we have seen stories especially in places like the tin or dupont circle, and why do they break so often? >> let me touch on why first. one of the things i've learned particularly with the escalators is a lot of times what you see from the customer perspective it is broken in the breakdown but the reality is to complex the complex systems that are the signed from a safety standpoint there are certain things if you do it on the escalators they will stop automatically. it deals with steps and rails and other things, suggested the normal usage it can happen pretty quickly and it shuts down automatically as it is supposed to do so station managers have

some ability to investigate but the reality is you have to make sure that it's safe so you take a technician out so we try to keep them in so they can do that. a lot of times what you will see that they stopped escalator is that issue and there is a whole other set of issues where we have to replace escalators and that is limited to a station because we have to think about how do we get people out of there if an emergency occurs so that's how they have to think about how they station these things. in terms of the rehabilitation it's the same issue we try to replace the basics so every few years we have to. we are performing in the 90 percentile. the reality is if it is broken

down when you look at the stations you may be looking at it doesn't escalators in the one station. from the percentage standpoint they do a good job but we will continue to do that. >> continuing with a little bit of the transparency and openness, to my knowledge, metro hasn't released a number of settlements paid out for the number of deaths that occurred in the system. will you release that information or do you know how much they've paid? >> i don't do what the legal ramifications of that are >> we know that the effort with the carriers with the cell phone

towers fell through and they will find that if south. why was that decision the decision made and why does it take that long? >> it isn't a cell phone issue for us it is a radio issue with the megahertz system. we have to replace but because they say we have roughly a 350 million-dollar project to replace the entire radio system above ground and below ground and new cabling and antennae so as a part of that we are in the tunnel and we struck a deal with the carriers. there was a reason for them to do that and that reason has

pretty much dried up. the other thing as they try to do with what they found as it is a very complex environment to work in to get the track space on the walls were moving the utilities &-and-sign edge and you have to do these in a very small window of time. we have this project with 105 million or so in the title portion of it. they gave it some cash and materials in time so we are going to be doing as we it as we are doing that radio that approach. >> do you see that as a safety issue as well.

it is a perceived safety issue because he wouldn't be able to have access, i get it. it's very understandable. so yes from the perspective for sure you see it in the stations where we do have it. this isn't unique to matrox is for any across the country particularly the major systems it has a major impact on the system and then it's only a two track system. will they be able to tell how long until a bus is coming and how long a train is coming or a 'back load kildee make that

information available? >> we had for some reason we were not sharing as much information as we had so we changed that weeks ago when we got down to that level and discovered more about it as we said that's ridiculous we should be able to share whatever information we have. it's based on a ten or 15-year-old technology. so it's measuring where it was in this gap and present understand what is happening here is we have a system that does not so we need to do that on our own. we need to open up as much of the technology graduates to do this. one of the things i said

repeatedly is to catch up in some of the errors that it is social media and technology areas for us as an agency to get their way will always be behind, it's not the core mission, it's not the core, let's let people figure out ways to do that so we are doing that. there's a lot of people in this area but no more than we will ever know. there's safety reliability and fiscal management. those things cost money. so where are you going to find the money for better technology for tracking buses and fixing elevators so they are not breaking as much and adding

security? >> we have to manage more efficiently there is a lot to pick up by managing differently than before so there is definitely a deficiency is. there's some redundancy and we need to make some changes there. we just have some things we don't need any more, so we have to address those. to work smarter in general, we have achieved more but we need to continue to work with both our federal partners and the jurisdictions to address those issues and make hard decisions. but my job is to give them an understanding of what we are up against. >> the oversight, how much does that affect what you're trying to do what does it change what you are trying to do?

>> i welcome the oversight. we have to make sure that it is as efficient as possible. one of my concerns is we tend to be very focused on the process and not the product so one of the things we did on line today is we outlined 732 i think it is of the actions taken because that is more important to me, what physically are we doing to get the system safer and not through the compliance part of the issues issue so we have to meet the compliance as we seemed to be spending a lot of time and energy on the process versus what are we doing to change the product. so my my focuses more on that. focus is more on that. i think obviously as the new metropolitan safety commission gets set up that's great. those are things we should have. the sooner that is done, the

better. >> a questioner wants to know what can be done about the bad behavior by some of the writers being from noise and food, blocking the exits on the putting their feet up on the chairs. is there an effort to be done with the courtesy campaign or is there a cultural problem that needs to be addressed first? >> i have been to the movies and balls and public environments and we reflect that no differently than other public environments. so yes, we can make sure that we try to do that and we project a certain decorum that we would like to have in the system. >> you talked earlier about the stakeholders you visited with, news outlets, civic groups, politicians in the dc a react. you spent about ten minutes with

the advisory council a 21 member group tie representing the ridership. when do you expect to spend more time with this group and how did you see this do you see this influencing your time as general manager? >> i did meet with them earlier when i came on board and i got to spend some time with them and i basically said that at the time. i think now remember at the beginning two months or so i was on the stage taking this much to talk about what we are doing so to get more engaged with groups like that i look forward to doing that. they offer excellent perspectives. they do find a perspective to the board. it's one of their committees so that's important for the board

to have the direct connection. >> a questioner wants to know they've been complaining seemingly nonstop since the silver line and the changes that have reduced the switch that happened in 2012 so four years later they are crammed onto six car trains while paying peak fares. how do you address this in the long term over immediate? >> did you talk to him directly? [laughter] those decisions were made a dozen years ago by the local government and they understood you have a tunnel or portion of the system that can handle 26 per hour so decisions were made a decade ago that that's what they would do.

we have to begin where i need to focus on is making sure that what we put out there operates, that we put it out at the right numbers, and that once it is out there is reliable, so i think that starts to solve some of those issues. i cannot undo the construct of the deal because the limitations that's again something that was settled i think quite a while ago though it is the nature of what we have in the constraint system. >> you have declining leadership for years it seems so you're talking about what you would like he would like to do to change that. will be improvements in the safety reliability and fiscal management mean that you can increase the number of people using it or does it have to be a wholesale change in how the system operates at? >> we have to get the basis race. i have reached out to watchdog to take a broad look at some of

the trends and what's going on. you can look at some of the issues that we have, but it's a complex region for some of the things impacting that so i think that when we look harder at the numbers, some of the roots where we have the development numbers up, some of the longer haul so there's lots of dynamic going on so i have reached out to say help us think this through and think about all the other aspects whether it is later use or other business so that we can start to think differently about what we provide because if we continue to try to provide a system from the 70s and 80s mentality we are just wasting time. >> i want to enter a few notes and have a couple questions if that's okay. the national press club is the leading professional

organization for journalists and we fight the free press worldwide. for more information about the club please visit press.org, once again that his press.org. i would like to remind you of upcoming programs. tomorrow the entrepreneur turned philanthropist founder and chief of clear path from a nonprofit dedication to conservative clean energy policies in the organization's conservative approach. one week from today we will host the documentarian and harvard professor harry louis gates junior to discuss race in america and also march 14 the national trust club will be honored to welcome home the "washington post" journalist imprisoned unjustly for 545 days. jason will be here a week from today. and i would like to present a guest with the traditional national press club mug every night you not to use this on the metro system to drink. [laughter]

we talked earlier about a lot of the issues coming up with the metro and the busing system and the efforts to address those recently dc started running its streetcar after many years and failed promises with $200 million. what are your thoughts on the management of the dc streetcar, and will you be able to use the pass is when it did eventually -- eventually interested? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> i mentioned he's a board member, too. he's done a very good job to get that up and running and i think they did the same approach that we are applying we won't put up something to say that it is reliable, that is at least i think what we saw play out so that is very good. we will discuss later. >> but will it be integrated? >> we will work with them to see

what makes the most sense. >> okay. and i guess my last question, you moved from baltimore and now to washington. we have some sports teams that are competing. >> is a great hockey team and basketball team. [laughter] thank you mr. wiedefeld and national press club staffing to journalism institute stuff to the broadcast center for organizing today's luncheon and if you'd like a copy of the program or learn more about the national press club, go to the website, press.org. thank you. we are adjourned. [applause]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> if you missed any of the conversation from the national press club with the head of the d.c. metro, you can watch it

online anytime, just go to c-span.org. over on capitol hill today, the senate returns at 3:00 eastern time, possibly finishing up work on legislation dealing with heroin and prescription drug abuse. the hill writes: the comprehensive addiction and recovery act appears to be on a glide path after minority leader harry reid confirmed last week that democrats would not block the legislation. they'll take a procedural vote today at 5:30. senators also hoping to help with the drinking water crisis in flint, michigan. a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been negotiating a deal as well as a separate, larger energy reform bill for weeks. the senate's deal would not provide direct aid to flint, but it would expand two loan programs to help fund water decontamination and cover held programs. watch when members gavel in today at 3:00 eastern. and on the campaign trail, senator bernie sanders is in michigan on the eve of the state's presidential primary

with 147 democratic dell delegates at stake, we'll have live coverage starting shortly, 2 p.m. eastern time on c-span, and hillary clinton, we'll take you to her rally in detroit live starting at 7:45 eastern, and that's also over on c-span. >> tonight on "the communicators," we'll examine a 1996 telecommunications act with two of its chief authors, jack fields -- former chair of the house energy and commerce subcommittee -- and democratic senator edward markey. the two will discuss whether the act is outdated and should be rewritten. >> words like google and hulu and youtube are part of the culture today, but they were impossible to be created before the act. so we got a lot right. nothing is perfect, but one thing we did do was we moved not only our own country, but the world from analog to digital.

>> and our goal was to take away the lines of demarcation that prevented competition x. by unleashing the competitive forces, it created the investment that was needed to bring us to this world today. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. >> next, a conversation with author paul taylor on his book, "the next america."taylor, th >> host: at the table now is paul taylor who is author of this book, "the next america: boomers, millennials and thee. looming generational showdown." good morning, thank you for being with us. >> guest: pleased to be here. >> host: start us off with the definitions of boomers, millennials, remind us, and tell us about this looming generational showdown and how it came to be. >> guest: boomers and millennials are our two largest generations at different phases of the life cycle at the moment. the boomers are in their 50sra

and 60s, a huge generation that was born right after world war ii. it was a big demographic spike. one of them we've been a disruptive generation because of our size all the way along, and they had to build a lot of schools for us, you could argue they built suburbs for us right after world war ii. and here we are today 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65,ev tomorrow another 10,000 and so on. and every single day between now and the year 2030 a lot of boomers will migrate from the work force into retirement. that'll put a lot of pressure on our social security and medicare. so that's one issue there. the millennials are our young adult generation, ages 18-35, so they've come of age in the new millenium. they are also a huge generation, the generation in between so-called generation x, the baby bust generation. the millennials are making a slow walk to adulthood by all the traditional measures,

they're slow to getting married, getting married at about half the rates their parents and grand parents did, they're slow to buying houses, cars, and they're having a tough time economically. we talk a lot about rising income and wealth inequality. it's a fact of life in the 201st century -- 21st century. less attention is paid to the way that there's an age skew on that. by and large, today's old are better off in terms of all the ways we measure economic well being than yesterday's old. they have more income, they have more wealth. today's young are worse off than yesterday's young. and it's one of the reasons why today's young aren't getting married, aren't buying houses, aren't buying cars. >> host: so what's the showdown all about? >> guest: well, the showdown is interesting because there's also a racial and political dimensio to this difference. again, overstating it, these are generalizations, but they're based on reality. older americans tend to skew white, and they tend to skew conservative. younger americans tend to skew

nonwhite, and they tend to skew liberal. they vote extraordinarily differently. we have seen that in the last few presidential campaigns. without the votes of millennials, the leading republican candidate for president this year would be mitt romney who would have been the incumbent president. so millennials have already flexed their muscles in terms of changing the arc of our politics, but they tend not to vote in off-year elections, so it's one of the reasons why weut have this very unusual skew. it's one of the reasons why washington institutions are having trouble working. we've had five of the last six presidential elections being won by at least the popular vote, being won by democrats. but this is -- the last few years have never been better in a hundred years for republicans. and a lot of this is the behavior of the millennials. thaw turn up in the big vote -- they turn up in the big vote elections.ar we're seeing a little bit of that year in the bernie sanders/hillary clinton race where sanders has gottenen extraordinary, 80-plus percent of the votes of young adults, but not that big of turnout.o

so there are a lot of questions. so the showdown, to go back to where we started, we have a set of about half of our budget now is social security, medicare and the nonchild portion of medicaid. the numbers don't work. everybody in washington knows that. it will force very difficult and painful decisions about how to make sure these great programs that have worked so well in the 20th century continue to work in the 21st century. and it's going to be these two generations who have just based on where they are in their life cycle and their political views, they have competing interests. the good news is they're not at each other's throats. we know from this how theye' interact with each other inth their family lives. there's much more intergenerational goodwill than there used to be a few decades ago, and perhaps the grace note is maybe that will translate from the family realm to the public realm, and it'll be easier to solve some of these problems. >> host: let me invite you to phone in with your questions and

comments for paul taylor. going to break up the lines a little bit differently here, and i'll try to read them at a good pace. there's four separate lines based on age. here's the first one. 18-29, call 202-748-8000. 30-45 years old, 202-748-8001. if you are 46-60, call 748-8002, and if you're 61 or over, call this number, 202-748-8003, and we'll keep the numbers on the screen for a good period of time so we can get that nice diversity of callers with the age ranges. but let's dig into this a little bit more. here's one chart. it says a different look at generations and partisanship. 2014 partisan advantages by year of birth, what is this telling us? >> guest: what it's telling us is, again, broadly speaking, these are generalizations, the older you are, the more likely you are to skew conservative and republican. d the younger you are, the more

likely you are to skew liberal and democrat. and that's pretty striking. and that has to do to a great degree with the different racial profiles of these groups. the united states of america is enroute to becoming a majority non-white country. the census bureau says that'll happen sometime between the year 2040-2050. our millennial generation, the 18-35-year-olds, are our transitional generation, so that new america, about 43% of them are non-white. and minority groups tend to be more comfortable with the democratic party. one more point to make, however, about my eleven qualification. we know from exit polls how they vote. they are a very liberal voting block, a very big d democratic voting block, but they don't identify with the democratic party. so when you used to work at the i pew research center when we asked adults of all ages what party are you, 48-50% of millennial withs say i'm no

party, i'm independent, because they have grown up in an era -- and we see a lot of that in this campaign upon both sides of the aisle -- where politics is saying, oh, my god, i don't want any piece of that. the political system is gridlocked, it's not good at solving problems, nothing happens. so they don't identify withh parties, but we know from their voting behaviors they're very democratic. >> host: let's get back to the presidential campaign because you mentioned that a couple ofpe on the-- of minutes ago. we know older folks are going for hillary clinton. why is that? >> guest: i think bernie sanders represents a challenge to the established order. he is not politics as usual.on he makes that clear. he wants a pretty call revolution. -- political revolution, and he believes the system is broken. and i think that's a very appealing message to this generation of young adults who agree with him. whereas hillary clinton, youou know, they have -- they don't have profound differences on their policy solutions. they have the sort of differences you will find within a party, but certainly hillary

clinton represents the political establishment. and so i think to that degree sanders is the outsider, the outsider is appealing to young adults. >> host: and a recent "time" magazine piece said the kids are all left, was the quote. [laughter] millennials are financially stressed, politically pivotal, but none of that matters if they don't vote. >> guest: so here's the thing, millennials -- in the last year, millennials as defined as blocki 18-35-year-olds, are now the largest age block in the electorate, they're the largest age block in our work force, but they punch below their weight come election time. now, this is partly life cycle. it's always been the case that young adults vote in lower shares than older adults. it's -- and over the years, in recent decades that hasn't made too much difference because young and old voted alike.k if you go back 16 years to our famous 50/50 election, bush v.

gore, you had 50 president of older adults -- 50% of older adults split 50/50, younger adults split 50/50. if you go to the past two obama elections, there was a record-sized gap between the way the young and old voted. and, again, it was the youth vote that not only helped obama in the first place, but rescued him from defeat four years later. but if you go into the two offyear elections, 2010 and 2014, these were record setting years for republicans because the young didn't turn out. in 2014 19.9%, that was the turnout rate of 18-29-year-olds, a record low. so you've got this very -- you know, we've been talking for several decades about red states and blue states. in the modern era, you can talk about red years and blue years,o and a lot of that has to do with the voting patterns of young versus old. >> host: phone callers to weigh in, janet is calling from tacoma, washington, 63 and over.

-- 61 and over. good morning to you, janet. >> caller: well, yeah. you want my opinion? >> host: yep. you're on with paul taylor. >> caller: i have always thought that hillary clinton would be good for president because she has, she has been all over the world, she knows what everyone needs in this time to help everybody. not just, not just the rich like some people want done, but for everybody. and she would like everybody to have it good. and i don't like the way thee dt republicans are being cruel to the democrats. i mean, they act like automatic republican president -- all the republican presidents have done everything great which i have lived through it, i know they haven't. i mean, they are against abortion, which i am too, but they don't ever mention that

reagan was the one that startedn the laws for abortions. they don't say -- they're against not having jobs. it seems like the democrats were the only ones that worked hard on getting jobs. and it was reagan that made laws that they could sell our good-paying jobs, which they did. and the drugs is what's ruining our country x-ray began was the first -- and reagan was the first president to let the drugs come over, and reagan spent all the social security and left nothing, no money when he got out. >> host: all right, janet, let me jump in there. you've put a lot out on the table for paul taylor. >> guest: we had another democratic debate last week, we've had a lot of debates thiss season, and i used to be a politics reporter for "the washington post," so i have been watching, as i think a lot of americans have, these debates over the last few months. and i am struck by this:

whatever your view is on the left or the right, it feels to me this year more than any yeara i can recall that the candidates for the two political parties, it almost seems as if they're running for the presidency of different countries just to listen to articulate the problems, to describe the problems and to describe their solutions. and, you know, a metaphor that the leading republican has used a lot is the metaphor of the wall. we live in very difficult times, there are outsiders who are trying to harm us whether they are unauthorized -- illegal immigration or whether it's, you know, isis and other groups. let's build a wall. and the message of and bernie sanders is, no, let's break down barriers. and i think some of this has to do with the two different parties' attitudes towards the changing demographics. we are a country that is becoming more multiracial, more multicultural, more diverse. and by and large, the democratic party for the last several

decades has been more comfortable with that and is projecting a message to appeal to that new america. and the republican party has a lot of people in it who are uncomfortable with the changes, many of whom feel like they are strangers in the country that they grew up in. and i think donald trump's message appeals to that group.p. now, there are a lot of overlaps too. there's a lot of economic stress that people of all -- both parties and all ideologies feel, and some of the messages on the economic front clearly overlap and cross party lines. but i think on the demographicon front you see a very, very clear difference. >> host: call canner mentioningr hillary clinton reminds me of this piece that you have on women and leadership. let's enter that into the discussion a little bit more. women are equally qualified but barriers persist. what are you saying here? >> guest: well, listen, i mean, you know, hillary clinton, you know, looks to be on path to be the first major party nominee who is a woman. we are in an era where gender

roles at many, many realms of our country, gender roles are converging. you see this, you see this at home. today households that have children under the age of 18, in 40% of those households the mother is either the sole or the primary breadwinner. fifty years ago that was just the case in 10% of such households. so women are moving to the fore in terms of becoming the family breadwinner, they're doing better, the pay gap hasn't disappeared, but certainly among the millennial generation, among young men and women in their 20s, it has almost entirely disappeared. it tends to widen back out as men and women get older and they take separate paths, and it's often the case the woman interrupts her career for child rearing. but in the family realm and in most workplaces, there's no question that gender roles are converging. but then when you get towards the top whether it's in politics or whether it's in the corporate

america, you still have the phenomena of a glass ceiling.. so the pew research center overn the years has tried to understand where this glass ceiling comes from, what's the source of it. and we've asked a battery of questions that, in effect, it invites the public to say, well, is it that there's something different about men and women and women just aren't cut out to be leaders? i would describe it as sort of the mad men era, the cable show view of women. yes, they're secretaries, they're nurses, but they're not cut out for the top jobs. or is it institutional barriers. overwhelmingly, both men and women say it doesn't have to do with anything innate in terms of the difference between the sexes. >> host: melanie from kensington, maryland, in the age range of 46-60. hey, melanie. >> caller: hi, how are you? >> host: i'm doing well. what would you like to say this morning? >> caller: i was raised republican, my family's all republican, but i switched to

independent, and i'm voting more democratic, and i'm leaning more towards bernie, would be happy enough with hillary. but what's happened is it seems like the republican party that i knew from before has changed dramatically. it's much more like extremely radical right, very authoritarian and uncompromising in areas that, as a woman, as a mother, just as an american citizen, i'm not comfortable with the direction that they've gone. >> host: melanie, let me ask when did you, when did you discover this about yourself? how long ago? >> caller: it's probably been about 8-10 years ago now, maybe even a little bit longer. >> host: was there a particulare episode or period of time there that got your attention and made you change?he >> caller: i would say the stronger the evangelical movement became and the ways they were framing the role of women, their stance on abortion rights and just the constant message that was droning about fear mongering and just the way

that the media have complete control of aspects of people's personal lives outside of what i think should be a republican stance, you know, how to govern versus the extreme rhetoric that i keep hearing on invading people's personal space. >> host: melanie, thank you for weighing in. paul taylor. >> guest: melanie used the words "authoritarian," which is interesting, because i've seen some interesting scholarship on the appeal of donald trump. it's interesting, because donald trump is not a down-the-line conservative. that's within one of the debates -- that's been one of the debates he's been having with ted cruz and marco rubio and others. what he is clearly appealing to is the desire for a strongman, for an authoritarian figure who can, in a very messy world, in a world filled with rapid and disorienting change, says i'm going to take care of everything. i'm going to build a wall, you know, if they're chopping our

heads off, we're going to torture them. it's messy out there, you need a strong man to do it. and he has clearly found a vein of support there. i would note that we're now, what are we, 10, 15, 18 states in, and he's gotten about 35% of the republican vote. so -- and more than any multicandidate contest i can remember, it seems to me this political race in the republican side has been all about donald trump. and he's got a third, but two-thirds of the republican voters have not chosen him. so we will see how this plays out, but there's no question he is appealing, he is appealing to a very, very deep sense of feeling that we need order in a disordered world, how broad that is will be tested in the coming months. >> host: so let's go 18-29, andrew from ashburn, virginia. good morning, andrew. >> caller: good morning.

>> host: what's on your mind? >> caller: well, mr. taylor's right that i think a lot of millennials do skew liberal, but some of us, we kind of feel lost because the republican party speaks to us about limitingng government, lowering our taxes, making it easier to, you know, go into entrepreneurship, start businesses, tough like that. but then -- stuff like that. but then we hear the rhetoric about immigrants and muslims and, you know, my wife is immigrant, she's also muslim. so why would i want to vote for someone who has that opinion about her and about people, my friends, a lot of them are immigrants, people from all different backgrounds? so we kind of feel lost because we feel like one message speaks to us, and the other one doesn't. you know? so, you know, we kind of feel a little bit out of sync with the conventional politics. >> host: andrew, is there a candidate in this race or still in this race or maybe somebody that was in this race that was appealing to you?

>> caller: i liked rand paul a little bit, but he really didn't everyone size some of his limited government -- emphasize some of his limited governmentth until the end when it was a little bit too late for him. if i vote this time, it'll probably be for governor johnson if he gets the the l.p. nomination again. >> host: gary johnson referring to. go ahead and respond. >> guest: i think andrew makes a very good point about young adults. their liberalism is most evident on social and cultural and diversity issues along the lines of those that he described. classic economic issues, big government versus small government, you see much less of an age skew. so you're absolutely righting in pointing that out. and that, i think that does leave a lot of young adults cross-pressured. but at least, at least given the voting behavior of millennials that we've been able to track down for a decade or so because the oldest of them have been in

the electorate for a decade, when they weigh it and put theic thumbs on the scale, they haveve tended to come down very heavily on the democratic side. we've never seen as big d democratic an age cohort inth modern history as this one.xa and i think a lot of it has to do with exactly the lifestyle and the lives and the identities you describe. this is a generation that is, again, multiracial, multicultural. many of them are immigrantsmidde themselves or children of immigrants. open them back up almost exactly 50 years ago, and since then 59 million immigrants have come to this country. and unlike our earlier immigration waves which were nine and ten european and like,l this immigration wave is mostlyy hispanic and increasingly now asian. it's changing our racial complexion, it's creating a large share of these immigrants and now second generation immigrants are marrying

across-racial boundaries. we're becoming more mixed race. and, again, this is disorientins to older americans. they don't recognize this country. but to young adults, it's the only world they've ever known, it's the world they want to grow up in. and when they hear rhetoric from a political party that seems to say, no, you're not really us, we need to build walls, it's a turnoff. >> host: to illustrate that point a little bit more, by 2065, says pew, no racial or ethnic group will be a majority in this country. tell us more about what that means. >> guest: well, what it means, again, we were an 85% white country in the year 2015 -- i'm sorry, 15950.. by -- 1950. by 2050 we'll be 45% white. it's the hispanic immigration wave that has been driving that change, but going forward it's likely to be the asian immigration wave that continues that. and in my mind among the most

interesting additional changes are racial intermarriage. if you to go back to 1961 when barack obama's parents parents e married, and let's stipulate these events occurred in hawaii and not in kenya, best estimate is something on the order of the magnitude of one-tenth of 1% of marriages in 1961 was like that marriage between a black person and a white person. that marriage was still illegal in about a third of our states, it was a gasp-inducing taboo everywhere else. and about 2-2.5% of all marriages 50 years ago were across the lines of race and ethnicity that we use currently to define who we are as a people. fast forward to today, about 16% of all new marriages are across lines of race and ethnicity led by our immigrant groups, asians and hispanics, who when they marry now, more than a quarter of them, quote, marry out. we are becoming more racially blended.

and, you know, you look at the super bowl three weeks ago, and we had beyonce on the super bowl, we had bruno mars on the super bowl, and they are part of a celebrity culture that is increasingly mixed race. beyonce's song at the super bowl, she sort of talks about that.th again, this is, this is completely natural to young adults, and it is something that older adults -- particularly more conservative older adults -- are having trouble adjusting to. but this is the wave of the future. a majority of children born today, a majority of children in the united states in kindergarten today are non-white. so we are on a path towards becoming a majority non-white country, racially diverse. and i think in the view of -- i know in the view from surveys of young adults, this is not a problem to be solved. this is an advantage to be celebrated. as long as we have the tolerance and acceptance of diversity that we need. and my sense is from looking at

a lot of cultural and social indicators, we're getting there. bumpily, you know, and with a lot of stress and strife and some of which plays out in our political campaigns. but this is clearly, this is clearly who we are becoming.rm >> host: our guest is a former reporter for "the washington post," paul taylor. served as executive vp for the pew research center where he oversaw the social ands demographics trends project over there, and he is author of this book. the book is titled "the next america: boomers, millennials and the looming generationalin showdown." john in lynnhurst, new jersey,th 30-45 years old. >> caller: hey, good morning. >> host: morning. >> caller: i'd just like to comment, the author is right, but this is a systematic plan that has been planned for over a hundred years. i'm just telling the truth, whether you like what i say or not or if you're uncomfortable by it or not. you know, jewish people have

been trying to de-white the world for a hundred years.for mr. israel cohen wrote a racial program for the 20th century in 1912. look it up. and he writes that we have to mix different races together so we'll control the world easier. it won't be a white world anymore, it will be a brown world.' >> host: let you go there, john. paul taylor, any reaction? >> guest: not really sure how to react. i think -- i was talking a little bit earlier about racial intermarriage and, yes, there is much more religious intermarriage these days than there used to be. it used to be a big deal in this country, 80, 100 years ago if a protestant were to marry a catholic. now it sort of happens without virtually no comment anywhere. jews, you mentioned jing ews -- ews --jews, close to 60% have married non-jews. the idea that there's a plan, the idea that there's somebody

looming above all of this and directing people and telling them who to love, who to couple up with strikes me as way out of bounds. it just, it -- i don't know how to react to it other than i don't think there is such a plan. >> host: back to the millennials, paul taylor. from twitter: i suspect millennials are getting tired of paying for the boomers' social security and medicare. >> guest: you know, it's interesting, they're not. again, i've got a lot of data on this. and i'll start with the following. when you ask millennials do they expect that social security will be there for them when they're ready to retire, 50% say it will not be there at all, another 40% say, yes, but it will reduce levels. just 6% of millennials say i think these programs will be there for me when i'm ready to retire at current levels. however, when you ask people of all ages, including millennials, are social security and medicare

good for america, you get nine in ten millennials saying, yes, they are good for america. we don't see a whole lot of nine in ten approval ratings these days given how sour the country's mood is. we joke around the office if you ask people does your mother love you, we're not sure we would get a nine in ten yes on that. social security's been around 80 years, medicare 50 years. they are the two most popular m things government does, and the reason is that they are the most successful programs. .. 20-20 five years old, grandma and grandpa are doing ok. without these programs, the poverty rate for seniors in america today would be 50%. because of these p the poverty rate for seniors in america today is 10%. that's not just great for grandma and grandpa. b it's great for repairs and great for you because those benefits flow throughout the extended family tree.

in some ways the benefits of these programs for young adultss are being bank right now and well being of the grandparents. the very, very difficult policy question is will they still beth there for young adults when they are at the age of the grandparents are now. at least on today's course we know this from the bean counters, the nonpartisan trustees of the systems who have been saying year after year in the annual report the right to the president, the congress, know. they don't work. we have to take this on not because the longer we wait the deeper the hole and the more the burden of any solution falls on today's young. i think today's young frankly have a legitimate beef with the inability of their political leaders to take this on. it's frankly surprised me that are not even more up in arms about and that may be because they think okay, thank goodness they are helping out grandma and grandpa. >> host: another tweet labeled peace department.

bolinas don't want big cars. they want to others, protecting by become live in urban areas and bike and walk. let's go to teresa in atlanta in the 46-60 age bracket. >> caller: good morning. i have a comment regarding the presidential elections right now. it ties in for me in my age group with the millennials and so forth. the american people need too understand and remember how goos the clintons were to us back in my time when president bill clinton was elected asdent president. and now president obama has done a great job in presenting what needs to be in order to help the biggest class of people in this country with java middle-class. a lot of people are move -- losing sight of that.