>> on the second, on the special operations, i don't know exactly the intent. madelyn can probably address that better. from a standpoint of relevance, the special operations versus a heavy brigade, today, for the reality we live in, is a lot more relevant to the defense capabilities of nato and europe. >> i'm going to dodge that one and go after the other one. but i think that the nato dpr clearly put forth nato's view as far as being part of an alliance and the fact that there clearly are nuclear weapons that the u.s. assigned to nato, is something that both the hlg, the npg, all the rest of the bodies that nato looks at, and with a good deal of sear yourness. on the one hand there's been,

particularly over the last six months-ish, a creation of an arms control committee, as well as with the hlg. the beginning of, okay, what do we need to do to look at confidence-building measures, transparency measures in a way that will inspire some -- reciprocal actions on the part of russia as far as the foundation for reduction. so that's out there. but the commitment on the part of the allies, which i think is part of this, it has -- it's really been very strong, and it's a commitment that is really respected in this notion of -- so the -- at least in the context of the hrg, burden-sharing has been a very important element of this, and we see good, strong consensus on that. so, -- also in the context of

the whole u.s. nuclear commitment to get to nato. there really is burden-sharing. it isn't obvious but it is. nato common funding, individual nations, and then you have the individual -- the independent deterrent, the uk, which is provided to nato. so it is good and a pretty strong alliance, that said, the ptd that was just issued made it very clear that the u.s. really is committed to extending terms and that was not only a reassurance to nato and also a reassurance in both the middle east and also, frankly, most importantly in the context of japan and korea. to that extent the deterrent is there. and even though there aren't weapons there anymore, we have taken some actions, like the recent flyover with the b-2, to make it very clear we're committed to this extended deterrence. >> if we went down to sear flow terms of nuclear weapons in

europe, would we have to change our conventional force structure any way? >> very interesting question. i'd have to say -- i mean, live in my world of strategic deterrence. i don't venture out much into the conventional side. so that would be a conversation for a larger group. but it depends on how strong one would believe the deterrence is. in other words, would the extent of the deterrence be strong enough if everything were pulled back to the u.s., that it would be equivalent. if it were not seen as equivalent of the forward deployed deterrence, then you would probably have to do something on the conventional side, but if it was equivalent, probably know. >> the truth is in the eye of the beholder, but from a purely

military standpoint, my opinion -- and i've said this multiple times, is that any capability that is on the soil in europe today can be replicated in kind and in availability from a standoff distance. that's really not a problem. and it's credible. probably to the extent more credible because it's safe, it's guarded, and it can be called forward when it needs to and can be substituted with something that is strategic and gets there fast. so from that standpoint, there is a value, though to something that you can go pat and say, it's here, and people practice, et cetera, and that's the political side of this equation, which is very important in the pacific we did it differently as a nation, the united states to what we have done in europe. it can work either way.

it's in the eyes of the beholder and what our allies feel they need to be convinced that we in fact will honor our extended deterrence commitments. >> curt? >> just a final comment. i think this raises a broader political problem with nato again, which is we have gotten ourselves comfortable with the idea that allies can agree to a mission and assume it doesn't mean that. so, we agree that, yeah, nato will take on this thing, but does it mean i'm going to commit military forces to carry this snout and libya is a great example, when germany pulls it forces a. from the coast of libya when the rest of us go to do something in libya. that's a dangerous direction for nato to go in. i think it -- it creates this assumption that it's someone else's problem and in many cases it's the u.s.' problem. i don't think nato can work that way. so one of the reasons why i have

a different reaction to the question from the guy from the defense institute, if you didn't have the u.s. nuclear weapons in europe, allies would say, nuclear policies not our issue anymore. it's those guise' issue. >> one more question. >> thank you. i have comment regarding the deterrent or preventive power of nato, and i think the history of the nato, especially since the breakup of soviet union, clearly convince that the enlargement policy was one of the strongest deterrent factor and many crises, be prevented because of the pfp and subsequently -- and i think this process should continue in different forms and in different directions, in europe as well as globally. but my question now is about

another integration of processes happening on continent. forming a union that secretary clinton labeled a recreation of the soviet union, and while the attempt is to color this under the economy, we will remember that initially this idea was -- they tried to be a little bit more smart and call it under the economy umbrella. so what should be the nato position toward this type of unwilling, forceful attempt to integrate different countries who decide to break free from the soviet union,. >> toss it to curt. >> first off issue think you're right that enlargement was a great deterrent, but a when we

enlarged we were clear we were serious about the collective defense aspect of it. so i thick it was tremendous success and reassurance in countries like the baltic states. and i think also the reverse is true. the fact that we stumbled over georgia, kind of gave a green light to say, they're not serious about georgia. so i think you're absolutely right to weigh it that way. and then the third point that i would make -- i guess i would add it on to what you were saying -- not contradicting it -- both in the u.s. and among the european allies we have run out of steam, so that talking more about enlargement today is going to actually raise questions about your commitment. are we really committed to extending our defense guarantee to more countries and more territories when our public -- we're cutting our military forces, pulling back from

operations. is that really credible? we have a lot of homework to do as nato itself, to rebuild some of the credibility, so that we can be in the position of saying, now we're moving forward on enlargement and it is as iron clad as ever, what nato membership really means. i would like to see us start rebuilding that. talking about the importance of completing a europe -- start talking about our desire to get there the countries interested in that. i think we all have to be realistic and build that back up a bit. >> let me close our session by posing to our panelists one last question, and it can serve as framework for closing remarks to our audience. if you were sitting in the white house today what would you like to see come to the nato summit that would fundamentally re-align or reinforce the

alliance deterrence capacities? >> i'll start from general cartwright and then madelyn. >> give them a chance to think about it. my sense -- i go back -- re-align the conventional capabilities so that they address not only the most dangerous but the most likely. accept the fact that we're going to have to deal not only with nation states that are going to have crisis, but we're going to have groups and individuals that are highly empowered and that they're going to be able to bring threat against nations, elements of the alliance, that are going to have to respond. so i would be focusing particularly in europe and in the alliance, at capabilities that are addressing the most

likely. the second thing from my perspective -- and i am very much in line with those comments -- we have to bring down the reliance on nuclear as a strategic deterrent, and increase reliance on other capabilities, other tools, diplomatic and military forks are strategic deterrence, and start to move for the technology the capabilities and the architecture that would allow to us have those kind of capabilities at the strategic level to deter conflict and increase other options so our state craft options don't run out prematurely. we have to increase the tools in the statecraft to prevent these things. >> i would say probably initially, making sure that the financial commitments of each country continue to be sound.

the ability -- everybody i now is challenged at this point in time, but nevertheless, making sure that is really still an element of membership in nato, you commit to your defense goals. the second thing i would say is to really look at those things which could enable nato at large to take greater advantage, i think, of its various abilities and to focus on some of the new strategic enablers. not necessarily new but things that maybe nato hasn't totally taken advantage of. things like cyber, making sure that even the nato networks are solid and protected, networks of nato members are sol split protected, and all of those things that need nato to operate are there so calms are there and

the networks are protected, and look at those things that are known province of one country to provide and i think the u.s. provides most of the isr. so is that the way to balance these capabilities? are there other countries that can provide other capabilities? how do we spread some of this around so nato isn't totally relying ounce one driven for one thing? >> i would say that the -- for them to take a fresh look at the threat in a way that is not static. i've spent a career listening to what is a real threat and what isn't, and every ten years it gets redefined, and real threats -- nonreal threats become real threats. have the capacity to engage individuals, individual groups, surrogate groups, and look at the deterrence from a point of view, in some cases unfortunately where it isn't a state you're trying to deter but

it is a terrorist group, and in that case i couldn't disagree more with curt's point that it opportunity have a deterrence effect. i think you need to be able to counter whatever the tools that a terrorist group tries to use, and just have that capacity. >> thank you. curt? >> well, three things. i would look for a renewed consensus on completing europe -- that we have to get that back. that could mean an invitation or two to macedonia to get it resolved, and could just be getting the allies together, this where is we want to go. second, i would want to see a renewed commitment to exercising and planning the capabilities needed for nato in the collective sense. a lot of the building blocks are in place and we need to put a strong package eve that. we know we'll be cutting and not

going to do certain things so answer the question, what are you prepared to do and putting nat concrete terms. the third thing is, to be using nato as a place to discuss the really raging crises going on around nato, syria and egypt, and libya and iran and so forth. i think we have really drifted over the 20 years or so from nato being a central police where we dealt with challenges, to a place where we don't talk about things strategically anymore. >> thank you very much. let me thank my panel for their comments and insights. i think it demonstrated a lot of people call conventional deterrence. missile defense is old thinking. it's clear from our discussion, very relevant, may be long-standing challenges and threats, and tools that we have, but they're very, very linked to the new challenges, be it cyber, terrorism, other dimensions that define the strategic environment

today. with that said, let's give our panel a warm round of thanks. >> this wednesday on washington journal, we'll discuss the digital currency bitcoin, our guest is david walling. you can read his article, "how to save bitcoin." online at the "washington journal web site" you can call or tweet us your questions live wednesday at 9:15 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> tomorrow a senate banking subcommittee will hold a hearing on digital currency, their creation and regulation. witnesses include the crowes of bitpay and ripple. you can watch live coverage of the hearing beginning at 3: 30:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3.

>> mrs. johnson, the first lady, loved to show off the texas country and her home. the guests to the ranch would informally gather in the den and various heads of state came to visit. we have a few things that speak to her connection to the room. she wanted to highlight the native american heritage here in the hill country, and we have a small collection of arrowheads over there. she had an eye for copper and collected various items in the years and had gifts from various friends. mrs. johnson gave a tour of the house in 1968 that was filmed, where she featured the china you see here, purchased in mexico, very colorful. first lady, mrs. johnson, spent a lot of time at the ranch and it was very important because it provided such a respite from the turmoil of washington, particularly later in the presidency, where the johnsons could come home, recharge their batteries and make the connection back to the land and this place they valued so much. >> first lady, lady bird

johnson, tonight, live at 9:00 eastern, on c-span and c-span3, also on c-span radio and c-span.org. >> next, senators klobuchar and susan collins from the washington ideas forum. they talk about the healthcare law and a range of issues. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you very much for joining us. this is a great thrill. i covered the white house now, spent many years running around after both of you, and since i left the congressional approval rating has gone up to -- >> no, no. >> it's below. >> , but great have to susan collins and amy klobuchar here. amy, i want to talk about the great bipartisanship you have forged in place where it's desperately needed. but we have some news. the roman numbers numbers for --

enrollmentment numbers for obamacare, 27,000 people were all that were able to not even enroll but to choose a health plan. how worried are you about the way things are going. >> it's no surprise this has been an unacceptable situation. a web site that is not working at a time when people actually do want to sign up and get their health care this way. so, the numbers we saw were, i think, about 25,000 from the federal site, significantly better from the state sites. and then 975,000 people who have actually completed their applications and are ready to shop for their plans. the president has pledged to change this. he must. one of hour minnesota companies is leading the way to try to fix it, which i'm glad about, and i'm very hopeful that these significant improvements will be made. originally this idea of the exchange was a bipartisan idea.

the health care bill wasn't but this idea was. it came out of the simple notion that individuals and small businesses should be able to pool their numbers, leverage their numbers so they can get rates like corporations get, because they were paying nearly 20% more for insurance, and that is the simple idea behind the exchange. as we have learned the implement addition is not that simple. and the hope is that these improvements will be made so people can sign up for their health care. >> john, i have to respond a little bit because i think that we're going to find that the problems with the web site are the least of the problems with the affordable care act. i was in maine this past weekend, and a small businessman called me, whose insurance had been cancelled because it does not comply with obamacare. he is facing 54% increase in his

premiums. another constituent contacted me because her insurance also had been cancelled, insurance that she liked. she has a 19-year-old son with cystic fibrosis, who has been treated his entire life at boston's children's hospital. under the new plan that the exchange is offering in the state of maine, she can no longer take her son to the doctor who has treated him his entire life at children's hospital. so, i think we're going to find that there are far bigger problems with obamacare than just the web site. >> we're starting to see -- susan, you know, we saw senator feinstein talking about the number of people that have called her with similar stories, and she is now joining with senator lan drew didn't lan drew

and maybe bill clinton from the outside, make you need to change the law to do something about people getting their insurance canceled. are you going to join that effort? >> at the beginning when the law passed i voiced concern about the fact that we were going to have to make changes going forward. for me one of the changes is the medical device tax. i would like to see that changed, repealed, because it is essentially a tax on manufacturing. that being said, whether it is doing what we took make sure that people are protected and either have a better plan on the exchange or able to keep their own insurance, i think one of the problems with making these changes is that there's general agreement we can't just throw out the entire thing. people have gotten used to these benefit. they want to keep their kids on their insurance until they're 26. don't want to be kicked off their insurance because they have preexisting conditions. my favorite part of the bill, the delivery system reform, of trying to bring those costs down. like we do in minnesota, where we have literally high costs,

high -- low cost, high quality care, that is really a model for the rest of the country, with the mayo clinic and other. maine also has good health care. so the idea is to try to keep those things in and keep strong bill while make something changes we have to make to go forward, and one problem has been, it's been so extreme? terms of repealing the whole thing, it's been very difficult to make rational changes to a big bill. >> i think that it's -- i know you didn't want to go into this -- i certainly agree with amy that there should have been much more of focus on health care delivery reforms. the biggest problem with the affordable care act is that it does so little to rein in the cost of health care, and after all the reason why we have people without insurance is because insurance is so costly. unfortunately the result of

obamacare is to drive up those costs for many middle income americans, and small businesses, and reduce their choice at the same time. so, i don't -- i think there is a lot that could have been done to expedite delivery reforms, to focus on chronic illnesses, for example in the meds care program. we spend one out of three dollars on people who have diabetes, and yet our reimbursement system does not incentivize physician offices to check on their patients with diabetes. we could do -- there's so much we could do on medical liability reform, that every study shows would save money. >> so, before you leave health care, senator klobuchar, you're going the white house tomorrow and meet with the president, you and the rest of the democratic caucus. what are you going to tell him?

>> well, first of all, we have had many discussions on this with the president, and just to get at susan's point here, one of my main arguments on health care has been the if therey system reform, and when you look at the facts, we have actually seen the slowest increased rate in decades to healthcare cos. the numbers are out there because a lot of the hospitals and doctors are starting to respond to look at delivering health care in a most cost efficient way. so that's why many of us think -- we have to anyplace the good parts of the bill, and do allow it to pull back on the exchanges now, when people finally have the opportunity to get -- depending on what their options for plans, sometimes it's a better deal sometimes, sometimes not. what we need to see improvements and working together rather than simply repealing the whole bill. >> you know, there was a big mistake in the first place. we should have worked together in a bipartisan way.

>> it was crazy to pass a bill like this without a single republican -- >> we tried. max bachus waited and waited. they tried to do it that way -- >> i really disagree. >> the theme today is bipartisanship. >> but seriously, amy and i share an interest in the healthcare delivery reform, because both of our states, long before the affordable care act, have been leaders, the mayo clinic, obviously, is well-known for that. maine has several hospitals that have led the way, and there's a lot you can do. if you look at the dartmouth college atlas of medical costs, you can see that maine and minnesota are both known for high-quality and lower cost. >> coverage rates for people who are insured.

>> we should have learned from that, and i think there was a lot that both parties would have agreed on that could have provided the basis for a bipartisan bill, and i think it's really sad that instead the bill was jammed through -- >> it's hard to go back -- i want to move on. i joke. 9% approval rating of congress in the latest gallup poll, an all-time record. but you two managed to find a way to work together. we talked earlier, you won re-election with a -- was it 35-point landslide? this makes chris christie's lace look like a nail-biter, and senator collins you won 62% of the vote in maine. both of you way outperformed the president in your states and more significantsly, we had this whole shutdown debacle.

i have a 17-year-old daughter and shesaw that things started to change, started to be a solution to come forward, when you guys started to work together. it was the women senators that kind of said -- that was the interception from the outside. tell me what was actually going on. >> well, that scenario has -- you have a very astute daughter, i might add. you know, the women of the senate for years have gotten together for dinners. we get together about once a month, once every six weeks, and -- >> where do you go? >> well, we went to my house last time. >> oh, yes. >> we had a pot luck, like in minnesota. >> susan slice up a bunch of sweet potatoes for our meals. >> maine potatoes. but the point actually is a serious one and that is that those dinners have forged bonds

of friendship and trust among the women senators, and in timeses of crisis, such as the shutdown, that has been very helpful. i'll never forget being in any office on saturday, october 5th, it was the end of the first week of the shutdown, and i was listening to the floor debate, and colleague after colleague on both sides of the aisle alternating back and forth, were coming to the floor casting political stones at the other side, and no one was offering a solution. so, -- >> i remember well. >> i charted out a three-point plan, went to the floor, gave that speech, and challenged our colleagues to come out of their partisan corners and stop fighting and start legislating, and it is significant that the first calls that i got, just as soon as i got off the senate floor, were largely from my

female colleagues, amy was one of the first. lisa murkowski, and kelly, and a few good men, too, i want to make sure that they -- >> senator mccain. >> and john mccain, mark curt, joe mansion, joe donnelly, but we started meeting day after day, and perhaps more important than the fact the women led the way, was the fact it was truly bipartisan. we had seven republicans, six democrats, and my independent colleague from maine, angus king. and not a member of leadership, which i think might have been significant also. >> in fact leadership kind of came in and swooped in and -- >> well -- >> don't want to revisit that all. >> the point was that we came together and the basic framework we agreed on was basically what

they did. we would have done a few things differently, some nice addons if i do say so. but we were ready to announce our agreement, and they worked with us. we were talking to them. we weren't off on our own. the bigger thing about women in leadership. there's our group and the fact that susan led the way on the reform bill in the senate. debby stabenow is leading the farm bill and that passed with bipartisan support. barbara boxer was age able to work out an agreement on the transportation bell, -- bill, ad then with senator vetter on the resources act, and patty murray and barbara mull cow ski are leading the way so while we're only 20% of the senate, we have an outside role when it comes to chairmanships and other things. i guess it's because we keep getting elected, and to set in

the -- i'm the chair of the economic committee on the senate side so i get to go to chairman lunches, and to see all the women in leadership roles, it makes a big difference. and what susan said is true. you look at the violence against women act, the women in the senate, every single one, voted for the bill and that broke the dam so the house adopted the provisions in the senate bill that were important, to protect tribal bill and other things. so this has been happening time and time again, where things are going pretty bad and the women are able to step in, and i hope we see more and here of it in the future, and i especially hope we see it on these judge confirmations. >> we're not letting -- you know, just one quick comment on that. amy raises a really important point, that there's a critical mass of women in the senate now, but also women are in key leadership roles.

back in 2003, when i was chairman of the homeland security committee, i was the only woman who was chair of a major committee. this is a sea change. >> there are no women chairs in the house. >> i don't know the answer to that. >> i believe that is the case. we're almost out of time. how much of this -- obviously so much another what is behind this distaste with congress and washington generally, the two sides can't get anything done. what you described. we toupe in, watch the blame back and forth, and no effort at a solution. so, given the progress, the clear progress, that women of the senate have been able to do how much of it is -- more moderates like yourself, or the fact that you actually spend time together? these dinners. >> it's a trust relationship, where we know each other, and we

know where we can find common ground and we we can't. it's like how washington used to run. people actually knew about each other cared about each other, and i think that makes the major difference. i think a lot of women that have gotten elected, we can't really get their there by walking around in a flight suit, and so -- some of us have actually, but for the most part it's a focus on results. when i was running for prosecutor my first time i would obsessively look at janet footprint's web site because she was focused on results. what happened. and someone said that women candidates -- i don't agree with the first part -- they said they speak softly and carry big statistic, and i don't think we speak softly but we're more focused on accountability and results and that's a big difference, and i'm hopeful as we add more township the more women to the senate and have this opportunity in the next election, the culture can

change. we had in the first time in the united states of america a traffic jam in the women senator's bathroom. so we want to see more of this. so you get people in there that like each other, you can get things done instead of standing in the opposite corner of the boxing ring throwing punches. you finally reallyize that courage isn't just that. courage is standing next to somebody you don't always agree with for the betterment of this country. >> you know, want to stress amy's very last point, that is women span the ideological spectrum, just as men do. we don't think alike. we don't have the same positions on various issues, but where i see a difference is that women of the senate are more likely to collaborate, and to realize that we can disagree on an issue but still seek common ground.

and that is what has changed in the years that i've been in washington. there's been a reluctant to try to sit down, find out what is most important to the other side, and seek common ground. it used to be that those in the mid whole south compromise were lauded for our efforts. now we're vilified by both the far left and the -- >> by some of your own colleagues. >> absolutely. >> so, just in the last minute or so we have left, have to ask you the big question when it comes to women leadership. hillary clinton, you democratic senators, democratic women senators, signed this highly secretive letter that we all know about, encouraging hillary to run for president. how hard to get elizabeth warren's signature on that letter? >> i don't thicket was very hard. i think our people are very excited about the possibility of her running.

and so that was no surprise that we all signed the letter, including elizabeth, asking hillary to run. >> just -- at the democratic primary? -- >> not if you have your way. doesn't make good news coverage. but i can't -- i don't have a crystal ball on that but there's clearly growing support for that. i did the arizona democratic dinner on saturday night, and i've been around the country doing a lot of these things and there's a lot of positive support for her. >> if she doesn't run, amy klobuchar runs for president. >> no, i'll be working with susan collins on bipartisan solutions. >> you notice that was not a denial. >> yes. >> you noticed when she is traveling all over the country. did you pick that up? >> a bigger margin than chris christie. thank you very much.

>> now more from the washington ideas forum with americans for tax reform, president grow grover norquist. >> be sure to include chance programming for your chance to win a grand prize. with $100,000 in total prices. get more info at student cam.org. >> every weekend since 1998, book of the has brought you the top nonfiction authors, including hannah rosen. >> increasing him are tied to their work in a way which we may not like and may find disturbing and unnatural, but it is in fact true. like when i look at someone like larissa mayor, the ceo of you hugh when she was visibly pregnant and then was asked much maternities leave do you tenant to take, and she said none. the fact that such women exist, it's not the way i would do

that -- i took plenty of maternity leave, but i feel like that is a growing number -- that is a kind of woman that there can be space for, and the fact that there are some stay at home dads who are happy, not all entirely live in portland, oregon, that's okay, too. >> we're the only national television network devoted exclusively to nonfiction books and throughout the fall we're mark 15 years of booktv on c-span2. >> now more from the "was ideas forum wow wow with americans for tax reform president, grover norquist. he looks at the 2016 presidential election. >> grow virk great to have you back again this year. i thought i would start off in territory that would be fun. get beyond this most powerful man in washington stuff.

so you were recently competed in the funniest politicians and political types in comedy, and i heard you won. how did you won? >> it's funny, celebrity in d.c. does not mean the same thing as in l.a. it means you have been on c-span. >> john love vet won at it few years ago, by imitating ariana huffington. what was the grow -- grover norquist start. >> i do standup and rips on taxes. i don't do politics because half the audience is left and half is right, and comedy works when you have some sort of basic understanding with the audience -- >> if you were going to win over this audience here, hough did you win that night? >> i opened with a -- well, walked up with a glass of bourbon, sat down and said, bourbon. no ice. no water.

never drink water. dick cheneycourt tours people with it. gives it an awkward taste, and i just wondered whether, when midgets play miniature golf, do they know? and i wanted to make the young people feel better. a new poll out, 25% of young americans can't find on a map so i want to make sure that this is not an important life skill. i in fact have been to france several times and it's never required me to find france on a map. you go to the nice people at american airlines and they find it for you. >> any ted cruz references? >> no. no political reverends beyond that. it was a discussion of -- >> all right. so let me bring you to ted cruz. >> all right. >> i'm going read from national review. defunders owe conservatives an

apology. it says grover norquist is not happy with the defundsers. told reporters they have a lot of apologies to make and bridges to rebuild. and this is grover norquist talk about apologies and bridges to be rebuilt. it would be a good idea if they stop referring to other runs as hitler aappeaser because they sponsor supported a strategy that attachment if you make a big mistake, you owe your fellow senator an apology because nothing they did advanced the cause of repealing obamacare. who are the they in this, and are they atr members? >> no. what happened was there was republican strategy going into the continuing resolution, and the debt ceiling and that was to move the cr, the budget, past the debt ceiling. you had one deadline, not a soft deadline that was going to be pushed through, but one hard

deadline. and then work on whether there was some sort of spending reforms you could get as part of the debt celling increase, because traditionally there have been reform. and that would be do-able. instead some people jumped up, and ted cruz got most of the attention -- and -- >> you said he led them into traffic and wandered away. >> he pushed them -- >> pushed them into traffic and then wandered away. >> he said i have a strategy mitchell strategy is the house will vote to repeal obamacare. and then the senate will pass it and then the president will sign it. that was the strategy. we're going to invade iraq and it will turn into -- that not a strategy. okay? it was a tactic with no second act. it didn't take into effect the other team gets to move as well. you can't plan out your chess

moves without recognizing the other player gets to move piecees, too, and sometimes he does it just to annoy you. he doesn't have the queen where you were hoping it would be. so the argument that the president was going to sign away obamacare because we asked persistently for it, was not likely to actually take place, and there are alternative strategies put forward, delay it for a year, which i think would have been prescient when everything started working as poorly as it did on the month of the rollout. and i think it was a mistake. a bad strategy -- there wasn't a strategy. but it was a bad strategy -- >> did any of your g.o.p. colleagues get it right that paul ryan -- did rand paul -- do you think they played anymore responsibly. >> at the end of the day, yes. we had to kick the can down the road, rethink, and when you talk to house members and senators,

everybody understands that effort was in error. it didn't work. it was never going to work. it was a distraction. it may well have cost us the governor's race in virginia because you had government shutdown at just the time we should have been talking about obamacare. when we did talk about obamacare, you saw a resir generals of the republican candidate and only lost by a couple of points when he had been down by ten or 12. so a very expensive mistake. here's the good news. you have a united pup pup -- republican knox the house and senate for the next step in the budget fight. keep the sequester, don't raise taxes, and be willing to do something, not everything, but something on delaying all parts, some of obamacare, whatever the democrats are willing to concede. if you ask republican house and democratic senate, you have two evenly matched sumo wrestlers

and neither can knock the other guide out of the ring. so the idea that the house will make the senate doing in, or the other way around, is silly. if you organize around, make them surrender, that won't happen. but there are democrats who are worried about the 2014 elections and how this obamacare is not working out the way they said it was going to, promises were not kept, assertions were made that weren't true, that were never true. this is a problem, embarrassing, it's not good. if you're a democratic senator in a red state -- and there's seven they are like lie to lose, ten they might lose -- you don't need this bumping around before the next election. they may want to delay things but let them recommend that. >> a year ago chuck todd did an interview with you, and at that time two things were going on. everybody was wondering, any tax that grover norquist would sign up for? >> no. >> i heard you said yes to marijuana. if you legalize marijuana.

is that a false report? >> the question was -- thank you. the question was, in colorado they're going to legalize marijuana. it would then be a violation of the pledge if you tacked it. the answer to that -- >> no. >> the answer is if you tax like to a back -- tobacco tax level. there was an effort by the democrats to increase the tax on marijuana and the answer to that is no. set a reasonable rate -- >> i think the bigger issue at the time was everybody wanted -- everyone was talking about the tax pledge, and would it hold, they were describing the most powerful man in washington, the most unreasonable man in washington, and you were being blamed for everything dysfunctional in government. i can't find anybody talking about the tax pledge today. they may be talking about debt ceiling. looks like the dynamics have shifted and ted cruz kind of grabbed the grover norquist

spotlight around the debt ceiling. what's the state hoff the tax pledge today? >> is what winning looks like. >> winning. >> yeah. the other team doesn't talk about raising taxes. the "washington post" did an editorial advising the democrats, s-h-h-h, don't doc about taxes. es a cline said don't push for tax increases. there's not going to be tax increase you. have the united republican house and senate that wouldn't allow a tax increase. what changed was we got the sequester. okay? that was the big shift that took place. people thought that -- the old paradigm, simpson-bowles, which for years, decades, people said some day we have to fix entitlement. some day. and the democrats' requirement to agree to that -- because you need bipartisan support for something that big -- would have to be a tax increase. so that was the idea. a tax increase and entitlement

reform, simpson-bowles, something like, that's heathier grand bargain in 2011 people thought they would get the grand bargain but they were only offering temporary imaginary spending cuts that wouldn't happen and we were able to stop the fake spending cuts, stop any tack -- tax increases and get the sequester, real spending limits. so the idea was to raise taxes for entitlement reform. the new one is we have a sequester, good for ten years, real spending limits. a choke collar, and the democrats think it's a very tight choke collar. i think it's a rather loosely fitting one but they think they have never been -- >> that's tweetable, a loosely fitting collar, sequester. >> and so they think that the level of spending is so low, it's problematic, they're starving to death.

the kids around the table -- never been so mistreated and they have to have more resources. and they're not going to get more resources. but here's the new deal. not a tax increase. increase for entitlement reform, the new one is we'll loosen the choke collar. we'll temporarilily not take off the choke -- the sequester but loosen it in return for trillions in unfunded liability reduction and if the democrats come with an -- >> you'd do a deal. you're up for a grand bargain. >> this is not me. this is the republican party. >> the ones that listen to you, you'd -- grover norquist would put his blessing on a deal. >> i've written a article for every major publication stating just this and paul ryan has led with this, as well, said, guys, we'll reduce the sequester tightness if you are willing to do entitlement reform. we're not willing to trade loosening the sequester in

return for promises of d discretionary spending cuts in the future. >> you have personalities where chris christie looks to many like he's emerging as the establishment candidate. you have marco rubio, rand paul, ted cruz clearly running forego the ring, all first-time senators. normally there's a genuine opposition candidate who will come up. how do you handicap the gop in 2016? >> this is going to be the strongest field the republicans have had since reagan ran. >> do any of these guys look like reagan to you? >> here's the good news. they're all running as reagan republicans. when reagan ran in '76 and '78 and eurozone 80 he was the only strong candidate running in those races. four years ago -- last election cycle. seems like four years ago, three

were running for president and the other were running for radio talk show hosts or to sell books. the three that were serious candidates were governor romney and pawlenty and they've been governor and governor for four, eight, ten years. and they were serious candidates. when he didn't catch fire in iowa, pawlenty dropped out because he was running for president. the other guys running to sell books, they didn't win in iowa, they didn't drop out because they weren't running for president, they were selling books or doing something else. this time around, look at who's around the table, chris christie for sure, significant reforms in that state, $130 billion and reduced unfunded liabilities state pension system ended the millionaire's test, you have

governor -- >> so he fits the grover norquist filter, he gets through? >> well, yeah, i think what you're looking at is somebody who could finance a campaign all the way through, look you in the eye and say competence, seriousness -- >> rand paul. >> rand paul -- >> let me do the governors first so i think the advantages with governors can raise money more easily, they can show individual accomplishments in a way -- the center says, look what i did but 50 others voted the same way. >> christie is serious. >> christie certainly governor scott walker of wisconsin. who has changed that state in a blue state into a red state changing labor laus -- >> who are you more enthusiastic about between walker and christie. >> i'm -- as long as they're all willing to run as nontax increase candidates i'm cheerfully agnostic. and governor bush of florida, dad's rolodex, eight years,

successful governor, grading on a curve he didn't have as republican a state as governor scott does now there in the legislature but he governed well. and governor perry will run again. he didn't do -- he had the falter this last time, but he's actually quite articulate, quite bright and will have been governor for 14 years. >> so rick perry gets through the grover norquist filter? >> i think so. no tax increase. significant reforms in the state. >> and fifth? >> governor of louisiana bobby jindal, 500,000 kids have school choice scholarships to go public or private and passed an ethics law in louisiana that actually has teeth in it, the legislature will never forgive him for talking them into that. so there you have -- and there's some that could surprise, pence in indiana, governed well,

brownback of kansas, smaller states haven't been governor as long but would pass the laugh test and could run sustained. the three senators you mentioned run with the disadvantage of being senators because you can give speeches as a senator but it's a little hard to say and i fixed the state pension system or i didn't -- i didn't raise taxes. well, neither did anyone else. so it's just tougher to do. but certainly rand paul represents the small libertarian wing of the modern republican party, appeals well to young people, has presented himself well and i think would do so -- and certainly rubio in florida, hispanic and a number of other -- has both speaks well and governs well and ted cruz has -- he needs to be famous for something other than the belly flop of defund or nothing because it didn't work, okay, but that said, he's come back and all the republicans in the senate are on board for a more

measured approach of arguing with the president on how to fix obama care. >> tomorrow we have karl rove coming in to join us in the final act of washington ideas forum and as i think i told you previously, karl in aspen, the summer at the ideas festival really lambasted the republican party, the leadership where it was going on things like immigration, you know, even things like gay rights and others and said, look, we're getting ourselves into a smaller and smaller corner and getting boxed in. and i had the privilege inviting you over to the "atlantic" recently and sat in the same chairs with rahm emanuel talking about two powerful people and parties and interested in the outreach that people like you -- >> sure. >> -- in the classic gop are doing but i'm interested in how you basically preserve the important and good parts of the

gop and not get washed down into the gutter with some of the stuff we've been seeing lately. >> sure, look, the winning message for the modern republican party, if you're not going to raise taxes, it doesn't cost so much and have a strong national defense that keeps the canadians on their side of the border but not going to be micromanaging countries we can't pronounce. and that's reagan republicanism and the good news is that the modern republican party, house and senate governors is a reagan republican party now, which wasn't true ten years ago, 20 years ago, certainly wasn't true in reagan showed up. that said, the republican party needs to do what chris christie did which was reach out and get 51% of the hispanic vote. terry -- >> but they're not doing it. you don't have an immigration bill. >> candidates are doing this. governors can do it easier than congressmen and senators but

congressmen and senators need to win -- reach out to the immigration -- immigrant communities in their states, in their cities, in their congressional districts. i believe we will see an immigration bill. i think the danger comes from whether obama really wants a bill and the reason to wonder about that he was president for all of 2009 and all of 2010 with a super majority of house and democrats and he didn't push a bill or talk about a bill every day for 365 days he woke up, didn't do anything on immigration, went to bed -- >> you have people like marco rubio and others who stepped forward and stepped back. you can't blame it on president obama. >> oh, no, no, no. i'm talking about the republicans need to be there. bill passed out of the senate, not my particular cup of tea but a step forward in getting the conversation going. we need -- and what you do have on the republican side is agreement on serious border security, not 47,000 troops on the border but border security and you want to have something

there for high tech, for the farming industry, and you want to do something for the people who are here so they don't have to live in the shadows and regularize their ability to be here and continue to work. >> where is grover norquist on defense spending? i know that you support the sequester, but i think one of the things people don't know is that you're not and haven't been part of those very enthusiastic about the iraq war, afghanistan war, is there a divide between grover norquist and the national security side of the republican party and we have 18 seconds. >> the answer is no i was in favor of the war, i was not in favor of the occupations that took ten years after the wars were won. and the question is, you know, the one was necessary, the second was unwise and counterproductive and put us in a worse position than before. we need to look at defense spending the way we look at any other spending and not waste money and don't spend we don't need to spend, defense or anything else. >> with that i want to let the

audience know the price of grover norquist showing up today was my agreeing to be in the funniest celebrities contest next year. >> he's going to be great. >> i'm not that funny. grover is yet assured of another win. he invites people he knows he can clobber. >> we got ralph nader this way. >> i'll work on my own impressions of arianna huffington but please give a round of applause to grover f. >> speaking at the national press club. followed by c-span series on first ladies live with a look at the life and legacy of lady bird johnson and a hearing on the impact of digital currency that allow people to exchange real goods and services without using real money.

>> they offer wonderful courses in women's history or women in literature. but ideologically fervent statistically challenged hard-liners set the tone. all that i've ever seen and if there's a department that defies this stereotype, let me know, i would love to visit them. by the way, conservative women, moderate women, libertarian women, left out. >> her critiques of late 20s century feminism in american culture have led critics to label her as anti-feminist. sunday december 1st on "in depth" fort christina hovey sooers and looking ahead join mark levin. book tv in depth on c-span 2.

>> feminist gloria steinem spoke today at the national press club about the future of the women's rights movement. this is an hour. >> our guest made it as a high pourer woman when she discovered it was far too narrow to accommodate her. gloria is the face of the feminist movement dubbed "the leading icon of american feminism" in "time" magazine and solidified her legacy by co-founding ""m"ms." magazine. miss steinem celebrated the hag's 40th anniversary right here at the national press club last year. she said then it was the right place to do it since she was

also the first woman to appear as a national press club luncheon speaker. after women were admitted in 1971. [ applause ] she received a men a tie as a thank you. she's in town this week to receive the presidential medal of freedom from president obama. [ applause ] ms. steinem is a granddaughter as a suffragist and worked as a journalist in the 1960s after living here in washington during high school and heading to smith college graduating fie bephi beta kappa. after college she spent two years in india where she wrote for indian publications and was influenced by gandhi and activism.

in 1968, she helped found "new york" magazine and was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. as a young journalist she wrote for publications include iing "esquire" and once hired on as a stunt as a "playboy" bunny and helped found the national women's caucus and most recently the women's media center. [ applause ] along the way, ms. steinem has been criticized as a threat to male privilege and even knocked by fellow feminists when she wrote a self-help book and by some when she got married. today she's a documentary producer and author, as well as a regular on the speaking circuit and says the fight for equal rights for women is hardly won, not only here in the u.s. but especially in developing countries. today she'll talk to us about big things left undone in a

speech titled "still to come, the unfinished and the unimagined." please help me give a warm national press club welcome to gloria steinem. [ applause ] >> first i have to say what an incredible collection of talent and great hears and great minds there are in this room. you have to promise me to meet each other. it drives an organizer crazy to see people who may not know each other and as you have already heard, i get a big sense of history when i come back here, including my own history, and i can just say that as the first woman speaker i remember so clearly my knees knocking and my voice quaking

and losing all of my saliva. does that happen to you? [ laughter ] each tooth gets a little angora sweater. [ laughter ] because i was so aware of the responsibility. however, when they gave me a tie, i felt completely free to say outrageous things. [ laughter ] and since then, i mean, it's so great that we've had, what, 11 female presidents of this illustrious institution. we had to pick it to get it in the first place, and so many great women have joined great men in speaking here, and we did gather last year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of "ms." magazine. thanks to the feminist majority and i just want to say a deep thank you to the feminist majority and to ellie and kathy

spolara for caring this forward and we've got here the great -- you heard we've got the great beverly guy sheftel, who the great troublemaker. [ applause ] and jeanetta cole who is educator and now -- what's your proper title at the museum of african art? >> director. >> director. [ laughter ] >> okay. and allison bernstein, who insists on calling herself bernstein even thought it makes me steenn echem who is a great international activist and there are so many of you here. i just want to tantalize you to make sure you look around and see three or four people you don't know and you introduce yourself. and it is a celebration of my inclusion among 15 people i greatly admire who are being presented with the medal of freedom by president obama.

there's no president in history from whose hand i would be more honored to receive this medal. and it gives me a chance to say here i'm especially grateful for this lunch because actually when we get the medal, we can't talk, it turns out. i'm grateful to have the opportunity to say here that i would be crazy if i didn't understand that this was a medal for the entire women's movement. [ applause ] it belongs to shirley chism and bella abzug and patsy mink and in the future it would be great for robin morgan -- i'm lobbying a little bit here. barbara smith. gloria ansuldua and so many

more, and it has already honored rosa parks and rachel carson and dorothy hight and my dear friend chief of the cherokee nation who i accompanied when she received her medal. now, of course, with all of that illustrious company i get uppity, i can remember dick cheney received as did henry hyde whose self-named amendment has hurt uncounted numbers of women, especially low-income women for the last 37 years and we're counting. right? but the power of this honor may be even more evident in the withholding than in the giving. i was reminded by ellen chesler, biographer of margaret sangler that president lyndon johnson even as he signs the first federal and international family planning acts into law refused to bestow the medal of freedom

on sanger, he feared reprisal from the catholic church. ellen told me that when she looked at sanger's private history papers at smith college, i'm proud to say the biggest archive of women's history, she found a poignant little handwritten note from sanger asking that her body be buried here next to her husband but that her heart be removed to japan, the only country in the world that had ever bestowed a public honor on her. so i hope this is retroactive in honoring the work of margaret sanger. i hope she would celebrate this recognition that reproductive freedom is a human right at least as crucial as freedom of speech. and that no government should dictate whether or when we have children. [ applause ]

whether we are male or female, the power of the state must stop at our skins. she might also say the backlash against reproductive freedom by a right wing extremist minority especially in state legislators they unfairly control by redistricting is proof of panic of their racist and immigrant fearing efforts to keep this country from becoming as it is about to be no longer a majority european american nation. it is becoming one that looks more like the world and better understands the world. so sanger might say as i do that there is no president of the united states who is more responsible for understanding that reproductive freedom is a basic human right than president obama.

however, there may be a movement problem with me as a recipient because of my age. i'm trying to absorb the fact that i'll be 80 next year. [ applause ] i plan to reach at least 100, but i am really worried about i mean a little worried about mortality but i'm also worried that my age contributes to the current form of obstructionism. all of the people who say that movements are over and use ridiculous terms like post-racist and post-feminist. excuse me? right. i can testify personally that the very same people who were saying 40 years ago that feminism was unnatural and well, it used to be necessary

but it's not anymore. just to name one parallel to show how ridiculous this is, if it took more than a century to gain legal and social identity for abolitionists and suffrages as human beings for all women and men of color, now that we need legal and social equality and no power based on race or sex or ethnicity or class or sexuality, that's likely to take at least a century, too, don't you think? and we're only 40 years into it. also as original cultures say, as wilma mankiller said, it takes four generations to heal one act of violence. so truly we are just beginning. so i would like to contribute a few examples of the adventures before us and unlike david letterman, i'm not going to try to put them in any kind of order because each one is crucial. and anyway, they're all just reminders for people in this room.

one, women's issues aren't separate from economic issues or vice versa. paying women equally for comparable work done by men would be the biggest economic stimulus this country would possibly have. the institute for women's policy research tells us that paying women of all races equally to white men would put $200 billion more into the economy every year and would be way more effective than propping up banks and wall street because this money would get spent, not put into swiss bank accounts. it would create jobs and help the poorest kids who are those who depend on a mother's income. but do we hear economic stimulus and equal pay in the same sentence? no. i don't think so. and after we do that, we also need to value caregiving work, caregiving work, which is a third of the productive work in this nation at replacement value and make

that sum tax deductible if we pay taxes and tax refundable if we don't. we could do that. two, a woman's ability to decide whether and when to have a child is not a social issue. it is a human right. it is the biggest indicator of whether she is educated or not, can work outside the home or not, is healthy or not and how long she lives. this country has the highest rate of unplanned pregnancies, teenage pregnancies and medically complicated births in the developed world. it last has the least sex education which allows web pornography pretend to be sex education though the truth is present in the word. porna means female slaves. we have shown as a movement that rape is not sex, it's violence. we haven't yet been successful in showing that pornography is

very far from erotica. three, well, three reels to two and one because women with children are less likely to get hired or paid well while men with children are more likely to get hired and paid well. this is just the tip of the iceberg. nothing else is going to work in a deep sense until men raise children as much as women do. deep. children will keep on labeling liabling men by thinking they want be loving and nurturing, and they can, just as well as women and libelling women by thinking they have to be loving and nurturing. this is huge. read "the mermaid and the minotaur" by dorothy dinastein, a book long before its time and i think we're finally ready for her. four, the u.s. is the only modern democracy without some national system of child care and now the average cost of child care has surpassed the average cost of a college

education. five, we're also the only advanced country that indentures our college students by saddling them with debt at the exact time they should be free to explore and women pay the same tuition as men and get paid a million dollars less over their lifetime to repay those loans. that reminds me of the fact has been made that women outnumber men on college campuses but many are trying to get out of pink collar ghetto and into the white collar ghetto. meanwhile, men in new collar union jobs earn more than the average college educated woman so no wonder men are choosing not to run up all that college debt. six, the digital divide is pretty good proxy for power. for instance, more than 80% of internet users are in industrialized countries and the fewest on any continent are in africa.

it tells us something here at home. though men and women are only about 2% apart in computer use, 67% of white non-hispanic households use the internet while only 45% of black households have access. it is about power, and it is serious, and it is polarizing. so let's hear it for the librarians who are the only ones i know of systemically fighting to demom kra advertise computer use. seven, while we're celebrating marriage equality victories, great, let's not forget that 51% of us in the united states say "homosexuality should be accepted by society." that was the question in the public opinion poll. but 69% of people in canada do. are we not comparable at least to canada? and 83%, 83% of people in

germany do. on campuses, students still ask me why the same groups oppose say lesbians and birth control. [ laughter ] i think many of us don't yet understand that the same groups oppose all forms of sexual expression that cannot end in conception. sometimes i fear that our opposition understands our shared interests better than we do. nine, do enough people understand that racism and sexism are intertwined and can only be uprooted together. think about it. to maintain racial differences in the long run, you have to control reproduction which means controlling the bodies of women. those of the so-called superior group are often restricted and those of the so-called inferior group are often exploited but both suffer.

this is true for sex and caste in india just as it is true for sex and race here. it is a universal global truth that these two things can only be uprooted together. and still i think our common adversaries sometimes know our common interests better than we do. ten, here's a final shocker just for anybody who says it's post anything, right? violence against females in the world has reached such a peak due to son preference which produces son surplus and daughter deficit to such practices as fgm and sex trafficking, to sexualized violence in war zones, to child marriage and pregnancy which is the biggest cause of teenage female deaths in the world. that for what may be the first time in human history, females are no longer half the human race. on this spaceship earth, there

are now 101.3 men per 100 women so before we think of causes as distant, of that cause as distant, let me also remind you that even by fbi statistics, if you add up all of the women in the united states who have been murdered by their husbands or boyfriends since 9/11, and then you add up all of the americans killed in 9/11 and in iraq and in afghanistan, and you combine all of those numbers, more women have been killed by their husbands and boyfriends since 9/11 than all of those americans who were murdered in 9/11 in afghanistan and in iraq. we pay a lot of attention to foreign terrorism but what about domestic terrorism? what about crimes in our houses, schools and movie theaters that are 99% committed by white, non-poor men with nothing to

gain from their crimes, nothing to gain from their crimes but who are addicted to what they got born into. they did not invent it, but they became addicted to the idea of masculinity and control. those crimes, i think, we might refer to as supremacy crimes, which is their motive and really think about the why of it and the cost of the falsely created ideas of gender. but here's the good news. thanks to a landmark book i've been talking about to some of you about for a year at least called "sex and world peace" by valerie hudson and other scholars, we now can prove with 100 countries that the biggest indicator of whether a country is violent within itself or will use military violence against another country, the biggest cause is not poverty or lack of

natural resources or religion or even degree of democracy, it's violence against females. it is that that is experienced first and that that normalizes all other subject, object dominated, dominator, conquering, superior, inferior relationships and, you know, in my list i haven't included everything you know. i mean, the equal rights amendment would be nice if we had the constitution, right, don't you think? don't you think? [ applause ] the fact that three-quarters of all immigrants now fighting a great battle in this town are women and children. you know all of those things. but those are ten. i just picked arbitrarily, so i dare anybody to say that this revolution is over because now we are on to the ways of denormalizing violence and dominance. we're understanding that we'll

never have democratic countries unless we have democratic families. we're understanding that the idea of conquering nature and women is the problem and not the solution. we're returning to the original and natural paradigm of 95% of human history which was the circle, not the pyramid, not the hierarchy. as bella abzug would say, our movement came from a period of dependence. we were dependent. so we naturally had to get up there and become independent and self-identified, and now we're ready for a declaration of interdependence, of interdependence among our movements and within each other. we are discovering that we in this room and everywhere else and we in nature and we human beings are linked. we are not ranked. so moving forward, if we just do

it every day is not rocket science, and it's actually fun. and it is infinitely interesting. just for one simple example, those who are used to power may need to not talk and those with less power may need to learn to talk as much as we listen, right? in both cases it is all about balance and understand the end doesn't justify the means. the means are the ends. the means become the ends. so if we want, at the end of our revolution, not that there is an end, but in our imaginable future progress, if we want to have dancing and friendship and laughter and work we love in the future, we have to be sure to have some dancing and friendship and work that we love and laughter along the way. this is the small and the big of it.

and we've just begun. [ applause ] >> thank you. we're here at the national press club so we'll start with the media question. how do you think the representation of women in the media has changed since you first got involved in the industry, and where do we still need to go? >> how long do we have? [ laughter ] no. >> we have a while. >> well, it has changed. i mean, because there are smart, competent journalists and all kinds of specialists on television that we didn't see before, i remember that the -- just to show you how bad it was. there was only one woman who

did the weather and she was rising from her bed in a satin nightgown saying, well, it's going to be stormy tomorrow. you can't make this stuff up. [ laughter ] all right. so we have progressed, but obviously women are still something like 15 years younger in order to be on camera, so just as you get experience, you're gone, you know, and there are fewer, and we're more diverse than we were but not diverse enough and think how important it is. think how important it is. i mean, who would have thought that a little girl named oprah in the south, you know, would have looked at barbara walters and thought, i can do that. you know, we need to see people who look like us. so i would say we have token victories. we've realized the problem, and as the women's media center always points out, part of it is not on camera but a big part is who is making the decision about

what story gets covered and that's, you know, more like 3% women in the clout positions, so i would say we've made symbolic victories, and we know what's wrong, but we're not even halfway there. >> given how far we have to go, does calling attention to the disparities both of women in the media, as well as women sources create change, and if not, how do you create change? >> no, it does because consciousness, as we all know in every social change and revolution on earth, consciousness comes first. the understanding of what's wrong and what could be, and we and i know other people here, i mean, the women's media center have she source, so there are endless lists of experts if you want to find somebody who is an expert who is a female human being, you know, we need those sources and we need to not just accuse the

media but help the media find other folks. and we ourselves need to do it. you know, sometimes i think that men get up in the morning -- not the men here who are exempt from everything i say, but get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, i see a public intellectual. women don't usually do that. we need to go to each other and say, hey, you're an authority on this. get training at the women's media center or somewhere so you are comfortable on camera. i can tell you from calling people up to get on camera, it is harder, you know, for -- to get women to do it because of our self-image and because, of course, we think we have to do our hair and all of those guys have a blue suit hanging in a closet and put it on and go racing off. so there are both internal and external barriers. >> is it incumbent on journalists to seek out more

women sources or is it incumbent on women to empower themselves to be sources? >> you know, it's so interesting that anything that is only two choices is wrong. have you ever noticed that? [ laughter ] i think it comes from falsely dividing human nature into masculine and feminine and so we need, of course, both. we need both, but it gets to be ridiculous when you survey all of the people who are writing about reproductive issues and 80% of them are guys without the organs they're writing about. you know, so this -- so this is not something you're supposed to -- you're not supposed to say the "o" word here. so the answer is both of responsible. i think that when we are looking at a story that arguably has more female experience or more experience from a particular racial or ethnic group,

sexuality experience, you know, we ought to understand that at least half of our sources, at least half of our sources ought to have that kind of experience. >> this questioner says she, maybe he, but probably she saw you speak at the university of utah in 1965. the questioner asks if you could go back to tell yourself to chill out about one issue what would it be and what one issue would you tell yourself to get more fired up about? >> hi! >> hi! [ laughter ] well, i think that the issues that i was chilled out and should have been more chilled out about had to do with self-criticism, and it is still a problem i think for a lot of us because i walk around after i have spoken i'm sure in utah thinking, you know, and another thing or i should have done or something, so i wish i didn't do that so much to what i should have been more in an uproar about is

monotheism or religion. i mean, religion is too often politics you're not supposed to talk about. spirituality is democratic and in each of us it's a different story. but institutionalized monotheistic religion, if god looks like the ruling class, the ruling class is god. let's face it. so we have refrained from speaking about it in spite of all of the history of say colonialism where they were very clear, the bible and the gun. that's what conquered -- you have to take away people's feeling that there is something sacred within themselves. that there's authority within themselves and get them to submit to other authority and not only for reward in this lifetime, but for life after death. excuse me. i mean, you know, unprovable,

so, you know, very useful. no, i am much madder about that and wish i that i had talked about it there because i do remember at the universities in utah there was an enormously high rate of suicide because of the strictness about sexual expression and so on. and still i probably in my memory -- maybe you can tell me -- but i don't think i was saying this at the time. >> what keeps you going? what keeps the fire burning? and have you ever wanted to just hang it up and why didn't you? >> well, where would i hang it? no, i mean, first of all, first of all, people say to me, well, aren't you interested in something other than feminism? and i always try to think if there is anything

that wouldn't be transformed if anything matter and so far i haven't been able to find anything and it's so interesting. it's like a big aha. you figure out what could be and you know, it's just constantly, constantly interesting. as to what keeps me going, it's you. i mean, it's our friends. it's -- you know, we're communal animals. we cannot do it by ourselves. and i'm so lucky that because of the magazine and the movement and many other groups, i have a community. so when i am feeling crazy and alone, i have people to turn to and we cannot, we cannot keep going without that. actually, sometimes people ask me what one thing would you like for the movement? and i always think a global aa. that's what i would like. so that wherever he went, you know, any place in the world by a river, in the school basement,

wherever, we would know that we could find a group that however different shared values and was free and leaderless and sat in a circle and talked, spoke their own stories and listened to each other's stories and figured out that we are not crazy, the system is crazy basically and supported each other. >> as you reflect back on the women's movement so far, what would you design as the seminal moment? >> well, it would be an ovarian moment. [ applause ] i think each of us has a different one probably. each of us had a first or maybe several memorable ahas, oh, that's why. i was a journalist and worked freelancing in new york, and

even after we started "new york" magazine, i was the girl writer. they were very nice guys. jimmy breslin and tom wolfe, and all these nice guys would say, you write like a man and i would say, thank you. and it wasn't until -- i mean, the experiences in my case, maybe yours too, had to pile up before i saw the pattern. and then i had an epiphany related to my own experience which is maybe true for each of us that i covered a speak-out about abortion and i realized that i had not told the truth about having an abortion myself at 22 and why not and why? you know, if one in three american women approximately has needed an abortion at sometime in their life, why not? what was secret about it. you know.

and then as soon as i started to speak about it, you know, then i discovered that it was often part of other people's experience or their family's experience. i remember sitting in a taxi in boston with flo kennedy. the great flo kennedy. right? and she had written -- flo had written a book called "abortion wrap." which was totally about this -- and we were talking about her book, and old irish woman taxi driver, very rare probably as a taxi driver, turned arouund to us and said, honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. and that's where that came from. i mean, i didn't make that up. so it's that experience, i think, of telling our own stories of truth telling. a sgl a couple questioners asked whether 40 years after roe v. wade whether we're moving

forward rather than moving backwards. yes, we are moving backward, not in public opinion. you know, if you look at properly phrased who should make this decision, the government or the individual? the overwhelming majority say it shouldn't be the government. it should be the individual and the physician. so we're not moving backward in public opinion. but we are moving backward in -- i mean, as we can see, the anti-choice forces have not been too successful in washington so they have moved to state legislatures though they murdered abortion doctors and bombed -- firebombed clinics, that has proven not to be as successful as what they're doing now which is getting state legislature make impossible to fulfill rules for local clinics.

and the only way we can change this is to pay attention to our state legislatures. i believe that president clinton just said this last week. you know, if we don't want a divided washington, we have to vote as much in off-year elections and for state legislatures as we do in presidential elections because as long as some, many state legislatures can -- i mean, they're in control of the insurance companies and people who build prisons and then put people in them who don't deserve to be in prison, and then they redistrict in order to make that control permanent, which is why the house of representatives is as it is and the senate is not. you can't redistrict a whole state. you know, you can only -- so our response has to be organizing and knowing who -- most americans don't know who

their state legislators are, and that's why they are able to -- an anti-choice right wing minority is able to do this state by state. and it is very much about backlash against the changes in this country. i mean, they're very clear. white women are not having enough children, they say to me. you know, and it's why the issues all go together. so, you know, anti-immigration, anti-birth control, anti-abortion and so on. so we have to take back our state legislatures. >> citing the example of working moms versus stay-at-home moms, a questioner asked, what are your thoughts on the way women treat each other?

>> well, if we were ever asked a question that included men, we might give a better answer. i mean, do we ever ask men, can you have it all? you know, we need work patterns that allow everybody to work and also have a life and have kids if they want to. men too. the whole idea of stay-at-home moms and moms who -- i mean, the language is bananas. women who work at home work harder than any other class of worker in the united states, longer hours, no pay. [ applause ] so let's just never again say women who don't work. it's women who work at home or who also work at and let's always ask all of those questions of men too. it's just divisive can you have it all? i mean, not everybody even wants it all, so, you know, and if you have to do it all, you can't have it all obviously whether you're a man or a woman.

>> you recently commented on miley cyrus' recent hypersexual public appearance. can you expand on the issue of women using their sexuality to get ahead? >> well, if you have a game in which -- okay, i believe that the miss america contest, if you count up the contests in each state and the national contest is still the single biggest source of scholarship money for women in the united states. this is crazy. but if a handsomeness contest was the biggest source of scholarship money for guys, you can bet they would be there. you know. [ laughter ] so we play the game by the rules that exist, but we need to change the rules obviously. so it's not that we're not responsible for our actions, we are. if feminism stands for anything,

it's that we are responsible for our actions, but we also need to look at the context. as wilma always said, context is everything. and what choices are there? so, you know, if that's the way the game that exists, that's the game people will play. >> miley included or excluded, what is your message for today's young women? >> well, my big serious message is don't listen to me. [ laughter ] listen to yourself. that's the whole idea. and i -- the best thing i can do for young women i think is listen to them, because you don't know you have something to say until someone listens to you, and each of us has authority and unique talents inside us, so people sometimes, often ask me at this age, who am i passing the torch to.

and i always say, first of all, i'm not giving up my torch, thank you very much. [ applause ] but also i'm using my torch to light other people's torches because the idea that there's one torch passer is part of the bonkers hierarchical idea, and if we each have a torch, there's a lot more light. lighting a young woman's torch often means listening to her and supporting what it is that she wants to do and encouraging her. >> do kids today know enough about the feminist movement, and let's include boys in those kids. should they know more, or is it a victory that it does not occur to many kids that things may not be equal for girls? >> well, it would be nice if they learned history, don't you think? they don't learn the history of the women's movement, the civil rights movement, you know, i

mean, you can seek it out. now this, that's a step forward. you can find those areas of study. but, you know, the textbooks of texas are a pretty good example of eliminating the history of social justice movements because heaven forbid we learn how it was done before, we might learn it again. do it again. so, again, i think it's the context that we need to look at rather than blaming the individual. however, having said that, if you gave me a choice between knowing history and getting mad about the present, i would say get mad about the present even if you don't know history. just keep going. i didn't walk around saying thank you for the vote. i don't know about you. i got mad because of what was happening to me.

and i don't think gratitude ever radicalized anybody. you know, so i hope i don't have to choose between knowing history and looking at unfairness in the present. but if i had to choose, i would choose getting mad about the present. >> is there any effort in the groups you're involved with to include more of the women's rights history in school curriculum? >> is there any -- >> any effort to include about women's rights history in the school curriculums? >> yes, no, absolutely. you know, the feminist press was a pioneer, for instance, in integrating women's history into textbooks and creating those textbooks, and there are a lot of schools and a lot of devoted teachers, a lot of school systems, a lot of educators probably in this audience, right, who are trying to do this. but the average textbook is still pretty slender.

and you still -- you know, it's the politics of studying history. i mean, you still learn more about europe than about africa in general. you still -- it is profoundly profoundly political the way we study history, and now we have pioneers and reformers, and at least we know there is such a thing as women's history. the most cheerful thing that happens to me is on campus when i'm complaining about my education where it was like one sentence that said women were given the vote, somebody will stand up and say why didn't you take women's studies? it's so great. so it is getting better, but it's still not the norm. >> you touched on care givers a couple times. this questioner asked women raising families get the least spoils in terms of political capital in the u.s.

what must happen so that women and children they are raising are able to make gains politically? >> well, you know, it has to be said that the voting booth is the one place on earth where the single mom and the corporate executive are equal, where the very richest and the very poorest are equal. so it does have to do with knowing what the issues are on our school boards or in our state legislatures and getting ourselves out there, however difficult that may be, and it usually in my experience comes back to groups. you know, do you have a group with shared experience with whom you can talk and discover that it's not fair and that if you do "x" and "y" and you start this particular campaign in your

neighborhood or campaign for your school board, you know, you need, i think, to have that shared experience. and i traveling around the country all the time as i do, i see mainly women's groups, sometimes men are part of it too. but they have been together for 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, they're alternate families, they have seen each other through unequal education of their kids, through single motherhood, through divorce. i mean, we need these alternate -- these kinds of alternate families. >> a question says, women now make up 60% of collegegoers. should this surpassing males be celebrated, or is it a problem? >> well, as i was saying, no, it's not necessarily a problem but i think we ought to be able to look at all the alternatives. you know, we -- maybe we're, you know, frustrated programmers.

and if we learn to code, you know, we wouldn't have to go to college in quite the same way. maybe, you know, i think we're still a bit of a prisoner of the idea that a woman should be able to go to work in nice clothing and clean and so on and to go work in nice clothing and clean and so on and shouldn't be under the sink fixing the plumbing that would make them three times more money. so it's not that it's wrong. it's just that college has been so oversold. so oversold as a life-changing mechanism. and especially when you end up in such huge debt. i just think people need to be able to look at a wider range of alternatives. >> the question here says for those of us wishing to earn a world-class feminist education without life-crushing debt would you please share some resources? >> how long do we have?

actually, you know, maybe we should do this as a group exercise. everybody should pop up -- i've already given you sex and world peace by valerie hudson as a great resource. right? there's dark at the end of the street, which is a great retelling of the civil rights movement with more women's stories added. let's tell our favorite books. julie. >> makers. >> yes, thank you. "makers." three-hour television special on pbs now is also a website with about 200 interviews which is a huge, wonderful resource. a very, very important present and historical resource. what other favorite books do we have here? or favorite -- pardon? >> "words of fire." >> absolutely. yes. words of fire, we happen to have

the fiery people right here. great. yes. very, very important. stephanie koontz's "the way we never were." right. and i mentioned dorothy dennerstein, the mermaid and the minute o'taur earlier, which i think was from the '70s or '80s but really shows the degree to which the changeover to societies in which men were separated from children and didn't develop those parts of their humanity that come from raising children was part of creating the kind of hierarchy we're dealing with now. women leave the home and leave child rearing and develop the rest of themselves but not enough men enter child rearing and the home and develop the rest of themselves. yes. bell hooks, "feminism is for everybody." the great belle hooks. yes. >> ms. in the classroom.

>> yes, "ms." magazine in the classroom. hello. what's wrong with us that we're not saying that? "ms." is in classrooms and a very important resource. and it also is in women's prisons and a very important resource. >> "feminine mystique" by betty fried friedan. >> betty friedan. absolutely. a classic, especially for women who are in a traditional role, you know. >> it's like i am in the junior league and that's fine, but i would like to think of more like-minded women. organizations. community building. >> well, just tell us where you live, and we'll find you. there's no shortage. and the junior league also has

become much more an agent of social change than it ever was when i was growing up. >> i'm going to -- >> pardon? >> i'm going to cut in for one more political question -- >> wait, wait, wilma mankiller. we have to say, yes, wilma mankiller wrote a wonderful, wonderful book in which she interviewed about 15 women from indian country. and thank you, allison, for saying that because what you glimpse as you do in various works by women from indian country is a crucial fact that we big-time are not learning, even in women's history, which is that the suffrage movement like the underground railway and so many things was mainly a function of indian country. and native women had -- we would say equal power, but they didn't -- i mean, they got to be

called a petty cote government, the cherokee, for instance, because female elders had to sign the treaties or they weren't legal. women controlled their own fertility. and the native women referred to european women as those who die in childbirth. they were appalled at these women who had come from the worst stage of patriarchy and couldn't decide when to have children and couldn't have them under their own conditions. so you know, we're walking around on a history we don't know. and there are many brave women in indian country who are trying to bring it back. and there's a friend named sally roche wagner whose work you should look up as well who has written a book called "everything we want once was here." and that's not only true of native cultures in this country but also of the quay and the san

in south africa -- or in southern africa who will take you out into the desert with a digging stick and show what you they use for contraceptives and abortafations and headaches and so on. it's true of the dollites of india. it's truft original cultures of 95% of human history. don't let anyone tell you that it's human nature that we live this way. no. it once was different, and it still could be. and the native women are very funny about it. because you have to have a sense of humor given what they've gone through. what did columbus call primitive? equal women. >> we are almost out of time. we have one more question. before that, just a couple of housekeeping matters. first of all, i'd like to remind you about our upcoming speakers. on december 3rd we have the honorable juan manuel santos, the president of colombia. on december 16th dan ackerson, the president and ceo -- sorry, chairman and ceo of general

motors. on december 19th ricky skaggs, grammy winner and blueglass legend. and on january 15th christine leguard, head of the international monetary fund. and before the last question i'm very pleased to present our guest with the -- for a long time now our traditional ngsz prs club coffee mug. i don't know when we abandoned the ties, but i'm pleased to give you a mug. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> and the last question, what did you do with that tie? >> i haven't the faintest idea, and i don't care. but i just have one more book that i -- there is a wonderful small well-written, well-researched wonderful book

called "exterminate all the brutes." which is a line from "heart of darkness," actually. by sven lindquist. s-v-e-n l-i-n-d-q-u-i-s-t. who is luckily swedish, with that name. and it's about the invention of racism. it is a brilliant, brilliant bo book. exactly why europeans had become overpopulated having suppressed women and having made babies -- he doesn't say that part quite as he should. anyway. then in order to take over other people's land invented the idea that those people were inferior. it's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. and you know, let's keep this going. don't you love all this? so at your table, keep doing it. keep handing around ideas.

[ applause ] >> thank you. thank you for coming today. thank you also -- [ cheers and applause ] thank you to our national press club staff including our journalism institute and broadcast center for helping organize today's event. finally, here's a reminder. you can find more information about the national press club online at www.press.org. thank you. we are adjourned. tonight or c-span 3, our "first ladies" series continues live with a look at the life and legacy of lady bird johnson.

followed by a hearing on digital currency that allows people to exchange real goods and services without using real money. and later, testimony about finances in the homeland security department. a beautification to my mind is far more than a matter of cosmetics. to me it describes the whole effort to bring the natural world and the manmade world into harmony, to bring ardor, usefulness, delight to our whole environment. and that of course only begins with trees and flowers and landscaping. >> that's from the film created by the johnson administrat