screeria -- nigeria. -

comments@c-span.org or send us a

tweet. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. coming up on c-span 3 remarks by dell incorporated founder michael dell and then a conversation with dan fyfer followed by a senate foreign relations hearing on fighting isis and later a panel discussion on combatting violent extremism. dell corporation founder and ceo michael dell spoke on wednesday talking about his experience of dropping out of college and starting his company at age 19 and the ongoing impact of technology and invasion on the global economy. this is 45 minutes. >> can i have your attention please? can i have your attention?

thank you. so i indicated earlier we are very pleased and honored to have michael dell as our special guest. michael is a legend in the business world. let me give a little background. michael is now the founder and chairman and ceo of dell inc. which is one of the largest it service providers and companies in the world. it is a company that he started when he was 19 years old. he was a college under graduate university of texas and began assembling computers in his dorm room and started the company at 19. the company went public when he was 23 and he became at 27 the youngest ceo of any fortune 500 company. and the company became well known for its personal computers business among other things. and then he ran the company until 2004 and then stepped back as ceo to turn it over to

somebody else. in 2007 came back as the ceo and in 2013 decided to take the publically traded company private in one of the largest buy outs of the era since the great recession. it was the largest buy out about a $24 billion buyout. the company has done quite well. michael is very involved as well, in philanthropy and he and his wife have a foundation given away more than a billion dollars very involved in medical research and children's health among other causes. michael is also very involved in the computer and technology industry. he is here in town in part for a ceo council among other things that he is doing in town. and i would say that in the computer world and the it world he is obviously one of the legends. he is one of the few people who started the company 20 something

years ago in this industry who is still a ceo of a company in the industry. if i could just start off by asking you you took your company private in 2013. do you miss dealing with analysts? is that a problem? >> i don't miss that at all. in fact, for entertainment i listen in sometimes to my competitors conference calls and it is really fun. >> so when you're publicly traded you have to deal with analysts and so forth. now that you are private what do you focus on instead of quarterly numbers? how is your company run differently now that you are a privately owned company? >> we focus on our customers and medium and long term and getting away from this shot clock has given us freedom and flexibility

to invest in our business without, let's say fear of the short term targets. and i think it's energized our team. we had a very good year last year and it's really changed the focus to be more long term. >> so at the time you were considering doing this i remember you and i were in dabos. i did a tv interview and somebody asked me what i thought about your transaction that was pending. i said most buyouts of that size don't work so i wouldn't be that optimistic. i wouldn't look at investing in it. i didn't realize we were going to have lunch later that day and i would apologize to you, but there were other buyouts firms that looked at it. you did it with silver lake. have you called up the buyout firms that didn't want to do the deal and tell them they made a mistake?

>> i wouldn't do that. i think look our business has some volatility. it has some uncertainty. that's why the technology industry is so dynamic. it's changing all the time. and we have been actively changing our business. when you're doing that in a short term focused financial market it can be pretty difficult. >> so at the time firms like mine said he is a pc manufacturer and that business is probably going down and there is probably too many people that manufacture them very cheaply. so this wouldn't be a great business. what did people miss because you're not just a pc company or what did people miss in analyzing the way your company would operate in the future?

>> as it relates to the small computer systems pcs, tablets work stations we have had eight quarters in a row of increasing our share of the overall industry. so that's clearly a good thing. there isn't necessarily a lot of growth there but by gaining share we can grow our business. there is somewhat of consolidation there. on the other side of our business in software and services and data center we have some pretty robust growth. now, we have spent over the last six or seven years roughly $15 billion acquiring 40 or so firms that acquired 150 companies and built pretty substantial capability in it solutions software services data center. to give you a sense for this

last year our deferred revenues grew more than 20% year over year which is pretty hard to do. many of our competitors similarly positioned would have had negative growth in the same period. so we have been able to reshape the business pretty significantly and successfully. >> so what percentage of your revenues if you can say roughly are pc oriented? is that less than 50% of your revenues now? >> it's still a little more than 50%. i also think of it as the tip of the spear particularly in the emerging world. so if you think about you have 3.5 billion people in india, china and africa. while it services and data analytics and more complex solutions are interesting it's not actually what they buy first.

what they buy first is infrastructure which is the actual machines that bring the data the servers the network and then they get into the more complex areas. so when i look at our small computer systems business with businesses in enterprise in these emerging developing markets which still have relatively low penetration compared to developed markets there is robust growth there. in the developed markets it is kind of a replacement cycle business, but to be able to bring an end to end solution i think you have to have both ends of the solution. so we fundamentally believe to be able to solve the problems that customers have out there it is a combination of hardware software and services together. >> private equity firms usually

like to exit at a nice profit and maybe three or four or five years. what will you do to help silver lake exit? will you take the company public again or have you had enough of that? how would you give them an exit if you didn't do an ipo? >> they haven't shown any desire to exit anytime soon but there are many ways for that to occur. >> going public wouldn't be your highest priority again? >> no. why do companies go public? there is certainly a role for public markets. when we went public in 1988 it was really the only way to get the amount of capital we needed for our growing company. but we don't really need capital now. we generate lots of capital.

our brand is also very well known by our customers so the reasons to go public aren't really there. i find it much more enjoyable to be a private company. i think the flexibility that we have is tremendous and we can take on investments with an uncertain outcome. that is quite attractive in our business. instead of having to manage -- >> 12%? >> 15%. >> now you are on to 75%? >> 70%. >> is it too late to invest in the ipo?

>> it might be a little bit late. >> let me go back to when you began the company. you were 19 years old. >> flattered by the interest, though. >> we always like good investments. unfortunately, we missed this one, but at 19 you're in college and you're a freshman at the university of texas. you grew up in houston. you're a premedstudent. your father was an orthodontist and you have a medical background in your family. you were preordained to go to medical school, i assume. what happened that led you to start fixing computers? how did that start in your dorm room as i understand it? you were assembling computers. how did that come about? >> it goes back a little further than that. when i was in junior high school i was in this math class and my

math teacher had this teletype terminal. you could type in programs and the answer would come back. i became enthralled with this idea of machines that would calculate and threw myself into all of that. fast forward to 1981 i'm 16 years old. ibm introduces the ibm pc. it was clearly aimed at business. and what was interesting to me about that is you have this computer for a few thousand dollars that any business could buy, not any business but a lot of businesses could buy. and it was incredibly empowering. it was exciting. and kind of threw myself into all of that. as i took the computer apart what i realized is that they were selling $500 worth of parts of $3,000 which seemed to me like a kind of criminal

enterprise almost. it just seemed unfair. it's like how could it be $3,000? and so i started mapping out what all the parts cost. and then started upgrading like people would upgrade cars and things. i was upgrading computers. and that ultimately led me to starting the company and making our own computers. >> you were in your -- you have two parents who thought you were going to medical school, nice jewish parents. >> that didn't go over so well. >> you tell your parents you are dropping out of college to start a computer company what did they say? >> they said you are bananas. it did not go over well. so we basically made a deal.

and the deal was that i would take a semester off. at university of texas you could take a semester off and go back. and if the business did well enough then i would continue. if it didn't i would go back to school. so after 90 days i had financial statements, business was booming and thriving and i continued. >> so the name dell is very simple name and sounds like it would always work. suppose your last name had been reuben stein? you think the company would have worked as well? how did you come to name it dell? >> i don't think it would have been -- but the name was actually a bit of an accident. when i was in my dorm room i had

a trade name called pcs limited. i was a sole proprietor doing business as pcs limited. i had this customer who was a lawyer. he was kind of saying your business is thriving and growing. maybe you should incorporate. i said why would i want to do that. he explains the benefits of being a corporation. and i said so what's involved here? he said well how about you install another hard disk drive for me and i will do your incorporation. so that's the deal. so i installed a hard drive and he says there's two problems. first is you can't incorporate the name pcs limited because it is too generic. this is the lawyer speaking. i called it dell computer corporation doing business as pcs unlimited. i said fine. the second thing is he said you need $1,000 and he said you can't start a corporation unless

you have $1,000. i said i will come back with $1,000. so that was may 3, 1984. company was incorporated with $1,000 as dell computer corporation. fast forward three years we embark on our global expansion in the uk, hire a guy in the uk. he actually didn't show up for work so the second in command was promoted to be the head of the uk. and he is calling back to headquarters saying i can't make pcs limited limited in the uk so what should i call this company? back in texas business is booming. we're too busy. we just said you figure it out. so the guy in the uk says i'm

going to call this dell computer corporation. so we were dell computer corporation in the uk. and we were dell computer corporation doing business as pcs unlimited in the u.s. for a period of time. and then a bunch of folks came to me and said you should just have it be dell computer corporation. it has all worked out. >> i would say so. so you are in your college dorm. do you have a lot of friends from your college dorm era who have said this is really their idea and they have sued you and said you took their idea? that hasn't happened, right? >> no. maybe they weren't that clever. but i had this one room mate who really got upset with me.

there were boxes and so one day my room mate piled all the boxes in front of my door and so i couldn't get out of the room. and so i moved to a different. >> what happened to him? >> i don't know. i think he is a lawyer somewhere. >> so as i remember it when you started your company the thing that was very clever and was unique is you would say i'm going to by pass the middle man. i'm not going to go to the retail store to buy my computer. somebody would send you an order. is that essentially right? >> we created a direct business model. and that enabled us to create all kinds of efficiencies in our supply chain, customer information. today we have a what we call

omni channel where we have channel partners and relationships with customers kind of combined together. >> today as i mentioned earlier in 2004 at your relatively young age i guess you were 40 or so or something like that 39? you just turned 50 years old. so -- >> in the 50 club. >> 50. 50 to go. 39 you say i'm tired of being ceo. i will step upstairs. you did that for a couple of years. was that difficult to step back as the see croand have somebody else running it? i guess so because you came back in three years. what did you miss as the ceo or why did you come back a couple years later? >> i was actively involved in the company. i think the industry rate of change started to accelerate. and the board asked me to come back as ceo. and i think we needed to make

some relatively swift changes in our strategy. and i was happy to do that. that's what we did. >> you came back. let's talk about the industry today. what do you see the biggest challenges for the american technology industry, the industry not only in silicon valley, obviously in texas and other parts of the united states where people are building companies that are technology leaders? do you see foreign challenges that are great? what do you think the biggest challenge is you face? >> i think if you step back what's interesting about our industry and the way our customers are using the technology is there was this enormous wave of let's make existing businesses more efficient and more productive using technology. and all of us have been doing that for a long long time. that has been going on. now you are seeing this how you reinvent things or invent them

completely new given all of this new technology that is out there. and in the technology sector we kind of live and breathe this all the time but now i think it is showing up in sort of all industries. and for any company in our sector you have to change or die. you have to evolve. for us that has meant aggressively growing in these new areas like software services, understanding the challenges our customers have like in cyber security and helping to go build solutions to go solve those problems. >> now, you still make a lot of pcs. do you make tablets? >> we do. >> is that a growth business? do you think that will replace b bpcs? >> i think of the tablet as a descendant of the notebook.

there are many different shapes and sizes for the products. you've got work stations virtual machines tablets notebooks, desk tops. we make them all but let customers decide. i think with the enormous growth in mobile devices, particularly smart phones, there was, i think, maybe a bit of a swing to believe at some point that all of those devices would replace the pc. i think the reality is it is more of a multi device world and not just the pc and the smart phone and the tablet. it's now all of these embedded computers, the wearables, the internet of things. so you are kind of going from this world of let's say a billion connected devices to 100 billion connected devices. as the cost of semi conducters

comes down you have this instrumentation and kind of making everything smart and intelligent. that creates this data that has to be turned into insights and knowledge. that is really the big opportunity that all organizations have out there is how you use this data to make what you're doing more productive or reinvent it. >> i want to talk about big data because you have so many customers you know what they are interested in among other things. do you use the data for other purpose that you can make another business out of all of the data that you have? >> sure. we use it to improve the efficiencyf our own sales and marketing and services. increasingly with data scientists that work for us help our customers be more productive efficient with better outcomes in whatever it is that they are doing whether health care, education banking,

finance, et cetera. >> you don't make manufacture smart phones? >> a lot of ways to make money in it other than smart phones. it industry is about a $3 trillion industry. and of that roughly $2.75 trillion is commercial business enterprise public sector and 250 billion is consumer. we are much more focused on the 2.75 trillion and so from a device standpoint what does it mean? pcs, tablets, embedded work stations. then we get into the data center all of the infrastructure, cloud computing software to find network storage, compute. then we focus on the systems

management, the security, the big data. and then ultimately one of the most exciting areas is services because we find more and more customers want us to help them implement all of these systems run them for them and help them make use of all of the tools. we think the combination of all of these things together are really important. >> so you bought one of your acquisitions was perot systems. did you deal with ross perot in negotiating that? how did that come about? >> i didn't personally deal with him in the negotiation but he still comes to work every day at our office. >> really? >> yeah. >> do you tell him what to do? >> i don't think anybody tells ross what to do.

>> so what about apple has said they are going to come out with a wearable watch. are you going to make a watch? >> no. here is a way to think about the smart phone. for every 50 smart phones that get put into the world a new server pops up. and the reason the server pops up is because when you get a smart phone it doesn't have anything on it. and you put stuff on it that comes over the network. where does it come from? usually not another smart phone. it comes from a server. and so this massive build up -- so you think about the companies that are providing the services that users are using on their mobile phones. we're providing the infrastructure and the equipment to be able to power those. >> as a young man when you were running the company you met with

steve jobs and bill gates, how did you compare the two of them? are they different in personalities? are they are customer of yours? >> pretty different. some form of collaboration and/or competition with either of them. >> and today you were in washington recently for meeting with government leaders on part of the technology ceo council so you met with president obama. what would you say the technology ceos said to president obama about technology? were you concerned about something? what did he say to you? did he ask for free computers or anything? any advice? >> he didn't ask me for free computers but i did wonder how come there is no computer in the oval office? >> probably hidden.

>> we focused on a couple of issues. i think trade promotion authority. we are exporters and u.s. technology industry has done very well. and to do that to continue to do that we think trade promotion authority is very important. we talked about immigration and certainly the focus on the stem skills that we need in our business is a big one. we talked about taxes and how do you keep the sector that we are in competitive. all of our foreign competitors don't deal with this repatriation problem. >> cyber security. there are a number of bills that are worked on.

cyber challenges is a big one. we see on behalf of our customers about 120 billion events per day. and i really built a threat intelligence to be able to understand what's going on. you have state sponsored groups. you have criminals. you have activists. you have espionage. and you have terrorists that are all using the cyber domain as a big attack vector. >> so you met with members of congress. were you impressed with any of the members of congress that you met with? >> very impressed. >> do they seem to know technology very well or are you just kind of teaching them a little bit about technology or are they more knowledgeable than i might have suspected?

>> i think they are more and more knowledgeable. we met with some of the incoming freshmen. actually some of them came from our industry and had a pretty refreshing insights into our sector. i think we're pretty proactive about coming and explaining what challenges we see and communicating what the opportunities are. but it's a frustrating environment. there isn't anybody who would tell you something other than that. >> people always want to know what the next big thing is. in technology if i wanted to make an investment in the next big thing what area would i put my money in? what would you say is a good investment? >> i think there are probably many next big things. this idea of the data economy, call it big data, machine to machine communication machine learning. we think that is an enormous

opportunity for not only our customers and organizations but for the it industry. to our calculations roughly a trillion dollar opportunity for the it industry in turning this data into real insights. and the availability, the cost to acquire the data keeps going down dramatically. >> you started your company as i mentioned earlier by by passing the middle man or retailer. you went directly to the customer. apple for example has a lot of stores in the united states and retail stores. i think microsoft does, as well. you have no stores in the united states. are you considering having stores in the united states? >> again our business is about 85% commercial business enterprise public and 15% consumer. we do have stores that actually are operated by partners in the emerging markets.

so, for example, china which is our largest country to sell our products into outside of the united states we have 1500 dell exclusive stores. we just opened our 400th store in india. we are opening one every 16 hours there. business is booming in the emergeing world. >> as a percentage of revenues more than half revenues from the united states still? >> it is about 50/50. >> and today as you look at your life you have the opportunity to give away a fair amount of money. you are very involved in philanthropy. to atone for sins of not going to medical school you are creating a new medical school at the university of texas. why are you doing that? doesn't texas have enough medical schools? >> interestingly enough the university of texas system with its main campus in austin did

not have a medical school which many regarded as a real oversight and opportunity. so we have been working for quite some time to bring this together. so now we have a new medical school, a new teaching hospital that over the course of 2016-2017 will really get going. >> so at your age bill gates stepped back as ceo from his company though he was involved as chairman and so forth. you have any plans to step back as the ceo or are you still happy to be the ceo for quite some time in the future? >> very happy to keep doing what i'm doing. it's a lot of fun and very energized by the whole privatization. i think that has made life much more enjoyable. >> so you and your wife have a foundation giving away a great deal of money. when you and your wife are thinking about things if you disagree on where the money should go how do you decide

that? >> you know, if we disagree we just don't do it. and fortunately we have a lot of the same values and beliefs and that's been certainly some great ingredients for a fantastic marriage. >> you have been married 25 years. you have four children. >> four kids and the foundation is something we do together. and it's been a lot of fun, very rewarding. she spends more time on it than kr do. i'm spending my time on dell. >> everybody would say this man has a perfect life. he has built a great company great marriage four kids got a lot of money to give away. what is not perfect in your life to make us feel better? make us feel that there is something not perfect that we

can say he is not a perfect life? anything that crow can say that is frustrating? >> you know well, look, i feel very fortunate and grateful to be born in this country and the opportunities that i have had. i don't really have a lot of complaints. there is nothing you should really feel sorry for me about. >> i like that, for example do you play golf? do you have a high handicap? >> i am undefeated at golf. >> wow. >> i've never played. >> so for outside activities what do you do? you are obviously in pretty good shape. do you exercise a lot? >> i like to stay outside move around whether it's hiking walking, a little running cycling. >> and if people want to get ahold of you they can e-mail you? how do you stay in touch with

your office? regular telephone communication or e-mails? >> we go to the office. so that's one way. and certainly it's all the normal ways. i have e-mail. >> do you think it would be as easy today for michael dell to start a company today or easier than it was then say you are 19 all over again today? what would your advice be for young entrepreneurs? should they drop out of college? get their degree? if your children said we are going to drop out of college and start a company what would you say? >> well i would want to hear what their idea is. i don't think dropping out of college is for everyone. it worked for me didn't work for charles manson. >> right.

you're probably right. >> but, you know, if i was 19 i would be trying to figure out what company i would go start. if in the process of going private somebody had bought the company from me which was a very real possibility i probably would have started another company. >> at the time karl ikahn was talking about making an offer suppose he had done that would you have started another company? >> if somebody had done that very likely i would have started another company. >> in the computer area or technology area? >> not going to say what the company would be, but likely in the computer area. that's what i love. that's what i know. >> in the philanthropy area is most in the united states or some outside?

how do you decide how much to putin the united states? >> started in the united states but has been expanding around the world. we have been very active in india and also in south africa. and we continue to expand what we do. again, the focus on children and urban poverty. we have done a lot in the education sector using insights that we gain from the dell experience in terms of how do you use data and knowledge to inform progress? so for example in education there is a standard that's been adopted by over half the states here in the u.s. called ed fi which is a way of normalizing

all of the information that a district may have about a student's performance and outcomes. the challenge here is a kid goes from third grade to fourth grade, what does the fourth grade teacher know about the student from the third grade? and the answer is it depends. did the teachers talk? were records kept? that information can be incredibly helpful. the other challenge you have is two kids can go into two different classrooms in the same school learning the same subject and have very different outcomes. and so how does a principal, a district, parents actually begin to understand all of that data and start to do something about it? so we have been very focused on those kinds. >> in the philanthropic area

what would you like your legacy to be? what would you like people to say about what you actually accomplished? >> the goal we have set for ourselves is to figure out how to make a bigger impact on our world through philanthropy than through business. i think we are off to a reasonable start. and the foundation has done some great work like you and i had talked about before earlier it's not easy to do it really well and we treat it like an investment activity with real measurement of results and returns and we also look for projects where we can change the trajectory make a meaningful

difference and then leave and have it continue without us. >> being michael dell and living in austin you are well known everywhere. can you go into a 7/11 and not have people say i have an idea for a computer. does it leave you alone if you are shopping? you don't shop that much probably. >> i like to shop online. i find that is a lot easier. >> if you walk into an apple store, for example, you wouldn't do that? you wouldn't go into apple store and they would know who you are. >> haven't had that experience. people generally leave you alone. i don't find it's a big problem which is good. >> have you had role models in the business world that you would say you have aspired to be like them or people you really admire in the business world or technology world? >> i think you can learn from

just about anybody, positive or negative and certainly in the tech sector we have had some great folks before us who have paved the way and led through all sorts of challenges. i have been fortunate to have known and worked with just about all of them. >> so as we were talking about at breakfast you seem like an even keeled person. don't seem to get upset. so when people are -- when you are mad how do you tell people they are not doing a good job. what is your way of actually showing anger to somebody if they are not doing a good job? >> i don't think you have to throw things. it wouldn't seem like a good idea. i'm direct in my communications with our teams. i spend a lot of time on making

sure that certainly for the executive team that i work a lot with that we are all aligned on what it is we are trying to accomplish. everybody knows how they are doing relative to the objectives that we have. and there is no confusion about where we are. >> i think having constant realistic assessment of where you are and what is working well, what's not working so well what needs to change is super important. >> when you met with the president he said i would like you to come into the government and serve as a senior cabinet officer and adviser to me would you consider going to government? >> no thank you. >> ever consider running for office? >> no thank you. >> no. and so what you would like to do to help your country is what you are doing now, pay taxes and

philanthropy. >> i think i am much more helpful with that. i have taken on various roles from time to time where i think it can be helpful. for example the united nations asked me recently to be their ambassador for entrepreneurship. and in the fall the general assembly is going to vote on the sustainable development goals. and my job is to convince world leaders that job creation and entrepreneurship ought to be one of the sustainable development goals. sustainable development goal number eight if you happen to be voting. my experience around the world is that if you look at new jobs, 70% to 90% of them are created

by entrepreneurial businesses, small growing businesses and governments can or cannot do things that can help that. i have lived and seen some interesting experiences. we have a sight in morocco. and i was there relatively recently. we have 2000 young excited people that are energized and love what they are doing. i remember when we were deciding whether to put that site in morocco or tunisia it was close maybe 60% morocco and 40%. the morocco government did a few extra things to make it better and we decided that was a good place to go. i think we should be thinking a lot about where do the next 500 million jobs come? where do the next billion jobs come from?

i believe they come from these small and entrepreneurial businesses. we also should be thinking in these sort of conflict zones where you have a lot of young unemployed people, how do we figure out how to good them jobs? if you have a lot of unemployed young people you haven't solved the problem. what also worry about is these places where we have been let's say dropping bombs for a few decades, once all the smoke clears you still have a lot of young unemployed people unless they can go back to their families and explain that tomorrow is going to be better, you still have a problem and there is no new administration or whatever that can solve that problem. so i think we have to be thinking how do we create jobs over there? that to me is the root problem. >> any regrets in your career?

remarkable career in business and philanthropy and personal life? any regrets to make us feel good that there is something you think you didn't do right? >> you know, you could have done this or that. that's not how i have lived. >> final question, if i want to go out today and buy a pc which one would be the best value for money for me if i wanted to spend a couple thousand dollars. anything you recommend? >> i understand you're reasonably well off. >> not compared to you. >> so what i would recommend for you given that you're traveling all over the world and you want to have the latest and greatest is our newest xps 13. >> and that costs roughly? >> depending on the configuration call it $1,000 something like that. >> no discounts.

i don't get a discount? >> everybody gets a discount. >> michael i want to thank you very much for a great interview. i am going to give you a gift. one second. this is the first map of the district of columbia. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. >> thank you very much. thank you. on the next washington journal former under secretary of state for political affairs nicholas burns on foreign policy challenges facing the united states including u.s. relationship with israel negotiations over iran's nuclear program and the threat posed by isis. we will also talk to john wonderlick about hillary clinton's use of personal e-mail. washington journal live each morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern

time. wednesday the supreme court heard the oral arguments in king versus burrwell challenging the federal subsidies of the purchase of health care. friday we will bring you audio of oral audio starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on book tv saturday night at 10:00 eastern on after words former marine and war correspondent on the history of post traumatic stress disorder that effects over 27 million americans including himself. sunday night former sniper scott taylor argues that the obama administration is hurting our national security. and on c-span 3 the commemoration of bloody sunday when voters rights advocates

began a march from selma to montgomery, alabama and were met with violence by state and local police. on saturday we are live from selma with phone calls followed by the commemorative ceremony. and then on sunday our live coverage continues with a service from the historic brown chapel church the starting point for the selma marches. find our complete schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us, e-mail us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. dan pfeiffer sat down to talk policy. allen also interviewed white house correspondent april

coming? was that predictable? or are you surprised by how harp it has been? >> i'm surprised at the sharpness. particularly seven term fourth quarter seeing this president going out talking about race and issues of race and how he has been effected by race. he had to navigate to avoid the topic. for instance selma he is going to selma and making bones about

the issues of selma and screening in the white house to issues of my brother's keeper and addressing racial profiling and the mistrust between black community and police trying to support the police and this nation as well as trying to root out those who are doing bad mese policing. >> you are there in the white house press room every day. you talk a little bit about the importance of being there. you're not a pundant. why do you need to be there and what do you get by being in that room every day? >> when you are there the body is in that seat. i'm the body. the body of the third row smack in the middle they cannot avoid me. that really helps to perpetuate your questions, throw the

questions in front of the principles. you have the president of the united states or the press secretary. it is important to be there so they know you are serious about your what you do. unxx e fortunately. >> i call them the millionaire seets. >> it's pretty hard to gain the attention from the principles. >> >> white will >> while we're watching the briefing, what's happening? what's the principle deputy, the principle deputy doing? if a reporter would ask

questions that they didn't feel too comfortability with or they didn't welcome, there would be a certain look. the eyes would roll, the stairs, the heartbeat would feel that they were piercing through you. they would give you eye contact and ask you sometimes who's that sitting next to you, if they don't know, you know, their person. there's a lot going on there. >> you'd answer them? >> yes i'd answer them. when i ask you that, i'd can e ask them a question. >> april is always working it. >> you've got to work it. >> what's the biggest specific advice you can give to them about how to be as you are a tough, respected, interesting rorer. >> objective. be as objective as you can. also, do not rely on just the information in the white house.

i think you get more when you have sources outside the white house. and, without as much spin as it is in the white house. so i think that you come in with the roladex with people inside the white house that are your sources as well as outside the white house. >> now for the book "the president sill in black and white" you had a fantastic standing room only event in politics. you had a very high level of current obama administration official there. she advised the president that i was there. she has a very unique role. she is very close to this

president, as far as from hi can goal. there's a trust there. she advises him do mesically on things. she helps him-and-a-half navigate the waters on how to fix problems or how to move forward. >> is she is most powerful person in the white house? >> the president is. >> after him. >> i joke and say she is. i think she is. i think it's a great thing. we've had condie rice. in this book, she even acknowledged that she was one of the closest advisors to the president. the president called her mother hen. and it's true. >> what do presidents call you? >> i don't know. >> have you ever -- george w. bush had all of those nicknames did you have a nickname?

>> he called me abreu. that's just a spanish version of my name. i don't know. but i hope they call me honest and fair. i hope that's what they call me. >> in your book you write about covering president clinton. and you write in there about a soul sfood dinner that you offered president clinton. >> yes, we had a historic dinner with president bill clinton at a time we were dealing with. she's a race. this is a second term. and the numbers of black reporters and the white house, question had not had an otr. many of the white reporters there -- >> tell us what an otr is. >> an otr is an off the record. they had all of these off-the-records with the president.

you always want to get close to the president to find out what he's thinking. everyone was getting this but many of the black reporters were complaining nay e they never got it. so they can taung to us what we think about it. both sides came and met in the middle. we met at a local reporters house. my aunt cooked the dinner. this is when the secret service had to watch a person skook. i mean, anything you can imagine. potato salad and he at it all the on one fork. and he jokingly said during the bush years, when i ran into him in the april office. he said hey april, how are you doing? i said okay. he said you remember that soul food dinner? i said yes, mr. president.

he said that's why i had my heart attack. >> you also covered the first lady hillary clinton and then what would hillary be like to cover as a candidate. >> she's very different from her husband. people really need to recognize that. she is a trail blarzer. but she's not president clinton. we're gouge to have to see how she-and-a-half gats the waterers. one thing we're going to have to figure out is how to handle president clinton.

here you have a man who was president. and when he goes to the white house, hey, he might be the next ambassador, something. he is capable. so, you ne, what do you do with a former president and a man who's still globally known. >> well you have another interview and so you'll kind of squeeze us in. we promised to get you out of here on time. before we let you go you're an officer in the white house correspondence association. if you could have anybody as an entertainer for the white house correspondence association dinner, who would it be? >> there are two people. one person was chris rock. i asked his wife. i thought he would be hot. i'm putting it out there, chris rock, i think you should. i think he would be great. and another person who came back into the lime light recently with the snl is eddie murphy. i think he would be great.

those are two of my dream comedians. i think he would rock it. >> good look at your next interview. and now we welcome dan pfeiffer, the president's senior advisor. [ applause ] dan, thank you for joining us. dan has been with this president since day negative zero. how was he dicht then. >> at his core, he's the same guy. there's this weird experience where he's sitting around as they're traveling around the country of the world. they'll be just talking spores and, you know, it flashes back to the same conversations we were having agt years ago when

it was just the president. the early, early days of the campaign. and then you kind of step back and we're, like, okay, we're having this conversation on air force one. or you know, something crazy like that. at his core, he's the same person. he feels like the same person to me. >> what's the biggest thing you've learned from this president about life? leadership? management? >> i think this president has an amazing ability to give people aren't. no matter what was in the paper

that morning, when you meet people who comes in your office it's the one chance to meet you and toe be nice and to make that person feel that they matter. you know he does that incredibly well. like, hoe watched that just amazing. if you e he can do that can't we all do that? >> david axelrod's book believe, there's a moment in there where the president was not in a good mood and he called david axelrod at word that you can't say on c-span, it's four syllables, one word, starts with an m. can were you surprised? >> i've been called some words across some time. david more than me. >> what is it that we'll put the president in a mood like that. what really trips his wire? >> i think, you know, stkd be an

apray of things of any given day. sometimes you're just the guy that walks in at the wrong time. politics gets in the way and it's just a wasted opportunity. >> all right, dan pfeiffer, today, the president did an interview with chuck mason of reuters just now. what's the outlook? >> in that interview, the

president said the odds were against. he's always said 50/50 at best. i don't think that's changed. this is a very hard thing to do. it's going to with hard, you know, it's going to be, like, this is tough. we're going to keep working at it and, you know i think 50/50 at best is the best way to describe it. and this president needs a deal to leave a current foreign policy president. >> we've made some real strides, whether it's ending the war in iraq to taking out bin laden. but the recent policy announcemented on cuba. there's a lot of progress in that area wu it's going to be an important one. and, without it what would it mean for the country? >> i think the question is if we do not get a deal, what's the alternative. that could be a very messy situation. so it's important that we put

every effort we can into getting a deal. it has to be a good deem. it has to be a verifyiable deal. with we've got a little time left here. at the w hotel in down toin d.c., right next to it f street, one of the streets that are blocked off, the prime minister is staying in a nearby hotel this weekend. >> that wasn't for me? >> dan's motorcade had to go around g street because and this weekend, on skrrkscnn, secretary can he recall rekerry is clearly

turning down. did that get too hot. the president said that the dispute over the speech and how it all took in, that is a distraction to larger issues. >> well, but there was a time that you all were stoking that. >> >> well i think that we have made the point that is very important that we keep it nonpart san. that's been the hallmark of how it's been handled over time. it's the right way to do it. and as we -- and the way this played out put that at risk. and i hope we can get passed this and get back to business. >> all right, dan. this is play book cocktails. so you can be honest.

so you would love for the prime minister to lose this election? >> no, that is not true. we want him to win it. the entire thrust of this is that we're not going to get involved. th's going to remain true. and it has to do with his handle here. j dan, one of the questions stod, if the add min stragsz loses the supreme court case king versus burlow on the affordable care act and potentially millions of people could lose, what would the president eets message to them be. >> first, do not lose d case. but that's not up to me. i wish it was. but the law is on our side. i think it was very clear what the intent was there.

we will focus oush energy on winning those arguments. i think it else important to recognize on what the consequence of these decisions will be. what the effect we would have only premiums. i think that would be a very devil staeting effect. >> you have all gained out what you could do. as the secretary said before congress the other day, we e we don't have -- there's not a magic fix. there's not something in the bag of tricks that will fix it. >> now is it possible that this

would open a conversation with the congressional leadership that could result in a grand bargain or a grandish bargain. >> you know i think there are a lot of ways to get the grand bargain. e'd like to get them out there this way. and i think if you look at what happened in the congress just a if you will days ago in the house: this would be a very complicated piece of business to get done. and the most simple thing that congress could do is be a sfunded agency for three weeks. so i don't think we're going to rest our hopes on. we are always hopeful that something could change and republicans can get more functional. but we're not naive to that. >> there's a lot of ways to a grand bargain in the fourth dwaurt quarter, still?

>> if the grand bargain greemt, there's a chance. and the president is going to try for it. we have to recognize that -- he'll, like, id think we ought to start with some things that we might be able to get done. trade is one option. let me give you another one. it's kwoik to be really hard. you know if we can find the opportunity to do it, where he eel do it. >> now you and i sitting here u a week ago on the list of things that could get done at the fourth yaurtquarter, senator elizabeth warren said she was against the tpa and tpp and she said that she was very concerned

about some of the specific provisions of it. >> well, not necessarily. trade is going to be hard. it's always been hard. it's probably a little bit harder now than in the past. there's certainly an isolationist wing what i think people should do is this president, if we're going to have a t 3rkspp deal,after fighting for the middle class every step of the way with a progress i view of economics, that's not going to happen. everyone is trying to -- is critiquing a deal they haven't seen yet. it's not done yet. so we've got to get the deal. but if elizabeth warren is against a deal,it has no chance. >> i don't believe that to be the case. and i think we should let her see the deal and then make a judgemented.

>> so you remain optimistic about changing senator warren's mind? >> it's not up to me about the odes of changing her mind are. >> you eve announced that you're leaving the white house when? >> friday. >> what will be the last thing that you're happy to do? >> waking up at 5:00 in the morning. >> you used to tell me you woke you want every day at 4:20. >> over the course of time, i got better at time management and more tired. so this is something that will serve everyone in this roomt x even watching.

what was the time management gift that you picked up that gave you 40 extra might benutes of sleep. >> the key thing is to separate what's real and what is something that's just a distraction. so you disz cover the first year, you think everything is a huge deal in the presidency. and then slowly, oaf time you realize that's not that big a deal and focus your energy a bit better. >> thank you for doing this on your short list green now and friday. what else is on your short list. >> pack my office. which i'm very behind on. i've got like six years of accumlated stuff. i want to just sort of soak in the last few days here and use this as an opportunity to put this entire experience in perspective.

we look back to the very e very early days. i probably, if i had one regret over the last agt years was i spent too much of this you know, front seat with my face buried in my blackberry. there's no major presidential speech that i watched. i ushltly heard it and read my e-mails and checked instruct the witnesser while i was doing it. the last new days, i want to try to soak it in and really recognize what this whole experience has been about. i don't know whether the last trip i took with the president would be my last one, but when we went to sdsh we travelable-- we

traveled last week, we went to florida. as i was getting off marine one, that was the new -- that's just like this regal experience. when we were sitting and clating on friday, i thought this will be the last time i do this. >> now, you have a fantastic vacation planned. >> >> i am going to take several weeks traveling. >> this is hard to plan a vacation when you have another job. you can always find a place to stop. but i'm looking forward to getting some time off i think. i will take more time off in the coming two months than i've had in the last ten years. >> and what are your short term plans? >> i've got a few weeks.

so i have a few weexs to go. i'm going to try to get some sleep, get up very early, read politico. sitting at the breakfast table waiting for e-mails. >> you recently did a swring through silicon valley. >> the genesis of the trip was to go out there and try to get the thoughts from the best and the brightest from the big social media companies, the folks in the venture capital world. folks who are doing digital marketing and engage. . and, you know, the premise is over the course of the six years i've been in the white house fore tast of the last two years the media landscape has changed so much it's getting

increasingly difficult to get your chosen message out and heard by people. and, at the same time, it's getting very easy for your opponents to get sort of their more viral message into the ether. and so that was the premise. but then you go out there and you talk to these folks and you lay out the problem that we're facing and their answer is yes, we have the same problem. everyone askrosz the board is con fronting this cluterred mood ya space. you end up in this world where

maybe only hearing that the information from friends or colleagues are what people want them to hear. >> in the news and information space, what's the coolest thing that's being worked on sn. >> i think everyone can see this now, but i think one of the coolest things out there right now is the new -- is what snap chat is doing with espn cnn, vice and some others. through their discover function. that is fundmentedly changed the way i watch espn. you can't really have espn on in the office. it's kind of frowned on in the office. if you have the do a white house wreefing, you get to watch espn. that's like a fair trade. but, you know, it's a very cool way of doing it. it's one of those things you find with market millenials. they're getting their news from, you know not facebook, note not even face book, necessarily, but snap chat and instagram.

they're finding ways to get information out. >> is the president on snap chat? >> he is not on snap chat. i'll be very clear about that. >> how does he watch espn? >> he watches it on television at the gym. if you're the president, you can have on any tv that you want. >> now over the years, he's been a big ipadder. has that changed? >> he still has a blackberry. so the ipad is his primary sort of media device. >> this'sere's a lot of things that the president takes you by surprise with. what are the things you know he's going to read. >> he's going to read magazines. sometimes in hard copy form. and also hirz ipad.

and that's everything from espn magazine and rolling stone to the economist, the atlantic. jowl know, he focuses on the stuff that is on other topics that he finds incredibly fascinating. >> now what about the project that you engineered was reimagining how the state of the union is rolled out. and one of your decisions was to put the texz of the state of the union on medium before the president opened his mouth. >> this was a mildly controversial decision within the white house. you're breaking a pretty long tra digsz. a lot of people are familiar with this, but it's like this great farce in washington. the president will put out to the press list the embargo texts to the speech and then

reporters will send it to their sources who then send it to their friends. by the time the president hits the podium, basically, everyone in official washington has seen the speech but no one in the public has. so our view was, one if everyone official in washington can see it why can't the public? we're not going to change it? one of our goals is go where the conversations happen. abds so we decided to try to design content across the board.

media is a growing community where people go. people would see it. and people would -- people who would never watch a speech would just read it. but other people may become interested because they may not notice. so as we were thiing of a state of the union we had a couple different groups of people in mind. people would actually watch it on tell vix. people would watch the live streams. they would just watch it on the laptop or their kwie pad. this what we called the river o content which was just into graphics facts, photos, stuff like that.

the two-screen experience feel who were missing important thingings like i do which is watch it and then be going officer your phone. so we had twitter and facebook content for that.

robert gibs broke ground. and then we sort of slowly over sometime, added a couple other people. 44 is kind of a trend. >> now, will you keep that or will you get a new handle. but we kept -- the people we kept it to were the people whose job it was to speak to the president.

we sort of realize ds over time that we were missing a lot of conversations. one, we didn't have enough of our press staff on twitter. there was this huge back and forth thavs happening with reporters x themselves. about shaping the narrative abltsd the president. we needed more band width. if we saw a reporter tweeting something that was an incorrect take or what we viewed as an incorrect take we can clear that up before it went too far. bud then we realized stlrp communities of interest out there. people, who, you know, very interested in immigration.

what you do with that, you add risk. the big tengsz that we deal with is discipline. and authenticity. the more people you put on twitter, the people who are less speerpsed, the more likely you are to have someone make an error. so we decided after a while we were missing out. >> how will it affect how the '16 campaign is covered.

>> you're going to have to have people kwhor reaching out to infrunsers across the board. they're going to be people who we all heard of with large twitter following. and you also have them reaching out and are very influential in a specific set of issues. one of the examples is dave rob erts. hoe's got a lot of i believe e influence. that's going to take a lot of effort and the resources.

you now have this ability to reach out to people through alternative means. either through social media or some of these new platforms that have come up and to talk about other issues that you want to talk about. you may be talking about the tax blan at the press event where all the reporters are covering you. you can also have a team of people who are addressing you e you. it's going to be harder for reporters to cover because the kfrgszs may be most important, it may not be the ones that are happening at the e vernt you're covering that day. >> while we're on '16, you've worked with secretary clinton,you've run against secretary clinton. what would be the key to success for her campaign? >> i will let secretary clinton announce whether she's running. >> let's just say. >> hype threat e thetically? >> i can do that in the last few weekings. well, few days. but i will say look, i think the

success for any demt cat running is going to be how do you mote vat the coalition of voters who came out in 2008 and 2012 but saturday home in 2010,2014. it's going to be harder for the next person. the president has a very ves ral connection. but, also, it's the third time. so that will be the key for any democrat. see how i did that? >> you've still got it. when you first came into the white house who was the most powerful white house official who got the least atepgs.

political breakfast in april, 2014. >> i would say that person was probably anita breckenritge. staff for op raxs. you notice the three people i pick were all for op raxs. it's rjs like,one of the most important jobs. whoever the next one is get to know that pern. anita used to drive the president around in her car.

i believe wholeheartededly that the white house press core should have very real september schism. and they should keep that up. but there also shoild be a level of -- you know we have to earn it, but a level of trust. the idea is if sometimes we make a mistake, it's just a mistake. someone says the wrong thing, they didn't real the talking points or they didn't read the memo. they're not always trying to pull the wool over on someone. >> whose idea was it to make michelle obama turn up the volt yumt.

i believe it was the first lady's communication staff. >> her's another question from twitter. are there any topics or issue that are high on a president post agenda but can't be on priorities rite now. >> i don't think so: i think that the agenda the president will have as he sort of thinks about what comes next will be right at the core of the issues that drove him in the white house. there's not a secret issue that, like, we're just waiting for the president sill. that would be a real waste of the presidency. i suspect that the work on my brother's keeper, which had a 20 year anniversary on friday, will remain important after he leaves. the attorney general says that might be the president's most important legacy.

>> i think it's a very important legacy. >> it's a mentoring program like giving people comforts. >> it's an opportunity that to say that the series of initiatives, they're around the country where people are finding additional men of opportunity for young men of color. it's always a powerful moment to hear the president talk to young men of all of his experiences. if you didn't see it the president takes a store core interview last week that i think aired on friday. where he just had a conversation with the young man who had struggled in his life and had been in the criminal justice system, but was trying to make himself better. it was very powerful. >> the president did a buzz feed interview that included a component promoting the afourble care act. did you feel like that crossed the line into like, native

sponsors? >> no, i didn't. i think, you know, buzz feed came to us with a proposal that included a substantive interview and a funny video. they came together. we had a numberover confers over time. the idea from the video came from them. this has been suggested by some that said we'll give you an interview if we do this course. that's note how it works. it's hit almost 51 million views. >> it's time to catch up. >> you know like, as we get into platforms, there are new ways of going ant it. and, so, you know buzz feed is a very successful platform.