both of which have been successful in maintaining the united states' foreign policy abroad prioritizing peaceful negotiations over military engagement. we already told you how military engagement under calvin coolidge was a last resort and should always be a last resort because if you can resolve an international conflict with peace, that should always be prioritized over war. but fundamentally calvin coolidge was the man and model for driving the republican party in his time, it is also because he'll be able to drive the republican party in the future in today's society we are proud to propose. >> great debate. >> good job. >> great debate.

>> all right. how about a big hand for the debate? [ applause ] okay. this is dangerous but i'm going to ask the room to vote. okay? and so, now keep in mind that we're not asking you whether you like coolidge more, you like reagan more or thought coolidge or reagan had better hair or the students cooler than these because they're all great, but rather, which side did you think was more convincing towards the resolution? for those and i'm only giving you a second to think here, but for those who thought team coolidge won the debate, please go ahead and raise your hand. okay. rashad, will you help me count the votes? so keep your hand up.

20. okay. and now for side reagan? 24. okay. so by a very, very small margin, we'll declare the winner of the daeblt side reagan. but congratulations to both sides. thank you so, so much. on the next "washington journal," we'll look at the top stories of 2015 with chicago tribune columnist clarence page and terry jeffrey. also, we'll take your phone calls and read your tweets and facebook comments. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. thursday night, american

history tv on c-span3 fee churls presidential campaigns. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, from 1999, former president george w. bush campaigns in new hampshire. at 9:00, also from 1999, then vice president al gore speaks at a democratic fund-raiser in new hampshire. at 10:30 p.m., former defense secretary donald rumsfeld's 1987 presidential campaign an nounsment. 10:55, paul son gas announcement. road to the white house rewind, 8:00 p.m. eastern thursday night on american history tv on c-span3. three days of featured programming this new year's weekend on c-span. friday night at 8:00 eastern, law enforcement officials activists and journalists examine the prison system and its impact on minority communities.

>> but the first and i think primary reason we have prisons is to punish people for anti-social behavior and to remove that threat from society. prisons exist to keep us safe, whether they're going to rehabilitate the prisoner or deter future crime. i think those are really secondary concerns. great if it happens but the primary purpose of the prison system is for people who are not in prison. it's to keep society safe from the threats imposed by those folks. >> saturday night, a little after 8:00, a race relations town hall meeting with elected officials and law enforcement from areas experiencing racial tensions with police. >> that's where it begins. because they get the job saying, well, and go and do their job saying, i'm protecting the public. their idea of the public are those who gave them the marching orders and that's us. that's us who need to look at all of that and talk about

transparency. we need to look at those rules that they haven't started to using to engage them. >> sunday evening at 6:30, a discussion of media coverage of muslims and how american muslims can join the national conversations. account 59, young people from across the united kingdom gather. >> this issue is so much more than buses, trains and expense. it leaves people disillusioned. as a child, i couldn't wait to experience a bus or train journey. i look forward to the children and the drivers. however, when we grow up, trains lose the smily faces and forget to notice the swishing and honking and worry whether we can afford the bus to school tomorrow. >> for the complete schedule, go to c-span.org. coming up next on american

history tv, former president jimmy carter joins former vice president walter mondale at a tribute to mondale's life and legacy, they reflect on the work to expand the role of the vice president during the carter administration from 1977 to 1981. they also talk about how many rights and the work of the carter center in atlanta. the humphrey's school of public affairs at the university of minnesota where mondale now teaches hosted this event. it is about 40 minutes. >> i'm humbled tonight by presidents carter's presence with us despite his personal health challenges. i was honored to be his vice president and to be with him at the center of most of his central decisions. we succeeded over together where many other presidential-vice presidential teams have been

shattered. what held us together is a deep shared common bond committed to truth and decency. i never doubted the president's commitment to those values and i don't doubt it today. we also succeeded because we always lived up to his promise to welcoming -- he lived up to his promise to welcome me into the center of his presidency. and to protect the dignity of my presence. he always, always kept that promise. we succeeded well for many of the reasons we'll discuss later tonight. we agreed on those issues. so i'm here with you tonight to celebrate the life of this remarkable american. i love the guy. and i know we share -- let's give him a big hand. [ applause ]

>> as observer of this experience, one of the things that so impressed me has been the personal relationship that has developed and grown over the years between the two of you. mr. vice president, i know you went to atlanta a few weeks ago and you had dinner with president and mrs. carter. is there anything about that dinner you care to share with us tonight? >> well, quite a bit, yeah. >> the floor is yours. >> i called the president when the news came out an i watched your remarkable news conference, one of the class acts i've ever seen. and i said, you know, mr. president, i can't help you on the health side but why don't i come down and we'll spend an evening sharing stories about the good old stories?

and you said, that's it and down we went and we had a wonderful, positive evening and we had a chance to retell some old stories and to remind ourselves of what wonderful years they were. >> mr. president, is there anything about that that you would like to correct the record? [ laughter ] or add to it? >> i think if we had recorded the evening it is more entertaining than it will be tonight. >> oh well. okay. all right. [ applause ] >> it was no audience except roes lynn and participated quite well and talked about joan and so forth. i would say that the mondale family and the carter family are just about as close as any two families could be and that's been the case since we first got acquainted with each other. we met for the first time extensively in plains when they came down to stay with me at

plains. we had about 600 people in town then and he got along well with the peanut farmers and if anyone gets an i long that well with peanut farmers -- >> very good. thank you. president carter, you have many significant legacies from your time in the white house and we talked about many of them earlier today. we certainly will get into more of them this evening. but one of the most important i think is what the two of you did together to shape this ab secure, neglected office of the vice presidency. it's been a remarkable thing to see and we're very pleased that vice president biden is here today. >> absolutely. >> and he -- right. [ applause ] there's vice president biden. and he spoke eloquently this morning about his and president obama's shaping of the office was really strengthened and

shaped by your experience. i can't imagine -- well, let me ask you this. had you thought about the vice presidency beforehand? i mean, what was it that you really wanted in a vice president? >> well, i would say all the way through my political career i have always said that my favorite president in my lifetime was harry truman. and i was in the navy when harry truman basically ordained the end of the racial discrimination with an executive order as commander and chief and i was really shocked to learn later that truman was never informed about the atomic bomb. and when i first began to explore possibilities of becoming president, before i knew i was going to win, i found out that until then, the vice president had never been briefed by the department of defense on

how to manage the atomic weapon in case we went to a nuclear war with the soviet union so that set me back and i began to realize that for all practical purposes the vice president was still a part of a legislative branch of government. his main duty was to proside over the senate in case of a near tie and that sort of thing and i thought the vice president ought to be an executive branch of government so when perch came down to plains and we had a long talk, fritz did most of the talking as you know. [ laughter ] but he had some ideas to explore about how the vice president could become an integral part of an administration. not separate like it always had been. so i suggested to fritz or he suggested and i accepted it, i don't remember, why don't you go and talk to vice president humphrey and vice president rockefeller, nelson rockefeller, get the ideas of what might be done to bring the vice president

in closer to the president, at least. and that was how the whole idea began. i think that's when he turned to you if i'm not mistaken. >> you pointed him towards two vice presidents that had very unhappy experiences in the office. that was telling. he did give it a lot of thought. mr. vice president, you said what president carter gave you was the most generous gift of any president in american history. do you want to expand on that? tell us what you meant. >> yeah. i would say the thing that worried me the most was i was going to lose what i knew to be an independent position in the senate and that i might go down that same road that hubert and others went down where they slowly have their dignity taken from them. and they are not really involved in the meaningful role in government and it's kind of

pathetic what they went through. so i did not want to do that and i was not going to do it. so when president kafcarter and talked the first time, we went over that quite a bit and i became convinced, it was his idea as much as anybody. he was convinced he was quite aware of this possibility. and he wanted to bring his vice president in to the center of his administration and then we worked out some of these principles like i didn't want to be doing other things. i wasn't -- no make work. i wanted to be a general adviser to the president. i wanted to be able to bring to him good news and bad news without going through censors. he agreed with that. in order to do that, i needed to have the information that secret and otherwise that allowed me to

be a source of support. and then i was willing -- i wanted to be a troubleshooter, as well. and i wanted to do -- take on chores around the country and around the world. and so, we -- i think we agreed on -- when we had that talk, we agreed on that. and i was convinced he meant it. and after four years, i'm persuaded that it worked. >> i think the best thing with me was as a georgia peanut farmer, i needed a lot of help. [ laughter ] and i felt the vice president would be the best one to give me the help i needed. i never had served in washington as you know and fritz was an expert at least for this help from hubert humphrey and others on what was going on in washington so that was the main thing. >> right. >> and so we began really to

explore every possibility of moving the vice president close to the president. he never had been in the oval office, never been in the white house before. and i spent one weekend with hubert humphrey because i found out just before he died and while he had serious cancer that he had never been permitted to go to camp david. >> that's right. >> and so i -- invited him to go and had a peach to make on the west coast and came back and picked him up in minneapolis and went and spent the weekend at camp david just me and him and his medical doctors, as a matter of fact. and he unburdened to me that weekend things that i'm sure he never had said publicly, never have since then and that was the deprivation he experienced as vice president. >> right. >> and the exclusion from any role of an authorityive nature,

executive nature and deprived of taking news reporters overseas with him and he had to get all the press releases from overseas trips approved by the president before it could be issued and he was never involved in any serious discussion that lyndon johnson had with any foreign leader and he was restricted severely on his ability to go in to the congress and they would start an original conversation with another member of the u.s. senate. things of that kind that were very embarrassing to him as a human being. >> right. >> and also i think counter productive. so i decided then that i had done the right thing with fritz because all of those things were changed when fritz became vice president. >> thanks to you and thanks to that conversation. [ applause ] >> yes, indeed. . thank you. and as you know, hubert humphrey

was a senator mondale and many of us from minnesota and -- >> and to me. >> and to you. and he suffered in the vice presidency. >> yeah, he did. >> and even though he did, vice president mondale, he urged you to be open to the idea. >> right. >> you want to talk about that? >> yeah. i went to see -- at your suggestion i went the see hubert and i said, you know, i think i've got a possibility of joining with mr. carter and running for vice president. but in light of the experience you had in this office, and the kind of painfulness and humiliation of it all, what do you recommend? and he said, i recommend you take it. if you can get it. he said it's wonderful. you will learn more than any other way. you will have more influence in one day than all year in the senate. and he said i hope you'll

consider doing it. now, i must say i was never sure whether he wanted me to be vice president or he wanted to be minnesota senior senator. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> well, he gave you the right advice and you did the right thing. >> that's right. >> what did it mean to you to have the office in the west wing that president carter gave you? no previous vice president had been in the west wing. >> well, that -- i think that was your idea. it meant everything because if you're over in the eob where most of the vice presidents had been, where hubert was, used to say it was like being in baltimore. [ laughter ] it's funny -- >> some of us spent a lot of time in baltimore.

>> it was good for you. [ laughter ] i said, i learned i was there for a while and said nothing propink like propinquity and i was in this office. i was maybe five seconds from your office. all the key presidential aides, jody and so on, were right there. we would bump into each other. talk all the time. and i think it's at the center of the white house is that very small west wing. and if you're there, i think you're a part of a serious effort f. you're outside of there, i don't know. so it was a big, big advantage to me. >> right. >> and i think it helped me serve you. >> mr. president, the other thing that you did besides coming up with the west wing idea, i know this because i heard you say it, you told your staff and your cabinet, i want

to respond to a request from the vice president as if it came from me. >> exactly. >> and you said because you knew the experience of vice presidents rockefeller and humphrey and said if you're messing around with this guy, you're out of here, right? and that message came through loud and clear. thank you for this. >> that was very important because in the past quite often the cheer of the staff or someone like that saw the vice president adds a challenger to them and their own authority and their own influence and i knew that could happen with my staff, as well. so it was clear to me that everybody that worked in the white house should look upon me as ultimate voice but along with me fritz mondale so they knew that. and also i also knew that you were chief of staff for fritz monodral adale and i wanted youl that you worked for me and not just him. >> and you made sure of that. >> that's true. that's true. so when hamilton or jody got an

order from fritz or suggestion from fritz, they knew it was the same as coming from me. >> that's right. >> and i note we didn't have any disagreement because of this. >> it made a huge difference. >> it did. senator humphrey was forbidden as i mentioned earlier to take an initiative and going to even a member of congress and talking about executive affairs. >> right, right. >> i changed that, as well. i never had a meeting with any foreign leader from which fritz mondale was excluded. >> right. >> and i never had a meeting with a member of congress from which he was excluded and one other of the things i was concerned about is disharmony then and now among the members of the national security staff. because we had the vice president got in office and the secretary of state, secretary of defense. and national security adviser. sometimes the head of an

intelligence agency. we met every friday morning. >> right. >> to discuss every possible issue that might come up the following week in foreign affairs and then dr. briz ski took notes and meet wednesday morning with the secretary of defense and secretary of state to make sure they were doing what we had decided and fritz mondale was always an integral part of that tiny meeting that shaped aumt foreign policy. so, so far as i know he was almost like another president. that's what i wanted. >> yeah. he thought that sometimes. >> i know he did. [ laughter ] there was one thing that fritz did, though, that i think exceeded his authority. [ laughter ] whenever there was a chance for me to go to norway, i country i really admired, i was always

excluded from consideration. [ laughter ] and first thing i knew, fritz would be back and, mr. president, i've just returned from norway. i said, well, i was planning to go to norway myself. but he would give me a thorough report of what was going on in that wonderful country. >> you will be pleased to know that the foreign minister of norway and the ambassador of norway are here this afternoon and they can arrange the trip. >> please. let's have you stand up. >> you know, if you ask -- if you ask anybody -- >> would you please, can you please stand? please? let's foreign minister. there we are. ambassador. >> thank you. if you ask anybody from those ancient days in the '70s, so forth, they don't know that i was president. >> really? >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> this is a tough evening. >> yeah. >> he can do that to you.

>> i know, yeah. >> now, we are going to shift gears here a little bit, mr. president. i think he would welcome that. in the introduction to your marvelous new book, "a full life" and let me just give that a plug. you should all read "a full life" by jimmy carter. this is an extraordinary book. you quote in the introduction vice president mondale's fairly well-known summary of your four years in office. we told the truth. we obeyed the law. and we kept the peace. and you added in the introduction, and we promoted human rights. thank you very much for putting that in there. [ applause ] now, we all remember how you embraced human rights. so firmly and consistently.

and we became known in parts of the world in ways that we hadn't before because of that and still true in many parts of the world. what was the motivation that made you make human rights such a priority and then if you would, please, what do you see as the largest human rights issue in the world today? >> well, to go back to when i was a child, i grew up in a community where my family was only white family there so i grew up in a group of about 250 african-americans so my whole life was shaped by the african-american culture. and as i got older and older i realized that there was a great deal of discrimination there. they couldn't vote. they couldn't serve on a jury. they had very inferior schools and so forth. that's the origin of it. my mother paid no attention to that racial segregation or discrimination. so i've always been a champion of human rights in small limited

way. when i got to be president, of course, i pointed this out as a goal as president. and i saw soon that this resonated in russia with the jewish russians who wanted to come out and also i'd say just one quick example if latin america. when i became president, almost every country in south america was a military dictatorship. colombia, peru, chile, argentina, paraguay, uruguay, brazil and so forth. the institution of a human rights policy there and our support for it, condemnation of oppression, i think made it possible for every country in south america to now become a democracy. and they have done it, they did it within five years after i entered office so i think the practical, the practical results very much pleased me while i was president but still looked upon

by some as a weakness than a strength and to answer your question i think the worst nation worldwide human rights oppression is against women and girls. no doubt about that. [ applause ] including -- including in our own country. and not only do we have -- we don't have some of the problems but we have now more slavery than ever existed in the 18th and 19th century in the world. atlanta happens to be the number one trading post in america for slavery. >> really? >> we have more than 200 people every month sold into slavery in atlanta. and the reason for that is that it has the largest and most busy airport on earth and a lot of the passengers come in to atlanta on delta, so in other words, girls with brown and black skin and "the new york times" did a very long article

last february or march said that black or brown-skinned girl in atlanta could be bought by a brothel owner for $1,000. female slavery comprises about 80% and sold into sexual slavery and same thing in the universities now with oppression, sexual abuse of girls. and also in our military i think last year 16,000 cases of sexual abuse took place in the military. and very seldom is a person prosecuted, punished for rape even in the military or university system. so we have a long way to go not only in this country but around the world. >> thank you for your leadership. [ applause ] >> vice president mondale, you were very much a partner in this

effort to promote human rights in the bochi case, meeting with the african leadership on apartheid, in trying to save the vietnamese boat people who were dying at sea. you want the vietnamese boat people who were dying at sea. do you want to talk about these issues or any others? >> these were all issues that you were directly involved in. we talked about them, and i would pick up various of them and particularly required travel and the rest, organization. and try to add my help to that. boat people, horrible scandal of particularly in the southeastern asia. they had, we thought, clear evidence that the government of south vietnamese of was push, was pushing, particularly

citizens of chinese extraction out to sea. sometimes charging them for the honor of being kicked out. they were often to get into boats that were unseaworthy. the thousands lost their lives at sea. and the u.n. was saying this was just poverty. that it wasn't any of that. and so we decided we needed to make an issue out of this. we, the navy didn't want to pick up, remember, we talked about that. the navy was hanging back, again, as it always does. [ laughter ] and we, but, so the navy agreed to pick up people, saved a lot of lives, and we set up a u.n. conference in geneva on the boat

people, and we were able to get a strong resolution there, and we set up an international system. we took, most of them, but some 20 or 30 nations also participated in a meaningful way, and i think the whole, whole world felt better about it, and i think the united states looked pretty good at that time, and i'd like to see us get involved now a little more forward. [ applause ] >> after the vietnam war, the refugees from vietnam and cambodia were be being persecuted, even assassinated if they were found to have been loyal to us during the war. so we began to receive these people after they were carefully screened. and just a lesson for europe, we were taking about 12,000 a month. and we took them, and the vietnamese and cambodians have

made very wonderful citizens for the united states. >> absolutely. [ applause ] >> president carter, one of the most difficult, and i think frustrating experiences in your tenure was when the iranians seized the hostages from the american embassy in tehran. and even though they weren't released until you left office, the release was work of your administration. now president obama has secured an agreement with iran to prevent the development of a nuclear weapon for at least a decade. how, how do you view that agreement? in terms of what it means for peace in the middle east, and what it might mean for the future of iran itself internally? >> well, what many people don't even realize unless they think about it a few minutes was when that shah was overthrown and the

ayatollah hoe mainy was established, it was a government that i credited the hostages that were taken. so i believed then and now that we should deal with the countries with which we disaguy and build a barrier. so i've been long awaiting the time when the united states would have talks with iran. and i think that what john kerry did -- i met with him to discuss this this afternoon among other things and what president obama did was the right thing, and i hope and pray that the peace agreement that we've worked out with iran about nuclear weapons will prevail and that they will honor their commitments. so i think it's a wonderful thing, and i hope the whole country will get behind it and support it and that the iranians will comply. [ applause ]

>> do you want to add anything to that, mr. vice president? >> no, i agree. i think that, it looks to me like the president is gaining a majority support in the united states. and the momentum is flowing to him because he's provided excellent and needed leadership. [ applause ] >> mr. president, were you known to a lot of us in the white house for taking on a lot of tough issues. no tough issue was safe if it came near your desk. [ laughter ] and your achievements have not always been fully recognized. but just to look back on it, you brought peace to the middle east at camp david. [ applause ] yes, indeed. you put the country on the path towards energy independence.

[ applause ] you brought inflation under control, and it's remained under control for 30-plus years. [ applause ] you appointed paul voeker, i remember that very well. and then came panama, which was one of the toughest issues any president -- five of your predecessors had failed to solve that problem of the panama canal. but you took it on, and by all accounts, the canal today is a huge success. in terms of our security, economically. in every possible way. do you have any reflections on that and comment on that. >> it was one of the most difficult things i had in my life, let alone president. for instance, there were 20 senators who voted for the canal

treaties in 1978 who were up for reelection that year. only seven came back following that january, seven out of 20. and the inflation great was almost two years in 1980, including a president who was not reelected. and i think this has been one of the best examples on the sincerity and the competence of the united states in supporting human rights of a tangible nature that i can remember. because to give away the canal to use ronald reagan's express was a crime almost against the united states, but in my opinion, it was the right thing to do. you may remember that reagan almost overthrew gerald ford as a republican nominee in 1976. and a lot of the issue was on reagan's condemnation of any move toward panama canal treaties. but i had bipartisan support,

and we laboriously dealt with undecided senators, about 11 of them, and were able to get this passed through. it was still considered to be an unpopular deal. when the year 2000 came and time for us to turn over the canal to the panamanians, the president decided not to go down there, and the vice president decided not to go down there, and the secretary of state decided not to go down there. for the first time, they asked me to go down there. [ laughter ] >> sounds like a job for a vice president, to me. >> the vice president didn't want to go. so, and then a little bit later when the, they decide to expand the canal by doubling its capacity, there was a big ceremony down there. once again, the incumbent vice president happened to be republican. asked me to go and represent the united states. so i've been honored twice since i left the white house

[ laughter ] >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> vice president mondale. >> i told the story today in an earlier conference about how we trying to get those hard-line senators who had campaigned against the treaty and all, and about senator haikawa who ran against the grounds that it's ours, we stole it fair and square and so on. [ laughter ] and he told me, you know, maybe i could support the treaty, but he said the president is not very well-advised. he doesn't have good advice. and maybe if he could take my advice, i could vote for him. so i ran to the phone and called you, and we got him on the phone right away. and we went over the information of, and he said, yes, i think i can vote for -- shouldn't we meet about every biweekly or something? and you said let's not do that.

we'll probably need to meet more often. [ laughter ] and i think he was the deciding vote, wasn't he? >> any one of them could have been the deciding vote. >> right, but you spent a lot of time up there working on the ratification, and, as you would put it, that was grinding hard rock, wasn't it? >> it was, and your point of the number of is that rights who were going to lose the next election, many of whom knew that. i remember tom mcintire of new hampshire said yes, i'll vote for it. this is right, but he said don't expect me back in the next session, and i heard several others that told me that. and it was not popular. it was it was a strange issue for me. usually it's senator wanting to

do something that's safe and not right. in this case, they knew to vote against it was wrong. so even though it affected their own future, they voted right. and it was an inspiring time to be up there. >> well, president carter, you and rosalynn, and your team at the carter center have done an extraordinary job for 35 years. [ applause ] exactly. you set the gold standard for former presidents. there in's to questi there's no question about that. and aid be grateful, i know the audience would be, about the kind of work the center's doing, what the hopes and aspirations are all about.

what's the carter foundation about? >> peace, freedom and the aleve yags suffering. the carter center is free to go and meet with people around the world who the government normally won't meet, for example in khartoum. in nepal, and they won the vote in 2008 and were condemned as terrorists. we met with fattah and hamas. that's one of the thins things y to do. the outcasts might be who's causing the problem with human

rights, so we go right to them and try to change their policy. i never go into a troubled area without getting ahead of time, permission from the white house. sometimes reluctant permission. i always make a report to the white house and state department. the second thing is, we started the policy of monitoring elections. because we found out in trying to negotiate peace between two groups, quite often, if we say why don't we have an honest election, and i'm sure the people of your country will choose the right person to be leader, and boast antagonists know that they're going to be the leader, that's the principle of politics is self-delusion. so we began to monitor elections. and we just finished our 100th troubled election in gee guy on

guiana. and now we're working in myanmar. we will treat this year 71 million people so they won't go blind or die from disease that is no longer known in the developed world. so health care is our primary way to expend money and to use our people. one example of that is in guinea, where we started out with 20 countries that had guinea worm. and 26,300 villages and 3.6 million cases. and at this moment we have 15 cases in the world. and so -- [ applause ] >> wow. >> so that's what we're working for. we go into a country and work side by side for the people in little villages, and it gives us an insight quite often into political affairs in that country, and that's what we

share with our leaders in washington. >> it's extraordinary work. and one of the things in addition to that that i so admire is that you've planned ahead. you've endowed the work of the center. your grandson jason is going to be the chairman. didn't want to rush it. he's going to be the chairman. but you're planning for this work to go on in perpetuity. >> that's right. we have a legal partnership with emory university. we appoint half of the board members, they appoint half. so we have a great institution backing us up. and we have organizations around the world with leaders. we have about 30 leaders in latin america who have been either present or prime minister. and we have a record of holding good elections, and we have an adequate endowment to tide us over when rosalynn and i are not there to raise money. we have to raise a lot of money. >> you and i were chatting earlier before we started. and you're