this week the supreme court heard an appeal over legislative districts in wisconsin after a lower court concluded the state's republican-drawn map constitutes partisan gerrymandering. we will play this oral argument in its entirety tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. representative linda sanchez, vice chair of the house democratic caucus, is our newsmakers guest this week. she's the fifth highest democrat in the house. in this interview with reporters from "the washington post" and "los angeles times," she talks about her party's leadership. >> i personally think our leadership does a tremendous job, but i do think we have this real breadth and depth of talent

within our caucus and i do think it's time to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders. and i want to be a part of that transition. i want to see that happen. you know, i think that we have too many really great members here that, you know, don't always get the opportunities that they should. and, you know, i would like to see that change. >> would nancy pelosi win a caucus leadership fight right now if she were challenged? >> i don't know. i mean, i don't know. there are a lot of members in our caucus and again, everybody has their opinion. i just don't know what the answer to that is. >> by saying it's time for a generational change, what you're suggesting is win or lose after next year, it's time for her to g? >> i don't want to single her out. i think that -- >> well, steny hoyer, tim clybu clyburn, all three of them? >> i think it's time to pass the torch a new generation. they're all of the same generation, and again, their contributions to the congress and to the caucus are substantial.

but i think there comes a time when you need to pass that torch, and i think it's time. >> the entire interview with linda sanchez airs sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, sonoma state university professor laura watt discusses the evolution of the national park system. >> this was not just a case of setting aside an already natural landscape and leaving it alone, which is, again, what we tend to think of when we think of park protection. what he wassing to was making nature out of what at a time was mostly old sheeps meadows. there actually is a big grassy area in central park called the sheep's meadow, and that's why, because there were sheep on it. >> sunday at 6:00 p.m. on american artifacts, architect and historic preservationist

julie hill on saving slave houses. >> important do this because one is perezer vags. slave houses are buildings that are disappearing from the landscape and so by documenting them, that's one way of preserving them. documenting them and through my database is also a way to share information and get it out there and learn from them. >> then at 7:00 p.m. on oral myste mystery histories, we continue our series on photojournalists with an interview with lucian perkins p. >> followed sandy irwin, who ended up on the front page of the post, her yelling at these freshmen plebes lined up against the wall with their chins tucked in like this, and that photograph ran everywhere in the world. and i'm convinced that that story helped me get a job at the post. >> american history tv. all weekend, every weekend, only

on c-span3. government, business, arts and science leaders gathered recently for the annual washington ideas forum and conversations on domestic and international issues. it also included interviews with senate intelligence committee vice chair mark warner and retired general and former cia director david petraeus. >> good morning. good morning. >> great to be with you senator. i know we're going to get into this russia stuff and high crimes and executions ahead and those kinds of things, but i know you tear richest man in the united states senate. >> ah. >> so does the trump tax plan help you or hurt you? >> i think the trump tax plan probably helps me more than it needs to, and i'm missing that part where nobody on the high end was going to benefit and this was going to benefit

middle-class folks. >> so that's fake news. >> that would be -- that would not fall into the fact checkable news. >> great. let's get down to the serious things you've been investigating. some of the platforms that many in the audience and even myself love, facebook, twitter, using search engines like google, are all now wrapped up into your committee, intelligence committee, coming in. do you feel that these platforms are undermining our democracy? >> first of all, i know this feels like tights story that never ends, but let's look at what we do know, what 99.9% of everyone in washington believes, democrat or republican, with the exception of maybe one individual at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. one, we know that russia, using its services, massively intervened in our election by hacking into both political parties and releasing information that helped one

candida candidate, mr. trump, at the detriment to hillary clinton. factually, everybody knows, intel community knows, needs more investigation, but that's pretty certain. second thing we know, russia intervened and attacked, didn't fully break into voter files but literal ly attacked 21 states' e lk to reca electoral systems. one of the great frustrations i of had since springtime was the department of homeland security would not tell the top election officials in those 21 states who were attacked. >> let's pause there for a minute. i watched last night that hearing where you raised that hearing, you had a representative, a woman from dhs that you were hammering on this months and months ago, and you were pretty ferocious. it had taken all this time for dhs to do this, and i have sources that tell me that now chief of staff john kelly then

secretary of homeland security, wasn't pleased with you. >> we had a frank and candid exchange. it just seemed to me almost kafkaesque that dhs would say we can't tell the states because the states' secretaries of state or other top election official didn't have enough clearance level to be told. now, that made no sense. now, come last friday -- >> is that what john kelly told you? >> that was what was relayed to us. they did reveal to these 21 states, but this is part of the challenge that the fact that the president doesn't acknowledge this problem, so we have no government approach on how we preclude from happening next election cycle. i know in my state we have elections this year. our state lex board actually took out one of the machines and decertified it because we were concerned about the ability of

russians and/or others to hack into it. >> hacking into the machine itself. >> hacking into -- the ability -- there was a conference in las vegas a number of months back where they brought in a lot of voting machines and showed how quickly hackers could actually penetrate the machines. we have no evidence that they penetrated in 2016. but they were in effect rattling the door and we need to be careful going forward. third thing we know is we of seen -- and again, you know, i of been a -- my background is in the technology field, but the social media companies, facebook, twitter, we're asking google as well, at first were very dismissive of the fact that their platforms were used both as vehicles for paid advertising but also as places where russians were able to create fake accounts and those fake accounts could "like" certain groups, "like" certain stories, and that would drive those

stories higher on your news feeds. and that would mean their propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, sowing chaos, i think they had a pretty dramatic e fact. again, we can get to the social media platforms in a moment, but here's what i worry about at times. if you take -- if russia's goal, you know, was primarily to sow chaos, to show how our systems sometimes don't function, you know, and then secondarily help e mr. trump, they had a pretty good rate of return. if you add up what russia spent in american elections fshg you add up what they spent in the french election, where facebook has acknowledged they took down 50,000 accounts fshg you add up what they spent in the dutch elections when the dutch hand counted the ballots, and double that, you're still talking about less than half the cost of one new f-35. so from a macro standpoint, i think what we may have seen is the first, you know, not shots

fired but the first tools of 21st century disinformation. and i worry as a big advocate for the military that we may have in america the best 20th century military that money can buy, but we're increase lig in a world where cyber vulnerability, misinformation, and disinformation may be the tools of conflict. >> how forth coming are the platforms right now? facebook denied having had any russian ads bought, and then overnight we're learning more and more about more accounts, now we see the news today about twitter. you've laid out that the million-dollar question is who knew, how did they know where to deploy these ads. but there was a period of time nothing had come forward. does facebook have a lot of ruble accounts? >> well, let's put it like this. i think facebook in many ways

knows more about each of us than united states government. and the notion that somehow they weren't aware of what was happening on their platforms strains my credibility. and they did say initially -- >> you think they were lying. >> i'm not saying that. i want to see the materials. they cam in originally, they showed the staff, they took the materials back, not a good thing to do to a senate committee, and now they're coming forward. they promised us the information this week. we want to get it out to the public because at the end of the day americans should have the right to know at least a couple things. one, if you're reading a political ad on facebook or any of the platforms, you ought to know the source of that ad, whether it's foreign based or not. secondly, if a story is being driven to the top of your news feed because thousands of individuals have "liked" it, we ought to know whether those individuals who are liking it are actually individuals who are represented. in many cases, they say it's

steve clemens from washington, d.c., when it might have actually been, you know, igor pushkin from moscow, and what facebook has said is they've identified one of the troll farms in st. petersburg and they haven't identified the rest. one of the reasons why i don't believe that they of actually done a thorough examination is the only accounts they identified were those ads that are paid for in rubles. now, come on, guys. i think the russian services know how to like maybe use dollars, euros. so we've got a lot more questions. my hope is -- i talk with mark zuckerberg last week. i of nonhim a long time. he's obviously built an extraordinary iconic company, but i think that company that more than half of americans look to every day is based upon a level of trust. and i think they need to be extremely forthcoming as well as twitter was in today and we'll ask google to testify as well,

that they need to come forward. this is important in terms of america's confidence and the information we receive. >> so much of this story is behind -- is veiled, classified. you mentioned the 21 states, that some of those states, wisconsin and others, are just now telling their citizens that they had been penetrated one way or another by the russians because they had been informed formalry by the department of homeland security. you were on this months ago. what is the gap between what we all know publicly and what you know because you get classified information, what intel agencies know? this seems to me to be right at the core of democracy. >> i'd love to tell you but -- >> but, i mean, is it -- is it a big gap, a little gap? we seem to be so behind. like this story keeps going on drip, drip, drip. >> i have been amazed that there's not a week that goes by that a new name or a new threat doesn't appear. and remember, we have -- and i want to give a lot of

compliments to my chairman, richard burr, you know, we both have got challenges here. you know, there's democrats who think everybody's grlt day one. there's republican who is want this to just go away. our job is to get the truth out. our job is, yes, to figure out whether there was collaboration or collusion, but equally if not more important how we prevent this from happening going forward. and the fact that the white house -- everybody in the intel community, again, most of the president's appointees have all acknowledged this, but the fact that there's no single point of contact in the white house that says, hey, may job is to make sure that our e lectoral system, our information, we were protected from russia this time, other foreign entities next time, in a way that has a whole of gft approach is a real challenge. it means it's more incumbent upon us at the end of the day we get the truth out. >> i want to move to some other topics in the remaining we have.

but i want to ask you about what you see as high crimes. we now see -- i've seen your comments about -- we of seen evidence of collusion, intent to collude. so of these things that we keep reading about, you know, the jared kushner meeting with bankers, the russian meeting in june, the creation of a document on air force one that was done for eric trump jr., all these things that come out -- >> you can't make some of this stuff up. >> which of these constitute high crimes? >> i have not reached any conclusion. my job is not to reach that conclusion until we get to -- >> which way are you tilting? >> towards the truth. i think there are a series of interactions, you know, for example, michael cohen, who wanted to try to pull a fast one on the committee, we'll have him come back. he's been identified with trump tower moscow, a series of other dealings with russia.

i think it's important for the public to hear from him. we're going the want to bring in donald trump jr. but we want to hear from all the other people in the room first so we know the right questions to ask. so there are those kind of questions about was there shared information. clearly the russians were trying to offer, you know, information that was hurtful to hillary clinton. you know, did the trump people accept it or not, we don't know the answer to that. the other piece that i think is one of them, the big unanswered questions, and i really hope the social media companies will be very forthcoming, the trump social media operation was much, much better than democrats real rhe realized. and we of soon lots of use of facebook, seen some level it appears of coordination with some of the alt-right groups. the question i have is i know the russians have the tech nnic

ability to plant fake news, create fake accountses, but their level it appears of geotarget on a demographic basis in certain key areas where frankly the kem democrats were asloop at the switch, how do they figure that out to that level? there's been some evidence the trump campaign put a lot of their databases in effect out in some of their targ efforts out for public and then people who wanted to, you know, not directly work with could use that information. but i still think one of the million-dollar questions is this was a level of sophistication that i think was unprecedented, and we have to figure ot what happened. >> have you read josh green's book on steve bannon? >> no. >> might be interesting. >> might be interesting. he's on a lit boiflt a high this week. >> let me just shift gears for a minute. i interviewed senator chris coons yesterday and we were talking about health care. i asked him in terms of

bipartisan, constructive, working together, how many united states senators did you think would be open to the notion of a vehicle that came on this, solves a lot of problems of the affordable care act that came in, and chris said 50, which isppointing number. i'm interested in just you and richard burr have a deep relationship and a good effective relationship. does that go on -- is there a chance that we're going to be able to tilt from this period of extremism in both parties being unable to kind of work -- >> yes. the truth is there is a lot more interpersonal working relationships in the senate than you guys in the press represent. >> do you guys hide them from us? >> no, we don't -- there are plenty of secret spot where is we have a glass of wine and share ideas. and i think health care -- >> give me a cuall. >> there was a path, and i think patty murray and lamar

alexander, there's way we can do some short-term market stabilization as well as taking on some of the options, a reinsurance pool, i've been open far long time the idea of cheaping plans to get younger people in. i call them copper plans. there's a lot of common agreement. and we just need the runway to play that out, and i think you'll see that happen in health care. i worry -- and i 've spent year as former business guy, some of the audience may recall i was part of the so-called gang of six. i think it's weird i work in place that's the only place in america being in a gng is a good thing. macroeconomic trends. i think i could add some value to a tax reform debate, but if the operating premise is that the republicans are going to try to do this with their team only and get 50 or 51 out of 52 votes

i think that would be harder for tax reform than to get 65 or 70 out of 100. i hope they learn as the democrats should have learned before, if you try to do major policy with one party only you're never going to get it to the point where the american people accept that policy as being in effect vetted by both teams. >> you had written, senator, about your worry that our insensitives in the economy are designed the wrong way, that the average worker is screwed in the current situation because we're seeing less and less investment in the economy, less an less long-term orientation. what are the two or three things you think need to be done to change the course of the economy so it's more in a healthy way, more sustainable than it is today? >> in 1:43 dpif you a whole new economic theory. here's my feeling.

i did extraordinary well and very blessed to d well by our free enterprise system. i worry that modern american capitalism is not working for enough people. i believe that that is driven by the fact that long-term value creation is too often trumped by short-termism. and let me cite three examples that i think that don't fall neatly into democrat and republican. the whole notion of traditional social contract around work has changed. people no longer work like my dad did for the same company for 38 years. a third of the workforce in america today is in some form of contingent work, part-time, temp, independent contractors, the gig workers. those folks, even if they're doing well, they have no social insurance. so we have to experiment with a portable benefit system. the same corollary of that nonlong-term employment means there's really no business reason for a company to invest in upscaling low and modern income people. the government does a pretty

crummy job on that. a tax reform plan ought to include major tax credits for companies who train up low and moderate income workers and i would offer a lower repatriated tax rate for those company who is put in place that kind of meaningful training. and third, i think we rally need to have -- and this would be a debate that would be fulsome -- a question whether the capital markets are so focused on short termism that the long-term great post world war ii companies could even be created today. we do point to the facebooks and the amazons and the others, but those are companies where the founders still control an unusually large block of stock. how can we move away so that companies no longer, you know, 30 years ago 50shgs% of company profits were reinvested in companies, now 95% of corporate profits are spent on share buybacks and dividends. that's not the kind of capital ism that's going to grow and make everybody have a feeling of inclusiveness. >> thank you.

[ applause ] finally, i want to ask you a question about the trump administration and president trump. given everything we know, given the concerns that you've laid out, how willing are you, given everything you've seen, to go and become engaged with president trump and to work with him on these issues? >> i want the president to succeed. >> can he succeed? >> listen, i -- a little less tweetage, a little more policy might help. i want him to succeed. he's our president. but he's got to recognize that the role of the president, the role of any leader -- i was a governor in a state where it was 2-1 republican -- the role of a leader is to actually get folks to find some common ground and not to try to find every issue and simply reinforce your base. our country has done best and its policy has done best when you actually build policy out from the center rather than driving it from the extremes. >> ladies and gentlemen, senator mark warner.

>> please welcome the ceo of aetna, mark bertolini and the atlantic's executive editor, matt thompson. knee good morning. >> good morning. >> how are you? >> i'm good, thanks. how about yourself? i was a little worried because i hear you never express any opinions on health care. you have a reputation of playing it very close to the vest. >> very close to the vest, yeah. got my talking points right here. >> and there's nothing happening on health care right now. >> no. >> apaurparently the latest last-ditch effort to replace, repeal and replace obamacare, the affordable care act, is seemingly dead. >> yes. >> although there's two more days. anything could happen. is it really dead? >> yes. >> yes. [ applause ] >> how do you feel about the demid demise of the various efforts?

>> i think senator warner, who i have a great degree of respect for, he and i have talked a lot about this, and conscious capitalism, and i think as we think about what gets done in this country of any major social import, it's always done bipartisan because no sooner is the bill passed and put into place than it needs to be fixed. >> yeah. >> medicare gets tweaked every year. social security gets tweaked every year. medicaid gets tweaked every year. and you have to have a bipartisan agreement that we need to fix these things as they go along because nothing's perfect out of the box. that's what real innovation is. >> but it would seem from the number of plans that have been floated and failed over the past couple of months, it would seem that there's actually a wide area of give on health care. what has been -- and there have been bipartisan plans hanging out there for -- since the nixon era, right?

>> so if you took the politics out of the situation, we'd have a bipartisan solution already. >> okay. >> this is about election promises and an '18 election. and if we really want to fix the thing, there are very simple sfra straightforward things to fix it, the affordable care act, which by the way touches really, you know, 18 million people out of 330 million people. so if we want to fix it we can. we just need to get people in a room that can do it. there are people who have been in the room do it. we just need to get it to the forefront and have it done. and i think once we get past, you know, the bewitching hour of september 30th, i think we have an opportunity to actually do something in a bipartisan way and that would be a great start to get tax reform done in a bipartisan way and to get infrastructure done in a bipartisan way, which would invigorate our economy. >> let's talk about the affordable care act for a second. >> yep. >> your company, aetna, was -- has pulled out of the exchanges for 2018. which do you think has been a

bigger problem for the affordable care act this year? has it been structural issues in the bill's design or has it been administrative wavering from trump administration's administration from over actually reimbursement? >> so it's uncertainty. so for those of us -- i'm not an actuary but i play one on tv. and as actuaries, we price these products 18 months in advance of the actual due date. and so if the rules are constantly changing and the funding is constantly at risk, you don't know how to price the product. that's insurance. and so if you want to deal with stabilizing the markets, you need to have a stable footprint. even under the obama administration there was instability in the exchanges every year because the rules had to be made up in regulation, because congress couldn't work together to change the law and legislation. had they got added -- if we

hadn't touched medicare, social security, or medicaid for seven years, they too would fall apart. so, you know, because we could don't it in legislation, hhs tried to d it in regulation, and that is a very difficult dhoing with any kind of predictability. >> did your own decision to pull out have anything to do with the government's blocking the merger with humana? >> no. we're still here. nothing ventured, nothing gained. we thought it was a good idea. we thought it could really be powerful. it's not the end of the world. we have a great organization and great people and we'll be fine. >> outside policy you've got some strange ideas about health care, i have to say. you come to washington, which they say new york is the city that never sleeps, washington is the city with people that never sloop. and you sleep 7 1/2 hours a night. >> totally. >> how is that -- >> try it, you'll like it. >> you're the ceo of a major company. >> right. >> how do you sleep 7 1/2 hours

a night? >> your amount of time you spend on your work and thinking about your work is not directly related to the success of your work. think about that. [ applause ] >> too complex an idea. >> people who count cars in garages at workplaces after 7:00 have really got it all wrong. and so you do need 7 1/2 hours of sleep, and what we do is we pay our employees to do it 20 nights in a row because if you d it 20 nights in a row you will want to keep doing it because it's so powerful. so blue light in the morning for an hour without any glass or shield over your face, outdoors, creates melatonin that gets stored for later in the evening, then in the evening you should have yellow light or amber glasses that will allow you to ramp down as we used to around fires a long time ago, so you can sleep. those two things. just try it. and do it 20 nights in a row and you will feel completely different. >> how did you come by these

wacky out there ideas? >> well, first of all, i had an accident, so i was one of those sleep-deprived people. i had a skiing accident, broke my neck in five places nshg coma for a week, loss the use of my left arm, those sorts of things, chronic neuropath thi. when you have that moment, you have to say how can i put all those back together? sleep was one of the big ones. i used to three-point from 11 to 1, work from 1 to 3, scare everybody at work because i sent out e-mails good morning back to bed from p 3 to 5 and go to the gym, four hours of sleep every night, chronically sleep deprived, not making good decisions. >> how does this factor into aetna's work? do you d interventions with the companies that sign up with you? >> we do. i came to work one tay and said we should do yoga and mindfulness together as an organization. the team groaned and sent the chief medical officer to me because he said i was talking

about voodoo medicine. and we took our employees and put 790 of them through mindfulness and yoga for 12 weeks, measured stress level base cortisol levels and by heart rate variability and we saw a dramatic drops, people at the highest level of stress, $2,500 a year more in health care costs. >> are you covering, like, supplements, acupuncture? >> all that stuff is covered in your hsa o hra if you work for an employer -- that's where you can get that done. some employers offer yoga. we now have a program called the healthy cities and counties challenge across america. we have 50 cities competing. we just launched a site today, healt healthycities.org the track them over tw years working on violence in cities like kansas city, urban farming in places like new york, started 5,539 urban farms in the last two

years in community where is there are food deserts. we -- meals on wheels nouned this week their 2 million volunteers will give us feedback on the homes of seniors they go to if the seniors' attitudes or circumstances have changed to we can intervene at the home to help them because food insecurity and isolation leads to higher dementia, higher depression, higher diabetes and higher incidents of alzheimer's. we're crowdsourcing social determinants of health. put 2g million people into homes, give us the information and we'll act on it. >> i know a lot of folks who would be i might say concerned if they heard their insurer was sending 2 million people into their homes to gather all sorts of information about their lives. why should we trust you? >> because it's not us doing it. these 2 million people are people that see these people every day. all of you have seen a dock, to i'm sure, at some point in the near past.

you get 15 minutes prp they talking to you about how things are going at home? how's the diet going? exercise? are you feeling well? anything troubling you? you get 15 minutes. and even if they did ask you that, we lie 75% of the time. working out 3 minutes a day, doc, doing great, eating only vegetables and fruits, i'm doing good. i don't drink at all. i just have a couple glasses. they're tumblers but just a couple glasses. the idea of getting a way from the exam table to the kitchen table and understanding what's going on in a home so, aetna can't knock on the door and say, hey, we'd like to come for dinner because you learn about everything at the kitchen table. i come from an italian family. that's where you learn about everything going on in the family. you need individuals people trust. the people that deliver food to them every day are people they trust. those people can make honest assessments of what's going on from day to day and that's what

we want to hear. it's not that we want to intervene in their home, but if they're isolated, not getting enough food, if they have a problem with travel and get ing their meds, we want no know about it because it's cheaper for us to pay for uber, to pay for a ramp out in front of the house, to pay for fuel assistance, to pay for meals on wheels if we can indeed know that -- it's cheaper doing that than for them to show up on -- >> the points you're making don't tie back obviously to our big conversation about the affordable care act and federal health care. we spend a lot of time talking about pre-existing conditions. >> right. >> although they won't be mandated for coverage. how do we create a federal system that would pay for my uber, for example? >> so what we need to do is we need to liberalize the definition of benefits so every state categorizes what benefits should be covered under health

care reform. and instead what we should say is a healthy person is productive. a productive person is viable, socially, spiritually, economically, physically, and viable people are happy. and if we need to provide a service that can allow us to do that, we should do that. we should intervene. and so when you look at the total spent on health and social determinants across the oecd nations, the united states when you add the two together is now 11th, our value for services rendered across that spectrum is 34 out of 34th. our life expect ancy has gone down for the first time. and when you look at the split between health care and social determinants, the united states is the only country that spends more than 40% on health care. we spend 64%. so we've got it wrong and it's showing up in our emergency rooms, it's showing up if opioid addiction and overdoses, which will be 70,000 overdoses this

year, more than automobile accidents, gunshot wounds and suicides put together. we have a pandemic. it's bigger than diabetes. because people have lost hope and ipts because of where they live. >> when you say liberalize the definition of health, though, part of what i hear is let's not mandate a definition of what constitutes a health condition. is that what you are saying? >> personalized medicine dictates that we understand what for you, what does your health do to get in the way of the life you want to lead. and we need to make that work for you. because that's the only way we'll engage you. if i start talking about neuropathy for diabetics and you could with prediabetes be a type 2 die bet nick seven years you'll go, oh, that's what you tell your doctor, thanks, doc, appreciate it, isle work hard on it. but if you have it and we say we'll get your feet better and you can go for a walk to the senior center or take your grandchildren for a walk in the

park like you used to, you have my attention because now you've eliminated a barrier for me. people think of their health as a barrier to the life they want to lead, not the condition they have. >> let's talk about who pays for -- who actually pays for my uber in this case for a moment. i've heard mixed things. bernie sanders has pushed, senator sanders has pushed for a single parent health care, medicare for all. what did you -- what do you actually feel about that idea and the idea of single parent? i think the idea of financing a broken system is like financing a bad car. no matter how you finance a bad car, you get a bad car. right? so if you pay for it with cash or you took a loan, you think about it, nobody goes to general motors acceptance corporation to buy a car. and insurance companies are the gmac of health care.

we finance health care. nobody can go to general motors and knock on their front door and get a car. you have to go to a dealership and you have to talk about your ambitions for transportation. when you understand that investment, then you finance it. and so what we're talking about with the affordable care act and one of the reason its hasn't reduced costs, why we talk about single payer like we talk about graham lindsey, all of it is focused on financing health care. none of it is focused on the underlying costs of health care. when a bunch of doctors institute health care, 30% of the $3 trillion spent on health care, $900,000 billion is wasted, there's your financing. there's your financing. let's go get that. let's do the right thing. >> but when you -- if graham cassidy were to have succeeded it would have created 50 different health care systems all over the country and it would be very difficult to get

from that system to one where the ideas that you put in place are accessible to all americans. >> well, if you look at canada, canada has a federal financing of each province and territory the budget for their health care delivery. that was graham cassidy in a lot of ways. so the ca nnadian -- they're responsible for delivery. people point at it and go we can't do that. well, that's what they're doing north of the border. >> all right. simple question. you've got one minute. i want you to redesign the u.s. health care system from ground up. what does it look like? >> so what we would do, and this is what we're trying to do with the healthiest cities and counties challenge, is what we would do is understand the

disease burden, social and economic patterns of community. we would say okay, what does the system need to be like to support that. central kentucky has some of the highest opioid addiction in america. so if we understand that disease burden, then we can design a system that works for that community and we can deliver that to the community in the most efficient way possible. that's the investment. n understand the investment and then finance it. we'll save money. and so if you think about that from the context of, you know, how we revolutionize the system, right now our govern ans model on health care at a federal level and a state level is not big enough and not robust enough to manage the economy of health care. which is now 17 -- bigger number, 18% of the gdp of this country. so when we run into issues where

our governance models in our companies, in our governments, in our economies are not sufficient to govern properly, then you have people saying we need a new world order. i would argue it's the exact opposite. you have to go back to community. you have to go back local. you have to be in the community, in the neighborhoods talking to people about what matters and do it for them, not because we have some idea of the idealistic version of health and how it all ought to work from the national level level. it doesn't work that way. >> what are you watching next? what do you think is the next move we should be paying attention to right now? >> in health care? >> yes. >> i think there's bipartisan work going on. i know that for a fact. i've spent time with senators who are working on it. i think that will be the next step. i think we just to continue to support a bipartisan solution because they can be touched every year and they can be fixed and they can be tweaked because

it's a joint effort for the american people. when it's not bipartisan, that's when things blowup. >> all right. mark, thank you very much. [ applause ] >> please welcome the mayor of washington, d.c., muriel bowser. >> thank you. i want to thank you for the invitation to be with you today. i am so happy every time we have a collection of the nation's most prestigious innovators and thought leaders and business politics and media and that you choose to meet in our fair city. i know that you wouldn't be here at this conference if you were not also committed to the things that we champion in our city and that's innovation, inclusion and

solutions. and we share this commitment with you. since my first days as mayor of d.c., i have committed our city to these big ideas as well. part of what i want you to take with you today, to your towns and cities and the work that you do is who exactly we are and what we near washington, d.c. i tell people this all the time. we are not your grandfather's washington. we are more than a government town. in fact, we are a business capital that is experiencing unprecedented growth. it's one of the fastest growing and most exciting local economies anywhere in this country. we are a leading city for industries in the professional services, for nonprofits, hospitality companies, technology, and retail.

we are moving big development projects in all areas of our city. on october the 12th we are going to reinvigorate the potomac waterfront with the opening of the wharf. projects like walter reed and st. elizabeth are moving forward and we are attracting wonderful innovative tenants and we are a thriving community that's getting better and growing stronger every day. every month we attract about 1,000 new residents to add to our 680,000 people in washington, d.c. we have big goals for inclusion in our city as well. over half of the d.c.'s work force is head up of women and over half of its work force is made up of people of color. we still have a long way to go in celebrating and growing our inclusion, but we know that women make up just 37% of checks -- tech jobs that people of color only 28%.

and we know that this is a niche in washington, d.c. that we want to grow. some big projects that have been announced, for example in tech, yelp announced it would open its first east coast office. apple recently announced plans to revive the carnagie library. d.c based fiscal note confirmed plans to stay in washington, d.c. amazon just announced that it will open its second headquarters in washington, d.c. [ applause ] >> that was -- i want wanting to see if you were awake. because while it hasn't been announced yet, we are competing and we are competing hard. so you go back and tell them, why d.c. and you will say it's obviously d.c. have a great day.

[ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome spencer, and jillian white. >> good morning. i want to start with a bigger question. i want to talk about the culture of housing and the culture of real estate. i would say about 50 to 60% of the cab rides i have and some sft po some of the po-- why is housing and real estate at the center of so much of american culture? >> well, it's primal for starters. shelter is something everybody has a need for. so it starts with the emotional attachment that people have to

where they live, but then it quickly shifts into the economic as well. it's a huge part of the economy. for most people it's their most valuable asset. so it's the combination of those two. that actually -- that dichotomy or that combination is where we got our thing. zillow plays on that. zillions of pillows. and that reflects twhe two side of real estate. the right brain, where you rest your head at night, can i see my kids growing up in this house and zillions is the left brain. it's the data and the combination of those two things that is real estate and why it's so important to our society. >> i've already learned something today. >> mission accomplished. >> so we spent the better part 69 past decade kind of worrying about the housing market, stressing out about it, putting lots of negative adjectives in front of it. what is the health of housing market in your opinion right now? >> it's on fire.

let me give you stats. home values are up 7%. more than half of the country is past peak value. more than half of the homes in the u.s. are worth more than they were at the end of 2007ish peak. that having been said, home sales are actually slowing because there's not enough inventory. it seems like everyone has a personal story about how limited inventory is. limited inventory means home values are spiking. the reason for all that is through the downturn builders stopped building. we used to have a million or so new homes built a year. we dropped down for a couple of years. there's a huge lack of inventory. when builders started building again a couple years ago they started building at the high end. there's very little inventory at the low tier and mid tier and that creates a lot of local

cries es like affordable housing because of limited inventory. >> what are the solutions that you think could be put in place to create an incentive to accurate that at the lower or the beginning end? >> well, the biggest governmental solution is more -- in seattle people are complaining about the lack of affordable housing as i understand they do in d.c. then you look around seattle and there are all these threes everywhere. if we want more affordable housing you're got to cut down some of the trees to build big buildings. that would change the nature of seattle. and so more affordable housing starts with development and building more buildings. credit availability is the other side of this coin and there's no question that it's hard tore er get's mortgage than it was

during the last peak. it actually is a bit of the return to the prebubble normal. so if you can document your income and you have income, you can basically get a mortgage. so our view is that overall credit availability isn't really that bad. it's just less available than it was during the prior bubble. >> who is buying homes? >> so anyone who can find a home that they can afford, but millennials are buying. i think there's a common misconception that millennials, they rent music and they rent tv shows and they ride share on cars and so maybe they don't buy homes. that's just the data doesn't support that. mi y millennials are the biggest cohort of home buyers. they've bought over 500nd billi -- $500 million of real estate. they're buying later so they're buying bigger. they're basically skipping the starter home. they're renting a couple more years and when they go to buy

they're buying what would have been considered a second third home. >> are they making such a large portion of first time home buyers because it's so large and they're the group that is of age and doesn't already have a home? >> yes. they're also dual tracking. millennials, but everyone overall is getting creative because there's to little inventory f. you' inventory. if you're a traditional buyer, you have to be patient. they're submitting multiple offer. typical buyer searches for four months. that's longer than usual. about a third of millennials are borrowing the down payment. more than a third are exceeding their budget. they're buying house they can't really afford without borrowing the down payment. then over 60% dual track. this is a phenomenon we hadn't seen. dual tracking means people are looking at buying or renting simultaneously. and this is a really interesting

cultural phenomenon because it sort of -- it reflects the fact that people no longer view that trees will only grow to the sky around housing. in other words, if you think home values maybe some day will be flat or even down like they were during the recession, then does it really matter if i own or rent? i'm going to pay 2,000nd a month to the landlord or to the mortgage service or to the bank, so i'm going to consider dual tracking. as i say, over 60% of millennials are looking at buying or renting side by side. >> do you think there's any long term danger, borrowing or i know you said you have a new report, borrowing from family members and doing a couple different things. sometimes putting down really low down payments? when i look at the economics of a lot of millennials, some of them are out of work for quite some time. wages have just started to tick up a little bit. a lot of them have a ton of

student debt. as you said a lot are renting for longer especially in major cities where their jobs are. it doesn't really create a recipe for a ton of savings to put down on these now pretty expensive homes. are you at all concerned with what's going to happen there? >> well, let me compare this peak with the last peak. the short answer is not really. here's why. the last peak in 2007 which again we're basically at those home value levels was built on a foundation of sand. it was built on easy credit. the home originship rates was in the low 60% range. the homeowner rate went up to about 70%. those people bought homes because they were able to get mortgages they never should have gotten. through the downturn, basically tennish million people lost their homes because they never should have bought homes in the first place and the homeownership rate returned. this spike in home values which brought us back to the same overall level is built on lack

of supply and strong demand. it's not based on easy credit. and so this recovery has a lot more -- just a much stronger foundation. sure, i worry about people stretching for a down payment or borrowing for a down payment or buying homes outside their budget. housing is so much more healthy even at the same dollar value than was in 2007. >> earlier you said lack of supply. sometimes those terms make me nervous. are you at all worried about bubble conditions? >> we think it will slow down. our forecast for next month is in the 4% to 5% so lower than 7%. our data does not forecast a declod decline in home values. no, we're not worried the way we were in 2007. >> so you guys are tracking the thoughts and kind of homeownership or home buying

purchases of the next generation which i didn't even realize generation z was old enough to think about homes or renting but it turns out they are. who do you define as generation z? >> look out millennials, we're already talking about generation "z." 22 or 23 is kind of cutoff. people graduating from college just entering the work force. and they obviously are mostly renters are people typically are at that life stage. the research on gen z which was published in this report we just put out t really shows they have traditional views of homeownership. they aspire to own a home. they do not -- you know, the media tends to report on oh to over extrapolate from other parts of the economy where

millennials and gen z tend to share. they believe it's an important part of the american dream. perhaps we don't really have data, but we high pogt size that they will have a higher ownership rate than millennials because they have a lot of scar tissue from the downturn. they came of age and said why would i want to buy a house, i don't want to catch a falling knife, forget it, i'll just rent. it took many years for them to move out of that. "z" doesn't know what the great recession was. they were five. >> they don't understand the term negative equity. >> so for them owning just seems like a more stable -- then i won't have to worry about my rent going up, i know what i'll have to pay every month and i won't have to worry about getting kicked out by my landlord. i can put my pictures on the wall and not worry about damage to my rental.

so we high pogt size that that -- >> do you think they'll start buying sooner? i feel like a lot of millennials didn't start buying until their mid to late 30s. if generation "z" is already thinking about this, when are they buying? >> they would like to buy sooner but there's little inventory and price points they can afford. they are already searching. traffic on our site from that cohort is huge. they are looking. but they're also dual tracking. a lot of the lines around ownership of assets have become blurred. this is the airbnb phenomenon. >> do you think there's any validity to the fear that a lot of millennials have, they don't want to buy at the top of the market and have the slightest amount of negative equity. do you think that's fair or do you think -- >> absolutely. everyone -- when you're in a

search process for four months and you've been on eight homes and you've gotten outbid eight times and you're getting read to make that ninth bid, you're absolutely worried about getting out over your skis and overbidding just to win the house. then what? then you overpaid for a house. it's a huge concern. there's not much you can do because if you want to get the house you basically have to overbid in these marketings. it's totally a risk. >> do you think the technology can help with this issue? i know a lot of people who are looking for houses. they spend their entire time glued to their phones. >> that's great. they're probably looking at zillow. that's fine. yes. so here's how i look at t. every other sector of the economy has been revolutionized by a smartphone. i push a button and my food gets delivered. i put a button and my podcast has been downloaded. younger people but really all americans that have become so a customed to that, they don't

understand why the real estate transaction is so complicated. wha what's escrow and what's title insurance and preinspection and all this is way more complicated. even buying a car has become relatively simple thafrpnks to internet. we at zillow see that, obviously. we're trying to innovate on all that. we're deep into the paperless transaction. we have a service that does electronic transaction. it's deep in the real estate space. most real estate transactions now are closed using electronic. and we're pretty good up front at the search process of helping people triage the search. but there's that whole messy middle which hasn't been innovated on by the industry or disrupters like us. imagine a world where you can actually -- you're looking at a home on zillow, you can look at a home and buy it. what might that do to the ownership rate f. buyi.

if buying a home was as simple as handling an uber, we're trying. it requires this very complex process which includes financing which is highly regulated and very complex and all of it has to be torn down and rebuilt in a push button way. >> i imagine you would face a lot of resistance or fear. i'm nervous to turn on my amazon one click settings for fear of what i have to do. >> maybe we'll have a confirm. are you sure you want to buy this? their patent has expired now. so now we can have one click i suppose. yes, we definitely have to figure that one out. i'm quite sure that consumer demand for a simplified real estate process is huge. that of that complexity is good for the industry. it's good for incumbents that benefit from that confusion and

complexity. we're all about innovating for the consumer and prioritizing for her. we call her beth. if you go around at our office you'll see posters of beth the buyer and you'll see all her demographic information. she's who we live for beth. that's how we do all of our product planning and strategy. beth doesn't want to buy a house the way she's been buying a house. she wants it to be much more seamless. >> a few years ago there were trends we thought were going to happen. one was going to be boomers and older americans deciding they didn't want their big sprawling mansions in the suburbs and downsizing. the other was millennials and younger workers deciding i never want to go to the suburbs, i'm going to stay right here. i'm wondering are you actually seeing the fulfillment of both of those trends? >> yes but they've been swamped by the lack of supply issue. so when you have three to five years of an a accumulated

500,000 home start per year deficit, you're missing two to three houses that should be there. that trend swamps any other that's limited supply. >> this may be a selfish question. you think a year or two out in the housing market, what do you think is the biggest story that's happening there? >> that's a good question. a year or two from now. you know, there are a lot of companying includes us that are innovating on a quicker sale process where a seller can sell their home to an investor buyer within days. we're testing that in a couple markets and that might become something big. >> thanks so much for joining me. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> next up a session produced by our underwriter. >> i was on my way out of this life. >> when i was first diagnosed, i felt paralyzing fear.

>> you hear these stories all the time. >> back in 1988 the only thing i could think of was i'm going to be dead in six months. >> i see how scare -- >> the challenge itself is what keeps me going. >> every day i think how fortunate i am. >> this is something i am really passionate about. >> my donor's mom says you were meant to carry his story. >> it took a very long time for me to get back up. 29 years later, here i am. >> when those patients come to me and say you saved my life -- >> my life was saved by a two week old targeted therapy drug. >> that's what really drives me

to save lives. >> please welcome to the stage ted johnson, bio pharmaceutical researcher for pfizer. and lori riley, executive vice president of policy research and membership for pharma. [ applause ] >> good morning and thank you for being here. my name is lori riley. i'm the executive vice president for research at pharma. and i'm joined on the stage here today with two gentlemen who you probably recognize from the video that you just saw. to my immediate left is matt hisnay who was a patient treated with a targeted therapy for lung cancer. to his left is dr. ted johnson, . become both of you here today. i want to jump right in. matt, talk to us a little bit

about what it felt like getting that initial diagnosis and what transpired over the weeks and months after. >> so it was six years ago in the summertime. i was 24 years old. i had developed this persistent dry cough around independence day. so i had my internist check it out in the month of august. a chest x-ray led to a ct led to a biopsy and on august 17th, 2011 i was told i had cancer. i wasn't told what type of cancer. that reveal came about a week later on august 26th when i was told that i had stage four lung cancer. so that essentially meant that from my neck to my torso was chock-full of cancer. my oncologist told me that he was going to send my tumor away for a test for a mutation that had been under a lot of research and if i had it i would qualify for a new targeted therapy drug.

while waiting for the test, i had become very sick. i actually stopped breathing. i was recess tated. i was in the intensive care unit for about 21 days. about nine days in i was told i had that mutation. the drug was overnighted and here i am today. [ applause ] pretty remarkable coincidence that on august 26th, the day i was told i had lung cancer, that drug was fda approved. >> why did you decide to become a bio medical researcher? >> battling cancer is very personal to me. about 17 years ago i lost my mother to colon cancer. at the time the treatments were basically surgery after surgery,

long recovery times, traditional -- followed by traditional chemo therapies. she was sick most of the time. those chemotherapies were very harsh and toxic. that really drove me to want to work in the pharmaceutical industry to really help patients and make their lives better. >> so one of the great stories and obviously why you both are here today is, ted, you were part of the team that actually brought the medicine that treated matt to market. can you talk a little bit about the process of getting a medicine from conception to actually being in a patient like matt. >> sure. soto give you an idea, i have worked at pfizer for 16 years and in that time i've worked on about ten oncology projects. only one project has made it to phase one clinical trials.

and that's with hundreds of researchers working on that project. and that's just the start of the difficult process. the difficult process is getting through the fda phase one, two, and three, and then getting approved. so it's very challenging. it's very costly. it's very time consuming. but we beat the odds and that one drug that i had going to phase one is now in phase three and is treating matt. >> that's great. it's often not the case that a patient actually gets to meet a person that actually helped make the product that they're on. in your case, matt, helped save your life. i know recently you met. today isn't the first day you met. can you tell us what it was like when you actually got to meet each other face to face. >> yeah. we met early thier this year. it's always exciting for me to meet someone that had a direct

impact in my care, but being a scientist myself, being able to meet a fellow scientist who had created a molecule that without i would very likely not be speaking to you all today is quite remarkable. and so i'll do then -- excuse me, i'll do now what i did then and say ted, thank you for saving my life. [ applause ] >> ted, how about you? >> i don't get to meet patients often, if at all. so it was really interesting to see how healthy matt looked when i first met him. he showed me the pills that he was taking. i hadn't seen that before either. so -- i think you have to have a sense of sort of where we are today in oncology versus, say, 16 years ago. with traditional chemotherapies.

matt is taking an oral drug once a day and his quality of life is very good with very few side effects. and so to me that's very rewarding and inspirational. >> i agree. >> okay. so lori, every day you work to sort of sculpt public policy to help researchers like myself and patients like matt. can you give us an idea of what the policy environment needs to be for researchers to continue to tackle the toughest health care problems. >> that's a great question. i think for me, like probably many of you in the audience, these issues are personal. it's hard not to know someone in your family or a friend who has suffered from a condition. for me it was my mom who passed

away three years ago from als, a condition that today they really are hardly any treatments for. certainly none that are cu curative. i think it's important that there is an environment that sustains into the future. as ted mentioned, bringing a medicine to market takes a long time. it's significant risk involved. the cost is very, very significant. somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion to get a new medicine to market. it's important that we have an environment that allows researchers to continue doing what they're doing. and there's lots of things that help ensure that environment. of course we have to make sure that we have a food and drug administration that can review these new medicines. the science is changing rapidly, so the fda has to be able to keep up with where the science is going. we have to make sure that once the medicine actually gets approved for use in patients that patients can get access to

it and that they can afford those medicines. we have to also make sure we have an intellectual property system that values innovation and allows companies to recoup that significant investment. we also have to have an adequate trade and economic agenda that ensures that the u.s. pharmaceutical industry can compete globally. all of those things and quite honestly many more are vital to ensure that in the future researchers like ted can continue to do their work so that patients like matt have the opportunity to live for hopefully a very long time. >> that's the plan. >> so if you can all join me in thanking both ted and matt for being here today. we appreciate it. [ applause ] >> next up, please welcome to the stage general david petraeus here with krcnn anchor and chie

washington correspondent jake tapper. >> thank you so much, everyone. thank you, general. >> you got your interview, jake. >> i've been trying to get an interview with him for ten years. so thanks, washington for allowing me to final get an interview with him. i want to start with an issue that is a domestic issue that i just wonder what you think of it. which is this debate going on l largely led by president trump about players who protest during the national anthem. i ask you because obviously you have decades in military service and also you're somebody who has, when moveon.org was attacking you back when you were leading the search in iraq you are somebody who has felt the slings and arrows the first amendment. so what's your take? >> well, you know what i said

back then when someone asked me at the national press club what did you feel when you opened up the new york times because i still read newspapers in those days, and i was getting ready for what was going to be a very, very pressure packed hearing, and i remember opening it up. i thought about it for a while. my response to the press was look, i feel very privileged to have spent at that time, i don't know what it was, 30 plus years serving in the military to defend the rights, the freedoms that we hold so dear, including the freedom of expression which includes moveon.org to be allowed to buy a full page ad in "the new york times" that attacks me personally, not just the policy. if you translate into this situation i feel the same way. i have to say i'm sort of disappointed that now we have politicized football. as mike wrote in a wonderful

op-ed the other day, it was the only two hours when he would go the game and lose himself in the game. at the end of the day for the spectators, it is a game. i got it that it's a profession for those on the field. but it's something that brought people together. now we're seeing actions that really are dividing them. so in that sense i'm sort of disappointed. i hope we can turn the heat down and get back to enjoying football and people not having to make political statements at the beginning of the games. >> the north korean -- [ applause ] >> the north korean crisis is obviously foremost on the minds of military right now. to a lot of our friends in europe and in other parts of the world, they see this crisis as two erratic, unstable world leaders, kim jong-un and president trump, squaring off each other, against each other and they're afraid of how it's going to end.

is that a fairway to look at this crisis and what do you think of president trump matching in some cases the rhetoric that we have been -- that we've come to get used to from north korea? >> well, a couple items here. first of all, to put this in context and to be fair to this administration, i think you have to acknowledge they are facing a reality that no other president has faced previously and that is this individual kim jong-un impulsive at the very least, i don't think suicidal, and that's a pretty important assessment at the end of the day, but clearly given to extraordinary measures if you remember how his half brother was killed with nerve agent to the face in an airport and the maniacil way he executed his uncle. he will have the capability to

hold that risk, u.s. city at least on the west coast with the combination of the intercontinental ballistic missiles he's developing and the nuclear device. noting that the one that was exploded a couple weeks ago was at least 12 times the size of the bomb that was dropped to end world war ii. this is a very big deal. and i think the administration has sought to not just get his attention, because i don't think anyone is under the illusion that he is going to stop doing what he's doing because we amp up the volume. i think it's really more about getting china's attention. and making china realize this is a strategically important development to us and you've got to help us stop this where it is at the very least, get to some negotiations and see where we can take it in the future. >> do you think president trump's rhetoric is aimed at getting president xi's

attention? >> very much so. and this is where the mention of military options, everybody knows obviously there are military options. everybody also knows they're all very ugly to describe them. the proximity of seoul to the demilitarized zone is was, much less than it was. it's almost a 25 million person, depending on where you draw the circle that is pushed closer and closer north to the dmz over recent decades, and the thousands of just conventional, this is without nuclear biological or chemical weapons, just the sheer number of art till re rockets or missiles would be devastating in terms of losses in the korean population. now we're looking at the kind of range that could hit a u.s. city. this is about china which controls the umbilical cord that literally keeps the lights on in pyongyang and reducing that and

implementing the sanctions that the u.n. security council has approved, which are quite substantial, if implemented, china also should really keep in mind the strategic implications of this if this is not stopped where it is. when does south korea ask for its own nuclear weapons? either the return of ours or its own nuclear program. what about japan, which is already reinterpreted its constitution to allow at least the collective self-defense with their allies, the u.s.? what about the additional defensive measures? china doesn't like the term thad going into south korea. the newly elected leader halted that deployment at two of the six launchers. now four additional ones are going to be going in. there's going to be much more. then what happens again with vietnam? do they need a nuclear program? so the proliferation aspects to

th this, the implications are quite stark. as one who very much wants to see proliferation limited rather than expanded because you never know ultimately some extremist is going to get his hands on even if it's just dirty bomb materials. these are individuals who have shown a willingness to blow themselves up on the battle field to takes us with them. what would cause them to hesitate at all using some weapon of mass destruction or the components of it? >> and yet it seems as though based on china's own government documents that they are not limiting trade with north korea to the degree that would change the behavior of kim jong-un and his regime. >> they've came out. we've just seen the trade numbers for august were the largest since december, so not the direction that we were hoping to go. >> so they made the calculation. >> well, we don't know yet. i think this is going to play out over months. there's going to be a lot of

intense diplomacy behind the scenes. we do need a strategic dialogue with china about this to understand their red line, that you can't have a hostile power in pyongyang. no reunification of the korean peninsula. no millions of refugees going across the river into china. but then they've got to understand our red lines as well and see if together we can't figure a way to get him to halt where it is that he is now. and then see if we can move forward in a more constructive manner. >> president trump took to twitter a few days ago after hearing a north korean official speak at the united nations and he tweeted something that had convinced the north koreans that he had declared war on north korea. are you ever worried, i know you have great faith in the generals around president trump, mcmaster, kelly and mattis, but are you ever concerned that president trump may say or tweet something that could seriously

escalate this crisis? >> first of all, by the way, i am very comfortable with the generals that are in the positions. i don't think as a general proposition that that's always great. these generals are really extraordinary. i served with all of them in the battle field multiple times. john kelly was a division commander during the surnl ge i the marines. mcmaster, same with his deputy, brillia brilliant rhodes scholar. these are really good people. obviously jim mattis and others. so very strong national security team. arguably as good as any in recent memory, if not better. and frankly, i think the policy process and the policy outcomes generally are quite rational. now, there is something to the so-called -- it's actually called the mad man logic, if you will. before you get into a crisis,

it's not all that bad if the other side thinks you're a little bit edgy. and nixon had kissinger go tell the soef yviets he's under a lo pressure, walk on eggshells around this guy and they sort of d. you avoid getting into a cries it. the problem is if you do get into a crisis, you don't want the other side thinking that you've taken the slack out of the trigger already and you're going to do something that otherwise might be irrational because they may do it to you first. so that's where my concern is. so the rhetoric has to be modulated and some of the statements are what i necessarily would have advised. { laughter } >> great potential as a diplomat. >> it was lovely how he said that, wasn't it?

we all have our own ways of saying t i suppoit, i suppose. i want to ask you about the president's latest iteration of the travel ban. quite different from the campaign trail and how it was introduced such as it was several months ago. >> i think there's logic to this. it includes some nonmuslim countries. the distinguishing feature of these countries is that we do not have the confidence in them with eerg tither the way they i passports or whatever it may be. as has been announced, this list would grow, it could contract, depending on how countries do in their responsibilities. i think there's a reasonable logic to this. it's not something that singles out countries because of their faith and so we'll see how it evolves as well. i'm want sure that it is quite as significant, frankly. i don't think we're taking huge

number of individuals from the number of different countries to begin with. there is some substance to this. >> secretary mattis was in kabul and he was discussing troop leveling. what would you recommend? we have over 10,000 troops in afghanistan right now, i believe. >> depending on your counting rules. >> right. and obviously this is a big decision about what the president should do. has the administration reached out to you to get your advice and what would you recommend? >> actually, the administration has done what i've been calling for for some time publicly, and yes, i have obviously communication with folks in the administration. and that was to achieve a sustainable sustained commitment. let's back up. we went to afghanistan for a reason and we stayed for a reason. this is where the 9/11 attacks were played. when al qaeda it a sanctuary in

eastern afghanistan when the taliban ruled the bulk. country. we went in to make sure that was removed and stayed to ensure that it could not be reestablished. this is not about turning afghanistan into switzerland in ten years or less or anything like. that our objectives were to get to afghan security forces being able to secure the country to a good enough fashion to ensure a sanctuary like that could not be reestablished and to help afghan institutions get to a point where they can govern afghanistan in an afghan way to a good enough standard as well. and that's going to take time. this is a very, very challenging country. the distinguishing feature here is that we can't get to the leaders of the insurgent groups. that's why i told congress as a central command commander and then in my confirmation hearing to be the command ner afghanist -- commander in afghanistan -- we knew we could do what we did in

iraq. we couldn't guarantee how long it would take. we ffelt if we changed the strategy, live with the people instead of consolidating, take back control instead of handing off faster and above all reconciliation with the population that had been ali alienated by the central government. that's what drove violence down by over 80% over 18 months of the surge. never had any sense that we would be able to achieve something like that in afghanistan. very, very different situation. the afghan taliban south of the country and the network taliban, the islamic movement, al qaeda remnants are over in the heart of darkness. we just want to be sure we keep them out of that sankctuary. i strongly support what the

president directed be done and it will sustain commitment. we're engaged in a generational struggle here. we need to acknowledge this. this is not the fight of a decade. it's a fight not just in afghanistan but in many other countries. and anywhere that there are ungoverned spaces there, extremists are going to exploit them. you have to do something about it. las vegas rules don't apply in those areas. what happens there doesn't stay there. we have to lead it. we have the unique capabilities to do that. by the way, now we are doing it in a way where we're enabling others to do the fighting. we're advising, we're assisting, we're enabling, but we're not doing the fighting in the front lines and that matters because that has to be sustainable and that's what we're starting to achieve. >> very quickly, when you talk about this is a generational struggle, i know you don't mean one generation. you mean several. does that mean you think the american people and congress need to wrap their heads around

the fact that in the same way that the u.s. put troops in germany and korea for a decade generations long struggle against the soviet union and communist china, et cetera, that is the same way we need to think about the struggle against extremist islamic terrorism? >> i do. the analogies aren't perfect. those weren't hot wars. these are. i see no alternative to us being engaged, advising, assisting and enabling. i want to -- we should have a coalition, by the way the coalition should include muslim countries. this is more of a clash within a civilization. a fight for the heart of the islamic world than it is a clash of civilizations as sam hunting talked about. more -- for more muslims have been killed by islamic than have been those of other faiths. >> so this is going to be something that's going to be enduring and we do need to

understand that, but that's why sustain ability and a sustained commitment have to be the elements that guide our strategic thinking. >> you tell i'm bursting with questions, but we only have two more minutes. >> rapid fire round. >> i'm just going to hand it over to you for this. you're the former director of the cia. i haven't even gotten to that. what crosses your mind when you hear about the russian interference in the u.s. election and the way that they exploited our own freedoms to influence the election? >> very, very concerning. and of course we still don't really know all of it. that's part of the investigation that's going on. they're now exploring what russia did so fiskillfully with facebook. all of this is intended to divide our country rather than to enable our normal democratic processes to work which can be somewhat partisan at times. so it is very, very concerning. look, there's always been some

of this activity that's gone on and for be it we perhaps have engaged in some of that over the years as well, although nowhere remotely near what they're doing. not certainly in recent decades. but this gets at the very heart of, again, the freedoms, the blessings, the system that we hold so dear and they are trying to take down that system. they see it as a threat to them. enormous threat. and they employed very, very innovative and clever and very -- really quite terrible activities to try to tear down the system that we have spent so much to build up. >> ladies and gentlemen, former cia director david pa tr--

petraeus. >> now christina here with senior editor derek thompson. >> good morning. >> wow. good morning. >> good morning, everyone. i am extremely excited for this -- at 13th and second avenue which happens to be eight blocks exactly north of my apartment. so i'm very excited to par lay this interview into a lifetime of free cookies. that's unethical. in case my boss is watching i'm kidding kidding. if you're not familiar with milk bar's incredible lineup it includes cereal milk soft serve, corn flake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies, and the famous com post cookie that includes ingredients one might find in a com post.

coffee, chips and pretzels which happens to be my diet. how did you fall in love with baking? >> i was raised by an incredible family, strong women. they cooked every meal but more importantly they love to bake. we have really sweet teeth in my family. baking was sort of our love language. it was what we did for other people, for the communities we were a part of. i was the youngest so i was the lowest in the pecking order so i was always ushered into the kitchen. sit on this stool. hold this wooden spoon. so the spirit of baking for me is like this very warm, nurturing spirit. it's the place that makes me happy. spending time in the kitchen. >> we had a couple companies come in yesterday, bowing, x, the research lab at alphabet. both famous for their r & d labs. when you think of research and development, you think massive tech companies. you guys have an r & d lab.

tell us a little bit about what you do there. >> i mean, our entire kitchen at milk bar, we have a kitchen in new york city, we have an insane kitchen just around the corner here in d.c. each of our kitchens have an r & d rare. the spirit of creativity makes me tick. i'm a very right brain, left brain person. that's an extension of me. so being creative and exercising that part of the brain is like -- comes hand in hand with the business. it's something we put a lot of value in because what we do is, like, has ordinary roots. and having that thoughtful time to say how can we re invent the apple pie and how can we take chocolate cake and push it further just as important as making a delicious compost

cookie. >> i feel like every city that's going through a restaurant renaissance, indeed most of them are. that also means there's enormous competition. everybody can make a cookie, maybe not a good one. i'm wondering what is your theory for what makes milk bar stand apart? >> you know, i opened milk bar nine years ago in new york city and my real goal was to -- i always had this dream of opening a bakery. i didn't want, like, a pony or to be a princess as a kid. i wanted my own bakery. i wanted a cash register to punch in the numbers. my mom is an accountant. the numbersen of it was super passionate. my mom wouldn't even let me have an easy bake oven. she said you're going to learn to work the real oven. so i have this, like, entrepreneurial spirit in me at

an early age but i knew that my voice was through food. my personality, i went to culinary school and i worked in high end fine dining restaurants. and paid my dues. but for me i knew my voice and my spirit is much more accessible than that. i'm very much a food for the people. but i wanted to open a bakery that added something. like, i could make a great chocolate chip kcookie. rather than compete with that it was about how do i take the spirit of that and do more with it. how do i add to the dialogue. how do you create something that doesn't exist in this world that challenges the way that we think about this world, the food in it and what a cookie can and can't be. and for me that's a very big part of the businessmen mentality of milk bar that i've built and grown.

anyone can make a cookie but for me i am a very, very trained chef that brings it in the spirit of milk bar. i think that's what i mean, we started like this baking revolution nine years ago. so -- >> right. >> so everyone, like -- the bakeries that come after us. and this insane, exciting electric emerging food scene is something we're so excited to have helped start, and to continue the conversation of, and to support these great, insane, talented younger generations of chefs and entrepreneurs that are trying to carve out a space for themselves in the food industry. >> that's great. my sort of -- philosophical theory for why milk bar had become so popular, because i lived in new york for five years. i had watched it grow, and i have 12 locations in new york alone. when you're a kid and learning how to cook, your approach to cooking is whatever is in the kitchen, right?

like, you go into the kitchen, you want to make a cake, and you're like, all right, what do i have? i have chocolate chips, i have pretzels -- i don't know. i have potato chips, sure. and i have coffee ground. okay, well, fine. i'll just pull it all together into a thing. and the thing that you make when you're 6 years old with those ingredients are absolutely terrible. you guys make a really elegant version of it. and so in a way, you capture a beautiful, elegant version of the most familiar thing in the world to people, which is just being in your kitchen and rooting around for ingredients and trying to put them together in a new way. >> yeah, i think for me it's about capturing the spirit of those little moments in life that make you feel warm and safe and loved and comfortable and make life feel like a big smile. feel a little bit lighter if it's feeling heavy. we always joke at milk bar, our mission is to make life a little bit sweeter. obviously, through the sugar in a cookie, or a slice of layer

cake or a slice of crack pie. but also in our attitude towards life and customer service, where people are coming to milk bar, because they're having a great day, and it's our job to make it better or they're coming to milk bar because they're not having such a great day and they're looking to us to bring that lightness and that permission for just a moment to let it all go. and we do that through our food. we joke, like, when things are getting very intense, building this insane, like, milk bar empire, that when things get really crazy, then we're like, you know, what we're making cookies, what we do has a lightness and a joy, and it takes a moment to not take ourselves so seriously. and that's helpful. and we give people the permission to -- my goal is, i want you to come to milk bar, be inspired and say, like, why can't i go home and rummage through the pantry and feel inspired to be creative? and to take a risk and to put myself out there.

i think giving people sometimes the reminder and the permission to do that is important. food is just my vehicle in translating that message. >> so let me put myself in the position of an investor. now, i'm looking -- i'm looking at the millennial generation, which is probably a disproportionate part of your sales, people under 35, maybe. maybe not. i'm looking at this growing cohort. and they're thought of as being a healthy generation. or at least trying to communicate their health. they're going to soul cycle, they're going to flywheel. they're into the next greatest green, whether it's kale or baby lettuce. >> we have quinoa. >> i will never forget quinoa. they're obsessed with this idea of both being and projecting health. >> yeah. >> how does a cereal milk soft serve company fit into that picture? >> well, one, most people don't realize, but the cereal milk

soft serve, an entire portion of it is 145 calories. we don't talk about it. we don't promote it like that, because it's not about calorie-counting when you come into milk bar. but i think what you said, there's a few interesting things about that. i look at this millennial generation. it's about -- you could put it into this bucket of like it's about being healthy. but i look at it more as them being a generation of, like, living their best life as opposed -- like, certainly health and well-being, acknowledging this, like, pursuit of balance in their life is important. but if you think about, like, the price to entry for, like, a 10 or $12 salad or a 30 or $40 workout class, all of those things are an indulgence, just a different indulgence than coming to get a cookie. and for me, it's the work hard/play hard mentality about it. you can't ride a bicycle and sweat it out for an hour a day

and only eat a salad. you need this balance of your life. but all of those moments bring the participant joy, right? you go to soul cycle and you leave like, i'm a boss, i feel like a pro, i'm empowered to take on the world. you go to milk bar for your corn flake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie. you know it's a special moment you have carved out in your day and it empowers you in a different way. i think it's about being well-rounded. we're just seeing the more like, wow, are we that excited about salad? yes, we are. are we that excited about cereal milk soft? yes, we are. it's about being mindful of moments in your life when you have the opportunity to make a decision and say, like, what's going to make me feel great about my day and great about myself. and having the power to make those decisions, i think, is what sort of is the culmination. it's about living your best life. >> i live seven minutes away from the nearest -- there was a little clap, yes. i live about seven minutes away

from the closest milk bar. i've timed it. and -- >> you're seven minutes away from living your best life. >> yep. which -- yeah, a mile run for me, i guess, or a mile walk. but it's interesting, because i feel like even though i live so close to the nearest milk bar, i see more milk bar on instagram than i do in the neighborhood. it's just so prevalent on social media. and, you know, people take pictures of the most beautiful candy. they don't take an instagram yourself with oreos or twiz letter lers. could you imagine milk bar having the same rate of growth, if it weren't for instagram? do you need instagram in order to keep up your current rate of growth? >> i think that instagram for us is just a really fun way for our voice to travel further and wider than before. i mean, i always laugh about it, because when i opened milk bar nine years ago, instagram wasn't an app that probably anyone in

this room had downloaded on their phone. in the same way that, like, food wasn't this buzzy, exciting thing nine years ago. it's become this revolution. and for me, instagram is a really fun way to reach more people. we have stores in new york, we have a store here in d.c. in las vegas and toronto. and we ship everywhere in the united states. but instagram is like this instant connective point in someone's day to, like, reach you. you can't get your hands on a confetti cookie, so you go on instagram to, like, get your fix. i mean, we're visual people, right? i eat with my eyes first. or at least that's the thing that draws me in. and it's a way and a moment for me milk bar is more than the food that we serve. it is -- it's a feeling, it's an approach. it's arguably a lifestyle. and instagram for us is just an insane and incredible tool to round out, like, why you feel special when you have a slice of

crack pie, when you walk the mile, or you run the mile and you're like, i earned this slice of crack pie, i'm going in. it's that moment where you can, like, share or celebrate or that you can learn and participate. even if you only have a minute and you're not trying to go on a run. >> what do you see is the future of food? there are people who are thinking about self-driving cars. there are lots of companies working on drones. is the future of food for you -- can you imagine in 20 years milk bar cookies being delivered by drone and sort of self-driving ovens, canvassing the streets of manhattan? >> 100%. like, beyond manhattan. >> okay. >> i -- first of all, i love where technology has taken us in the past five years, ten years. you think about, like, how quickly the world changes from day-to-day, and week-to-week.

as, like, the ceo of milk bar, its magical and powerful. you come to our r & d kitchen, you can practically go swimming in a tub of rainbow sprinkles. you can almost drown in cake batter. bringing that magic, finding that way to bring more of that magic to people, i think, will -- is certainly the future of food. experience. like, food experiences are going to continue to be something that grows and builds in the future of food. i think people -- we're always going to come in and out of these fads of food, whether it's what green, what grain, what sugar, is it gluten-free, is it vegan, is it not. is butter good for us or bad for us? those things will always change. but i think bringing the emotion of food out and making it into an experience will, we'll

continue to see that in the most exciting way possible. and i look at that at one of my biggest, most exciting challenges. >> cristina, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you. [ applause ] tomorrow night on c-span, former first lady, michelle obama, is interviewed by shonda rhymes, creator and executive producer of the television shows, "scandal" and gray's anatomy. she talks here about the standards of success for men and women. >> do you think you have -- that women in general have less chances to fail? >> you know, you fail once, people start labelling you faster than they label a man ever. >> absolutely. i think that's true for women, minorities. i think the bars are different, you know? i mean, we experience that all of the time. we experienced that over the last eight years. i joked when i was on the campaign trail that the bar just kept moving. you know? like -- just like, whoa, whoa. you meet it, and then the bar would change.

you know? and we're seeing that now, quite frankly. the bar is -- [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] i mean -- >> that bar is going places. >> it is amazing -- amazing to watch. >> the former first lady also talks about women as vocal participants in the workplace. the event took place tuesday in front of a crowd of about 12,000 at the annual pennsylvania conference for women in philadelphia. see the entire interview saturday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. this weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, sonoma state university professor laura watt discusses the evolution of the national park system. >> this was not just a case of setting aside an already natural landscape and leaving it alone. which is, again, what we tend to think of when we think of park

protection. what he was doing was, making nature out of what at the time was mostly old sheeps meadows. there actually is a big grassy area in central park called the sheep's meadow, and that's why, because there were sheep on it. >> sunday at 6:00 p.m. on american artifacts, architect and historic preservationist, joby hill on saving slave houses. >> it's important to do this, because one documentation is a type of preservation. slave houses are buildings that are disappearing from the landscape. and so by documenting them, that's one way of preserving them. documenting them and through my database is also a way to share information and get it out there and learn from them. >> then at 7:00 p.m. on oral histories, we continue our series on photo journalists with an interview with lucian

perkins. >> ended up on the front page of "the post" and it's her yelling at these freshmen police who are lined up against the wall with their chins tucked in like this. and that photograph ran everywhere in the world. and i'm convinced that that story helped me get a job at "the post." >> american history tv. all weekend, every weekend, only on c-span3. . c-span's cities tour takes book tv and american history tv to pierre, south dakota, with our mid co cable partners, we'll explore the rich history and literary life of the state's capital city. saturday at noon eastern on book tv, author nathan sanderson talks about pioneer cowboy, ed lemon, in his book, "controlled recklessness." >> he was in the cattle ranching industry in southwestern south

dakota with the mining and expansion of the railroad and the growth of our state in the early part of the 20th century. >> and director of the pioneer girl project explores the memoirs and inspiration of laura ingalls wilder. >> it's a research and publishing program of the south dakota state historical society that is designed to study and publish a comprehensive edition of laura ingalls wilder's pioneer girl, which is her autobiography. >> on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv, we'll tour the south dakota state capitol. >> if you look up, there are also four corner areas with flags. obviously, the south dakota flag. there is a flag from dakota territory. there is a flag for the united states, of course, there are also flags for spain and france, because they controlled this territory at different times.

and then each corner has -- one corner has white flag, one a red flag, one black and one yellow. and those are the native american colors that symbolize the four directions of the compass. >> and hear about lewis and clark's encounter with members of the lakota sioux, and why that meeting was so important to the area. watch c-span city's tour of pierre, south dakota, saturday at noon eastern on c-span 2's book tv and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3. the c-span cities tour, working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. now, more from the washington ideas forum, as treasury secretary steve mnuchin talks about the administration's tax reform proposal. then, white house correspondents share their thoughts on the 2016 presidential campaign and the first few months of the trump presidency.