coming up tonight, television and radio hosts. >> also this weekend, a critical assessment of stereotypes and a new biography of our first president. find the complete schedule on line and sign up to get our schedule emailed directly to you. >> the discussion focuses on the current and future challenges facing america, including race relations and next year's presidential campaign. we will hear remarks from cornel west, dana milbank and david frum. this is three hours.

>> @ good evening and welcome to the campus of george washington university. i'm tavis smiley. we have assembled a wide-ranging group of journalists to talk aout "america's next chapter" three-hour long conversation about where this country is in the first decade of the new century. let's thank c-span for covering this conversation. [applause] he is the chief political correspondent for cbs news, please welcome david brody.

[applause] she is the co-founder of voto latino, maria teresa kumar. [applause] political columnist for the "washington post" please welcome dana milbank. [applause] she is the creator of one of the best sites on the web, huffington post, please welcome arianna huffington. [applause] the anchor of "at the closing bell" maria bartiromo. [applause] he is the best-selling author, please welcome dr. cornel west. [applause]

he is a best selling author and former speech writer for george w. bush, please welcome david frum. [applause] the ceo of sybase and a committee of 100, our friend, john chen. [applause] i think want to start our conversation with dr. west. i do that because i was reading clips of some of your immediate appearances, one in particular, you were asked about this conversation. i thought we were friends. until i read this conversation -- we talked about how america can return to its greatness. i want to talk about -- we have three hours to drill down on this, but you took exception in the piece i read on a particular

media outlet on the notion of america returning to its greatness. i want to let you unpack we have to say about that, but talk to me philosophically, politically, socially, culturally, how you see this notion of america's grade is and whether it ever existed and whether we can never return to it if it ever existed. >> thank you for bringing us together. we need to have this conversation at this moment at this history of this experiment called the united states of america. what i meant is that the very notion of a great nation is ironic because i come out of a christian tradition as is the greatest among you will be the servant to the port. i don't know a nation that's treating its poor with the level of dignity and ought to. alexander the great was not great to me. he dominated in concord a lot of

people. napoleon was not great, he dominated unconquered a lot of people. the legacy of martin luther king, how are you doing with the prisoners, the orphans, widows, the fatherless, the motherless, the working-class -- military might, america is unbelievable, technological innovation, america is unbelievable. rights and liberties, america is unbelievable. but greatness has to do with how you're poor and working people are doing. that is the vantage point to me. the legacy to me -- the future of america rests on how we respond to the legacy of martin king. when i look at our poor people are doing, not very well. downward mobility, the newport, chronic poor, locked into a prison industrial complex,

militarism, not just iraq and afghanistan, but the pentagon, the military budget being 50% of the u.s. budget which means there's no wiggle room to deal with the situation of working people and poor people in our debate about the budget. then there are the spiritual issues, the spiritualism, but narcissism, the spiritual malnutrition and moral constipation we see in the nation. the emptiness of the soul and the right and good being stuck in you can get out. that is morally constipated. the right and the good want flow. i'm not just talking about are wall street brothers and sisters. they are human beings like anyone else with two much greed. a military industrial complex of private contractors, too much monopoly. our debate about education, privatizing taking place and to teachers and teachers' unions being cast as welfare queens.

teachers need to do the job, no doubt about that, but $4 billion a month in afghanistan and -- for me, coming out of the legacy of martin, curtis mayfield, and other great freedom fighters, we are in very deep trouble. not returning to america's greatness, it is trying to make america greater with great courage, great love, great commitment to public interest and the common good. for me in the end, no nation is going to be great because every nation i know is going to be shot through with greed and domination, oppression, and the best we can do is try to gain some accountability for the poor and working people as the elites, oligarchs and others continue to dominate the government and economy. [applause] >> if dr. west is right if

sedation is trying to become greater, and trying to juxtapose that notion with your recent best-selling books, "third world america." you argue if we do not change a lot about the way we do business in this country, we may end up a third world america one day. get me from west talking about we need to become greater to your notion that we are slipping toward becoming a third world america. >> first of all, i want to say i would like to spend the next three hours listening to dr. west. [laughter] i was just completely spellbound and that at some point, i said he's going to come to me. i would so much rather sit here listening. one of the reasons we are all so starved of poetry in our public discourse. everything is so prosaic.

just listening to cornell riot -- reminds me of how not malnourished we are would become to that. i don't think there's any contradiction in between wet he said and what i wrote. we can never return to anything, even if there was such a thing as american absolute greatness, including toward the poor and working people. my greek compatriots, the philosopher herodotus said you can never enter into the same river twice. everything flows, everything moves on and everything changes. having made the philosophical point, practically, as an immigrant to this country, this accent is for real. i am acutely aware of how we are losing the american dream because i lived it. as we are looking now at the possibility of upward mobility, the possibility of working hard and playing by the rules, doing

well and your children doing even better becoming impossible for millions of americans, we see that since the middle class is at the heart of any first world country, if we lose our middle class as we are in danger of doing right now, we do become third world america. the statistics, i hate to cite statistics after dr. west, but we have 100 million people who are worse off than their parents were. when it comes to upward mobility, we are 10th, after france, after spain, after the scandinavian countries. to be behind france in upward mobility is -- i think france was behind us in [unintelligible] that is my concern and we have a lot of time to discuss that

ultimately i am optimistic. i know you wanted to start with the darkness and it's good to dwell in the darkness for a while, but ultimately, i believe and this incredible american character and compassion we see express dollar and the country in our small communities. lead to scale it, accelerated, and make it part of our everyday life. >> i want to pick up on something you said -- i'm trying to juxtapose docked suggesting what we are missing a focus on the poor. i hear you saying we have to save the middle-class. how do we focus on the middle- class if that is your suggestion, when doc says what we are missing is a focus on the poor? >> i don't think there's a contradiction at all. the middle-class are the new poor.

[applause] they are adding to the chronic poor. if you look at what is happening in our homeless shelters now, at the food banks around the country, there are more and more middle-class people who lost their jobs and lost their homes. about 2 million people, 2 million families have lost their homes in the last two years to foreclosures. stop and imagine that. last night, at the president eulogized in incredibly eloquent and moving terms, the nine year- old who died. our hearts were broken by the death, but what about all the 9- year-old around the country who have no hope for the future, with talent and gets but cannot actualize them? the greatest way to honor christina is to focus on a 9- year-old from the country and all the other kids who are homeless, who cannot get a

decent education and who cannot live the american dream. and they are still alive, so we can do something about them. [applause] >> not so long ago, dana milbank, a report released called the rasmussen report and it find that almost half the american people think our best days as a nation are behind us. wrestle with that for a second. almost half of us think the best days of this nation are behind us. whether you believe numbers like that or not, it's clear to me that -- i've been around the country and we all do, this feeling of tanks, helplessness, hopelessness and concern about the future and whether or not their kids and grandkids are going to do as well as they have done, how do you move a country forward?

how do you put a country on the right track of half its citizen rethinks its best days are a behind it? >> it is a grim statistic. to the extent there is any good news here, a lot of the reason we're all feeling so bad is because of a short-term problem in the economy. we have two problems -- one is that we have just fallen off this economic cliff which has made all the statistics worse and has made the american public extraordinarily dour. 75% to 80% of the people think we are on the wrong track now. that gets at the statistic you are bringing out because that's overlaid with the sense that our problems are greater than the economic cycle. we probably have reached a point

where improving living standards are going to slow down for demographic reasons. we have reached a point where the rest of the world has caught up and america will no longer dominate the way it once did economically, militarily, but that does not mean we necessarily will suffer lower living standards. we have these two things coming together now and our problems are large but not insurmountable. what's happening right now is they seem insurmountable because 15 million people are out of work, because so many people believe we can't come to grips with the short-term problems. >> john chen, dana says we have to recognize the fact that we as the united states can no longer dominate.

if the 20th-century belonged to the united states, does the 21st century belong to china? do we need to accept the fact that we won the 20th century, but it belongs to china in 21st century? we all know the leader of china is headed to this city in a matter of days to spend a few days with president obama at a summit. does the 21st century belong to china? >> i have a few comments before i enter your comments. i did not understand half of what dr. west said -- i run a around the world and unfortunate -- and i'm fortunate enough to do a lot of business around the world. we beat ourselves up pretty bad.

there are a lot of countries out there that would love to be america. they love americans. the fact of the matter we are all sitting here talking about this, very openly, a very diverse background, that's a good sign. there are a lot of cultural- political-factional power is out there that these kinds of discussions would have ever happened, nor would any thing happen as a result. [applause] we have to not be ourselves up. but now i will answer your question about china. it is the rate of growth. it's like companies. mature companies grow slower, met -- china, we have been telling them how to do things, do it this way, and eventually

they do, when they did it, it worked and the rate of growth is much faster. their attitude is very different. they are a lot hungrier than us. but they also have issues that attempted the to grow peacefully, and i'm sure we will talk about security somehow, if they don't continue to grow peacefully cut the political and social stability will be called into question. as such, right now, if you ask the chinese people, the majority of the 300 million in the middle-class -- a total of 1.3 billion, they still have a lot of challenges. but the middle-class and the other who aspire to be middle- class would rather have the current growth structure than some of the stuff we would like to impose on them. given that, they have big

internal demands. everyone wants to put money there, including us, to grow their market, and they are hungry. the next decade, we will see a lot of development over there. >> i want to come to the other side, david brody, you work for a network most people woulds conservative in its beliefs and values, political that is, and when i listen to what john chen had to say, in the midterm elections, there was a lot of anti-china rhetoric in the campaign we heard from a lot of folks on the right. it is easy to beat up on china because china cannot respond in your specific district, and not suggesting there are not issues in china that don't need to be discussed, but there was a lot of anti-china rhetoric in this

last election. it's one issue where there is a big divide in this town. i was saying somebody -- alice saying to somebody this week that there's a lot of stability -- i was saying to some be this week that there is a lot of civility because congress is not in session. we are about to enter this age of a divided government in this town. whether the issue is china or a litany of other things i could rollout, what say you about what is or is not going to happen courtesy of this new divided government in washington? >> if we had nine hours or longer we could talk about it. it's a complicated issue. i think it starts with a moral factor in this country as it relates to god. as i travel around the country and talk to people like jim wallace on the left and ralph reed on the right, here is one

thing they agree with -- there's a moral crisis in this country as relates to everything from wall street to the housing market to what has happened across this nation, especially economically. i would suggest there is a lot of common ground that could be found in this area of economic catastrophe. i think that is an important part of it. as it relates to stability in government, what we need to see here, and this is pie in the sky, potentially, but as it relates to the tucson shooting and the divided government we are seeing, we need the elected leaders in this country and we need the influential commentators in this country, bill o'reilly and teeth -- andkeith olbermann, these guys need to come together -- >> did you say you think that

they are going to do a psa together? >> i don't think i was holding my breath what i said that, but the point is if you are going to get through the clutter and really make a difference, there needs to be sent shock valley. if you are going to have shock value, you need to have people who would normally be in their own entrenched warfare's ounce to come out and start the dialogue. >> is that the problem, david frum? is this about a moral crisis? >> i would not say so. i think the people in the audience, the people at home, they know well what the problems are. i think about all the time that inside each of these problems, imbedded into the problem is the answer. we had a demonstration of this just this week with the terrible atrocity in tucson. that is the horror of america --

a week mental health system, easy access to deadly weapons, a breakdown in community structure. we know that. let's look at this -- this maniac did a terrible crime and the whole political system of the country snapped together. every loudmouth who had been pumping anger and rage into the country's bloodstream suddenly recoiled and look around at people blaming because the political stability of the united states is like a 100 inch living-room sofa. you cannot budget. we had this tense debate in 2010 over the american health-care system and its extraordinary wastefulness and we spend more than anyone else and don't get good results. within that waste, if the u.s. spends as much as switzerland, there is four points of gdp will of wasted money line on the table. if we could get a henry ford-

type personality and squeeze the waste out, there are four points of national wealth. we have terrible unemployment, but that means we have able unskilled people ready to do the jobs the country needs doing. we have global security challenges, a hungry rival nipping at the country's heals, but that forces the country to be more competitive. it competes in a world of states that are adverse and the country has to be disciplined and focused with its resources. is also a reminder that more countries look to be knighted states as a provider of security and most countries -- look to the united states as a provider of securities and other countries as providers of insecurity. i hope can talk about how we display -- how we deployed be institutions of the country in a way that makes the solutions effective. >> you said a lot and i want to come back to some of that quickly. but let me bring in late maria

into the conversation. what david just described sound too much like right. anything he can lay out that simple, that simply, if the answer to these challenges can be found in the problems themselves, housetop on stupak are we? we can't figure -- how stuck on the stupid are we? i'm not certain it's necessarily that simple. but we are obviously missing something here. what are we missing? >> i agree with much that has been said. what i have to push back on is my friend dr. west here because i think america is the greatest country in the world. i think we were great and we are falling a bit now, for sure, but we will get back to greatness again. let's not underestimate the power of freedom. we talk challenges and the rise of the east and a

decline or bumping along the bottom of the west, but this is a free country. the aspirational power is also amazing. the fact that you can come from nothing and work hard and get all lot and achieve success, that's not to say we are taking care of all of our people properly. we are not. we need to better care for all income levels, all areas of the country, and we have work to do there. i think the problem is clearly the jobs picture, the unemployment story is persisting. i suspect it will continue to persist. we have challenges overseas with china with a billion 0.3 people, india with 1.5 billion people. of course, china will at some

point be the largest economy in the world. america has to sell to those people. a billion people outside of america. american companies have to sell to those people. i think that's part of the story. >> i think it is clear that camera 3 ought to stay trained here the rest of the night. going to come back to you. camera 3, just get ready to stay trained right here. maria teresa kumar, i ran to her yesterday here in town -- >> where? >> none of your business. >> i thought i might make some

news. >> it was at npr if you must know. we were talking at npr yesterday and i heard maria make a point i agree with -- when you look at the numbers, the negative numbers are hitting the hispanic community pretty hard. i'm part of the african american community in the picture here is in pretty to be sure, but the numbers are really hitting the hispanic community really hard. she closed by saying and yet with all that, the hispanic community may be the most hopeful community in the country about their future. i added to that, i have mad love for the hispanic community right now because no community in this country last year flexed politically more than the hispanic community. they flexed last year. [applause] if you don't like things the way they're going, you have to flex and raise up.

politics is not a spectator sport. you have to get off the sidelines and get involved in the process. the hispanic community did that last year and yet there were a lot of victories. immigration went nowhere, the dream that did not go through, so before we start mixing this up, i don't want to leave your committee at this. what happens in 2011 for all of the energy and activism you generated as this campaign for the white house is about to kick up in the next couple of weeks. >> i think it started in december. how want to talk about where we see our country going. i don't think america was great. i think what we see is a realignment that we saw during the great depression. we are seeing it now to the great recession where we have a completely new industry, a new type of immigrant american in this country and competing on a global scale once again.

what happened and the lessons we learned during the great depression is america learned to take care of our own, our poor, women, and children. now, it is the great recession, we have legislation that has asked us to step up to the plate through health care, financial reform, had asked the question are you going to take care of your poor and your children? i have to tell you we've done ok. part of it is because we do see increasing change within our country, a lot of folks in the middle class have forgotten how to be poor and the rich have forgotten how the middle class. that's a conversation we need to have. as we move forward as a country, one of the reasons the american latino community is so optimistic despite the fact we have the highest foreclosure rates and higausehe -- this is i

will bring it personally. i remember my mother getting up every single morning going to clean houses and working 15 and 16 our jobs and still telling me that america was the greatest country in the world. when you have that in your household, immigrant parents telling their kids i don't care if you are from asia or latin america, america is where we are going to make our dream, that's our identity. that is our challenge, how do we inc.? to trot to you're saying that china, india and -- to draw it to what you're saying about china and india, in the u.s., we have the third largest latin american population in the world. the third largest. when you start talking about a billion people, we have that, but how do we educate our american countryman, our

brothers and sisters, so we celebrate our opportunities at the doorstep? fundamentally what this country needs is not only to talk about resources for jobless this, but we need to make sure that the nine year-old is getting the best possible education. that is our challenge as a country. do we care? [applause] >> my first responsibility was to make sure everyone got a chance to say something and initially. now we can loosen up a little bit. i'm going right back over here first. i want to let dr. west respond, but the backdrop is what maria teresa kumar just said. when i listen to you and maria, a difference on the notion of whether or not america is for

somebody people around the world, a beacon of light and hope, but this notion of american exceptional as an is what i hear the two of you having a disagreement about. talk to me about american exceptional as an. >> we have to draw the distinction between making the claim america is great and the america is the gray -- is america the place you want to live? a lot of other nations don't look so good either. i choose to live in america primarily because my mom is here and my grandma is here and my granddaddy. wheat we have helped to make the nation democrat. but the question of want to raise to my dear system is how many poor people, unemployed people, how many poor children, how the uneducated people do there have to be before you call into question the greatness of the nation? what is the line in the sand? that line has been drawn for me. when i look at the killing fields in these goods, when i

look at the war zones, sister christine taylor green, god bless her soul, and barack obama, he is a magnificent father, he talked about the magnificent american family and we talked about his two children -- that you have a 13 people in prince george's county that were just shot. you have folks buying all the time of all colors, all classis, disproportionately poor. i'm not sure what -- a measure we are fundamentally disagree, but my stresses on the underside. i know brother john chen, i'm speaking clearly for you. >> i've got it. [laughter] >> he is a distinguished graduate of hong kong university. i want to be listed. this is not beating american

down 3 -- alan to be lucid. when martin luther king gave his abilities, he is not anti- american, he was anti injustice in america. that is what we are talking about. [applause] for my canadian-born brother says he can see the answers in the problems, i'm not sure about that. i'm not sure about that. the reason is because i did not hear in your analysis and the talk about corporate power or wall street power, i did not hear any talk about mastering the political will from below and the ways in which it is suffocated, sometimes crushed by the powers that be. when we hear cry for her and help among poor people, we don't get a response. when we hear from investment bankers, we get corporate welfare. that's a big difference. [applause] >> i think it is about education.

when you look at the differences of education in this country as opposed to the rest of the world, we are failing. i don't think any of us would disagree. china, -- in the u.s., our kids let's talk a simple things. our kids go to school five days a week seven hours a day. in china, they go to school six days a week, 10 hours a day. of course this is going to be an increasingly competitive situation. we need to give people the opportunity to get educated, or card and the of up the ladder -- worked hard and move up the ladder. >> dr. west has is different formulation -- but the thing you said that caught my attention, your example of the answers being found in the problems with this issue of the shooting in tucson and this conversation the country is engaged in about stability.

help me understand how is it that is the way forward if it requires a heinous act like that to get us to even have a conversation about civility? i have heard members of congress for the last week patting themselves on the back and sticking out their chest -- this tragedy has reminded us there are no republicans or democrats, we are all americans. everyone is saying that same line. we were americans in two weeks ago before that happened. we'll all be americans two weeks from our are not talking about it anymore. it can't take a heinous act like this for us to realize we're in this together. >> i don't mean to look at this black hole of suffering and say here is some sunlight comes out of it. i don't believe it is true. what i mean to say is this --

the reaction to this terrible crime much has been a rediscovery of some things that were true all along. we have been through a two-year economic crisis on top of the 11 years of a series of failures of our political system from the .com bubble that left people feeling swindled, the stagnation of in come through the last decade culminating with this crisis, the inability of the government to please borders effectively, to act on the information, failure after failure after failure of governmental policy. but what we have discovered is these institutions really work. we have seen a lot of voices in the media and politics for their own selfish reasons hacking at

the basic stability of the united states, the inability of the system to solve problems. these terrible events have cast a spotlight that has reminded lot of people to talk very loud that if the country wants institutions work, the country watched the assault -- a country wants results, if you are talking to niche markets who play this game, this country is politically stable, and when people worry about competition from china, i think that is very real. i had a chance to spend a fair amount of time and china and everyone in a position of leadership i bet is worried about the country exploding. they are worried about revolution for a lot of excellent reasons. that's not something we need to worry about. those who tamper with the

stability do so at their peril. >> i have a lot to say now. i think the point about education is right on. forget about the definition of greatness for a second. everybody wants to compete and the barrier of competing has been lowered. everybody knows that. mariette talked about the numbers and the mathematics of the people, but i shall think because we spend so much money person per child in this country educating them, but we are not getting the results. we need to go with that part first. [applause]

the only thing i think is it's in our attitude. people always tell me about in the garden through 12th grade and then they talk about universities. we have the best university system in the world, bar none. but we don't have a good kindergarten through 12th. the question is why? the why is simple. our attitude is we will not fail our child when they are from k through 12. but when they get to university, we will find them. -- we will flunk them. [laughter] think about this. the parents in this country will complain about the teachers when their child gets flunked or failed. [applause] they don't take a lot of responsibility in my mind. but in university, everyone is in your grown up and can deal with that.

in this culture -- i grew up in hong kong and went to school in hong kong. failures option. [applause] -- failure is not an option. because there was british rule at that time and there are more kids than schools, we all had to fight into moving up. we studied 10 hours a day, six days a week. in addition we go to tutoring class is and tried to do math on our own and see how many math you could do per hour. the attitude in this country is very different. [applause] i asked my children sometimes, thanksgiving is coming, if you do your homework the first couple of days, you can really enjoy the rest of the weekend. and he says what homework? [laughter]

my teacher says we ought to relax. i'm not making that up. i'm not going to tell you the school district either. but it is an attitude we ought to focus on if we want to compete, we have to tell our kids you have to learn and you have to excel because it's not about china, of south korea, it's not about singapore, taiwan, japan, it is sweden, its france, it is germany, is everybody. it's not just china. [applause] >> i agree with david that every problem has a solution in sight. we can sit here and talk exactly about how we can fix education. we can go to harlem and look at what geoffrey canada has done and know how to fix things. we can go to a school in

washington know how to fix education. the problem is we have a completely dysfunctional political system. the way a bipartisan system fixes education is the leave no child behind act that has everyone behind it from george bush to ted kennedy. it did not fix the education. on the contrary, it's one of the reasons people are turning on government. so many efforts like the effort to fix education, like the bailout of wall street, has ended betraying the american middle-class and the working poor. look at the deal warren buffett made with goldman sachs and look at the deal the american government on behalf of the american taxpayer made with goldman sachs. you'll be angry it whether you are left ring or white -- what you are left wing or right wing. i'm not saying they should not have bailed out wall street,

they should have bailed out wall street with strings attached. [applause] i have many friends of mine who are good capitalist to sleep with a copy of "fountainhead" under their pillows. that's not how the capitalist system is supposed to operate. you take extensive risk, you may the wrong -- to make the wrong decision, and you go bankrupt. if you are too big to fail and you will be salvaged by the hardworking american taxpayer, what are you giving back? [applause] point,ack to david's this is fundamentally a moral issue. the founder of capitalism, when i studied economics at cambridge, we studied adams smith. the first book he wrote before he wrote "the wealth of nations -- the wealth of nations" was the theory of moral sentiment.

you cannot have a thriving capitalist system without a moral foundation. that is what is missing right now and what needs to be recreated. >> there are a number of issues and jumping off here and it is getting fund. i want to put to issues out, dana, but i want to combine what john chen and arianna huffington said -- we are in need of an attitude adjustment as far as education. we need an attitude adjustment. i wonder if you think he is right that we need an attitude adjustment? and the suggestion that there are a lot of people turning on government. a lot of people turning on government is the attitude of turning on government these days a justifiable attitude to have? does that make sense?

>> it does. and i want to amplify that point. let's start by saying i think there is more agreement here that people realize. i don't think there is anyone on this stage who quarrels with the notion of american exceptional lissome, that this is the greatest country on earth, or in dr. west's case, the least terrible country on earth. [laughter] thing, right? [applause] at the same time, we have a crisis of confidence. where is this coming from. we have some of the worst schools, worst education systems in the world. we also have some of the best, even at the k through 12 levels. we know how to do those things. we have the potential witness, but we are stuck, morally or otherwise constipated.

why is that? i think that's the point that was just hit -- there is a sense, correctly, that our government is broken. it is not worthy of the people it is serving right now. that's not a criticism of the 535 of them on capitol hill, but they deserve some of it. there is almost a panic that the system that was set up more than 200 years ago is no longer working. we cannot address the real problems. we, don't get that because given our american exceptional some, patriotism and nationalism for some of us, our arrogance and hubris, we are the ones talking about exporting democracy around a world. if our system is fundamentally broken, why do we keep suggesting everybody ought to be a democracy like us? [applause]

>> because there is nothing better than that. >> that are broken system? >> we have the best darn broken system in the entire world. >> part of the issue is the short-term mentality. we are so focused on i want to yesterday, i wanted tomorrow. we're focused on getting reelected. this is combining what is wrong with the political system. decisions are being made on will i get elected in two years, will i get reelected in four years. [applause] the chinese are thinking about the next 100 years, not the next two years. that is the crux of the issue. >> what we are seeing right now is a vehement discussion in this country as it relates to free- market principles as opposed to big government intrusions. this is the birth of the tea party, put on not just by the obama administration, but bush before him.

if you are going to win the argument of ideas, you have to ingate with people who don't agree with you. therefore, i go back to 2007 when you had your debate at morgan state university where john mccain was a no show, but rudy guiliani was a no show, mitt romney was a no show. if you're going to say free- market principles are the answer, you have to go in front of audiences that may not agree with that. that is part of the problem. [applause] >> this is where i disagree. one of the reasons we are where we are is because of the massive deregulation that happened since the 1980's. when government wasn't watching, we worked at our worst instincts, which is we got greedy. people who had no business getting one or two homes signed

the dotted line not completely understanding that they weren't paying their mortgage, they're just paying their interest. they're paying $2,000 a month, they had a nice little house and five years later, the a p r came up and they're paying $5,000 a month. how they reconcile that? that has to do with regulation. when we talk about democracy and democracy building, what we forget is american democracy is evolving. we evolved with women's suffrage, we continued to climb what we did the civil-rights movement, and now our biggest challenge is how do we continue moving it forward? there is a place for government and it bothers me because the sea does not do it well, but when someone ploughs this no, public transportation, that they government function. but also why the lights turn on.

there is a place for government and it is important to make sure we recognize that and embrace it. >> there is a difference between the state government and the federal government and that is part of we're talking about. that debate has to go forward. this is why the tea party was so successful, because a was a cauldron of everything they believe, a constitution, that wasn't being lived up to as far as the constitution. >> one thing about the two-party movement that is very important is at the heart of their anger is if you look at any survey, it was anger at the bailout. before the was a grad health- care, anchor anything else, anchor that in this country, we went from a country that makes things to a country that makes things up. [applause] credit defaults swaps, tax derivatives, when the house of cards collapses, the taxpayer,

the government bails them out. that is still at the heart of what was wrong. the fact that every day we get great news from wall street and bad days from maine street is feeling that very legitimate anchor. we cannot really go forward if we don't address with a sense of urgency that has been missing. when wall street was in danger, there was an unbelievable sense of urgency. everyone came together over that famous weekend, the financial establishment, the political establishment, and they said we don't know how we're going to prevent this from happening, but we cannot afford to let the financial system collapse. so we will throw everything against the wall and they save it and rightly so. we never had that sense of urgency about jobs. we never had that sense of urgency and that is what is missing.

>> you have mentioned this twice, david, and i know you have covered this group and these people as much as anybody else over the last year, the whole key party movement. from your perspective, i'm curious whether or not, whether we like or lows or disagree with the tea party, they made some noise and got people elected and got a lot of media time across the country. is there something to learn? is there any takeaway to wrestle with from the key party relative to writing the next chapter in america? >> absolutely. what you saw politically in 2010 was act one. act two is coming in 2012. these folks are serious and they have good hearts, no doubt about, but they were starting to work the day after day the

election of 2012. this is the beginning of the process as relates to the tea party. one of the reasons marco rubio did so well in 2010 is because he articulate the message very well. christine o'donnell did not. both the party candidates, both with the same message, but marco was able to explain some common- sense items. for example, read the bill. read the congressional bill, cite the constitutional authority in the bill, term limits, balanced budget amendment, line 10 people up on the street, these are common- sense principles. the point is this -- the tea party message is one that can resonate, but it needs the bite messenger. we saw a couple of messengers -- needs the right messenger. we saw couple people to my

people to convince independence to come on to their side. >> we will come back to that. i want to comment on another point -- i have heard two or three references and nobody has said it and we're going to wrestle with that, i heard two or three references to policies or lack thereof we have been subjected to in the first two years of president obama's first term. one of the things that makes this conversation prescience tonight is we are days away from the anniversary of the first -- of the halfway point of the first term of the president. there'll be a lot of analysis about how he has done at the halfway point and what these next two years are going to bring, how he's going to deal with this divided government,

and i expect a lot of this will be laid out in his state of the in a few days from now. we have not said expressly, but let's talk about the fact we are at the halfway point of the president's first term. broadly speaking, you say what about that? >> i would say when we look at the major priorities of the president's first two years, we tim geithner, the regulator, larry summers, the regulator -- deregulator. they are recycled from the bush and clinton administrations. but this is not change again believe and. we cannot -- this is about poor

and working people. it meant then that it became very clear, you can get bailout, a trillion dollars, we could eliminate poverty with billions. pro-business, big business, not small business or of entrepreneurs who out there struggling, big business. the tea party comes along and they have a populist message. i think populism can be a good thing when it focuses on poor and working people. they have populist gestures, there is corruption in the government, they are right about that. the u.s. government is corrupt. there's no doubt about that. the lobbyists, the corporate influences are there. the private contractors for the military-industrial complex is there. the corruption is there. but they respond to government

by being anti-government. we say no, you have to clean it up to a degree to which poor people and working people have passes to governmental positions of power as the same way as the bankers or insurance companies do. it is a pseudo populist movement, but there's also an element of white backlash because of barack obama, his wife and children. it's more like the national hockey league and the nba in terms of the racial composition. that doesn't mean it is all races, but there are racist elements there. most right-wing populist movements in america tend to be xenophobic. anti-semitic. we may have seen that with our sister sarah palin the other day. was that in ignorance or a subtle anti-semitic gesture? we don't need that.

my jewish brothers and sisters. we had a moment with barack obama's presidency. if he could bring in economists to focus on homeowners rather than just the bankers, that focus on working people rather than the elite, we would have had a very different, and maybe that tea party movement would have been nipped in the bud. [applause] >> i would like to disagree with my brother here. [laughter] i don't see racism in the tea party movement any more than there is -- hold on a second. there is racism. racism in every part of american society. vestiges of racism everywhere. what fuels the tea party movement is not racism. many of you believe that your wrong. what fuels the

>> if you are a member of the leads, you can do no wrong. if you are a poor or middle class person, you make one mistake. even if that means you are going to get rates on your credit card of 30%. there will be hidden stuff in your mortgage contract. the game is rigged against you if you are a member of the middle class or the working class or the working poor. it is important to have the correct diagnosis if we are going to proceed correctly and focus on what the racist elements are doing. that is not the heart of the problem.

the anger is widespread across america. it is significant that you address it. otherwise, it gets out of control. when it gets out of control, the stable system david is celebrating can stabilize. >> it is not fueled solely by racism. there is a racism element. >> i also feel that part of the boost -- >> i don't see a president obama coming out of the tea party movement and other movements. [applause] >> part of the fuel for the tea party is the idea that there is a movement that people want their freedom and do not want to feel like things are being forced upon them. with the health care passage. when you look at the polls and look at the feeling of america,

there was a majority that did not necessarily want that particular plan hatched. they said this is not health care, but health insurance. we are not necessarily dealing with the issues of obesity. michelle certainly is, but we are not dealing with the crux of health care. there is this division. i think it is important to remember the business of wall street. wall street and main street, no matter how much we say wall street versus main street and they are connected, when you want a bridge built in your neighborhood, the financing comes from wall street. it is not just a bunch of guys. i am not saying there were greeted situations where there were guys walking home with hundreds of millions of dollars -- greedy situations where there

were guys walking home with hundreds of millions of dollars. wall street and main street are connected. >> wall street and main street may be connected, but one always gets the priority. why do the elite to get the priority over the others? >> it is a fair question. i think that there are all businesses. the story of entrepreneur islam is the story of america. -- entrepreneurialism is the story of america. getting a loan from a lender -- not all of the banks are the big five banks. there are banks and lenders who are catering to small business and entrepreneurs. that is what we need to protect. >> that is not we are talking

about when we talk about wall street. >> which should be talking about it. >> when launched a movement called move your money. we encourage people to move their money from the five b banks. credit unions and small banks are much more likely to reinvest in small businesses. i agree with you. the problem is there has been a decoupling between the financial sector and wall street -- financial sector and the main street. instead of enabling got creation, they have been running a casino. they have been running a casino where if you lose, the taxpayers will bail you out. ben bernanke says you can go to the window at the fed and get 0% financing. instead of investing in small businesses, they are continuing to invest in buying derivatives

and doing all the stuff that was happening before. it is still going on. we still have to beg big to fail. we have not ended it -- to big to fail. >> politicians tend to do this. it is easy to give lip service to the power and the necessity of small business in this country. that is not the picture we have seen painted for the last couple of years. the big businesses got bailed out. the small ones did not. talk to me about this abandonment of small business by this country as we try to write this next chapter. >> you are talking about a large bank. some of the customers at the large bank are the state and the sovereigns.

it is not just big customers or the customers at big banks. >> first of all, we are a business that did not need to be bailed out. >> make that clear. >> i could see the passion on both ends while you were talking. i was thinking, we talk about giving the time. clearly, our system, only after 200 years, has some imperfection to it. this is the least imperfect system and therefore the greatest system. we all agree with that. i am not joking. it is true. it is at least the most free. there have been some

consequences. it is a lot of greed. the short-term nature of wall street, the short-term memory of the investors and the leveraging of everything that created the structural issues. because of that, big does matter. size does matter and it has an advantage. we tend to not pay enough attention to the small and protect the small. we always preached free market principles. we always preach that the market choose the winner. in a global environment like this, there needs to be some governing protection of the small business and nurturing of small business. we do not have that. it is inside our basic market principles.

otherwise, we would be in there trying to dictate who wins and who loses. if we want to do that, and we probably should, we need some policy changes from the government. >> but arianna huffington's point was if a bank is too big to fail, it is not subject to market discipline because government comes in. in 1996, bill clinton was playing the saxophone. he signed a scandalous welfare bill that ronald reagan would not sign. he did it for political purposes. it was opportunistic. two years later, we bail out a hedge fund. poor folks having nothing were calling for help.

hedge fund loss, fail, get welfare. there is a hypocrisy here. too big to fail means robbery. it means so much political influence that they can get what they want. that is what that means. [applause] was i too harsh? [laughter] >> i do have to respectfully disagree. when i look at too big to fail today, it is because if we make them failed -- i am not suggesting who is right -- the structural damage is to our system hurts the little guy. i think the government here in this town may not be the most effective, but they are not

stupid, i hope. >> you can downsize. >> i get that. you can be regulate it. or you could split it apart and make it smaller. who is to say that will not happen in the next couple of years? i am not in government? that may encourage smaller entrepreneurs. i am not advocating it or suggesting i know anything. i got killed by other people when i walked out last time. [laughter] >> let me ask one more question. our time is going faster than i thought. let me ask you while you were talking. hu jintao is on his way. what should the american people

expect our government to get out of those conversations? what should they be bringing back to us when this summit is over? >> open the markets over there. let us play evenly, fairly, and transparently. [applause] by the way, it goes both ways. you are a foreign entity and you want to invest in any company in the united states, if you are the chinese today, you feel unwelcome. is to our process. it ties to some level of -- i would not say discrimination -- fear, mistrust on our part and it goes into the core of the immigration and everything else surrounding that.

our country needs to rethink how to create jobs here. china is investing about $100 billion per year in the direct foreign investments. we are getting about 3% of that. this is totally not acceptable. >> he said quickly without hesitation, open the markets. maria bartiromo whispered in my ear, and possible. >> i said it sounds impossible. >> what he is saying is where the rubber meets the road. let's talk specific examples. recently, we had tires coming from thai -- coming from china. they were being sold cheaper than american companies were

selling their tires. there was an outcry from workers. why were americans buying those tires and not the tires we are making in this country? that are cheaper. so we put a higher tariffs on the tires coming onto this -- coming into this country. we are making money on it. the chinese say, if you are going to put tariffs on that, we will not have you selling products to our people. 1.3 billion people, 300 million people. our companies need to sell to those emerging middle-class. we need to come to an agreement here in order to prosper all of us. by the way, on the too big to fail, i do not think it is necessarily too big to fail, but too connected to fail. these companies are not necessarily evil. if you are connected all over the world, you knew that aig was insuring everything.

when the lights went out, the financial system would try out. another conversation. i am sorry. >> let's be blunt about it. you have made this 0.3 times. how afraid, given the numbers, how skier should we be of china -- a freight should we be of china or india or japan? >> i do not think we should be afraid. we have to sell to those people. we need to manufacture products in this country and sell it all over the world. [applause] that is where policy comes in. we need a policy in place that keeps many factory and good jobs here. if a company can do something cheaper in india, it is going to do it and should do it to stay competitive. >> why should we be hopeful given this difficult proposition? why should the american people

be hopeful that we can find a level playing field with china? >> let me first answer -- this point has been bounced back and forth a couple of times. maria likes to use 1.3 billion and 300 billion. -- and 300 million. i am unfortunate i came from silicon valley. i could overwhelm that 300 million if we innovate. innovation get you the margin dollars. that ties to my earlier thing. we have to have an education system. we have to have an immigration system to grab the best. [applause] >> can i jump in briefly?

>> one of the things we are missing is that it is the american culture. what do we export that people want to emulate? hollywood and music. that is one of our strengths that nobody is talking about when we say are we going to get competitive with china? at the end of the day, our cultural differences and our strength is what we have used as soft power to change the hearts and minds. >> you are not suggesting we are going to act and then our way out of this, are you? [laughter] >> i do not dance so well. it is an industry that we have actually been able to sell as what it means to be rich. does that make sense? we have to play by the rules. >> if the good people at nationwide give you a grant to

do a show on the next chapter and it that were allowed on chinese tv and the people who participated were not trapped by to discuss the truth, the answers would terrify the audience. we should be much more afraid for china that afraid of them. compared to their problems, our problems are molehills. we should not lose sight. from there unfree press and their propagandistic media and their neglect of their countryside and the skyscrapers and high-speed trains, we should not forget there are 500 million people living in the chinese countryside who are poor. the problem is they are increasingly impatient. when you look at the history of this country and the great migration of black farmers from the united states -- i forget

how many people that was who moved. there are 500 million people in the chinese countryside. think of the social upheaval that migration created in the united states and how difficult it was to work out and how we are still not working it out and how cities collapsed underneath that transformation. imagine doing it times 100 or 150. that is their problem. we do not have their problems. we have our problems. i agree with those who said it is -- our problems are a dysfunctional political system that prevents a powerful economy and society from responding. i am personally haunted by something tip o'neill said when he left congress. at the end of his career he was asked how congress had change in his time.

he said the people are better and the results are worse. that is true again and again for so much of the federal government. as compared to 50 years ago, they are more honest, more hard working, more sober. [laughter] ask around. they do not have their wives and girlfriends on the payroll anymore. but as i talk to them about this subjective experience about being a member of congress, they are constantly frustrated. they cannot get things done. they say let's give more power to the members. there are people who can prevent things from being done and the result is frustration. >> the problem is, and i have been trying to keep track of the things we have said on this panel. we're not done to this multiracial compensation, which we probably will not get to --

we have not got into the multi racial conversation, which we probably will not get to. our system of government is broken. we have a broken creek that somehow needs to be fixed. if that is the problem, how do we fix it? >> the problem with the current elected officials is that there are 26 lobbyists for each member of congress. that means, on top of everything else, while we should be celebrating the passage of financial reform, they are undermining it. by the time financial reform is enacted, it will bear little relation to what we celebrate it. we saw it again and again. we saw in every disaster this year. we saw in the bp and mining

disasters. it is impossible to have regulator capture. we can have regulations up the wazoo, and they will not work. america has traditionally been amazing at using soft power. china is getting better at it. but at afghanistan. we are spending $100 bening -- $100 billion pursuing an unwinnable war. [applause] china is spending billions of dollars buying raw material for its industries. when have this kind of perverted priority across our system. this is completely beyond left and right. that is one of the most promising things.

there were people coming out against the afghanistan war. you have more and more republican members asking for oversight as to how this money is being spent take the important thing that came out of wikileaks was a clear chronicling of the collapse that is going on. taxpayer money is being wasted while we are lacking vital social services here at home. >> he has a lot to say and he has been thinking a lot. you can take your time. this point about our system being broken. you are the one person on this panel who lives here. the people in this audience read your stuff on "the washington post" every week.

how do you remain hopeful about a system that is broken? at one to ask a question of about arianna huffington's point. answer the question first. >> i am a counter indicator. if this government were working well, i might be out of a job. [laughter] i point out what is wrong with our government. i would take the deal. i would find another line of work. maybe i could get something on wall street. i would take that deal. my job is to point out what is wrong and why things are going as badly as they are. i think we identified that fairly quickly here. there was a question to maria earlier. why does wall street get help

before main street? the same thing that is expiring day tea party -- our government has been sold to the highest bidder. this was a problem before the financial crisis. the tea party was so upset with the way the elites were governing the country that they forced a change. they have been had. 13 of the new republican freshmen in the house have hired lobbyists as their chiefs of staff. they have been having fund- raisers all over town raking in money from lobbyists. a lobbyist is john boehner's new policy director. a lobbyist is running health care on the commerce committee. they do not run for election every two years. they run for reelection perpetually. this is not a democratic thing.

that gets at why the system is broken. this is great business for me. i can watch all of this bad behavior and people breaking their principles to raise a dollar. that is the source of my enjoyment and the source of the problem. >> given the corruption and the politician's perennial fund raiser, and the financial influence on big government, greed, but concentrated agreed with consequences for them, who pays the cost? and visible. history is important. we can talk about america all we want. the u.s. constitution was in

place for over 89 years. but slavery was still in place. [applause] it was a pro-slavery document. there is no reference to slavery in the constitution. this is important for immigrants who just got here. you are not going to come into america with all of this robust opportunity and mobility without understanding the history and the degree to which this marvelous constitution, which was marvelous precisely because americans had the courage to make it more free and democratic by abolishing slavery and then jim crow. it was invisible. what is invisible today? have we seen the prison industrial complex? have you seen the children locked into school, but the

quality of their souls? who is paying the cost when we talk about all this corruption at the top. that is why i am has a dent -- i am has a tent in terms of the excessive celebration -- hesitant in terms of the excessive celebration. the will of the people is suppressed. [applause] >> i did not forget the second question i wanted to ask you. dr. west gave me a great jumping off point. u.s. set up was nice. i am go right back to dana. the second question i wanted to ask you, what is the price or

cost that we ultimately pay been tied to this war in afghanistan , being tied to this war in iraq? this is the longest military excursion this country has ever endure in iraq -- in afghanistan rather. what is the price we pay relative to write this next chapter if we cannot tear ourselves away from either of these wars long term? >> beyond the immediate cost is the problem that the spending on the wars have created a this me, too situation. people say, you can pay for this tax cut because we are able to afford so many hundreds of billions of dollars for wars in iraq and afghanistan. the problem is compounded. since we can run these wars without paying for them, we can do all kinds of other things

without paying for them. the corrosion has gone beyond the money in this case. one of the real problems with the wars is that we were not asked to sacrifice for them. a small sliver of america has anything to do with these wars. one of my pet projects has been some sense of national service, some sense of sacrifice, some sense that we are in this all together. you will not hear a thing about it in the congress right now or anywhere in town. there is a sense that that war is attached and there is no sense that there was during world war ii that we are all in this together. >> two quick point,

ideological, there is a lot of common ground on this issue. you have liberals and conservatives agree on what to do in afghanistan. i think that is an interesting dynamic in all of this. you can put liberals and conservatives together and they will say, we need to get out. or you can get liberals and the service of saddam and they will say, we need to stay. -- liberals and conservatives together and they will say, we need to stay. the simple answer -- and i know it is simple -- if you going -- if you are going to drink the potomac water, drink it quickly. you have got to get in and get out. i think that is a big part of what is going on here.

in terms of fixing the problem, this is what the tea party is about, getting the citizen legislators. there is a mission called, get out of our house. it is a bunch of community forums across this country. the affected 535 people to the house of representatives. it is going back to the grass roots. they want to put citizen legislators in their instead of politicians who have been drinking from the potomac too much. >> i want to ask this last question. just so i understand this, but tea party says we are going to take our country back. from whom? [applause] [laughter]

seriously. we are going to take our country back from whom? what does that mean? >> it means we are going to take our country back to first principles and to constitutionally --a constitutional view of what they believe the constitution requires in this country. it is not take our country back in terms of attack and let's go. that is not what this is about. getting back to the point dr. west made earlier, i think there is a danger of using race as a word. you were saying there is an element of racism to the tea party. i can tell you inherent in that is the this is the attitude toward the tea party. it is basically trying to not

justify its existence and power in this country. >> i am concerned about the truth. i am in love with everybody. >> i can tell you this, on the truth factor the media has gone out and try to tell this story. i have been to dozens of the party rallies across the country. the first thing i do when i go there, i listened. we record the audio. what i am looking for is i am looking around the corner. i am looking around the crowd. i have to tell you, it is not there. >> black folks are intelligent.

we get a sense of what is going on. [applause] >> there are people i talk to paid there is a -- there are people i talk to. >> the black die from south carolina. >> i attended one of a --tea party event --i attended one of his tea party events in south carolina. he was beloved there. >> i thought you said something else. >> my point is that if you actually go look at the story from an in-depth perspectives, a

lot of these charges are unfounded. >> can i jump in? part of it is --you mentioned scott. he is incredibly anti a letter read an entire latino. >> you have a new black -- he is incredibly anti-immigrant and anti latino. marco rubio was a tea party candidate. he was english only paper he realized his polls were going soft. he started moving away from the tea party. all of the sudden, he started placing spanish-language ads. you cannot have it both ways. when you crack the surface, you can use sharron angle. she was a tea party candidate in

nevada. every time she wanted to demonstrate that she was pro american borders, she showed working-class immigrants basically been the next scary space --scary face in america. words do have consequences. a result has become the radicalized right. they have made it okay to become mainstream. i know when someone comes in and shows a picture of obama looking like the joker. we all know what they are saying this is not ok. i am not dismissing the tea party. the majority of the tea party we upper -- were upper-middle- class white males. my father is a white male. the middle-class white male felt

disenfranchised. they had not marched during civil rights because they were old time veterans and they were fighting. they realize this was a movement for them to take their country back. america is changing. they won the america they grew up with [applause] . >> i would say this, i think we have come to the crux of the issue, one of the main ones, which is labels. i think there is a lot of validity in what you just have to say. when you said that, you said anti-immigrants. a lot of times, we put people in a box. that is extremely dangerous and is not part of the solution. >> you will can see that there

is a distinct difference between labels and facts. the facts are what they are. that is not labeling. >> there is a bigger picture. there are people like myself who have been across these -- across this country and have spoken to these people. we have a much better sense -- have a bigger picture than just anti-immigrant. those are strong words. i am not suggesting it wouldn't be a case just on your side. there is a case on the other side. the crux of the problem is putting people in a box. that is dangerous because it does not lead to a bitter conversation. >> you said there is a point on the anti-immigrants side. that point would be what?

>> all i am saying is that when you say you are anti-immigrant, there is an inherent philosophy that comes with that. in other words, you are basically saying you are racist paid then you are painting people a certain way and you have not talked to them. >> maria, this is informative and instructive. i hear the point loud and clear. a part of what is wrong with america is there is too much labeling. you can clap on this. i know i am write about it. [applause]

there is too much labeling. he may disagree with him on this point, but there is too much labeling in this country. when you label someone on national tv and call them out by name and say anti-immigrant. , what do you mean by that? >> as a country, we are suffering from racial to take. we are afraid to talk about race. when we get too close, we do not want to bear that burden. when i say anti-immigrant, the young man in arizona who saved representative giffords' line , undersb-1070, he would have -- under sb-1070, he would have

been asked for his papers. it was a sad day in american a wind -- when sb-1070 past and there was not an outbreak -- an outcry from america. there are 22 other states introducing similar legislation where just by the fact that you may look like an undocumented individual where someone can ask for your papers, shame on us. [applause] >> at some risk to my safety, i want to partially defend david on this tea party point. i think there are two tea partiers. you mentioned allen west and the woman he tried to hire to be his chief of staff.

she said she thinks if an immigrant is caught committing a crime, they should be strung up from a telephone pole and the body should be sent back to wherever they came from. the defense is coming. >> before the defense, that does sound anti-immigrants. >> i think you can put anything you want on that and it would not be a bad enough label. is not comingshe to washington. he wishes he could have had her. there is that element. there are two tea partiers were 25% of the population and the small minority that comes to the rallies. i think they are entirely

separate groups. the ones who come to the rallies are a tiny minority of a significant part of the population. there is a minority of those who are overtly racist. i have seen them there on the capitol grounds with the joker faces. >> it is coming. i am waiting. >> there is that element. that is what we in the media -- i go to a rally and i look around. if i see a photograph of the holocaust, i am going to focus on that and not on the 99% people who work, and reasonable. -- who were calm and reasonable. the vast majority of people in the tea party movement are angry

about the economy and decent people. there is no way around it. >> all of this conversation leads me to you,arianna specifically. we have been top about two african american republicans. republicans now control the house. tell me why i should not believe that the strategy that president obama is going to employ is going to be clintonian to the core, which means more triangulation and more pages still lend out of their playbook, which means more compromise and -- pages torn out of their playbook, which means more compromise and more capitulation. >> before i disabuse you of

that, i would like to respond to this fascinating discussion. that is when we need dr. west. what we are talking about is something fundamental about human nature. we have seen it in every period of history. when there is an economic crisis that affects people's survival, the worst comes out in people. we have seen it again and again. we need to go to the source rather than assuming these are the racist people. these are the engines and scared people. these are the people who think they are a -- these are thean -- the anxious and scared people. when you have 27 million people unemployed or underemployed, multiplied by three or four, i did their immediate family or extended family who are worried that they are going to be affected.

that creates something that we are ignoring at our peril. in the 18 eighties, we were actually expelling chinese workers from the country. we were expelling hispanic people who are american citizens under hoover. this is not the first time people have been anti-immigrant. i have a foreign accent. i hear it. people say, hey, you speak english? i did not say, better than you. xenophobia is going to thrive when people are anxious, worried, out of work, or feeling better -- or feeling bad about themselves. but we have a mainstream media whose fundamental aim seems to

be to make money. packs a sensationalize the issue. there is a ->> they sensationalize the issue. there are people who are thoroughly and visible in the media. [applause] what comes at people is a narrow and truncated discussion that reinforces the worse in them and does not accent the best in them. there are citizens who are working hard who feel invisible. what happens? attached is the welcome. either you turn to the right.

>> if the people who are suffering continue to be invisible in the next two years, that is going to be the major legacy of the obama administration. when you bring in bill daley as the chief of staff -- >> i want to be clear. you said that you could not disabuse me of my formulation earlier. >> no, i could not disabuse you. there is this misconception at the white house that the way for the president to get me elected, which is increasingly prevalent in terms of how the white house is making decisions -- the way to get reelected is to go to some kind of medical medal -- mythical middle.

i think all of these divisions are lazy journalism. to have the right policies for wall street is not left wing. to say that you want to leave afghanistan -- you have pat buchanan and george will who are against the policy. the media is calling them left wing because they are reflexively lazy about categorizing. >> that is the media again. that goes to the point of labeling. labeling is a category of confronting chaos. labeling should be objects of our critical sensibilities.

in the label we use is provisional and never captures the complexity of reality. >> i think labels are important. labels are going to be there. the question is, are they well thought out in the genesis of the process. >> they should not be used to get people down. they should be a means to understand what people are going through and why they are opting the way they are opting. i believe all people are brothers and sisters paid but i am suspicious of the tea party;s politics. i will fight for their right to be wrong. but we are still contesting. >> let me ask a follow-up. you said something i want to come back to. i heard you put it this way to get to the point. i heard you ask a few days ago

this question. what can a blues nation learned from a blues people? i raise that because i want to give you a chance to explain what you meant by that. you intimate it's something about what the country have to gain or a -- intimated something about what the country has to gain or learn from people of color. >> we have to begin with a definition of the blues. the blues ain't nothing but an audit by -- and autobiographical story about what happens catastrophically.

black people have been dealing with the capacity of slavery, the catastrophe of american --we have been dealing with the psychic catastrophe of being taught to hate ourselves, less beautiful, less intelligent. we have been dealing with spiritual catastrophe, which even in a country of liberty and opportunity, you work is late. you were redlined, you were locked--into -- you were enslaved. you were red light and you were locked into the ghettos. do we want to enslave white brothers? no, we want liberty for everybody. black people's struggled had been the leavening in the

democratic loath. we respond with a smile. not with hatred, but compassion. that is what a martin luther king is about. that is what curtis mason is about. that is what john coltrane is about. what happened in the reagan years is that the black freedom movement was consigned to be another special interest group. they tried to reduce our movement to our self interest as if the black struggle was just the negro. that has never been the case. we start with the negro. that is delayed -- that is the legacy of martin king. anytime you talk about the black agenda, they view it as just a special interest. it is like the corporate agenda. is that just a corporation?

in a democracy, was the label's began to -- labels begin to ossify, we cannot communicate. rush limbaugh would say stability wants to police me. you can say what you want. we just want to be fruitful. be fruitful, ambitious, and try not to lie. [applause] they are so polarized. it is difficult for us to proceed. in a democracy, we do not have a high level of communication when it comes to public interest. it has to do with might and power. whoever has the power will define what is right. no society can survive based on that. did i answer that question?

>> yes. you more than answered it. the american people thank you. maria, this raises a fascinating fallout for me. if dr. west is right that in this moment when we are trying to move this country forward and trying to get past these divisions, everybody calling for stability, what is the country losing by the voices of people of color being marginalized in the conversation? this is one of my personal pet peeves of the black man on tv every night. i hate when i say -- when i see too many conversations that do not have ages in the compensation and do not have hispanics and women and african-

americans in the conversation. burns me up. i do what i can to address that on the regular. i think the country is missing something in this critical moment when the voices of women and people of color in the media are marginalized. to that, you say what? >> this is where i tip my hat to arianna huffington. she has one of the most diverse online di platforms. [applause] what her work demonstrates is that we are --the online platform tis the rest of us. we can have someone with a differing opinion or different boys in their rise writing and talking. in theiro- -- voice garage writing.

it deals with the uncomfortable about where bill so i today and about where i am today, have anyone to talk to, it is easy for me to conclude that i am not at fault. there is a responsibility in the media. we need to hold people accountable. words do have consequences. >> i have some sympathy for what is being said here. >> as a white male, we appreciated. >> i was on a television show and we were talking about rick sanchez being fired. i look around the room and i realize there were four jews talking about it. i understand where you are

coming [laughter] from. -- i understand where you are coming from. i do not understand what the mainstream media we are talking about is. is's its -the washington -- it "the washington post." i think it is this whole forum. the point is, there is no mainstream media. it is entirely fragmented. there really is nobody. >> i want to give you a chance to respond. let me give you two answers. the sunday morning talk shows exhibit a. i did not care with what you are talk, aboutcnn, fox, msnbc all

day, all night, all white. [applause] that is what i am talking about. >> it if you take the sunday morning audiences, i do not have the viewers here in front of me. that is not as large as the not of people glenn beck and rush limbaugh are reaching on the radio. it is not as large as morning edition or google or yarmuth. what we think the --as the -- google news or y not so much ths the process and whether or not our democracy is missing something with these other forces are marginalized.

there really has been an explosion of media peter -- explosion of media. there is an enormous responsibility on the media today to ensure that the media is giving us a fax. unfortunately, over the last couple of years, things have gotten blurred. it is not just facts and is not just news, but it his opinion. today, given what arianna huffington is doing, it is very difficult to get away with it. immediately, on the internet, there is a correction. there is conversation. there are the people. the people are speaking. i like this is news for that

reason because it can be measured engaged. there is not as much room for opinion. frankly, i do not want to turn on the news and hear someone's opinion. i do not care. i have my own opinion. [applause] >> i think the problem is not opinion. is it opinion based on fact or is it opinion based on fantasy? that is the distinction for me. i do not have a problem with opinion or faction. i have a problem with people making stuff up. our fact checking process is completely non-partisan. we will get republicans, democrats and everything in between. this is not a partisan issue. whatever the opinion, we recognize our reverence for

fact. it does not always to be found in the middle. sometimes the truth is on one side or the other side. the earth is not flat. [applause] [unintelligible] the object is to stay in the middle and state your views. ooamerican tourist in london, exactly the wrong way. he mentioned at this cable channels. if he were to add all of them together, you get on a typical n

people. that is out of the country of 300 million people. why are you concerned about how the information and the right to talk on television allocated to the worst of the country? americans are much better informed than their parents and grandparents were. the hundred million worse informed americans are much worse informed in the were a generation ago. you had to get out of your chair and walked over to the tv set and turn it off until the entertainment programs began a half an hour later. if he wanted to know whether a chicken was on special, you had to go back to the news about what the mayor or members of

congress were doing. the problem is not media bias. the problem is that the public has dropped out of informational me altogether. [applause] we talked about the dysfunction of politics despite the proven quality of people participating in politics. why are the lobbyists more powerful today than they were in 1965? were people better in 65? i do not think so. was the media better? we had different roles. it was not worth hiring 26 lobbyists. power was more concentrated. what would we have done every

pursued a series of fixes that makes the problem worse at every turn? the driving idea that we have on how to fix politics or the wrong ideas. it makes problems worse. it is a very common error to make that when you have a big problem you must have a big solution. sometimes the solution is as simple as changing the rules of procedure in the house of representatives. sometimes it is as simple as changing the balance of power. sometimes they are as simple as making sure presidential appointees to get through the senate as fast as they did in the early 1970's and 1980's. we are not to look at our problems, but to begin focusing on our problems and asking what the solution is we are going to pursue.

thethey are embedded in the problem. our problems are not overwhelming. we can do this job. >> of want to spend the last bit of time we have not talking about this. people are starting to declare they are running next year. you talk about sometimes the solution is as simple as changing the rules. the new speaker, john talked about transparency. he would have you believe that republicans are going to change the rules and also all solved the problem. >> that is a perfect example of what i mean. we had this bias. president obama has said they are going to publish all the laws of every visitor to the white house. the me tell you what that means. if i have scheduled a meeting

with somebody from group a few has an opinion on topic one, i have to schedule a meeting with everyone of his arch rivals. i cannot have a meeting in the white house. i have to have 13 more meetings. even at the only reason is to look at my watch for 50 minutes so i can ignore him and get back to work. what the transparency does is it causes them to choke and suffocate. our government moved more rapidly when there was less transparency. it gives the individual members of the house is more power than the committee chairman. you get bigger deficits and less accountability. those are not the ways to think about those ideas. if we are going to think creatively, more of the things

that are not working -- and >> do not applaud it, yet. honestly. the idea that it has been tried and failed is so pathetic that i can not really begin to answer it. where do i start? you want to go back to do you want to talk about transparency? the want to talk about the fact that we tell the american people we would get out in 2011? now they are telling us that they do not know when they are coming out. >> if they did it in a classroom, you would not like it. >> it was done in endless ways

that the american people were kept out of. we did not know a lot of the stop the government was keeping secrets from us. this is just one example. we could give you thousands of examples. the same week the president went to afghanistan in a surprise visit and told the american people we were winning, which was an absolute and liked it why -- which was an absolute and blatant lie -- we are turning more and more people against us. americans need to know every time of their elected officials are lying to us. [applause] >> it has to do with the

difference between the democratic and the technocratic. if all you are after is the best deal you can't reach -- every empire uses secrecy to hide and it can sell decisions they do not think are in the public interest. >> we chronically have not balanced the budget. >> why is that so? >> why were we able to balance the budget but had a chronically unable to do so recently? there is one major reason. when you empower the 535 members of congress, that is the mood that is wrong. when power is put in place, the people need to understand it. the transparency create secrecy. the way we create secrets in

washington is by having such overwhelming detail that only a few specialists have the patience to follow it. this is not a city of secrets, it is a city of mystery. [laughter] >> if you have to break that down. >> it does the same thing as the mortgage contractor you're complaining about. every detail of the contract is there if you can read it. people would be better off if they had better representatives saying, "here is the contract, read it for yourself." what of the ways we become more unaccountable is the diffusion of responsibility. nobody knows who to be angry at.

the one person whose name people now knows it gets blamed for everything. if there is an oil spill, he gets blamed. you cannot blame the people whose names you do not know. a big government with little accountability and a little name recognition -- that is the formula for what we have now. >> you do recall dwight eisenhower's speech when he talked about the military industrial complex. it is so expensive that is a form of theft. why? it reinforces the permanent warring economy, the pentagon is untouchable.

the deficit tripled. they could not get hold of the pentagon budget and the military budget was expanding. >> it peaked in 1986 and then came down. >> a triple. >> that is when we took control the health care budget. look it up. the medicare budget -- the line >> all we talking about the defense budget between 1972 and 1988? >> i am not defending it. since 1986, we went through greater balances than 2001. as the defense budget begins to

shrink after 2013, which i expect it probably will, we will find our difficulties in balancing the budget remain as chronic as they are now. this is not because we spend too much to defend ourselves. >> it may be archaic for some of you, but let me come back to something you said a moment ago. all one it is segue from u2 david brody first. what is good to happen about politics over the next couple of years as we try to write this next chapter. we are at the halfway point of president obama's first term. we are just weeks awaym whole bunch of folks starting to line up and declare they are running for the white house. most all of them are going to be republicans.

>> probably starting in march, you'll see some candidates get in like newt gingrich. you'll see tim pawlenty get in. sarah pailin is an open question. i think what you will see as relates to the republican field, i think there is an evangelical primary and a businessman primary. you have people like pukka be -- huckabee, mike pence, and some other compete for the evangelical vote. they knew at the businessman primary. will have the businessman primary. i do not know too many people who would disagree with that.

you have a center-right nation and you have a president who went ahead and pass legislation related to health care. he was trying to shoehorn something. i t it who were sitting on their couch will cut these tea party people watching oprah and going to get a hot pocket. they were watching "all my children." [laughter] >> i am glad you said that. oprah was about to tweet you in about 30 seconds. [laughter] [applause] >> you are wrong about one other thing which is the center-right country. that is what i mean.

the conventional wisdom kind of congeals and people begin to believe it. this country has been on a journey for a more perfect union from the moment the constitution was written. every bit of progress we have made, they were all left-wing in his it is in a center-right nation? -- they were all left-wing ideas in a center-right nation? you are giving every progress that ever happened to the left. [applause] >> i think the polls bear some of this out. >> what impact -- you talk to

the tea party tonight. we sell the impact in their -- in the midterm elections. what you think the and that will be in the presidential election? >> as it relates to the house of representatives, they will make john boehner's live a real problem. he has 43 or so house republicans that are tea party yeariers. >> are you saying the deep -- the republican party made a deal with the double in the tea party? >> no. >> i am not being flippant. did the republican party make a deal with the devil with the tea party.

they wanted these people to take over the house in november. >>they were with the tea party n the ov of tea party events. to do a deal with the tea party -- ithe difference is in ideolol purity. the tea party was ideological purity in the sense of constinell are up there to cut a deal were to work on getting legislation passed. it is a much stiffer reality. >> -- it is a much different reality. >> there's always a tension between what you have to do for your party to win the election and

what you actually do when you are elected. a colleague was giving a speech in 2 global warming and dealing with the problem. the was a very intelligent and well informed person. this is going to be used to torment and torture him. this is a very difficult thing for him to get past. ms. romney is a very effective executive. he would make a fine, center- right executive. he supported tarp. the is like mr. death-panel now. we saw what just happened in the past 34 hours with tim pawlenty. the was the former governor of

minnesota. he is a civic minded person. he is now>> >> you are making my case. if i am barack thinking about your analysis right now. i am thinking i want to put tha. >> that somebody is going to be somebody. i am thinking about who they are going to put up here. i am also say to myself, you do not haveng tdo?

[laughter] quite bear witness, brother. >> we haveit is very clear that- party system is broken. you have both parties that are dominated by the same interests -- corporate and big business. you have physiological and racial groups that are relatively powerless. that can be the makings of a faction of we do not begin to come to terms with this. on the other hand, it also means the tea party is going to become more and more upset with the establishment and the republicans because the business interests are getting more attention. at the same time, barack obama

masterful, eloquent, charismatic in his language, in his policy -- you cannot bring in a geithner and call him martin luther king. he was anti militarism. he was against the american empire in terms of this -- of the presence around the world undermining the principle. that is why when he died, 75% of people were against them. he was to left-wing. when you love working people that much, that makes you the most feared man in the country. you are also the biggest threat to both the republican and

democratic parties. i can only call for it because i do not control history. the whole system has a rottenness running through it. [unintelligible] we are still working on this thing together. >> what is martin saying every day he wants in? >> what makes you think the war in afghanistan does not have the same set up as vietnam? the problem is this -- these are part of the lines of the mainstream. people have reached the

conclusion that barack obama is the fulfillment of king's dream. that is not true. [applause] it is a fulfillment of king's drain, he is not the fulfillment of king's dream. [applause] not just black people, martin was that kind of a dreamer. we have to be honest. >> if you get back and look at what the president of the campaign manager wrote about the campaign -- it was a campaign of audacity. in that book, you see again and again they talk about the middle-class. they talked about the people

being told there is a very clear foundation to the campaign. there are two quotes. the president said, "our task is to constantly widen the circle so that we bequeathed the american dream to future generations." that is what cornel is talking about. that is what america has always been about. including more and more people. this has to be a share, a national agenda. [applause] the second part is from fdr. the is releasing the same thing in different words. he is saying debt of our whether we provide

enough for those who have nothing. when newt gingrich gave his first speech in 1994, he said that fdr was the greatest american president. was the right or left? we need to stop this debate conversation. i was in brazil recently. i interviewed the conservative president of july. -- chile. he said his greatest priority was in an aching poverty in chile. you have the conservatives this

policies were more progressive. why? because they realize you cannot have a successful, a thriving country if you have people falling out of the middle class. [applause] >> if you notice, tavis, both cornell and i danced around your question. there is nothing they can do about it. tuck with this president. they are going to support him. there were not be any serious challenges to the president. -- there will not be any serious challenges to this president. at the same time, you see the potential for some real fratricide in the republican party. i think it is fair to say that

this president reached his low point on november 3 and the republicans to reach their high point. -- and the republicans reached their height point. we are looking at the 2012 election with a 2010 mind-set. once they added millions of jobs and people are feeling better, it becomes a very different equation. you have a more satisfied electorate, at a less angry electorate. quite the thing that is likely to happen? >> of course. you never know what is likely to occur. >> where are these jobs coming from? >> last month we added 100,000 jobs. >> there are massive amounts of

foreclosures in the pipeline and massive amounts of shadow inventory. >> if the economy does not broke, all bets are off. >> if my hon. had went to college, he would be my aunt. [laughter] the economy is not improving in a way where working people and the middle-class -- larry summers has convinced the president that the economy had turned around. larry summers has convinced the president that when et came to the midterm elections, unemployment would be down to 8%. i remember being with them on a television show. he said there would be growth in

the spring like chancey gardener. [laughter] >> all this conversation does is take us back to the issues. i want to press this once more. for those who support president barack obama when he ran, who bought into this hope and change, to believe things were going to get better and that there was another way, why should we believe that anything is going to get better if you have nowhere to go on the one hand, and on the other hand, this is divided government means there is going to be more

compromise, or capitulation, anything to get points on the board. you are not going to get what you thought you're going to get. you do not have anywhere to go anyway. what are you going to get for the next two years? >> you are absolutely right. the is much to let you down. he is going to betray you. i would also say, i was there for conversations like this in 1982 with ronald reagan. what conservatives thought of ronald reagan in 1982 -- he is a sellout, he is not delivering.

presidents are compromises. that is what the political system does. you take what you can get and decide what you like a little bit more. it goes back to my point about judging these things by the wrong metrics. people need to understand the way people do their work in the assembly. the people who will make john boehner's life a misery, -- if he is able to bend the curb on government spending, prevent tax increases, major new regulations are not imposed -- those will be used tryouts. if the does by what any reasonable definition is a huge tryouts, people will see him -- people will see

him as a sellout. >> we get so caught up in barack obama acting as an independent to get the presidency. what this is about is the message, whatever that message is. it people believe his policies or not centered -- are not centered, he has to convince the american people that they make sense. the conversation of the ideas in this country -- that is what republicans will have to do to win the white house. whether be met ronnie, tim pawlenty, or whoever, they will have to get down and dirty and explain why free-market principles of the right place for america. you cannot just go on talking points, you got to go deep in the playbook.

explain it.o if you do not explain it, it will not work. >> we make the tea party as this use movement. they are the squeaky wheel. they did an excellent job of making sure that they put in the congress. it is not what barack obama is going to do for us, but the majority will hold barack obama accountable. it creates a space that make sure our representatives are ready to be accountable. i do not want to pick up my marbles and go home. it is our accountability to make sure we are putting pressure on our government. [applause] >> it is a powerful point. i wrote a book on accountability. my question is, how do we hold

the president accountable and help push him into greatness? specific in the black community -- and give you an example -- everybody knows that the most loyal constituency in the president's stage are black folks. they are the most loyal constituency. the enthusiasm, excitement about barack obama at two years ago brought people al that had never voted in their lives. he was on every black radio show. he was talking and begging black people to vote for him in the midterm elections. what happened? all the excitement of two years

ago disappeared even amongst the faithful. he needed them to do that to move forward his agenda. the excitement and the symbolism is not going to do it. iraq to accept it. but how do you do it for the next two years? >> i do not think this is going to be worked out in washington. i think we have too much faith in what people are doing around the country. it is important to talk about that. as i travel around the country promoting my book, i am asked again and again by the people who may have given up on politics, but they have not given up on progress. they are using social media to come together. there are fascinating examples.

a concierge in portland, ore., could not get another job. the brought together and other unemployed people -- unemployed lawyers and unemployed accountants were helping each other. they were taking their passions and their hobbies and turning them into a way to make a living. they are swapping things they have and they need. they are not talking about his role or promising it. it is not just what is happening in washington, but what is happening around the country. we are bringing these people to prominence and encouraging others to get involved. for me, that is really the battle. there are forces of cheer and

forces of tremendous economic anxiety. people are demonizing and turning on each other. >> once we perceive the limits of the electoral policy, people either disengage and just followed the weapons of mass destruction -- television, video, internet -- it is a world of make-believe. you organize poor working people, those who love them and what their situation to be better, and put pressures on the political system. it is so broken that even the

organization does not have and that, then we are in a world of problems. >> it reminds me of allen barnett. the first time people organized said they did he not want people to compare slaves in america to the people of israel. that is the blues. what they said was, do not think that just because you have been emancipated they will not come get you. do not think that because you elected a black president that after his eight years, we will not have more black residents. i am not just concerned with black people, but i start there. what that means is, how do i

deal with the desperation? do with their hopelessness? -- deal with their hopelessness? we almost lost it in the 1860's. >> if you go back to march 1965 and the famous meeting that dr. king had in the white house with lyndon johnson, lyndon johnson told him about the voting rights act. a. basically went al and staged the selma -- he basically went out and staged the selma march and then we had the voting rights act. instead of constantly looking for the leaders in washington -- they are not there. [applause]

>> to invoke john mccain for a moment on this stage, the straight talk here is the president has invested in political capital. you cannot just at an event. we had the beard summit. that was pretty much the media highlight in the first two years. it did not address anything as it relates to the african- american community. unless the president is going to invest political capital -- what happened to the responsible fatherhood initiative? that could have brought evangelicals from the moderate and conservative standpoint and the african-american community together on something like that. it was pushed to the side. >> if you say that the highlight

for black votes was the beer summit -- >> i am talking about the media perspectives. >> black folks celebrate the health care package and "don't ask, don't tell." i do not think that the black folks think that the highlight of the past two years was summit.beethe beer >> the media portrayed it as a black issue. health care was not proven as an issue for african-americans. >> tell me why, given all that has happened since to the obama

was elected -- the tea party, people showing up to rallies with guns, losing the house in november -- tell me why i should not believe that all of the top in this country about stability that this is not going to be the ugliest massive campaign for the white house in the history of this country. >> i would not be able to do it with any confidence. we just had an announcement this evening before we came up that democrats the republicans are going to sit together during the state of the union address. [laughter] >> are they going to hold hands? >> hopefully they will hold hands. >> sing "kumbaya" and all that.

>> it feels like these might be different. just from experience, i find it hard to believe that will occur. i did a column recently on the person in charge of the budget for house republicans. he wanted to take it and litigate it in the next election. we every state point where everybody has basically given up on the hope that they can stop each other from doing anything. there is not much they can do. they cannot actually achieve anything affirmative so they have given up and are throwing themselves into a bitter, nasty campaign. >> i want to check back in about a year, david frum, and ask you the same question.

democrats and republicans are saying this is not about republicans and democrats, we are all americans. tell me why i should not believe this will not be the ugliest, nastiest, maybe even the most racist campaign for the white house ever. >> you are going to have 55% to 57% of the population of voting. when you have a bigger electric, you have a less partisan electorate. i struggled in 2008. it was a personal election. not everything is controlled by the campaign organization. there was a lot of restraint shown. mccain should have sent signals about barack obama's race. that did not happen.

it did not happen partly because of the character of the people involved. john mccain is a man of very high character. pragmatic strategist working for both parties will not work. negative advertising, especially on the democratic side where you grab younger voters, negative campaigning is going to be counter indicated for years. all the republican side, if anything has any a trickle -- any attributable, that will be radioactive. they will be super careful about it. >> there are a number of people in this country that have alluded to this conversation that if between now and the election in 2012, the job

picture in this country turns around massively -- we do not think that is going to happen -- but if it changes significantly, barack obama will win. people say that because we vote our personal interests. it the economy turns around, there is some reason to believe barack obama will be reelected. do you believe that, number one? and, is there anything related to the meeting with china this week that the president can do to aid and abet that particular effort? >> first off, i now understand the definition of moderate. [laughter] that said, if the jobs it turned

around dramatically and any history of any regime has told us that the president -- that the present administration will continue. it will be easier to talk about the future than bringing up the past. that, i think, favors the incumbent in this case. if i were in the administration, the most important thank for american business -- american business does over 50% of revenue in general. this is now the biggest country with a fixed economy. our issue is, we do not always think that way.

i'll put it in simple terms. we have to make sure we leave the invitation open. in order to do so, we need to reciprocate. we also need to help them to create more jobs. right now, policy lies an attitude lies on both sides, it is preventing free [unintelligible] our allies are getting their fair share plus some more. the first thing i would do if i was president obama is to make sure we have sell policies to open up the markets, selling policies to integrate ourselves -- sound policies to open up the markets and sell policies to

integrate ourselves. we decided we're going to buy all the solar panels made in the united states. that is not the most helpful thing. we may be buying solar panels from france. i think we should let the product and the technology and the pricing and the market when. -- market win. >> i believe it will be about the economy. if the market turns, it will be a shoe in. -- shoo-in. people who are operating businesses are feeling that they had a lot of expenses coming out because of health care. they are unclear about the regulatory environment. they do not know how deregulation will look.

they have new regulations coming at them. that is keeping them handcuffed in terms of adding new heads into the payrolls. that will be an issue for the president. 50% of all mortgages are under water. we need to see policies in place that will encourage businesses to create jobs. the extension of the tax-cut plan could be a game changer for entrepreneurs. small business managers who may see it as a positive to create new jobs -- >> it is a purely political, partisan point of view -- if marie and john r. wright that this election could turn on the -- if maria and john r. wright, this election could turn on -- john are right, this election

could turn on the economy. >> my biggest concern is not that. my biggest concern is this white house is prioritizing jobs. i am writing a column -- >> you are telling me that the white house still does not get that it is jobs, jobs, jobs? >> if you go back to the last state of the union, he actually said, "jobs are going to be my primary focus." that was the last state of the union. that is for me, the fundamental problem. the white house is not looking at the urgency of the job market. i was hoping there would be

somebody coming to the white house to single-minded priority was the creation of jobs. when i say that, i mean that there are so many tools in the toolbox we have not used. we have changed from something small -- right now, we are not allowing foreigners to come into this country with ideas and money to create jobs because of this instinctive anti- immigration visa. -- view. >> if we believe the situation for working people has the same sense of urgency and sang state of emergency -- the same state of emergency -- that is a state

of emergency. what if we really believe that the situation is a matter of national security as it is in afghanistan? >> americans have such intelligence and ingenuity, the public sector and private sector will come together and say the future of american democracy depends on treating people with dignity. >> it is more than just jobs. i do not think a turnaround in the job market is necessarily a shoo-in for the president. people want to feel the freedom and the independence and the aspiration to move out the economic ladder that they believe america can provide. >> how will they do that if they do not have a job? [applause]

i am not being very simplistic, but i have two daughters in college. so many other friends are graduating and they cannot get jobs. [applause] these are kids to read all the right things. they went to college. they are graduating from college. that is the sense we need to bring to our national conversation. >> as you mentioned, one of the biggest issues that president obama has in his back pocket to stimulate the economy right now, today, is immigration. the way you do it is you have individuals who can actually compete on the global scale in the technology sector, but you also bring out people that raised the level where they are competing for fair wages. these individuals have to pay

taxes to ensure that they have a path to citizenship. we talk about the dream act. it allows citizenship for individuals who have graduated high school who are ready to go to college or go into the military. we are the only country that thinks about deporting a valedictorian. that is absurd. [applause] there is the issue of national security. we actually need to know who is living within our borders. we do not know right now. >> we have one minute to go. you and i talked often over the years about the difference between optimism and hope. we have to write this next chapter, even for those who have no reason to be optimistic. there is something we can see, feel, or touch the issue a

reason to believe in hope. reason to believe in hope. even