clear that what was important is what the speech means to the american people. it it was a speech about hope and confidence. it was about initiatives that echoed what we said earlier this week about getting back to basics and building america in a way that respects the role of public education and public safety. we are very pleased with that. it was also in the context of initiatives that have enjoyed bipartisan support on an ongoing basis. i thought it was a durable initiative. -- a doable and michigan. -- i thought it was a doable an initiative. i have written to my ranking members asking them to ask their

chairman for hearings on the president's proposal. also, i have written to speaker boehner asking him to initiate those hearings on the legislation. you should have it. it would be a sign of our unified commitment to acting quickly and in a bipartisan way. urge your chairman to pass the legislation. the hearings will be the first step in that. the point i want to make is that this proposal comes at a time when it should enhance the possibilities for the table of 12. i do not know how they have been characterized. some have said it will increase their challenge. if it increases their challenge to create jobs, all the better.

this should be the centerpiece. how do we create jobs, grow the economy, and use the tax code, and timing of cuts and investment to create jobs? i had called upon the table of 12 to act in a way that favors the entrepreneurial spirit of america and the role that small businesses play in creating jobs. i was particularly happy that was part of the emphasis of the president, recognizing that small businesses are the job creators. equity is very important to making sure that many more americans participate in prosperity. the response we have received is an overwhelmingly favorable. some of the reports -- it has

been said this will create 1.9 million jobs and around 150,000 jobs a month. it will increase the rate of gdp growth by 2%, taking us to around 4.5% for 2012. that would be absolutely great. it would reduce the unemployment rate from 28% -- from 9% to 8%. in terms of an objective analysis or initiatives we have been fighting for, i think it was a home run, out of the park, touchdown. this all happens at a time when our country is feeling the memory and sadness of 9/11.

many communities are affected by the recent disasters and the human toll that is taking. i will be leaving after these votes to go to california for hour ceremony tomorrow morning in san francisco and bethen get on the plane for new york for the 9/11 observance there. the leadership will be observing 9/11 all over the country. it is a very sad time for our country, but one that speaks to our sense of community and strength as to how we go forward, to honor our first

commitment to the american people to keep them safe. with that, i would be pleased to take any questions. >> [inaudible] do you believe the government is prepared to handle any sort of attack this weekend? >> let me say that even before hearing about the threat and been briefed about it, i think everybody thought there was a possibility with the significance of the 10-year anniversary. i think there was a heightened alert anyway, of asking people to be aware of their surroundings and report any strange behavior. i do not know how much it has changed things. i saw the report of mayor

bloomberg, the mayor of new york, last night when he was reporting what the city of new york was doing. i would have thought that everyone was pretty much in high gear in terms of what the possibilities were for this. >> have you been briefed? >> yes, i have. i cannot speak to that. it is the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. >> republicans say the way to create jobs is to roll back federal regulations. social security advocates say the payroll tax cut would damage the structural integrity of the program. >> i am glad your colleagues have allowed you two questions. i will take them quickly.

in terms of the social security, i think we have pretty much got into a place -- got into a place where there is a general acceptance that will be part of the initiative. it does not mean that everyone was glad about what the president said. this is a compromise. the president feels committed to it. what it was important about his speech last night was not only what he said, but how he said it. he is taking it to the american people. he believes this initiative has an integrity to it. he introduced it as one bill. it fits comfortably into what he is proposing. i think there is a comfort level as to what it would achieve.

tell me the second question again. i do not think there are any regulations we should not have, but there are plenty we should have. the president said it very well. we should subject any regulations to the evaluation. when you are in an arena where one of the goals of some of the extreme right is to do away with all regulation for clean air, food safety, and the rest, the president was clear he will protect the american people in that regard. the president has his own review and has made significant recommendations about reducing regulations where they are duplicative, obsolete, or are not fulfilling their purpose.

>> are they ready to work with you on a number of these issues? do you expect some of the same old partisan lines? >> i hope not. i hope the president's appeal was on the basis of proven bipartisan support. he did not reach for things that were divisive. he had a values based speech that was unifying with proposals that have enjoyed bipartisan support. the speaker has said that it merited consideration. i said i was encouraged by his statement that the proposal of

the president merits consideration. i said i hope that we can work together to create a better environment for private sector growth and job creation. i am encouraged by that remark from speaker boehner. others in the republican leadership and their conference have spoken in favor of some of the initiatives, including the payroll tax holiday. >> how difficult is it to get a bill of this side through the house? >> it may be part of what the table of 12 recommends. i would hope we could get some of it passed sooner than that. some of it has not been hunters to -- has not been controversial. we could have hearings on some

specifics as they got to different committees of jurisdiction. i think we could advance it. the american people cannot wait much longer for some relief. pass it, change it, add to it, but let's act upon it. in any event, i think a great deal of it can be done in the 98 days, almost 40 legislative days we have before the bid committee has to act. there is another month after that where congress can continue to act. >> are the democrats concerned the republicans will pick off the tax cuts and some of the things your conference has called for? >> we are focused on job creation.

the most encouraging thing i heard last night was that the president was taking this to the public so that they understood the values upon which this proposal was based. the suggestions were bipartisan in their nature and history. what we have heard during the break -- house members are always home listening. what the president said last night response and takes the lead on many of the concerns that the american people have. i think it is about the american people. i think that will give an opening to work in a bipartisan way. i think we have to be respectful. i do not think we have to confront. i think we should be aware of where we can find common ground, see how we can go forward, what other proposals

could take the place of its other seven better idea. i do know the ideas put forth have not created one job. if it is just more tax cuts for the wealthy as a job creator, that did not work during the bush administration. there is no use going down that path again. i think it will be a healthy debate by the town that the president said. one more question. >> speaker boehner showed some [inaudible] regarding taxes. do you see any signs that republicans will support [inaudible] >> that has been a bipartisan issue inside and outside of congress. the afl-cio and u.s. chamber of commerce of come together to support infrastructure initiatives. that is probably as low a partisan issue as you can come

by in terms of the outside constituency for it. many people outside, everybody knows there is a multi-trillion dollar deficit in our country in terms of infrastructure. it is not just about roads and bridges. is about broadband and water systems. they are health issues as well as infrastructure issues. it is a very exciting initiative that the president acknowledged. we would like something broader than that, but that is the congressional debate in terms of the infrastructure bank on how we can finance these things in a way that leverages our taxpayer

dollars. there would never be enough taxpayer dollars without the public-private partnership and deleveraging. if there is any issue in the proposals, the infrastructure initiative has been most longevity in terms of bipartisan support inside and outside the congress. i would hope that building america to create jobs in america and at the same time build the infrastructure including our schools. overall in conclusion, i think that last night, the president made a masterful proposal to the american people. it was modulated by the need to be bipartisan and enthusiastic in terms of the urgency to get the job done. one thing we were happy about

was that he would be taking it to the public. their feedback on it would further validate the need. they may have other proposals on it. at the end of the day, we will have legislation passed that addresses many of the proposals that the president put forth, hopefully all of them. in any event, i hope you all get home safe and sound in all of this weather. again, we began our caucus this morning with a moment of silence. that will be the tenor of this weekend as we observe the 10th anniversary of 9/11. it is an incredible time in our country's history. maybe some of you were there when a month or so ago they brought the flag that flew over the world trade center. it has been touring the country.

two people took the initiative to take a run the country. it has been repaired by fragments -- remnants of other flags and remnants -- fragments of our history. one of the incredible parts of it is that they stitched into it some of the threads from the flag after abraham lincoln's assassination. abraham lincoln spoke about the silent artillery of time. i hope that the silent artillery of time helps to ease the pain for those affected by 9/11 directly. the whole country and world was affected by it. i hope it will dull the pain but never lessen the memory and regard we have for those who lost their lives that day.

thank you all very much. >> as the house wrap up its business for the week, the subject of the president's jobs program came up during the discussion. this runs just over 10 minutes. y no votes are expected in the house. the house will consider a few bills under suspensionf the rules on monday, a complete st of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business this afternoon. as for the remainder of the week we have a number of items to consider. we will complete action on h.r. 2218, the empowering parents to quality chartered schools act, we expect t consider an additional f.a.a. extension, whether he voten a resolution of disapproval relating to the

president's debt limit increase request and we will consider h.r. 2587, the protecting jobs from government interference act , the first bill in our fall agenda, mr. speaker, relating to job creation. i thank the gentleman from maryland and i yield back the balance of my time. mr. hoyer: i tha the gentleman for the information that's given to us. can i inquire, as the gentleman knows when we left for the august break, there was a very substantial issue with respect to the f.a.a.. does the gentleman know whether there will be any policy writers on the f.a.a. bill? i know there's a reduction in authorized levels but are there any policy writers -- riders in that bridge bill? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i'd say to the gentleman that we are still in discussions with the other body and the other side of the capitol as well as the committee on exactly the

construct of that bill. but i do intend to bring that forward next week. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. i certainly hope that we can do so and i'm pleased to they're that we're having discussions so that -- hear that we're having discussions so that will not be a matter of contention. as you know with had 4,000 f.a.a. employees and 7,100,000 or so contractors, private sector employees who were laid off for peard of time because of the failure to get an agreement with the rider that was included in the bill that we passed over to them. so i'm hopeful that we don't have a recurrence of that situation because it would be very harmful not just to those 7,500 to -- 75,000 people but to the f.a.a. and the generaly. so i'm hopeful we can work that out. the president, mr. leader, spoke

to us last night about a jobs program. i know that you have made comments with reference to shifting focus from cuts to jobs . we think that's appropriate, we appreciate at observation. but do you have any idea of how soon we may get to the president's proposal on job creation and trying to get our economy gring again? you made some, i think, positive comments, the saker has made some positive comments. i think those are welcomed. but can you give me some idea, given the president's sense of urgency, and i think the sense of the american people of the urgency ofrying to create jobs and give them some more resources with which to support themselves and their families and to invest and to

comprehensively try to staunch the loss of teachers and police and fire personnel that each one of our communities is experiencing and i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman and, mr. speaker, i respond by saying, first of all, the president has not sent a text of his bill and we will be awaiting that. i would also like to respon by saying that the president came last night and there were several things and proposals within his speech that seemed to reflect some ars that we can both agree on and build towards consensus. i wuld say to the gentleman that insisting that this body and the two sides here agree on everything is not a reasonable expectation but that i feel and have said so many times since

the president's speech that this is an opportunity for us to set aside the differences that we have because good people can differ and begin to focus on things like allowing for tax relief for small businesses, like allowing for the rollback of regulatory impediments that stand in the wayf small business growth. as the gentleman knows we put we put forward a fall agenda that's focused on those goals. prosals standing in the way of job creation and affording tax relief for small businesses to create an environment for middle class jobs. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. i would hope that we could also have hearings. i understand the gentleman's correct that the text has not been sent up. i expect that to happen in the very near future, probably i would hope before we get back on monday night. i would hope we could start

hearings on all segments of that and see that on which we could get agreement. certainly investing in our infrastructure, investing in our hools and highways, critically important. we believe, and i think that will not only create jobs but it will create jobs that will have a meaningful, positive imct on our infrastructure and our economic competitiveness. the president mentioned about making it in america. as you know we have a make iin america agenda which includes a large number of items, including a manufacturing strategy, the president mentioned, and we all -- it was one of the few times we all stood very enthusiastic when he mentioned it whether it was making cars or refrigerators or other goods here in america that having made in america gods w something that i think we all support. that's part of his agenda as well. and i certainly -- our agenda, and i hope our agenda writ large

on a bipartisan basis. if i might ask you on the front page of the "washington post" today, as you probably saw, is a picture of my district in upper marlboro, maryland, where great flooding as a result of the rains that we received and irene , the supplemental for the fema is coming hopefully from the senate relatively soon. i would ask the gentleman, as you know there are 484 million remains -- $484 million remains in fema's disaster relief fund. not enough to meet the disasters. in the aftermath of 9/11, as the gentleman knows, we appropriated such funds as were necessary. and we did so without paying for them because, in fact, they were real emergencies, real pain,

real displacement, real dislocation, real costs immediately incued by people as a result of the disaster. in that case of a terrorist act, but this case of a disaster. can the gentleman tell me whether or not we will be able to pass in a relatively accelerated fashion sufficient resources for fema without getting into arguments about how in the short term we'll pay for them? we have to pay for things in the long term, i'm for that, but i would ask the gentleman whether or not he would anticipate getting that supplemental done as early possible and hopefully a cle supplemental next week if that is at all possible because we need to respond to the emergencies that confront us. i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: first of all, he knows as well my district was the epicenter of the earthquake

and damage there for that as well as extremely hard hit by the high winds associated with irene, and had almt 900,000 people without power. still people without power. i understand the situation that people are suffering and we need to get them their relief. the gentleman knows i share his commitment to making sure that happens. i also applaud the gentleman for saying that, yes, because hhas always been, mr. speaker, someone who says we have to pay for what we do here. and idon't think that the two are mutually exclusive. i don't and have never said we should be holdi up any relief at all for people who need it. i also ink we can work together to act responsibly. the gentleman has been an advocate always for paying for what we do. and so i would sayas to the request as to where and when we were doing the supplemental, we still have not heard from the administration because as the gentleman knows there's a process that goes on at the

local and state levels to make a determination about the need and to make a determination that the need exceeds the capacities of the local and state governments. so as to then turn to fema and the federal government to come in. so i say to the gentleman we need to understand exactlyhat the costs are going to be. and we will make sure that we find the money. i will also say that we continue to try and get out of these sort of ad hoc way of appropriating for such emergencies the fact is in the past that we in this congress have not adequately funded the disaster accounts and if found ourselves caught short-handed when disaster hits. and as the gentleman knows, part of the debt ceiling agreement included a 10-year rolling average to now be the amount for which we will budget for the

disast fund and hopefully that will get us on a much more even keel and allow for the adequate funding of what'seeded, both in the short-term and long. but as for the supplemental, still waiting for the administrati's determination of what it needed, and if it is f.y. 2012 moneys, we will have the opportunity to roll that into the process of budgeting for the disasters the way we set out to do that in the debt ceiling agreement. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i appreciate the gentleman's observation and also his reference to the head room that we gave in the agreement that was reached in raising the debt ceiling, understanding there are emergencies that occur and you need head room to deal with those emergencies. i'm appreciative of the gentleman's observation. i understand as well, i want to acknowledge that his district was hard hit not only by the earthquake but by irene and i

presume by t rains as well that have compounded that issue. but in any event i appreciate his willingness to ensure that we do, in fact, get a supplemental that will meet the needs, the iediate needs of those people throughout certainly the atlantic coast, but in other parts of the country as well. i appreciate and will look forward to working with him on that objective. as i will look forward to working with him on realizing the early passage of a jobs bill which will in facget americans back to work and get our economy growing is essential. unless >> next, the c-span series "the contenders" about men who ran for the presidency but lost, but

changed the course of history. dan dick cheney talks about his actions on september 11, 2001. after that, president obama in richmond, virginia. >> and now, the c-span serious," profiles of figures who ran for president and lost but changed political history nevertheless. >> this is a portrait of kentucky's henry clay, known to us from our history books as the great compromiser. during his 49-year political career, he served as secretary of state, speaker of the house, and as a u.s. senator. and he was a contender, making five presidential bids, including 1832 against andrew jackson and 1844, when he ran against james k. polk. tonight we are on location in ashland, henry clay's home in lexington, kentucky. for the next nine minutes, we'll -- next 90 minutes, we

will explore the life and legacy of this man, unsuccessful in his long quest for the white house, yet having an outside influence on american history. we are in henry clay's parlor right now. let me introduce you to jim klotter, state historian. 25 years now. why henry clay -- why is he relevant to americans living in our time? >> first of all, his famous caveat, i would rather be right -- comment, i would rather be right than be president, still speaks to us across whatever we are doing, whether we in politics or something else. to do the right thing. he also said that politicians need to remember their country and sacrifice for their country. that is still something we need to remember as well. the man known as the great compromiser, the man that forced -- forged these compromises that not only kept the country together but were constructed.

-- were constructed of the. -- constructive. as well as all the things he did in his life, a clarion call over and over to say to us again and again that we can do a lot of things if we just try like the self-made man, henry clay, did. >> a very complex and interesting time of american history. let's start with some basics about his biography. where and when was he born, and how did he get to kentucky? >> he was born 1777, the seventh child. as father died very young. his mother remarried to a younger man. clay like to think of himself as a self-made man, working himself to the bone, coming up from the ranks from a very poor family. in essence, they came from a fairly wealthy family. they had slaves. they were not that bad off. it was part the purse on the that clay invented for himself.

from there he went on -- his family basically came to kentucky, leaving him back in virginia when he was 14 years old to be on his own. he finally joined them in kentucky when he was 20 years old. as a young lawyer, he married well. the easiest way to get rich is to marry well and he did that. this estate we are in today, an example of what he did with his start and with his promise, and he made himself into someone all americans can admire. >> had been married? >> he married lucretia clay. she was from the heart family, an early family of kentucky. mary into that family gave him entry into a lot of political circles that would have been denied him. she also had some money. that basically had the connections, and he used those connections to move forward.

once he got a foot in the door, he felt he could open the door himself to his own abilities. >> if henry clay was here today fruit time travel, what would he look like? what would he sound like? >> no one could sit down with henry clay and leave without liking him. he was not a handsome man. everyone says he was ugly. there were always comments about his large mouth. they say his mouth was so large, he could not even spit properly. he was a man who liked the ladies, as they said. someone at the time said he could kiss someone with one side of his mouth while he was resting the other side of his mouth. as soon as he opened his mouth, great oratory came out. he could charm you. he had the charisma. a person of the opposite party onetime came to henry clay's home. it was a room filled with people. a room bigger than this. he said, wouldn't you like to meet the famous mr. clay? this democrat said no, sir, i do not choose to suggest myself

to -- subject myself that. he knew that he had that personality, that charisma, the hr, that anyone who would medium -- meet him would like him. >> was this just a genetic gift, or did he -- where did he get -- did he school himself, did he have a mentor? where did he get this from? >> he worked at it. he had heard patrick henry's be back in virginia and he was -- henry's or a tory in virginia and he was amazed at by the force of his oratory. he wanted to be like that. he talked about giving speeches to the cows in the field. he came to kentucky as a lawyer. you had to convict the jury through the force of your words. he developed it. he was almost a self-made or richer, too, because it was -- orator, because it was something

he could turn in a minute and speak on the issues. it was impossible to challenge him in a debate because he would come up with all the facts and figures and when the argument. john c. calhoun prepared to talk for two weeks, and clay got up and demolished him instantly. that is the kind of man that clay was. had he been able to appear on television, he could have really been a very effective politician. of course at that time, you did not campaign for president. there was no radio. was whate of oratoriay you had. >> when we have talked with historians and people here in ashland about him, they keep telling us that he was the equivalent of a rock star in his time. everybody in the country knew him. a country without mass communication -- how was it possible for everybody to know who henry clay was? >> politics was the sports at that time. it was the game that everybody followed.

there were no organized sports as we know it, and things like that. there was not any musical thing. the politics and the oratory, and everybody wanted to follow that as closely as they could. oratory and speeches of clay, or webster, young girls in school would write these down and practice it over and over again. he was like a rock star. it would be followed by adoring people. there is an example of 100,000 people turning out to hear him speak at one time in dayton, ohio. he had children named for him. he had a steamboat named for him. he had everything named for him. he was a man that people like to see, to savor the excellence of henry clay. >> politicians still talk about henry clay today. let's listen to mitch mcconnell , kentucky senior senator, referencing henry clay.

>> he served as the speaker of the united states house of representatives, the secretary of state under president john quincy adams, and of course, as one of the quetta senators to ever walk through the capital. it was also honored to receive his party's nomination for president three times. in 1824, 1832, and 1844. the essence of legislating in the senate has 100 viewpoints to create one law, is compromise. henry clay became known as the great compromiser. he forged a compromise that would keep his precious union together. they did not compromise in the sense of forsaking his principles. rather his skill was to bring

other disparate ideas and forge a consensus among his colleagues. that is a skill we could certainly use more of now. >> during the great debates we went through this summer on the debt ceiling and the budget, there was so much talk about compromise being a lost art. talk to us about that context as a great compromiser room was skills he brought to bear their. >> if clay wanted something happened, he would work very hard to make that happen. he would sit down, find out what they want,, and try to find some common ground, somewhere in the middle. as they say about compromises, they said blessed are the peacemakers. in a sense, clay came at the

problem from both sides. it hurt him politically. at the same time, he felt that he had to do this because the nation required. the constitution is a compromise. and the nation did not compromise on these issues and would tear itself apart. so clay had an urgency behind everything he did any actually compromise some of his principles for the state of the union compromise, giving up an issue to keep the union together. but at the same time the greater thing he would not compromise was the union. he said that one time the key to the heart was the union. bell was the one thing would never compromise on. >> we are talking about echoes of today, the american system which is something he promoted as a major components which includes terps, spending the -- tariffs, you just reference,

spending the money from the terrace on -- from the terrace on -- tariffs on building american infrastructure, and also a big debate on an international bank. we are still assessing how effective these things are in today's economy. what was the country like then, and what was the level of debate over issues such as the tariff and the national bank? >> they were still issues when henry clay camera out and they -- when henry clay came around and they are still issues today. do we have a strong central government or a strong state government? he thought the national government should do things for the nation. he spoke out on that and people spoke against him for that. it heard him and a lot of ways, -- it hurts him in a lot of ways, politically as well. he thought these internal improvements were necessary to tie the country together. otherwise it would fragment. his comment at one time was, i know no north, no self, no east, no west.

to him it was one country, indivisible. these would be ways to keep it together. tariffs would help american industry grow. it did not say a tariff had to be there all the time. and the bank of the united states. at the time the united states was being formed, hard money was the only legal currency. the government did not print paper money. the banks did. that money could go away. clay wanted to make a central bank that we really would not have until the federal reserve system was set up in the 20th century and that became very controversial as well. it hurt him politically when he supported that. he said all this was necessary for the good of the nation. >> it replaced sound like a -- henry clay sounds like a pretty good guy, but he said he had a lot of enemies. it was also known to have some vices. what were his vices? >> is vice this became more prominent the longer he lived as far as the political scene

went. in his youth, he was known as a person who liked to gamble. he said it was a very good political tool. he could sit across from the british and play poker with them and see how much they would block or call his bluff. he thought it was a tool in some ways. he loved to gamble as a lot of people dead. he would lose huge amounts of money one night and went back the next night. his wife lucretia, when chided about his husband gambling, said, i do not know, he usually wins. he did when a lot, but he liked the spirit of gambling. as he got older, he did not do that as much. he preferred wine, but he never really got drunk, but he enjoyed it. all those things for used against him by the moral side of america with all that he was a womanizer, a blasphemer, a

duelist, and a drinker. those things would be used against him over and over again. it was much exaggerated. >> he died in 1852, so his career spans the first half of that 19th century in america, a great time for the formation of the country. and also sectionalism and the fight over slavery. we will be opening up our phone lines for your participation. we will give you the phone numbers now. it will be a little bit of time before get to calls. -- before we get to calls.

we welcome your questions or comments, your input into the spirit of american history. it makes the discussion much richer. we want to also listened to the views of kentucky's junior center, rand paul, about henry clay. >> in replace life is at best a -- henry clay's life is at best mixed message. this compromises were over slavery. one could argue that he rose above sectional strife to keep the union together, to preserve the union, but one could also argue that he was morally wrong and that his decisions on slavery, to extend slavery, were decisions that may have ultimately invited the war that came. that is compromises meant that -- his compromises meant that during the 50 years of his legislative career, he not only accepted slavery but accepted the slave trade. in the name of compromise, henry clay was by most accounts not a cruel master, but he was a master nonetheless of 48 slaves, most of which he did not free during his lifetime and some he only freed belatedly, 28

years after his death. he supported the duty to slave -- the fugitive slave law throughout his career. he compromised on the extension of slavery. when he was the speaker of the house, there was a vote on extending slavery into arkansas. the vote was 88-88. he came down extraordinarily from the speaker's chair to vote in favor of extending slavery to arkansas. which knowledge when he refused to compromise. william lloyd garrison toiled at a small abolitionist press for 30 years, refusing to compromise with clay's desire to send the slaves back to africa. garrison was beaten, chased by mobs, and imprisoned for his principled stand. frederick douglass traveled the country at a time it is at the time. with a free black man, but he

traveled at great personal risk throughout the countryside and prove that he was the living, breathing example that intellect and leadership could come from a recently freed slaves. >> we are back with another guest i would like to introduce. alicestyne turely is a history professor at the university of louisville. welcome to our discussion of henry clay. before we get into the area where you spent a lot of your scholarship, which is slavery in that time, talk to meet in a general sense about your impressions of henry clay. what are your views of this man? >> i take the view of him as a rock star. and popular candidate, it is very impressive. he is a lightning rod. he seems to be able to get people fired up, either for or against him. he has the ability to inspire, and even on the abolitionist

issues, he takes more heat than senators who were actually more -- john c. calhoun, for instance. henry clay is more talk about, written about, focused upon that some of the more prominent political figures. >> we spent time talking about his basics and have not really delve into his position about slavery. explain to us what his philosophical and political positions were about slavery. >> philosophically he was against the idea of slavery. for his time, he would of been -- would have been considered extremely liberal and he was touted as a liberal. -- an abolitionist and an emancipationist. he did not believe in slavery but also did not think americans could survive in america as citizens -- african- americans could not survive as citizens. the african colonization society, 3 them outside

america, -- freedom outside america, it became his platform that he stuck to throughout his presidency -- throughout his political career. he never did deny the fact that he thought african-americans should have their freedom. he just was not willing to risk the political damage anti- slavery could do to his political career and to the country. >> he was a slave holder and an anti-slavery men, and that caused him great grief all his life. had he taken one side or the other, he might have been much better off as a politician, as abraham lincoln in the north did, and got elected with all the northern boats but no southern votes. had clay done that and freed his slaves -- it may have helped him as a politician. >> and the fact that he was not willing to do it and stuck to his emancipation ideas, despite

the criticism, that says a lot. >> what we know about the number of slaves he held here and how he treated them? >> he was recorded at the height of having 35. when he died, he still was holding slaves. he emancipated some, the most famous case in charlotte, who was his servant in washington, who does not want to return to kentucky when he came back, and she takes him to court and loses. he also gets credit for freeing charles and some of the other slaves here on the estate, but he buys slaves, too. he spends time at the markets here in lexington, purchasing slaves, and is known for the quality of slaves that he purchases. again, he is one of those people with a dual nature.

>> people used to talk about slavery in kentucky being a the mildest. it did not really matter. it was still slavery. there was still enough here to cause the heart of very sick and, said one abolitionist. someone said they heard the flash on the back and heard the screams of the slaves, and that was the death knell of liberty. that is the part of clay that he could never quite pick up on as much as the other parts of his life. >> i read that some famous american names around the table for the first american -- african colonization meeting included andrew jackson, his nemesis, daniel webster, james monroe, francis scott key -- how popular west the american colonization movement in this country? >> it was extremely popular. clay is considered one of the major, if not the founder.

he gets federal funding to buy the land. he promotes the idea of resettling african-americans in haiti and canada. he is known for this. he becomes a lightning rod in a free black community in the north, because this is what causes them to unite against henry clay, in the sense of why should we have to believe the -- why should we have to leave the united states? it was not popular in the south. >> liberia was a death trap, and the people in america had been slaves, their forefathers had been here a lot longer than a lot of the white owners, so they were more american in a sense. why should we leave our homes? >> no connections to africa whatsoever, and the fact that clay was trying to remove primarily free blacks from the country, not slaves. that was another controversial point.

>> i am going to introduce a third person to our discussion. ashland is open for tours and interpret saliva of henry clay. -- interprets the life of henry clay. we have a special guest, avery malone, the director of store -- tour operations here. that schedule little bit of a sense of place. oflet's get a little bit sense of place. ashland today is in what part of lexington? >> we were about a mile and half from downtown and about a mile and half from new circle road. we are on the southeast edge of town in a beautiful residential area of lexington. >> how many acres does the house have today, and how many did henry clay have at his zenith? >> today we sit on about 17 acres here at ashland. we have a contract for the first 125 acres that in reply -- henry clay purchased. at the time the state was about

160 acres. >> we should learn a little bit more about his family before we go on tour here as well. he and his wife had how many children? did they all live here? >> they had 11 children. however, they did not all live here at the same time. there was a lot of tragedy in the family. all six of henry and lucretius -- lucretia's daughters would die. only two made it into adulthood. there was a fair bit of tragedy here. >> the house interprets henry clay and what time of his life? >> it interprets henry clay's throughout his life. we show a picture of his birthplace. it goes until his death in 1852. we talk about the span of his life and his political career. as well as his farming and legal career. >> what we are going to see now is what visitors would see as they tour the first floor of the estate. take us on a bit of the tour, if you would. >> we are in the foyer right

now, where the clay family would have welcomed their guests. they established a long legacy of welcoming guests here at ashland. we have next to the drawing room, where the family entertained the guests. this is where we are filming to nine. many of their important guests would have come to this room. it was the most formal room in the house. we also have the dining room, where you can see lucretia's ice cream service that on the table. it was a gift purchased in france, and lucretia was particularly known for her strawberry ice cream. i would like to take you next into the study. in the original house, this room was used by henry clay like a home office for his three careers. he of course was a former, a -- a farmer, a lawyer, and a

statesman. i would like to draw your attention to his portfolio and document box. currently we have the portfolio on loan to us from the supreme court. henry clay would have used these items when he went to washington, d.c. we also have a pair of stirrups that say h. clay. as a farmer, he believed in breeding the best to the best. because of this philosophy, 11 kentucky derby winners can draw their bloodlines back here to ashland. next, we have the library. henry clay began his legal career in 1797. we have his law license on the wall. this was issued to him in 1797 in virginia. he would turn to his legal career throughout his life as a source of revenue. his legal career and his great oratory helped define who he was.

>> we will be back with you throughout the program. you will be available to answer some of our questions and take us on a tour through some other places of the house. avery malone, thank you very much for this view of ashland. who are some of the famous people he may have posted here? -- hosted here? >> william henry harrison met with clay here. martin van buren came here two years before they thought they would be running against each other in 1844. he stayed four or five days. the question is -- did they talk about trying to make the issue go away of the annexation of texas? both of them oppose the annexation of texas. did they meet in rooms like this and talk over that? we do not know. a lot of famous people have been to this area. all of those people wanted to see henry clay. all the foreign visitors who

went beyond the mountains. they wanted to come to lexington, the cultural center of the west and the political center of the west with henry clay here. >> we will take our first of your phone calls from brian in springfield, ill.. welcome to our conversation about henry clay. >> i want to thank c-span for this series. it is a great idea. i'm calling from springfield. i wanted to ask the panel about 1824 and the corrupt bargain charge against henry clay when he backed john quincy adams and accepted the secretary of state position. is that the reason we are referring to henry clay as a contender instead of president? >> the 1824 election. >> that was used against henry clay the rest of his life. he made major political mistakes. there were four people in that race and the constitution said the three top vote getters would go to the assembly.

he was fourth on that list. he was speaker at the time, he would be able to use his vast popularity to campaign in the house of representatives. he did not do it. he became the president-maker, not the president. before he even left kentucky, he said he wanted to favor john quincy adams for president. adams had the same viewpoints. he called jackson on mere general. clay always feared the napoleons of the world. america might elected general. they would use some pretext to take over and become a dictator. clay went to washington knowing he was going to support adams. his mistake was not supporting adams. adams did not carry but nine states. clay made the big mistake -- he accepted the offer of the

secretary of state position from john quincy adams. that was a stepping stone to presidency. half of the people said he should not do it, and half of them said he should. he could not turn it down. it was used against him as a corrupt bargain. >> andrew jackson was his great nemesis. what was jackson's position on slavery? >> much more hostile than one of the first presidents. he marched on the floor to clear out what he considered a threat from florida. one of his major campaigns into florida was the issue of free blacks with british support along with native americans who were raiding into american territory, taking slaves out of the united states. he was very very hostile toward any idea of freedom. >> our next call is from scott from boston.

do you have and henry clay question? >> i went to high school in eastport, maine. on those islands, a little injury island there. very close to canada. we all know that henry clay had insisted that the island had been taken by the british after the war of 1812. he insisted that the island be returned to the united states. even john quincy adams was willing to let canada have the island. i wonder if any of the historians know why he was so adamant on the return of moose island in eastport. >> he took the strongest position of all the american delegates.

he wanted america to have a strong position. adams was afraid they would not get a treaty if they took this position. clay tried to get everything he could. i am not sure on moose island. i hope there is another historian out there that can tell us. >> we will get started live on clay's antagonism toward the british. what can you tell us on this point? >> he thought the british were still trying to hold on, punish america with the war of 1812. he definitely wanted a war with england. he felt america, despite the fact that we had a very small army and navy, could still beat england. i do not know if that was pride or ego, but it was clay. -- what that was with clay. i often wonder if it had something to do with the british asking african americans to fight against americans during the war of 1812. that could have been a part of it. >> when he was a young man,

apparently his father's grave had just been dug, there was a story that british soldiers came supposedly into the household to raid the household and they thrust their swords into the freshly dug grave thinking there would be goods hidden there. he had an antipathy toward the british very early. when he got to britain after the peace treaty had been signed, he stayed over there for several months and met all the british people. he came back with a different view of the british. he still feared them and thought they were trying to bully america, but he was associated with royalty so much, a little may have rubbed off on him. >> let's talk about the 1832 election. he faced off against andrew jackson for the presidency. >> it was an election henry clay could not win.

andrew jackson was still popular. the thing that makes historians upset with jackson, like his indian policies, his policies toward african americans, those are positives in his era. in the south particularly. clay also faced the fact that there was a third party out there. it took a sizable percentage of the vote. that was the party known as the anti-masonic party. the whole issue of masonry which we still here today. there are movies about it. the anti-masonic party thought slavery should be done with. -- masons and should be done away with. >> clay was a mason? >> both jackson and clay were masons. jackson was popular and the bank issue came up where clay favored a recharger of the ter ofal bank -- recharge

the national bank of america. jackson vetoed it. clay thought it would be a popular issue that people would go to him and say this was the right thing to do. he did not realize that jackson's veto message was a great political message. against this corporate monopoly, this blight -- this bank. clay could not win on this issue. >> how close was the election? >> he got 49 electoral votes, jackson got 219. >> c-span has a web site for this series. some video there that you not see during this production. we have details about the losing presidential elections at c-span.org/thecontenders. let's return to avery malone. now on the second floor. >> we are in the bedroom right now and you can see the bed behind me. it is henry clay's 1830's bed. we even have a letter where he

talks about how comfortable this bed was and it did not even have a bed bugs. we even have his duelling pistols purchased in 1799. later, they were altered a bit. we believe that they went to war in mexico with his son. henry was in two duels, one with humphrey marshall and one with john randolph. the duel with john randolph takes back -- takes us back to when he was speaker of the house. he was chosen as speaker of the house because they thought he could meet john randolph on the floor or on the field. happened that they met on the field. john randolph compared henry clay to a character in the novel tom jones and called him a card cheat on the senate floor. clay defended himself and -- was not there to defend himself and thought no man would have to endure this insult to his honor. he challenged ran off to a duel.

randolph was a great shot and clay was not. randolph decided he did not want to deprive lucretia or the nation of henry clay and decided to shoot at the ground. nobody was seriously injured in either of his tools. -- his duels. >> was -- how long was dueling part of american political life? >> duelling goes back to the 1860's. >> henry clay knew he was not a great shot. why did he get involved in it? >> it was the whole issue of honor. clay had a great sense of honor. sometimes you had to defend it. sometimes you defended through newspaper stories, but sometimes they got so bad that the only way to defend it was to challenge someone. if they answered the challenge, then he twice went to the dueling grounds. randolph was particularly -- >> this was randolph of roanoke, right? >> yes.

a man who is very this century. -- very eccentric. he had a lot of great quotes of henry clay. he said that henry clay was like a rotten apple in the moonlight. he both shines and stinks. that is a great vision there. he admired clay because clay had the ability to do things. as a dying man, he wanted to come to the floor of the senate to listen to clay's magnificent voice one more time. >> our next phone call is from david in san francisco. >> one quick comment -- anyone who thinks that today's politics is overly divided should really take a look at the political divisions of the jacksonian era. the question is this -- do you find it a bit ironic that the republican party, which was

formed out of the whig party, has evolved from a party founded by henry clay on the basis of public works and federal investment and local projects, into one that opposes all of that, particularly with mitch mcconnell's comments. >> basically, the whig party evolved into the republican party. abraham lincoln was a republican himself. in modern days, there were probably aspects of both of those. the democratic party has a lot of the simple fractions of the whig party, some business oriented sections, come from the whig party. in a sense, he lives on in both parties. maybe he does not live on and not in both parties.

ridgy now and both parties. -- enough in both parties. >> comments on that question? >> you mentioned the 1830's. you have the rise of the anti- slavery society who becomes a form. he does develop some democratic ideals. he is definitely against the idea in congress, which many southerners and northerners wanted for the sake of freedom. he overrules that idea. he wants these petitions. even though he does not support it, he wants it heard. >> before we get too far into the 1830's, we have not spent time on one of the three great compromises he is known for. the missouri compromise. will you talk about the politics around that? >> missouri wanted to come into the union in 1820. the question is -- would it be a slave state or not? maine, another state was to come in at the same time, so they made one slave and one

free. the whole question of slavery is, it has always been there, smoldering like a fire. the debates were -- where was slavery and would it go on? would it be everywhere in the nation? would there be attempts to limit it completely? clay was not the man that made the first compromise. a lot of the ideas were here, but a lot of other people -- it was not really his compromise. it seemed like a dud. -- it seems like it is done. free blacks would not be able to go into misery according to the -- missouri according to the constitution. free citizen should be able to go anywhere. this is the compromise that clay made. he worked out a very convoluted

answer to that that satisfied everybody, and at the same time, it ended the crisis. to clay, slavery is a real thorn in his side. he could never come up with a solution on that. if it is a wound, it was a self-inflicted wound, because he was a slave owner. >> he starts out with people believing he is an emancipationist. and that he is on the north's side. over time, he is hated by both the north and south. it is a no-win situation for him. >> we are halfway through our discussion on henry clay, who ran through the white house for most of his political career. five times in total, three times as his party's nominee, and always unsuccessful. but with a great effect on future of this country. we are going to take a short break and be back at ashland, his home in lexington, kentucky, to talk more.

>> "the contenders," and our look at henry clay, continues in a moment. "the contenders" features people who ran for president and lost. but change political history never the less. our series continues next week traveling to the augusta, ga. and talk with historians with james g. blaine. it airs live every friday night at 8:00 eastern. for more information, got to cspan.org to find biographies of all the candidates, historians appraisals, and portions of the speeches. we now return to kentucky and our discussion on the life of henry clay. >> welcome back to ashland, the home of henry clay in lexington, ky.

a place that has been preserved and is open for tours. people spend their professional lives who curate this place of that you will be inspired to visit them after our discussion tonight about henry clay. let me reintroduce you to our guests. alicestyne turely is a professor of history at the university of louisville. tell us about that. >> we were colleagues at georgetown college, where i teach history right now. they are very close. >> when your colleagues, did to debate a lot? >> we did. it is hard to the debate someone like james cotter. -- jim klotter. he is definitely a scholar on kentucky history. i try to keep up. >> 25 years as state historian.

what does that job entail? >> it is a self-defined job. it involves writing the history of the state. i try to do that. in involves working with people who are writing about kentucky historyi tried to help those who write about history, offering advice and suggestions. staying out of their way, sometimes. it also entails going around and giving talks and things like that to tell the story of the state and the people who live here. >> avery malone is with us. she is the director of tour operations here at ashland. tell us about how many people come to this place every year and how it is financed. >> it varies by season how many people you will find here. the tourists come when the leaves change, at christmas, and throughout the summer. we have somewhere around 15,000 per year come to see us. we are financed through a variety of methods and means.

we are very fortunate to have all of our visitors and all the friends of ashland who donate to keep us open and to tell the public about henry clay and the compromise. >> what year did this open for tours? >> we opened in 1954 taurus. -- for tours. this was only two years after henry clay's great granddaughter died. she started the henry clay memorial foundation. her son was here until 1959, so we were only open downstairs. after he moved out, we moved throughout the house. >> let's take another question from shall be in california. in california.lby >> i am also a great-grandson of a mr. laue , who had helped with the and the sibilate -- and with the anti-slavery movement.

he had a hardware store and when slaves would come into town and they needed to be housed, his secret and magical phrase was, "we have some two-penny nails in." my grandmother knew there was some kind of magical significance to that. when she was given a horse, she named the horse two-penny nails. perhaps we can remember all those slaves they were able to find freedom. i think that shows what a great country this is. we are lucky to have c-span. >> we do need your question. >> i saw masonry emblems on the buildings in the beautiful city of louisville, ky. my question is -- could you tell us what association henry clay may have had with that

city? >> his son, henry clay jr., lived in lexington. and in little. -- louisville. clay jr. used some of his life money to buy a lot of property. he became quite well the as a -- quite wealthy as a young man. that son was killed in the mexican war. clay would visit their and help his son. it was a rival of lexington, though. will bill eclipsed their -- louisville eclipsed their population in the 1830's for the first time. lexington was a backwater. his connection with lowell was a mixed one -- louisville was a mixed one. heads generally supported them

-- is generally supported the whig side. >> let's go to willie in ohio. >> i would like to note -- any connection, at any association, i have always been under the impression former heavyweight champion cassius clay always said that was his slave name. any association at all? >> certainly the name stands out for americans because he was considered an abolitionist in lexington and ran an anti- slavery newspaper. my understanding -- i do not think there was a real family connection with cassius clay. >> there was a story for "the new yorker" once that i did some research for -- the man known as mohammad ali was originally known as cassius clay and was named for the abolitionist leader.

the family he came from was from western kentucky. he took the name because cassius clay was an abolitionist or anti-slavery men. >> the election of 1840, henry clay tries for his whig party nomination. he was succeeded in that quest -- defeated in that quest by whom? >> and william henry harrison. >> and harrison offered clay the vice presidency? >> i am not sure about that. it would have been rotten. >> why did he offer him his cabinet? >> he had some positions in indiana and other places and had some history of

accomplishments. not a great deal. clay was expecting to get the presidency. it was a time when the whig party thought it would win. we policies look like they would be needed to get out of the depression. they had a great shot of beating the incumbent, martin van buren. this is one of the examples where henry clay is not a good politician. he had been in congress, but was not a good manager. he trusted his own instincts too much. he did not take the advice of other people. they got a rule changed in the condition that clay, who had the majority of the vote, now said they would vote by delegation. however the state voted, the whole state voted for that person. that negated claes advantage.

clay's advantage. harrison realize that clay was very important in the whig party. that is why he offered clay the positions. he wanted to make peace, not have clay on the opposite side. clay basically said he would rather stay where he is because he thinks there are more important things to do there and he does not want to be associated with harrison. >> our next caller is bill in lexington, ky. >> i am calling from lexington. i am absolutely -- i am actually a teacher at henry clay high school, right up the street. i would like to ask whether the panelists think henry clay's reputation as a compromise are hurt his chances of being president and whether or not his losses as president, a three-time loser, actually made it possible for him to have a greater impact and a more positive one on the country through a long legislative career? >> i am going to ask all three of our guests to answer that question. let's start with you, alicestyne turely.

>> it definitely does hurt him. he is unwilling to change his position on taxes, so that -- on texas, so that upsets the southerners. his stand on anti-slavery upsets new england and the northerners. he is trying to straddle the fence and i think it hurts him more than help them. -- helped him. >> avery malone, the question. did his years as a compromise or ultimately hurt him in his quest for the presidency? what do you tell people here? >> i am sure that i know that being a compromiser is not universally popular during the present time when, it -- when someone is taking a position of power. usually, you want someone to take a strong stance. >> emerson said that consistency was the hobgoblin of small minds. >> clay was not consistent all of his life. he was one time opposed and

later on he favored. he changed different positions overtime. his enemies used that against him and said he was not consistent. he would compromise and as long as he was getting votes. i do not think that was the case. he was willing to make a change and say he had been wrong. that sometimes would cost politicians. it cost him. >> we had an earlier caller reference the treaty. -- the treaty of ghent. we talked about henry clay and the british. what was the treaty of all against? >> it ended the war of 1812, which americans were not winning at the time. it was worse because they thought the british would still be fighting napoleon. napoleon was out of the way by the time the deliberations started. america had not negotiated from a place of strength. in a sense, it was the best treaty they could get. they did the best they could.

it is one of our best delegations ever. henry clay and three other people of importance. it takes a long time to come about, but given the fact that they did not have a lot to work with, they came out with a very strong treaty. it did not heard that and jackson had won a battle after the treaty had been signed. it was almost like the two things came at the same time that would have won the war, even though the treaty had been signed after the battle. -- both for the battle had been fought. >> could you tell us about his jacket and its significance? >> it is the jacket that he would have been given to negotiate peace. this is very significant in that it is one of the few pieces that belonged to henry clay. it also served as an artifact during the time that kentucky a&m was here. they used the jacket as an artifact then as well.

>> a phone call from michael in denver. >> we grew up in milwaukee, wisconsin. in the 1950's, we went to henry clay elementary school. he has always been a source of fascination for me. i used to come to love will and lexington on business and i am sorry i did not realize you guys were there. i have a very simple question. this best-selling biography on him, called "henry clay, the essential american," is very popular. i am wondering if you have read it and would be a good choice for me to learn about henry clay or do you have something else to suggest? thank you very much. >> we happen to have that book here. it is one of several books available in the bookstore. they have a number of biographies. what would be the book you would pick up about henry clay? >> that is the most recent biography.

it has a lot of strength. it has the human side of henry clay. it is the newest biography. if you want political emphasis, there is one about 20 years old that is about the same size. but if you want to start with something smaller, there was a book done many years ago that had a chapter on henry clay. that is a good introduction about henry clay. if you want to compare clay and calhoun and webster, the great triumph for, -- the great triumvirate. if it's a good place to start with a there is a book from the family legacy of henry clay. it comes out next month. it takes place beyond his lifetime to the present.

>> for him, definitely the triumvirate. those bring in daniel webster and some of the other important figures of the time. for african-americans, it puts it in perspective as far as what is going on in the country and what the great debates are about. i have not read the newer version. i am waiting for jim's book that is coming out. that will be the next one i will pick up to read. >> the working title is "the great rejection, henry clay and the american presidency." the great rejection as a "that was said about play at the end of his life. i am about to finish writing it early next month. then i have to go to the publication process. it is about one year away.

>> the current speaker of the house has many of the powers he can look back to the speakership of henry clay. he spoke about henry clay recently. let's listen to speaker john boehner. >> henry clay was the first, what i call, strong speaker of the house -- the real leader of the house. when our country was founded and the congress was put together, the first speakers over the first 20 years or so came out of the english parliament system. they were more of a referee. they did not have any real power. but clay was the first real speaker of the house that had some power. there are a lot of things you can say about the role of the speaker. henry clay was clearly a very strong speaker. if you look at this time between 1820-1860, there was no one person in the united states

more responsible for holding our union together man henry clay. >> by the way, that was from an event that was organized where they invited all living speakers to talk about the role of speakers. it was held here. it is in our video library if you like to go back and watch it. quite an interesting event. bipartisan discussion about the role of speakers. to both of you, how did henry clay enhance the powers of the speaker? >> the force of his personality. no one wanted to debate him. certainly he had the force to win the argument. i think that alone had great influence in power. i do not know if any of the speaker could be compared to. -- any other speaker could be compared to. >> what about the power of committee assignments? >> the committees basically

understood that the speaker had the power to put the people he wanted on the committee. he was known as a fair man. that was very important. both sides of the aisle respected him and his opinions. he was never overwritten. he was basically fair in the makeup of the committees. when he knew there is a certain issue coming up, he would put his friends to that issue if he wanted the issue to go a certain way. he also changed the rules. they gave the speaker more power. cut off debate. limit debate. stuff like thatit allowed him to be a much more important, powerful figure than anyone before him. his force and is well is as -- his force and his will is as important as anything else. >> the next telephone call is from raymond in michigan. hello, raymond. ramin, we are going to move on. let's take a call from chevy chase, md.. >> good evening.

lincoln wasn't -- once referred to play as his ideal of a -- to play as his goal ideal of a statement. -- statesman. i always believed the men had never met, however, recently i came across a web page to the purported to show a book and was described by clay to lincoln. -- inscribed by clay to lincoln. could the panel comment on this? what is the thinking now? the clay and lincoln ever meet? -- did play and lincoln ever -- did clay and lincoln ever meet? >> we do not know, basically. there is one person who left a memoir that said that person had seen the two in lexington. abraham lincoln married mary todd lincoln. mary todd lincoln, who was from lexington -- her family was very closely allied with the clay's. her family knew the classes. she came to kentucky several

times. he certainly heard henry clay speak. whether they met is unknown. can you not imagine what a great time it would have been? you have to think they tried to meet its nothing else. if lincoln had come to ashland, the two of them would sit in the parlor. clay would say something and mr. clinton would say, "that reminds me of a story." they would go back and forth. but clinton never said he met clay. -- clinton never said he met clay. -- lincoln never said he met play. in think he would have said that had he met him he did say in 18601864 things to write the inaugural with. abraham effect on lincoln was important in the douglas debates.

lincoln said his views of henry clay were the views of abraham lincoln as well. >> we are going to take a call and then we must spend some time talking about the 1844 election. let's listen to a question from charles i in california. >> hello. my question is this -- i am at a kentuckian. i was born and raised in kentucky, the home of rosemary clooney. i understand from the panel that henry clay is considered the favorite son of kentucky. although he and lincoln were members of the whig party, i do not understand how he could be the favorite son and not abraham lincoln who, when he met harriet beecher stowe, he said "you are the little lady who started this great war." she is never mentioned, nor is of cocom.

-- neither is uncle tom. neither are mentioned as being great in their time. yet all the times in which they live and even today, their influence is greatly felt, especially by many african- americans who are historically informed. >> abraham lincoln -- kentucky -- he may have started off being a friend of kentucky, but with the immense a positive proclamation was issued the decay -- when the emancipation proclamation was issued he became a hated figure in kentucky. henry clay considered himself a westerner, but many southerners would choose him over a remington, who was certainly -- over abraham lincoln, who was certainly considered a traitor -- over lincoln, who is certainly a traitor to the kentucky cause. harriet beecher stowe is a popular kentucky figure. lincoln and that relationship, he is more popular in the north

and new england than he ever becomes a in the south, particularly at the end of the civil war. >> lincoln in the 1860's -- in 1860 received five votes in his home county. even his in-laws did not vote for him. he received something like 1000 votes in the state of kentucky. to vote for holtz-eakin in 1860 -- to vote for abraham lincoln in 1860 in kentucky would be like voting for -- to vote for clinton in the 1860's in kentucky would be like voting for -- many kentucky and is turned against the administration. the state becomes almost broken federate by the end of the war. lincoln and his party are on the outs in kentucky for a long time. it is not until the 20th century that kentucky starts to reclaim abraham lincoln. they built a memorial to his

birthplace. the lincoln commission was commissioned in the 21st century. kentucky has reclaimed lincoln belatedly, but he was on the wrong side after the war. >> how far from where we are physically it is the birth place? >> probably an hour and 15 minute drive on the interstate. >> in that time period, how long would it have taken? >> it took longer to take -- it took longer to go from lexington to franklin. that was a distance of about 25 miles. it took all day. that is why they were better -- why they wanted to build better roads and canals. >> we had a brief picture of an artifact you have here in the collection, which has an inscription to abraham lincoln. can you tell us what we are looking at? >> this book is actually called "the life and speeches of henry clay." there is an inscription that says "to abraham lincoln with costa regards to french ship, ashland h -- "to abraham lincoln with constant regards to friendship, ashland h. clay.

we believe that this book was given to abraham lincoln from clay as a gift in exchange for what we believe lincoln would have given as a condolence gift after his son was killed in the mexican american war. >> we do not know the's were delivered personally. >> we do not. we do not know if they ever met. there is no documentation to say that they ever had. we do know that henry clay did know abraham lincoln. the must've been some kind of relationship based on this artifact. >> we have a little less than 20 minutes left. henry clay is the first of our 14 contenders at our look in american -- at our look at american history. let us take a call from robin. >> i have three questions. i will try to go really fast. claes contradictions were

mentioned. his apparent connection to abolitionist was mentioned. i am curious to know whether he changed his mind or, was it merely political posturing? >> the second question, another caller mentioned the two cassius clay's. i am curious whether henry clay or any of this household members or immediate family members had any known slave descendants like jefferson. politicians also -- have -- politicians often have a political lineage. is it known if any other prominent politicians share henry clay's minutes. lineage?clay's >> before you go, have you been here? we lost her. she lives so close by, we were wondering if she had been here. abolitionists -- a position change or posturing? >> i think it would be wrong to call henry clay and

abolitionist. he was definitely not an abolitionist. he was for the idea of emancipation. he never changed his position on that. as we discussed earlier, especially in the election of 1840, it hurt him. he tries to straddle the fence, but he never backs away from his idea of emancipation. >> cassius clay. >> play spoke out for the first time publicly against slavery in a letter to the local papers. 50 years later he does the same thing again when they're trying to get slavery abolished. it did not happen. they took basically the same stance. he was pretty consistent over a 50 year period. over those 50 years the world change around him, but his views were still the same. >> how about the two cassius

clay's? >> i know of no -- a question of whether or not there were african-american -- i am not aware of that. >> did he have any descendants who were african-american? >> if there is one story that appeared 40 years after henry clay's death. a woman said she had been a mistress of henry clay. i have found nothing to substantiate that story. there are several henry clay's in this area. she could have been mixed up with somebody else. a list and has been compiled and i did not see her and name their anywhere. i do not think that happen. cassius clay, probably not. and offspring showed up at his door one day at the kansas play home in kentucky. -- at the cassius clay home in kentucky. the shock of that caused the white to divorce ed henry cassius clay. if anybody had the same

connection to play as far as being related to play, i am not sure if i know of anybody else. >> there is no family dynasty then? >> i do not think so. >> the 1844 election against james paul, this time clay was -- james polk, this time clay was successful in obtaining the whig nomination. everyone says it was one of the dirtiest campaigns conducted. what were the issues or was it real personal politics? >> clay went in as a favorite on this for a change. james capel was the first dark horse candidate -- james k. polk was the first dark horse candidate for presidency. he went in hoping to be vice president and well-being the presidential nomination -- presidential nominee. clay had been organizing his campaign for two years. the rashid music with clay's picture. -- there was sheet music with

clay's picture. there were buttons and metals. the democrats had to attack. they attacked played pretty -- played pretty -- play heavily on all of the issues. the 1844 election with the perfect storm. he wrote to many letters and said to many things on texas annexation, which was a big issue at the time. all of the issues of preventing gambling and carousing came back ever used against clay. i think it is for a combination of things. poult said we needed to annex texas. no. abolitionist opposed to that. clay opposed annexation unlisted to place on a peaceful basis. he went against manifest destiny and the national mood. i do not think that defeats him

vote. he wins some votes because of his stand on that as well as loses some votes. there are a whole slew of issues. issues of fraud, bad luck, and things like that. >> you hear a lot about this being an early example of politics of personal destruction. was this from both sides? was henry clay a practitioner of those kinds of politics? >> he certainly trusted the wrong people in the 1844 campaign. i think he was his own worst enemy. he does not listen to advisers. this is still a problem for him in 1844. he believes his own press that he is the favorite. the does not see the challenge as serious. he is not really campaigning. he shoots himself in the foot a couple of tons. >> his son went to fight in the war against mexico. what happened? >> he was killed in the war.

his son has lost his wife a few years before. he was very depressed. it was almost like he was trying to go off to fight. he is wounded and tells his men to retreat. they do and he is killed. it hits henry clay very hard. he makes an anti-war speech. he basically says, i support the troops, but i oppose the war. it is a speech that many people considered a very courageous speech at the time. it went against the national mood in the south. >> less take another call this is from new jersey. >> hello. i was wondering if your panelists could talk a little bit about the relationship between john quincy adams and henry clay.

>> thank you. >> clay and adams were a very mismatched couple. adams had a new england, puritan background. he was critical of everybody, including himself. he is critical. he is a man of great talent. he speaks many foreign languages. he is well versed on the presidency. he was the son of a president. there is a great passage in one of his diaries. adams is getting up at 4:00 in the morning and clay is getting back from a night of card playing. he said it was wrong. it was the debauchery of henry clay. you could turn it around henry clay was a very different type of person. they constantly tweet each

other and talk to each other. they did not like each other in a lot of ways, but they respected each other. when clay makes john quincy adams the president of the united states in 1825, he was a very loyal secretary of state. everybody expected they would fight and they would break away from each other. they had never been friends, but they're respectful of each other for the rest of their lives. >> we are reaching back into the earlier part of henry clay's career. this is a good time to look at one of ashland's most prized possessions. it is the washington goblet. quite this is the washington goblet. this was the item of greatest patriotic speculation in henry -- inspiration in henry clay's at home. it is chipped and broken. this is out in the clay received it. he received from an elderly lady at a -- as a gift. it had belonged to george

washington through most of the revolutionary war. here is the second artefact and at his house. he used it to connect to early nationhood and as an object to venerate george washington. he felt washington, as many throughout the country did, was a great inspiration to our country and hope to inspire patriotism to people who visited aslan. -- ashland. >> we are quickly running out of time. let me ask you about henry clay and his wife. he had such a long political career. he was in washington so frequently. did the family moved to washington, or did they remain behind? >> his family did go with him to washington early on. the 1830's was the last time lucretia would go with henry clay to washington. she had plenty on the farm to a deeper busy. -- keep her busy. she had children and get a children to -- children and grandchildren to occupy her

time. she was not one to enjoy the limelight. she was not heavy into fashion and attention. she enjoyed the solace and aslan provided. -- solace ashland provided. in the later part of henry clay's life, he was gone as much as he was at home some have surmised that henry clay was addicted to travel, which is one thing we would all probably like to do more of. he had gone quite recently to campaign. on ships and to see his daughter in new orleans. christ our next call is from kentucky. this is gerald. >> really enjoy the program. my not -- my last name is watkins. henry clay was my seventh cousin. his grandmother, sarah watkins, was sister to my and grandfather. i am real proud of in reply and that connection. -- proud of henry clay and that connection.

my question is -- the three times he won the nomination, it seems like the timing was really not good for his candidacy. do you believe there was a presidential election during his time of prominence that would have been better timing, that he could have won the presidency? >> he could have won in 1840 pretty reasonably. in 1848, zachary taylor was the whig nominee. taylor had done nothing in his background. -- had done nothing other than be a general. clay very reluctantly try to get the nomination in 1848 and failed. had clay gotten that nomination, i think he would have won. the democrats were divided that year. clay was quoted by someone as saying that the nearest he could get the nomination, his friends were basically deserting him.

clay felt it was a betrayal of all the things sea, could have done. kraits us move ahead to 1850. henry clay's last big effort on public policy. what was the compromise all about? set the stage for us. >> 1850, the decision about the expansion of slavery, house lay states come in as free or slave -- how slave states come in as free or slave holding, the idea of strengthening the fugitive slave law becomes a one of the breaking points. the idea of california. the idea was california could make their own decision about whether or not sleighs to be held in the states. -- slaves could be held in the states. misery comes in -- missouri

comes in. new mexico and arizona. now we are truly into the manifest destiny or the united states reaches from coast to coast. for african-americans, the fugitive slave law becomes a major issue in american politics leading up to the civil war. >> on the compromise of 1850, henry clay was not successful. he was -- how did it all turned out? >> in 1849, and because back to the senate. -- he comes back to the senate after his defeat in 1844. they had been at home. he has nothing to gain. he is not going to run for president anymore. he comes out of retirement and hopes to save the country, in his mind, one more time. 1850 was the compromise. in missouri, he broke all the roles. -- all the rules. clay goes off to rhode island

and the bill does pass the smell under stephen douglas. clay thought this would bring peace in his lifetime. he was roundly supported on this. he died two years later. within a decade of that, the civil war began. >> henry clay died in 1862. the is buried where? >> in lexington at the cemetery. >> right nearby. we as a video of his grave site. his funeral was quite the event. 1,000 mile trained court polished. >> his trusted servant car -- his trusted servant, charles, is by his side to the very end with the funeral pyre. people came from all over. the trains are coming in. thousands of people in lexington came for the funeral. it is national news. >> at the thing about that

monument, i think he has more images in the nation's capital than any other individual. life magazine said he was one of the most influential americans at -- of all time. i think the best money but to play is not any of those things. it isthe fact that henry clay pulled a divided nation together, the nation is still one nation, at is still one democracy, and is still trying very hard. >> a very quick call from bowling green, ky. do you have a quick question for us? >> why do you suppose henry clay was not interested in a 1's perspective on slavery? -- in 81's perspective on slavery? -- in a woman's perspective on slavery? the reason i ask the question, a european-victorian woman had

traveled to america to kentucky in 1835. >> i have to interrupt you. we have very little time. >> she was sent by britain. that was a note to play not to like her. -- that was enough for clade not to like her. he had principles about a woman was replaced. >> had women been able to vote, at henry clay would have been president. at the outset, women in america like henry clay. everybody uniformly said that women like henry clay and would have voted for him. she came to-land. she did not like the children, but she liked henry clay. that was part of the nation and america at this time. contradictions and controversy in his life. >> views on why a uniquely was important to the country? >> the polarized and made america make a decision on slavery. the 1850 compromise, african-

americans fled to canada. it increased public awareness of slavery in america. that was his major contribution, i think. >> we adjusted the surface of a 49-year political career of henry clay. our first of 14 contenders. men who did not achieve their quest for the brevity, a chain of american history. -- their quest for the presidency, but changed american history. thank you to our guests. we have a couple of other quick things. the henry clay memorial foundation for ashland and for sharing it around the country for us tonight. the executive director and the curator -- outstanding help to our crew in putting the program together. a personal thank you to the former board chairman who

traveled all the way to kentucky to be with us. history buffs as they are as we caught the first of our contender series. thanks for being with us. we hope to learn more tonight on the life of henry clay. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the contenders features profiles of key figures who ran for president and lost. they change political history, nevertheless. our live look to the contender'' continues next friday. we will travel to augusta, maine, talked to historians, and

take your calls about the presidential campaign of james g. blaine. for more information on our series, the to our website at c- span.org where you will find a schedule of the series, biographies of all the candidates, and portions of their speeches when available. that is all at the contenders -- thecontenders.cspan.org. >> neck, a vice president dick cheney talks about his actions of 2001. after that, for that obama followed by a congressional reaction to the president of three jobs proposal. >> this weekend, the tenure anniversary of 9/11 on the c- span network with live coverage from each of the memorial sites -- new york city, shanksville, pa., and the pentagon. here is our live schedule.

saturday on c-span, the flight 93 national memorial center -- ceremony. sunday morning at 8:30, a memorial ceremony from the world trade center site with president obama and former president bush. on c-span2 at 9:00, vice president joe biden at the pentagon. at>> the day after the attacks, this weekend on american history on c-span3, september 12. on american artifacts, from the smithsonian, recovered objects from new york, the pentagon, and pennsylvania. northwestern university professional -- professor on societal changes in the first

half of the 19th century led to the births akaba women's rights movement. go to our website. >> watch more video of the candidates, see what political reporters are saying, and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's website for campaign 2012. easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns. candidate bios and the latest polling data, plus links to c- span media partners in the early primary and caucus states, all at -- c-span.org/campaign2012. >> next, former vice president dick cheney talks about the terrorist attacks on september 11, 2001, and the iraq war. the event takes place at the

enterprise institute in washington. this just -- this is just over an hour and 10 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to the american enterprise institute. i am the vice-president for foreign and defense policy studies here. let me first remind everybody to please turn off their telephones or put them on vibrate. and ask everybody when the session ends, to please remit -- please remain seated in order to allow our speakers to leave the room. a final housekeeping note, booksellers are available with the book in the reception after the end of the event. when aei president arthur brooks, who unfortunately could not be here, invited vice president cheney to join us today, it was with a view to remembering get tax of -- remembering the attacks of the 9/11, 10 years later, and considering some of the lessons learned and those that were not. since that day, the person to --

the first thing to recall about 9/11 and about the long war that we are still fighting is the many who gave their lives. the families who sacrificed loved ones and the awful loss. first and foremost, now is the time to remember those many brave americans who died at home, are fighting men and women -- our fighting men and women who risked everything so that we can live in freedom and are -- our invaluable allies from two big countries to name who share our cause. as some of you know, vice- president cheney recently published a memoir written with his daughter, liz cheney. we understand it will debut at no. 1 on the new york times best-seller list. [applause] today he joins us with best- selling author steve ahyes for -- hayes conversation about that

attack on our nation, about decisions made since then, and some reflections on an amazing life and politics, and pretty much whatever else he and steve tisch -- steve choose to talk about in the hour they have. in the time remaining after that conversation, we will have a question and answer session moderated by steve. dick cheney is a member of our board of trustees. we are so glad to have them as part of our aei family, and we thank them and all of you for joining us here today. [applause] >> thank you. i will not interrupt. >> remember you are a reporter, steve. >> that's right. >> i just wanted to say a word and i will turn it over to mr.

hayes. the book i wrote is a memoir. it covers all 70 years of my life, the early years are short. there was not a lot of good stuff to write about during that time, but the last half of the books focuses on the bush- cheney administration and my years as vice president. the book opens in the prologue with a recounting of events as i saw them on 9/11. much of that last half of the book deals with what we had to do during the course of our subsequent 7.5 years in order to keep the country say, some of the controversies we were involved in on things like the terror surveillance program, intense interrogation, and so forth. a large part of the book is

relevant with respect to 9/11 and the aftermath, although i don't want to mislead anybody. there is a lot of other subjects as well, going back to the fact that there have been five republican administrations since i was in power. -- since eisenhower. i worked with four of them and work closely with the fifth. i am going to turn it over to steve. >> just give you an idea of what i thought i would try to do this morning, i am going to start some questions about 9/11 specifically and push you in particular about your personal views on these things, because i know you like to put yourself on a couch.

public self reflection. [laughter] then i am going to go and talk about a number of different ways in which the policies that emanated from 9/11 that you helped drive, and try to fill in some gaps. i have spent a lot of time looking at the interviews you have done since the book came out. some questions that i have remaining for you. i think that is how i would like to proceed and then we will throw it open to everybody for some additional questions that will probably be much better than mine. i thought the first place we would start is on the morning of 9/11. i would be interested to know when you first knew we were under attack, not when you first heard about it, but when did you know we were under attack, and what were your very first thoughts at that moment? >> i was in my office in the west wing, working with my speech writer and my secretary called in and reported that a

plane had struck the world trade center in new york. we turn on the television and this was after the first plane had gone in, but before anything else that happened. the immediate reaction was, how is this possible? are really weird accident. perfect for clear weather, there was no way to account for it, and then as we watched and we saw the other plane hit. that immediately triggered the notion that this had to be a terrorist attack. you could not have two airliners flying into the world trade center within minutes of each other and not have it be anything but a terrorist attack. shortly after that, i talked to the president down in florida, and we talked about a statement he was getting ready to issue, whether or not it was proper to talk about terrorism within that context of that statement, and we both agreed it definitely was.

i think the words he used was probably a terrorist attack on the united states. within a relatively short time, as people began to gather in my office, secretary rice and the national security adviser was there, scooter libby. we probably had seven or eight people in the room, and all of a sudden the door burst open and my lead secret service agent came in and came over to the desk where i was sitting. he said sir, we have to leave immediately. it was not like, please come with me. he said we have to leave immediately, put one hand on the back of my belt and one hand on my shoulder and literally propelled me out of my office. i did not have the option of not going anywhere. [laughter]

the reason he had done that, he explained to me as he was taking me down to the presidential emergency operations center under the white house was that he had received a report over the secret service radio net that there was a hijacked aircraft out at dulles headed towards crown at 500 miles an hour, crown being the code word for the white house. that turned out to be american 77, which came in and made a circle and then went into the pentagon. at that point, i was down part way and i immediately use the telephone that was there to place another call to the president. that was our second or third call that morning. to let him know that washington was under attack as well as new york, and the secret service had strongly recommended that he

not come back. i also recommended that he not come back, believing it was very important for us to stay apart so that we did not become a riper target. we did not know at that stage was happening. he did not like that at all, for understandable reasons, but he agreed to it. i think he saw the wisdom of it. u.s. what our reaction was. -- you asked what our reaction was. >> i went from that spot after i talked to the president, and i was presented by the secretary of transportation with a list of six aircraft that they believed had been hijacked -- hijacked at that point. that actually had the flight numbers on them. of course it was only for, but for a while we thought it was six. there were to back major drivers -- two major drivers in

terms of what i thought about that morning and as we work through the crisis that way. number one was we had to get all the planes down out of the sky so we could isolate whatever had been hijacked and account for all the aircraft, including the list we had of the ones we thought had been hijacked and that point we had accounted for three of them. two in new york and one at the pentagon. that was a major part of the effort. the other thing that was very important that i focused on was the continuity of government. some of you are probably familiar with over the years, especially during the cold war, we had developed programs and procedures for preserving the continuity of government in the event of an all-out global conflict with the soviet union. that was always the scenario, and we had actually exercise that system on many occasions. it focused on having ways and

taking steps to ensure that somebody in the line of succession survive whatever kind of attack we were under, so that when the dust settled, we would have a president and a government able to function. that is what we refer to is continuity of government. that day i took the form basically of recommending that the president and i not bunch up. it was very important for us to stay separated. speaker hastert was out at andrews air force base for his security detail had relocated him, and we arranged for him to be moved from there to a secure, and this goes location -- undisclosed location, because he was next in line for the presidency. if something happened to the president and me, that he would be able to take over as president. those were the two major concerns that occupied most of

our time, one being getting all the airplanes down out of the sky, and guaranteeing there would be someone in the line of succession in a position to take over. >> speaking of your undisclosed location, much of the time when the media was reporting that you were in a secure, undisclosed location, you were actually at camp david, and that is where you went the evening of september 11. i remember having a conversation with you much later in which you describe what that was like, being at camp david late that evening. the way you describe it to me was that the family gathered around a television -- use that -- you sat basically in silence for a couple of hours, watching reruns of the planes hitting the towers and of the horror that day. what was that like, how long did you do that, and what were you thinking at that point? >> it was after the president had returned, we had a national

security council meeting and he addressed the nation. when we finished that,lynn and i got on a helicopter on the south lawn and were flown to camp david. it is the only time i have ever taken off and a helicopter on the south lawn without being with the president. i have done a lot over the years. you don't fly off the south lawn except in extraordinary circumstances. when we got to camp david, they took us to the aspen lodge, which is the presidential lot of -- presidential logdge up there. there, but for security reasons, the secret service was obviously focused on and concerned about the possibility of follow-up attacks and so forth, and aspin is the most secure facility at camp david, so we spent a couple of days there at aspen lodge. we sat in the living room,

watched the television and i was accompanied by my wife lynn and daughter liz. my daughter, mary was out of the country then. i can remember sitting there focused like people were all over the country, watching the tower comedown and the fires at the pentagon and so forth. i began to think about what we needed to do by way of policy, what steps we might take in order to deal with this new situation, and the thought that came to mind first and foremost were that this was not just a terrorist attack. we have had a lot of terrorist attacks over the years and we tended to treat them as law enforcement problems. we would go out and find the bad guys, arrest them, put them on trial and lock them up. this was an act of war. we had 3000 dead americans in a matter minutes that morning,

and we need to treat it as an act of war. that meant obviously you marshall all the resources of the federal government to be able to deal with and prevent a follow-on attack and deal with those who were responsible for what happened. we had a pretty good idea the afternoon of the attack that this was al qaeda related. that was the advice we are getting from the intelligence community. it was not a big mystery about who was behind it, but pretty well focused in on osama bin laden. but there was a lot we did not know about al qaeda. now we have heard so much about it for 10 years, there is a bit of a temptation to think we know everything there is to know about al qaeda, but the day of the attack, this was a group of terrorists, but there were a

lot of key questions we could not answer. we did not know how big they were, who was finance in them, where all of operating. there was a lot we need to learn. that drove our search for intelligence that generated some of the policies that we put in place. as i recall, i sat and made a series of notes of legal tablet that night as i thought about what we were faced with and how we might begin to deal with it. i went over in my own mind what we need to be doing. ultimately we all met up at camp david that weekend. all of us on the national security council. the attack was on tuesday, and by friday night we had pretty well gathered up at camp david and spent saturday and sunday up there with the president's and began to pull together what

ultimately emerged as our strategy for the global war on terror. >> in the days after the attacks, we saw various public officials in very public displays of emotion. we saw president bush almost come to tears in the oval office. we heard about condoleezza rice going back to the watergate in in breaking down because of the emotional toll this was taking. >> i remember coming back from new york, driving across the roosevelts bridge and hearing "america the beautiful" and i broke down crying. did you ever have a moment like that? >> not really. [laughter] >> you understand that people will find that peculiar.

>> well, my wife and daughter were with me that evening. lynn was with me all day. she had been downtown that morning when the attacks started and the secret service had brought her over to the west wing. she really sat beside me throughout the day. she would probably be the best person to comment on what my mental attitude was. i was focused very much on what we had to do. i was thinking in terms of what this met with respect to policy and our military forces and what the targets were out there we might go after and how we might go after them, and so forth. what kind of intelligence we would need to cope with this. that is what i recall. it was not that it was not a deeply moving event, it clearly was, but the other thing that influenced me from a personal

standpoint was that i had spent a good deal of time over the years, continuity of government program, and i had been through exercises where the nature of the attack on the u.s., in excess of what we actually faced, with hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions killed. i had the benefit of having gone through those exercises over the years and the training just sort of kick then in terms of thinking about what we had to do that morning and the next day. >> let's get to those policies. specifically, let's talk about two that everyone thinks of as the most controversial. can you describe -- i think there is a general sense among the public that you sort of brainstormed these ideas. you came up with them, they

were your ideas. you had been the most fierce public advocate of them. can you describe how the terrorist surveillance program came to be? >> sure. it is important to keep in mind, they were initiated at different times. the terrace surveillance program -- the terrorist surveillance program is something we moved to within days of overtime after 9/11. the enhanced interrogation techniques really came in a year or two later when we were in the business by then of capturing people like khalid sheikh mohammed. i believe we caught him in the spring of 2003. it was the capture of certain kinds of individuals that led us to the point where we needed enhanced interrogation. but coming back to the basic question of the terror surveillance program, the origin of the program and relief from mike hayden and his people

at the national security agency, and george tenant was involved as well. there had been a conversation between the two of them within a couple of days of 9/11. as i recall, the two of them had talked, and george mentioned it to me, the basic question being, are there additional things we can do with our capacity to read the mail that would help us deal with the situation we then face. that led to a meeting in my office, as i recall, where mike cavemen, then general hayden, a later the head of the cia, and george tenet. the three of us talked, and there were things that nsa thought they could do if they had additional authority.

i took that proposal basically and went to see the president and sat down and went through it with him. he signed up to it, but with a caveat. he wanted to make certain that he personally approved it each step of the way and that they had to come back in for approval on a regular basis. what emerged out of that was a significantly enhanced capacity for us to be able to intercept communications originating outside the united states, possibly from what we referred to as a dirty number he has a -- 30 #. to capture an al qaeda type, he has a computer or rolodex or whatever it is with a group of

numbers on it, and you wanted to know who he was talking to in the united states, for example. the safeguards we built into it at the direction of the president involved the fact that every 30 or 45 days -- it varied from time to time -- i think the secretary of defense, the director of the cia and nsa all had to sign off on continuing the program. it did not get renewed automatically. they all had a say in writing to the president if they thought we should continue the program from the standpoint of the nation's security, etc. the attorney-general had to sign off on it. all of that then went to the president. the president, once he had received input from his senior advisers, he would sign off and extend the program for another

30 or 45 days. that is the way we operate it for years. i briefed key members of congress. i had the chairman and ranking member of the house and senate intelligence committees come down every couple of months to my office, and mike hayden would come in and then george tenet. we would brief the key for -- four members of congress who had jurisdiction in this area over what we were doing and what kind of result that was producing, so they were wired in from the beginning. later on, some controversy arose inside the program with the justice department. we expanded that group of four into nine. we added the speaker, majority and minority leaders of the house and senate and had all of them in and briefed them as well. then i went around at that point and ask them all at that point -- nancy pelosi within

the group, jay rockefeller on the democratic side. i ask them if they thought we should continue the program, and they said absolutely. then i said, do you think we ought to go back to the congress and get additional legislative authority to continue to operate the way we are operating? they said absolutely not, and they were unanimous on both points. they were concerned that if we went up and ask confident -- ask congress for a vote on the subject, the fact that we were doing it would leak and we would in effect be telling the enemy how we were reading their mail. there was some controversy later on internally that the president dealt with, but i am convinced it was a key part of our success in terms of preventing further attacks against the united states. i think we saved thousands of lives by what we are doing.

i think is one of the greatest success stories, especially with respect to nsa and how they put the program together and developed the capability, one of the great success stories of american intelligence, and maybe some day it will all be told. >> he made the same argument about enhanced interrogation. you are a strong believer that the policy works. let's go beyond that part of the debate and talk about the effects of enhanced interrogations' and the perceptions around the world that it is torture, that the things we did amounted to torture, and the sense that maybe a moral position of the united states has eroded because of the things that we did here in this country. how do you respond to those arguments? >> is that a question, or an invitation to argue? >> i have always offered you an

invitation to argue. there are crazy critiques and then there are more paul volcker -- more thoughtful critiques. i think that is a more thoughtful critique. >> i do not. i am persuaded that the way we went about seeking the authority to be able to extract more intelligence from a handful of individuals -- we are talking not about your rank-and- file enemy troop. this does not involve the military. this does not involve the department of defense. this is program that was authorized by the president's, by the national security council, carried out with all kinds of safeguards by the central intelligence agency. we had a case where we had a handful of individuals who

clearly had knowledge of what was in the works from the standpoint of al qaeda, what they hoped to be able to do, how they function, who the key members were. it was people like khalid sheikh mohammed. abu zabedah. the notion that somehow the united states was wobbly -- why torturing anybody is not true, and anybody who takes the time to look at the program i think will come to the same conclusion. obviously there are people out there who differ with respect to that perspective, but when we get into the whole area, and one of the most controversial techniques was waterboarding. there was a protester this morning who commented on waterboarding. three people work waterboard, not dozens, not hundreds. 3, and the one who was subjected most often to that was

khalid sheikh mohammed, and it produced phenomenal results. there are reports that the intelligence community did -- they were classified marquest -- they were declassified on my request and are now available on the internet. they talked about the quality of information we got. we were talking about only a handful of people who were indeed part of the al qaeda organization, and khalid sheikh mohammed was not only the man who we then had reason to believe, correctly, had be headed daniel pearl, but also claim credit for being the architect of 9/11 that killed 3000 americans that morning. another key point that needs to

be made was that the techniques that we used were all previously used on american military personnel. not all of them, but all of them had been used in training for a lot about our own specialists in the military area. so there was not any technique that we used on any of private individuals that had not been used on our own troops first. just to give you some idea of whether or not we were! torturin -- whether or not we weren't torturing the people with captured. george tenant came in and talk to meet and talk to a couple of other people did basically, he wanted to know how far they

could go in terms of interrogation of these individuals that recaptured. -- that we captured. he needed two kinds of sign off. one was from the president and the second was the grueling from the justice department as to where that line was that you did not cross. we saw and obtained both of those. the president signed up to it as did the other members of the national security council. some of my colleagues may have forgotten that, but in fact, everybody who was a member of the national security council was informed about the essence of the program and signed up ticket, so you had the proper governmental authorities agreed this was necessary and worth while. we had the key people in the justice department's, people

like john yu who has been -- john yoo who has been severely harassed big they were legal opinions from the justice department that said this is ok and inappropriate and gave us very clear guidance that we could follow. the folks out at the agency insisted on that kind of guidance before they were willing to go forward. one of the things i found most objectionable with respect to the obama administration when they came men was the initial decision by the president and attorney general holder that they were going to investigate and prosecute the people in the intelligence community who had carried out this interrogation program at our direction. i thought that was a terrible precedent to set, the president of the united states had signed up to it. the justice department had

signed up to it. these guys had gone out that our direction and used this authority to collect intelligence that we badly needed to have, and the next thing you know you get a change in administrations and the new crowd coming in says we are going to prosecute those guys who were responsible for carrying out these policies. i came here at one point about two years ago and spoke on the subject. i will say the administration appears to have reversed course. although the activities were -- all of those activities were investigated by lawyers in the justice department at the tail end of the bush administration. it had all been looked at before to make sure it was copacetic. the obama administration did finally, and i hope the matter is now resolved, back off, and

those people that frankly i think did not deserve to be prosecuted. i think they should be decorated for the work they did for us that saved many, many lives. >> let's john for from that speech of may, 2009, which was in part a critique of penetration on those things you mentioned. of the administration on those things you mentioned. it was also a warning, by stepping back from the kinds of things that your administration had done, you were in effect saying we are choosing to put ourselves at greater risk. and yet here we are, some 2.5 years later. we had of course the attack at fort hood, but in spite of all the things you warned against, we have not been attacked again. osama bin laden has been killed.

we have had a series of successes on al qaeda central in afghanistan and pakistan that has by most accounts been decimated, or pretty thoroughly taken apart. were you wrong when you made those warnings in 2009? >> i don't think so, steve. i would argue that the policies we put in place back in those days that were available to us and were utilized over time, and i have seen some comment to this effect from current officials of the government', helped produce the intelligence that allowed us to get osama bin laden. it was out of the enhanced interrogation techniques that some of the leaves came that -- the leads came that ultimately

produced the results, and president obama was able to send in seal team 6 to kill bin laden. i think it's been a continuum between administration on the part of a career folks in the intelligence community and the special ops community, over time. it was not just the new administration coming together and all the sudden we had the bin laden. >> but there are no more enhanced interrogations'. we have broadcast to al qaeda and others how we will interrogate them. all of these things that you and others have warned against, and yet here we are, we have not been attacked again. we have seen major successes. when the bush administration came to the end, he made the argument you can be judged by the fact that in large part we

have not been attacked again. why can we not seen that -- use that same standard against the obama administration? >> i would make the case that they have been in six -- have been successful in part because of the capabilities we left them with some of the intelligence that we left them with, what we learn from ksm back when he was ejected. i think it is mistake -- it is a mistake not have an enhanced interrogation program right now. the president said that he was going to set up his own for high-value detainees, but as best as i can tell, i do not know that they have. i did not know what they would do if they had the equivalent of ksm. probably use miranda rights, i do not know. it and not -- in my mind, it is a mistake to give up those

capabilities. i hope that there are no more attacks. but everyone drove to work with their carnegie -- car radio on and know that there is a threat, a sufficient capability that the party sama are saying -- it is unconfirmed but we're taking it very seriously. i say that it is a mistake for them not to stay as actively and aggressively involved. there is a brilliant piece on the notion that we overreacted. i do not think that we did. i think we did exactly what we had to do. the results speak for themselves. >> 1 or two more from me and then we open it up to others. you say that iraq was a central front in the war on terror. looking back on iraq, one things that people have focused on in reading in your book is the fact

that you do not think that a lot of mistakes were made, and there's not much that you change about the wake of the iraq war was conducted. i notice in my reading of the book that in criticism of what the state department did, you often focused on secretary paul and later secretary rice. but in the criticism of the pentagon, you focused on general casey and did not focus on your friend and mentor, don rumsfeld. why is that? >> i thought i wrote a pretty good book. [laughter] i thought was a relatively balanced. i chose not to dwell at length on what transpired in the immediate aftermath of our going into iraq.

there have been a lot of books written, some of them pretty good, about the policy in terms of setting up a new government in iraq. i know jerry brynner has written one. -- bremer has written one. rumsfeld has written extensively about it. i took the approach to focus on a few things. what i wanted to focus on was the surge in the counterinsurgency doctrine that accompanied the search that we put into place at the beginning of 2007. there is a lot written about that in my book. i did not spend a lot of time going back over what the state department did with respect to managing the situation in iraq, or what the pentagon did outside normal military activities. book and read bremer's talk to other people

understaffed and elsewhere, they said that you and asking questions about the u.s. military strategies in iraq during those years. obviously those things were not going well. asking tough questions, what is our strategy, why are we doing the same thing, is the training effective? i am interested on a personal level -- when did you start asking those questions? >> on a personal level, we will sit down and talk about it. [laughter] >> if now is as good a time as any. >> you have to make choices. we welcome all little less in 600 pages, and as i point out in my earlier remarks, i have material for four or five books, but i chose to focus on the highlights, as i saw them, and

what i thought was vital in that regard. obviously i wrote it from my perspective in terms of what i saw in believed. -- and believe. i exercised a certain amount of discretion. i did not put down everything i know about what transpired on a whole range of different areas. >> will there be a second volume? >> i do not know. it depends on how this one does. there are things that i did not talk about, not just on iraq, but throughout my 40-year career. we are chief of staff to the president of the united states, -- when you are chief of staff to the president of the united states, there things on which he expects discretion. and i did not write about those things. that is generally true of lots of things. i spent my time with president

bushes, and it is fair to say in both cases, there are confidences that they had in me on certain issues, and i have honored those and always would. >> on farm policy, you write quite a bit in a chapter called "setback," about iran and north korea and syria and non- proliferation issues. he suggested various points that the bush administration lost its way, the year away from the bush doctrine that was so well established in the first term. -- veered away from the bush doctrine so well established in the first term. t think the president bush lost his nerve? >> i did not say that, steve. >> i know. that is why i'm asking and now. >> i thought it was important

because it is a source of frustration for me. it also demonstrated pretty clearly that i did not win all the arguments. i thought that was important. and this was an area that had to do with north korea possible nuclear aspirations and activities, -- north korea's nuclear aspirations and activities, all allowing them ultimately to produce nuclear weapons. there were significant differences inside the administration. many of those were known, but part of my interest in putting down the history of that period and the policy debates is that there are lessons to learn. we were not the first administration that had trouble figuring out how to keep the north koreans from going nuclear. the clinton administration faced similar problems.

i think the obama administration will have similar problems as well. that was important to put down, the record, if you will, of how we dealt with that. in the final analysis, the president made the decision. he had to make choices. that is why he got the big bucks and lives in the big house. it is the responsibility of the president of the united states. honestly he did not always agree with my advice. in this particular case, he opted pretty much for the state department view of how we should proceed rather than what i was recommending. it is not the first time i have lost. >> if you think we are less safe? >> the best way to put it, is that i believe -- i gave an interview before 9/11, april or

may of 2001. we had only been in office a couple of months. i cited as of biggest threat to the nation, the possibility that a terrorist organization acquired weapons of mass destruction. hawkeye whitney, a kind of thing. -- al qaeda up with new packs -- with nukes, j that kind of thing. it is important to remind us that that threat is still laoses there, still very real. -- still out there, still very real. one thing we did very well, when we went down and took down saddam hussein, and we eliminated one of the guys who had been a source of weapons of mass destruction previously.

he clearly was a clever writer, a potential proliferators. we get rid of saddam hussein is a threat. five days after we went in and gaddafi saiddam, announced that he was surrendering all of his enriched materials. he had a weapons design. he surrendered all of those and they're now in the possession of the united states. we took him out of the nuclear business. pretty good, given what has happened since in libya. it would not have been good, given the difficulty that they had over there if he had had nuclear weapons. we also took down the khan network, the mastermind of the

pakistan the nuclear program. he went into business for myself, black market, selling nuclear materials. his biggest customer was libya, but he was also dealing with north korea and to some extent with iraq. a. q. khan, all of them put out of business, no longer worry about them proliferating those materials. the one we did not get a handle on was no. 3 a. the chapter that you referred to, i called "setback," the story of how we did not deal effectively with the north korean threat. three're keeping score, out of four is not bad, the problem being that that threat is very real. the north koreans are especially dangerous because they have tested two weapons. we caught them red handed with respect to their providing a

plutonium reactor to one of the worst terrorist-sponsoring regimes on the face of the earth, syria. fortunately for us the israelis took that out and we did not have to worry about that anymore. but the north koreans clearly established that they will proliferate nuclear materials to terrorist-sponsoring regimes. the problem that we are faced with is it is still very much there. we do not yet had a handle on north korea. the other problem is still far iraq. we have not even talked about that. they have to be front and center as well as the north koreans and our concern about the threat. i still believe that that is the most dangerous threat to the united states, that technology falling into the hands of an al qaeda-type organization.

and then no clear weapons will no longer be a deterrent. there will be an incentive. -- nuclear weapons will no longer be a deterrent. they will be an incentive. >> way into your called on. ask a question rather than making a long statement. yes, ma'am. >> were you surprised when osama bin laden was in pakistan and the cooperation that you had between both countries? did you fear that the pakistani administration had been hiding things from the bush administration? >> i never had any reason to believe that president bashar of had been involved. -- musharaf had been involved.

there was a general view that osama bin laden was in some remote area of pakistan, not so close to islamabad. what was startling was to find that he was living where he was. he was not hiding in a cave someplace. there was the imagery that he had gone underground figuratively. but i had no reason -- i dealt with him quite a bit. the question is, his commitment to the word he was doing with us. to help us deal with the threat that emerged from pakistan. i think he came to believe that al qaeda-types threatened him personally as well as his regime as much as they did the united states. and i think that was true. there were three attempts on his

life and a matter of weeks by al qaeda or affiliated organizations. >> another question. right down here in the front. >> my name is jason stern and i am a graduate of middle east studies at george washington universities. no matter who is in the white house, the arab spring would of been a great challenge to uphold our value as an protect our interests. how would the bush administration have responded differently? >> it is difficult to judge the quality of the current effort without having to speculate

about what will come out at the far end of the process. frankly, i do not have answers to a couple of key questions. i do not know who will be in charge when the dust settles and new governments are established. whether these regimes, what they going to be like, how will they look at the west, what kind of relationships will we have? in some cases, some of the regime is being replaced by president mubarak in egypt, they have been good friends and allies of the united states. we worked closely together during the first gulf war, for example. if you are evaluating the outcome in terms of u.s. interest, i think there is a lot we do not yet know about the outcome. in terms of whether or not we

should be supportive, i think that is important for us to continue to express our support, certain values that we believe that people should have the opportunity to live by. we believe in freedom and democracy, and i think that needs to come through. but you have to come back and be cautious here, i think, in terms of promoting that process with respect to islamic fundamentalists, to groups or organizations that may have won elections and then shut down the electoral process, and then you let the equivalent of hamas gaza. -- hamas running gaza. >> should the united states take

a more out front role in promoting the arab spring? >> i am cautious, steve. there things that we do not know. but also, it is important for us to be a little cautious about all of them together. my experience over the years with that part of the world is that it is important to you understand that these are different countries. there are a linguistic differences in some cases, and there are religious differences, the split between shia and sunni. there's some governments viewed as legitimate, and others -- syria comes to mind -- you have a brutal dictator trying to preserve his hold on power. most of us could agree that a share a sod bahir -- bashir

assad ought to go. when we talk about the era spring, i think they know what that means in it has generally been welcomed as a genuine change in the region. but we need to evaluate these developments. each and every one of these countries is different and needs to be dealt with accordingly. >> next question. over there in the front. >> i and the average citizen here. when do we know the we won the global war on terror? >> when do we know we have won the global war and terror?

it is not similar to a conventional war, where we get the battleship missouri in tokyo harbor and all the guys sign a document say that they are going to quit. that is not going to happen. there is evidence out there that we're making significant progress. i think getting osama bin laden is very useful to demonstrate a part of that process. but also, it may be the kind of thing that will gradually fade over time. i do not think that there is likely to be a aha moment where you can say is done. we will take a couple more.

>> if i could take you back to your earlier comments about the middle east and bring it back in history, the great controversy at the close of the bush 41 administration was with generals schwarzkopf. there might have been a different outcome. what you think that outcome might have been? would that have changed the course of events? >> he is talking about when he and i were in charge of the pentagon. i was the secretary and he was the comptroller. thinking back on that, i am careful not to challenge my colleagues from that era because they did good work. my recollection of the close of the gulf war was that there was

unanimity on the part of the president, of his senior at civilians and military advisers that we gathered around the desk at the oval office, we had a secure line open where our senior military commander, general schwarzkopf was, and you can look back at it later and say, "we should have done this. we should not have let them have helicopters. we did not know it at the time. there was a general sense at the time that we had done what we set out to do. that is what we told our troops we were going to do. that is what the told the coalition. i had also promised them as soon as we completed the mission, we

would go home. we are not looking for permanent bases in saudi arabia. there was a general sense of that. should we have gone all the way to baghdad? the circumstances were pretty dramatically different 10 years later, after we had had the events of 9/11, after we had had some violate 16 out of 17 u.n. security council resolutions and produce and use weapons of mass destruction against his own people. the world shifted 10 years later. if we had gone in, if there was a way to -- one thing i could think of that i would have liked to have changed, it would have been to have saddam at the table to sign a surrender document.

one of the things that emerged out of the way it was dealt with was, he was very creative and did not have any qualms about misrepresenting the situation. afterwards, he peddled himself as someone who had defied the great united states of america. after all we had done to him, he was still standing. the fact that he was still standing, he used it to demonstrate the notion that he won. of course, he had not. he was able to peddle that in that part of the world. if i could think of one thing i would have liked to see in differently, it would not have been to go to baghdad, but it would have been to have him sit his fanny on the chair and sign a surrender document. >> another one. all the way over.

>>my name is sayed. i served in iraq as a united states spokesman. iraq is a disaster rezoned with very little chance to recover. the united states is about to cut them off. was it a mistake to [no audio] >> i think it would be a mistake to cut and run. i do not think we should turn our back on a rack at this stage. -- on iraq at this stage. it is important for us to complete the mission. my own personal view is there is a danger, to rush for the exits under the current

administration. that would be really unfortunate. >> one more quick question. >> i am with aei and the washington examiner. president bush, in his memoir, does not mention of iraq from the spring of 2003 to the spring of 2006. what you say about the criticism that the president was insufficiently monitoring his generals and not soliciting early enough, or as early as desirable, something on the order of the surge strategy which was ultimately dropped at the end of 06 -- at the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007. could that have been done earlier ta? >> and what i remember is that the president was heavily engaged during that period of time. he was not ignoring what was going on in the operations in i

iraq. we had fairly regular sessions where he would get on a secure hookup to baghdad, not only with our own senior people, but with the senior iraqis. i have a picture that i put in my book donald reinfeldt and condoleezza rice and i at camp david. it does not show the president because he is on the other end in baghdad. we had a secure hookup at that period of time. he had gone to baghdad and was over there visiting, having an important session with their prime minister. the notion that somehow he turned his back on, or was not focused on, was not engaged, i would challenge that. i do not think that is true. >> let me take the prerogative

of asking one last question to bring it back to 9/11. you have made the case that 9/11 change the government. i think that is obvious to everyone. in many respects, it changed the country and change the world. did it change you? >> did 9/11 change me? it was -- i do not think it changed me in the sense that some have suggested. i have got friends out there, they used to be friends. "i knew cheney when he was a nice guy, when he was warm and fuzzy. he is not fuzzy now." i did j. leno the other day and they have what they called a cold open. jay was greeting his guests for

the evening. he was wearing blue jeans. he asked me if i am going to wear the suit on the hangar for the show that night. at that point, i opened the door and came out of the dressing room and i was dressed as arthur later. -- dressed as darth vader. it did not help my image any. [laughter] i cannot say it did not change me. it was part of my life. it was an important milestone for all of us. obviously, i spend the next 7.5 years working with the president. and our colleagues to try to make absolutely sure that that at its -- that that never happened again on our watch. that meant we had to take steps and enact policies never going to guarantee the safety and

security of the american people. i sort of see it as, ok, here is the problem, here is what we are going to do about it, and we did it. the notion that -- the notion of change mainly came to a focus in my own mind. i thought before about this problem of a 9/11 style attack, terrorist attack with deadlier weapons, something other than a box cutters and airline tickets. the events of 9/11 really brought home. it heightens my concern. that would be a fair way to put it. about the potentially devastating consequences. we had anthrax attacks at the same time. he turned out those were domestically initiated. one night, i remember being at a

dinner in new york, one month after 9/11, and as we landed that day, to go down to the waldorf where i was a speaker for the evening, we received world that there had been a botulism attack on the white house. an attacker had gone off suggesting that the president, and i, had been exposed to botulism. we did not know for several hours whether it was true or not or a false reading. turned out to be a false reading. there was a level of heightened concern in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that we had to deal with. it was like, on 9/11, you get a report that there were six planes hijacked. turned out there were only four. you get a report there was a car bomb at the state department.

turned out there was no car bomb. you get a report of a plane gunned down on the ohio-west virginia border, but it was just a plan that had dropped off the radar. there was a report of a plane that went down in pennsylvania, turned out that was true. we went through that process, in the immediate aftermath, of putting together policies. there was no question there was a significantly elevated level of concern. i felt, like most of us did, like i did not know how to do my job if i had not been concerned. part of my job as the vice- president was to make certain that we never again got hit the way we did on 9/11. >> with that, i would like to thank mr. vice president and the

american enterprise institute for posting. thank you all for coming. [applause] thank you so much. we are extraordinarily grateful to have a friend like you. a scholar, statesman, a man of action who represent us so well. we are so thankful for your time this morning. thank you for all of your questions. we will let you get out of here, i think you have some media interviews right after this. then we will excuse the crowd. thank you again here in -- and thank you again. [applause]

>> and next, president obama in richmond va. followed by congressional reaction to the president's jobs proposal. after that, a house armed services committee on the military suicides. >> tomorrow on "washington journal."

civil liberties versus securities after september 11 are discussed. scheuer talks about potential terrorist plots this weekend. and berrick details the recent report on the department of homeland security. "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern on c-span." >> this weekend, in the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with coverage from each of the sites. here is our live schedule. saturday at 12:00, the flight 93 dedication ceremony. sunday morning at 8:30, a moral from the world trade center site

with president obama and former president bush. at 9:00, vice- president biden. 9/11 remembered, this weekend on the c-span networks. the c-span network and provide coverage of politics, public affairs, non-fiction books, and american history. this month, look for spending to continue into september. keep tabs on the deficit committee as a attempt to lower the debt. and keep track of the republican candidates as they campaigned across the country. it is all available online. search our programs anytime with c-span video library. we are on the road with our local content vehicle, bringing our resources to the community. it is washington, your way.

the c-span networks. created by cable, provided as a public service. >> following his speech to congress on thursday evening, president obama talk more about job creation during a visit to richmond, virginia. speaking to students at the university of richmond, he discusses $443 billion job package. >> hello everyone. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you, richmond. it is good to be in richmond, virginia. [applause]

thank you for the outstanding introduction. given nigel and outstanding round of applause and. [applause] everybody is a special guest, but there are a few people i want to acknowledge. first of all, the outstanding president of the university of e richmonduniversityd ayers. -- ed ayers. clyde jones is in the house. former governor of virginia and one of my greatest friends, the first person to endorse me outside of illinois, my home state, right here in richmond, va., tim cain. [applause]

and his lovely wife, who also love. another history maker and outstanding former governor, doug wilder is in the house. [applause] you guys can sit down if you want. but you do not have seats, so you guys don't have to. [applause] it is good to be in virginia, because the sun is out. i have not seen the sun and

about five days. it was nice to remember what that was like. it is always nice to get out of washington once in awhile. to be with the american people. i have great memories of richmond and i have wonderful feelings about the commonwealth of virginia. the people here -- [applause] the people here, i think, have an innate optimism and a can-do spirit that is typical of this country. >> i love you! >> i love you, too. it is good to get some fresh air and a fresh perspective. i am grateful to spend some time with you. obviously, we are going through a difficult time in this country.

i know you folks are as frustrated as i am about the economy. i know you are frustrated, not just about our economic conditions, but what is happening in washington. [applause] tim, i got an amen, there. you have every right to be frustrated. here in virginia and in richmond, people do not have time for political concerns. you have real life concerns. you may be looking for a job or you know somebody who is looking for a job. >> i love you! >> i love you back. you make sacrifices to make ends meet. you expect the people you sent to washington to do the same thing, to meet their responsibilities. [applause]

we need to stop the political surface and -- the political circus and do something to help people, help the economy, restore some security and opportunity. restore the american dream. restore those things that made america the envy of the world. in other words, you expect action and you deserve it right now. [applause] that is why, after a few scheduling issues, i went to congress last night. [applause] to suggest new ways that we can grow the economy, help

businesses, and put more of our fellow americans back to work. it is called the american jobs act. [applause] next week, i will send it to congress. they should pass it right away. [applause] everything in the american jobs act, everything in there, is the kind of proposal that has been supported in the past by both democrats and republicans. i have not been radical in this bill. everything in it will put more people back to work and more money back in the pockets of those who are working. everything in it will be paid for. [applause]

the reason i am here, in richmond, is because, to make it happen, every one of your voices can make a difference. every one of your voices will have an impact. i am going to talk about politics in a second, but let me just talk about what is in the american jobs act. it will create more jobs for construction workers, for teachers, for veterans, for young people. [applause] more jobs for the long-term unemployed. it will provide a tax break to companies if they hire new workers. it will cut parallaxes in half for every small-business owner and every working american. it will jump-start an economy that has stalled.

it will give companies the confidence that if they hire new workers and investing in these businesses, there will be customers who can afford to buy the things they are selling. passing this jobs bill will put people to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges. it will also help us rebuild our schools. in the back, i was taking photos with folks who helped organize this of bed. there was a young lady who was a teacher. she said she had heard my speeches last night and really appreciated it. she said she teaches eighth grade in less -- she said she taught eighth grade english in a trailer. we should not have kids learning in trailers. they should have classrooms with internet and science labs. [applause] you have got aging bridges on i-95.

you need to replace them. you have schools that need to be upgraded. there are millions of unemployed construction workers across america ready to put on their tool belts and get dirty. i do not know about you, but i do not want the newest airport, the fastest railroads, to be built in china. i want them to build -- i want them to be built right here, in the united states of america. [applause] >> usa! usa! usa! >> i do not want any of our kids to study in subpar schools. i want them to study in great schools. there is work to be done and

there are workers ready to do it. let's pass this jobs bill right away. [applause] passing this jobs bill will put thousands of teachers in virginia and across america back to work. when we need them most. this is a new age. everybody here knows that. if you want a good job, a good career, if we want america to succeed, we have got to have the best trained, most highly skilled workers in the world. you have places like south korea that are adding teachers to prepare their kids for a global economy. we are laying off our teachers in droves. it is unfair to our kids, it undermines their future, our future, it has to stop. let's pass this bill and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

[applause] passing this bill gives companies new tax credits to hire america's veterans. a lot of veterans here in richmond and all across virginia. we asked these men and women to leave their careers or interrupt their careers, leave their families, risk their lives to fight for us. they come home and they cannot find a job? the last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home. pass this bill now and put these folks to work. [applause] pass this jobs bill and we will give small business owners in richmond and the rest of virginia a small tax cut for hiring new workers and raising their workers' wages.

cut their payroll taxes in half. that will give small businesses more money they can use to hire more workers. if you pass this bill, we will get hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged youth the hope and dignity of a summer job next year. [applause] and that instills in them good habits that will last a lifetime. it will make it easier for them to find a job in the future and to continue their education. passing this bill will give companies a tax credit for hiring anybody that has spent more than six months looking for work. there are a lot of folks like that. this has been a terrible recession. i get letters from folks and they write to me about what it is like a month after month. writing letters, sending out resin is, knocking on doors. people get discouraged.

and when they get discouraged, at some point, they drop out of the labor force. it is hard for them to get reattached. you have some people, who are out of work, even if people are looking for hot -- even if people are looking for work, places will not want to hire them because they have been out of work for so long. it is not fair. it is not right. this will help people on unemployment insurance to build temporary work while looking for a full-time job. we should extend unemployment insurance for another year. not only is it the right thing to do, but if we cut off unemployment insurance right now, that is money that millions of unemployed faults cannot spend on their basic needs. that money comes out of the economy. businesses have fewer customers and the economy, for everybody, including those who have worked, will shrink.

an unnecessary blow to this economy. passing this law will give a typical working family 8 $1,500 tax cut next year. -- a $1,500 tax cut next year. that boosts the tax cuts democrats have already passed this year. i said to folks yesterday, especially my republican friends, i said, "you guys have made pledges never to raise taxes on everybody any -- on anybody ever again. you cannot make exceptions for the middle class people." [applause] this is the american jobs act.

it will lead to new jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans, young people, the long-term unemployed. provide tax credits to citizens and workers. it will not add to the deficit. it will be paid for. [applause] we spent a whole summer fussing about the deficit. it is legitimate for us to get a government that is living within its means, just like families do. democrats and republicans have already agreed to cut spending by about $1 trillion over the next decade. they have i -- they have agreed to identify another $1.50 trillion by the end of the year. what i said is, let's go first. let's be a little more ambitious. i believe we need to do more to make sure we can boost jobs and growth in the short term and still bring down our debt in the long run. 10 days from now, i will release a more ambitious

deficit reduction plan and it will follow the balanced approach that i have been talking about for months. yes, we need to cut wasteful spending. we are going to need to strengthen our retirement programs. yes, we have got to ask the wealthiest americans and the biggest corporations to pay their fair share. [applause] virginia, i want to make it very clear -- i understand nobody likes paying taxes. i pay a lot of taxes. [laughter] you can look, it is public the amount of taxes i pay. it is serious. [laughter] i am not taking advantage of a bunch of loopholes. i understand that.

we have always lived based on the principle that everybody has got to do their fair share. we have got to make some choices. we have got to decide what are our priorities? what is best not only for me, but best for us? what is the best way to create jobs? should we keep tax loopholes for oil companies? or should we use that money to give small business owners a tax credit when they hire new workers? [applause] we cannot afford to do both. should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires or should we put teachers back to work until kids are ready to graduate from college and get good jobs? [applause]

we cannot afford to do both. we have got to make real choices about the kind of country that we want to be. that is not class warfare, i am not attacking anybody. it is simple math. we cannot afford, the folks who are the most fortunate, to do the least and put the largest burden on folks who are struggling in the most. that does not make sense. [applause] now, i put forward this plan, the american jobs act, but we cannot stop there. we cannot stop there. when i ran for this office, we have got to look beyond the immediate crisis and start building an economy that lasts. an economy that is not built on housing baubles -- bubbles, easy credit, wall street's

shenanigans. an economist at -- an economy that creates jobs and provides a sense of security. let me tell you what this means. we live in a world where technology has made it possible for businesses to take their business anywhere. if we want them to start here, stay here, higher here, we have to be able to out-build, out- innovate every other country out there. that is what we have got to fight for. that means everybody has got to up their game. all of the college students here, i know you are having fun in college. [applause] i am glad you are having fun, but you need to hit the books. [applause]

you are competing against kids in that beijing and you cannot avoid those math class is an engineering classes and science classes. we have got to focus. everybody has got to up their game. we have to get more efficient and productive, employees have got to constantly upgrade their skills. even if you have a good job, you have got to keep staying on top of it. the government has got to become more efficient. we have got to become more so -- we have got to become smarter in terms of how we help people to succeed. to do all of those things, i am going to need your help. i know that -- this has been a long slough. dealing with this economy.

when i came into office, everybody was thinking, "six months, we will get this all solved." i told you at the time, this was going to be a tough, long journey. i also told you i could not do it on my own. every kind of proposal in the american jobs act, every proposal to put more workers on the job, more money in their pockets, every single one of these proposals has been supported by democrats and republicans before. and so, they should be supporting them now. and that will only happen, though, if they set politics aside for a moment.

to deal with america's problems. the only way they are going to do that is if they hear from you. [applause] to their credit, i was glad to hear some republicans, including your congressman, said that they have got room for us to work together. they said that they are open to some of the proposals to create american jobs. i know that folks sometimes think, maybe you have given them the benefit of the doubt, but i am an eternal optimist. i am an optimistic person. [applause] i am an optimistic person. i believe in america, i believe in our democracy, i believe that if you stay at it long enough, eventually, after they

have exhausted all of the options, he'll do the right thing. [applause] but we have got to give them a little help to do the right thing. i am asking all of you to lift up your voices, not just here in richmond, anybody watching, listening, following online, i want you to call, e-mail, tweet, fax, visit, facebook, send a carrier pigeon, i want you to sell -- i want you to tell your congressman that the time for gridlock and games is over. the time for action is now. the time to create jobs is now. pass this bill if you want construction workers. if you want teachers in the

classroom, pass this bill. if you want small business owners to hire new people, pass this bill. if you want veterans to get their fair share of opportunities that they helped create, pass this bill. if you want a tax break, pass this bill. we will fight as hard for middle-class people as we do for oil companies and millionaires. pass this bill. let's get something done. [applause] the next election is 14 months away. we cannot wait. the american people do not have the luxury of waiting another 14 months for some action. some of you are living paycheck to paycheck, week to week, day by day. now is not the time for people in washington to be worrying about their jobs.

it is time for them to be worried about your jobs. it is time to put america back to work. now is the time to act in. we are not a people that just look and watch and wait to see what happens. we are america. we make things happen. we are tougher than these times. we are bigger than the smallness of our policies. we are patriots, pioneers, innovators, entrepreneurs, who, through individual efforts and a common commitment to one another, will build an economy that is once again the engine and envy of the world. we will write our own destiny. it is within our power. but we have got to seize the moment. let's shake off all the naysaying and anxiety and hand- ringing. enough of that. let's get to work.

let's show the world why america is the greatest nation on earth. thank you everybody and god bless you. god bless america. [applause] >> usa! usa! usa!

>> next, reaction to the president's jobs plan, which he presented to congress thursday evening. we will begin with democratic congressman tim bishop from new york. he was a guest on "washington journal." this runs about 30 minutes. we are pleased to be joined by congressman from new york, a democrat, who serves on the education committee and infrastructure committee. two of the president's proposals last night greatly affect your two committees -- education

spending and infrastructure spending. congressman bishop, what did you think? guest: i thought the proposals were good proposals, practical proposals. they have at least a shot of passing the house of representatives. and i also think they have the potential to put people back to work and to try to get our economy growing again. in general, i was pleased with the proposals. host: "the wall street journal" you heard me reading, trying to manipulate a $15 trillion economy with a $447 billion stimulus package, and where does the money come from? guest: the second part first. the president indicated last night that the money would come from increasing the mandate for spending reductions or deficit reductions of the special deficit reduction committee. he also indicated that a week from monday he is going to present his own detailed plan for what those reductions ought

to look like. i think we all await that plan and want to study the details of that. with respect to the size of the package, it is roughly -- since most of it would be spent out over one year -- it is roughly the equivalent of the recovery act that was passed in february of 2009. that most mainstream economists indicate has had an impact of at least growing the economy in some measure and maintaining a workforce. the congressional budget office, for example, indicated that they believe that at least 1.8 million more people are employed as a result of the recovery act then had we not pass it. but again, i guess what i would ask is, what is the alternative? it government intervention of the type that the president outlined last night is viewed as some as unacceptable, what is

the alternative? how do how do we take the 25 million americans and improved their status? what we have seen in the house from the republicans is an agenda that is comprised exclusively of either eliminating regulations or blocking regulations that are proposed. i would have to ask the question of how does changing policy on eight or 10 regulations, how does that move the $15 trillion economy? host: hear the phone numbers. tim bishop, a democrat from new

york is our guest and has spent a long time in higher education as a career. some of the commentary this morning has taken this tact -- obama demands of congress do something. host: he says the president is blending congress. guest: congress does need to act. i am in the house. the republicans have been

responsible for the agenda since january. the have not brought a single bill to the floor to address the jobs crisis. their agenda the have articulated for the fall in terms of eric cantor's memorandum iconsists of eliminating or blocking regulation. but i do think it is time for the congress to act. faa reauthorization it is expiring in september. this is september 9. host: our hearings scheduled for those bills? guest: not to my knowledge. we have not seen a surface transportation bill. we've been told the surface

transportation bill will be roughly $35 billion a year. set that against a five-year bill. we would be moving from spending $50 billion on surface transportation to approximately $35 billion a year. we have not seen anything. in new york, the estimate is that would cause the layoffs of 21,000 construction workers in new york. about 400,000 nationally. that to me is not a vision that moves this country forward. i was pleased to hear the president talked about a renewed investment in infrastructure. host: kathy honor a democrats line -- kathy on our democrat line.

caller: i called about the previous topic, about obama. my opinion about obama's in decision -- i am emotional about this. it is difficult for me. i think that obama -- i voted for him. i believed in him. i believe in all that. i do not see him taking the bully pulpit. several hundred thousand people were killed. i do not see obama -- i did not want him to kill hundreds of thousands of people, of course. i do not see him having that kind of faith and i'm wondering what is causing him not to have that power.

guest: this is a time for presidential leadership and that is what we saw last night. we saw the president laid out a clear plan, an ambitious plan, and we for the president say he is going to, starting today, go to every corner of this country to sell it. that is the kind of leadership we need. the president, when he comes forward next monday or whenever with his specific deficit reduction ideas, that also is the kind of presidential leadership that we need. all we heard last night was the president responded to what the american people say is their greatest concern, and that is the faltering state of the economy and that we have so many people who are unemployed or underemployed.

the president needs to be commended for facing that head on and making a set of proposals that have the potential to have an impact. host: what was the chatter before and afterwards? guest: before the speech, there was a concern that the proposals would not be sufficiently ambitious and would not be sufficiently aggressive. after the speech, i think in terms of the people i've spoken with, we're pretty pleased. any reasonable person could look at any part of that speech and say he should have done this or that. but in general, the package of tax cuts and investment in things like infrastructure and rebuilding schools and putting teachers back to work, we all agree that that represents a

pretty reasonable package. it also represents the thinking of most mainstream economists. they say will we need are measures that will stimulate spending in the short term, the tax cuts, and measures that will bring about long term reduction of our deficit, which the president will present to was a week from monday. we need measures that will prevent further layoffs. we have lost 500,000 public sector employees, and has been a significant drag on our economic recovery. that is an economic drag and i think we have to ask whether that is the wisest way in which we allocate our resources. in general, the democrats i was sitting with last night and i spoke with were pretty pleased with the speech. host: bloomington, illinois.

caller: good morning, gentlemen. to me, the president sounded like newt gingrich. he wants to take money from social security and from medicare and wants to use that to stimulate the economy. that is the old philosophy in a nutshell. the problem is i don't think it will work. once the stimulus is gone, we will be losing jobs again. i did not think that is a solution. politically, in my appeal to some independents. but i don't think it will work. guest: i will take a different tack. i don't think he it was talking about starving tehe beef.

and he did not mention social security at all. the devil is in the details. medicare in its current form will be difficult to sustain, given the rapid growth of health care cost and the rapid growth in the retirement age population. reasonable people have to recognize that we have to look at medicare and we have to look at medicaid. the other issue is -- what the president said is that the government can play a role. the recovery has to be driven by the private sector. the speech was about giving some tools to the private sector to facilitate that process. host: from one of your home town newspapers, "the new york post."

he was not there to cheer the new jobs plan. guest: one, i think the president made clear and most people agree that we have to take a careful look at our regulatory structure. the president announced that back in january. he talked about several hundred regulations that have been changed or modified or eliminated.

and i think we have to be careful. we should not paint with too broad a brush. certain regulations serve a public good. there are regulations that we have to take a careful look at. i read very carefully the memorandum by eric cantor about the 10th most egregious regulations in their proposed or currently enacted. if we eliminated everyone of them, it would not create a single job in my district. a regulatory reform has to be a piece of what we do. we have to recognize that one of the reasons we're in a crisis that we're in is that regulators walked off the field with respect to the financial crisis 2008.7 and

it helped bring about the crisis we are facing right now. we have unemployment of around 7%. we're doing better than the country. but still 7% is too high in my view. we are the eastern end of long island. we have a lot of small businesses. a lot of the economic business is tourism and travel and farming and fishing. we have several hundred miles of coastline. i would say in our district, one of the things that is people great concern is when they hear leadership in washington talking about walking away from environmental regulations. people recognize that the job creator is the environment. in our district, you don't have

a second home industry unless you have a good environment. you need clean beaches and clean air and open space. when my constituents hear about walking away from environmental regulations, they are concerned about that. it is those regulations that are a part of the underpinning of our economy. host: minnesota, you're on. caller: good morning, america. how long have you been in congress? guest: this is my ninth year. i am on the education committee and on the transportation committee. caller: here's my question. education has been going down the pipes for year.

you cannot take it from 24th to 2nd in the world. there was the dodd-frank bill that was supposed to help -- you are talking about leadership and regulation. the dodd-frank built ignored all the derivatives. we also had -- the dodd-frank bill ignored all the prederivatives. all these regulations should have been looked that. he should pursue the regulations we already have. guest: that was one of my points. regulators walked off the field and did not enforce the regulations we had in place. it was not fair to blame secretary geithner for the kind

of irresponsible behavior that took place on wall street at the height of -- the financial activity. with respect to education, the thing that i focus on is access to higher education. there two statistics that plague me. we have fallen from first to sixth in the world in the number of high school graduates that go onto college. that number does not argue for a favorable future with respect to our ability to compete in a global marketplace. that is one of the reasons i have been as focused on maintaining the pell grants and a strong level to assist students.

the president has also been concerned about the telegratellt maximum -- pell grant maximum. >> if charges this congress to come up with $1.5 trillion in savings out by christmas. i'm asking you to increase that amount. i will be releasing a more ambitious deficit plan a week from monday. stabilize our debt in the long run. host: back to your calls. susan from indiana. caller: there is no bill, nothing to vote on yet because this is just so for a speech and we have no idea what is going to be in the bill. they should get warren buffett

and his friends to pay for it. open an account. they should be able to pay for it. it took three years for him to recognize that small business gets the job done, not government. guest: there is no bill. you're quite right. the devil is always in the details. we deceive the specifics, the legislative language -- we need to see the specifics. with respect to generating revenue, i think the very best way we can generate additional revenue is to put 14 million people back to work. the best way to rein in our deficit and for us to increase

our economic activity is to reduce the number of people who are unemployed and underemployed. i am hopeful this plan will be a start of the effort to do that. host: did the white house reach out to house democrats prior to the speech? guest: not that i'm aware of. they may have reached out to the leadership. not to members of the rank-and- file. we were given the text of the speech when we got into the chamber last night. there was some additional detail that was distributed to our offices while the speech was going on. there was no advance effort about talking points. host: how would you describe your relationship with the white house? guest: it is cordial. there are pieces of the white

house's agenda that i did not subscribed to, but others i enthusiastically support. host: talking about the president's job proposal last night. green bay, wisconsin. hi, liz. caller: hi. i would like to find out the names of the senators and congressmen who were not standing and applauding our presidents's comments. americans are waiting for something to happen. i would like to say that it is one thing to get people back to work. it is another to get them back to work at jobs that are meaningful and productive and support a good lifestyle. education is key to that. i'm kind of radical in my thinking.

i would like to stop unemployment benefits. people would be more motivated to go out and to move on. no one talked about the talk that the president gave to the labor unions. i believe that it is what the unions have done for wages and rights in this country that have kept the standard of living up for many years for the rest of the middle class. here in wisconsin, it has been a huge, huge issue. hopefully the next time we go to the polls we will bring in more democratic constituency and repeal some of the things that have been happening with the labor unions. host: what kind of work do you do in green bay? caller: the economy is pretty good.

i work in a national retail company in sales. we have seen a decline over the summer as people are more nervous about investing in their homes. i would like to see that turnaround. one of the deregulations of the banking industry is a big reason we're in the mess we're in right now. i like to see that turnaround. guest: i thought the, the president made that we do not have 14 months to make was one of the most important comments of his speech. it goes to the heart of one of the issues, which is whether or not a political consideration is affecting people's policy judgment. i think what the president was saying was we need to act on behalf of the american people in respective of were the

lay.ctive fall outmout may liz talk about stopping unemployment. she leaned that to education. there is a long track record of higher education involvement being countercyclical to the economy. when the economy is bad, a higher education enrollment grow because people return to school to get the training they need to get jobs. some of what liz hopes what happened has been happening for a long time. the unemployment piece -- most economists say that the single most stimulus think we can do is continue to unemployment benefits. if you put money in the hands of people who have no other means of support, they will spend it on the everyday necessities of

life and the will keep economic activity going. keeping unemployment compensation available to people who are unemployed is something that we must do. host: you spent 29 years in southampton college. the president called for a summer job funds. what has been your experience with a federally funded summer jobs? guest: at one. at southampton college, there was a program and it was in the late 1970's, and we employed several people under that and they worked hard. when the funds expired, many were able to be added to our permanent payroll. in terms of the summer jobs program, we did not have any

experience administering one of those. we have several summer academic sessions and we employed some students to help with that. but we didn't have a direct summer jobs program. host: eric from florida. caller: my biggest complaint without obama is dealing with stuff is he is acting like robin hood. he likes to still from the rich and give to the poor. the people that have money and have the ability to create new jobs are going to get punished for being good at what they do. give money to the poor -- people on welfare -- there needs to be nationwide thing with drug testing. we give people money and they turn around and get drugs.

i see this in florida all the time. that is the thing. as far as the jobs obama is trying to get us, they are all minimum-wage jobs. "we save the environment." no, we didn't. we need to get better-paying jobs and do a tax break for american manufacturers and american companies and to a tariff on any kinds of imports. guest: i didn't take from the speech to what the president intentioned is to still from the rich and give to the poor. the tax break that the president proposes is one that would affect every single american worker. that is the kind of broad base tax breaks that can be helpful.

i would say that he is trying and there has been an effort to try to provide some tax relief to our small businesses. there were several elements of tax relief for small businesses in the recovery act. those have been continued. and now yet another effort to provide tax relief to small businesses. if we're talking about investment and infrastructure jobs and in rebuilding schools and high speed internet and putting teachers back to work and putting firefighters back to work, those are not low-paying jobs. those are well-paying jobs. those are people performing important work. so the kind of jobs we hope to create or preserve are precisely the kind of jobs that we need to

stabilize the middle class and to grow our economy. host: i have to ask you about something that has been sliding through the congress and not getting much noise because of the speech. historic pattern reform bill clears the congress. the house has passed the and the senate passed last night. digital supports that -- did you support that? guest: i did. host: thank you for calling and this morning. now joining us in lynn jenkins, >> from washington journal,

this is 30 minutes. o start with an editorial in "the new york times." "an aggressive president at last challenges the defeat-everything congress." guest: thank you for having me. i am puzzled by that headline given that the house is the only one that has done their job this year. the senate has not passed a budget in over 800 days. the house went about their business, passed a budget, and it was defeated in the senate on a straight party-line vote. we have gone about the business of appropriating our money. we're almost through the appropriations process. the senate may be has taken up

one of 12 appropriations bills. we have had numerous job creations bills over to the senate, all lie on the floor of the senate. they have not picked them up or they have been defeated. we have been saying yes to a lot in the house, primarily focused on job creation and getting this economy moving again while reining in the fiscal mess that is in washington. so to say that the house is saying no has been an accurate statement. host: mr. anything president said last night to you agree with -- is there anything the president said last night that you agree with? guest: we can pass several pieces of legislation where we have commonround. one is in the area of free

trade. we have grown wary of backing the president to send ito the three pending free-trade agreements. free trade agreements worked just the opposite of what normal legislation does. it originates in congress and is sent to the president for a signature. the president has had them lingering in his office for over two years. he just has to send those backed. there is broad bipartisan support in the house and senate to ratify those. that is 2,000 jobs immediately that we can get moving. all he has to do is send them up. that would be a good start. host: what about his spending proposals. extending unemployment benefits and construction for schools and infrastructure.

where do you stand on those issues? guest: there is a role to play at the federal level. most people see that spending is our first priority to protect us. infrastructure is probably second. the stimulus plan is unlikely to fly in the house given that if all he had to do was spend the money and we were have zero unemployment, we would be there already. we are $14.3 chile in debt -- trillion in debt. we should focus on the barriers to job creation, be regulation, litigation and those need to be the areas that we focus on, so

we'llave that discussion in the weeks to come. host: lynn jenkins, republican from kansas. we continue our discussion on the president's job proposal that introduced last night. pat is a republican in new jersey. caller: good morning. thank you for your show. i would like to know what the first lady was sitting with the after so many jobs just went overseas. how can you give a speech in two parts? you are going to define the problem. you're going to give a solution. then we have to wait a week for how we're going to pay for this? i have been a democrat for many years until maybe two presidents

ago. guest: well, pat, thanks for the call. i thought it was an interesting call to have the ceo of g.e. to sit with the first lady. tax reform is so necessary in our economy today. i think if the democrats in the senate would meet with the republicans on the architectural structure for a tax reform, we could become competitive once again by lowering the rate to the top 25% of individual and corporate so we can compete internationally. we have the highest corporate tax rate is the world. and so we have passed a fundamental tax reform

structure within our budget to address this issue. it was to eliminate the loopholes at the top, the americans that do not p any tax and put them back on the rolls. g.e. is using lucrative loopholes to zero out their income. you mentioned the pay fors for the president's speech. he would not say how he wanted to pay for that. i think there will be some push back in the house. members of the joint select committee, their assumption was deficit reduction. they have been charged with paying for yet another stimulus program. i think you'll see some objection to that.

host: you are a certied public accountant and former state treasurer and a member of the ways and means committee. helpless complain how -- we hear reports about g.e. not paying income tax. you say we have the highest corporate income-tax rate. how does that -- guest: it is the tax code that have. we need to change the tax code. it is like 10 times the size of the bible with no good news and think that is accurate. we need to start over. the republicans in the house have that architecture structure within the budget document and it was revenue neutral. the way it was done back 1 in 1980's.he

the growthe you get and it is our belief that if the senate would meet us at the table to handle that, would be happy to do with it. host: i want to show this picture from "the washington post." this is an issue that is close to your heart. guest: i am on the heat team. we have been working on a comprehensive energy package. that is teed up for the house to address this fall. there is a comprehensive bill. there are lots of other bills that would need to address once and for all.

in the last congress, it was my first term. nancy pelosieed up the cap and trade proposal. democrats in the senate would not along with that. this is long overdue. we need to address the energy issue. host: alison is in atlanta. you are on with, lynn jenkins is woman -- congresswoman lynn jenkins. caller: the president did a good job laying out his plans, where he has been stalled so many times by the republicans. people should realize that the people that were involved in the s&l scandals are corporate criminals that have used the republican party to raid the federal treasury, and they are

doing everything they can to stall the economy, massive layoffs would budget cuts, cutting out jobs. we of teachers and firemen laid- off. they are doing this to make the country's miserable. oil companies and big wigs -- deregulatingaws, rating the federal treasury at the expense of the taxpayers to pay off the bankrupt -- the investment that an economic slide -- the small town republicans that a vote for them used bigotry to try to blindside what they have --ndonone

guest: i can tell that we will disagree. i'm a small-town kansas girl and i don't think we're ignorant or bigoted. i don't think she has a sense that the president has proposed numerous things tcongress and we have rejected them out right, when in fact if he produces a bill, this will be the first time he has put his ideas on paper. the congressional budget office said, we cannot have a speech, mr. president. this would be the first time we would have an opportunity to address an issue that the president brought to us. she mentioned the s&l crisis and the scandals. unfortunate, the last congress,

the dodd-frank bill was signed into law, which did nothing to address the real issue at hand, which was freddie and fannie. it has created quite a burden for our small town main street financial institutions that did not create the problem, but are being punished. a lot of them are being forced out of business. i would just disagree with that caller. host: what is the, like in kansas' -- what is the economy like in kansas' second district? guest: our unemployment is not what it is at the national level, but folks in kansas are hurting. we have producers that are tough old birds and they are holding their own. we are home to a loss of

aircraft manufacturers and that is a tough business right now. we, too, are looking to washington to create the right environment so that the private sector can create the joband we can grow our way out of this mess. host: eva in athens and, georgia. caller: i have a couple of things -- i am tired hearing about -- 90% of our people are employed. i am 90%-full type person.

i have yet to see any football stadium and the anywhere. none of it is empty. i look at the professional games. the skyboxes are fall. where is this money coming from? that's like a red flag. when they are empty, i will believe we are in trouble. guest: i think she has a point. i think the american people have set their priorities, as they do. i think that is why the personal debt of individuals is probably at aall-time high, because like many folks across the nation, washington is no different. we've been living beyond our means. i think she has a point. we continue to live high on the

hog. it is time washington balance its budget andtarted living within its means. many families are going to have to make those tough decisions and maybe forgo some of those sporting event to do the same thing. host: we have some facts and figures from the u.s. department of labour on the unemploymen situation. 13 million americans are unemployed -- 14 million americans are unemployed. host: the president called for

summer jobs program. what do you think of that? guest: i think the key is not to throw money at a problem. the key is to solve the problem. the problem is right now the country cannot afford to hire additional police because of the barriers for job creation. they are not competitive internationally on the income taxes. i understand common-sense regulation is necessary. i hear some businesses day in and day out that many of these regulators weather is the epa, usda, h, they are too aggressive and they are putting people out of business. folks are concerned about

litigation. so you cannot pay higher taxes and hire additional employees if you're small business on main street. you'll do one of the two, not both. i think employers are paralyzed. they are not willing to hire someone with the anticipation that the health-care proposal will comeinto full implementation in a few years. that will cost them. there is always a threat that the administration will raise their taxes. so they are sitting and waiting for some certainty. once we can give them that certainty and make some reforms that are more business friendly, we will see the issue of unemployment for teenagers and women and everybody resolved host:. nathan from kentucky on the

republican line. caller: i have a couple of comments about another stimulus plan. we have already bailed out the banks a couple times. we bell about the auto industry a couple of times. what the wheat belt the small citizens -- why don't we bail out the small citizens? you would spread that now into about one thousand millionairespe per state. spreading the money across the united states. all those people will be buying new cars. they would be buying all the other stuff that they have never been able to afford. it would stimulate our economy faster than anything else. host: lynn jenkins.

tost: i'm never opposed taxpayers keeping more of their money. but to bail anyone out at this point is not really feasible. the government is broke. we have spent $1.5 trillion. we have a national debt of $14.5 trillion. the last stimulus money was thrown at folks and they pay off their debt or they put it in the bank so th could savt. it. that did nothing to stimulate the economy. i am not eager to sign up for more debt and more deficit spending at the federal level on a program that had been proven

not to work. host: richmond, virginia, sharron on our independent line. you're on the air. caller: iish i could hear the republican leaders in congress stand up and say that the deficit that we are facing didn't just pop up when barack obama took office. it has been going along for years and years and years. i wish i could hear them say this is not a problem that can be fixed overnight. it will take years and years for this problem to be fixed. i wish i could hear the republican leaders instead of always saying, why did the president put forward and try to find some common ground on whatca can work.

i tired of all the petty -- "if i cannot have my way, i will not do anything at all." guest: i may surprise her. the deficit did not pop up overnight. that was the reason i ran. they spent too much money. in my first term, the democrats took the deficit that republicans were running annually and made them a monthly deficit amount. now we find ourselves in a divided government. now we're expressing frustration with gridlock. if it is any help at all, i agree. there's enough blame to go around at both parties for the mess that we find ourselves in. it's not going to be overnight.

it took decades to make the mess. it will take a few years to fix a mess. house republicans have put out a budget that gets us a balanced budget and eliminates the debt over tim at least we have a plan to do that. the president and the democrats in the senate do not. i hope we will work in the coming months to find the common ground. the free-trade agreement -- if the president is serious about regulation reform and about tax reform, then we are in business. host: lynn jenkins served as kansas state treasurer, overlapping kathleen sebelius' term as governor.

this news from "the hill" newspaper. guest: what you did not read -- my understanding is they were dismissed on procedural point th had nothing to do th the actual case at hand. and so i think the last time a court has ruled on the merits of the case was in atlantic, and they ruled it was unconstitutional. so i think we can probably be

certain is that at some point the united states supreme court is going to be asked to rule on this. i am not a constitutional attorney. understand that there is a 50- 50 chance it could be deemed unconstitutional and replaced with something that better addresses the issue at hand, which is the outf control costs in the health-care system. it is unlikely that that is going to change unless some faces change in washington. host: have you seen the governor sebelius since you have been in washington? guest: i have. we have about five minutes left before the house comes into session. mary. caller: i need someone to help.

the president has proposed the job stimulus. i am wasting my life. i've been unemployed since may of 2008. i cannot spend money or save money and i cannot pay my bills. this is important. i have been turned down for so many jobs because i have bad credit. the i never had credit since i lost my jo my life is being wasted. i'm living with family and friends. somebody gave me a gym membership. there is a woman i exercise what that is 87 years old. she worked to states to work at a hamburger place.

i say, why do you work up there? she says she works because she is bored. why don't you give up your job to somebody who is getting nothing? i'm getting solutely nothing. guest: she is expressing a frustration that i hear. there was a jobs fair inansas last week. we had 1100 people into big, kansas -- in topeka, kansas, just like this woman, looking for work. we had jobs available from employers that set up tables. the key is to find the right employer for the right employee and getting that match made. i would encourage her not to

give up. we cannot give up. americans just keep going. and if washington will do the right thing and create jobs, then we will give this unemployment situation under control. host: a democrat from long branch, new jersey. caller: i wanted to say president obama inherited two wars he did not start. i would like to know how much doubt much is adding to the deficit. we have a huge base realignment under the republican administration. billions of dollars over the estimated cost. i would like to know how much that is contributing to the deficit. host: we have to leave it there. guest: i appreciate you being here. the department of defense budget

is 20% of the budget. that is not the cost of the war. i think the predent is going to be addressing that issue. thank you for having me. we look forward to getting to work up on capitol hill to find the common ground that has been needed. host: lynn jenkins

p.m. on thursday. on friday no votes are expected in the house. the house will consider a few bills under suspension of the rules on monday, a complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business this afternoon. as for the remainder of the week we have a number of items to consider. we will complete action on h.r. 2218, the empowering parents to quality chartered schools act, we expect to consider an additional f.a.a. extension, whether he vote on a resolution of disapproval relating to the president's debt limit increase request and we will consider h.r. 2587, the protecting jobs from government interference act , the first bill in our fall agenda, mr. speaker, relating to

job creation. i thank the gentleman from maryland and i yield back the balance of my time. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for the information that's given to us. can i inquire, as the gentleman knows when we left for the august break, there was a very substantial issue with respect to the f.a.a.. does the gentleman know whether there will be any policy writers on the f.a.a. bill? i know there's a reduction in authorized levels but are there any policy writers -- riders in that bridge bill? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i'd say to the gentleman that we are still in discussions with the other body and the other side of the capitol as well as the committee on exactly the construct of that bill. but i do intend to bring that forward next week. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for that information. i certainly hope that we can do so and i'm pleased to they're that we're having discussions so

that -- hear that we're having discussions so that will not be a matter of contention. as you know with had 4,000 f.a.a. employees and 7,100,000 or so contractors, private sector employees who were laid off for peard of time because of the failure to get an agreement with the rider that was included in the bill that we passed over to them. so i'm hopeful that we don't have a recurrence of that situation because it would be very harmful not just to those 7,500 to -- 75,000 people but to the f.a.a. and the generaly. so i'm hopeful we can work that out. the president, mr. leader, spoke to us last night about a jobs program. i know that you have made comments with reference to

shifting focus from cuts to jobs . we think that's appropriate, we appreciate that observation. but do you have any idea of how soon we may get to the president's proposal on job creation and trying to get our economy growing again? you made some, i think, positive comments, the speaker has made some positive comments. i think those are welcomed. but can you give me some idea, given the president's sense of urgency, and i think the sense of the american people of the urgency of trying to create jobs and give them some more resources with which to support themselves and their families and to invest and to comprehensively try to staunch the loss of teachers and police and fire personnel that each one of our communities is experiencing and i yield to my

friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman and, mr. speaker, i respond by saying, first of all, the president has not sent a text of his bill and we will be awaiting that. i would also like to respond by saying that the president came last night and there were several things and proposals within his speech that seemed to reflect some areas that we can both agree on and build towards consensus. i would say to the gentleman that insisting that this body and the two sides here agree on everything is not a reasonable expectation but that i feel and have said so many times since the president's speech that this is an opportunity for us to set aside the differences that we have because good people can differ and begin to focus on things like allowing for tax

relief for small businesses, like allowing for the rollback of regulatory impediments that stand in the way of small business growth. as the gentleman knows we put we put forward a fall agenda that's focused on those goals. proposals standing in the way of job creation and affording tax relief for small businesses to create an environment for middle class jobs. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. i would hope that we could also have hearings. i understand the gentleman's correct that the text has not been sent up. i expect that to happen in the very near future, probably i would hope before we get back on monday night. i would hope we could start hearings on all segments of that and see that on which we could get agreement. certainly investing in our infrastructure, investing in our schools and highways, critically important.

we believe, and i think that will not only create jobs but it will create jobs that will have a meaningful, positive impact on our infrastructure and our economic competitiveness. the president mentioned about making it in america. as you know we have a make it in america agenda which includes a large number of items, including a manufacturing strategy, the president mentioned, and we all -- it was one of the few times we all stood very enthusiastic when he mentioned it whether it was making cars or refrigerators or other goods here in america that having made in america goods was something that i think we all support. that's part of his agenda as well. and i certainly -- our agenda, and i hope our agenda writ large on a bipartisan basis. if i might ask you on the front page of the "washington post" today, as you probably saw, is a picture of my district in upper

marlboro, maryland, where great flooding as a result of the rains that we received and irene , the supplemental for the fema is coming hopefully from the senate relatively soon. i would ask the gentleman, as you know there are 484 million remains -- $484 million remains in fema's disaster relief fund. not enough to meet the disasters. in the aftermath of 9/11, as the gentleman knows, we appropriated such funds as were necessary. and we did so without paying for them because, in fact, they were real emergencies, real pain, real displacement, real dislocation, real costs immediately incurred by people as a result of the disaster. in that case of a terrorist act, but this case of a disaster.

can the gentleman tell me whether or not we will be able to pass in a relatively accelerated fashion sufficient resources for fema without getting into arguments about how in the short term we'll pay for them? we have to pay for things in the long term, i'm for that, but i would ask the gentleman whether or not he would anticipate getting that supplemental done as early as possible and hopefully a clean supplemental next week if that is at all possible because we need to respond to the emergencies that confront us. i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: first of all, he knows as well my district was the epicenter of the earthquake and damage there for that as well as extremely hard hit by the high winds associated with irene, and had almost 900,000 people without power. still people without power. i understand the situation that

people are suffering and we need to get them their relief. the gentleman knows i share his commitment to making sure that happens. i also applaud the gentleman for saying that, yes, because he has always been, mr. speaker, someone who says we have to pay for what we do here. and i don't think that the two are mutually exclusive. i don't and have never said we should be holding up any relief at all for people who need it. i also think we can work together to act responsibly. the gentleman has been an advocate always for paying for what we do. and so i would say as to the request as to where and when we were doing the supplemental, we still have not heard from the administration because as the gentleman knows there's a process that goes on at the local and state levels to make a determination about the need and to make a determination that the need exceeds the capacities of the local and state governments. so as to then turn to fema and

the federal government to come in. so i say to the gentleman we need to understand exactly what the costs are going to be. and we will make sure that we find the money. i will also say that we continue to try and get out of these sort of ad hoc way of appropriating for such emergencies. the fact is in the past that we in this congress have not adequately funded the disaster accounts and if found ourselves caught short-handed when disaster hits. and as the gentleman knows, part of the debt ceiling agreement included a 10-year rolling average to now be the amount for which we will budget for the disaster fund and hopefully that will get us on a much more even keel and allow for the adequate funding of what's needed, both in the short-term and long. but as for the supplemental, still waiting for the

administration's determination of what it needed, and if it is f.y. 2012 moneys, we will have the opportunity to roll that into the process of budgeting for the disasters the way we set out to do that in the debt ceiling agreement. i yield back. mr. hoyer: i appreciate the gentleman's observation and also his reference to the head room that we gave in the agreement that was reached in raising the debt ceiling, understanding there are emergencies that occur and you need head room to deal with those emergencies. i'm appreciative of the gentleman's observation. i understand as well, i want to acknowledge that his district was hard hit not only by the earthquake but by irene and i presume by the rains as well that have compounded that issue. but in any event i appreciate his willingness to ensure that we do, in fact, get a

supplemental that will meet the needs, the immediate needs of those people throughout certainly the atlantic coast, but in other parts of the country as well. i appreciate and will look forward to working with him on that objective. as i will look forward to working with him on realizing the early passage of a jobs bill which will in fact get americans back to work and get our economy growing is essential. unless

she is interviewed by douglas. also, a personal and political memoir, dick cheney talks about his experiences during 9/11 in

velocity as learned since then. that is october 2 on "afterwards." watch more video of the candidates, political reporters are saying, and track the latest campaign contributions with the c-span website campaign 2012. it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook updates from the campaigns, candidate bios, and the latest polling data. all at c-span.org/campaign2012. >> next, former vice president dick cheney provides a list of events on what happened on 9/11. the event takes place at the american enterprise institute in

washington. this is just over one hour and 10 minutes. >> the morning, everyone. welcome to the american enterprise institute. let me first remind everybody police to turn off their telephones were put them on vibrate. and asked everyone when the session ends to please remain seated to allow our speakers to leave the room. a final housekeeping notes, books are available at the end of the event in the reception area. , who unfortunately could not be here, invited vice president cheney to join us today, it was with a view to remembering get tax of -- remembering the attacks of the 9/11, 10 years later, and considering some of the lessons learned and those that were not. since that day, the person to -- the first thing to recall about

9/11 and about the long war that we are still fighting is the many who gave their lives. the families who sacrificed loved ones and the awful loss. first and foremost, now is the time to remember those many brave americans who died at home, are fighting men and women -- our fighting men and women who risked everything so that we can live in freedom and are -- our invaluable allies from two big countries to name who share our cause. as some of you know, vice- president cheney recently published a memoir written with his daughter, liz cheney. we understand it will debut at no. 1 on the new york times best-seller list. [applause] today he joins us with best- selling author steve ahyes for -- hayes conversation about that

attack on our nation, about decisions made since then, and some reflections on an amazing life and politics, and pretty much whatever else he and steve tisch -- steve choose to talk about in the hour they have. in the time remaining after that conversation, we will have a question and answer session moderated by steve. dick cheney is a member of our board of trustees. we are so glad to have them as part of our aei family, and we thank them and all of you for joining us here today. [applause] >> thank you. i will not interrupt. >> remember you are a reporter, steve. >> that's right. >> i just wanted to say a word and i will turn it over to mr. hayes.

the book i wrote is a memoir. it covers all 70 years of my life, the early years are short. there was not a lot of good stuff to write about during that time, but the last half of the books focuses on the bush- cheney administration and my years as vice president. the book opens in the prologue with a recounting of events as i saw them on 9/11. much of that last half of the book deals with what we had to do during the course of our subsequent 7.5 years in order to keep the country say, some of the controversies we were involved in on things like the terror surveillance program, intense interrogation, and so forth. a large part of the book is

relevant with respect to 9/11 and the aftermath, although i don't want to mislead anybody. there is a lot of other subjects as well, going back to the fact that there have been five republican administrations since i was in power. -- since eisenhower. i worked with four of them and work closely with the fifth. i am going to turn it over to steve. >> just give you an idea of what i thought i would try to do this morning, i am going to start some questions about 9/11 specifically and push you in particular about your personal views on these things, because i know you like to put yourself on a couch.

public self reflection. [laughter] then i am going to go and talk about a number of different ways in which the policies that emanated from 9/11 that you helped drive, and try to fill in some gaps. i have spent a lot of time looking at the interviews you have done since the book came out. some questions that i have remaining for you. i think that is how i would like to proceed and then we will throw it open to everybody for some additional questions that will probably be much better than mine. i thought the first place we would start is on the morning of 9/11. i would be interested to know when you first knew we were under attack, not when you first heard about it, but when did you know we were under attack, and what were your very first thoughts at that moment? >> i was in my office in the west wing, working with my speech writer and my secretary called in and reported that a

plane had struck the world trade center in new york. we turn on the television and this was after the first plane had gone in, but before anything else that happened. the immediate reaction was, how is this possible? are really weird accident. perfect for clear weather, there was no way to account for it, and then as we watched and we saw the other plane hit. that immediately triggered the notion that this had to be a terrorist attack. you could not have two airliners flying into the world trade center within minutes of each other and not have it be anything but a terrorist attack. shortly after that, i talked to the president down in florida, and we talked about a statement he was getting ready to issue, whether or not it was proper to talk about terrorism within that context of that statement, and we both agreed it definitely was.

i think the words he used was probably a terrorist attack on the united states. within a relatively short time, as people began to gather in my office, secretary rice and the national security adviser was there, scooter libby. we probably had seven or eight people in the room, and all of a sudden the door burst open and my lead secret service agent came in and came over to the desk where i was sitting. he said sir, we have to leave immediately. it was not like, please come with me. he said we have to leave immediately, put one hand on the back of my belt and one hand on my shoulder and literally propelled me out of my office. i did not have the option of not going anywhere. [laughter]

the reason he had done that, he explained to me as he was taking me down to the presidential emergency operations center under the white house was that he had received a report over the secret service radio net that there was a hijacked aircraft out at dulles headed towards crown at 500 miles an hour, crown being the code word for the white house. that turned out to be american 77, which came in and made a circle and then went into the pentagon. at that point, i was down part way and i immediately use the telephone that was there to place another call to the president. that was our second or third call that morning. to let him know that washington was under attack as well as new york, and the secret service had strongly recommended that he not come back.

i also recommended that he not come back, believing it was very important for us to stay apart so that we did not become a riper target. we did not know at that stage was happening. he did not like that at all, for understandable reasons, but he agreed to it. i think he saw the wisdom of it. u.s. what our reaction was. -- you asked what our reaction was. >> i went from that spot after i talked to the president, and i was presented by the secretary of transportation with a list of six aircraft that they believed had been hijacked -- hijacked at that point. that actually had the flight numbers on them. of course it was only for, but for a while we thought it was six. there were to back major drivers -- two major drivers in

terms of what i thought about that morning and as we work through the crisis that way. number one was we had to get all the planes down out of the sky so we could isolate whatever had been hijacked and account for all the aircraft, including the list we had of the ones we thought had been hijacked and that point we had accounted for three of them. two in new york and one at the pentagon. that was a major part of the effort. the other thing that was very important that i focused on was the continuity of government. some of you are probably familiar with over the years, especially during the cold war, we had developed programs and procedures for preserving the continuity of government in the event of an all-out global conflict with the soviet union. that was always the scenario, and we had actually exercise that system on many occasions. it focused on having ways and

taking steps to ensure that somebody in the line of succession survive whatever kind of attack we were under, so that when the dust settled, we would have a president and a government able to function. that is what we refer to is continuity of government. that day i took the form basically of recommending that the president and i not bunch up. it was very important for us to stay separated. speaker hastert was out at andrews air force base for his security detail had relocated him, and we arranged for him to be moved from there to a secure, and this goes location -- undisclosed location, because he was next in line for the presidency. if something happened to the president and me, that he would be able to take over as president. those were the two major concerns that occupied most of

our time, one being getting all the airplanes down out of the sky, and guaranteeing there would be someone in the line of succession in a position to take over. >> speaking of your undisclosed location, much of the time when the media was reporting that you were in a secure, undisclosed location, you were actually at camp david, and that is where you went the evening of september 11. i remember having a conversation with you much later in which you describe what that was like, being at camp david late that evening. the way you describe it to me was that the family gathered around a television -- use that -- you sat basically in silence for a couple of hours, watching reruns of the planes hitting the towers and of the horror that day. what was that like, how long did you do that, and what were you thinking at that point? >> it was after the president had returned, we had a national

security council meeting and he addressed the nation. when we finished that,lynn and i got on a helicopter on the south lawn and were flown to camp david. it is the only time i have ever taken off and a helicopter on the south lawn without being with the president. i have done a lot over the years. you don't fly off the south lawn except in extraordinary circumstances. when we got to camp david, they took us to the aspen lodge, which is the presidential lot of -- presidential logdge up there. there, but for security reasons, the secret service was obviously focused on and concerned about the possibility of follow-up attacks and so forth, and aspin is the most secure facility at camp david, so we spent a couple of days there at aspen lodge. we sat in the living room,

watched the television and i was accompanied by my wife lynn and daughter liz. my daughter, mary was out of the country then. i can remember sitting there focused like people were all over the country, watching the tower comedown and the fires at the pentagon and so forth. i began to think about what we needed to do by way of policy, what steps we might take in order to deal with this new situation, and the thought that came to mind first and foremost were that this was not just a terrorist attack. we have had a lot of terrorist attacks over the years and we tended to treat them as law enforcement problems. we would go out and find the bad guys, arrest them, put them on trial and lock them up. this was an act of war. we had 3000 dead americans in a matter minutes that morning, and we need to treat it as an

act of war. that meant obviously you marshall all the resources of the federal government to be able to deal with and prevent a follow-on attack and deal with those who were responsible for what happened. we had a pretty good idea the afternoon of the attack that this was al qaeda related. that was the advice we are getting from the intelligence community. it was not a big mystery about who was behind it, but pretty well focused in on osama bin laden. but there was a lot we did not know about al qaeda. now we have heard so much about it for 10 years, there is a bit of a temptation to think we know everything there is to know about al qaeda, but the day of the attack, this was a group of terrorists, but there were a lot of key questions we could

not answer. we did not know how big they were, who was finance in them, where all of operating. there was a lot we need to learn. that drove our search for intelligence that generated some of the policies that we put in place. as i recall, i sat and made a series of notes of legal tablet that night as i thought about what we were faced with and how we might begin to deal with it. i went over in my own mind what we need to be doing. ultimately we all met up at camp david that weekend. all of us on the national security council. the attack was on tuesday, and by friday night we had pretty well gathered up at camp david and spent saturday and sunday up there with the president's and began to pull together what

ultimately emerged as our strategy for the global war on terror. >> in the days after the attacks, we saw various public officials in very public displays of emotion. we saw president bush almost come to tears in the oval office. we heard about condoleezza rice going back to the watergate in in breaking down because of the emotional toll this was taking. >> i remember coming back from new york, driving across the roosevelts bridge and hearing "america the beautiful" and i broke down crying. did you ever have a moment like that? >> not really. [laughter] >> you understand that people will find that peculiar.

>> well, my wife and daughter were with me that evening. lynn was with me all day. she had been downtown that morning when the attacks started and the secret service had brought her over to the west wing. she really sat beside me throughout the day. she would probably be the best person to comment on what my mental attitude was. i was focused very much on what we had to do. i was thinking in terms of what this met with respect to policy and our military forces and what the targets were out there we might go after and how we might go after them, and so forth. what kind of intelligence we would need to cope with this. that is what i recall. it was not that it was not a deeply moving event, it clearly was, but the other thing that influenced me from a personal

standpoint was that i had spent a good deal of time over the years, continuity of government program, and i had been through exercises where the nature of the attack on the u.s., in excess of what we actually faced, with hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions killed. i had the benefit of having gone through those exercises over the years and the training just sort of kick then in terms of thinking about what we had to do that morning and the next day. >> let's get to those policies. specifically, let's talk about two that everyone thinks of as the most controversial. can you describe -- i think there is a general sense among the public that you sort of brainstormed these ideas. you came up with them, they were your ideas.

you had been the most fierce public advocate of them. can you describe how the terrorist surveillance program came to be? >> sure. it is important to keep in mind, they were initiated at different times. the terrace surveillance program -- the terrorist surveillance program is something we moved to within days of overtime after 9/11. the enhanced interrogation techniques really came in a year or two later when we were in the business by then of capturing people like khalid sheikh mohammed. i believe we caught him in the spring of 2003. it was the capture of certain kinds of individuals that led us to the point where we needed enhanced interrogation. but coming back to the basic question of the terror surveillance program, the origin of the program and relief from mike hayden and his people

at the national security agency, and george tenant was involved as well. there had been a conversation between the two of them within a couple of days of 9/11. as i recall, the two of them had talked, and george mentioned it to me, the basic question being, are there additional things we can do with our capacity to read the mail that would help us deal with the situation we then face. that led to a meeting in my office, as i recall, where mike cavemen, then general hayden, a later the head of the cia, and george tenet. the three of us talked, and there were things that nsa thought they could do if they had additional authority.

i took that proposal basically and went to see the president and sat down and went through it with him. he signed up to it, but with a caveat. he wanted to make certain that he personally approved it each step of the way and that they had to come back in for approval on a regular basis. what emerged out of that was a significantly enhanced capacity for us to be able to intercept communications originating outside the united states, possibly from what we referred to as a dirty number he has a -- 30 #. to capture an al qaeda type, he has a computer or rolodex or whatever it is with a group of numbers on it, and you wanted to

know who he was talking to in the united states, for example. the safeguards we built into it at the direction of the president involved the fact that every 30 or 45 days -- it varied from time to time -- i think the secretary of defense, the director of the cia and nsa all had to sign off on continuing the program. it did not get renewed automatically. they all had a say in writing to the president if they thought we should continue the program from the standpoint of the nation's security, etc. the attorney-general had to sign off on it. all of that then went to the president. the president, once he had received input from his senior advisers, he would sign off and extend the program for another

30 or 45 days. that is the way we operate it for years. i briefed key members of congress. i had the chairman and ranking member of the house and senate intelligence committees come down every couple of months to my office, and mike hayden would come in and then george tenet. we would brief the key for -- four members of congress who had jurisdiction in this area over what we were doing and what kind of result that was producing, so they were wired in from the beginning. later on, some controversy arose inside the program with the justice department. we expanded that group of four into nine. we added the speaker, majority and minority leaders of the house and senate and had all of them in and briefed them as well. then i went around at that point and ask them all at that point -- nancy pelosi within the group, jay rockefeller on