he also understands that there is now a path forward and we must follow that path with urgency. he understands that to insure that lives are not needlessly lost, we have to ensure that opportunities are not lead list needlessly lost. he shares my believe that if the leaders on both sides continue to show strong leadership and a willingness to make those tough choices and their willingness to reasonably compromise, then peace is possible. martin, i am glad to have agreed to take the lweave from your post that brings to serve in this most important role. i know you are eager to get to work as am i.. >> thank you. mr. secretary, thank you very much for that generous introduction and for investing in such important responsibilities.

i am deeply honored to serve you and to serve president obama in your noble endeavor to achieve israeli-palestinian peace. the fact that later today, israeli and palestinian negotiators will sit down in this building to resume final status negotiations after a three-year hiatus is testament to your extraordinary tireless efforts backed by president obama to try to resolve this intractable conflict. president obama made the case so eloquently in his historic speech in jerusalem in march of this year. he argued to an audience of young israelis that "peace is necessary. peace is just and peace is possible." and you, mr. secretary, have proven him right. shown that it can be done.

i could not agree more with president obama. it has been my conviction for 40 years that peace is possible since i experienced the agony of the 1973 yom kippur war as a student in jerusalem. in those dark days, i witnessed firsthand how one of your predecessors, henry kissinger, broke a cease-fire that ended the war and paved the way for peace between israel and egypt. because of your confidence that it could be done, you take up the challenge when most people thought you were on a mission impossible.

backed by the president, you drove the effort with insistence, patience, and creativity. as a result, today, the tough decisions have been made to come back to the negotiating table. i am therefore deeply grateful to you and president obama for entrusting me with the mission of helping you take this break through and turn it into a full- fledged israeli-palestinian peace agreement. it is a daunting and humbling

challenge. but one that i cannot desist from. i look forward with great excitement to working with you, president abbas, and prime minister netanyahu to do our best to achieve president obama's vision of two states living side-by-side in peace and security. i also look forward to working with the team you are assembling started with frankl and steve who has made such important -- starting with frankl lowenstein who has made such important strides in this effort. 15 years ago, my son jacob who was 13 at the time, designed a screen saver for my computer. it consisted of a simple question that flashed across the screen constantly. "dad, is there a piece in the middle east yet?" i guess you could say that he was one of the original skeptics. [laughter] behind that skepticism was also a yearning and for 15 years, i have only been able to answer him "not yet." perhaps, mr. secretary, through your efforts and our support we may yet be able to tell jake and, more importantly, all the young israelis and palestinians who yearn for a different and better tomorrow that this time we actually made it. thank you. >> thank you all. see you later.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] , a conversation with alan krueger. >> now president obama's chief economic advisor talks about jobs and the economy. this comes about a week before mr. kruger steps down from his white house post. [applause]

>> thank you so much for coming out on your final week as a member of the president's cabinet. we have been there from day one. alan krueger was the chief economist and treasury for the first part of the administration and then he went awol. it is a little sabbatical. what did you do? class i went back to prince -- >> i went back to princeton university to teach. of the president's council of economic advisers. we start with the news of the day. congress is in its final week before it goes on is on sabbatical. everybody is wondering, september 30, are we going to have a government shut down? this administration always feels like republicans do not listen. you only have so many levers from making republicans listen. i wonder if this administration wants the government shutdown. >> clearly what the

administration wants is what is in the interest of the middle class. it is hard to see how a government shutdown is in the interest of the middle class. >> how do you make the congress listen? >> the president is doing his best. he went to illinois and then to jacksonville, florida. i went on that trip with him. tomorrow he is speaking on jobs in the economy. he is focused on the number one problem facing america today, providing more opportunities for people to get into the middle class. we try to make the case as best we can to the american people and the congress. >> the government will shut down if what? >> i am not going to negotiate in public about it.

let me make my point again. the president is looking to use every lever he can to strengthen the middle class. he has put forth proposals that would strengthen the middle class and has statements of administration policy. he has discussed which bills he would veto and so on. that is probably the clearest expression of where the administration is. these are all avoidable problems. there is no reason why the government should shut down if congress is working in the interest of the american people, these problems should be avoided.

>> shortly after the september 30 deadline, probably in mid november, the debt ceiling becomes a real emergency, a real issue in november or december. what would be the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling? >> on the dates, treasury has said after labor day. it is hard to pinpoint the date at this point. when i was at treasury, i worked on looking at the forecast for when we would run out of funds under emergency measures. we have already passed the debt ceiling and are into emergency measures. in themselves, they are risky. the deeper you go into emergency measures, the more it puts the recovery at risk. the idea of reaching the debt limit is unthinkable. i was thinking about the sci fi movie you probably saw, "sharknado." i think if we crossed the debt limit, it would be worse for the financial sector. [laughter] >> how is that? >> to be blunt, our entire financial infrastructure depends on treasurys. the idea the government would be picking and choosing which bills to pay, the idea that is being contemplated by some members of congress is unhealthy for the united states economy. >> one of the biggest decisions

this president is going to make this year is through the next fed chairman is going to be, who is going to succeed ben bernanke. your former tennis partner, hans nichols of bloomberg, wrote today that among the supporters in the west wing, the allies of larry summers and janet yellen, the two who have been mentioned. among those others, the trade adviser, and someone from omb. can we add your name to the list? >> i am not sure it is helpful for the process for names like that to be in public. people should speak for themselves. i think everyone you mentioned follows the ethic that whatever advice they provide to the president and others remains confidential. that is something i will live here too. >> that is a no? >> you can take it as a no comment. >> knowing the president, what qualities will he look for in a venture? >> i can point to the comments the president made last week in an interview with "the new york times." i do not remember who asked the question. he said he is looking for someone who supports the fed's dual mandate, someone who recognizes the actions the fed take affect ordinary americans. also someone who has judgment to know the right balance between supporting the economy and possibly over heating inflation. those are the characteristics the president mentioned. >> tomorrow when the president

appears, he will be appearing at an amazon distribution center. amazon announced new hiring in the united states. we're told the president is going to announce new policy on job creation. some of you may have heard it is a little bit like charlie brown and the football. the press is told there will be new policy. are we going to hear something new from the president tomorrow? >> the president has been consistent -- >> in not giving new policy. [laughter] >> in fighting for policies and actions he could take that do not involve congress to help the

middle class. i am confident you will see him do that tomorrow. i do not want to front-run the president's address. i think you will see the president emphasizing the steps congress could take today to help the middle class. >> a real worry has been the labor force participation. the number of people working full time and seeking work has declined. is that coming back? what are your concerns about that measure? >> the labor force participation rate peaked in 2000. it then fell sharply during the recession. the council of economic advisers predicted some time ago that starting in 2008 with the retirement of the baby boom we will see a gradual decline in labor force participation because of demographics, because we're getting older as a country. older people tend to produce a bit less, even though that is the one group that has seen a rise in the participation rate.

that will tend to dominate. on one hand, you have this demographic trend which will continue unless we have comprehensive immigration reform which would push in the other direction. at the same time, there are people who left the labor force because of the recession. either to go back to school or take care of the house. some of them are coming back to the labor force. we have seen that the last couple of months. the participation rate increased. i suspect we will see a tug-of- war between those two forces, demographics and encouraged workers coming back because they feel the job market is strengthening. on balance, those will roughly cancel out. those will roughly cancel out what we have seen in the last year-and-a-half.

if the participation rate stays constant, that is pushing against the downward trend as a result of demographics. >> the size of working age people not in the work force were not seeking to join the workforce is a sign of diminished ambitions or the restriction on ambition americans are feeling. >> i think it is a sign of how deep the recession was. even before the recession, we were seeing a decline in labor force participation, particularly among young people. that is not all bad. school enrollment has increased. that is important going forward. we've had a long-term trend of decline in participation is

among older men. i used to write for the "new york times." i wanted to write an article around 2005 about why the participation rate was declining for middle-age men. i call this the kramer effect. if you watch seinfeld, you can never figure out how he supported himself. we know he was not in the labor force or arc of looking for a job. i wanted to know how men in that situation were supporting themselves. i went to off-track betting in new york in the middle of the workday. i interviewed people. i still have not come up with the answer. that is a challenge we face. it is a serious challenge, along with long-term unemployment made worse by the recession. >> i would suggest there are a

lot of people in america whose hopes and dreams are not being realized. >> i think that was the title to a speech i gave recently. >> the president makes it clear the reason he ran for office is because the economy was not providing enough opportunities for people struggling to get into the middle class. the middle class has been battered for decades. that is continuing even as the economy is recovering. that is why it is important now that we have cleared away much of the rubble from the financial crisis that we focus our attention on what we can do to strengthen the middle class and provide more opportunity into the middle class. >> the shift of jobs to the service sector -- good, bad, inevitable? >> probably all three. that is not a dodge. it is happening because productivity growth has been outside services, mainly in manufacturing. it has been going on for years.

that is a good thing as long as we can handle the transition. it is good we have had a sector that was vibrant and developing new products like the internet and providing opportunity. it is bad because the service sector does not pay as well or offer as many private sector opportunities by and large. there are exceptions of very well paid jobs in the service sector. i think it is of three. we need to harness the forces that have been affecting the job market and use them to a greater extent to our advantage to try to bring more manufacturing jobs back to take advantage of the tremendous productivity we have in manufacturing. to improve our tax code so there is not an incentive to move jobs overseas. to provide workers with the training they will need in a high-technology, global economy. >> some people find a penny on the sidewalk. show us what you found on the sidewalk right here. >> right in front of the

mayflower hotel. >> in june at the rock and roll hall of fame in cleveland, you gave a speech called rock-and- roll economics and rebuilding the middle class. what does rock-and-roll have to do with the middle class? >> let me give you this. the speech i gave you was a follow-on speech to a speech i gave a year-and-a-half ago. i wanted to draw attention to the forces that have been battering the middle-class the last few decades. you can see them in the music industry.

the music industry has become much more of a superstar industry. it already was a superstar industry. >> you mean something specifically by the term of a "superstar industry." >> the idea of the superstar economy where a small number of people take home a large share of the reward goes back all the way to alfred marshall in the 1890's. he was trying to explain why the salaries of a small number of business people were growing rapidly and ordinary artisans, including singers, were flatlining. his explanation was because of

changes in technology, he included both luck and talent. a lucky and talented business person can command more of the market. they can dominate a market to a wider extent than previously, as long as the number of people who could hear the singer were limited by those who could fit in the room and hear her voice. their incomes would never rise of the same rate. he used them as his example. he used a woman named elizabeth billington who was the most successful soprano in the early part of the 19th century and never made much income compared to what business people were making in that day. i discussed research i had done in a field called rockonomics. we have seen the top 1% go from taking home 26% of the revenue in the music industry in the early 1980's to 56% today. the same type of thing has been happening in the job market and economy at large. the top 1% went from taking 10% of national income in 1979 to 20% today, double their share.

i think it is because of related factors. because of technological change, globalization, luck. i tried to emphasize the role of fairness. we have had an erosion of the norms and institutions that enforce fairness. the minimum-wage was eroded. we have had tax policy tilted to the rich. all those factors have conspired to reduce the incomes of people below the top 1%. >> one thing people are interested in is how ideas spread, sort of the viral marketing of ideas. an interesting slide you had at the rock-and-roll hall of fame is you said the belief a song is popular has a profound affect on

his popularity, even if it was not truly popular to begin with. tell us what you mean. >> this was a fascinating study. a colleague of mine at princeton and a sociologist did an experiment where they enlisted about 45 unknown bands to put up one song on the internet. they had roughly 10,000 people listen to this and download what they like. they showed a ranking from most to least popular. they ran this for several weeks. then they did something devious. the flipped the order and said the least popular song was the most popular and vice versa. they ran this with another sample of thousands of people. they looked at what happened. did they return to the original ranking? did the fact they said a lot of people like this song mean the

popularity rose? they found in the song that was ranked at the bottom when they said it was the highest ranked one became the most popular. >> what does that tell us about human nature? >> it is not news that it suggests there is a lot of herd behavior, a lot of important information, especially when it comes to cultural goods where there are subjective opinions and judgments about what is popular. it dawned on me that another way of explaining this is a movie called "sugarman." he was a commercial flop in the united states and turned out to be the most popular singer in south africa without knowing it. timing matters a lot. i have a lot of examples of bob dylan being turned down by a recording studio. i think in a superstar economy, chance matters more. if the gap between the best or those perceived to be the best and everyone else expands, the factors matter a lot more for economic outcomes. >> you are the godfather of rockonomics. >> i have become more interested in music. i wrote a piece in the "new york times" on super bowl tickets. i took my dad to the super bowl in 2001. i wrote an article about lessons

from going to the super bowl for economics. i was invited to be the keynote speaker at the concert industry convention. i was invited by wonderful magazine. i told the person who invited me i know nothing about concert. the only concert i had been to in the last decade was n'sync. i took my children. i said the only thing i learned was i need your plugs because they are allowed. he said they could help me. they gave me data on 3000 concerts in north america. it was fascinating to study the industry. since then, i have gone to many concerts. >> one observation made in your original paper in 2005 was it was the concerts' where the money was being made. is that still true? >> that is still the case. i would generously call it bowie theory after david bowie. he said music would run like electricity and be available for free.

he said the only unique experience will be going to concerts and bands should be prepared to do a lot of touring. i think that is what has been taking place. you can raise the question. in the old days, why did they not charge more for the concerts? we have seen concert prices rise even faster than health care inflation. i think the reason is the concert for a loss leader. they performed concerts to become popular and so more albums. now that people can download

music, they are making less money from of bonds and ewing concerts' as a profit center. >> do we have an education bubble? >> i have said if we are to have a bubble, that is not a bad place to have one. i did not say that out of self- interest. if you look at the countries that have done better dealing with the global forces affecting the u.s., their countries that continue to increase educational attainment. in the u.s., we plateaued in the 1980's and 1990's into the

2000's in terms of enrollment, especially among men. it would be healthy and helpful for the u.s. if we approach to education more like south korea and put in more resources and time, devoted more effort to work, tutoring, and all of that. at the same time, i worry about student at rising quickly. in some pockets of the education system, i think there is clearly a problem, lack of information and a minimum is part of the problem. students do not know what a typical student gets out of the school. we have been trying to address that by providing more information and clear guidelines. >> a friend who works on capitol hill says every business person who comes in from their home state to talk to them expresses concern about how the affordable care act, obamacare, is going to affect them. i know it is your view the stories about these -- pushing people into part-time work. it is your view that these are

anecdotes, bad actors, not a widespread problem. the concern is widespread. what can you do about that? >> i think there are many reasons for the concern. on the one hand, you have anti- affordable care at forces spending four times as much many criticizing the law as you have supporters' spending promoting the law. >> they are looking at their own

house and worry. >> some are. the vast majority of businesses that provide health insurance have been seeing slow growth in insurance premiums. i think when they take a look at what has been happening to the health care market, they will see some advantages. that covers the 85% of people who already have insurance. the small businesses under size 50 not required to provide health insurance qualify for subsidies. that will make them potentially better off. the exchanges, for all the difficulty getting them off the ground with some states not been fully committed to running them well, they have been providing much lower insurance premiums in many cases. when you look at the picture as a whole, there are many benefits that can occur from the affordable care act. the legislative aide would say, how many jobs have been created since the affordable care act? 7.2 million jobs have been created since it passed. that is double the private sector number of jobs created in the first four years of the previous recovery when there was no affordable care act. the evidence is job growth is proceeding at a faster pace than in the last recovery. when we look at part-time work, i have no doubt you can find examples of companies who have been cautious with work hours. overall -- >> cautious with work hours is sugarcoating. >> i do not know because i have not looked at the actual records. you can find evidence in the newspapers about some businesses saying they're going to cut working hours. we do not see that nationally. i do not think we will. i will tell you why. if you look at the data, we have about 145 million people working in the u.s. today.

of those working between 30 and 35 hours a week, the group you think might see their hours reduced below 30, of those only 1.4 million do not have health insurance currently, work for a company that has over 50 employees. the universe is not enormous. i do not think this is going to have macro economic effects. it has been something that has attracted news stories. >> the worries and concerns about backlash against the affordable care act are based on urban myth? >> we are focused on implementing it affordable care act as well as possible. we could see a health care costs growing at the fastest rate in five or 10 years instead of premiums coming down for small and medium businesses that were growing. instead of job growth at 200,000 jobs a month so far this year, the best start to a year since 1999, we were seeing job growth

which was much lower. the coverage would be different. we are focused on improving the outcome. so far, the outcomes have been quite positive. >> are you worried about what will happen with the affordable care act as everything kicks in? >> my main worry is congress will not provide sufficient tools to implement the law. that and concern about some states fighting the last war. what will become more apparent is the states that have done their jobs and taking implementation seriously are seeing more competition. they are seeing prices come down. that is going to be beneficial for citizens in those states. >> you worked for the labor department under president

clinton. you have been in the economic inner circle of this administration almost the whole time. first at treasury and now as chairman. what is the culture of this white house? >> i think the culture of the white house emanates from the president, which is trying to have a clear look at the issues and what is in the interest of the american people. no drama. that is an environment where i have felt very comfortable. it certainly was the way treasury operated when i was there under secretary geithner and that is how i felt working directly for the president. >> what is the president's management or leadership style? >> when it comes to economics, the president has outstanding intuition and is well-read. he will point out articles i need to read. i do my homework. the difficulty i have had is when i worked at treasury, i knew what the treasury

secretary's portfolio was. that was during the financial crisis. the president has many other issues on his plate. i try to be judicious in not overloading him, but providing him the information i think he needs the most. i have enjoyed being adviser to him. it is a funny thing. as a professor, you have a completely different life. you write articles and try to discover new things. as an advisor, it is necessary to be discreet. it is necessary to be mindful of your principal's time and not take up more time than necessary. it is to anticipate what information the principal needs.

sometimes that information is available. sometimes you have to develop and have your staff to research. there are different skills. i have enjoyed working for the president. it has been the highlight of my career. >> what kinds of articles does he point out? >> economic articles, academic articles. >> what kind of a meeting does he run? >> very organized. i do not like to tell too many stories about the president so i will not. before one of them, i got a phone call telling me president

obama likes to start his meetings on time and sometimes they start early. i was reminded of the coach of the new york giants. they would go to find the players if they did not show up 10 minutes before the meeting. it was a total change for me. the president said he wanted you to give him unvarnished advice. is that easier said than done? >> i am glad you remember that. he said are rely on the council to give me unvarnished, objective advice about the best thing to do for the economy, not influenced by politics. it is not hard because i will say on the one hand and the other hand. i have tried to give what i think is the best economic evidence, but also characterize where the different view is. i think that has worked pretty well. i have resisted the temptation to give advice about politics. there are plenty of people that know much more about that than me. that is their job. i have tried to stay in my lane and give the president objected economic advice.

>> has the president given up on getting a grand bargain, a fiscal deal that would deal with long-term entitlement problems? >> the president's last offer to speaker boehner is still on the table. the president has said there are many ways to solve our problems. i think he had a sensible compromise on the table to address our fiscal problems. he has said if we have to, we will do it in pieces. i think what is important is we have a grand bargain for the middle class. now that we've cleared away the rubble from the crisis, we can start addressing the structural problems that have been building for decades. i think that is to a large extent what the election was about.

>> in the president's 2011 state of the union address, one of his biggest applause lines. i think you are in the chamber for this. one of his biggest applause lines was he said we do big things, referring to the country. is the long-term entitlement program interfering with our ability to do big things? >> i do not think it currently is. i think it is a looming problem. i think right now the dysfunction in congress is what is preventing us from doing big things. when i was out of the government, and went to visit the panama canal. you talk about seeing big things

in america accomplished over 100 years ago. i went with the president when he visited the port of miami which is expanding to accommodate the larger ships that will be able to come through the panama canal. you see a tunnel under miami that is impressive. we still can do some big things. we would like to do a lot more big things. i think the constraint we face now is the opposition in congress not the fiscal situation we find ourselves in. i think that is a problem long term. it is one we need to address in the long term to preserve room for the investments necessary to strengthen the economy. >> in the state of the union address two years ago, he said this is our generation's sputnik moment. within 25 years, our goal is to get 80% americans access to high-speed rail. that is a tall order. how're we doing? >> i think we were doing better before the sequester. the sequester is having any adverse effects on the economy. it is hurting the vulnerable, cutting benefits for the long- term unemployed.

cutting the number of students in programs like head start. it is cutting critical investments. if you look back at the history of the u.s., we know the more people were looking for breakthroughs, the more we get. the example i like to have in mind is the hydraulic and horizontal drilling. horizontal drilling was developed because of research at the department of energy. it is the best example of government investing in new technology and private entrepreneurs taking it to market and developing it.

it could not happen any other place. we are much further ahead than the rest of the world in terms of horizontal drilling. those are the types of investments getting cut as a result of the sequestered. that will affect us in the future. >> i want to bring you into the audience. if you have a question, we will bring you a microphone. let me ask you about being in the treasury department right after the meltdown. you were trying to avoid a worldwide depression. what was it like? your comfort zone was jobs. but you had to get beyond that. >> i like to say it was all hands on deck. we were facing unprecedented problems. my background in economics was fairly broad. i felt comfortable dealing outside of labor economics. we consider issues of moral hazards. those are big issues and financial markets. the range of issues we were facing, the decisions the president and treasury secretary had to make on a daily basis were extraordinary. i remember when the life insurance companies came in. it felt like a good chunk of the economy was on life-support. when i reflect back, i am reminded of how much progress we have made and how dark the prospects were at that time.

>> what was your worry at that time? >> i was very worried about the financial system. let me give you an example. if you go back to the president's first budget, there was a reserve fund of an additional $250 billion for financial stability programs, if necessary. >> what did that mean? >> that meant the fear was tarp that was unpopular at the time it is not a popular idea to use

taxpayer funds to shore up banks. no president would want to do that unless we were in an extraordinary situation. i am sure the bush administration did not seek the funds gleefully. we were not sure that would be sufficient given the scale of what we're facing. given the skillful management of secretary geithner and secretary paulson, we were able to shore up the financial sector and get private capital in and have taxpayers repaid with a profit from the financial system. not from some of the other investments tarp made. they were not designed to make money. they were designed to rescue the economy. when you look back, it was not clear we would not have been in a much deeper crisis.

>> i would love to bring you into the conversation. we have a question in the back. say your name. >> [indiscernible] >> while we're doing that, i will ask you about senator elizabeth warren. >> what about her? >> it is an open-ended question. >> she has been a champion of consumers, particularly in the financial area for decades. she brings a new element to the u.s. senate. i have not had that much contact with her as an academic. i had some contact with her when i was at treasury. i think she is a superstar with in the democratic caucus. much like hillary clinton was, i

would say. >> recently she and a senator who introduced glass-steagall for the 21st century. do we need that? >> i think we have the tools from dodd-frank to address some of the problems that can arise in the financial sector. it is important to continue to implement them. like the aca, it is important regulatory agencies are adequately funded. there has been in a stealth war on funding. the higher capital requirements, the living wills that are required to provide and the oversight committee are important tools. >> what do you mean by a stealth war? >> effort by special interests and some members of congress to inadequately fund the regulators which would make it much more

difficult to implement dodd- frank and also put the financial sector more at risk for the kind of boom and bust cycle we have had before. >> we do not need a microphone. someone down here has a question. >> [indiscernible] >> welcome. i have to answer carefully. we have longstanding policy of not commenting on the federal reserve. in terms of inflation, i think we are seeing inflation expectations well-anchored in the product markets and the labor markets. we have had tame inflation partly because health care costs have been growing so slowly.

i believe that has resulted from structural changes in the health care system, partly brought on by the affordable care act. >> returning to princeton, what has paul kruger been like? >> he has the office two doors down from me. he has been a good colleague. i think i mentioned before the semester i was back i had a new course called consequences and remedies. he thought it was such a good idea he decided to teach it. [laughter] he and i have had some interesting comments. the new one is called the economy and economic policy in 2013. that gives me a fair amount of discretion to cover what i like.

>> another field of expertise for you, in the administration you tried to stay in your lane. you have not said much about this. you did a book on terrorism, what makes the terrorist, the economic risk of terrorism. it is dedicated to pat tillman, killed in afghanistan. it was rejecting the popular explanation for terrorism, that it came from people who were educationally or economically depressed. you found out it was often well- educated people from wealthy families. they were sophisticated about wanting to affect political outcomes. >> the popular view, stereotypical view of terrorists was wrong. the general tendency is for people to be engaged in terrorism because they want to make some type of political statement.

we have a view of terrorism that is like a street crime. people who are desperate, have nothing to live for get involved in terrorism. it seems to me that it is people who believe in something so strongly they are willing to die for it. that is a better explanation for who becomes involved in terrorism. >> is that harder or easier to deal with, prevent, curtail? >> it makes it harder in the sense that another thing that we found was that those who had more training were more effective in terms of carrying out their plot. in that sense, i think it is harder. i think also -- this is another demon in the book -- the terrorist organizations are pretty adaptable. if the authorities are looking for one particular profile they are pretty good at changing that profile. on thing i would recommend to the audience is there is a fabulous new movie called "the attack," about a palestinian couple living in israel. a true story. i don't want to give away the whole movie. a very well educated couple -- it does that the conclusions that i found in my book. clocks with did you learn from

the attack? >> it was an excellent movie. i would not generalize for one case. one of the things i try to do in my book is try to bring quantitative analysis. >> last question, what should we worry about now? do you think the threat has diminished? >> i will stay out of my way. -- i will stay in my lane and leave that. clocks -- >> it is fitting friday is a job stay -- a jobs day. what is it's like to be thrown out there month after month? >> it is not the easiest day of the month for me. i try to take a long view.

the numbers are very volatile. i added a paragraph to my statement, as the administration cautions every month jobs numbers are very volatile, they get revised, and people make too much of the monthly numbers. i have not try to lower the temperature on the monthly reports. at the 12 month change there are issues about cecil -- if you look at the change from july to july. i found that if you look at the course of this recovery on a rolling 12 month basis, we have been creating about 2 million, 2.1 million, 2.2 million jobs per year for the last 2.5 years. when you look at it in that perspective you are a little bit bit less inclined to overreact to the news. that is what happens, i think, in much of the press on the monthly jobs report. i will try again, regardless of what the numbers are. i get criticized because my

statement has been fairly consistent over time, which is the latest report shows that the economy is continuing to heal. sometimes i get criticized for being lazy. my view has been that when that stops being true i will change it. so far, over my whole tenure, we have been gradually deepening our way -- digging our way out of the recession. we are on a much better path than we were on when i first started working for the government. >> her tennis skills, one of your former artist describes her tennis style as effective. they described it in contrast to gene sperling.

what does it take to be good in tennis? >> practice. i love tennis. i was telling a member of the washington capitals that it is a refuge -- i was on the track team when i grew up. every year i get older i run more slowly and that is not as much fun. tennis is therapeutic for me. it gives me a chance to run and chase after the ball. the more i practice, i used to have the illusion that i was getting better but now i have the illusion of feeling like i am not getting worse. >> if you could extrapolate from rock in -- from rock economics in the middle class, what can you tell us about tennis in the middle class? >> i think it is important that people exercise.

that is important to a healthy life. >> this is congruent with another question, your home remained up in new jersey. when you are in d.c., how has the restaurant scene changed since the clinton administration? what would you tell new yorkers about d.c. restaurants? >> in the two years i have been living on 15th and p street, the 14th street corridor has changed dramatically. there is a new restaurant every other day. i think they are excellent.

i've tried linda beaumont in my neighborhood. clocks does it live up to the hype? >> i should probably try it a second time before i answer that area -- answer that. how does it compare to new york? i would say new york has a lot more restaurants. i would say the top are pretty similar. new york restaurants stay open late. i used to live above a fabulous restaurant. they close at 10:00 and in spain that is when they start to go out to dinner. clocks we have another question down here. matt mcdonald, go ahead. >> i am curious, there has been

a lot of discussion about the rise in disability and the question that some argue that there is the class workers who just do not have a place in the economy as it currently is and that there is not home for them to have jobs to add value to any sort of thing. do you think that is true? if so, what are the solutions to deal with that problem? >> i think the rise in insurance is driven by a number of factors. one is the demographic trend we have talked about earlier. that is something the social security administration had predicted. also the state of the economy does tend to matter. particularly concerned about the

rise in disability insurance and working people. i think it is symptomatic of the trends that are taking place in the economy over the last several decades. i think we need to create more demand, particularly jobs that pay decent wages. we also have to make sure workers have sufficient training for those jobs. i can tell you nobody wants to be a disability insurance. i did a study years ago of people who were paraplegics and looking at their job prospects. we interviewed about 800 people. it was a catch 22 at that time. many of the individuals could have used some of the new technology. the cause they were unable to work, people were learning how to use a computer on the job. i do think there are opportunities to reach disability population to provide them with more opportunities. >> as we say goodbye here, what is a book we should read? and what is something you are looking forward to reading? >> i very much like my colleagues book. >> what is the big idea?

>> the big idea is that when people make decisions sometimes they make decisions based on emotion. and they use rules of thumb and intuition, which may be wrong. in other times they think through the benefits and the costs and think more rationally. that is a fabulous book. and we talked together so i very much enjoyed collaborating with him over the years. i am looking forward to reading some nonfiction -- some fiction. i have not read some fiction in a very long time. maybe you can give me some recommendations. i like mysteries. >> one other book you recommended, tell us about "the theory that would not die." >> i read that book before, just before i came back to government. it is kind of the system in an economist framework. it's about-based analysis.

anyone who took statistics and forgot, it is a way of integrating information and tells you how to update. how much should you change your views? some people never change your views. some people change them to easily. history base was absolutely fascinating. it was applied to many different situations, including search engines, including looking for bombs that fell off of airplanes. the history is quite fascinating. >> thank you for making this possible. thank all of you in person. thank you for a great conversation. [applause] . .

>> we have a great panel and we have a huge subject. this panel is about the first ladies as influence makers. that is a term that is itself subject to perhaps misunderstanding or multiple

definitions. myra i begin with you. you written, among other things, a book explicitly about first ladies in the 20th century. how would you define influence? >> i think it's evolved richard. i think that we saw the office begin as one that was essentially ceremonial and focus. since beginning of the 20th century and especially since 1960, we've seen the presidential spouse, the first lady, assuming more influence. it goes way beyond pillow talk. "lady bird" johnson said the first lady was the only one that can tell the president to shut up and not be fired. that influence is taken.

sometimes the concerns of the first lady become the concerns of the president. "lady bird" johnson became concerned about the environment. barbara bush was involved in literacy and tried to bring that emphasis to her husband's administration. they listen, they give advice which has sometimes raised the question who voted for her. there's the question of accountability but i think anyone who thinks that the first lady is not influential is really not being very realistic. >> allida you have spent much of your life explaining the first lady who perhaps more than anyone else.

whereas the label modern. out of that has grown a notion that she's the most influential of modern first ladies. how much truth is there to that and is there a danger in defining influence along politically activist terms? >> i don't think eleanor roosevelt as much as i admire, was the most influential first lady in american history. i think she had enormous amount of influence when she was there. not only in terms of articulating president roosevelt's initiatives, defending him from attack, building constituencies, expanding the democratic party coalition and having a huge role in shaping of social security, the homestead project, the youth

administration, the federal one programs, which is the -- she certainly helped influence the administration but the appointment list that she brought to present she and molly. they were profoundly effective grassroot party organizers. some of those students i used to have now worked for different grassroots organizations still canvas and use eleanor roosevelt's training manual as a way to canvas. i'm not in any way saying she's not influential or disagreeing with her husband's policies in policy. i think nancy reagan and hillary clinton were more influential specific across the board policies than eleanor was. >> let me interrupt you for a second. i'm fascinated by what you saying.

i think one way -- i'm trying to define influence at the risk of over simplifying in terms of public influence and intimate influence. >> i think if we say that, then i will say that at the two most critical moments of our history in the 20th century. if you look at the great depression and you look at world war ii and if you allow me to sort of take off my first ladies hat for a minute and put on my historian hat. we're talking 40% unemployment, we're talking one-half of every mortgage in the united states at the risk of foreclosure. one out of every two mortgages in the united states, farm or home mortgage. we had lost 47% of our national

income. the country was in profound crisis. if you were talking about someone who could help the american people cope with that and open themselves and courage and not blame themselves but hold themselves responsible and build a huge commitment to what mrs. roosevelt and president roosevelt began to adopt, she was profoundly important. two examples, in her first seven months in office, she got more personal letters than any first lady in the history of the united states precomputer. i'm talking they were written on newspaper scraps that were thrown in the streets they were written on used paper towels and they were written on stationary.

she organized a communication system within the white house where every person got an answer. i want you to think about this, you're writing on a scrap of newspaper that has food stains on it. one woman from troy, new york wrote her. they had never met, she enclosed two rings in her correspondence. her engagement ring and the ring that she inherited from her mother when her mother died. she was a republican from upstate new york who was desperately poor, was pregnant, didn't have money for diapers and put her collateral in the ring expecting eleanor roosevelt to get these two rings, hold on to them until her husband who an engineer finally got a job and give the rings back. if you're talking about influence in that way, she's a

rock star. >> i would suspect hoover got some of those same letters. >> no, i checked. no jewelry. >> robert, let me ask you because among others, you written about the un-eleanor. her immediate successor and likeness to ford, certainly a woman who never imagined herself in the office. is she influential and if so how? >> talking about beth truman. i like to look at influence in the following way. the first ladyship is unelected, unappointed unpaid. it's not a job per se. it's not part of article two of the constitution. which would seem to be a liability for what it is is an

asset. it allowed first ladies to pursue a wide array of activities to their interest to their liking. in that vain of direct importance to richard's question, i look at it two ways. one is personal. the first lady as myra said, the first lady putting words in your mouth, last person the president sees before he goes to bed at night. first person he sees when he wakes up in the morning, for most presidents. take the fords, take barbara and george h. w. bush, some of these couples have been married for decades before they went into the white house. how many senior presidential aids say they knew the president well before he got into politics. there comes with that type of influence, role as a counselor or confidant. even though bess truman was not a political activist, she was the opposite. harry truman was not joking hen he called her the boss.

he said later in life, i never made a serious decision without consulting beth. i did two oral history interviews two years ago, they were both speech writers for truman. they would sit down and truman would have these check sessions where they will go through a speech. truman will say check, i like that and don't like this. whenever they finish the long session, truman will say the same thing. i will take this up tonight and run it by the boss and we'll finalize it tomorrow. there's that personal role which we're all talking about. secondly it's a social influence role. we don't have a monarch. think about michelle obama on magazine covers. she's been on more than kim kardashian. mrs.obama is an iconic figure as all first ladies are. they're always ranked in the top 10 most admired women in the world.

eleanor roosevelt goes out and embraces mary anderson and the daughters of the american revolution find out she's african-american and don't want her to perform. eleanor roosevelt was out and set us up a concert. she goes out to the fields in tuskegee. eleanor roosevelt goes out and champions their cause. the same way mary todd lincoln did collecting food and clothing for former slaves that moved to the capital city. betty ford probably did more to promote breast cancer screening among women anything before simply by her being the first lady and having that pulpit. i can't even imagine how many thousands of women, there's letters from thousands of women

or sons or husbands of women who went out and got screened and alive thanks to betty ford. there's a social influence that comes from the office which we can't measure in polls, that puts her easily may be the second most influential person. >> is it too easy to dismiss to condescend to another kind of influence. whether it's fashion, style. there are reasons why we talk about certain first ladies as women of both style and substance for some style and substance. you know, clearly, since when do presidents become celebrity in chief. there's no accident first fashionita. his wife has higher poll

ratings. is that because this is the way of humanizing the white house? or universalizing because of of the experiences that a mother and wife bring? >> i really disagree. >> you're disagreeing proactively. >> i would say that the first lady reflects the schisms that's in the united states about what women suppose to be today. are we suppose to be mom in chief, we suppose to be first maid. to navigate that -- if the president is pose to be -- suppose to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady suppose to be the ideal

fashionista, mom in chief, or help mate. if she is help mate, that means she's got to understand what's going on in the administration. she's got to understand what's going on in the country and she's got to understand her husband's political agenda. you can't really separate, i think, how the first lady presents herself and the conflicting expectation that the country still has for working wives and working mothers. >> myra, let me ask you this, then why was the country as smitten in its understated way, in the 1950's of eisenhower who gave us mammie bangs?

a woman who clearly set a kind of standard and then instantly it seems gave way to her opposite. who became a phenomenon along with her husband and in some ways -- how could we go overnight from one norm to the other? >> well, it was the end of the 1950's and beginning of the 1960's. i looked at that as a make or break point what we call the modern first lady. jacqueline kennedy comes into office and she's 33 years old. she has two young children and she's attractive and she is already a fashion icon. as kennedy is speaking about the peace corps and the new

frontier, she is gracing a period of camelot. i think it just took the country by storm. those of you who are perhaps of my vintage who may be saw this online, may recall an album called the first family. which made fun of kennedy. there were people who imitated their voices, his brothers, his parents, lyndon johnson. the country laughed along with them but it was i think almost emblematic of their affection. >> is it also true, this is a time when television really begins to define our public life, our journalism? >> on february 14 of 1962, jacqueline kennedy does something that no other first lady had done. she takes the country on a tour of the white house with

mrs. john f. kennedy in black and wheat. when i show that to my students they say what's wrong with the color. i kid you not. i said guess what, we didn't have programs with color until 1965. this is 1962. yes, i think that was part of it, the explosion of television and really seeing what was going on in the white house. >> jackie kennedy was so beloved if her fashion, it allowed that program to win an emmy and unbelievable ratings. what that program also did it built public support for historic renovations and historic preservation and build public support for keeping the white house as the country's house. >> and built huge support for her husband's administration. >> of course, that too. >> absolutely, his poems were in the toilet. the white house did not want mrs. kennedy to do that tour.

it was a huge blood bath an internal blood bath within the kennedy administration for this tour to happen. just think about how far she was pushing that envelope. we look back at it now, we think isn't this easy. isn't this gracious. isn't this lovely. it was gutsy. >> it was back to the point about fashion, the fact she was such a fashion icon, allowed her to be so successful and other reasons too in that tour. michelle obama, look at the sales of laura ashley or whatever stores at the mall. she mixes with her fashion taste, she'll wear american designers, young designers, ethnic designers and it's putting folks on the map in the way equivalent martha washington

rather than buying something from england. francis folsom was kind of a jackie kennedy figure. the country couldn't get enough of her. women will go to a salon or boutique and say i want at a la cleave. she was asked about the set. that basically ended the corset. nancy rake was -- reagan was a lot more than lipstick. there's much more to the fashion sense. i think do it's a part of this over all inch. michelle obama might be the fashion sense, she's also a

successful woman who's an ivy league attorney and vice president of a medical college. she also has a good marriage well adjusted kids. she's someone who had it all. she becomes this image of the american woman. we do look to our first ladies for that. i stay thank goodness because i rather have them look at betty ford than lindsey lohan or madonna or something. all of that is a type of influence and it's so hard to measure. they don't have it all mainly certainly the bangs were an influence. even little things when mammie would joke and say when they would ask her about politics. she would say quote, i watched the country i flipped the pork chops. it was a cutsey, folksy way. he couldn't help by like her and follow her life and follow her. the first lady has this great, may be not a bully pulpit but

velvet glove to influence the country. >> mammie was also the first madison avenue first lady. there's a new orchestration going on behind the scenes there too. >> would some of you like to take a stab at the -- i better not say this -- >> he's sitting next to me. >> they won't cut this. let me regress for a moment. is it true some ways, we americans we're all about progress. it's like an escalator.

there's nothing that stops it. you can define progress this your -- in your own way. in some ways, i like eleanor roosevelt. can you imagine a modern first lady having a daily newspaper column, a weekly radio show, which is you pointed out the audiences than the famous fire side chats. remarkably did not wear out her welcome. fdr had a keen sense of the danger of over exposure. then jump ahead 30 years. could a mod -- modern first lady say what betty ford said in 1975, would the political advisor, the spin doctors and

media handlers will they stand for it? >> well, i don't think they stood for it when mrs. ford said it. >> except it was already said. >> i think they could. i think it depends upon what the circumstances are and what the issues are. i hope they would take courage from betty ford. i hope they would take courage from eleanor roosevelt. i hope they will take courage from laura bush. i hope they take courage from hillary clinton. i hope they will take courage from mary todd lincoln who was not crazy. >> but she was damn difficult. >> i don't care. wait! i don't care difficult is not crazy. >> that's true. >> let's just say john wilkes booth shot the wrong lincoln?

>> c-span turn off the cameras. richard i want to send you right now, i want to put you in the middle of afghanistan. no, i'm serious. >> i feel like i'm there. >> i want to put you in the middle of a medical camp. i want you to have no anesthesia. i want you to have body part descendents. i want you to hold an arm while a medic with a saw cuts off the wounded soldier's elbow. >> your indignation has been registered. >> she is not crazy. >> she also lost three of her four sons. >> and was so flirtatious that the two most powerful political men in the united states both parties asked her to marry them. i rest my case. >> which builds the drama for the lincoln-douglas drama.

it was personal. myra? >> i feel like i'm surfing at the blitz -- serving tea at the blitz here. i want to offer different opinion. the question that richard posed was, could someone today first lady today comment as betty ford did in her historic interview on "60 minutes." something comes to mind is hillary clinton's speech in beijing on human rights. there was a blood bath about her going. many people did not want her to go and it was really a last minute decision that she go. then she had decided this was going to be the form where she was going to speak out about human rights. people were very uncomfortable about it. her particular speech that's

been mythologized again, womens rights or human rights and human rights are women's rights. they didn't cover the speech in china. i even wonder now if mrs. obama wanted to go abroad and do that if she can get away with it. >> let me tell you one thing about that. i think they can. i think laura bush has done an extraordinary job. i think that when hillary gave that speech in beijing, not only did personal privilege here but the women who were in that facility whom i worked with spend most of my time working with, these are women who risked their lives everyday in ways that 99% of you in this room can

never understand. they took that speech like they took laura bush's address to afghan women and they wrapped themselves in it and they went home and they stood in courage. i think to say that they blocked it out in china was true. you don't think it got out in china? tell about all the women activist i know this china that allida works with in china. they know about that speech. ask women in africa who don't have access to radio or television. they know about that speech. when we think about what these women have in terms of influence. we have to look -- beyond our fashion magazines, beyond our voting booths but into the daily lives of people who are struggling to find the courage everyday to get up and do their

jobs and to survive. they are profound importance to them because their gentleness and shrewdness comes through in ways we don't anticipate in the united states. >> let me just point out something. there's idlings -- distinction to be made the boldness. in talking about domestic politics and the impact of a first lady's remarks. it is entirely different for her to go on to foreign soil and voice criticism of a system that most americans would take profound exception to. as opposed to not being perceived as weighing in on the culture war here at home. all i'm saying is, are there

still boundaries, are there still subjects -- remember of course hillary clinton is a great example who initially in 1992, got us in trouble because there was a perception she was over stepping. >> standing by my man baking cookies. after the scandal she baked cookies for the press corps. related to that question and both the comments from allida and myra. the country came around and supported that. she was right. betty ford after her comments on that interview -- eventually in the first couple weeks, lots of letters were sent to her and critical. after several weeks started to come around. people said she talked openly about marijuana use and what would happen with teenage promiscuity. that's the kind of conversation

you have to have with your kids. so the country eventually came around to see the wisdom what betty ford did. >> at the same time that's when jimmy carter was doing an interview. people beginning to see the carter's administration numbers going on. the ford administration is finally realizing they have to be proactive to really stand with mrs. ford's remarkable candor. i really think that the election is so tight in ohio because she got the three suburban cities. she's got columbus, cincinnati and cleveland. the beg question for me and the question i asked the fords was as the election is getting so tight, why in god's name did you

not send betty back to the ohio suburbs? every time she went, her numbers spiked. both fords told me that they thought that was the single biggest tactual mistake they made in the 1976 election. when we look at this, don't look at it in terms of this blip this happened in playboy, look at it on a continuum of how we get it and we process that information. how we process it i think is what richard is trying to get me to acknowledge its influence. is that right? >> can i respond to that? >> i don't know what the hell you said. >> i'm trying richard. i'm trying hard man. >> i think richard is right in terms of the parameter. she is unelected and unpaid and still element of the country i think wrongly uncomfortable with that. we saw that with some of the

comments mrs. obama made during the campaign when she tried to say that being very proud of her conversation to have this conversation about electing first african-american. betty ford favored marriage equality long before anyone else did. when lyndon johnson was running, he was countering a lot of opposition in the south because of civil rights policies. he sent lady bird down there. she spoke truth to power. it's controversial for these first ladies day one. what might not get a president votes day one, ultimately they are back. they're socially influential, they're moving the country down the road. weaver --

>> let me try to redeem myself with m rs. lincoln's admirers. there's a great tragedy attached to lincoln. there was unusual political partnership. politics brought them together. she was far in advance in terms of her interest and her sophistication regarding politics for well bred, well read young ladies. she had a great admiration for henry clay. you could make the case, as a matter of fact i would make the case there never been a mary lincoln, that probably would not

have been a president abraham lincoln. that said, the war comes along and consumes him. in some ways devours him and profoundly affects that partnership. it's that part of the tragedy of mary lincoln. question of what her medical diagnosis was. for get that for a moment, the fact we can all relate to this woman who is losing a great love of her life. ironically once he achieves their common objective. >> i would agree. i just like to move it on a little bit. the presidency is a tremendous crucible for marriages. i think that part of the tragedy of some of the white house marriages has been exactly what you pointing to. i think there are other women in the white house who seen the --

trying to deal with vietnam. just watching everyday as it just ate away at him. by the way, that's when i think the first lady can be at her best because that's when she can provide the most support and can be a soundingboard and can encourage the president. same thing by the way with herbert hoover. everyday the depression was killing this man she adored. >> we heard laura bush tell us that one of the great comfort she can provide for george w. bush was try to lift his spirits during the war.

>> mary todd, lincoln would joke and say that the toddes needed two d's and god needed one. it was a strange marriage from the get go. they were political partner.s. abe lincoln was one of the few men that respected that mary todd had a political opinion. when it came to judging his political enemies and men, she was right. they had that in common. they both also lost their mothers at a young age. there was some things that helped them stay together. lot of these marriage, the roosevelts, lincolns and clintons. marriage and child rearing all of this is difficult enough, of course not for me, but other things. it's difficult enough but

imagine doing it in a fish bowl. mary todd is raising little children. bill clinton with the way rush limbaugh and the other people went after clinton and the bush people getting attacked for other teenagers does. some presidential marriages, some of them seem to blossom in the white house. the reagans, some of their happiest years and they were together and certainly the president relied on his wife for more than just tea or fashion. >> i think in the case of the ford, obviously we can ask susan and see. mrs.ford was delighted. she saw more of her husband in the white house. he wasn't out on the road 200 nights a year.

>> let me ask you about a conundrum facing modern first lady. they're more visible than ever and some ways they are more popular. they have mass followings. their poll ratings are often higher than their husbands. some ways because they're also seen as less protestant in their politics. >> i don't think so. >> genericically. this is the balancing act. the type rope that they walk is in effect, they are the most valuable political asset the administration has. yet that asset could be damaged if they're allowed to become too overtly political. >> i think that's fair. if you look at -- i think they have their cake and eat it. if a president sits down for an

interview, he will be asked about anything under the sun. there is no good answer for the type of jobs growth that this country wants to see. nine out of 10 interviews with the first lady, she'll be asked about child raring and a new dress she's worn or new dinner at the white house. those are softball questions. it's a win-win for the administration. the recent first ladies have been extremely articulate. they've done good jobs both republican and democrat. by them getting in these interviews, they get softball questions. it's the magazine that the masses read. if they go with mrs. obama dances with jimmy fallon and goes on the view or cracks jokes with david letterman. >> i would argue that's because the american people no longer read newspapers. i would say that's because the

vast majority of american people get their information about the president and the white house from nonauthoritative sources. they're not all garden. they're not all fashion. they're not all arm muscle and they're not all child bearing. i do think, i think michelle obama is an exception. i think if you go back and you look at the, the juggling act, i mean that in a way not condescending. i mean a way of juggling the war in iraq and don't ask and don't

tell. you cannot tell me laura bush got softball questions. you cannot tell me that hillary clinton got softball questions. you cannot tell me that barbara bush got softball questions. what barbara bush did she had two books about her dog and said i'm not nancy reagan. you're telling that barbara bush didn't answer questions about iran contra. what are you smoking? >> i will disagree. nine out of 10 questions were softballs. those were exceptions and not the rule. usually when asked the first lady sidestep them. nine out of 10 political questions is something how do you handle the campaign trail or balancing of the family. first lady chooses to say no comment, it's completely acceptable whereas if a president says no comment on that issue -- beth truman for

example had a press conference. the transcript goes like this, are you going to be down in mines like eleanor. she says, no comment. then they say are you going to be flying in an airplane with the tuskegee airmen. no comment. after about 20 of those, they ask if there will be another press conference, she said no. if harry truman did that, they would have impeached him. >> i think that, that's the job of the first lady's press secretary is to control the press. if there wasn't a control press arena, they would get those questions like boom boom. >> what about in the age of the internet, also contributing to

the political culture. irony has turned into a snack or turned into whatever. what are the implications for this for now and the future? >> i want to mention something i always found fascinating. i heard paul begala speak at a conversation. he said the clintons entered the white house, there were 500 websites. probably 500 websites get set up every hour now. it wasn't an issue for the clintons right away. there's an awful lot of

information out there. moving forward, i would believe every administration and the office of the first lady really have to focus on social media. >> let's not forget talk radio. >> absolutely. >> democracy in its most pernicious form. >> what raises the question, does it mean that future first ladies deal with this by choosing the most possible causes? things that will not give offense to anyone. >> i think it's going to be tougher and tougher to control the message as it already is. with the social media there's no controlling that message. they operate from different journalistic standard than the other media. this is my expertise and i will refer to her on the details. it's a two way street, the obamas are both on social media. it allows them to connect with thousands of thousands people.

obama will fill out his ncaa tournament brackets and michelle will send you information on a recipe or fitness tip. that connects with people in a profound and personal way. by the same token you can't troll it. -- control it. if you went to google image and if you typed in michelle obama, one of the pictures came out was michelle obama as an ape. there's no controlling that. the first ladies are becoming, i think fair game for all the nastiness that richard talked about and hate radio. >> i think they've always been there. i think the new media as ratcheted it up. adam scott was eviscerated in the press.

eleanor roosevelt, -- >> i thought had wanted to borrow her dress. >> i guarantee you that somebody is going to download this from c-span. they're going to edit something out to change the intent of what we say -- >> i hope they will. >> only you richard. >> if the women and the men who inherit this position live their life by that, they will spit on the people who came before them. because the courage that it takes to live in this bubble, to assume this pressure and always

feel inadequate not just in terms of how can you support your spouse but how can you support this country. is an act of heart-sucking courage. if we don't give credit for these women for accepting that responsibility and realizing that they're influential in a variety of ways, beyond food, beyond fashion, beyond movies, beyond book reviews, beyond child rearing. the role they have to play in influencing not only our perceptions of democracy and government but the world's perception, then we do a profound disservice to our country. >> two quick examples. real quick. allida is right, there's a long history and it's worse now for

social media. u.s. grant's wife had a cross eye. some of his critics attacked her for that to the point back then she contemplated corrective surgery. mckinley i believe had epilepsy. her husband's critics back to that time, we did not have an empathy or understanding, they went after her for that. imagine how difficult that was for first families. they've been getting hit since martha washington criticized for having too many horses. there's a long history of this with them stepping up into the lime light and taking shots to the chin. >> we have just a few minutes left. i want to move to the personal if i may and ask each of you to pick a first lady about whom we don't know enough for whatever reason.

presumably because you admire her or she has some relevance to this audience or even to the future of the job. bob? >> all right. the reason i wrote the first book was sarah's children's poem. presidents from number eight to martin van buren to number 15 were some of the worse presidents we ever had except for polk. polk was a pretty good president. i was going to do a book on why polk was a good president. i learned about sarah polk. there was a letter from franklin pearce who will go on to be our 15th president. he said the best political conversation i had in washington was polk. there was this old saying,

mrs. polk is certainly a master of herself. what you find that sarah polk went to congressional sessions. she edited her husband's speeches. he only served one term and died short after. the margin, you see her scribbling and she cut articles out. to the point she was unpopular among a lot of women at the time because if you won't a party and the president and the guys will go back and smoke cigars and drink bourbon and the first ladies will host teas. sarah polk would talk about politics. she was very interested in politics. i seen her kind of an eleanor roosevelt 100 years before eleanor. which is why so often seen as unpopular person. i found her absolutely

inspiring. >> myra? >> well, okay. well, i always admired lady bird johnson, i will always be in debt to nancy smith who is in the audience today who helped me to learn about her at the johnson library. i admire mrs. johnson, she was the first first lady that i interviewed in my work. i was asking her questions and i was scared to death. she could not have been nicer. when i would finish a conversion she would say to me, now myra, you would probably know that. she knew better than what me, what i was asking. my admiration for her knows no bounds because it's something she did in 1964 and that was she got on a train in alexandria, virginia, she rode it down to new orleans during the presidential campaign gave 47 speeches over the course of four

days and descended the civil rights act. it really was a gutsy thing to do. she carried that fourth rightness and those guts into the way in which she dealt with project head start and a poverty program. she was just a world wind with environmentalism and someone that i wish we knew more about. >> good. allida? >> on lady bird johnson, the historian william documented how dynamite was placed along those tracks because it was very clear after the civil rights acts of 1964, the democratic party that the south was no longer going to be in the camp of the democratic party. it was mrs. johnson who went to lyndon to say, no southern gentlemen is going not come see

me. when there was dynamite on the track, she kept going. she refused secret service protection and i can document at least a does assassinations on her. she went anyway. i think what i would like people to know -- i'm a lifelong hillary clinton democrat, i want hillary to be president. i love eleanor roosevelt, everybody clear on that? i want the world to know what laura bush is doing with the red ribbon, pink ribbon program. as much as betty ford who was extraordinarily kind to me did for breast cancer. pat far is saving lives in ways

that we cannot possibly imagine. there are millions and millions and millions of lives saved because of the emergency plan for aid relief in africa. i will go to my grave believing that laura bush was the soul behind it. i want you to hear me say i'm a hillary clinton democrat when i say that. >> allida i never would have guessed. nothing else, we learned there are many kind of influence as there are first ladies. myra, allida, thank you very much. >> thanks guys.

>> thank you. >> visit our website c-span.org/first ladies and follow us on twitter. starting next week, through august 26th, we show all the programs from the first season of first ladies influence and image. it starts next monday with a life and legacy of martha washington at 9:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. coming up on c-span, members of the congressional black caucus discuss violence in urban communities. then secretary of state john kerry talks about the israeli peace notions taking place in washington this week. later, interview with the white house counsel of economic advisors alan kruger. >> our next "washington journal" we'll talk with sheila bair.

she now chairs the systematic risk council. then tom skully, he talks about the eligibility requirement and the cost of the u.s. medicare program. later bill allison discusses the tracking fundraising. plus phone calls, e-mails and tweets. "washington journal" is live everyday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> now a conversation on violence in urban communities. this event hosted by the congressional black caucus focused on domestic gang and gun violence. this forum was in chicago state university last week. >> good evening. thank you all for coming this evening on a friday night in

chicago. how are you? you got a medal. we welcome you to the town hall of the national summit on urban violence here at chicago state university, i first like to introduce the president of the university dr. wayne watson to give you some greetings and welcome you to the university. >> good evening. we can never acknowledge and thank those who have the courage to have vision and the courage to bring it forth. we can never acknowledge and thank them too much. our congressional black caucus, let us applaud and acknowledge them. my mother used to always say,

let me smell my roses while i'm here. you know, two things, one is, a question was asked earlier, what are we going to do. we are going to come up with new money and come up with new money to solve the problem. chicago state university we're stepping up and we stepped up for the last year now and we have established what is called an interdisciplinary institute for urban solutions. i now challenge universities throughout america to reprioritize your human resources, to take your tens of thousands of students and faculty that are in the disciplines, some social work,

to health management and have those students and those faculty go in the contiguous communities, work with the community organizations and activist, identify the problem, use our human resources our curricula and research capacity. come up with action of those strategies and start solving the problems in your communities the way universities did at the turn of the 20th century. chicago state, some of my professors state, we acknowledge physical violence as a challenge. but as professor harris and our african-american studies program he talked about abstract

violence. he talked about the detriment and the pain we feel as a result of abstract violence far exceeds anything that one will fill from physical violence.

. . dr. watson., i will be your moderator for this evening, for this town hall. am the political director to russell simmons and editor in global grind.com and sit on the board of directors of foundation martin founded by parents sabrina and

tracy. thank you. day is ning and this about you. folks that edible are on this stage made a call to action for us to come together chicago to have this conversation, this emergency summit if you will. so the next two hours of this evening, we want to engage in a conversation, have a dialogue are sitting inho the audience sitting on stage. as little as k possible and allow for a conversation to incur. members of the congressional staff who have they pass that around to write questions on the takingards that we'll be throughout the evening. s i can for a moment, as i sat in my home in new york last night sort of reflecting on coming to the city of chicago, i remembered a piece that i had written four years ago. just read you a small portion of that piece, i

that.appreciate to a ne had slowly come halt. tretching around the inside of the church were hundreds of people who had come to this holy to pay their ip respect to the life of this man.ear-old young on this cold, crisp autumn day inside city of chicago this old rundown yet beautiful 10 rows back at for hours watching old people people, g wheelchair-bound seniors, families, crying babies come and go. top for a moment, some would cross themselves, others could not even look. but all at some point moved on. the line stopped.

someone wasn't able to move on. someone wasn't aware that there were hundreds of people waiting her.ne behind someone needed time. a word.ne said we all just watched. as precious, beautiful 8-year-old angel stand casket cousin's open and hug him like she may never see him again. watched her father dressed in with a gold rt jesus piece medallion stand by her side. we all just sat and watched and in theed that we weren't room so this child who walks her one lastd have moment with her hero. she slowly walked down the aisle tears down her face, i

urned to witness her powerful exit. just as she was about to exit, the young man's entire family waiting at the front door in the hall of god waiting for to our ance, we rose feet with deep respect for their pain and suffering. as we they ionless aisle, own the center powerfulme of the most faith. women of and a woman told me on the phone prior, she could lay her baby to rest. funeral of darian albert 2009. come here in memory of the thousands of people shot in this city and across this nation. pendleton's mother who is with us this evening. i come in memory of your daughter. to this city with love and with gratitude for

arms.ming here with open ut also with the personal deep pain of the suffering that's been at the hands of mothers, fathers, family members in this across this country. we welcome four incredible heroes and re cheeros of mine. 'm sure many of you in this audience. congressman bobby rush. congressman danny davis. robin kelly. we had a tough day three weeks ago still from the florida, e of congresswoman karin brown. want to ask each of you, and congressman rush if you would

a personal moment in your live, i'm sure there are many, one that struck you over years of violence that brings you to this space and the work that you do? >> i have two that mainly kind as bookends. the first one was on december 4, 1969. the morning on west rtment at 2337 onroe, the state's attorney entered an apartment and

two members of the black panther party. shot and wounded seven other eople in the apartment that night. morning the very next came to my apartment and shot my down looking for me with so-called search warrant for weapons. came to fred's apartment, murdered him. so ink they had drugged him -- immobilized. 1969.ber 4, and that night, that

that act of nt, had a tremendous effect and it still does. so the life that i live, the reason i do and the them. represents anthat vi visitation tion, violence. an internal visitation of ondition of violence that occurred to me was when my son was shot down by some young black men on the side of chicago in 1999.

common sense he me stirred up something in motivated me and still me and contained and try to do all that i can to not all i can in every way i can, in the congress, in community, in the church. with some of the prevailing issues of young violence in our communities. really -- that episode of melence is really what drove look a little ry

savior and a t my lot more on my savior. incidents.those two and october 30, 1999. that i experienced is probably been the most pivotal in terms of my own experience. you.e just say this to i know we want to move on. finally said wife that he had been shot. office, the warrant citizen warrant office.

car and drove out to pike's hospital. the operating room or in the waiting room, they were son.ating on my the doctor said, well, the peration was successful and it looks like he might pull through. and the time i was on a the rence committee in congress. very important bill that we were working on. told sked when the doctor me that he was doing all right, it seemed like he was going forward. i'm going to go back to congress and spend the next couple of days there and then come back to chicago. well, when i went back that evening, i was at my apartment in washington

and i was at home and he had over -- he had taken a turn for the worse. to get back so i aught the first flight out the very next morning. flight to chicago. room where allhe swollen up so big he was hardly recognizable. after about an hour or so, he made his transit, he had passed on. the reason i say that is because thesister, his mother, when doctor said that announced him ead, i never will forget that today. scream i hear the primal scream that only can

come from a mother -- only can a mother, you know? the scream that i couldn't repeat. t comes from a deepest part of a human being, of a mother. i'll never forget that primal scream. just know whether or not there who especially knowoung people, who don't a t it means when you take life. who don't really, you know, i hink that the media and the ovies and the last communication, they were kind of create i this homogenous idea of

means. really you know? primal scream that come is a force of nature. that you can't ever forget and you should not ever forget. part think that really is of what i want to be a -- what do. doing and like to i don't want to hear that scream mother.from no other 'll never forget that primal scream. >> wow, thank you for sharing that, congressman. [ applause ] davis?ssman >> you know, i live in the entral city area of chicago since 1961. a n i came here as 19-year-old, after having

i'veated from college, and spent the rest of my adult life what would be called west side of the city in the and west in the east garfield, and the austin communities. school in the chicago ublic school system for six years before deciding to do some things. during that time, eight of my students were killed. time, that same period of killed other ents people. a was nothing unusual for fellow named frank lipscomb and court with the young erson who did the shooting in

the morning. whothe family of the person was killed we'd go to their in the evening. nd so i've seen a tremendous amount of violence. the f the most graphic was yawmeh who w called as dropped out of a public housing high-rise and it just works d that a woman who with me today, she and her usband own the funeral home at the time, sharita logan. went to the funeral home o view this little boy, crumpled and this was before funeral.the

humanity tle mass of crumpled on a table. that, to me, became one of he most graphic and pathetic scenes that i have -- what brings me here this evening is the realization that are those of us who have tragedies.ual then there are those whose tragedies have not been as individualized. in that respect, i have been fortunate. my i can tell you when brother feels pain, i hurt. tell you that when i hear

individual -- we've heard a great deal about idea pendleton. had played for us in the ways and means committee room washington.were in so i'd had the experience of students from this chool spend a couple of hours with us while they were waiting to do something else. of how gracious talented they were. how talented their teachers and were chaperoning that some of ink have the not opportunity to keep displaying

were.ey because their lives had been taken away by senseless violence. two never forget those incidents and i never will. things that the come here ind as i this evening for the last day on of the that we have experienced happenings in our community. >> thank you, congressman. [ applause ] congressman kelly? as a counselor with child abuse and domestic violence. my entree to the world of violence. personally in 2004, i lost first cousin, 31 years old. husband.murdered by her

neurosurgeon. he stabbed her 50 times while she was sleeping. months, one of my volunteers was shot in the head by her husband and he killed all in front of an 8-year-old. personal my experience. but why i'm here today is ecause of the blair holtz and the idea pendletons and the darian alberts and the ben we're losing a generation of young people. we cannot afford to do it. they are and hopefully people have discussed them. we're going hear about them tonight. are solutions to this. lose anybody d to else. as congressman russ said, we want anymore parents crying. it's something i know from aunt,ence, i know from my my cousin has been dead for nine

years and the pain has still not away. >> thank you for sharing. congresswoman brown? >> thank you. the congressmen and kelly for letting me be here you tonight. you all look good. plane happy i caught a 5:00 this morning to be here from florida. i've been elected 30 years but used to be a e, i counselor. and i will never forget when the see me about one of my students. to he wanted this student testify against her husband. and so i couldn't understand problem.the well, she had twins. boy.rl and and they were 5 years old and the father had raped both of them. i'm talking to the mother whathe said, well, what --

will i be able to do without him? said, what have black men have always had to do? hey are the backbone of the family. and they have to stand up. and i've got to tell you one of jobs i've had in congress is to talk to trayvon martin's mother to talk to young black guy hat got shot up in the car for playing his music too loud. but the story that is -- the that i told you about earlier where this black shot a warning shot, got 20 years from an abusive husband. but that's not the whole story. went to the citizen and i couldn't believe it. i'm sitting up there and there's

not a dry eye there. i could not stop crying because our black women came and testified why she should not go them hadnd each one of a child from this abusive man of he beat every last one them and they were beautiful, saying,ve women and i'm we need something else. we need sister-to-sister. to work together to make sure this does not have the kind abuse going on in our community. and i want to give the women in audience a hand. strong black women. do our part. >> thank you, congresswoman brown. segue.actually a perfect marissa alexander is a story he's speaking of to send us to 20 years to understand your ground. she said she's standing her jury found her guilty because it was two kids

in the house, they gave her 20 years. >> the jury found her guilty in 12 minutes. minutes. they came back with the verdict. it's a stand your ground case now in the country, this is it. restraining order against the husband that day. he had beat her when she was 6 pregnant and put her in the hospital. so if this is a stand your ground. ground. tand your >> absolutely. and thank you for sharing that story because it's an important one. [ applause ] want to welcome the great congresswoman of texas, sheila jackson-lee who just joined us. would assume from an airplane, somewhere in the airport. thank you for being here. i'm going to ask you to absorb all of this first. then i will happily ask you a few questions.

congressman brown asked about domestic violence. we had four amazing breakout sessions, really aspiring sessions. and for those who did participate, we thank you for participating. have some reports back from the breakout sessions about some of the solutions that some of you all came up with in the breakout session. who our 9-year-old friend is the youngest member of our group. i'm glad you're still with us and still awake. for coming. the first breakout session i'm call out is the leader from domestic violence. >> good evening, everybody. hello, family. miriam perkins and chairperson of the criminal and ce political science philosophy department at chicago state university.

the also the founder of cook county bar association expungement project so i look at lot of people and they see me t the expungement summits and i'm also a former prosecutor. shout out to the victims and the offenders. we know we're all family. honor all ofike to the lovely respected congress congressman bobby rush, danny davis, the honorable robin kelly, cora lee brown and sheila jackson-lee. privilege it and is to stand before you all. a very, very good session on domestic violence. just briefly what we came up with. we looked at g were issues, then solutions. domestic is that violence is the precursor to

and gang ence violence. so when we're trying to define situation, there was a discussion that domestic behavior s a learned and we talk about it as early as from birth to age 7. so when we're looking at can't emphasize enough education for the parents education for the children. lso, when you hear the congresswoman brown talk about pregnant iolence of a woman no less, we want to have all.mestic violence at but that is sometimes one of the difficult, most dangerous times, unfortunately, for women when they are pregnant. our communitycate and make sure that as you hear

about what we think are the topics of youth, gangs, iolence, that we remember that all of them were little each one of the children beautiful. latin t have to be a -- take a blank slate that to -- this is a university. latin for a blank slate. if you have a blank slate, at age on't just become 15 the violent people they have become. it's a learned behavior. other thing too, we want to say we want to support the parents. terms of the -- in of the action plan, i see a congresswoman kelly taking notes. everyone is taking notes. but certainly in terms of early and money ducation for parenting classes is

important. one last thing, i'd like to of our the male members group. i don't know what happened. time it - by the happened, we held hands, we were in a peace circle. of the men came forward and you know what they said? i was a batterer. did it. they said i'm sorry to us who they didn't even know and they sorry to the person who they had hit. the one particular individual they also said i'm sorry to all of us. said we accept your apology because they have come out to do that. the point is that many of the men talked about that they need help. help with how to guide her behavior and we said, you're willing to come more than halfway, we're willing to meet you. former ainly i'm a prosecutor and i'm not make light of it.

here are times, absolutely, there has to be prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. vigorously o fully prosecute a case, off of the did not vigorously prosecute a trayvon martin case. okay? bring in the defendant's statements into the trial. what you do is humanize your just lay e, then you out your case. but you don't bring in the in to thes statements stage trial thinking you can make the defense testify. can't make the defendant testify or use a technique like that. technique.a good but i digress. ut anyway, to come back to the domestic violence, on a very serious note. information and that we realize that we talk about gang violence. gun violence. we talk about all of the it is starting at

home. domestic 't forget violence. it's an extremely important issue that must be considered. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. >> next, we'll hear from the group leader of gang violence. >> good evening. dr. sharon ladeker, labor of love performing arts academy and the community that we all live in. was -- our our i facilitated it, in gangs. we had a good time. danny davis was there. we went a bit off. we got into gangs, we got into ex-offenders, we got into a lot stuff. we think we covered it all. but if you think about gangs, we young black kids involved in gang activities.

that's the why question. why are they involved? everything that was said in the session is one young man got up n the back, one of our youth and he said, it's not that we want to do it. we don't have anything to do. us hanging on the corners but you close the community centers. want us to go? [ applause ] any place to go. so we congress regait on the corners. they're closing the schools as well. as an as sitting there educator looking back, we talk about the prison pipeline and we about gangs, where do they stop. they're looking at our children someone said de, the 4th grade, it's really the grade. if our children can't read or talking about the children who cannot read or how much time they're going to be in the prison system.

child cannot be what a cannot see. you'll get that tomorrow. the child who can't see it, he can't be it. the parent is the first teacher. not that the parent is always the best teacher. know any ent doesn't better, how can the parent teach better?d to do any that's where the community comes in. it takes a village to raise a community t takes a to save one. and as the community, we have to step up. and as we grew up in our we had big mamas on the block. you couldn't curse, you couldn't a lot t, you couldn't do of things. so big mama will tell on you. whip you and you'll get a whipping once you got home. discipline raid to our children. we can't discipline, we can't do anything like that. about gangs? why do children get involved in gangs, because of love, someone said. as a community if they're not receiving that at home, we have get them the funding. we talk about programs.

e need to quit throwing our money behind bad programs. we have good programs that are working. f it's working, put our money behind those programs that are working. so why do our children get involved in gangs? number one, they have nothing to do. i come and do a challenge on leader, a community community activist, what are we going to do? i'm tired of sitting around the do is nd that's all we sit around the table. what do we do after we write all of ideas and get our information -- where do we go from here. ou get charged up, lead out of here. what do we do? absolutely nothing. to makeis going to have a decision within themselves to say i'm going to do something take antly, i'm going to child on my block in my community and mentor this child. work? means yes, it does. if i can't mentor the child, let me mentor the parent. ran an al tern tiff school. they told me i'd never get the parents to come to a parent saturday. downtown chicago, they had every

gang represented in my school. came to the n they school, they were not having it because you came to dr. ladeker's house. you had three c's, choices, chances, consequences. the choice was do what you did. got caught.s you he consequence is you come to my school. we ran a very successful school under the late dr. vince baitman. we have to put some rules in place and systems in place and pute as adults stand up and the systems in place, the children will follow. are looking for are guidance and leaders to tell me no. to saying yes all the time our children. no is not a bad word. so i think if we begin to look what we were raised on and how the values and the to ls that we had, we need start implementing those right into our children. guess what? we'll have a better community. country.e a better we'll have a better nation.

and we will not have the that we have in our city. chicago will not be on the news ll over these united states of america because of the crime that we have. let's turn these things around. together.our faith we have religious leaders of all communities. come on put it together. faith, one e baptism. come on, get it together. come together as a community as a whole. sunday's coming up soon. next we'll hear from gun violence. >> good evening, everyone. wilson, s audra district chief of staff for congresswoman robin kelly. the pleasure of co-moderating along with michael gun violence. people were either speaking from

he personal experiences having lost multiple members of their family or they themselves have not gotten up to gun culture and a violent life style and tell stories.t the personal the overarching theme is that violence is a symptom of a larger problem or series of problems. the problems we identified are hopelessness, lack of connection to history. so people now understanding they come from and the legacy of greatness from their communities. economic activities, the glorification of violence and guns. a discussion about abstract violence. not literally shooting people, red hat's happening with lining, the foreclosure, vacant lots. euros, economic disinvestment all things creating the environment that's ripe for violence. of community, loss of community, and community parenting. some even talked about barriers for ex-offenders' re-entry into our communities. solutions, the recurring theme is education, multiple

evels of education, short term with mentoring and reconnection to communities. we had several people give ways es of some of the that they were mentoring youth, entoring other folks in the community. we also talked about long-term solutions including legislative and education and a broader sense, investing in ducation, schoolings, and reinvestment in our community. another theme that came up was parenting and the importance for be better parents to our children and, again, part of that community parenting thing. once again, this group recognized that it's going to for aultifaceted solution multifaceted problem. of aiolence is the symptom larger problem affecting our community. [ applause ] >> the last breakout session youth violence.

>> good evening. good evening! we had youth violence. youth violence, i like to say, eriously, though, when we contextualize this, we need to do a certain thing. e tried to layer these thing, one thing we addressed in the beginning of the session is like discipline is interdisciplinary. you can't talk about one, you have to talk about the other. it's the youth violence, is not the closure of 50 schools violent? poverty a lot of our children are in violent? hen we talked about the violence, the first thing we had to do is kind of contextualize to endure violence. you can legislate policy but not attitudes. remix that version and he said we can't have a paralysis of analysis. did in our group is we tried to satisfy this reality of bringing some resolve. we talked about the

problematic component but we solution.ed about the i'm sorry, i'm dr. chandra gil. you may know me as wvoan. believe you have to educate your kids, you have to motivate them. nothing hard about this. love them, motivate them, aspiring them, understanding where they are. our group.e back to what i loved about our group, congressman, and all of the and caringare daring to listen to us today. what we decided was seriously we e were a few things that thought needed immediate attention when we talked about our youth. we had the youth to be involved engaged. they, themselves gave some railroad t instrumental and integral. president obama signed an executive order for the educational excellence for african-americans. talking to our congressional figures. imperial question that's worthy of analysis and

wanted some return. question? what happened? we want to know what happened. the resources people were job, better education, equity versus equality. we can talk all about that. of the day, when we present something for african-americans, we need to see it through and we need the resources to come back to the community to people who are issues every e day. very simply, we tried to funnel things. white house initiative on excellence for african-americans. the president signed the order one year ago today. where is it, what happened? thing is the urban policy perspective. this is something the president or five years ago. we talked about the things, we built the things. to build in a function like this building does every day. to ask our congressional body, where are these things. exit -- the real pieces are

how can you institute the reality of children knowing who they are. this is not a hard question. when we look at the textbooks, it's something that's very argued from can be a federal perspective. we have to come up with the reality of understanding that as eople are saying we want to talk about slavery or whatever lse that impacts african-americans from a curriculum standpoint, we have that.ve a rebuttal of history is history whether we like it or not. our children need to know who how they are, what they became and how they became. guarantee you as our group so fundamentally said, if you teach people who they really are, like don't have to teach brothers how to pull up their pants. to think, them how they'll pull them up themselves. that's our group. i love y'all.

wow. home now.to go i'm going to change the rules a little bit. i might get in trouble. thing to 's the right do. i had questions i was going to ask. a stack of note cards from y'all. keep writing if you have more. i would get an answer, absolutely. i'm i'm going to do is going to read the question and ask who wrote the question to the your hand and come to microphone so there with be a conversation. ask hat i ask, all that we is even in disagreement, let's have a civil conversation. disagree with each other, this is an evening for us. microphone. the please don't take it out of my hands. and i will certainly want the the questions have the chance to rep respond to the answers. the question of the doctor just asked on president order, can cutive someone take that question and

do we know where we are with executive order? >> well, let me say, i don't specifically, you know, here are three branchs of government, the executive do.ch, they do what they nd the president issuing the i cutive order and the last heard about this particular commission, they are leading, they're having workshop -- workshops, having but they're having interdepartmental meetings. they're looking at the issue they have people from all across the country to come in discuss this particular aspect, education of young black males. but they have not come up with initiatives.ve and once they come up with egislative initiatives, then

that's when the congress, we get involved. >> so if i -- congressman -- add to it. i understand the congressional task forced on education. david johns, the executive irector was with us day before yesterday when we rolled out the congressional congress on african-american men boys and he actually gave a initiatives and and the that he advisors who advise him and that s a committee that's been appointed by the president to do put on paper that they're now in the process of to implement. it's moving. it hasn't been in existence long

results. have produced but it does, in fact, exist. moving, it has an executive director. it has an advisory group. moving. >> congressman, you want to add to that? >> if ill might. if ill might. a i might stand up for moment? >> certainly. > so that i can at least thank my colleagues for doing this. caring.ng and i'm the answer to the sister's came to chicago because of congressman bobby rush. congressman danny davis, and congressman robin kelly. this. be a little late on but can you give them a hand? me that favor? to take a moment to build on hings that what excellent sessions we've

one of the things that we wear a banner. maybe we need to build a billboard. we, too, are america. maybe we have to reintroduce ourselves to america. and tell people that we're going acqiuescing and letting you have a second chance. done.ork is we make up the congressional black office. up the body politic of but in particular the congressional black caucaus. ask is while on i e are putting together an enormously important agenda, in fact, i want to credit these three members because we need to on the road. so if i were to show you these

number and tell you that the brilliant of what they've done, on the road.t the gun injuries we heard, these '09, 31,327 teens suffered nonfatal injuries. 13,471 were black. those numbers are probably gone 51%. so in essence, who's been listening? your members have. state, icy goes local, and federal. washington, i ng didn't want to come in and not let you know that when they're fight, when we're putting policies together, we're dealing ith something crazy called

sequester. so an executive order was passed. if you cut into the resources for no reason, we got to say, too, are america. our children deserve. try to pass legitimate bases with dealing with children intervention, , jobs, alternative schools, we have a money crisis. i'm going to engage in some of that questions but i hope i can sort of pinch you to say, we've got to link arms and do as a whole body. saying it's only money. i've heard some wonderful thingings. i of the greatest tragedies had is a friend of a friend had and her cousin's a domestic t by abuser who had been taken to

i don't single out man versus woman, but to show you to court, got mad he was court, just let out, even though she had a restraining order, went home, shot the wife and her daughter. two caskets in the church. so we know we have a problem with gun violence. be able to to address intervention whether it's an abuser, whether its's who's been abused, gangs, we have to get in the middle of it. there's no shame to say that resources are needed. so i'm hoping that when we get we don't run away from "where's the money" and why money that is balanced and looks to the cure. i'm not saying waste money. say, oh, you to had that -- you had that model

wasted rogram, you money. you had that jobs program, you wasted money. people who ou benefitted from those programs. difference in the my life or the summer job or the program or great society or maybe he got medicare. i'm not off of the point, but i us.t to frame because i think one of the things that the members battle day is the onunderstanding that we are america. and when our boats are lifted, our children are not being shot, when they're in a classroom, lifted. boats are i leave you with this point. said t know if my friends it but i hope you will come with one ver agenda you have in spot, that's august. that's august 24, the march on washington. to have a lot of issues.

if you do it, you have your sign. i'm not saying marching is an answer. saying, is t by anybody listening because you have ideas. of congress who are more than excellent. crafting legislation, seeking opportunity, trying to give back. right now, i'll just sit on my summerd say, where's the youth job program that we've all fighting for? we had one in '09, then came the cutting.y and so i think that when we end weaving in and out of these excellent suggestions have answers we'll to some of your questions, the uphill battle.ame the executive order was signed a a r ago, and we don't have budget today. we don't want to throw stones.

to ask the broader politics, do you recognize that we, too, are america? so i'm looking forward to getting in the mix and getting energized that you've already been, but i want you to keep that in mind so they doing?ay, what are they why aren't they doing anything? you.od, i can tell we go to bed doing something. we're hanging on in the dark of night trying to do something. we've got to turn america around to recognizing that when these issues, you are loving america, you are america. and we should not take second status, second class sits zhenship to say our issues pushed back and others be pushed forward. you for being here tonight. >> i'm going to come down in the audience. tereasa v. smith. please raise your hand.

please come down to the front. question -- members of congress -- is -- and i think getting a lot of these questions. you heard some solutions here tonight. do you intend to work with have ished groups to vision for helping young people to have an economic base for years.for many how do you intend to work with established groups that have a helping young people for having an economic base for many years. he solution this evening from many folks in the stage, how black e congressional caucus plan to work with the groups. how are you already responding those groups. this is tereasa smith. i'm asking that question because we always hear the term, "unity," you know, there's strength. but if you don't have anyone you can't haveu, strength. so what i'm asking is that for

to look at the established roups that have already been working such as reverend al sampson who's a visionary, a worker.ights nd he has had black trays council. he's got a farmer's market. as the food so hard desert as you mention md, and we eed to get rid of the division where everyone is doing their own thing and we need to come find out where these things are happening educator,ing a former i was an educator. alternative high school. and in that classroom, we had to seniors. and if you don't listen to the there among all eople, okay, you're not going to accomplish anything. so in that classroom, we listen

to the wisdom of the young listen to the wisdom of the older people and it's an each one teach one environment. happy that there's our age people here. because we wanted to hear from the people on the ground, from experiencing all of the things that are going on. wanted to ntly, i hear from the people that are doing things pause we don't have reinvent the wheel. we have a lot of good things going on now. can t to know how we further support -- >> there you go. saying that there are all age of people here -- mic?'s my i don't know? i'm so glad there are all age

people here and there are all we want tor, because hear from everybody. and body has ideas suggestions living in the community. you can tell us what you think work. the other thing is i was hoping people who are involve in good have shared those because i don't think we need to keep inventing the wheel. we need to support what's going on in chicago now. there are a lot of good thingings. not connecting with each other. so sometimes we don't nope the on. things going and i i think we need to give i'm rces, people, money, not sure what everybody needs to further those programs, expand those grams, duplicate programs in what's been mention md. we want to take the show on the road. orleans, o go to new baltimore, other places. it's not just in chicago that are occurring. the plan when we leave here is to the rest of the caucus to let them know what

went on here. us.will hear from we ear committed to you hearing from us. we need to hear from you. we can't do it alone. we want to help you. that.ant to thank you for it's also an established group, 1570 club. davis..m. by harold we're working with those two. those are two established groups happening in chicago right now. >> thank you so much. looking for mr. noel green. the root of -- at the violence issues within our communities as a global economic of you, ow will each illinois congress people and the congress.com from texas ork to foster the education of the economic plight of our communities to a destiny of economic vitality. mr. noel green, executive director of e-squared business

fund.pment e-cubed, excuse me. well, i guess -- we do it in many ways. one who believes in i have i work ory groups that with. n my congressional districts, ranging from everything early development to business and economic development. we immediate regularly. some of them meet every month. month.et every other some meet twice a month. engaged all the time. as old as are almost sampson. we've been working with sampson time.long so we're actually engaged with kind of activity anybody can

join our groups. us a u got to do is give 773-533-7520. most of the legislation -- > say that one more time, congressman. >> 773-533-7520. that we he legislation ave gotten passed originated with our group's meeting. that the $5 million people have gotten who have h.i.v. aids organizations whose $100,000 ae less than year. and the money comes from a lottery scratchoff. from one of our town hall meetings. generated.idea was the second chance act was generated at one of our town meetings. that's where it came from. so we're engaged in the ways

that you're talking about. nd we do it with consistency and regularity. committed ton, i'm working with small business. is wrong with this? i am committed to working with small business. t's small business that's the backbone. when you have a small business of this neighborhood, you're neighborhood the person. i'm committed to keeping the government's feet to the fire if local hometown project, we need to hire the minority ontractors, businesses and women businesses. that's not done enough. and i've met with various people that's going to happen, asking for a report. science, space, and technology. meeting with stem

various universities in my district and entrepreneurs and public one of the schools because the thing that's happening. there's job openings, but what keep hearing from the ford plant, from other manufacturing they can't find enough skilled workers. i want to make sure we take the unskilled into skilled and we can do that through the community college. you don't have to have a college education. you don't have to have a four-year degree. manufacturing is not what it used to be. the other thing i'm committed to is trying to find businesses to schools, local high even junior high schools so that we can build into the curriculum the skiles that are needed to future.jobs of the it's not what it used to bchlt things are different. >> congressman rush? on that?to comment we have some ay

roles that we play as legislators. and one of the roles -- i'm on he energy and commerce committee. and most oldest powerful committees in the congress. senior member of that committee. democrat on eading the subcommittee on power. day-to-day of my member of congress, i companies coming before the committee and coming with me in myting office because they have a issues.ar concern and and so i have the responsibility i have so many

responsibilities, courageously enthusiastically, of making sure that every energy company in contact with, whatever their initiative is, they have positions for participation. contracts. e -- i had the -- i had the -- the head of the american gas pipeline n the association. the american pipeline association. this is about six months ago. them before the committee. i asked him because i was the the subcommittee or i'm the ranking member on the subcommittee. how many minorities were in his association? all right? guy couldn't answer that. he never had a question like

a t asked him -- of him by member of congress. beet red. because he didn't have the answer. told me he would get back to me. i knew that before i asked him. making is there s leverage if you have the conscious -- there's leverage to make sure that african-americans discussion, in the n the consciousness of some of these major corporations and and they aggressively ffirmatively go out and help expand or create black business. and we had a lot of success along those lines. but that's not the only thing do.t you can because you have -- you're in a

position of influence. had to take off my hat as being the leading democrat or ranking member on congress and corinne came and told me are trying that they to take your money out of it some place t else. focused on the create program. so we are getting that money refocused and channeled and protect that money. we protected that money, ien i find out when i look -- our $93 this -- that firm, a one black

for one contract was black security form, one black contract, $93,412,000. off my hat as e a -- right. put my -- and we had to march on metro. all right? o you know you have to live with -- you have some realities that you're dealing with. can't -- we've got be leaders before we're legislators. what aders got to do leaders do. so when ever there's an for to create some businesses, when there's an leverage some active. opportunity to raise -- helping individuals, to rise up to that occasion. we don't have the luxury.

you know what i'm saying? requires us to march, we'll march. tell requires us -- let me you another example here. he media is trying to be critical of me on this. all right? trying to run some kind of spectacle on some kind of a controversy about this. all right? i'm on the energy jurisdiction. we have jurisdiction over telecommunication. trying to buy nbc. okay. needed my support, other members' support. well, i told him -- i told the comcast folkings. f you are going to -- you want o get my support on this, then you're going have to create

black forum television station. i had a hearing here in chicago. all right? and comcast in order to get support, they, in fact created memorandum ofed a agreement. created a television station, magic johnson station.n aspire so it create reates those kinds of businesses and creates those kinds of opportunities that have effect on blacks not just in chicago, but across the city. -- i mean, ing --s -- we're -- i mean we're all right -- i don't want to see this, though. i see this brought a certain way.

i don't want this to turn into a, well, you all -- all of the of the cbc feet to the fire. because that's a waste of your time. because i will see this always, to the fire. held ou're wasting time asking us about our commitment. you all know about our committee and what needs to happen. we need to stay on point and try s on the ith the issue genda upon which we were called. we were called here to talk violence.utions to the >> next question. i have a question from brendan pta. the national the his summit is called national emergency summit.

enough.ke that was this question from ms. martin is intervention. what immediate intervention would you suggest -- would you support, to help protect our today and tomorrow while we provide the long-term nterventions of jobs, education, parenting classes, etc. to ust protect our children home.l, from work, and at xample -- would you recommend military protection. what immediate intervention do today gest to support from ms. martin? >> who -- >> well, i tell you what i suggest. should have a block club. a block ck should have club. the ee, problems start at

local level. interaction local to deal with them. ome of the most exciting times i've had in life was when i was club organizer. people themselves hold many of the solutions to it is that they call problems. to you move from one level the next. and from that level to the next. there's not ue, necessarily a great legislative remedy. any legislative efforts take ive to 10 years even when you get them passed.

i'm saying even when you work on an idea that you've put in to a to become a bill. it may take five, it may take before you get that passed. things thate always ndividuals can do right where they are, right in their their ties, right in neighborhoods and you can't out there ooking somewhere for the solutions that can be found right here. >> if i could just add -- i wish that young man had not walked out. can understand why they did. because here we are -- they have front of s right in them right here, right now. and that's fear. of being killed.

all right? rightat we're focusing on now for the most part is adult problems. the ve walked right beyond problems that our children are having. we're not talking to them. we have them here in the room. e're talking about adult issues. why i didn't get no contract. for my dn't get money business. and we're walking past these when we and therefore leave here, unless we switch the agenda back to the emergency part of this summit and start our children, all right, and what we going to do tomorrow about the killings that are taking place we e sit in this room, then have missed the boat because and theave the capacity the shness --

self-interest, to look beyond the children and focus in on their issues and get the issues of the children expect to solve their problem. children cannot solve the children's problem because the hildren's problem is the insensitivity and the callusness of the adults that say the child focus in on their that they love them. children on your mind, but you don't have them in your heart. you got to have children in your hear heart. about the let's talk children. >> well, congressman rush. a 9-year-old ion, man -- >> let me just add something -- answering.u're can jermaine young find me, please. let me say that one of the

the rs is that we must use word "emergency" one of the emergencies is the flow of guns. one of the ideas could be a emergency response to gun trafficking. shootings range from chicago to washington to the west coast, and ast coast, the south, the north. we left washington, they were a brothero teenagers, and a sister that had been shot dead in the streets. hometown, you can find the same thingings. but what are they using? in.s that are coming things that can be done on a national level is to stop the flow of guns and to getting in the hands of whether it's gangs, someone crime to perpetrate a against you walking down the street. hether it's somebody who wants to go to the grocery store.

you have to stop the flow of guns. of the things that we can take to washington because there are jurisdictions like good gun laws, but guns are flowing in because who are no restraints on can traffic guns because there restraints put on the those who don't want to fund in a crisis which flow of guns. guns he illegal flow of getting into our children's hands and causing them to kill killed. stop the flow of guns. >> thank you, congressman. the 9-year-oldor young man. in the meantime, i'll ask his of you. to the four he asked jermaine young. why do you all still assume that gang violence is from young youth gang banging? all still assume that ang violence is from young

youth gang banging? >> well i heard something quite interesting today. that's why i really want to listen to the young people. i think that those of my maybe those of other generations, i don't know, really missing the boat here. on the -- when i was in the breakout session on gang violence. the young men -- one of the i ng guys that walked out, said, you know, your definition of gangs has changed. see you're using the 1990 of gangs. '90s, these- in the control.re more gun they were more drug directed. that's not it

anymore. now it's more turf directed. it's more turf driven. now, we don't get that, we're media.be following the and it's talking about gangs that are dealing drugs. drugs about the gangs killing over turf. when i heard that, the first to my mind is the spirit has been working with on this, i'm talking about chicago. in forced migration of out of public housing. a public policy issue.

we all admit, whepoor housing, deteriorating housing. the first kind of houses you ever want to live in. warehouses, the effect of and the hem all down them into ushing chatle and westchesterfield and fork, all right. now?hat you got you got turf wars because you those young ones who are not -- they don't have the pillars. have the foundation in these communities so they're -- we can connect and this blockr world so is against this block and this block is against this block.

is why we have this killing gangs no, don't have ma'am. they're allocks and armed. gills.o the the neighbor from the next block. in this at's going on city and the fact is -- the fact that we have to deal with that policy. forced migration in country.ry of this we have to speak to that and understand that. -- the violence, the violence is ed ollowed just this year with

for schools.e-time so it's a war against our young we're talking about, well, i ain't got no contract, congressman. focus on the real war. it's totally - destroy our sense of community chicago. we have to deal with that. >> congressman, you go back to work in august in washington. week. t >> what is the plan? what is the plan? so when you go back to and we certainly understand and have compassion the friction that you all feel when you go back to washington. but what is the plan? back, what are -- you heard from folks this

evening, from today, you know the issue. you live the issue for decades. what is the plan? i think the plan is that e're going to take three or four very concrete initiatives that we will promoepromote and try to convince other people same ones. we know what causes are. we know what problems are. solutions are.at but what we're not able to do is implement those things that an solve and will solve the problems. early childhood education, good ody agree, is a thing. that every child should have

get the pportunity to very best education that they can get. i don't know anybody who disagrees with that. but making it happen, making it work, becomes the challenge. might be another issue. the things that schools can do, if we're talking the question bout of violence, there is anti-bullying legislation that as a matter oduced sheila jackson lee as ell as myself have bills calling for curriculum to be help to that actually teach young people that there's a way to resolve conflict

without resorting to violence. that's part of the long road home. but you have to take it and make use of it. of these ve all disparities that we know exist. since een fighting them denmark turner. .e're aware not only are we aware, but the rest of society is aware. how do you generate the leverage that you need to bring about the seeking.at you are efforts are under way. every day. struggle is ongoing every day.

and we meet with efforts of success. success never k comes or much stays the same. so the struggle goes on. we'll be struggling for years nd years to reach the level of equality -- equal justice, equal under the law. is no quick and and dirty solutions. there are no easy answers. panaceas.no so there's no point to delusion believing that there is. are gle, strife, and pain change.requisites for always has been, always will be.

[ applause ] >> i have probably close to 100 here and i've read most of them. there are some amazing questions here. it's interest of time, friday evening. i want to be respectful of your time, certainly. members of the congress, do you have a question? please, this is -- me?an you hear i want to know from the audience, someone asked what can an emergency was summit. and inreally want to know the nswer to when someone said should we bring military to the blocks? what do people -- i want to know what you think? should we bring a state police i'm for it t saying one way or the other. but i want to know what you think. hands. show of >> people are afraid to sit on the porch or go to the store or their kids to school, then

what is going to make you unafraid? is it more visibility or what -- that's what i want to nope. a question, sk congresswoman, in the interest of time, would you all commit to ticking around and talking to folks one-on-one afterwards for a little bit. little bit. >> she has to catch a plane. >> please. >> she has to catch a plane. is my mic, can you hear me? let me build on what my members have said. again, let me indicate that your members are here, congressional black caucus members are here. you saw many of them today. us flew in late. be part of ould caring about what is happening to our young people. we have something called the working group of the congressional black caucaus. your members are a member of it. and my promise to you is that i said something about gun trafficking. we have talked around it in washington.

well, there is something to all around. guns being it's not the ones that yue have in your home that you're -- you trying to break the second amendment. but the ease of getting guns is seem to get an't people to understand so we have an agenda. checks.l background banning these assault weapons. assing anti-bullying and prevention -- meaning that the intervene just like second chance worked, then chance people a second with a job. the list of gun laws that many have introduced, simple nes, and, yes, dealing with ome of the laws that did not work in samford, florida, dealing with stand your ground. dealing with the self-defense hat winds up people who are wanting to not do right can use

prosecution. one thing we have to concede is killed with a ng fist. we're getting killed with guns in the wrong hands and bullets. and you have to ask yourself, where are these coming from. so the justice working group and the congressional black caucus, we're hearing all of that, is the hard questions, produce legislation, and also resources because there's nothing wrong as asking as bobby has said, let children priority on the federal level that deals with education and summer jobs. the expert eave to about how the gangs are moving around, whether it's turf, it's drugs. whether it's one gang against another. but we do know people are dying. to leave k we need

here with the burden of the together an ut omnibus, an emergency plan and funding. tell you no one up here is a wallflower. and that this will be heard next week loudly and clearly. me the good news is -- let say the good news -- in our churches -- it's the good news coming. we've got some brilliant, brilliant strategists coming out diverse community. the african, latino community. got brilliant folk. but they need to be heard. "we too, are e, america." whether they come with their naacp, the er it's urban league, guys, you have to know, that whatever the national these folk are working hard.

votingng to bring up the rights act. but that's on our plate. that's got to deal with how are got people who representing that's going to be interested in getting money to our children first. so if you work with us to get an anti-violence agenda by your working with your members, you can be assured that caucus, essional black all of the members that came, are going to take this back to washington. they're not going to talk to ourselves. idea going to talk to the of a heard, listened to, and acted upon agenda. the great society in the 1960s, that's old terminology. we're going to come up with going to great that's deal with our children based my members know heard and what i heel take ape way. but don't forget, we came here violence and don't let anybody say we didn't hear what we need to do about preventing violence and serving the lives of -- saving the lives of

our children. you.'ve gotten -- i heard i've got folks to work with. -- them for m working with me today. >> congressmen, do you want to with closing words. >> yeah, i would. thank you so much. first of all, i want to just say to those who have been here, been here, e you've shei i really thank you for coming to chicago for this. nd maxine and corinne and sandra, they come from their districts and i know how troubling it is to come to city.r so i really appreciate you for others formaxine and coming. i really robin and -- appreciate the opportunity to work with them. i appreciate -- let me bring one in here.

those who were here, had to those who came in later, hose who participated in the brain trust -- in the breakouts, this has been an historic day, a remarkable day. not only for the conversations inside the breakout sessions, conversations in the cafeteria, the conversations on the sidewalk, in the hallways, a conversations going on issue. this particular and when we as a community start having conversations about the are well on our problems.ving the it's when we don't talk to each that's when the problems become more magnified and intense. me leave you one thought. ne thought that i have is that i don't know how many of you you to e volunteered to

really spend any time working in church, in your schools, on block, in your -- on these issues with these young people. i mean, the young people need and the support and the adults. the story about young people two years ago was in our office. they come in every year. one particular group. they had been in washington six days. the internet trip to washington. and they came in to see their for 45 man and i said minutes, they were asking me questions about legislation and legislation and i -- we went through that very ice thoughtful conversation, taking questions, then in the

end of it, i asked them -- i now have two questions i want to ask you. what is your biggest problem? hirsch ildren were from and school and from simeon king. you know, a cross section. biggest at is your problem. this is just after damian. he said our biggest problem is fear. fear is our biggest problem. shot.f being ear of being stabbed, fear of being clubbed. fear is our biggest problem. to school, from school, walking to the store. fear.iggest problem is stunned me. our community, our kmirn -- our neighbors, our children, our young people's major problem is fear. i said, okay. i said to myself, okay, well

adults do about it? of they said, give us some your time. [ applause ] more money.ask for they didn't ask for a wrench. they didn't ask for laws to be passed. they didn't ask for president commission.eate a they said, give us more of your time. if we would invest more of our these young people, we could stop this violence. [ applause ] number one. i had isd thought that a national this is movement. it's not just a -- it's -- epicenter ofst the it. it really is going across some of these -- i don't know where tv cameras are, but some people in philadelphia are going

to see and hear about this, read this and some people in oakland, california going to hear and read about this. wander, 're going to well, what are they doing in chicago? this chicago working situation out? one thing that i don't think we of time and effort -- before the days national march on washington -- date that it took place, august 28. we have one month. ?oday is the 27th so we have one month. >> 26th? >> 26th. okay, two days, all right. agree on u and i can this, why are we working over days, e-mailing,

exting, sending facebook communicating. and ask for a national day of communities n our on august 28? [ applause ] now, i'm -- what i'm not saying that that's going to solve the problems. but just the process of going through that will make a communities. some if you organized your church simple idea -- ne day, just that simple idea, organize your block, organize your school, organize -- give communities. one day, a national day of declare ce, and let's it and let's just make that happen. calling a n that day cease-fire on that day and if we o it, then, then we'll be empowering ourselves to take more definitive action. that.nk you for congressman kelly? take us home?

again, injust want to appreciate all of you that have taken the time to come. put this together in emergency fashion. and not a lot of notice and i'm a lot of this is preaching to the choir. but the choir needs reminding, practicing, rehearsing. e're asking the choir to get more singers. we need a community. we need a community to get it's an old proverb but it's going to take a to take us and you who represent many different entities. thank you so much again. i'm passionate about this. your zip code should not determine your opportunity. i just want to make sure as omeone said, we had this meeting 10 years ago. well, 10 years from now, i don't want us to be having this meeting. thank you. >> if i could -- >> please -- level of corporation has

incredible. we've had the governor of our state. we've had the mayor of our city. local elected al officials. community groups and organizationings. we've had faith leaders. to thank all of those have combined to make verybody more productive weekend. want to thank all of our staffs and the staff of chicago their niversity for engagement, their involvement, cooperation. i want to thank the congressional black caucus staff, each of the staffs here

in chicago and washington.

up, we thought but were wise little boys. there was a man in town called joe. the idea was if we could ask question he didn't know the answer, then we were smart. we caught ourselves a mockingbird. we figured he would know we had mockingbird. but then we would ask him, if dead.rd was alive or if uncle joe that the bird was alive, we would squeeze it and

kill it. and everybody could see that he was wrong. was dead, wee bird would simply open our hands and would fly away. so we ran to him with our plan. we want to le joe, ask you something. do you know what we've got in our hands? looked and said, little oy, in your hand is a mockingbird. we kind of punched each other said, well, we got him now. you telluncle joe, can us if the bird is alive or dead? actled like he was about to answer. then he looked at the two of us little boys -- the answer to that is in your hands. of this weekend

success is its as we in all of our hands leave based upon what we do. coming. you for >> that is a beautiful way to end this inspiring evening. want to -- i have one piece of housekeeping here. incredible people don't stop. omorrow, 9:00 a.m. at kennedy king college, there is the caucus ional black presents the health brain trust making good health my reality. congress people will be there at 9:00 a.m. kennedyall on health at king college. i would say this, i want to congresswoman sheila congressman rush,

congressman david kelly, and corinne brown who had to leave here. but most important dlip as congressman davis said, i thank you all for being here in the of congressman rush and story -- childhood on august 28, he asked us would we commit to a day of nonviolence in the city of chicago and across this nation. and as congresswoman kelly -- sometimes if you were preaching to the choir. the answer to that question. but in that spirit and leading us in a celebration of to the end of the evening, if you would commit to that day and every day, would you please stand up. let's have a safe evening this friday.on god bless the city of chicago god bless these united states of america. thank you so much.

[ applause ]

c-span, g up up on secretary of state john kerry alks about the peace negotiations taking place in washington. an interview with white house adviser, allen cougar. richard norton smith moderates a discussion of the ladies e of first throughout history. n c-span 3 tomorrow morning, regulators testify about the threat of financial market

collapse. mary jo white of the sec will questions from senators on the banking committee. love coverage at 10 eastern. investigating y, ways to manage the nation's nuclear waste. energy secretary will testify. watch live coverage at 2:30 p.m. eastern. secretary of state john kerry former u.s. ambassador to special envoyu.s. to palestinian negotiations in washington, d.c. state department today and was about ten minutes. >> hey, good morning, everybody. well, as you all know, it's

trips ore hours and many to make possible the resumption f israeli-palestinian negotiations. en routeiators are now to washington as we speak here. will have more to say about the journey to this moment and after our opes are meetings conclude tomorrow. presidentt began with obama's historic trip to israel this year.h earlier without his commitment and in uncements and engagement this initiative, we would not be here today. me president charged directly with the fully resuming possibility of resuming talking. his meetings with abbas and

netanyahu, they expressed the desire. the leadership from both presidents. makinge both of them for difficult decisions and to advocate within their own ountries and their teams, countries with the palestinian territories. like to recognize the important contributionings negotiators of both sides, particularly manager lindy and sigh. both stood up and strong in the criticism at home, and whose unwavering commitment made the launch of these talks possible. i look forward to beginning work with them tonight. going forward, it's no secret that this is a difficult process. if it were easy, it would have

happened long time ago. secret, therefore, that many difficult choices lie ahead for the negotiators. the leaders. s we seek reasonable compromises on tough, complicated, el motional, and symbolic issues. i think reasonable compromises has to be a keystone of all of this effort. i know the negotiations are going to be tough. that the know consequences of not trying could be worse. to help the parties navigate the and avoid the many pitfalls, we would have fortunate to have on our team a day-to-day basis working with the parties wherefore wherever negotiating, a seasoned ambassador lomat, martin indek who agreed the take this ritical task at crucial time as the u.n., u.s. -- excuse me, the u.s.

special envoy to israeli-palestinian negotiations. will be as a in deputy and senior advisor to me lonestein who has been working with me on this process from the beginning. about the peace quotes athe ambassador poem by samuel that begins, if history, learn from what lessons it would teach us. ambassador brings to this challenge the deep appreciation or the history of the israeli-palestinian conflict. for his service under president clinton, secretary christopher and secretary albright, hell appreciation for the art of u.s. diplomacy in the middle east. that has earned him the respect of both sides.

ofy know he's made the cause peace his life's mission. he knows what has worked and he worked and he 't knows how important it is to get this right. ambassador indek is realistic. israeli tand that palestinian peace will not come happen nd it will not overnight. but he also understands that not a path forward and we should follow that path with urgency. understands that to ensure that lives are not lost, we have to ensure that opportunities are not needlessly lost. and he shares my belief that if leaders on both sides continue to show strong willingness to make those tough choices and a willingness to reasonably is romise, then peace possible. so, martin, i'm grateful that ou've agreed to ache a leave from your post at the brookings

once again to serve in this most important role. i know you are eager to get to as am i. martin? >> thank you. mr. secretary, thank you very uch for that generous introduction and investing in many such important responsibilities. honors to serve you and president obama in your to achieve or israe israeli-palestinian peace. fact today that later today and palestinian negotiators will sit down in building after a three-year iatus is testament to your extraordinary tireless efforts backed by president oh what to resolve this intractable

conflict. obama made the case so eloquently in his speech in march of this year when he argued the an audience that, quote, elis peace is necessary, peace is just, and peace is possible. and you, mr. secretary, have him right. you have shown that it can be done. couldn't agree more with president obama. 40 been my conviction for years that peace is possible. ofce i experienced the agony the 1973 yom kippur war as a jerusalem. in those dark days, i witnessed of your how one redecessors, henry kissinger, brokered a cease-fire that ended the war and paved the way for and egypt.en israel

because of your confidence that up ould be done, you took the challenge when most people hought you were on a mission impossible. backed by the president, you drove the effort with patience, and creativity. as a result, today, prime netanyahu and president mahmoud abbas have made the required to come back to the negotiating table. grateful have deeply to you and to president obama for entrusting me with the helping you take this turn it to a nd full fledged israeli-palestinian peace agreement. a daunting and humbling one that i cannot discyst from. i look forward to working with you, president abbas and president netanyahu to do our achieving president oh what's vision of two states

side-by-side in peace and security. i look forward to working with are eam that you assembling, starting with frank made ein who as you said such an important contribution to getting us to this point and ho will be my partner in this endeavor. whoears ago, my son, jacob, was 13 at the time, designed a computer.ver for my it consisted of a simple question that flashed across the constantly. ad, is there peace in the middle east, yet? i guess you could say, mr. secretary, he was one of the original skeptics. but behind that skepticism was yearning. and for 15 years, i've only been able to answer him, not yet. erhaps, mr. secretary, through your efforts and our support, we

jake ande able to tell more importantly all those young who lies and palestinians yearn for a different, better tomorrow, that this time we actually made it. hank you. >> when did we reach a point where you have to have a certain philosophy because of the color of your skin? when did that happen? [applause] a reporter once asked me why i didn't talk a lot about race d i said because i'm a neurosurgen and they thought

that was pretty strange. i said when i take someone to the operating room and cut the scaffle, i'm operating on the thing that makes that person who they are. the cover doesn't make them who they are. when are we going to understand that? >> surgeon and author takes our calls and tweets indepartment on back tv on c-span2. >> one, i think they everybody is as a window -- serve as a window on the past to what was going on with women at any given time in our past history. f you look at a first lady's life, you get a view of what is going on with women. what i find interesting is that it's the conjunction of the public and private lives of women which is a topic that

many scholars are very interested in and i think first ladies just epitomize the coming together of the public and private life in an individual. >> our original series first ladies influence and image examine the public and prives lives and their influence on the presidency. watch from marsha washington to ckinley knicks week on c-span. >> president obama's chief economic advisor talks about jobs and the economy. he also spoke about congress and raising the debt limit. this interview comes about a week before he is scheduled to step down from his white house post and return to prin on the niversity. -- princeton university.

>> thank you so much for coming out in your final week in the president's cabinet. you've been there since almost day one. you went a wall, is that what they call it? >> i went on a southeast bat cal. >> what did you do? >> i went back to princeton university to teach. >> then came back to be chairman's advisor. we always start with the news of the day. everybody is wondering september 30, are we going to have a government shutdown and we've started to wonder this administration always feels like republicans don't listen. you only have so many levers for making republicans listen. i wonder if this administration wants a government shutdown.

>> clearly what the administration wants is in the interest of the middle class and it's hard to see how a government shutdown is in the interest of the middle class. >> how do you make republicans listen? >> the president is doing his best. last week he went to illinois. then he went to jacksonville florida. i went on that trip with him. tomorrow he's speaking on jobs and the economy. he's focused on providing more opportunities for people to get into the middle class and we try to make the case as best we can to the american people and to congress. >> so the government will shut down if what? .> i'm not going to negotiate again, let me make my point that the president looking to use every lever he can to

strengthen the middle class. he put forward propose thals would strengthen the middle class and has in statements of administration policy discussed which bills he would veto and so on. that's probably the clearest of where the administration is. these are all avoidable problems. there is no reason why the government should shut down. if congress is working in the interest of the american people, these problems should be avoided. >> about the same time after that september 30 spending deadline, probably mid november the debt ceiling which we've hit but there are ways around it becomes a real emergency, a real issue in november, december. what will be the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling? >> first of all, on the dates what treasury has said is after labor day. it's very hard to pinpoint the

date. one of the things i worked on was the forecast for when we run out of funds under the emergency measures. we have surpassed the debt ceiling and we are in emergency measures which are risky. the deeper you go in emergency measures the more it puts the recovery at risk. the idea of reaching the debt limit is unthinkable. and i was thinking about this movie i saw where you have this tornado that brings sharks and they land on people's heads. if we cross the debt limit, it will be worse for the financial sector. >> and how is that? >> well, to be blunt about it, our entire financial infrastructure depends on treasuries. and the idea that the government would pick and choose which bills to pay, just that is being contemplated by some members of congress is very unhealthy for the economy.

>> one of the biggest decisions that this president is going to make this year and of this term is who the next fed chairman is going to be. who is going to succeed bernanke. your former partner wrote today that among the supporters in the west wing, summers, the former treasury secretary for hat job. the current vice chair and larry summers. among the allies in the white house for summers jean sperling the president's economic advisor, the trade advisor and brad can we add your name to that list? >> i'm not sure that is helpful for the process for names like that to be out in the public.

people should speak for themselves. everyone you mentions follows the ethic whatever advice they provide to the president remains confidential. that's something i'll adhere to. >> so that's a no. >> you could take that as a no comment. >> so knowing the president, what qualities will he look for in a fed chair? >> i can point you to the comments that the president made last week in an interview with the "new york times." someone who for supports the feds dual mandate, someone who recommend nices that the action that is the fed takes affect ordinary americans. so who has the judgment to know the right balance between supporting the economy and possible overheating and

inflation. those are the kind of character sticks that the president mentioned. >> so tomorrow when the president travels to chattanooga he's going to appear at an amazon distribution center. we're told that the president is going to announce some new policy on job creation. now some of you may have heard, i said on charlie rose' new friday night show that is like charlie brown and the football, the press keeps being told there is going to be a new policy. are we going to hear something new from the president tomorrow? >> the president has been really consistent -- >> in not giving new policy. >> the president has been consist innocent fighting for policies and actions that he can take that don't involve congress to help the middle class. i'm confident you will see him do that tomorrow. i don't want to front run the

president's address but i think what you'll see the $.the president emphasizing the steps congress can take to help middle class. >> real worry has been the lab boar force participation, that the number of people working full time, seeking work has declained. is that coming back or what are your concerns about that measure? >> the labor force participation rate peaked in 2000. it then fell sharply during the recession. the council of economic advisers predicted some time ago that starting in 2008 with the retirement of the baby boom we will see a gradual decline in labor force participation because of demographics, because we're getting older as a country. older people tend to produce a bit less, even though that is the one group that has seen a rise in the participation rate. that will tend to dominate. on one hand, you have this

demographic trend which will continue unless we have comprehensive immigration reform which would push in the other direction. at the same time, there are people who left the labor force because of the recession. either to go back to school or take care of the house. some of them are coming back to the labor force. we have seen that the last couple of months. the participation rate increased. i suspect we will see a tug-of-war between those two forces, demographics and encouraged workers coming back because they feel the job market is strengthening. on balance, those will roughly cancel out. those will roughly cancel out what we have seen in the last year-and-a-half. if the participation rate stays constant, that is pushing against the downward trend as a result of demographics. >> the size of working age people not in the work force

were not seeking to join the workforce is a sign of iminished ambitions or the restriction on ambition americans are feeling. >> i think it is a sign of how deep the recession was. even before the recession, we were seeing a decline in labor force participation, particularly among young people. that is not all bad. school enrollment has increased. that is important going forward. we've had a long-term trend of decline in participation is among older men. i used to write for the "new york times." i wanted to write an article around 2005 about why the participation rate was declining for middle-age men. i call this the kramer effect. if you watch seinfeld, you can never figure out how he supported himself. we know he was not in the labor force or arc of looking for a

job. i wanted to know how men in that situation were supporting themselves. i went to off-track betting in new york in the middle of the workday. i interviewed people. i still have not come up with the answer. that is a challenge we face. it is a serious challenge, along with long-term unemployment made worse by the recession. >> i would suggest there are a lot of people in america whose hopes and dreams are not being realized. >> i think that was the title to a speech i gave recently. > the president makes it clear the reason he ran for office is because the economy was not providing enough opportunities for people struggling to get into the middle class. the middle class has been battered for decades. that is continuing even as the economy is recovering. that is why it is important now

that we have cleared away much of the rubble from the financial crisis that we focus our attention on what we can do to strengthen the middle class and provide more opportunity into the middle class. >> the shift of jobs to the service sector -- good, bad, inevitable? >> probably all three. that is not a dodge. it is happening because productivity growth has been outside services, mainly in manufacturing. it has been going on for years. that is a good thing as long as we can handle the transition. it is good we have had a sector that was vibrant and developing new products like the internet and providing opportunity. it is bad because the service sector does not pay as well or offer as many private sector opportunities by and large. there are exceptions of very well paid jobs in the service sector. i think it is of three. we need to harness the forces

that have been affecting the job market and use them to a greater extent to our advantage to try to bring more manufacturing jobs back to take advantage of the tremendous productivity we have in manufacturing. to improve our tax code so there is not an incentive to move jobs overseas. to provide workers with the training they will need in a high-technology, global economy. >> some people find a penny on the sidewalk. show us what you found on the sidewalk right here. >> right in front of the mayflower hotel. >> in june at the rock and roll hall of fame in cleveland, you gave a speech called rock-and-roll economics and rebuilding the middle class. what does rock-and-roll have to

do with the middle class? >> let me give you this. the speech i gave you was a follow-on speech to a speech i gave a year-and-a-half ago. i wanted to draw attention to the forces that have been battering the middle-class the last few decades. you can see them in the music industry. the music industry has become much more of a superstar industry. it already was a superstar industry. >> you mean something specifically by the term of a "superstar industry." >> the idea of the superstar economy where a small number of people take home a large share of the reward goes back all the ay to alfred marshall in the 1890's. he was trying to explain why the salaries of a small number of business people were growing rapidly and ordinary artisans, including singers, were flatlining. his explanation was because of hanges in technology, he

included both luck and alent. a lucky and talented business person can command more of the market. they can dominate a market to a wider extent than previously, as long as the number of people who could hear the singer were limited by those who could fit in the room and hear her voice. their incomes would never rise of the same rate. he used them as his example. he used a woman named elizabeth billington who was the most successful soprano in the early part of the 19th century and never made much income compared to what business people were making in that day. i discussed research i had done in a field called

rockonomics. we have seen the top 1% go from taking home 26% of the revenue in the music industry in the early 1980's to 56% today. the same type of thing has been happening in the job market and economy at large. the top 1% went from taking 10% f national income in 1979 to 20% today, double their share. i think it is because of related factors. because of technological change, globalization, uck. i tried to emphasize the role of fairness. we have had an erosion of the norms and institutions that enforce fairness. the minimum-wage was eroded. e have had tax policy tilted

to the rich. all those factors have onspired to reduce the incomes of people below the top 1%. >> one thing people are interested in is how ideas spread, sort of the viral marketing of ideas. an interesting slide you had at the rock-and-roll hall of fame is you said the belief a song is popular has a profound affect on his popularity, even if it was not truly popular to egin with. tell us what you mean. > this was a fascinating study. a colleague of mine at princeton and a sociologist did an experiment where they enlisted about 45 unknown bands

to put up one song on the internet. they had roughly 10,000 people listen to this and download what they like. they showed a ranking from most to least popular. they ran this for several weeks. then they did something devious. the flipped the order and said the least popular song was the most popular and vice versa. they ran this with another sample of thousands of people. they looked at what happened. did they return to the original ranking? did the fact they said a lot of people like this song mean the popularity rose? hey found in the song that was ranked at the bottom when they said it was the highest ranked one became the most popular. > what does that tell us about human nature? >> it is not news that it uggests there is a lot of herd behavior, a lot of important information, especially when it comes to cultural goods where there are subjective opinions and judgments about what is popular. it dawned on me that another way of explaining this is a movie called "sugarman." he was a commercial flop in the

united states and turned out to be the most popular singer in south africa without knowing it. timing matters a lot. i have a lot of examples of bob dylan being turned down by a recording studio. i think in a superstar economy, chance matters more. if the gap between the best or those perceived to be the best and everyone else expands, the factors matter a lot more for economic outcomes. >> you are the godfather of rockonomics. >> i have become more interested in music. i wrote a piece in the "new york times" on super bowl tickets. i took my dad to the super bowl in 2001. i wrote an article about essons from going to the super owl for economics. was invited to be the keynote speaker at the concert industry

convention. i was invited by wonderful agazine. i told the person who invited me i know nothing about concert. the only concert i had been to in the last decade was n'sync. i took my children. i said the only thing i learned as i need your plugs because they are allowed. he said they could help me. they gave me data on 3000 concerts in north america. it was fascinating to study the industry. since then, i have gone to many concerts. >> one observation made in your riginal paper in 2005 was it was the concerts' where the money was being made. is that still true? >> that is still the case. i would generously call it bowie theory after david

bowie. he said music would run like electricity and be available for free. he said the only unique experience will be going to concerts and bands should be prepared to do a lot of touring. i think that is what has been aking place. you can raise the question. in the old days, why did they not charge more for the concerts? we have seen concert prices rise even faster than health care inflation. i think the reason is the concert for a loss leader. they performed concerts to become popular and so more albums. now that people can download music, they are making less money from of bonds and ewing concerts' as a profit center. >> do we have an education bubble? >> i have said if we are to

have a bubble, that is not a bad place to have one. i did not say that out of self-interest. if you look at the countries that have done better dealing with the global forces ffecting the u.s., their countries that continue to increase educational attainment. in the u.s., we plateaued in the 1980's and 1990's into the 2000's in terms of enrollment, especially among men. it would be healthy and helpful for the u.s. if we approach to education more like south korea and put in more resources and time, devoted more effort to work, tutoring, and all of that. at the same time, i worry about student at rising quickly. in some pockets of the education system, i think there is clearly a problem, lack of information and a minimum is part of the problem. students do not know what a typical student gets out of the school. we have been trying to address that by providing more

information and clear guidelines. >> a friend who works on apitol hill says every business person who comes in from their home state to talk to them expresses concern about how the affordable care act, obamacare, is going to affect them. i know it is your view the stories about these -- pushing people into part-time work. it is your view that these are anecdotes, bad actors, not a widespread problem. the concern is widespread. what can you do about that? >> i think there are many reasons for the concern. on the one hand, you have anti-affordable care at forces spending four times as much many criticizing the law as you have supporters' spending promoting the law. >> they are looking at their own house and worry. >> some are.

the vast majority of businesses that provide health insurance have been seeing slow growth in insurance premiums. i think when they take a look at what has been happening to the health care market, they will see some advantages. that covers the 85% of people who already have insurance. the small businesses under size 50 not required to provide health insurance qualify for subsidies. that will make them potentially better off. the exchanges, for all the difficulty getting them off the ground with some states not been fully committed to running them well, they have been providing much lower insurance premiums in many cases. when you look at the picture as a whole, there are many benefits that can occur from the affordable care act. the legislative aide would say, how many jobs have been created since the affordable care

act? 7.2 million jobs have been created since it passed. that is double the private sector number of jobs created in the first four years of the previous recovery when there was no affordable care act. the evidence is job growth is proceeding at a faster pace than in the last recovery. when we look at part-time work, i have no doubt you can find examples of companies who have been cautious with work hours. overall -- >> cautious with work hours is sugarcoating. >> i do not know because i have not looked at the actual records. you can find evidence in the ewspapers about some businesses saying they're going to cut working hours.

we do not see that nationally. i do not think we will. i will tell you why. if you look at the data, we have about 145 million people working in the u.s. today. of those working between 30 and 35 hours a week, the group you hink might see their hours educed below 30, of those only 1.4 million do not have health insurance currently, work for a company that has over 50 employees. he universe is not enormous. i do not think this is going to have macro economic effects. it has been something that has attracted news stories. >> the worries and concerns about backlash against the affordable care act are based on urban myth? >> we are focused on implementing it affordable care act as well as possible. we could see a health care costs growing at the fastest rate in five or 10 years instead of premiums coming down for small and medium businesses

that were growing. instead of job growth at 200,000 jobs a month so far this year, the best start to a year since 1999, we were seeing job growth which was much lower. the coverage would be different. we are focused on improving the outcome. so far, the outcomes have been quite positive. >> are you worried about what will happen with the affordable care act as everything kicks in? >> my main worry is congress will not provide sufficient tools to implement the law. that and concern about some states fighting the last war. what will become more apparent is the states that have done their jobs and taking implementation seriously are

seeing more competition. they are seeing prices come down. that is going to be beneficial for citizens in those states. >> you worked for the labor department under president clinton. you have been in the economic inner circle of this administration almost the whole time. first at treasury and now as chairman. what is the culture of this white house? >> i think the culture of the white house emanates from the resident, which is trying to have a clear look at the issues and what is in the interest of the american people. no drama. that is an environment where i have felt very comfortable. it certainly was the way treasury operated when i was there under secretary geithner and that is how i felt working directly for the president. >> what is the president's management or leadership style? >> when it comes to economics,

the president has outstanding intuition and is well-read. he will point out articles i need to read. i do my homework. the difficulty i have had is when i worked at treasury, i knew what the treasury secretary's portfolio was. that was during the financial crisis. the president has many other issues on his plate. i try to be judicious in not overloading him, but providing him the information i think he needs the most. i have enjoyed being adviser to him. it is a funny thing. as a professor, you have a completely different life. you write articles and try to discover new things. as an advisor, it is necessary

to be discreet. it is necessary to be mindful of your principal's time and not take up more time than necessary. it is to anticipate what information the principal needs. sometimes that information is available. ometimes you have to develop and have your staff to research. there are different skills. i have enjoyed working for the president. it has been the highlight of my career. >> what kinds of articles does he point out? >> economic articles, academic articles. >> what kind of a meeting does he run? >> very organized. i do not like to tell too many stories about the president so will not. before one of them, i got a phone call telling me president obama likes to start his meetings on time and sometimes they start early. i was reminded of the coach of the new york giants. they would go to find the layers if they did not show up

10 minutes before the meeting. it was a total change for me. the president said he wanted you to give him unvarnished advice. is that easier said than done? >> i am glad you remember hat. he said are rely on the council to give me unvarnished, objective advice about the best thing to do for the economy, ot influenced by politics. it is not hard because i will say on the one hand and the other hand. i have tried to give what i think is the best economic evidence, but also characterize where the different view is. i think that has worked pretty well. i have resisted the temptation to give advice about politics. there are plenty of people that know much more about that than me. that is their job. i have tried to stay in my lane

and give the president objected economic advice. >> has the president given up on getting a grand bargain, a fiscal deal that would deal with long-term entitlement roblems? >> the president's last offer to speaker boehner is still on the table. the president has said there are many ways to solve our problems. i think he had a sensible compromise on the table to address our fiscal problems. he has said if we have to, we will do it in pieces. i think what is important is we have a grand bargain for the iddle class. now that we've cleared away the rubble from the crisis, we can start addressing the structural problems that have been

building for decades. i think that is to a large extent what the election was about. >> in the president's 2011 state of the union address, one of his biggest applause lines. i think you are in the chamber for this. one of his biggest applause lines was he said we do big things, referring to the country. is the long-term entitlement program interfering with our ability to do big things? >> i do not think it currently is. i think it is a looming problem. i think right now the dysfunction in congress is what is preventing us from doing big hings. when i was out of the government, and went to visit the panama canal. you talk about seeing big things in america accomplished over 100 years ago. i went with the president when he visited the port of miami which is expanding to accommodate the larger ships that will be able to come through the panama canal. you see a tunnel under miami hat is impressive.

we still can do some big things. we would like to do a lot more ig things. i think the constraint we face now is the opposition in congress not the fiscal situation we find ourselves in. i think that is a problem long term. it is one we need to address in the long term to preserve room for the investments necessary to strengthen the economy. >> in the state of the union address two years ago, he said this is our generation's sputnik moment. within 25 years, our goal is to get 80% americans access to high-speed rail. that is a tall order. how're we doing? > i think we were doing better before the sequester. the sequester is having any adverse effects on the economy.

it is hurting the vulnerable, cutting benefits for the long-term unemployed. cutting the number of students in programs like head start. it is cutting critical investments. if you look back at the history of the u.s., we know the more people were looking for breakthroughs, the more we get. the example i like to have in mind is the hydraulic and horizontal drilling. horizontal drilling was developed because of research at the department of energy. it is the best example of government investing in new technology and private entrepreneurs taking it to market and developing it. it could not happen any other place. we are much further ahead than the rest of the world in terms of horizontal drilling. those are the types of investments getting cut as a result of the sequestered. that will affect us in the uture.

>> i want to bring you into the audience. if you have a question, we will bring you a microphone. let me ask you about being in the treasury department right after the meltdown. you were trying to avoid a worldwide depression. what was it like? your comfort zone was jobs. but you had to get beyond that. >> i like to say it was all hands on deck. we were facing unprecedented problems. my background in economics was fairly broad. i felt comfortable dealing outside of labor economics. we consider issues of moral hazards. those are big issues and financial markets. the range of issues we were facing, the decisions the president and treasury secretary had to make on a daily basis were extraordinary. i remember when the life insurance companies came in. it felt like a good chunk of the economy was on life-support. when i reflect back, i am

reminded of how much progress we have made and how dark the prospects were at that time. >> what was your worry at that time? > i was very worried about the financial system. let me give you an example. if you go back to the president's first budget, there was a reserve fund of an additional $250 billion for financial stability programs, if necessary. >> what did that mean? >> that meant the fear was tarp that was unpopular at the time -- it is not a popular idea to use taxpayer funds to shore up banks. no president would want to do

that unless we were in an extraordinary situation. i am sure the bush administration did not seek the funds gleefully. we were not sure that would be sufficient given the scale of what we're facing. given the skillful management of secretary geithner and secretary paulson, we were able to shore up the financial sector and get private capital in and have taxpayers repaid with a profit from the financial system. not from some of the other investments tarp made. they were not designed to make money. they were designed to rescue the economy. when you look back, it was not clear we would not have been in a much deeper crisis. >> i would love to bring you into the conversation. we have a question in the ack. say your name.

>> >> while we're doing that, i will ask you about senator elizabeth warren. >> what about her? >> it is an open-ended question. >> she has been a champion of consumers, particularly in the financial area for decades. she brings a new element to the u.s. senate. i have not had that much contact with her as an academic. i had some contact with her when i was at treasury. i think she is a superstar with in the democratic caucus. much like hillary clinton was, i would say. >> recently she and a senator who introduced glass-steagall for the 21st century. do we need that? >> i think we have the tools

from dodd-frank to address some of the problems that can arise in the financial sector. it is important to continue to implement them. like the aca, it is important regulatory agencies are adequately funded. there has been in a stealth war on funding. the higher capital requirements, the living wills that are required to provide and the oversight committee are important tools. >> what do you mean by a stealth war? >> effort by special interests and some members of congress to inadequately fund the regulators which would make it much more difficult to implement dodd-frank and also put the financial sector more at risk for the kind of boom and bust cycle we have had before. >> we do not need a microphone.

someone down here has a uestion. >> inaudible] >> welcome. i have to answer carefully. we have longstanding policy of ot commenting on the federal reserve. in terms of inflation, i think we are seeing inflation expectations well-anchored in the product markets and the labor markets. we have had tame inflation partly because health care costs have been growing so slowly. i believe that has resulted from structural changes in the

health care system, partly brought on by the affordable care act. >> returning to princeton, what has paul kruger been like? >> he has the office two doors down from me. he has been a good colleague. i think i mentioned before the semester i was back i had a new course called consequences and remedies. he thought it was such a good idea he decided to teach it. he and i have had some interesting comments. the new one is called the economy and economic policy in 2013. that gives me a fair amount of discretion to cover what i like. >> another field of expertise for you, in the administration you tried to stay in your lane. you have not said much about this. you did a book on terrorism, what makes the terrorist, the economic risk of terrorism. it is dedicated to pat tillman,

killed in afghanistan. it was rejecting the popular explanation for terrorism, that it came from people who were educationally or economically depressed. you found out it was often well-educated people from wealthy families. they were sophisticated about wanting to affect political outcomes. >> the popular view, stereotypical view of terrorists was wrong. the general tendency is for people to become engaged in terrorism because they want to ake a political statement.

>> there is a fabulous movie i saw last week about an attack -- this is based on a true story. >> about a suicide bomb. >> i don't want to give away the whole movie but a very well educated couple and it does fit

the conclusions that i found in my book. >> so what did you learn from the attack? movie. s an excellent i wouldn't generalize from one case. i tried to bring quantitative analysis. before nate silver or before oney ball tried to bring qualitative analysis. >> now that you think the threat has i did minute shd or increased? > i'll stay in my lane and leave that to the president advisors. >> i think it's fitting that friday is a jobs day and you get to do your blogging and appearances. what's it like to be the person whose thrown out there on jobs day month after month, sometimes it's good news, often times it's bad news. >> it's not the easiest day for

me. i try to take a long view and the numbers are very volatile. i added a paragraph to my statement as the administration cautions every month the jobs numbers are volatile, they get revised. and people make too much out of the monthly numbers. i have not succeeded in trying to lower the temperature on the monthly reports. i try to look at the 12-month change. there are issues about seasonal adjustments causing blips in the data also if you look at the change from july to july, you abstract from that. and i've found if you look over the course of this recovery on a rolling 12-month basis we've been creating about 2.1 million jobs a year for the last two and a half years. i think when you look at it in that perspective you're a little bit less inclined to overreact to the news which is

what happens i think in much of the press on the monthly jobs report. that's what i tried to achieve. i'm sure i failed. i'll try again regardless of what the numbers are. i get criticized because my statement has been fairly consistent over time which is the latest report shows that the economy is continuing to heal. metimes i get criticized for being lazy and not updating my statement. so far that has been true. we've been gradually digging our way out of this very deep recession. there is a lot more that needs to be done. i think we're on a better path than we were before i started working in the government. >> you are also known for your tennis skills. one of your former partners describes your tennis style to me as cooly effective which they described in contrast to jean which is much more

emotional. what does it take to be good in tennis? >> practice. i love tennis. ts a feoff is great uge -- it's a refuge for me. i was on the track team and enjoyed running. every year i get older i run slowly. tennis is therapeutic for me. it gives me a chance to run and chase after the ball. the more i practice. i used to have the i solution of feeling like i was getting better, now i have the i solution of i'm not getting worse. >> what can you tell us about tennis and the middle class? >> i think it's important that people exercise. i think that's part of a healthy life, healthy middle class life.

new ur home remained up in jersey, your native state. so when your in d.c. you eat out a lot. how has the restaurant changed since the clinton administration and what would you tell new yorkers about d.c. restaurants? >> i don't have to go back to the clinton administration. in two years i've been living on 15th street. the quarter has changed dramatically. there is a new restaurant every other day. the restaurants i think they are excellent. i tried the diplomat for the first time in my neighborhood. >> does it live up to the hype? >> i should probably try it a second time before i answer that. >> this was brunch or dinner? >> brunch.

>> how does it compare to new york? new york has a lot more restaurants. i think that new york restaurants stay open a lot later. i used to live above a fabulous restaurant and for a spanish restaurant to close at 10:00 in spain you are just getting ready to go out to dinner then. that's the biggest difference is the hours. >> i'm curious there's been a lot of discussion about the rise in disability and the question of some argue that there is a class of workers who just don't have a place in the economy as it currently is and that there is just not a home for them to have a job to add value. do you think that's true and if

so, what are the solutions to deal with that problem? >> i think the rise in disability insurance has driven by a number of factors. one is the demographic trends we talked about earlier and clearly the fact that the work force has been aging is one factor. that is something that the social security administration trust tease have predicted. but the state of the economy does matter. and particularly concerned about the rise in disability insurance among prime age working people. it's symptomatic of the trends that have been taking place over the last several decades that the middle has been hollowing out and i think that we need to create more demand for workers in the u.s., more demand particularly in jobs that pay decent wages. we also have to make sure that workers have sufficient training for those jobs.

nobody wants to be on disability insurance. i did a study years ago of people who were paraplegics and looking at their job prospects. and we interviewed about 800 people. there was sort of a catch 22 at that time because many of the individuals could have used some of the new technology but because they weren't able to work, people were learning about how to use a computer on the job and they didn't have access to that. there are opportunities to provide training to reach the disability population to provide them with more opportunities. >> and mr. chairman as we say goodbye, my last question, what is a book we should read? and what is something that you are looking forward to reading? >> well, i very much like my colleague's book thinking fast and slow. >> what's the big idea there?

>> the big idea is that when people make decisions, sometimes they make decisions based on emotion like someone you mentioned on the tennis court. and other times -- and using rules of thumb and inttigs which might be wrong and other times they think through the benefits and costs and make rational decisions. hat's a fabulous book. i'm looking forward to reading some fiction. i haven't read fiction in a very long time and maybe you can give me some recommendations. >> what genre are you into? >> mistries. >> tell us about the theory you would not die by sharon green. >> i read that just before i came back to government. >> the theory that wouldn't die

is the system two. t's about base analysis. and bays law is a way of integrating new information and it tells you how to up kate, when you learn something new, how much should you change your views and some people never change their views, other people change them too easily. and the history of bays law is absolutely fascinating. it's been applied in many situations including search engines, including looking for bombs that fell off of airplanes. the history is quite fascinating. everyone watching during your lunch. hank all of you in person. mr. chairman, thank you for the guitar pick and a great

conversation. [applause] captioning by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> on our next "washington journal" we'll talk to the formal head of the deposit instrurens corporation about monitoring the financial industry. then former administrator for medicare and medicaid social securities. he talks about the eligibility requirements and cost of the uzz medicare program. and later bill allison of the unslight foundation. plus your phone calls, e-mails and tweets. "washington journal" is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> tonight we take a look at the influence of first ladies and how they reflect the changing world in society. this one hour discussion was moderated by richard norton smith at the ford presidential

library in michigan. >> first of all, it's great to see all of you. many of you are old friends. it's always nice to come back. it feels very much like a homecoming. we have a great panel, we have a huge subject. this panel is about the first ladies as influence makers. that is a term that is itself subject to perhaps misunderstanding on multiple definitions. let me begin with you because you've written among other things as we've heard a book about first ladies of the 20th century which prumes there is something different about them in the 20th century from the 19th and perhaps the 21st. how would you define influence?

>> i think it's evolved, richard. i think that we saw the office begin as one that was essentially certificate moinl and focused. and since the beginning of the 20th century and especially since 1960 we've seen the presidential spouse, the first lady assuming more influence. t goes way beyond pillow talk. lady johnson used to say the first lady was the only one that could tell the president to shut up and not be fired. but i think that influence has taken fortune. sometimes the concerns of the first lady become the concerns of the president. lady johnson was devoted to the environment and that became one of the themes of the johnson presidency. with barbara bush we heard earlier today, she was involved

in literacy and tried to bring that emphasis to her husband's administration. they listen, they give advice which has sometimes raised the >> you know, there's the question of accountability. i think anyone who thinks that the first lady is not influential not influential is really not being realistic. >> use blends much of your life who,ining the first lady perhaps more than anyone else, for better or worse, raised the label "modern." the notion has grown that she is the most influential modern first ladies. how much truth is there to that? is there a danger in defining influence along