keep us centered on what matters. different companies focus on different things. there are companies that are obsessed with their way of doing stuff we are really singularly focused on commission. we want to connect every body and the world and give everybody toll's. that has been the unifying theme for us. -- and give everybody tools. i remember when we are first getting started back in my harvard dorm. i used to get pizza with my friends. the vp ofis actually engineering. we used to talk about how we were building this little site that was going to help people share and connect within the small community. one day somebody will surely build something like this for the whole world. at a time without the was no way

it was going to be us. we are a couple of kids. who are we to do it. it was the preview of the microsoft and google. building stuff on it largest. the story of facebook has been about starting and one college and we kept growing. -- building stuff on a larger scale. we cared more about the commission than anybody else has. now we are at this interesting point where for a while and side of the company getting to one billion people. closer,started to get nobody is waking up saying i 7 of the world to do something. it has to be bigger than anything else that anybody else has built. as we have approached that anne issed it, the focus for us retooling. you will see is retooling the company to take on a lot of

harder problems that fulfill the mission. connecting the next 5 billion people. it'll be harder because they do not have internet access. people share and put billions of connections every day oh stop now we do not just want to add information and add incrementally, over the next five or 10 years we want to sit on a roadmap to understand everything in the world semantically and map everything out. we want to play a role in helping people build companies and create jobs. those are the big things for us. that is what we are going to try to do. that is kind of what i have tried to focus on. >> to sum it up, you want all of the people? [laughter] i am kidding. >> we want to help to connect everybody. everybody does not use facebook. i think a lot of the design patterns and the work we do could help in that part of the

industry. we are proud of the work we are doing. >> ok. you said a lot. but that is what you said after last year. you -- >> and you do that. your brain works a little faster than mine. i would try to slow down a little bit. a lot of this goes to internet. i want to talk about that. as you expand to all of the .eople from 1.3 billion today >> 1.15 billion. >> how many people a day? 500 million? >> 600 million. not bad. think about the yahoo! logo? [laughter] of all of the follow-up questions you could ask.

i know marissa is backstage watching. you can just look right into the camera and tell her what you think about that awful, awful thing. [laughter] you don't want to answer that question, do you? [laughter] had the same logo for almost 10 years. -- we have had the same logo for all most of 10 years. >> ok. twitter is going to go public. you have been through the whole thing. you had some pretty rough times. everything is great enough. what is your advice to them as they consider the process? >> and there's plenty of the surface. i am though person you will want to ask last to make a smooth ipo. [laughter] seriously. it is actually a valuable process.

having gone through what i think most people would consider an extremely turbulent first year, i can tell you i do not think it is that bad. i was really heightened by the fact -- i was really worried that people would leave the topany and people will get demoralize when the stock prices were down. people focus on the mission and believed and the product. we'll not seen a lot of that. it has made our company a lot stronger. to process of leading up going public, you have to know everything about your company inside out. i always thought we were data- driven. the work that they did to get us ready to get the public took us to the next level. we know our company a lot better now. in retrospect, i was not too afraid of going public. i have been very outspoken. i do not think it is that

necessary to do that. you should stay focus on doing the right stuff. sometimes it might take full market a while to catch up and see the results. last year, i was laying out what we were planning to do all mobile and everybody out mobile was disastrous for . -- for facebook. last year, we had nearly no money on mobile. in our last quarter, more than 40% of our revenue is mobile. isot of people think there more competition on mobile. people spend on desktops 1.7 minutes on facebook. on mobile, it is more. , it isng to come score around 20%. the next biggest this it's -- is instagram. focus on doing what we think are the right things. and we are growing and

connecting more folks will stop people are engaging in sharing the more content. people get excited every day. twitter, all of these private companies that think they want to go private if they focus on what they are doing, it is wonderful. it is great. fair, your mobile products a year ago sucked. >> they did. >> they got a really, really good or really fast. you deserve to have no revenue from a year ago. not or you admit it or agree, it is been a lot of work and that area and focus that was not there before. >> absolutely. company wass a building this big website and focusing on developing for the web. naturally, we tried to look at things and see if we could build and we across platforms

knew would not get quality level. we took a year and it was painful. we were not focused on making money. i was focus on making sure the experience was better. we did it in the right order. >> it is better to go from awful to really good than really good to awful. we agree on the order part. >> generally. you started talking about platform for a minute. i wanted to talk about that. you talked about the old -- facebook platform. are you so focus on mobile that in the old platform is dead? >> for me, when i think about our mission and connecting people, you made the joke we want to get everybody's use facebook. of course, we do.

let's be realistic. people are all going to be using tools that use connect in different ways. when i was getting started with facebook, i filled this void in , our brains are wired toward communicating with others. -- whole part of our brain that is focused on seeing micro-expressions from other people. the way that we build software and services as an industry do not reflect that at all. that seemed deeply wrong to me. and there were all of these tools with good views if he wanted to get access to different types of information but what we cared most about was the people we cared most about. there was nothing. toly social networks tried do everything themselves. one of the things we realized was no one company can do everything. instead we should focus on doing

a few of the court thinks. instead we should build a platform that will help other companies. -- a few of the core things. building games inside of facebook. that evolved into on a $1 billion a year business. that is good. wasfull vision over time not that everybody would be building stuff inside of facebook but a lot of people get value. importing able friend and distribution out in different services. that is what we are focused on. we have three pillars of the platform strategy which are to build, grow, and monetize. on the build site, we want to do stuff like long in to develop apps. -- thatservices like makes it easier to build an app. you do not have to worry about the back end. you do not have to worry about the servers.

or connecting to other services, it just works. it has gone really well. on grow, people think about facebook platform as distribution. that is true. that has been a big part of the story. with an important part of helping people grow their apps. one of the biggest new things we are doing with mobile app, a part of our business that is growing is developers are relying on us as the primary way they get out. that monetizes as well. they use us from payments to make money for their services. if we can help make it so the industry overall can build a better social apps that are more human by monetizing, i feel really good. >> ok. i am going to go with a personal question if you do not mind. i do not know how many will realize every year you have a personal challenge where you

challenge yourself to do something crazy interesting hard. in the past, you learned chinese which you did. tried to. one code every day. you have to kill everything you eat. >> you did. where -- there a tie every day. i do not know if you have one. >> i do. >> the point is you get perspective by building things i living in different worlds will stop doing something for a year -- worlds. -- doris at the four year you have these unintended consequences -- doing something for a year, you have these unintended consequences.

you have to see things through. it'll be harder to do. like learning mandarin, i was always terrible at languages. when i try to learn french in high school, i could not to do it. when people said things to me, it was hard for me to understand what they were saying. i went to latin instead. nobody speaks latin so that works. that was actually a lot of fun. i am good to try to pick up one of the hardest languages for people to learn. it was interesting. one of the unintended side effects was learning was setting mandarinssions were speaking facebook employees would, and talk to me about parts of the company they were working on. it was great. i learned mandarin and more stuff about our company and i met a bunch of people. in the end, i was complaining to my wife one day that i was never that good at eliciting a mentor.

she said, you are not good at listening and english. -- and that i was never good at listening and mandarin. the level it would take me to be fluent, i did that for a while. my year my challenge is to meet a new person outside of facebook every day. i think it is really valuable to have respective -- perspective. have a conversation. it has turned out to be easy. i sandbagged us. it turned out i meet more than one person already. i under estimated that. i was not talking to a lot of people externally. when i was planning this out, i set up to get more involved in the community and i started teaching a class in the middle school. it has been really interesting.

>> that class, the middle school class is what the lead to forward.us. >> one of the reasons i started doing that is because priscilla and i have done a lot of education work. her career and children, which he graduated from harvard, she went to become a teacher. now she's a resident. our dinner conversations is all facebook and kids. day that ifone we're going to do a bunch of educational projects, i cannot be that guy that gives the money to education projects. i think is a reasonable perspective. class, i asked the students how they were thinking about going to college. one of the stop students in the class races fan and said i don't know if i'll be able to go -- one of the top stews the class raised his hand and said i do

not know if i'll be up to go because i am not a documented. it blew my mind. there was no difference between him or any other student. you were born outside the u.s. and a lot of them raise their hands. once that i really hope our government does something about this. hope ourid i really government does something about us. i went home and told to priscilla and my friend, joe, who is one the smartest people i know in technology and politics and the intersection and said we have to do something. the great news is we decided we want to build an industry coalition. something a few people would take on. i called up a bunch of my friends that run companies. i called ron. the great thing the tech community really cares about changing the world. a lot of people that i would expect to have been -- i care

about getting high skilled folks for my company, we made it clear it is not just about high skilled. if we're going to push for getting immigration reform. people in the tech industry are idealistic. it was not hard to get people on board. i have never been prouder of my peers in the community for coming together. >> do you think anything will happen with that this year or next year? or ever? really tough i bet to mess with washington, d c >> i'm an optimist. you have to be to be an entrepreneur. these are not without risks. there were a lot of people who want to do the right thing. people talk a lot about how in washington, it is polarized and nobody can get along. conversations i have had, people wanted to do the right thing.

and today are looking for a path forward. >> zero chance of anything happening this year? >> i do not know. it is hard. it is my job to provide support. at microsoft -- i am sorry. speaking of microsoft am a hold you think should be the next ceo -- speed on microsoft, who do you think should be the next ceo? the founder? there are probably a lot of people who could run a microsoft and do a reasonable job. when i was going up, bill gates was my hero. he is like darth vader. >> and he is the bad guy. most visione of the -- mission driven companies i can think of. their mission is less focused than it used to be. what iwas thinking about

wanted to be when i grow up i'm up,crosoft data grow microsoft had a great mission to put a desktop on every desk or every home. there are companies that defined themselves by a way of doing things will stop like the hp way i was talking about and companies that make the concrete change in the world. microsoft did that. i have a huge amount of respect for him. it was an aspiring company during the time he was there. i think they are doing a lot of things but they lost some of the focus. i think is one of the greatest visionaries our history has ever had. >> do you think he will come back? >> i do not know. you'll have to ask him. >> ok. i do not think you would lie to me. >> i am not a very good liar.

>> no. actually -- [laughter] i'll ask you a couple of other things later. the culture of moving fast and facebook, is a good or did he get you in trouble -- is it a good thing or did it get you into trouble? >> it got us into tons of trouble. i believe values are only useful if they are controversial. if your company is the value statement that i think is kind of meaningless because they are staged stuff. be honest. of course you will be honest. that is not a choice. that is not a value, you have to be honest. fast is good. that is something people have to disagree with. think, what i really mean by moving fast is i want to empower

people at the company to try things out. i will not demand that every reiteration is perfect. what i will strive for is learning the most, and having the best product 5, 7 years from now. reiterating fast as a learning and going from there. there are companies that are very different from that. apple would never launch something that cannot -- you did not meet up or passion bar. it serves them well. moving fast, you can disagree with them. perfectionwith their bar. it is powerful inside of our company. it allows us to build a ton of infrastructure. at any given time, we have the testing framework with thousands of different versions of facebook run. any engineer can try something out and they get a report of how it performs on all of the metrics we care about --

sharing, time spent, engaging, the amount of money that we make. surveyt will kick off a and asked people how happy they are and how much they like that the version? that is empowering. if you're an engineer, using not have to get the approval of a lot of layers of management. -- you do not have to get the approval of a lot of layers of management. >> you do not know what i am looking at. explain the sign and facebook -- at facebook. it does not say move fast. your --down and fix sometimes you have to say that. >> have you seen the sign? >> people put things all over the campus. >> it does not mean anything official?

>> i deftly want us to fix our stuff. that is good. these things are valuable when they are controversial. it does not mean we always do it. wakesnot let any company up and say we want to move super slowly. what i wanted to mean is want to bring our culture and infrastructure so we can move one or two clicks faster than other companies. sometimes we go too fast and we mess up a bunch of stuff and we have to fix it. that is cool. >> would you consider home so far a failure? >> the toughest thing is determined whether it's something that has worked. it is slower than i would expect. we have a bunch of positive feedback on the lock screen. they love chat. we rolled it back out.

we have a valuable feedback. people want more content and facebook content of the lock screen. we are building that in. in one of the releases, you will be up to get instagram content and other social content. that will make it more valuable. early in its development. it is a bit slower than i would've thought. we are patient. i believe it is going to be something that a lot of people want over time. getting content delivered to your home screen. being aware, it is a valuable thing. maybe the current formula we need to work on. we will do that. referebody at techcrunch as a at -- referred to it -- it is a testing ground.

that do not work well will slow down. this is-term goal for we released the first version of home as a separate app. we did that so people would want it a go out of the way to the place store and get it. going over time once we are happy, will prompt people. you would not have to download a separate app. you will have your lock screen as part of the main app. you can do that today. have to go to settings and turn it on. when we feel it is at the parts we want, we will do that. -- at the point that we want, we will do that. >> ok. nsa. user data. you have one platform -- 1.4

billion useful. ui more data than -- and you have more data than any other entity. it is our data. we do not want people to get to do bad things. we know what facebook has done over the last several months to help increase transparency. within the lawsuit. we have seen the efforts. i do not need you to repeat. .- we have seen the lawsuit what does mark zuckerberg think about these issues and our right to privacy versus the government? role of veryr seriously. it is my job and our job to protect everybody who uses facebook and all of the information that they share. it is our government positive job to protect all of us -- government's job to protect all the buzz and economy -- all of us and it economy. i think they did a bad job.

i think the government blew it. they blew it on communicating -- and balance of what they were going for with this. know, the morning after it started breaking, a bunch of people asked what they thought. the government was, do not worry, we are not spying on any americans. oh, wonderful. that is helpful to companies that are trying to serve people around the world and that will inspire confidence. thanks for going out there and being clear about what you are doing. i think that was really bad. we have been pushing to get more transparency on this. i think we made a big difference. the big question that you get from all the coverage is what is the volume of the total number of requests that are going on?

to 100 million? for what the government said, you would not know the difference. we weren't really hard with the --ernment behind the scenes we worked really hard with the government of behind the scenes. it was around 9000 in the last half a year. that -- does the number tell us everybody -- everything that we need? no. we decide to reveal if it was 1000 or 2000 or 8000 9000 requests. the reality is that because of the transparency that we pushed for, people can know and they deserve to know the number of requests the government is making is closer to 1000. and definitely not 10 million or 100 million. >> not a dragnet with grabbing data.

>> we are not at the end of this. i wish the government would be more proactive about communicating. we had a site we had to sue to get this. we feel like people deserve to know this. we have taken it seriously. >> thank you. last question. what are you excited about product wise that was surprise us -- would surprise us? spend -- will not spend much time top of the internet which is not surprising. that is one of the things i'm excited about. i think a very underestimated problem. wheree in a world everybody around us have high- speed internet access. it is unfathomable for us to think that only about 1/3 of the people world have access to the internet. for something early in the development, it is going to

percent a year. for how fewtartling people in the world have access and how early it is in its development. the internet is the backbone of the modern knowledge economy. all of the opportunities we have the ability to have society and jobs and education and all this stuff, it is not happening by itself. are 5easy to think there billion files of the world. the vast majority are feature phones. phones in the world. one day all the feature phones will be smart phones. i think that is probably true in the next 5-10 years. misinterpret, the extensive part of ownership of a phone is not the phone about the data. if you have an iphone for two years and cost about $2000.

$500 or $600 is the phone. unless the data price comes down , we are never going to be at a point where the vast majority of the world will be up to be on the internet. that is what we're to focus on. when able by making them suction to provide the internet cheaper and the most frequent use apps consume less of data. and also trying to provide new business models to make a so more people can get of the internet. that is a big focus for us. that is probably not a surprise. what you intend to make it happen, don't you -- >> you intend to make it happen, don't you? >> that is why we are here. all of the tactics change all of the time. mission does not change. that is who we are. we are on the earth to connect

everybody intel people share more of what they want. we will do this. >> whether they want to are not. i am just kidding. >> everybody wants to be connect. it is a fundamental thing. not every person wants to use a specific service but the internet is a broad place. this is what we're going to focus on. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> of the next washington journal, two journalists talk about their series of articles called broken city talking about gridlock in washington. and what they do as one of the

three credit rating agencies. wright is our guest. washington journal on c-span. >> this weekend, house a budget ranking member chris van hollen will talk about what's ahead for the 29 member conference that will try to reach an agreement on a federal budget. here is a look. >> this conference is the entire republican budget and in the anti-your democratic budget. our -- and tie your democratic budget -- and tie your democratic budget. the republican budget gets rid of the good parts of the health care law. it balances in 10 years and because the cut of the taxes and

medicare savings. one of the wings that the public is not aware of is when a pop -- one of the things that the public is not aware of is when the republican said -- ny, the answer to your question is very wide scope potentially for this conversation. our priorities in this negotiation is going to be accelerating job growth. that has to be our focus. getting the economy moving faster. that means making sure we invest in infrastructure where you continue have high levels of unemployment and huge unmet needs. we believe we have to replace the sequester. there are many republicans who agree with that because it is a drag on economy. >> do and this sets a presidents

what happened this week in which -- do you think this sets a precedent what happened this week in which about the balance of power when you are president of one party and a sense controlled -- a senate controlled by the other party? >> is a really big question we have going forward. we will not be able to persuade the tea party caucus that they should not to try again to shut down the government or threatened. the question is, people like speaker boehner and the other leaders of the house, are they going to step up and try to forge a bipartisan compromise? not to wait 16 days after a shutdown when all the pain that has been inflicted on the country. "newsmakers" on c-span.

>> student cam contest asked what is the most important issue congress should consider an 2014? make a documentary and include c-span video. the competition is open to all middle and high school students with a grand prize of $5,000. we doubled the number of winners and total prizes. entries are due by chamberlain 20. for more information, visit the website. -- january 20. >> a discussion from three award-winning cartoonist. from the atlanta press club, this is one hour 15 minutes.

>> good evening. i am tom watkins, treasurer of the atlanta press club. thank you for coming to drawing the news. the atlanta press club is one of the largest and most active press clubs in the world. we encourage you to join. we have some great programs coming out. we will host a newsmaker luncheon on september 17. join us on october 8 for the hall of fame dinner. for more information, visit our website at www.atlantapressclub.org. we are pleased to have three cartoonists in an ever shrinking universe of cartoonists joining us tonight. kevin, award winning cartoonist for "the economist" magazine of london.

his career spans more than 35 years and he has created more than 8000 cartoons and 140 magazine covers. his resume includes six collections of published work. mike, pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist for the "atlanta journal-constitution." he began his cartooning career in 1984 in new orleans and joined the constitution in 1989. his work appears in "time" and "the new york times." rick has been the editorial cartoonist for "the augusta chronicle," he started at the "atlanta journal-constitution" years before. his cartoons are syndicated to more than 400 newspapers across america. he has won numerous awards, including first place for editorial cartooning in the georgia press association's

better newspaper contest. we will ask a bunch of questions, i will start off with a couple, formulate your own. we will pick the brains of people who look at world events and distill them to simple pictures and make us laugh or have an epiphany or think deep thoughts. >> i want to know -- rick did not get a microphone. i think he deserves one. >> he does. i guess he gets one. there is an extra.

>> first off, you are talking to the press club, which has endured a bitter few years. i am wondering if you could comment on the state of editorial cartooning. is it the same as newspapers, or has it been spared? >> i think the cartoonists have been hit harder than the newspaper industry. in a large part because, the beancounters and businessmen are making hiring and firing decisions as newspapers. they look at a cartoonist and say, what does this guy really bring? the journalists know the value that a cartoonist can bring. we see it in the work of rick and mike that the powerful attachment that a local

community gets to the cartoonist, and the power that it can do to affect both public discourse and also get the full attention of the politicians. that is part of the job of the free press. cartoonists have been laid off at a rapid rate. there is -- maybe the numbers are kind of loose. maybe 25 years ago, we were hovering in the 200 range. now we are in the 70's or lower. when a newspaper loses a cartoonist, it is likely that they will never rehire one. i am an example of that. i was a 17-year cartoonist for "the baltimore sun." i was offered a buyout and i took it because i saw the writing on the wall. they invited me to come back. we want a cartoonist, please.

do you want to add? >> newspapers have contracted. i think it is a case-by-case situation. i think there are some cartoonists in better shape than others. the ajc is lean, is doing well. a few years ago, things were great. 2004, 2005, newspapers were doing fabulous. now, they have to be leaner. as i said, i think if you are -- if your publisher and your editor and the people who people who own your paper value that cartoon, cartoonists are in a good position.

>> i don't have much to add except to say that there are a few people who have been hired in the last couple of months. it is encouraging. i know my paper has beefed up coverage, added an opinion section. i'm hoping it has stabilized maybe, maybe we can turn it around. >> ok. has the internet helped or hurt the business of cartooning and the artistry of cartooning? >> should i take this one? i think that the internet has initially hurt newspapers, like all media. people thought they could get everything for free. that is stabilizing. it has been a good thing in that our work has a much wider viewership than it used to.

it used to be your hometown and if you are syndicated in other newspapers, people in those towns. now, everyone has the ability to look at your cartoons. my stuff is on facebook and twitter, i do not know that much about all that stuff, i know that my cartoons go on there and people are seeing them. i think that is a good thing. >> it is hard to say. there are a lot more internet type cartoonists who are not necessarily professional, they are not paid staffers. with the advent of photoshop, anyone can go out there and whip something out. there is a lot more political opinion -- not many people are making money on it. >> there is another interesting byproduct of the web in the way it is helped cartoonists. this is mostly internationally.

you see three guys up here. whenever you get cartoonists together and ask them how they got into this business, everyone has a different story. there is no conventional way to become a cartoonist. there are no schools or graduate degrees. we in the u.s. have a rich tradition of satire that goes back several centuries. in emerging democracies, they don't have that same background. when they are looking to emulate what we do, what happens is, cartoonists are watching the cartoonists here. in the facebook scene, you're seeing a quick and rapid development of cartooning in countries like india, brazil, countries where the press is growing. there are more newspapers, they are growing. in many places in the west, they are shrinking.

cartoonists are learning at a faster pace than we could have done. it is accelerating the growth of cartoonists in other parts of the world. >> i hope you guys have some questions. one more. >> at its best, what should cartooning do? what do you hope to accomplish as a cartoonist? >> give me the hard one. they should make the readers think. and a lot of cartoons use humor. if i have challenged my readers to think about an issue differently, maybe one that they may not agree with, then i have accomplished my mission. mike? >> i am a very idealistic about cartooning.

i feel like -- i feel like we are perfecting our union. i am trying to make people think, like rick says. i am trying to show what i believe is not right out there. there is a lot that is not right out there right now. they say that bad news is good for cartoonists because it gives us fodder. i would rather work harder and have less bad news and know we were going in the right direction. i think we are not going in the right direction right now. i feel very -- like it is a real calling for me to get my opinions out there. >> all of those things are absolutely right. one of the things that is interesting about how cartoonists contrast to any other member of the journalism

school, it has the ability to penetrate a society, each cartoon is a sentence. they are pretty simple, straightforward, we try to get a point across in a succinct way. over a week, a paragraph, over a month, a chapter. you are basically having a long- term conversation with your readers. we use humor, pictures, we have an interesting way to reside in a special part of the brain. people approach it open-minded because they think they are going to laugh. we engage in a very personal relationship with people. over time, the ability to reside in somebody's brain and go to what rick mentioned, to make them think about subjects that sometimes they may have fixed ideas about. maybe rethink them.

sometimes awaken them to stories they need to know about. in some ways,i am going to sound like miss america, we want to make the world a better place. we are doing that with our unique medium. >> questions? >> not at a paper, would you run down hot you determine which -- how you determine which articles have a cartoon attached to them or which are standalone? >> what is interesting about that question, that is the same type of question that i would like to ask all of the other cartoonists. everyone has a different feel. we are as different as comedians. there is woody allen, chris rock. all cartoonists are different in our personality, our approach to the news, our style. i cannot wait to hear what these

guys have to say. [laughter] >> what was the question? no, my cartoons standalone from the articles. i have a great situation. although my editor says i have to start getting in earlier. i now get in at noon. [laughter] the first thing i do is i have lunch. after lunch, to the untrained eye, it does not look like i am doing anything. i am just sitting there on ebay or on itunes. i am looking at topics, too. around 3:00, i start to get nervous because i have been procrastinating all day. i start to get nervous. that is when i start coming up with ideas. usually my first couple of ideas suck. i will show them to somebody and they will be happy to tell me that they suck.

i appreciate the honesty, that gets my adrenaline going. i want to come up with something to show this person that i am not a failure. i keep doing that, it gets later and later. my day starts out with procrastination and ends in panic. right at my deadline at 5:30, i have to draw a really quick. i do not pencil in, i just ink. i have whiteout on my hands, i just got done with a cartoon. i am going as fast as i can, that is how my day goes. [laughter] >> wow. my cartoons are standalone as well. i am in the office with the other editorial writers. i am doing a cartoon on syria, they have an editorial coming up on syria, we might run those two together. you might get the idea that we

paired them, but it just happened. i come in at 9:30, but i also look like i am not doing anything. i hope to have my sketch to my lunchtime. that has got to go through the approval process. i do a different way of inking. i have a light box that i put my sketch underneath. then i ink on top of the paper. i have the sketch to guide me. then i scan it in, hopefully i have inking done by 3:30, i start to color. you asked how the web affected it, we have a color position online. by 5:30 or 6:00, i have the color position done.

>> do you assign yourselves or do they say mike, we want a cartoon on syria? >> for me, no. my editor likes to suggest ideas. sometimes i listen to him, most of the time i do not. i do whatever i want to draw. >> i do not even go to meetings. it is the most incredible thing. i sit in my office, i do not see my editor. no one bugs me until i come out of there and show my rough. they do not tell me what to do. i have got such a great situation. >> largely, the freedom that each of these fellows have is in large part because they have built up a reputation that they will deliver. one of the things about our business, we work on tight deadlines.

we are creating art and satire on a deadline. it requires a lot of different skill sets. it requires the skill set of being a journalist, keeping up with the news, then put on the habit of being a columnist. i think that is how people should regard us. we approach the news, come up with our own perspective on the subject we are going to cover. then we have to be a satirist and apply humor. the last thing, we are an artist, using pictures to deliver our satiric commentary. it is interesting how everyone does them in different ways and each cartoon has a different energy. i have to wear two hats, i work for an international publication, "the economist." as well as "the baltimore sun." i use a very old-fashioned

english style pen nibs. it takes me three hours to apply the ink. three hours of scratch, scratch. if the deadline is 7:00, that takes you back to 4:00. i have pencil sketches before that, that takes two hours to three hours. and then you have coming up with the idea. everyone finds a way of getting two ideas in a different fashion. sometimes, they do come quickly. other times, you go through a lot of processes. my day is pretty much an eight to ten hour day. about the freedom we are given, with all freedom comes responsibility. what i admire about my peers who do this really well on a daily basis is how managing to the

cartoons that are both apt and right on the news, not sexist, not racist. powerful one day, funny the next day. all of these things that have to go into the mix. >> next question, go to the microphone, please. i forgot with caroline. >> i was on the editorial board, i can vouch for mike's work ethic. [laughter] what i wanted to ask all of you, mike particularly, i would now and then write a column, i could not believe the reaction. it was totally not what i meant. i wonder if there has been any one particular cartoon you have ever drawn that you were flabbergasted at the response. you thought it was really

misinterpreted. it would be fun to know a specific example. >> first of all, often when there are cartoon controversies, one reason is that the symbolism over takes the idea that you are trying to get across. and people do not understand what you are trying to say. i did one a few years ago when we were in iraq. america was starting to understand that we were torturing people. i thought that that is what our enemies do. i thought about it, i realized after i did the cartoon and it ran, the symbolism was too strong. what it was -- i drew two hooded figures, one was an american holding a whip. another was an al qaeda member

with a serrated knife. the american was holding a book called "torture etiquette." the al qaeda guy was telling him to go to page, paragraph, line. it was not a particularly great cartoon. people think everything in a newspaper is a big controversy or a big sinister thing, a conspiracy. my cartoon ran, but on the same on the opinion page, there was a black-and-white photo of two american servicemen who had been beheaded by al qaeda. the combination -- people went nuts. this was at a point where people had not process that we were

torturing, people were still denying. people started complaining, it became a big thing. we had security, i was getting death threats. and then, they wanted me to be on fox news. fox news -- the bill o'reilly show. i begged my editor to go on and explain this. she thought it would be misinterpreted or i would do something stupid. she did not let me go on. they did the most nasty, one- sided thing on there. it all started dying down, but then rbm, the big car dealership in atlanta, they took out a full-page ad with the letter from the president of rbm saying

that we have the freedom to do what we want and say what we want, but this cartoon was beyond. it just generated all the crap it just generated all the crap again. i was so glad when that was over. i do not know if you guys -- if it has been the same thing with the symbolizing overriding the idea. >> i run into that as well. also, we do so many cartoons that are considered fine -- fun ny. it is when you have to switch gears and do something serious. you want to be respectful and pay tribute. everyone is expecting you to crack a joke. mine was a local cartoon about a local school. it was misunderstood it was nothing compared to that,

though. i have not gotten any death threats. i am still holding out for some. [laughter] >> i had a situation that was along the lines of what happened with mike. this was in the mid-2000's when the israeli government under ariel sharon had a policy of bulldozing the homes of palestinian terrorists' family members. both the bush administration and many allies thought that this was an ill-advised policy. controversial within israel and outside. i was doing a cartoon that was basically -- also, bush was trying to tell sharon don't do this. sharon was doing whatever he

wanted. we had arafat as a cat being chased by a big bulldog, sharon. he was pulling through the air, george bush, he was saying the boy, -- good boy, sit, stay. i thought it was a good cartoon. sometime between the time i finished the cartoon and the next morning's paper, a terrorist bomb attack in tel aviv killed about 80 people. two buses. the next morning, all the images were this carnage. then people turn to the editorial pages and see a cartoon of me blaming sharon. i became the hot button on all the talk shows and all the fallout. it was also revealed that two weeks later i was slated to give a talk in baltimore right in the heart of the jewish community. that was going to be a focal

point of a lot of protests. the library contacted me and said that they were getting threats. and whether we should go on with this. i said do whatever you like. in the u.s., if we cannot have a civil discussion in a library, where else can we do it? we got a lot of security, went down there, it was mayhem, chaos. people wanted to shut it down. it was a misunderstanding. it touched a raw nerve. the room is about the size, packed with folks. i give my presentation. i told everyone that we are definitely going to be addressing the issue that everyone wanted to hear. i go through the slides of cartoons of controversy that have been done over the years. then i bring up that cartoon. it was like a bad movie, people started, "oh my god." it was something else.

everyone who has something to say in this room was going to have an opportunity to say it. i was going to stay here till next week if required. it is a wonderful thing, both to let the air out of the bag and the air out of the room. it also served something that is very special in our society, we can vent and say these things. hopefully, we can say them in a civilized fashion. it turned out to be a great exercise in democracy. >> have you found yourself being more careful about cartoons related to israel? >> no. you could see where there was a misunderstanding with that. we are all aware of what happened with the danish cartoonist. for guys like us who have been in the game, we know that there are landmines. you have to be careful about how you manage these things.

issues to do with abortion in the u.s., guns, race, arab- israeli relations. in other countries, they have their own red lines to be aware of. what a cartoonist can get away with an san francisco may be different than in alabama. you have to understand your audience. i think mike made a really good point. it is often not what you say, it is how you say it that gets you in trouble. if you can actually -- i don't think there is any subject that is off-balance, it is a matter of finding the best way to do an effective cartoon. "washington journal -- >> i think cartoonists that get in the most trouble are the guys who rush out and try to be first rather than giving it thought. a little bit of time in between an event and the cartoon goes a long way towards avoiding some

of that controversy. >> each of our guests are now going to share some of their favorite cartoons. why don't we start with you -- >> do i get a clicker? >> can i stand up and walk around? great, thank you very much. this is huge fun. this is my first cartoon, a very important cartoon. [laughter] i thought it was important to show this. this is important because this has got abraham lincoln, the gettysburg address. this cartoon inspired a feature- length motion pitcher starring starring dino day-lewis -- motion picture

starring daniel day-lewis. i do this at age six. everyone is drawing at age six. most people drop off. the idea of trying to capture reality with lines. as cartoonists, we stay six- year-olds for the rest of our lives. it is the notion of how brains work to capture things. as we mentioned, over the years, i have done 140 covers for different magazines. each of these have interesting stories behind them. here is a curious story about this. back in 1998, we were economically booming. now, we are coming out of deficits. this was the lead up to the

state of the union address. "the economist does quit was doing a cover story about bill clinton, who wanted to -- the economist was doing a cover story about the clinton who wanted to spend a lot of money. he was like a kid in a candy shop, what could he spend it on? i did this cartoon, obvious -- all these gals with sweets. we go to press on a wednesday. wednesday at noon, the monica lewinsky story breaks. [laughter] they scrap the lead editorial, they look at my cartoon and say we are going to use that cartoon. i thought that was great. the next two cartoons, stories about what it is like for a cartoonist before and after the internet.

this cartoon, way back when mikael gorbachev came onto the scene and the soviet union, he was a new kind of russian leader. young and hip. i was working in the u.k., i have -- i have lived there for 11 years. i said, i have a great idea. let's turn mikael gorbachev into a new character -- miami vice. the problem was, before the internet, how do i get pictures of miami vice? how could i drop a miami vice -- draw a miami vice picture? my wife and i went shopping in brighton, we did our best to get clothes based on miami vice. i modeled for that drawing. that was not my car, but that was my out of it.

the most expensive cover i have ever had to make. we had to do a wardrobe to go with it next. i will show you black and white ones here featuring uncle sam. and this is one of my favorite ones. what foreign enemies and americans looking for, world control. what americans are really looking for, we remote control. when i came back from abroad i realized this is very accurate. i had just come back from cuba. people of cuba next. why stick with that big castro?

>> missing one. so anyway, to thing about this is everybody can be good cartoon fodder am a whether you are a democrat or dictator to me you are good fodder for cartoonists. this is a cartoon i did back in 1989. it is being reproduced around the world. a guy says i have a stock here that could really excel. sell, sell, sell.

it carries on. a guy says this is madness, i cannot take anymore. i, buy, buy. at the end he says i have a stock here that could really excel. here is the story. cartoon appears in the baltimore sun that gets picked up new york times. third it being reprinted around the world. then i started getting phone calls, stock brokers. south america, all over the place. ernst they say they want a copy of the cartoon. second they say that is exactly how it is. seriously. i get requests almost every month. a stockbroker in hong kong wanted the size you see their to be put on the wall in their lobby.

we had to send them one. this is an interesting story behind it because we were talking earlier about the value cartoon spring. this is a local cartoon and baltimore. when we are doing our cap -- cartoons, we have to do local cartoons. we have to do national cartoons and international cartoons. probably the only person in the newspaper that has the full responsibility. it is the local cartoons that get people's real attention. we are it when it comes to this. they watch us like hawks. the cartoons can have real power. here is a case in point. 20 years ago this took lace. this is about an area of baltimore called the block. a red light district causing

trouble for the mayor. he wanted to do severe zoning laws and said he could close the whole thing down. i and others thought it would be ill advised. if you just close down there it will spread and other places. so i did this cartoon that make sense. you have the block and explodes. then little blocks all over the place. well, the mayor wrote an essay in the baltimore sun to say that this cartoon changed his mind about policy. it was a cartoon he was going in one direction. put the proposed legislation into the city council. he withdrew it after he saw the cartoon. he was brave enough because he was no longer in politics but

now in the private sector to be able to say a cartoon changed his mind about angst. there are probably times cartoons affect politicians in ways we will never hear because no politicians -- politician who is worth his salt will ever admit up cartoon changed his mind but probably happens more often than we know. i will show you this because i finished it last night at 4:30 in the morning. here we go. afghanistan. he is chased out. now uncle sam a little more sober approach is iraq. he gets traced back by an even larger set of these. look at the beehive with syria. uncle sam thinking more carefully about what we are doing. my deadline with the economist is thursday morning at 4:00 in the morning. 4:30 a.m. this arrived

in london. this takes place in heaven, as you can see. michael the ark angel speaking. john paul ii on the line. >> again? he is worried about the movement to ordain women as priests. but i have artie told him what i think, tell them i am busy. >> i like all of them but i really liked the afghanistan one. very clever. before we start, let me just think about what i'm going to say here.

wait a minute, i know what i am going to do. i just had a brain part. if you read my cartoons, you know i have a strong view sometimes. as politics have gotten crazier, and in my opinion, as the republican party has gone more insane i have become more strident. this first cartoon shows the republican approach to governing. republicans await response. we have your dog. they are are ready planning another thing with the debt ceiling. that is not how you govern. the gop keeps talking about how they will rebrand themselves,

show they are more except to know other all, gays and latinos and african-americans and the middle class. to me, it is just bs. [laughter] here is another thing. bill clinton, i was so pissed at him yesterday. when he was giving his speech he had the best line. it should not be harder to vote that it is to get an assault weapon. i thought what a great line. because of the nra, they have such a lock on the republican

party that we cannot get any kind of sensible gun control. showing ideas the airport. removing shoes. full body scanner. telling someone i am traveling to d.c. to argue against background checks. we had a recent example of a assault weapons with huge magazines and a mental-health issues and this is what resulted. a congressman saying as a member of congress my goal is to do the nra bidding so i will not lose my job. he talked to the empty classroom.

they get posted on facebook. so i get a lot of response. i do not usually respond, unless it is like really nasty or something beyond. i do not like to get into big things with people. it is like having an argument with a relative, nothing is ever resolved. the republicans are losing it demographically. they are trying to come up with ways to discourage voting you

just had the supreme court decision on writing -- voting. this is a crappy drawing. i had done a cartoon on michele bachmann leaving congress. i cannot remember what the punchline was. i have heard in this -- i have her in a straitjacket. i cannot remember what she is saying. my editor says we should not do this because it is making fun of people with mental health issues. i was getting in my car to pick my daughter up because she was working at an internship. we said we will disrupt another

one, a syndicated one. i said i hate doing that. i said let me see if i can come up with an idea. i will drive her home and come back. this is the cartoon and that is my house. a cartoonist lives there. one of the things that has just amazed me is the quickness of equal quality and gay rights. i think it is so amazing. this is after the supreme court vote. i am sorry i am being so partisan, but it is like the

republicans, they do not care about the country. they will ruin the country to get policy goals because they cannot get it through legislation. i did this cartoon recently. the nsa guy saying we intercepted the chatter of a group plotting to triple -- cripple the u.s. government. he says we do not appreciate you listening to our phone calls. again, this is the past couple of weeks we have had discussion and celebration with martin luther king's 50th anniversary this is the cartoon i did about that.

which one is the face? all right. thank you all very much. [applause] >> i think they might have put me on the bill for equal time. i tend to be more conservative. i am the baby of the group. i have been following these guys works for a very long time. i do a lot of local cartoons. for us, this is a local team. i think any falcons fan could appreciate the cross fingers. i thought about trying to market

goes. after the whole miley cyrus thing, going to stay away from the foam anger. this is one that i did back when kim jong-un was causing all the problems. pretty popular on the internet. another local topic for me. this is where it equal time comes in. there was a time where president obama was trying to position himself as the new reagan. here is the rockwell self- portrait painting to show he is more like the old carter than the new reagan.

here is another one. i do not know if there are any reporters here. there was an incident where the department of justice was tapping into the phone records of the a pay -- ap and fox news. one of his favorites is the press listening in on. here is another one. we went through a time where things were happening. president obama would say i heard it on the news just like you did. just in time for labor day, another cookout. the hope and change poster. during the campaign, a big uproar.

mitt romney wanted to kill big bird. i also go after republicans. this is when new mitt romney took him in a landslide. of course anthony weiner, whatever you do, do not let him kiss your baby. this is one for last thanksgiving. the turkey is a metaphor for something. [applause] >> we have a couple more minutes. go to the microphone, please.

>> good evening ladies and gentlemen. i have been living and working in this area for the past 43 years. structural engineer and builder. i will be brief with my question addressed to all three gentlemen. since i am originally from iraq i am proud to be a u.s. and iraqi citizen. i could not help but ask a question to you all, which is the same question i asked a few months ago here at this halt to the former editor of "the wall street journal." the question is very simple, if someone told you all that the

media in general almost 100% betray the american will by not telling the truth, why we lost in such a big way in iraq. >> it was a rush to war. we were sold a bill of goods on that. it ticks me off to think in a just world, i think bush and cheney should be in prison. i think that members of the press did not ask questions and there was topic and the involved. -- propaganda involved.

i think it was one of the worst mistakes ever made and we will pay the price for many years. i did a cartoon. when there were 2000 american service members killed during the iraq war i did a cartoon and wrote the word "why" with that? and drew it the size. i wrote the names of all the troop's that had been killed in iraq in the letters. that generated a lot of controversy and was at a time when people still thought the war was a good thing. >> i think that was responsible for you getting a pulitzer prize that year.

i was a very strong opponent of the war from the start. i got a lot of heat for it at the time but felt very strongly about it. i will tell you an interesting story. you might recall the patriot act that was done in secret for several weeks and everyone was wanting to know what was going on behind closed doors. after berating john ashcroft to come forward publicly he eventually did and gave a presentation and did this in front of the senate committee. he had a written statement at the beginning. said something along the lines that to question my action is to aid the enemy.

that you should not question that take what we are going to give you. i remember hearing that and say this is every citizen's job and responsibility to ask questions. we are paid to do it. i came up with a cartoon that i thought was very strident on the day. the country was in a strange mood of the time. i thought this will get lots of e-mails, facts, letters. my phone will ring off the hook tomorrow. tomorrow came and there was no comment. instead, i saw cartoonist around the country echoing the same thing i did. i heard members of both sides of the aisle coming out in protest. two years later, when the library of congress was doing a special commemoration exhibition , part of the collection to talk

about 9/11, they asked for that cartoon. i was very proud of that. >> if the question is, why did the media not tell the truth about how we lost the war, i do not think there is any grand conspiracy. i think the media was probably doing their best to tell what they perceived to be the truth. that is really all i have to add. >> i will shock you. i believe that nobody should hidden point or criticize without having the facts to support his position. i will give it you documents here. they have the documents. >> we are going to focus on the cartoonists. >> the constitution.

they have full knowledge why we lost in iraq. >> go ahead. >> please go to the microphone. >> this may be a figment of my imagination, but it seems the literate editorial writers are more liberal and the oral are more right wing. is that my own illusion or is it real and why? >> people who draw are smarter. [laughter] >> in general terms. are you talking about commentators? >> editorial newspapers.

it is interesting where both represented. from my perspective liberals outweigh conservatives. when fox news came along, there was not a whole lot of conservative voices on tv. rush limbaugh came along. talk radio seems completely eaten up with conservatives. i think your point is right, liberals have a tough time. al gore's tv channel is completely gone now. it may be because there is really one place. in print, there are fewer conservatives in general. that is reflected among cartoonists as well.

>> i think i would agree with that tom a yes. my paper, there are a variety of reporters and editors that are conservative and liberal. my paper, because the internet people can go and get the exact news they want in their own bubble, the paper -- now it runs my cartoon and directly below it, it is called "from the right." they are running both views. they are trying so hard. i think it is a good idea. if you are conservative and have this paper and is liberal, the editorial page is liberal, you will want to hear some

sympathetic voices. you would go to the internet. i think what the paper has done is run a liberal and conservative columnists every day. if you are a conservative, you can read the liberal columnists or cartoonist and you are maybe not going to agree, but you can understand where they are coming from maybe. the same for the liberal conservative. i just forgot what the question was. >> two points about that. i lived and worked in the u.k. for 11 years where it is widely regarded the media is conservative. it is very amusing to come back here and get this turned on its head. i also note that there is a spectrum of what they think is

liberal conservative. where we can all agree is there is probably 20% on either end truly conservative and liberal. every place in the middle is really up for grabs. the spectrum in massachusetts is different than other parts of the country. there is a lot of gray area for how people define what is going on. it is curious about what you're saying about print versus the oral thing. it would be worth investigating. where there is something very interesting is satire. that is usually people taking on the status quo. this usually comes from someone on the left taking on the orthodoxies. in that case, it may be understandable you more have more liberal or nonconventional people in that realm but not

always the case. i thought it was really interesting to see rick's cartoons because he has such an articulate point of view. lots of room for different kinds of voices. should not be from one perspective. >> please go ahead. the young man in front. >> my name is mac. i work at fox communications. i wanted to know as an aspiring cartoonist, what is one thing you would recommend or something that you would? >> i would say this is not a growing industry, newspaper

cartooning. if you can find an outlet on your website or suburban paper that you could do drawings for, that is how i got started. i drew for my high school and college papers. i was selling life insurance. i would spend the weekend drawing for suburban papers in and around seattle. most of them were not even paying me. it was just a way to get practice. eventually something opened up in south carolina so i got that job. it is a tough situation. i think it was probably easier for us starting out because

newspapers were healthy and you knew if you could not get a job right away that if you waited long enough something might happen. >> i would echo that. i did the same thing except for selling life insurance. school newspaper, college newspaper, local small-town newspaper. my route was to go into the news our department. i worked at the atlantic constitution and the late 1980s. that was my foot in the door. that was until the job in augusta came open. it is so tough these days to get the job. so many award-winning cartoonists do not have jobs right now. i will echo some of the things mentioned.

i am bullish about the future of visual satire. i am seeing some really exciting possibilities out there. the prospect of new media and the fact software and animation is getting easier to do, there are new opportunities yet to be realized. i am convinced of it. i have been doing some fun stuff and am seeing some exciting possibilities, even in limited stuff. i would recommend you do become familiar and agile with managing animation and turn it into your own thing. use what has been done before and make it your own. >> elizabeth, go ahead. >> i was curious about the

future of newspapers in america. it is a bit uncertain. i wondered if you ended up in a situation where your cartoons would only appear online, if they would have a sustained impact on society. >> i do not know. [laughter] >> that is a good question. that day may come. right now i am just speaking from what my paper is doing. we have a free online presence. we have a paid thing with special content for the paid subscribers. you can get it in print or both or a variety of things. the ipad -- i read it every morning on my ipad.

flips the pages just like a regular newspaper. i hope we will be able to continue doing a variety of things. >> the local edge maybe you would lose. we have kind of a critical mass. that might be diluted. it will be interesting to see what happens. >> give everyone at least one chance before you have a second one. >> i think it might have more impact online. it gets passed around.

that is the thing going on right now. more people are reading newspapers than ever before. they are just reading them for free online. we have to figure this out. >> hearing your answers to earlier questions and seeing your cartoons, especially the ones with the bees and the iraq nest, you guys can say what everyone is thinking and what journalists can never say. we are supposed to just report the facts. sometimes i feel like i can watch the rebroadcast and read the entire paper and have no perspective. you guys are able to put it into a perspective with humor that is so true. it is a joke but it is true. >> let me put you in touch with my publisher. [laughter] sometimes i watch jon stewart and stephen colbert at night, and i think they got it better than the journalist got it.

i was wondering, did you ever post a cartoon that you got a completely unexpected reaction to? positive or negative. >> it is funny, because cartoons for me, a lot of times you draw them and you say this one is going to be great and it lands with a thud. then you do one that you do not expect and will either get some huge positive or negative reaction that comes out of nowhere and cannot predict what is going to be the reaction. you just have to try to do what you think is best for the day and hopefully there will be another one tomorrow. >> how often do your editors nix your ideas? >> not that often. i am always glad that an editor looks at my cartoon. you do not know if it works or

not. there has been times i come up with an idea and will draw out the sketch and show it to an editor and the editor will say you cannot do that. he says look what people will think. i will not have even realized it. there was a guy at the "new york post" when there was a crazed ape that killed somebody. he drew a cartoon of the ape being shot by the cops, and one cop is saying to the other that there will not be someone to make up the next stimulus. what it inferred was the crazed ape was obama.

i do not know if that is what he meant, but what i have always thought is he was thinking there is a crazed ape in the news and i am against the stimulus bill, so i will try to do a cartoon on that. i do not know that he made the connection. that is where you need an editor to say people will think that is obama, you cannot do that. it became a huge thing. i do not know what was in his heart, but when i saw it, i thought i could see me doing something stupid like that. [laughter] that is why you need an editor. >> thank you. name is trey alderson. how do you avoid getting burned out? you have to do a cartoon

everyday. bert was one of my favorites growing up and now he is writing books because he cannot do it every day. >> bert had this thing for calvin hobbes. some have taken breaks. the one thing that is similar with them is they were not political cartoonists. if you do a comic strip, you have a few characters and you create a world and reside in the world and will live in the world the rest of your life. for us, we have the best scriptwriters working for us in washington. they are giving us new material, plus we're doing something because of the conversation we're doing with the audience and are dealing with very serious thing sometimes, we get to vent. i think there is a medicinal element for us as well.

i think it gives us a lot of juice. mike makes it sound really easy. he talks about the panic side of it, and i completely understand it. all the neurons have to be operating to do this. you can become really exhausted at the end. there is a concern, do i have 12,000 cartoons in this noodle of mine before i retire? that can often cause a little bit of a panic. the thing is that for all that it takes out of you to do it, you get it back. tomorrow being read by other people, getting comments from others. also, being with my colleagues and seeing their take on the world. we realized we are in a very special and deeply honored to be able to do what we do.

>> i would agree with that and say i am so excited every day to come in. it is not a job. this is what i always wanted to do. those guys had to go seven days a week. they rarely got vacations. we get vacations. we do five days a week. so we do get our days off. we are going in and drawing pictures. someone else's digging a ditch. i am excited to go to work. honored and privileged to have the job. >> i would just say that i agree with that. >> great to have you here. thank you for coming. [applause] >> there is a new book that i will have in case someone wants to buy one.

>> information will be outside the door. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] the president, ken cucenneli gives the republican address. governor ing for virginia. >> hi everybody. this week, because democrats and responsible republicans came together, the government was reopened, and the threat of default was removed from our economy. there's been a lot of discussion

lately of the politics of this shutdown. but the truth is, there were no winners in this. at a time when our economy needs more growth and more jobs, the manufactured crises of these last few weeks actually harmed jobs and growth. and it's understandable that your frustration with what goes on in washington has never been higher. the way business is done in washington has to change. now that these clouds of crisis and uncertainty have lifted, we need to focus on what the majority of americans sent us here to do - grow the economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity, and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul. it won't be easy. but we can make progress. specifically, there are three places where i believe that democrats and republicans can work together right away. first, we should sit down and pursue a balanced approach to a responsible budget, one that grows our economy faster and shrinks our long-term deficits further. there is no choice between

growth and fiscal responsibility we need both. so we're making a serious mistake if a budget doesn't focus on what you're focused on: creating more good jobs that pay better wages. if we're going to free up resources for the things that help us grow - education, infrastructure, research - we should cut what we don't need, and close corporate tax loopholes that don't help create jobs. this shouldn't be as difficult as it has been in past years. remember, our deficits are shrinking - not growing. second, we should finish the job of fixing our broken immigration system. there's already a broad coalition across america that's behind this effort, from business leaders to faith leaders to law enforcement. it would grow our economy. it would secure our borders. the senate has already passed a bill with strong bipartisan support. now the house should, too. the majority of americans thinks this is the right thing to do. it can and should get done by the end of this year. third, we should pass a farm

bill - one that america's farmers and ranchers can depend on, one that protects vulnerable children and adults in times of need, and one that gives rural communities opportunities to grow and the longer-term certainty they deserve. we won't suddenly agree on everything now that the cloud of crisis has passed. but we shouldn't hold back on places where we do agree, just because we don't think it's good politics, or just because the extremes in our parties don't like compromise. i'll look for willing partners from either party to get important work done. there's no good reason why we can't govern responsibly, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis. because that isn't governing - it's just hurting the people we were sent here to serve. those of us who have the privilege to serve this country have an obligation to do our job the best we can. we come from different parties, but we're americans first. and our obligations to you must compel all of us, democrats and republicans, to cooperate, and compromise, and act in the best

interests of this country we love. thanks everybody, and have a great weekend. >> hello, i'm attorney general ken cuccinelli. today, our nation and the commonwealth of virginia face tremendous challenges. citizens are seeking leaders who are willing to speak out and stand up for our first principles and take on a federal government that is out of control, eating away our liberty and crushing opportunity. this gross government overreach is best exemplified in the so- called affordable care act. obamacare represents one of the largest and most reckless expansions of government in the more than 200-year history of our nation. i believe that obamacare is unconstitutional. i believe it's an affront to the freedoms and liberties our founding fathers fought to establish on our behalf. i'm proud to say many of those heroes were virginians, including george washington, thomas jefferson and patrick henry. because i believed obamacare was an affront to our liberty, i

stood up. i was the first attorney general in america to challenge the law in federal court. and today, i continue to search for avenues to minimize obamacare's hurtful impact on virginians. during the debate over this law, citizens in the commonwealth were told they could easily access information about their health care choices and join the system, well that proved to be untrue. they were told their premiums wouldn't increase, that proved to be false. and they were told they could keep access to their insurance and their doctors, and that proved to be downright dishonest. today, our citizens are deeply concerned about what the future holds. what kind of country will we hand to our children? as a husband and proud father of

seven, my wife and i share these concerns. it's why i stood up and said obamacare is not right for virginia. it's why i fought alongside 27 other state attorneys general and said obamacare is not right for america. it's why i am sharing this message with you today. i know we can do better... my alma mater - the university of virginia - just announced that it will no longer be able to provide health care coverage to many spouses of their thousands of employees. and just two weeks ago, the fairfax county water authority, a significant government employer in northern virginia, announced that it's going to have to drop coverage for its employees because of obamacare's taxes. everywhere you look, there's more evidence that obamacare was fundamentally broken even before it started. and while our citizens bear the brunt of the law, it seems like big corporations and special interests have gotten exempted. even members of congress are getting preferential treatment, yet everyday virginians, of whom i am privileged to count myself, are paying the costs and experiencing diminished freedoms. president obama's ideas are deeply flawed and the

implementation of this law has been a national embarrassment. let me be plain, the law that carries the president's name is the hallmark of a reckless federal government that has lost its way. as attorney general of a commonwealth which was one of our nation's first 13 colonies, and the birthplace of american democracy, i'll never stand by and watch as our hard fought freedoms are taken away. we can do better. we need to provide flexibility and choice within our health care system. our citizens shouldn't be forced to choose insurance providers and doctors who've been preselected by government bureaucrats. we need to open up the insurance market and allow cross state purchase of insurance to drive competition and lower premiums. physicians are fleeing medicaid because they're paid so little and have to spend more time completing regulatory paperwork, time they would rather spend treating their patients. our citizens should be able to choose the health care providers who they believe will provide the best care for their needs, and we shouldn't have to make

our healthcare decisions with 16,000 irs agents looming as the obamacare enforcers. most importantly, we need to reverse the perverse incentives that have raised the cost of insurance premiums and have forced employers to drop health care benefits and full-time jobs in order to stay in business. our health care system should be transparent at all levels and provide pricing to inform and empower american families. we should support market based solutions for health care reform and empower patients free of government control. more and more government in health care has proven to make more and more government and health care has proachen