reporter is suspected of a crime. ? io they actually filled out an affidavit and got a seammuh warrant where they said there was reason to believe the fox reporter hadttiolated the espionage act or was a co-conspirator because he was asking questions of someone who had access to classified information. the apieorney general said at te time, we will not prosecute journalists for doing journalism. what d you

>> something that i think is an issue for journalists and citizens for the next 20 years, which is there's been a distinction in law and more generally between metadata and content, so some people have a thought that if government has access to your phone calls, that's really troubling. if they have access to metadata, meaning what numbers are calling what numbers, that's a completely different problem. we in the review group are uneasy with that distinction. that if the government has access to knowledge about whom you are calling and when and where, meaning the numbers, and it can figure out who those people are, that's a privacy problem. and that needs to be -- that distinction between metadata and data needs to be rethought. certainly for policy purposes, the idea that government has, you know, your metadata, it can tell a ton about you. whether it's going to be used illicitly or, you know, to target people on the basis of illegitimate grounds, probably that's a risk and not a high one under current circumstances, i'd even say a very low one, but in

terms of the kinds of security which people in a free society are entitled to, and certainly journalists and their sources, that's something that needs to be reassessed. >> i just wanted to now bring the conversation right back to the fact that the title of this is "journalism after snowden." i think we can all agree that edward snowden has done us a favor. do we have general agreement on that? that edward snowden has done us a favor. can we agree on that? [laughter] >> who are you asking? >> i'm asking the panel. can we all agree? >> i have no comment on that. [laughter] we have a 300-page report and the word snowden doesn't appear in the report and -- >> just to pick up on that.

this goes to the heart of the issue in a way. because you recommended lots of i think recommendations that people would generally endorse and critics of the administration would endorse them as well. but the fact is that we've had oversight and oversight as failed. and where oversight has failed, a whistleblower and journalism has succeeded and yet the system is still wanting to punish, if you like, the one thing which has led to some transparency. >> that should be unsurprising. useful backdrop to segueing into how journalism has changed after snowden is to acknowledge that during not obama administration, there have been seven criminal leak investigations. more than twice all of these investigations and all of

history before president obama took office. and this has had a profound effect on journalists who cover national security. with the snowden case being only the most recent. this seems to be, if not a stated policy, a reality where journalism about sensitive national security issues that i see as vitally in the public interest is effectively being criminalized and a real freeze is setting in in what had been to this point i think a healthy discourse between sources and journalists and i might here if i can take just a minute, because the gentleman had quite a long bit of time to speak, as

to point out that max frankel and a very affidavit in the pentagon papers case wrote eloquently about how the public does benefit from this discourse. and i have seen both in the job as washington bureau chief of "the times" certainly then growing as managing editor and now as executive editor that these criminal leak investigations have had a very profound effect on journalism. >> come back to the accomplices point. the thing that was completely different about the story, you know, as journalists we all understand that at some point somebody might threaten you in the means of trying to get you to reveal a source and there's a sort of tenant that you learn in places like colombia, that you would go to prison to protect your source. this source never thought his identity wouldn't come out. the very nature of the story.

he knew exactly how fast they would be able to track him down and identify him, as soon as the revelations appeared. and the reason that first week was so intense at first was the idea of getting as many stories out as possible before it just became about source hunt, witch hunt, who is this guy? for a 29-year-old he had an eerie precedence about what would happen, what they would say about him, how they would try to characterize him. he wanted to be able to control his own story. what that means to the journalist, instead of being prosecuted over identifying that source, we are now into something even more chilling, being co-conspirators. this has become part of a conspiracy, possibly involving the kgb or maybe china. [laughter]

because the ordinary way of chilling journalism will not work in this case. we are not going to worry about naming names. it is about proving you are not a co-conspirator. >> and to say that this chilling effect of editors and lawyers, is it just not possible to comment at all for your protection or client confidentiality? knowing what we know now. >> it is very problematic. there have been stories that we have had since snowden, a journalist who has had a source who they have been bidding with for a number of years on relatively innocuous bits of

color and detail suddenly wanted to give him something much more serious and profound. and you are looking and going, right. so there will be a gmail trail going back some years with your contact with this person. >> it is amazing to me. over the course of the past decade, journalists literally saying to a source, i will go to jail to protect your identity. those words are now uttered. >> you have a reporter who is currently fighting that fight. >> worried about that possibility. >> i want to leave plenty of time for questions. i just want to wrap up on this point about the inevitable arms race of technology which allows us to do all sorts of things, but leaves fingerprints all over the world. these are things that can be

useful for governments and journalists -- is this a legal remedy we are thinking about here? is it a technical remedy? where do we start given the technology? >> there are so many great topics here and they are diverse. one topic is getting democratic governments on a sound foundation with respect to these issues, bracketing a question which is a different question. you could think that the idea of government storage, private stuff, metadata for content, just not acceptable in a free society. we think essentially, that is a good thought. you could also think that the government access to such

material, when the government wants it, should be qualified by what free societies insist on, which is an independent, neutral arbiter, a judge agreeing on the basis of a certain showing of need. that has served this nation quite well when it has been observed. that is also a good foundation. in a way, this is about taking forward some not new ideals in a radically different technological environment and insisting on their enduring value. that is one set of issues. there is another set of issues raised about private ownership. that raises different challenges and the consumer bill of rights thing is about that. >> i am going to go to bob. you have been listening to this. there are so many things we have

to it onto, these really deep discussions, but i want to call on you as a reporter. what do you think? >> thank you for including me. i will try to give deep discussion in a couple of short minutes. i wanted to parse what the director of national intelligence said yesterday about accomplices and returning the documents. and put that alongside something that happened down the block in the judiciary committee, where the attorney general said that he had hoped to release publicly the guidelines that they were using in investigations relating to reporters and sources, but that a glitch had arisen and he was not yet ready to release these guidelines. what could james mean when he said that edward snowden and his

accomplices should return the stolen documents? the only other people known to have these documents are a small number of journalists. it could be just a rhetorical expression of anger, perfectly understandable for a secret agency that has had secrets for a long time. it could be a request for assistance or help. if that were the case, you would expect that the government would have come to these organizations before or after and done so. or it could be a kind of signaling, a way of saying that there is a risk here. accomplice has meaning in criminal law as a co-conspirator, aiding and abetting. besides the actual risk of prosecution, which i think still is remote for the reasons that dave has described, there is an investigative issue that very

much relates to the ability to do national security. journalists now, almost everything you want to write about, everything but the press release or the news conference is classified. that it may be -- that is just how it works. there is a good article that a harvard professor wrote saying that that is the case. if you have an intelligence service that is capable of aspiring, living in the golden age of signals intelligence that is described internally in which the president said that surveillance is collecting as much as possible, to say that bulk collection is not surveillance, bulk collection is not spying until they look at it or make use of it. it is all there, the tapes and the phone records.

lots of the review groups did not have the scope to consider. think about the situations for reporters under these national security frameworks. you have all the information in these big buckets. the laws that interpret to mean that, talking to a reporter is espionage. counterintelligence, counterespionage is a valid foreign intelligence purpose as far as the nsa is concerned. so now the investigation is potentially over before it starts. they have all the records of almost every reporter communication to almost every source. extraordinary precautions to limit that that are very hard to take and hardly anyone tries to take. they can be a reasonable or articulable suspicion standard

when it comes to whether the records of a reporter are going to be relevant to a counterintelligence investigation. so this sort of legal tangle is what we have to address if we are going to seriously talk about national security investigative journalism in the post-snowden era. >> can i pick up on that? >> yes. can people put your hands up for questions and we will go there. >> i want to underscore the point in a different term. the technology that we have today, when you knowledge what the government has and what it can do, you do not need to subpoena a reporter anymore.

there is the ability to find out any information. we should all be very concerned about that. we need whistleblowers. you can look at the number of stories in recent years, secret cia prisons, waterboarding, on and on, important stories that only come from classified information. if we do not have a mechanism that allows whistleblowers, our whole society is going to suffer. we cannot count on oversight by congress and the courts to adequately perform certain types of tasks. if we do not acknowledge that and have some safeguard, and hopefully one thing that will be picked up by the review proposals, are things like national security letters and court orders should be subject to the same attorney general guidelines. you do not go after reporters with those. right now, there is just a gray area. none of those national security things need to go through the normal checklist. >> i am going to take questions. somebody has a microphone over here and then over there.

let's start here. ok. and then the back. if anyone has a microphone, can you ask a question? >> hi. my name is daniel. i am from germany as a journalism student. the document in the wiki case and the snowden case were both activist. the documents are not in hold at the guardian. at least that is what i heard. what does it mean for this whole insecurity about investigations into leaks? how much did you have control over the situation? >> that is a great question.

it is one of the things that we were having conversations about in the u.k. for quite a lot of last year. we were holding some of the documents in the guardian u.k. office. and the documents are held in other places, which i am not going to go into on this panel. including very securely in the new york times office. one of the problems with the u.k. government approach, and this is bitterly ironic to me when we have a conversation about the context in the u.k. saying that we could not report a story without america. we would not have gotten this story if we were the guardian u.s. edition and we could not continue reporting it unless we were the guardian u.s. edition. and then to suddenly realize

that we are driven out -- but to address your point, once the u.k. government tried to remove the guardian from the equation, we spent some time saying to them, do you not member what happened to wikileaks? once you remove the news organization with the 200-year tradition, history, values, concerned about public interest, the fine-grained judgment, if you remove them, the information will find its way out in a way that you cannot engage with, that we have talked to administrations and agencies into confidence on every single story we have done. we have engaged with them and ask them questions, talk about material we intend to publish and listened to their concerns. we do not do everything they say, of course, and we know earnestly together, in partnership, the idea that by restraining us, we could be the subject of a legal order and

they could somehow contain the problem. you only make it worse. at one point, we were saying -- we were best friends in this endeavor. >> in the back and then down here. >> i have two questions and i guess mostly for jill and janine. the first one for janine is could you talk about how the discussion in britain has been versus the discussion in the u.s.? it seems to have been a very different discussion in the u.k. and the kind of collaboration that you have with other media organizations on the story, certainly that collaboration has not taken place in the u.k.? >> it is impossible to describe all of the rest of the british media. the u.s. media, from the beginning, has been brilliant.

>> some of them thought you were traitors though. >> momentarily on fox news, but they have come around. [laughter] i am talking about ap, reuters, washington journal, i cannot think of most news organizations that have not used the release of these documents to break stories and do amazing investigative reporting on these topics and really push ahead. no news organization in the u.k. has even followed up the stories. >> not the bbc? >> no. it has been quite extraordinary. i suppose the regulatory environment, they have been refusing to rule out prosecuting guardian journalists for some months now. obviously, we know of the detention of david maranda. the guardian has been funding the legal actions to rule

outside the bounds of the legal legislation. frankly, u.k. law is so widely drawn, it is almost impossible to overstep the oversight regime. the u.k. security agency and the nsa partner is where you have not proved any wrongdoing. it would be impossible to prove wrongdoing against the u.k. laws. there is very little oversight. guardian staff, as far as we know, still being investigated. >> conrad martin with the fund for constitutional government. i want to go to the term you used, edward snowden's eerie prescience. i would say it was more an informed and healthy paranoia. in the thomas case, where they went after him under the espionage act, he had taken

documents to the house of intelligence committee. those documents were turned over. diane rourke got the documents. the fbi waited at the house of intelligence committees office in going after that data. the healthy paranoia that is there -- my question goes to and you mentioned the whistleblowers, where are the reforms? the espionage act does not work and has not worked. it has been overly broad. any whistleblower protection act that should have been extended to contractors was not extended to contractors. the recommendations coming forward are coming forward about the metadata. third-party people handling them. the underlying systems of how we are going to approach this in the future, and it will happen again, is not being addressed. when these things have come out before, what happened was you

had a frank church that came forward with a new regulatory structure on how these things are going to be handled. congress has been completely silent. >> well, not completely silent. you saw senator wyden in the interchange with mr. clapper this week being vocal. i think that -- i agree with much of what you just said, but what is tremendously unhelpful, i think, is to have statements, as in the hearing the other day, saying that snowden's disclosures have done great harm to the national security without any kind of specific information that helps the public, let alone

journalists, evaluate the truth of that statement. it is just, to me, troubling. it reminds me -- you know, history is often a guide in these situations. during the pentagon papers case, the solicitor general erwin griswold made the passionate argument that the disclosure of the pentagon papers was very harmful to the national security. a few years later, after he left office, he was asked what harm to the national security did the publication of the pentagon papers caused? he admitted none. in this case, none of us know how to evaluate the truth of what mr. clapper said the other day. but the lack of specific information, i think, is harmful to the public ability to figure

out where the truth in this situation lies. >> we have a question at the back. i know we are a little over time. we are going to wrap up in a bit. >> years ago, nathaniel blumberg and carl bernstein pointed out the ways in which the media collaborate with the government. and cooperate in the suppression of stories. if the government -- this is the two editors. if the government asks you to suppress a story because of national security, do you ask them for proof? what does it take to make you toe the line, which happens so often. for instance, in the lead up to the iraq war, the coverage of 9/11, the way that robert kennedy junior said that his family did not necessarily endorsed the warren commission. that was not necessarily covered. >> i think what janine was

saying a few minutes ago about her efforts to make the case to the british government, we are your best friends. we are a responsible filter for evaluating the importance of the information which should be disclosed, perhaps even which should not be disclosed. i think that the new york times and other news organizations play a very important role in trying. it is difficult. as an editor, there is no set rentals or formula that i can follow in terms of when the government says, if you publish this, it is going to harm the national security. but when the government does make that case -- >> which it did with the original -- >> of course. we take those request very

seriously. we, in general, hit the brakes a bit in order to give consideration and give the government ample opportunity to persuade us that such is the case. >> to play devil's advocate, a fact that everybody was so shocked at what edward snowden revealed, wasn't that kind of a failure of the press in the same way that holding the government to account over iraq was a failure of the press? the fact that a whistleblower has to come forward with what has been available to so many people. has american media really been asleep? >> i do not think it has been asleep anymore that -- again, i keep invoking the pentagon papers. basically, until ellsberg, who was the principal whistleblower of the same ilk as some of the

more recent cases, basically, it took him to expose that the johnson administration had given a complete false history of the vietnam war. >> i think your question is about the duty on the press to respond to a whistleblower. somebody who is brave enough to leak information and bring it to a news organization, then our absolute duty is to publish it and to do the best job we can. i think that was what edward snowden had mine. that was his absolute primary consideration. he wanted it out with responsibly and carefully. he did not want it all over the internet, but he wanted it published. we take that very seriously. >> i am going to step a little outside of the review group here and try to complicate things a bit.

john stuart millman, a great essay, said been somewhat like a one eyed man who was blind in one eye and could see further, but he did not have the perspective. some elements of the intelligence committee have been like that. they can see great on one dimension, but they do not have the perspective. i think there is a risk in thinking about leakers that we are blinding ourselves in one eye. i think we should just say that there is no one on the review group who would describe edward snowden as a whistleblower. from the civil liberties focus. we did not discuss him, but that is just a fact. whatever you think of that particular person or any particular person, the topic is after snowden. to leak classified material, that is very complicated from a government standpoint, how to

handle that. prosecution is a very severe act. if it is formally classified, that is presumptively grave. that might not be the right view. jill suggesting that the classification is not sufficient, it would have to also be a great thing to do. we call on our report for declassification, a lot more transparency, and we are committed to that. thinking about particular issues, i think it is quite important to have -- not to be like bensom. it is, gated on both sides. >> very quickly, a question and then we will really have to finish. >> thanks for a great panel. a question that i have -- it

seems here that we will have a big controversy over the next months and years. the counterpoint to the government looking at all of our data is the public opinion, well, i am not doing anything wrong, so what does it matter if the government is gathering data if they are going to do something good with it? do you think the debate will play out in legal ways or within an elite public policy circle or does public opinion matter? journalists have done a good job explaining to the public what are some of the obligations of privacy and metadata and things like this in collected for members of the general public over the next months and years as the debate plays out? >> that is a great question. >> well, i hope so. i do think that the fact that we are having a national debate about these issues and i do think it is very important for that debate, to call out the rights and contributions of

journalists as a report does, that is indispensable to a free society. the fact that there are surprising coalitions encouraging, we do not have the simple splits between republicans and democrats. the does give an opportunity, maybe a window for reforms that will have more stable foundations. >> i would just say it is a great question and i am humble enough to believe that probably journalism could indeed, very, gated issues, do a better job of explaining all of this to the public. >> i would say eight months in.

we are still trying to explain in better ways to the public what this means, what potential abuses are. the opinion polls show that the public has gone from a position of, i do not care, into a position of, i probably really do care. >> the latest poll said something like 71% of people said they are concerned about the collection of data just by private corporations, let alone governments. the percentage of people on firefox saying don't track meet is more than double in the last six months. i think people are concerned. one of the problems is that people do not understand fully the implications of it. i was talking about the need for confidential communications in a lot of ways. you, but it will affect the information you learn, what you know about your government. and i think one of the things -- the question raised earlier about the church commission, one of the things that is unfortunate right now is that we

have not had anyone willing to take up the cudgel and say, before we decide to go, we needed know what is going on. we only know little bits and pieces. it is never going to come out unless someone says we need to come clean. and we can in ways that are not going to damage our security in a comprehensive way so that we can assess this. no one is calling for this right now. >> i am going to have to call time. i just want to ask one single question, which is, one thing that happens after snowden for journalism. if you could wave a magic wand and make it happen, what would it be? cass, i will let you go first. >> an international norm or agreement that safeguards internet freedom, number one. >> i would follow that thought, but an international norm or convention that defines privacy rights and empowers people to

control what they want to control. >> more great stories to cover. [laughter] >> i was really worried they were all going to say world peace. i do not want any journalists to prosecute. journalists will not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. [applause] >> amnesty for snowden. and world peace. >> i am sorry i failed in my job as chair, but it was such a great discussion. can i thank all of the panelists? [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

♪ >> in a few moments, "american profile" interview with senator heitkamp, followed with an interview with john thune. in a little more than an hour, transportation secretary john foxx. on hown charles moorman the weather will affect the economy. >> a couple of live events to

tell you about tomorrow here on c-span. himbrookings institute for on the syrian refugees crisis affecting millions of people. the ambassadors from lebanon and iraq. 3:00 p.m., the heritage foundation focuses on lyrical protest in venezuela. and how relations between the u.s. and venezuela may be affected by the expulsion of three u.s. diplomats. >> announces the opening of thanksgiving day of the 22nd -- al >> this universal declaration of human rights, they will become the international magna carta of all men everywhere. >> the equal rights amendment, when ratified, will not be a solution to women's problems.

>> i am trying to find my way through it and figure out how best to be true to myself and how to fulfill my responsibilities to my husband and my daughter and the country. they may not imagine, looking at the white house from the outside, is that it is actually a very normal life upstairs. i try to bring a little bit of michelle obama into this, but at the same time, respecting and valuing the tradition that is america's. >> watch our final two-hour program on our website. or see it saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> now on c-span's "american profile" series, a conversation with senator heidi heitkamp. the north dakota democrat was elected to the u.s. senate in 2012. she discusses her family, life in the senate, her battle with

cancer, and how she approaches her job in washington. this is 30 minutes. >> senator heidi heitkamp, a democrat from north dakota. i want to begin with one of your campaign ads. you describe your mom as a janitor, your dad as someone who never finished high school and you are one of seven. what was that like? >> we did not think it was all that rare. back then, a lot of people in the world war ii generation did not finish high school, who had to help out on the farm. an eighth grade education was considered the most you could ascribe to. for us, it was not odd. our dad was always a community leader and so we never thought about education as being what you learned in school. education was what you did and how you learned in real life. my dad was a community leader and my mom was the protector of the underadvantaged. the worst thing you could commit from my mother was to pick on

another kid. when i was born, my mother had 4 kids and the oldest was 2 and they had no twins. we came in rapid succession. by the time my mom was done, my brother, my youngest brother, joel, my mom had seven kids in nine years. and this was before disposable diapers. life was interesting. to give you a sense of our family, we did not have a lot. we knew that we were not going to college. in the 1960's, the program started becoming available not just for veterans, but for all kids. that has had a huge impact in my life, a huge impact in the life of my entire family. so we were education, education, education. when my mother was asked what

she was most proud of, i thought it would be that we all went to college. she said no, the thing i am most proud of is that they are all each other's best friends. and that is still true today. we are all very close. >> your dad passed away, but your mom is alive. what is she like? >> she unfortunately has advanced parkinson's, so she has had to live in a nursing home. that has been tough for someone who has been independent her whole life. she has given us so many values that we carry forward. one of those, for me, is the ability to stand among a group of people who do not at all agree with you and say things that are unpopular. my dad was much more of a crowd pleaser, much more of a sit back, listen, see how you can persuade quietly. my mom was full speed ahead. she never took a deep breath and never paused in telling someone what she believed.

>> how many boys and how many girls? >> 2 boys, 4 sisters, five of us girls. the advantage is, i was right in the middle. the other advantage is that i was not the same size as my sisters. as far as sharing close and who got to wear what, i escaped all of that. my sisters are all very accomplished and quite capable. to give you a story, and i know a lot of people do not believe this, but when i first introduced my husband, i brought him home for the weekend and we were dating. when we got into the car to leave, he said, if you would have told me you are the quietest person in your family, i would not have believed it. a very opinionated but fun-loving group. >> you described your husband as a shy farmboy.

is he? >> absolutely. he just does not like the limelight. he does not like being out there. very shy and unwilling to put himself out there. i will tell you this. one of the things that happened with my husband -- my husband is very bright. could have probably done almost anything with his life and chose to go into family medicine rather than surgery or something where there may not have been as much interaction. i think in family medicine, over the years, i have seen him develop the personal skills that you need to be a family physician. i can tell you really honestly, his patients love him and one of the reasons he is not here is that we promised the stations that we would not be moving to washington dc if i won. >> where did you meet him? >> he was working as a researcher in a nutrition lab and i was finishing college. did not really like him the

first time i met him. he was friends of my roommate's boyfriend. they were playing cards and this piece of art, i thought it was quite lovely. it was like an off-loom weaving. he was playing cards and he said, are you the one doing that? and i said, yeah. he said, if you are going to put that much work into it, it should at least look good. that was it. i was done. i actually came here first semester and worked on the hill. when i came back, i had other friends who also knew him. got to know him a little bit better than that one experience. >> have you forgiven him from that line? >> well, it was true. [laughter] it was hard to feel really bad about it because it was not attractive.

so he has a firm grasp of the obvious. but he could zip it up and not say it out loud i thought. >> two children children, a boy and a girl. >> alicia ruth, 28 years old, nathan dennis. they are both really active. great kids. both currently redheads and great personalities. they are fortunate that they have the sense of humor of my husband, which makes them interesting people, i think. >> your legal name is mary kathryn. how did you get heidi? >> i grew up in a very small catholic community. when i was growing up, the two classes, whether it was first and second, third or fourth, all in the same classroom. at that time, there was a small group of girls, and a lot of mary's. mary beth and she was betsy. mary ann, mary jo, and then

there was a mary kathryn. my parents never call me mary. my name was kathy. but my best friend's name was kathy. she decided in the third grade that she would rename me. she was a voracious reader and had already read hundreds of and "heidi" was one of her favorite books and she gave me the name and it stuck. >> how did your parents change it from kathy to heidi? >> well, they resisted. i do not know that they adapted all that well even when i went to college. it was a matter of whether it would be kathryn or something easier to work with and it just stuck. i live in a small community where nicknames are really common. i could talk about the kids i went eyes go with and tell you that most of them, to this day,

they would still be known by their nicknames and not their christian names. >> when did you first leave north dakota for vacation, a trip, an internship? >> the first time was 1976. i came here to do an internship in congress and spent a semester here when i was a junior in college. >> when did you first think of a career in politics? >> i did not think a lot about a career in politics. what i was interested in was public policy. i was interested in how government worked, being the person who worked in government. so i work here on capitol hill for something called the environmental study conference. i am sure some of your listeners would remember that name. back in the day, very moderate republican from new york, but very active in the environmental movement in the 1970's.

i worked with that group then it was more of a think tank. they did a lot of research for members. back then, there were not as many staff people so you had these study groups that would provide the strategic to members who joined the group. i worked for the environmental study conference and thought, ok, the federal government, i saw how it worked. this is pretty exciting. i went back to college and was encouraged to do an internship. i became a legislative intern in 1977. saw for the first time that state politics actually provided a real avenue for discussion, a real avenue to get things done. and that it was important. i had a very influential professor who reminded me that there were three branches of government and state and local

were very important as well. so i then realized that i probably wanted to work in state government, which is why, when i moved i north dakota after going to law school and spent a small time here, went to work for camp conrad, his attorney, and when he was elected to the senate, i was appointed. >> let me ask you about the race that you won, but first, the race that you lost. you ran for governor. what did you learn from losing? >> i have a whole list of things that i have learned through losing. a lot of folks may recall that i was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in september of that race. after the race was over, i got a lot of invitations to come and talk about how cancer changed my life or what it was like having cancer. in the middle of a race. i said, that was not the thing

that had a huge impact on me. what had a huge impact was losing a race. having a trajectory, thinking this is the job i am going to be doing, and all of a sudden, you get up on january 1, which is when the transition happened, still attorney general until december, and you no longer have a place to go in the morning. the kind of introspection that happens between all of that. first, i would tell you that i think politicians in general have a real need to be liked. with all due apologies to sally field, i used to call it the sally field syndrome. you like me, you really like me. at the end of the day, you have to like yourself. you have to believe in what you are saying. that maybe is not as important that everyone likes you. i used to win races by 66%.

i would wake up the next morning and wonder why the other 34% is not like me. you get over that. you have to take positions that people do not like. as long as you know why you are doing it, it is easier to live with yourself. i also learned that people are fundamentally good. during the race, i know that the majority of people in north dakota did not vote to send me to the statehouse, but they all prayed for me. i would not be there without those prayers. it has made me very appreciative for the goodness of people. >> let me ask you about your health. before the diagnosis, did you have any suspicions? >> not really.

when you are in a campaign like that, you are not even paying attention. what is the next think? what do i need to know for this meeting? what do i need to do that day? it was not until one night that i noticed a lump under my arm and said, whoa. went to the doctor and they said it was probably an infection. take some antibiotics and come back in a couple of weeks. i am not very good at routines. i would go a couple of days and realize i had not taken any antibiotics. i said, it is better to get a biopsy. even from the time i was wheeled in to get the biopsy done, i did not think i had cancer. it was kind of a shock. but i never, in the whole while that i was dealing with cancer, i never thought it was going to result or that it was terminal. my husband, who knows more than i do, said to me once, you know,

you just need to know that you are in denial. you are in denial about how serious this is. to which i said, so what? what do you want me to do, wake up in the morning and say this is serious and i have to -- you know, it just seemed like a better course to assume you are going to be ok. i think that i can tell very funny stories about going through chemotherapy and losing your hair in the middle of a campaign and what that means for poor staff, trying to manage that challenge as well as all of the other challenges of a very competitive governor's race. i just never looked at it as a real serious health challenge. because of that, i think i was able to just kind of put one foot in front of the other and actually survive the disease. >> we all know people who have

been touched directly or indirectly by breast cancer. >> if you look at the trajectory and see this massive increase in diagnoses, it is starting to plateau. what we are seeing in that diagnosis is more and more stage one and stage two breast cancer. these screenings are working. we are catching the disease much earlier. in the later stages, we still have a fairly high mortality rate. that is one thing we know, that the treatments are getting better and better. because we are catching earlier, i think we are seeing that huge increase and i think it will plateau. we also have to unlock the mystery of why we seem to see more and more cancer in our society. and we have to confront -- i include myself in this -- what being overweight means, what

lifestyle means, what diet and have it means. all of those things are playing into effect. laying a role in the cancer rates. you see it internationally as well. it is absolutely critical that we continue to research. there is a huge study that involves hundreds of thousands of women. one of the challenges here is that we tend to think we have got to cut spending. we made all of this investment and all of this research. we are right at the point at which this research can actually reduce health care costs and then we quit funding. we have to push back against that lack of investment in health care research because it is absolutely critical and we have to put more emphasis so that we can live a healthier lifestyle. >> are you cancer free today? >> no one can ever say -- you do

not know that you are cancer free. so i never say that i am cancer free. i say that i am healthy and i have no reason to assume that the cancer has reoccurred in a way that would have to be treated. >> let me ask you about your brand of politics. how would you describe heidi heitkamp? >> i think i am straightforward. one of the reasons i am here, being from a state where the president lost by 22 points, i said, number one, i started out with a very high name id. most people know who i am and they know me from name -- from years of working in the state of north dakota. when the ads came, heidi heitkamp is this or that, people shrugged her shoulders and said, we know her. she is not that. in a state with a lot of voters and you have a chance to have a personal relationship, i think it is really hard for that tactic to win. >> one of those ads, you are at a batting cage with a wink at

the end. what was that about? >> we were just having fun. i am just getting started, right? >> did you play softball? >> i did. the whole family played softball. my dad started out coaching amateur baseball and we transition to softball, men's and women's. he had 4 daughters. girls in town with time on their hands and my dad picked up a bat and a ball and said get out, we are going to play softball. that started our softball team and we were very competitive and played four years. my sister holly is in the softball hall of fame for north dakota. >> you win by fewer than 3000

votes. besides the name id, what do you attribute your victory to? >> i would say that the message. and the approach that i took to how i am going to do this job. people are tired of partisanship. they are tired of bickering. they are tired of people coming here to do politics and not fix things for the american public. what i promised is that i was never going to put ideology or politics ahead of the citizens of north dakota. i think people believed it and i would like to believe that same bipartisan attitude, the same believe that we are here for, the people that we represent, is the reason why i am enjoying the job and why i am here doing the job. >> if your dad were here today, would he be surprised or say, i think she is going to be in the u.s. senate?

>> i will tell you a story about my dad. my dad never let you relax and pat you on the back. it was always, what are you going to do next? this is a man with an eighth grade education -- we all have eighth grade education, but that was his terminal degree. when i went to law school, that was pretty amazing. when i was smaller and decided to go to law school, girls did not go to law school. i was told i couldn't.sons why i i graduated and i expected, way to go. you have the test you have to take i am like, it is the bar exam.

we have a great tradition, the clerks of the court. she calls every person who passes and tells them. i called my dad to tell him i had passed the exam. if he were here today, i think he would say you really have not fixed the fiscal -- getting here is not a compliment, doing things while you are here is the consummate. he would be excited to get the farm bill passed. he would want to know what we are going to do for veterans. he started the smallest chapter in the history of the dfw. he along with other veterans in his era.

i think he would challenge me to do the job and not just be proud that i have the job. >> on the issue of the background checks, you came under some criticism from bill daley, the former white house chief of staff. he contributed $2500 to your campaign. he was upset and said he wanted money back. what did you think? >> we sent the money back. when i campaigned -- and it goes back to what i was talking about. i did not fool anyone. i had an a rating with the nra. not to say this is about the nra. that vote was about what i thought would actually work. it is unfortunate, in this country, that we have not focused on the things that i think matter. number one, until health and how we will get more help for people with mental health and people who do have episodes and have proven that they are dangerously mentally ill. get on a registry so that they are not able to get guns.

that is a whole issue that we can talk about surrounding a lot of the shootings and have these folks legally got them. there was not one background check that would have changed outcomes. the other thing i would say is that i believe that i was sent to represent the people of north dakota. in spite of what national groups would say about what the attitudes are of the people of north dakota, they do not think that a majority of people should be burdened because of the bad actions of a few. we continue to hear about the vote and i continue to believe it was the right vote. we continue to have on point dialogue. i do challenge people and ask them, the department of justice, just a few days after that vote, came out with a report.

they do it periodically. they asked people in state penitentiary is an prisons where they got their guns. less than 1% got there gun from a gun show. they get it because they steal it or using straw purchases after someone else purchases it for them. and that trafficking and straw purchase bill is one i supported. >> why is heidi heitkamp a democrat? >> at the end of the day, i believe that the democratic party has the better solution for the economic future of the vast majority of our citizens. by that i mean you look at social security. to illustrate it the best, if you look at the ryan budget, and i have no reason to doubt that people are very principled with that budget, but there is very little in the ryan budget that i

can support. reductions in infrastructure, reductions in research. you take a look at vouchering or doing a different way with medicare expenditures. overall, it is not in the budget, but a push towards privatization of social security. that is the blueprint. measured against that blueprint, that is not an agenda that i can support. >> north dakota is a state that many americans have never been to. how would you describe your state? >> stunningly beautiful. and it is full of people who believe that there is not anything they cannot college if they were together. i say that is the biggest difference that i see. here, if you tell somebody an idea and you think you can work, they will say, that is a good idea but that cannot happen. i do not think that will happen. in north dakota, if you have a

good idea and a lot of enthusiasm behind it, it seems manageable. we can get it done. you are sitting at the coffee table with democrats and republicans, green bay packers fans, lutherans and catholics, they may not agree on the issues of the day, but they figure out how to get the christmas lights up at christmas and the roof on the fire hall, and how to solve problems that people at the very heart of it depend on everyday. that is north dakota. >> a couple of pictures in this room of your two children. what do your kids think about you being in the senate? >> from the time they were little, i was tax commissioner, right after ally was born almost. nathan, except for the 12 years that i was not serving in public

life. so there early experience in life, i was an elected official. i think they see this not from the standpoint of being in the senate, but mom is off doing that work again, whether it was tax commissioner or attorney general, trying to serve the public. >> one of your colleagues said -- a compliment. >> he is an amazing colleague. i have not always agreed with senator corker. he is fighting every day to change the dialogue to we got to get it done. i have enormous respect for him. >> that picture behind us. what is it? >> you can't see it?

it is the sweetheart of the rodeo. see his boots? >> i do. >> he is riding a bucking horse. it is done by an artist who comes from a ranch family, rodeo family in north dakota. he made a name for himself doing amazing art. he is a very dear friend. it has meaning beyond that, though. this picture started out in byron dorgan's office. he was walking to minot state campus where walter peele works. he sought in the library and some place on campus and announced it should be hanging in the halls of his office, and congress and so byron brought it here. camp inherited it. and i inherited it after camp's

retirement. this is a wonderful painting done by a wonderful, hard-working north dakotan who, that has been hanging. and every day when i look at it, i think not only of walter and his values, i think of the values of the west and i think of camp byron. >> what is this like coming to washington? >> frustrating. people get into how is the rarefied air? i did not come here to be a senator. i came here to do a job. it has been frustrating at times. the low point had to be when we went to the brink on the debt limit extension in october. i was shocked that people who should've known better were saying that it would not matter if we failed to meet our obligations. i think that changed the discussion, as you see today,

being able to fairly easily extend the debt limit. but i remain frustrated a lot of days that things that should be easy, that everybody can agree on are hard to do because of the super power of minorities here. >> some already have said that you may have higher aspirations. >> forget it. this is as high as it goes. you know, i'm 58 years old. when i decided to do this i thought, ok, do you know how much energy you have for this? and where do you go from here and what is the goal? kent conrad did something that every day he would get to the office and he would write down what you hope to accomplish. and what is great about what kent did, if he did not write pass the farm bill or talk to so and so today. he wrote, fix the debt. it was always the big things.

improve education in america. for me, this is a place where you can participate in that discussion in a very privileged way. we need to be worthy of the privileges given. and i hope that as we continue to build a solid core of people that want to get things done, that we will move towards results. i tell people all the time, did you hear what so-and-so said about you? and is usually something on the 24-hour news network. ironically, it is usually somebody on msnbc and not fox. did you hear what they said about you? i care more about they will say about me in 24 years than what they say about me every 24 hours. we've got to take the long view of moving this country in the right direction. >> idle question. what do your siblings say about

you? when do you fill in your brother -- for your brother on radio? >> are used to do a lot of talk radio. when joel was serving his term in the legislature, i did it for three-month. it is something every politician should have to do. not just answer the questions, but host a show where you have a very direct relationship with the listeners and the constituents, because occasionally learn something if you keep your ears open. occasionally, you get your ideas challenged in ways that move you in a different direction. and so i'm grateful for that opportunity but my siblings remain my best friends. they are an amazing group of people. i could brag on and on about what everyone of them do. brag on and on about how about -- how proud i am. i have a sister who, give you an example -- i was in the state

house one day and i ran into a guy that i knew pretty well and he came running to us and he said, i want to tell you. you get, you are politician. you did something he really agrees with. and he said, your sister saved my family. she is a family therapist. she does a lot of work with kids who are troubled, trying to put families back together. she has done some very creative programming to keep kids out of the system with intensive family therapy. i have a sister who runs parks and recreation and is incredibly organized. i have a sister who is one of the greatest mothers and grandmothers. i have a sister who chairs the social work department at und. and every place i go in north dakota when i run into her students they tell me how she changed their lives. and so, it is a privilege to be here and important to be here, but what my siblings do every day is important. and i am proud of them. >> senator heidi heitkamp. thank you very much.

>> thank you. the agriculture for him, secretary says the public does not -- here's a little of what he said. >> to me, what has to happen in the country is there has to be a greater appreciation for producers generally. and those who feed us. every person in this audience who is not a farmer has the luxury not to be a farmer in this country. the reason we have that luxury as we do not have to produce the food for our families. we transfer that responsibility to somebody else we are happy to do that because we have the most productive farmers in the world. but we don't appreciate that.

we don't appreciate the fact that i could be a lawyer. some could be a doctoral or runny see copy -- a doctor or or runny seed company. tot is because we don't have to spend the time and effort to raise the food. has got to dialogue be couched in a way that is is not a criticism, it is simply an educational opportunity. the one thing i want to note about this panel, if this panel had taken place five years ago, 20 yearsars ago, or 10 ago, you would not see the diversity you see today. that is something agriculture needs to understand and embrace. , whether in crop production or land-use.

it is not a threat. it is something to be encouraged. especially if we are going to convince young people to get into this business. >> c-span. we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in a room at congressional hearings, reefing the encumbrances, and offering gavel to gavel coverage of the house. we are c-span. funded by your local cable or satellite provider. like us on facebook. follow some putter. -- on twitter. >> the human -- >> c-span's "american profile" series is a conversation with newsmakers on their lives and careers. now republican senator john thune of south dakota who is serving his second term and is part of the gop leadership. over the next 40 minutes, he talks about how his grandparents

came to the u.s., his early interest in politics, his family, and his love of country music. >> senator john thune, republican of south dakota, do you remember the first time he came to washington dc? >> i do, actually. i was in college and at that time, there was a member of congress from the state of south dakota, jim abner, who i had gotten to know when i was in high school. and he had me come out here and spend a week over one of the periods when congress was in session and just got acquainted with the town and with congress and sort of politics in general. and that was one of the first times i guess i can remember actually starting to get a little bit interested in politics. >> what were your impressions back then? >> it was really daunting. like you said, i have never been here before. you've seen pictures of these things. you have studied it, obviously. but actually coming here and seeing up close and personal washington dc and seeing all the

history, it is so rich with history. it was just very, you know, it was really an inspiring experience. >> did you grow up in a political family? >> i did not. my parents were in education. my dad started out in the hardware business but then sold that, when backing got his teaching degree. he taught high school. he was the athletic director, he coached. and he drove a school bus. my mom was a school librarian. that was not any where i could go to get away from my parents and high school. politics is not something we talked about. they were very conscientious in terms of voting and very respectful of people in public life and public office, but it was only because of an experience i had when it was a freshman in high school when i really sort of started to get interested.

i mentioned jim abner earlier, but i was playing basketball in a tournament that we have in my home town every year. and i was getting varsity time. so i got into the game on a friday night. and i got six attempts at the free-throw. i've made five then - of them. the next afternoon, we're playing again, and i was in the department store in my hometown of south dakota -- murdough, south dakota. as i was in the checkout line, somebody behind me tapped my shoulder and he said, i noticed you missed one last night. i was like, who was the smart alec? i'm a freshman and i made five out of six. he introduced himself as congressman jim abner. and he sort of follow my sports career, and i started to get interested in his political career, but that was my first exposure really to a political figure. and so that sparked my interest at least initially. i have never contemplated doing this as a career path until later in life. and that also was related to then senator abner. but growing up it was not something that was really part of our daily conversation and

certainly anything that i aspired to do at the time. >> where is murdo, south dakota? >> it is at the intersection of interstate 90 and highway 83. we always thought it was the center of the universe growing up, but 500 people. when i was growing up, it was about 800 people. great place to grow up, but when i was growing up, my life began and ended at the city limits. nowadays kids have access to so many different things. travel is easier. and with the internet, you can have the whole world at your fingertips, at your disposal. but i would not trade it for anything. like you said, i went to a small school. had just a very normal upbringing and in a really great community. and a place i try to stay attached to. >> how did your family end up there, and where does the name thune come from? >> my grandfather and great uncle came over from norway in 1906.

when they got to ellis island, they did not know english of -- with the exception of apple pie and coffee which they learned on the way over, but they were asked by immigration to change their name because they thought it would be too difficult to spell and pronounce. their name and nouri was g-j-e-l-s-v-i-k. when they got to ellis island, they picked the name of the farm where they lived near bergen, norway. the thune farm. my grandfather became nick thune. they got through ellis island and then they got a sponsor inside dakota and they came out to work on the railroads. learned english, save some money and in due time bought a small merchandising store which eventually became the hardware is in us. and that is kind of how we got to south dakota. >> brothers, sisters? >> i have three brothers and his sister and one younger brother. two families. two older brothers and a sister.

then i came along later in life and my younger brother. >> your dad is still alive. 93 years old. part of the greatest generation. >> he is. my dad was one of those guys they grew up in the middle of the depression. my grandfather, as i mentioned, nick, came from norway. when they moved to my hometown, you know, it was a hard time. and going to the depression really shaped that generation, but they had a real sense of sort of public duty and very conscientious about things. he became a very accomplished basketball player. so much so that he got an opportunity to play at the university of minnesota, where he was a three-year starter. and most valuable player his junior season. so got away from my hometown. went there for a while. and after he graduated, of course world war ii had broken out. so he decided to sign up, became unable aviator. went through flight training and

got assigned to the pacific theater of the war and was involved in the second battle of the philippine seas. where he flew combat missions off intrepid. he flew the hellcat. shot down four enemy aircraft, for which she was awarded distinguished flying cross. an interesting story about that. i did not make this connection and till i had read john mccain's book. but it turns out, i went back and checked this because the dates and the times and the places matched up. in the distinguished flying cross that my dad received was issued by admiral john mccain, who was john mccain's grandfather. he was the commander of the fleet that my dad was involved with. >> do you talk to him, or did you talk to him about what that was like, what he experienced? >> probably not as much as i should have. we always knew it and my mom would tell us about it.

my dad like most guys of that generation was very quiet. he had to be prompted to talk about it. so he's 93 today. to this day, he still is -- you kind of have to ask the questions, but i tried to do that, and there is a project called the veteran history project at the library of congress put on a few years ago. probably still has going on. but they encourage you to talk to world war ii veterans and veterans from other conflicts in our history. so we got -- that my dad down and i asked him a lot of questions. for four hours got a lot of that stuff on the record. and so many of the details and things that you just did not know about. and it is really fascinating. that generation was, they were just a remarkable group of people. to this day, we all owe them an incredible debt of gratitude. >> but you used the word humble, and that seems to transcend all who served in world war ii.

what was it about that time and those i rarely men but also women who served to try to help support the troops? >> you talk to my dad and even my mom before she passed away, and they always just talked about the common purpose, the sense of purpose america had at the time. the way everybody came together. people back here shared it. people who wore uniforms were very committed to it. i think when your country is attacked, you have an increased intensity to want to protect everything you love. but there is just something -- it really is -- it is in the dna of that generation. it is not unique to my dad. i talked to people all the time. and those guys that are still around, those world war ii vets, you really do -- they just, they went, they did their duty. they came home, they married their childhood sweethearts and they went about raising their

families and trying to build a better future. it's a quality that's just really unique in american history and culture. you know, something that i guess i was always grateful for. my dad, every year in high school they would get them to come over and share the story. but that is really the only time he ever talked about it. >> you mentioned your mom who has passed away. describe her. >> my mom was an incredibly sweet lady and very outgoing, loved life, always had a smile on her face. very chirpy. my dad had that scandinavian gene, and he tended to be more of a realist. they were a good match. they met when my dad was at the university of minnesota playing basketball. she was working at a soda fountain close to campus. she said she always gave him bigger malts when he came in. they met that way. when he went to join the service, they got married right before he shipped off. so they were apart for a long

time, but when he came home, they ended up going out and settling down in my hometown which was a real adjustment for my mom. she was kind of a city girl. she grew up in minneapolis-st. paul and was sort of a custom to many of the things you have been a more populated area of the country. at that time, my hometown had dirt main street. so i think she was taking the train back to minnesota to visit family on a regular basis, but she got to where she loved it there. and she raised me and my siblings there. she was very family oriented. and really kind of a softer side of the family. you know, us boys always wanted to play sports. we loved all the sports. anytime there was a ball around, we wanted to be out there tossing it and shooting it or whatever. you know, my mom ensured that we all understood other things. we all took piano lessons. i took six years of piano lessons. that was at my mom's insistence. she wanted to have an appreciation for music and culture. and she was a big reader.

she read all the time. she would make us come in and the middle of the afternoon during the summer when we were not in school and read a book for an hour. so just a really, really special and neat lady. and they were, like i said, good for each other. >> graduated from high school. you end up in los angeles at the bible institute of l.a., viola. >> viola university. it started out as a bible college and became a fully accredited liberal arts christian university. i had a couple of brothers that went out there. my oldest brother had wanted to get a christian liberal arts education. and my dad had a high school classmate who had moved to california. and they had stayed in close contact, and he said, you know, if wants to come out here, he said, my son howard is going to the school called viola. he can stay with us. if he likes it, great. if he doesn't, he can come back. my older brother and sister got undergraduate degrees out there. my mom and dad liked the way they turned out.

they were encouraged -- they encouraged me to attend there. it was a great experience. getting away from your comfort zone, from your support system can be a good thing. and california is very different from south dakota. and i certainly am a you know, was exposed to some things, learned some things out there. obviously got a great education -- christian liberal arts education -- and then came back to the university of south dakota where i got my mba. i then decided after having lived in california that i really wanted to settle down in the midwest and south dakota. i just never got it out of my system. and loved everything about it. so i came back to get my mba in south dakota, assuming i would end up working financial services or some field like that. and ended up on this career path. >> culture shock from south dakota to los angeles? >> very much so. i'm sure i sort of looks like

somebody -- when i got to california, maybe a little bit of a hayseed. when i got there, because it is, it is a very different culture. you do have, i think, a transitional period when you make a big change like that. i was young, and came from a really good, solid upbringing and background. so pretty well grounded, but just an entirely different way of life. the climate was nice, easy to get used to. but the traffic, the congestion, all the things you have in the big city were things that, in the end, i kind of decided i wanted to back to wide-open spaces of south dakota. where did you meet your wife kimberly? >> i met her at viola. she is from south dakota. she grew up on a farm. i grew up more towards the western part of the state. we did not know each other. she had been attending college in kansas.

and then had decided that she wanted to transfer and had been looking at different schools and found out that viola had a good communications department. so she decided to come out there. she was a transferred junior when i met her. and we met at a new student reception. and we got introduced by a guy. they're not that many kids at viola from south dakota. so he said, you do you want to meet this girl from south dakota? he told her, do you want to meet this guy from south dakota? >> when you came back to south dakota, you said you wanted to get involved in finance, and yet you worked for congressman and senator adler, correct? how did that come about. >> after i got out of grad school, i was working for a short time for the state of south dakota. i got a job working in the department of transportation they're doing some things, some financial stuff at that time. they were looking at trying to privatize the state owned railroad. they asked me to come up and

work on financing options. it was a fun job. and i enjoyed it, but a couple of months into that, i get this call from jim abner's chief of washington, d.c. and said we got this opening. would you like to come out? i was like, eh. it really was not something i planned on. my wife and i were engaged, planning to get married toward the end of december and they said, can you come out and started job in january? so we talked a lot about it, consulted our family. and made it a matter of prayer and decided at the end that maybe it is a good thing to do. do it for a couple of years. check the box. he a great experience in learning a little bit more about how government works. so we came out here in january, 1985. and that was -- i think, i very much, sort of a life-changing event in the sense that it sparked my interest in politics and having worked out here, i sort of decided that if the timing and the opportunity were

ever right that i might want to try to run for elective office myself. but had it not been for that door opening and that opportunity coming along, i would probably be doing something in the financial services field in south dakota. >> that was the senate, correct? >> correct. >> you ran for the house in 1996. why? >> you know, i just decided it was something -- i did not want to get into my 50's and look back and say i really wish i would have tried it. i felt like i had had some opportunities that had prepared me for it. i could do -- having been on here i thought perhaps i had an aptitude for this kind of work. saw it as an opportunity to really make a difference. so my wife and i again at that time did not have any personal or family wealth. kind of, it was a bootstraps campaign, grassroots campaign, but decided to give it a whirl. we sort of proceeded down that path.

started going to the dinners and getting around state, trying to get acquainted. and jim abner was very helpful. he was a great retail politician. in south dakota, that really matters. >> you were the underdog? >> currently. what happened was tim johnson vacated his house seat to run for the senate. so it was an open seat. so in our stated does not come along very often. there is a lot of interest in it. a lot of people got into that primary initially. then our lieutenant governor decides to get in the race and that cleared the field, except for me and i guess one other guy. and so we went into that campaign, in fact, i remember there was a poll published in roll call in april, 1996, that had us down i would have to say 69-15. it was a june primary, but you know, we had just started to get our message out, started to get on television. and we were able to pull out a

win in the primary and ultimately in the general election. >> you ran for the senate in 2002. you lost by how many votes? >> 524. >> what was that like? >> it is hard losing. you always play to win. i remember, although i remember sitting in my living room after that election and it -- a very hard fought campaign. it is hard in a small state because you know so many people. and these campaigns can really take on a personal flavor. but, you know, i think you learn lessons from losing. and sometimes the adversity that you have come along in your life teaches you a lot more than some of the successes and the victories. but i remember having a conversation with my wife in our living room in sioux falls after that election. and she looked at me and said, i am not going through another campaign unless god himself comes to the door and says he --

you have to run. over time, you process it and have an opportunity to get a little bit of perspective and we were having a similar conversation several months later. this would probably be the spring or summer of 2003. and she looked at me and said, you know, i finally concluded and realized that what we went through in that campaign last year was not just about the winning. it was about the race. for me, it was about the winning. i was in it to win. you always are. but i think she made a really important observation, and that is that it is important to be in the arena, to be out there fighting for the things you believe in. and yes, your goal is to win but you need to be out there. you know, it was a process to come around to decide to get back on the horse and run again. but we did. fortunately, the second time around it turned out differently. >> but in the race in 2004, you ran against the senate

democratic leader. and a party leader had not lost since 1952. so what were you thinking? >> we thought it was a long shot. we really did. we sat down. i tell a story around the kitchen table because we always did this. by 2004, our girls were older, at least old enough to have involved in this discussion. we talked a lot about it, but -- so we had a family vote. secret ballot. should i run for the senate again or not? the vote came back 3 to one, and i was the no vote. the family was ok with moving forward. we were prepared going into that campaign have been once, we knew how it felt and we survived it. you go on. prepared either way for how it was going to come out. it just felt like it was something we needed to do and that was not anybody else out there. it would have been, probably,

and uncontested or noncompetitive race. so we decided to take another shot at it, and it was a very, another long, hard campaign, but you know, it was nice to win it. and obviously, you know, as i look back on it now, if i had to do it over again, i always wonder what i'd move forward with that again knowing now -- if i had known what i know now? >> let me ask you about your brand of republican politics. how would you describe yourself politically, ideologically? >> i am a conservative. if you look at how you come off, and i was very influenced by jim abner, but also by ronald reagan. my dad in my coming up, my dad was a new deal democrat. he grew up in the 1930's and a very tough time for the country. he liked harry truman. he eventually became a republican later in life. so i kind of have that heritage,

but i was just really impressed when ronald reagan came on the political scene about the time i was coming of age politically. i like the optimism and the vision for the country to read the way he talked about our country. kind of a combination of ronald reagan and jim not there. centerright of conservative. i realize you have to get things done. have a record of the congress meant. -- a record of accomplishment. in order to make that possible, you have to work with people that may not agree with you. there is always a give-and-take in politics. that is something i learned as a staffer out here. so did i have tried to bring in my time in office.

>> i'm going to make statements. the state of congress is what? >> some people would describe it as broken. i think it is just a little divided. conflict.h but we have a divided government. people come here with different points of view about how to solve hard problems. survives through various eras in history. we can use the time we are in now to do some good things for the country that people will be willing to come together. rough -- theof the republican party. >> it is evolving.

we are in the right place in terms of our principles. if we are able to articulate the things we are four, the american people are in the same wavelength. people instinctively believe any limited role for the government. freedomieve in personal coupled with individual responsibility. these are american traits. they understand if we have to stay safe, you have to stay strong. those are republican principles. often, we don't do a good job of making our argument to the american people. we have to do a much better job of that. if we are going to be the governing party in the future that is changing.

this is the set of values and principles i want to have lead us forward. >> the state of the country is what? at ae country is -- we are crossroads. we have big decisions to make about what kind of country we want to be. questions on the whole about the role of government. how much government do we want in our lives. how much do we want to pay for it. do we want to be the exceptional nation think our forefathers gave us? people like my grandfather who came here over wondered years ago and pursue the american dream. over 100 years ago and

pursued the american dream. we have to take what is great about the country and build on that foundation. my fear is people get a little the spotted and discouraged. they need leaders that can draw out what is best about the country. i go back to, when i was coming of age, we were in a period in history when people were despondent. ronald reagan had a great way of point out what was great about america. >> you mentioned -- were mentioned as a vice presidential candidate. lists, but iome think in both circumstances, there were people that probably met more the criteria that are nominees were looking for to

bring the record balance to the ticket. obviously, any time you have an opportunity to serve your country, you want to be open to it. but i don't think it was ever on the short or serious consideration list. >> have you given any thought to running for president? >> i looked at it in 2012. i like the day job. i have plenty work to do in the senate. yourou always want to take talents and gifts to serve your country and your fellow men. we gave some due diligence to taking a look at it. it is from edible in terms of what you have to raise, the financial commitments. barrier as we looked at it. you also have to have a burning desire and passion.

i think that that is a question you have to do a gut check on. before you pull the trigger and proceed with the national campaign. i never got to that point. it was something we gave at least some consideration to. >> where are you? where is your gut? >> there has to be an opening. really people that are qualified. some terrific governors and members of congress who are taking a hard look at it. bey of them are going to comparable to where i would be in terms of ideology and experience. i think that politics is about timing. i have told people this and i would be less than honest if i , but you have to keep options open.

i never thought i would be doing this when i was growing up. sometimes, opportunities come your way. you have to be prepared for that. look at how you think you can put your gift to their highest interest use. looks how does -- >> how does john pugh and make a e make a -- john thun decision. >? gotten, kidded. there's a lot of information coming at you. you surround yourself with good people. youre who understand philosophy and are keeping themselves informed. then you have to spend a lot of time getting informed. decisionsses, your are shaped by two things. one is your core values. conscience. and also the people that you represent.

you have to stay very much in step with them. core of thehe people you represent. process of being out there and listening a lot. we get a lot of e-mails, phone calls, mail. you have a good sense of where your sisi -- constituency is on an issue. i think that is kind of your core and got. -- gut. -- itmes a come down comes down to come what is your conviction on this issue? >> you have two daughters. describe your kids. >> my daughters -- i adore them. they have been a delight. when you -- i was wanted to have that little athlete eerie but having had girls, i would not trade it for anything.

we have been involved in their lives. we -- they grew up in a political family. hopefully they are not too jaded. they are good girls. we are grateful. now one of them is married. to a great guy. we will have sons-in-law. that is a new stage in life, a new chapter. it it goes fast. bwas tell people, don't link. one day, you are going to the event. the track meet or soccer game. then all of a sudden, they are in college. then they are saying, dad, i am engaged. they are all special times. i wouldn't trade it for anything. >> would you want to do in the senate? >> i really -- i enjoy the work.

when i was here as a staffer, i had an affinity for dealing with these issues. tax, smallt -- business. i have always had an interest in and fiscal issues. i would like to be part of solutions to get our country back on track fiscally. getting the economy back to a place where we are growing faster. creating more jobs. increasing the take home pay. creating a better standard of life. and is what my father did his generation did. so we could have a better quality of life. the first generation of americans for whom that is not true. the next generation may have a

lower quality of life than we had. i think we've got some big challenges. it is going to require courage. a willingness for people to come together around a common purpose. not unlike what has motivated previous generations we have faced big challenges. i want to be part of the solutions. the fiscal and economic issues that are so vital to the future of the country. >> to me conclude with personal issues. you are an avid runner. are you still? >> i have a foot injury right now. i really miss it. i'm trying to miss it. running is a great a live for me. it clears my head. i started running -- iran track in high school. had some success. i took it up again when my daughters started running. when they were convening. i started running with them.

a veryst daughter became compassed runner, i remember running with her when she was younger. she got faster and faster, she would have to break stride to .eep -- let me keep up it is tough for a dad to get to that stage. but it is something i enjoy. fitness and exercise is a great thing. there are so many things coming at you everyday. it is a cleansing thing to get out and do. i miss running the to date. i hope the above -- to be able to get back to at some point. so theerms of logistics, code is not the easiest plac e to get to and from. >> those of us who do go back and forth will go after the last vote of the week. session,congress is in i am here. whenever it is out, i am typically back of the state.

we go generally to minneapolis, sioux falls. you are always connecting through somewhere. it kind of gets built into your schedule and you develop a rhythm. trouble is tiring. asked what ist the vest and was part of the job. >i tell people it is the worst part to travel. but i signed up for it. you built it into you -- you build it into your week and schedule. i use the time on the plane to do my signing, reading. some of the light work. get ready for everything coming up. >> were kind of music do you listen to? >> i grew up -- i was a rocker and the 70's and 80's. love the old 80's bands, i really enjoy.

some of them are reforming and planing in. i catch -- playing again. i developed an affinity for country music. i had a daughter that went to belmont university in nashville. in south dakota, you're around country. we have become country music fans. we are also christian music fans. some great christian artists we listen to. we are a family that likes music. my family likes music. my wife plays the piano. single lot. it has been a part of our family. i enjoy different varieties. the formative years, those are the bands that come to mind first. that takes me back to the days of my misspent youth. >> if you have a chance to read a book, what are you reading? wired iny -- we are

different ways. because my life is politics, you live this life, it is more than just work, i read a lot of stuff that is oriented around political stories. history. i have always been a big fan of history. right now, i am reading killer angels. i have read several of his books. great writers of history's. i and world war ii. this one is about the civil war. "gettysburg" was built around this book. it hasd, growing up, followed me through life. that is what i am reading right now. i enjoy those types of books. >> senator john thune. we appreciate your time. >> in washington, national

economic council director gene sperling said down with ben white to discuss the economy and jobs. here is what he had to say. >> we are at another moment in the economy where we will see it decelerate again? or should we be hopeful? we just had a crummy winter? >> a lot of people are in the same place. they look at the fundamentals. they see a certain amount of momentum. like we that it looks will not have the self-inflicted wound of the threat of a shutdown will be good. i think many people

saw good enough news about the longer-term. it affected policies that the fed. three solid,out underlying trends. i think it is most likely that a lot of the -- what we have seen has been weather-related. but we have a responsibility to look. everybody's tried to figure out how much was weather related. i would be cautiously optimistic that the general motion that there are positive trends in the economy, even during this period, we have seen unemployment at 6.6%. the last jobs number was not as , it waswe would like hi

143,000. what is frustrating for us and the president, it is when you look and see under art administration -- our administration, we have lost 677,000 state and local jobs. the president asked, what a state and local jobs had had the -- theywth it is in the did in the past recoveries? unemployment would be 520%. -- 5.8%. if you just look at private sector employment recovery, it is about 3.5%. therele more certainty -- is reasons for optimism. some people have pointed to consumer causes this confidence.

-- pointed to consumer confidence. i would say cautious optimism. everybody in the economics world is looking at the numbers over the next two or three months. i would still become justly optimistic we are having increased momentum in the recovery. with the caveat that it is not good enough. >> our next washington journal is live from the national institutes of health to look at the research of the nah -- nih. dr. alan gotto lan guttmacher. and dr. steven katz. journal, live from the national institute of health.

at 7:00 a.m. eastern. a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow here on c-span. beginning with the brookings institution for him. -- forum. panelists will include ambassadors from lebanon and iraq. at 3:00 p.m., the heritage foundation focuses on political protests in that is where the -- in venezuela. and how the relations may be affected by the expulsion of diplomats. >> this weekend, american history tv debuts its new series, real america. archival films that take you on a journey into america's past. this week, films on d.c. during

world war ii. and women workers during the milled very -- the military buildup of the second world war. >> american industry rolled out -- [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]