last week. >> on the next washington journal, a new ap survey of economists that forecast weak economic growth for the next two years. with theonversation cato institute and roosevelt institute on wall street regulation and the recent volatility in the stock market. washington journal is every morning on c-span at 7:00 a.m. eastern. mr. mcardle: on newsmakers this week, we are joined by stephanie schriock, of emily's group. and joining us to help us with the questions and studio we , are joined by matea gold of the "washington post," and

and alexis simendinger of real clear politics. you have the first question. >> welcome, it is great to chat with you and what has been a very eventful summer already. my first question for you is about the democratic primary. it appears that vice president biden is seriously considering jumping in the race. this is something a couple months ago most people didn't expect was likely to happen. we are hearing from a lot of former obama backers who are backing him. i am wondering what you think the impact will be on hillary clinton if he does that and how her supporters will react. ms. schriock: well, we have lots of speculation. i feel like every time i open the paper in the morning, there is another story that is different from the one yesterday. i think it is unclear what president -- vice president biden is going to do. he is going to make his decision by the end of summer, which i think the specific date is september 23. [laughter] we will all be waiting.

>> we will all be waiting. i really feel strongly about secretary clinton will do the exact same thing that she has been doing. first, if he decides to take this on, she will welcome him into the race just as she welcomed senator sanders into this conversation about the future of our country. secretary clinton has done a really wonderful job during her campaigning about everyday americans and about economic stability for themselves and their families, which i think is an incredible contrast to what we are seeing on the republican side of this nomination process where every night i get to turn on the television and get to from donalde thing trump, so i is as good a third primary.

ms. gold: biden did meet with elizabeth warren, the popular senator from massachusetts. if he asked her to endorse his bid, what kind of quandary would that put you in? you have been a longtime supporter of hers. ms. schriock: again, it is also much speculation. we are not sure what vice president biden is going to do. i will start with this. anybody who is thinking about running for president should sit down with senator warren. she is such an incredible reader -- leader on the matters of economic opportunity in this country and has become a force, really, in the party and in the senate. and i think it is very wise of folks to visit with someone who is such an expert on so many issues that are facing our economy today. on top of it, how exciting is it

that we are talking about women for once and that there is these mix here?he we at emily's list feel very strongly about hillary clinton, with her lifelong commitment to women and families, by far the best position to be the next president of the united states. we think she is the best prepared and also has a vision for the country that we believe in. and she is a woman and we may actually get to break that final glass ceiling and elect the first woman president of the united states. mr. mcardle: can i ask, how would you assess the vice president's record on women's issues? ms. schriock: under the obama administration, we have seen the obama-biden administration really fight strongly for women and families. whether it was with congress pushing the violence against women act.

of course it goes without saying the affordable care act was a huge, huge benefit to women in this country. from access to birth control to not being a pre-existing condition anymore because they happen to be a woman. i think we are all incredibly grateful of the work the administration has done. and vice president biden, even in his senate years, has gone through many evolutions of issues. he has served for a long time and a lot of issues have come up in front of him. but all in all, i couldn't be happier with really where we are with the obama administration and that is really a team , effort. ms. simendinger: just a follow up on vice president biden. race, would you at emily's list and those who support mrs. clinton and try to back are breaking through the glass ceiling, would you consider that a repudiation in some way if the vice president enters the race knowing how invested women are in secretary clinton? ms. schriock: i don't believe emily's list or anybody affiliated with emily's list

would feel that way. just as senator sanders has gotten into this race, if vice president biden decides to do so, this is -- this is how our system is set up. we should have a very serious debate about who the nominee for the party should be. and what i am pleased to see is a really wonderful debate on the issues, on policies facing women and families on the democratic side, and let by secretary clinton's continuation of her lifelong career of fighting for women and families. i just think that her rolling out the debt-free student loans -- and i was just out west talking to a group of millennial women, this is a huge, huge issue facing this country. the democrats are talking about it and hillary clinton is leading the way. the contrast could not be clearer. the republicans have absolutely

not talked about -- well, hardly any issues. and when they do, they are talking about defunding planned parenthood or we may be looking at a republican nominee for the first time since roe v wade who doesn't even believe in providing exceptions for abortions. this is a clear case of contrast and the choice is going to be very clear next year. ms. simendinger: you mentioned donald trump and we couldn't let this go by. ms. schriock: i figured. [laughter] ms. simendinger: my question would be, some of the mines in people on politics on either side of the aisle looked at the first debate and heard what donald trump has been saying since then and thought that his support among women would fall through the floor. polls are suggesting that it hasn't happened among conservative women. i was wondering if you have an explanation for that. ms. schriock: i don't think i can quite explain what is going on in the republican party right now.

there is -- it is hard for me to watch, even what has happened in the last week and the continuation of the fight that donald trump is having with the fox news anchor. it is outrageous. it is outrageous. i think what is most concerning to me is not so much his -- [laughter] -- the way he speaks to the american people, but the set of policies that he and his republican counterparts are also supporting. there is very, very little difference between his position and those also running against him. we are looking at 17 candidates who are the most conservative group of republican candidates for the presidency we have probably ever seen. and that is what we have to keep in mind. we might only be hearing about donald trump every night when we turn on the television, but

underneath that is a whole set of policies that all of the republican candidates have supported. ms. gold: can you tell us a little bit about how emily's list is planning on emphasizing that? and also, could you address the focus on planned parenthood and the controversies in which these new videos have now come out, another round of videos showing their practices. and this is obviously being taken up as a very polarizing political issue. does it have the potential of alienating women who the democratic nominee is a really going to need? ms. schriock: i think they have a real chance of alienating women, that is a republican thing. i think there are going to alienate them towards the democratic side. let's begin with the fact that one in five women in this country have gone to planned parenthood for basic health care, cancer screenings, birth control. what we need -- we see planned parenthood as a health care

provider. it is an incredibly important these of our economic stability as women in this country, millions of millions of women and men. so if you start at that place, you have a republican party that is just certain that they can turn this into an issue that is going to work for them. but they are not. it is not going to happen because of the number of women and men, frankly, who use planned parenthood and know what planned parenthood has been about. and we have seen this tactic before. the republicans have tried over and over again to tear apart planned parenthood in their strive to really dismantle reproductive rights for women in this country. and we have seen women and men rally around planned parenthood again and again. and i believe that is what we are going to see next november. see it again in six weeks if ted cruz continues his plan of shutting down the government over planned parenthood. again, an organization that is providing millions of women with

basic health care needs like cancer screenings. as having't see this raffled independent voters? ms. schriock: what i continue to see in our polling is that women and men are more and more frustrated with a republican party that seems completely focused and can't get away from talking about reproductive health issues when what they are really looking for the party to talk about are economic issues facing this country. not only are republicans not talking about the issue here, they are wrong on the issue. i keep expecting at some the point republicans to figure out that they actually need women to vote for them to win the general election, but the republican primary is a different animal. and they are playing to the

right-wing base of their primary. as we see that, we are seeing each candidate move further and further to the right. and i think it will cause them immense trouble when we get into the general election next year. mr. mcardle: another story we are hearing a lot about in this early part of the primary season is hillary clinton's e-mail servers. the investigation that is going into that. we have seen the polling that shows concerns about her trustworthiness. you have run successful campaigns in the past. if you are running hillary clinton's campaign right now, would you do anything different? ms. schriock: you know, i feel really strongly that she has done what she needs to do. she is out there answering questions every day from the press. she will continue to do that. at every point, she has passed over that information, including

30,000 pages of e-mails and handing over the server when it was, you know, when it was asked to be handed over. i think this is an issue that has really gotten confused by -- by so many interests. and we will hear her again. she's going to speak to it in a committee hearing, i'm sure. but the truth is it is not where the voters are focused. this election -- and in the campaigns i have run -- this election is going to be about the american people and the future that they are working -- looking for and which , candidate is going to provide a vision and a direction for individuals and families in this country to succeed. that is an economic concern for every american and i think the conversation that is happening in the town halls in iowa, and the town halls in new hampshire, those are really the signs of the conversations that are going to happen in the general election.

mr. mcardle: is it clear enough -- ms. schriock: i think the campaign has been clear and she has been clear over and over again that she is, you know, and -- sent no has sent e-mails with confidential information -- classified information at the time, being classified at the time. she has said the same thing over and over again. i am not sure what we have to keep asking the same questions over and over again, but i feel like the campaign has done a very good job of laying this out. >> i know that when you came to emily's list, you put a big priority on data and analysis and you have also talked about how important millennial and millennial women will be in this election. you even suggested, i think, that they could, in terms of voter participation, outnumber the boomers this time around in 2016. talk about the messaging. you mentioned education, but we have, as you know, on the democratic side, a boomer.

how is she doing in messaging. and with all the races you are watching, what of the message is -- messages that a really resonating and that you might suggest the front-runner keep her eye on? ms. schriock: i think it is a really amazing point in history for the united states that we are going into an election where millennial women could be a larger voting block than baby boomer women. there are more millennial women than there are baby boomer women, the question is are they going to vote at the same number. i think that is part of our job, we are going to be doing work focusing specifically on millennial women and really finding ways to inspire their engagement in this election cycle over issues that matter to them. so some of what we have already seen, like i said, one of the issues of course i brought up is

debt-free college. so many young women, and men, are just buried under the weight of debt. the thought of even purchasing a home is so far away because they can't get out of their own college debt. and what are we going to do for the next generation? are going to figure out a different way to do that? we really have two problems that we are contending with. but we are also looking at equal pay for equal work as this generation comes fully into the workforce. i think there are women going, wait a second, i thought i was going to get paid equally? everything was equal when i was in school and i graduated at the top of my class, and there are more women graduating them and, and now i'm in this workplace environment and there is still inequalities there that need to be addressed. there is a real awakening as i travel around the country of millennial women going, oh, wait a second, this isn't as completely even as i thought it was going to be as i enter the workforce.

so equal pay for equal work. paid sick leave. as this generation -- already the young mothers of our country are realizing how difficult it is to carry a job and ensure that you can stay home when your child is sick. we have such poor policies in this country about this, never mind childcare, which we have no policies in most places. so these are really family issues that millennial women are looking at and i think this is where, again, hillary clinton has already embraced and we are seeing an incredible group of senate candidates who are running. we have already endorsed six senate candidates this particular election year. and trust me there are more to , come. we are not done yet. and that has been a really big focus, these economic issues facing all generations, the really millennial's.

ms. simendinger: one other thing to follow-up, we have come and secretary clinton, a page of her strategy from 2008 where she wasn't playing up her gender as my. and this time she is full and on playing up her gender. we have a woman on the republican side, carly fiorina who is not playing to gender. , can you explain why it might be working better for secretary clinton this time around than the way she did in 2008? and whether carly fiorina's strategy is in some way working for her, too. ms. schriock: i think it is less about hillary clinton running as a woman and hillary clinton running and talking about issues that affect women and families in this country. ms. simendinger: but you are not arguing that she is not -- ms. schriock: no, not at all. she is a woman. [laughter] and as for emily's list, committed to electing pro-choice candidates to office, so it is a

pretty exciting time. we are looking at what could be a record year for women across the country, whether it is the white house, the senate, the house, legislative places across the country. it is also a different time. and i think it is sometimes hard for us to remember, you know, as times change, what the conversations are. there is a real growing conversation about women and families in this country over the last six years. since the last, 2008, presidential election. and it is -- i think it is a really good environment for hillary to run in. there is this awakening, as i mentioned before, of women across the country. wait, what is equal pay? why am i not getting equal pay? this paid sick leave is really a problem. and what am i going to do with my student loans? and, wait a second, the republican party wants to take away my birth control. this has gotten to be too much. that is where i think a woman leader really is in a great position to talk about those

issues because they have been , through all of those issues in that lives at different times. >> and what about carly? ms. schriock: she is running for a different position at the moment. she is running for the republican nomination and she has to get through the republican primary. and that as a whole different environment to be running in. and i think we will see -- >> being the only woman, is that an advantage for her? ms. schriock: i am still looking forward to the day when there is more than one. are we ready for that? there is one woman running out of 17, or on the democratic side, but i do think it does lift your voice in a different way -- her voice in a different way, but it is not just about gender. it really is about the issues that you are proposing that a -- are going to help women and families. women aren't going to vote for women because they are women.

we are not going to do that. we are going to vote for candidates who are going to be leaders on issues that face our families. ms. gold: i want to ask you about how millennials view secretary clinton as opposed to boomers. a lot of boomer women i speak to view her journey as their journey. they see it as something really intensely personal, and the selection is something personal for them. i am wondering if millennials who don't have the same experience, who have seen her as somebody who is always been at a position of power, what is their response to her and how do you have to reach them differently? ms. schriock: some of our initial polling and some of the public polling, we are seeing really good response by millennials in support of her. really the support of her policies and what she is advocating. what we have found as we have traveled around the country -- there is a lot of educating to do. and a lot of what we will do at emily's list with our project is

to tell her story. the thing about millennial women, they were probably born in pre-2000, but they were during the clinton administration. what do they know about her? what we find is they actually don't know much. and when you start sharing the stories about her mom and the struggles for mother went through and hillary going up in a middle-class family -- growing up in a middle-class family. they have no idea. it may not we just millennial's, by the way. they didn't know she went to law school. and that instead of going to a big law firm, she and to work -- decided to go work at the children's defense fund. powerful a series of -- showing who hillary is, a great way to connect with

millennials, who have often heard secretary clinton talk about the challenges of being a young mother or a young daughter working full-time. and what do do when you have to -- you have to go to work and your child is sick, what do you do? that is a really powerful story. ms. gold: can that message resonate when she is obviously someone of immense wealth right now, and she vacations in the hamptons and she is getting paid all this money for speeches? can you make the argument really effectively that she is someone who can relate to you as a middle-class young person? ms. schriock: i think the answer is absolutely yes. she has been through it. in so many ways. and has also, as a leader, whether as first lady of arkansas, first lady of the united states, or united states senator, secretary she has had , so many roles which he has been in the middle of the struggle that women and girls around the world, not just the united states, are facing. and in a really unique way can

speak to those struggles. and i think a voice that we have never really had, but i don't think we can underestimate what it would mean to women and girls around the world and in this country to see a woman president of the united states. mr. mcardle: just a minute or two left. i want to ask you, you touched on this before, your efforts -- your senate and house efforts. the are currently 104 women in congress right now. i want to know what you think the number will be after the elections. ms. schriock: oh, more. [laughter] mr. mcardle: money spent, about $45 million during the 2014 cycle. our you going to be able to you going to be able to

spend that much on senate and house and governor races when there is so much focus on hillary clinton? ms. schriock: the answer is, yes. let me begin with, we have an incredible group of candidates. we have already endorsed six women for the united states senate. i think it is really important to recognize that four of those women are women of color running for the united states senate in an institution that has only ever had two women of color ever serve in it. and it was a 20 year span between those two. so this could be a moment in history in a whole different way. these are women like donna edwards, who would be the first african-american to serve in the senate from the state of maryland. harris, an african-american and south asian american, a very popular attorney general in california. catherine cortez, a latina, who would be the first latina ever in the united states senate. like i said i am really ready to first,hrough all these s, but itth the first is an historic moment. and let us not forget about tammy duckworth in illinois and would be a first, the first woman who has seen combat to serve in the united states senate.

these are very smart, talented women who bring immense diverse perspectives to their jobs today, and ultimately to the united states senate. so we will very much have the resources to back up our senate and house candidates. emily's list has had already an incredibly strong start to our fundraising this election cycle and are ahead of any cycle previous. and because of that, we are going to do what we always do for our senate races. and help hillary clinton become president of the united states. mr. mcardle: president of emily's list, thank you so much. ms. schriock: absolutely. thank you so much for having me. mr. mcardle: and we will now continue with the roundtable portion of our program. we are joined by matea gold and alexis simendinger. i want to start with, how concerned do you think emily's

list is from her statements about the hillary clinton e-mail server story and the prospects of a joe biden candidacy in the democratic primary? ms. simendinger: i thought it was really interesting because she was clearly emphasizing to us what we know, which is that the e-mail controversy has dragged clinton's campaign not with alt, but certainly feeling that it is going to go well into the fall. and she was bringing that up yourself. she was trying to offer us assurances that hillary clinton was really not on the ropes. that she had answered fully and she would do this again on capitol hill in october. but even the discussion of that i thought was a indication of how unwanted this controversy has been. she also mentioned, which i also thought was fascinating, that the younger generation of women voters that emily's list is very much trying to reach may not have really absorbed what

hillary clinton represents in the pantheon of what, you know, a woman president would be or what her history was. and she talked about this idea of educating, the need to be educated about her background, her history, her biography. and she is describing on what may not be a generational gap, but a gender gap. to get a woman into the white house that is pro-choice on abortion, but also hillary clinton. they have put all the effort behind that. i thought that was really interesting. mr. mcardle: to follow up on that, she said that there is educating to do. she said the voters don't know much about hillary clinton's story. do you think that is accurate? ms. gold: it is a fascinating acknowledgment that for a known quality that secretary clinton

is that there are parts of her story that her supporters believe have not fully penetrated. i also think it is an acknowledgment that her current role of someone who is incredibly wealthy, who has all these resources, whose husband has also made so much money since leaving office, that this is a narrative that has really stuck with them. and if her campaign has been all about trying to connect with middle-class voters and trying to make that real and authentic. , i think it has been a i think it has been a struggle. , and we saw that in her acknowledgment that there needs to be some more storytelling about that. i also thought it was fascinating how careful she was talking about vice president biden's potential run. this is something that clinton supporters are watching very warily. and i think there is a clear sense among them that they don't want to do anything to provoke him, to encourage him, but also to malign him. they are trying to be very careful and let him make his decision, but it is definitely something that is looming much

more fast and furious than anyone had anticipated. mr. mcardle: and on the planned parenthood story that has been so much in the news, she seemed to indicate the way republicans are going to try to use this issue, planned parenthood becomes a winning issue for democrats in this election cycle. ms. simendinger: that has been the story for the democratic side. it has been their play-by-play over several election cycles in the time that stephanie has been with emily's list. so she knows what to expect. it could go two different ways. but she was trying to really, i think, paint a picture for us of the stark contrast that would only be helpful to democratic women and pro-choice women. and she was trying to underscore this idea that maybe there are younger women in her mind who are looking at this debate, this discussion of policy and the tone of it and maybe thinking twice about something they didn't experience as younger

woman that maybe an older generation of women experienced who lived through wrote v wade -- roe v wade. that is what i'm saying. so she is definitely leaning towards this idea that it is a positive. there are many other political analysts you could talk to who aren't always sure that that is the way it is going. ms. gold: it is interesting. democrats are really gleeful that this will controversy around planned parenthood, which is something that the organization has struggled to contain, has been embraced by the republican field in a way that they feel is alienating to a lot of voters. so we have even seen jeb bush talk about how planned plant manhood doesn't provide health services to women. so right after the first republican debate, researchers were just thrilled by the comment that scott walker and -- comments that scott walker and marco rubio made on abortion.