the problem we are talking about what is affected or not, we could go with john's definition which is what helps political discourse, but that may not be what it is politically acacias. --efficacious. i think trump tends to post offensive tweets, but they have been effective for him. you could argue they don't raise political discourse, but that is to be what works on social media. we have to remember that the political stream of information is just one string among all sorts of streams, social streams and stuff, that people are looking at. you have to really do something to stand out and grab people's

attention and make them say, i better stop and look at this. in some ways, it might be the worst strategy to try to elevate discourse if you're getting rewarded for just kind of grabbing people's attention by saying striking or outrageous things. moderator: maybe this is too far and assumption, assuming everyone on the stage believes in getting people were engaged in politics and political discourse, even myself, we talked about how these social media and mediums can be effective for candidates, but what is the most effective medium for productive political discourse now? mindy: no, i do not think -- i mean i don't think you can take a single media. i think campaigns are playing on some the different fields, so we are talking about social media here. but you have many candidates who are turning to media to state their case, a publishing platform. a longer form platform. i think the jury is out on which is most effective. understanding that there is a fractured media landscape. if you want to get as many people engaged as possible and persuade and get your message out to all the constituencies that you need to win, you will not depend upon a single platform. moderator: have you seen one medium more than the other that

millennial's have a more productive political conversation? mr. volpe: we recently held a town hall meeting where we ask these kinds of questions. and the answer was where the candidate chooses to engage, i will find it. mindy: if you want to persuade and get your message out, you cannot depend upon a single platform. they will do paid media as well.

shira: have you seen that one media more than others where a millennial seem to have a productive conversation? john: we recently had a town meeting and we were asking these kinds of questions. thehem, it is whatever candidate chooses to engage, they will find it. the lesson they were telling us was, just find something you are comfortable with and use it. they want the candidates to use us. with trump, that is trump. when sanders tweets something, that is sanders. that is what students and young people were looking for. the candidates to use it the way they do and not just another version of a stale press release that to they could get off any other wire service.

shira: this is a question i find interesting. do different genders use it social media differently? mindy: the data shows both on twitter and facebook there is a slight tilt to women using those. there are certainly different demographic groups. they heavily skew or over index on twitter. then there is pinterest, which is not seen as a powerful political tool, and it is heavily female. that is quite interesting. linkedin, which some campaigns will use it, is not so much a gender difference, but there is an age gap. it is the only one that over indexes for those who are above 29 years old. shira: john? mr. volpe: we do this every

semester. our indexes are available online. there are some differences based on what platform. everybody can be found if they want to be found. i still believe that people are raising their hands wanting to be engaged. i will say, you can see that some people tend to like comments more. other people tend to post more. facebook has opened up their data feeds so that we can learn more about what people are doing. some people tended to like likeark, 10 -- tend to posts more, and some tend to post more. shira: do we have any data on the gender divide?

mr. volpe: it depends upon subject. we are looking at sports and other events, but we should stay tuned for that. moderator: nicholas, you have done work on how technology changes our perception. i always remember the lesson from my grade school class, the richard nixon and john f. kennedy debates. right? that was the debate where people thought of they listened on the radio that nick's and one, if they watch and on tv, john f. kennedy, because he was so handsome, he won. it was the symbol of the movement of politics to a more superficial way. are we going through one of those transitions right now? would you say it is a transition to becoming more superficial politics, is this kind of an historical progression? nicholas: i think it is part of a historical progression. i think it is a transition. i would argue that what we're

seeing this year is that a third big media shift in elections and campaigning. first came radio, which hit the point of maturity in the 1924 race where calvin coolidge won the election. radio is very interesting because suddenly candidates did not have bodies and they just spoke with their voice and they were not speaking at the fairgrounds. the came into people's houses through these radios. and suddenly you had to have to have this intimate conversation with voters. a lot of candidates cannot make this transition. franklin roosevelt with his fireside chats was ideally suited to it. and then in 1960, you have the injured action of tv as the main media force. it was perfectly encapsulated in the debate between kennedy and nixon, when nixon was totally oblivious to the fact that he

was sweating in looked horrible on tv. i think he thought he had one, and obviously, he did not. in one sense it gturned them into two-dimensional images. social media is the new thing in the mix. and i think in some ways it no longer emphasizes the image of a candidate. it puts much more emphasis on personality. you want a personality that does grab attention on social media and you want to be somebody who says something new all the time rather than repeating the same things over and over again. that works on tv, where you have a voters attention captured. you do not have that on social media. saying the same thing over and over again, i think we see some of the traditional candidates like hillary clinton do that on social media, and it comes off a little dull. what we're going to see is that candidates either have to adapt, or politicians have to adapt to this new media, or a new generation will come in that is adept at it. it is the same kind of of people we saw with radio and tv.

we are getting hints of how that will play out, but it will be very interesting next year and in future elections as well. shira: it changed who would run for office, television, radio, and now social media. what kind of generation of politicians do you think we will have is a product of social media dominated environment? nicholas: i think we will have people who are a bit more freewheeling. shira: it will be fun for us. nicholas: it will be fun, and there can be a good side to it

and a bad side to it. whether you look at politics or elsewhere, social media rewards with its attention of a very visceral and emotional message. that is what cuts through the chatter and the noise. the danger there -- that will bring people into the political process that can relate to it, but the danger is that it can breathe a kind of cult of personality around the candidates. there is a risk here that it will just get more superficial and emotional with a level of political discourse which was not great to begin with.

mindy: there is a new paradigm because of social media. i look at it differently than fostering a cult of personality. i think it does do that, and we see that with donald trump as that he would run. but i'm going to do something dangerous which is make a prediction. i do not think that donald trump will ultimately be the next president. so he has taken off, but is he ultimately successful? he has a lot of energy, but will he ultimately become president? or is there someone else who can thread the needle between being presidential, and have a certain stature, but also show personality. enough personality that people do not think they are wooden. i think it will be the latter. the new paradigm of social media, what it has really done in terms of an impact is that it is more participatory. it is more democratic. everybody is part of the process

in a way they have not been in a long time. they feel dominion over the process and it has empowered people with information. it has given them a power to create support, and get their message out quite quickly and raise money quite quickly. so -- this is where i know the title of that session, we will -- when we see things as chaotic and messy as they are, but i think the answer is in some ways it has strengthened it, but we are still at the beginning of the shift of the paradigm and it has not filled out. look at the republican debate stage or even the democratic field right now with bernie sanders. it is big, and diverse, and messy because it is hard to know who is up and who is down on what day and who believes what. some people might say it would be better if we could wrap it in a neat package, but democracy is the ability to -- no matter where you are or were you come from -- to run for president.

the social media are facilitating that. john: i think the people who are using social media are ruining

politics. i just believe a couple of things. i don't think it has to be that way. i know for a fact if some candidate said i'm going to use twitter tonight to say i will host a community meeting to talk about what is working in the city, you would have 100 if not 1000 new people show up to have a conversation about that. that is the use of social media in the best way. i can guarantee you that in that room you have an 18-year-old, an 80-year-old and a lot of people in between who want to participate in solving problems. now, that is the first step in building trust within the system. they're connected with somebody who actually cares. they were all of that person, and that is the way for social media to save politics. but for whatever reason it is difficult for us to figure out how to best use it. obama did that beautifully eight years ago. right? -- part of that is shira: it is interesting, when we talk about social discourse, that discourse is still in person. it is still at the town hall meeting, not on social media.

john: that's ok. but you are using social media as one tool to bring people together. like the example used in new jersey, you can have an engagement with somebody. the common problem, whether it is millennials or other generation is a lack of faith in the system. we finally have a tool that is participatory and democratizing, and we are not using it in that way all the time. i believe that if you build trust and create a relationship that will lead to success on the ballot box. i think there are enough examples to get there. the problem is too many of us who are consultants and strategist are more used to the 30-second spot and it is a very different mentality on social media. you have to be prepared to engage and listen and respond and it shows your true self. it is a way in which e-mails are a true personality before you know they will be made public. there are some charming things about e-mails. right?

thingsre some charming about those unedited emails. it gives you a window into a personality more than a tweet or a facebook post. shira: i am going to ask you one more question, but then we will go to your questions. if you have one, please lineup that any one of the four mics. i would like you to answer the title of this panel. which is, is social media ruining politics? nicholas: that would imply that politics was in some pure state before. i don't think it is elevating politics. i think the good news is it can draw people who are feeling disenfranchised and disengaged, it can draw them into the political process. i mean, if you're not watching news on tv or listening to it on radio, or reading newspapers,

then you what political discourse to go to social media, to where people can have the opportunity to get involved. but i worry that ultimately it is making that discourse more superficial rather than richer. it is giving a lot of people, i fear, an illusion of participation. they think if i retweet something i am participating. if i like something i am participating. but what it is not doing is drawing people into a thoughtful engagement with policy issues and candidates. instead it is repackaging political conversation as streams of superficial tweets or facebook messages. you would hope that people would go beyond that and use that as the entree into some deeper engagement. and some people will, but i do not think most will. moderator: we will now go to your questions. a quick reminder, as an editor this is near and dear to my heart, your questions should have a question mark at the end of it. it should be an actual question. so let's adhere to that. we will go from left to right. >> thank you very much for taking the time to come and speak with us. my question is mainly directed

at john, although i would be interested in hearing both of your perspectives as well. in terms of using social media to save politics, the example that you gave seem to me to be more possible at a state or local level as opposed to a national one. i wondered you can talk about, do you see the same affects you spoke about occurring at the state and local level? is there any sort of difference? might it be possible for social media to save politics at the state and local level as opposed to the federal level? mr. volpe: the best ideas come from local cities and towns across america, which if they work, then they get scooped up by candidates for president. but i think it works everywhere.

for a candidate to start a conversation about poverty on twitter and end somewhere else would be helpful at any level. and we have engaged in similar conversations with school teachers across america on issues of education and poverty and other things. i am sure it could work, it is the question of which candidate wants to do the hard work to get there, because it takes effort to read people's responses and to engage with people who have a good idea to take those ideas and develop them into policy issues that might work. it is different, it is hard, but i think it is worth it because you get better ideas and more engaged citizenry. if you get that, it also helps in the ballot booth in my opinion. >> thank you. shira: either of you? next. >> hi.

my name is caroline. i am a sophomore in college here. thank you for being here. my question is getting at something that nikki mentioned. what encourages people to get involved in care about issues? we all have that one uncle who posts all their statuses on facebook. do you want people who want to care about the issues, or just do not care? mr. carr: i think it is a good medium for galvanizing attention and getting people involved in thinking about an issue. whether it is a good medium for encouraging sustained debate on an issue, i am more dubious about that. what we often see is that things become very important for a day, or two days, and then they disappear. and then we wait and something else becomes very important. certainly for some people i think following something on social media will be the spur that gets them deeply involved. but that is counterbalanced by this and our attention as the new thing comes up and pushes aside something else.

and i think for most hateful it will create bursts of participation and incentive news, but probably will not create the sustained engagement and actually leads to changes that they might want. mindy: none of the popular social media platforms are well positioned for discourse. there is not a lot of good discourse happening on any of them. they allow people to get instant access to politicians, sometimes the cory booker example is an exception.

it does engage quite a bit with constituents. but even twitter is lacking. there are new platforms every couple of years that rise up and say that they are the going to address the problem. what concerns me and even going to john's idea is that you will hear from members on capitol hill that they have stopped doing town halls because they would rather do it on social media because it is more controlled and easier. they will do q&a's on facebook and they can decide which questions they want to take. people might yell at them, but there are ways to shut it down that is different from if you were at a town hall meeting and there was a disturbance. i think that aspect is quite concerning. i do not think we're quite there in terms of social media being great for discourse.

shira: when you do ask your question, don't forget to state your name and your affiliation with the college or harvard if you have one. >> name is jack and i'm a freshman in the college. how can candidates appear more authentic even when all their messages are crafted well ahead of time? shira: very good question. mindy, you have worked directly with candidates. mindy: when they are not crafted well ahead of time, i would guard against doing that. i do not think that is a good use of the platform and the culture of the platform, particularly in twitter word is instant response. -- where it is an instant response. what you see campaigns due to try to appeal the candidates, and keep them from making a mistake is have many staff tweeting during the debates. that is a departure. going back 10 years ago, there would've been only a few people within a campaign who were

empowered to actually speak on behalf of the campaign. now they have the whole army doing so on twitter. i would really guard against -- i mean, there are stories out of the 2012 election of mitt romney's campaign going through 22 approvals. they dispute that. there are different sides of the story, but if that is the case, that does not allow a candidate to really realize the power of social media. moderator: do either of you have an example or thought on who is a really, truly authentic person, a politician, when it comes to social media? john: i do not know off the top of my head, but i will say that the advice i would give the candidates in terms of being more authentic would be the same advice i give my kids to be more popular in school.

right? don't try so hard. just be yourself. don't try so hard. if you're not comfortable talking about yourself on twitter, they don't talk about yourself on twitter. right? go to instagram and take photos of what your life is like on the campaign trail. the mayor of los angeles has a beautiful instagram of his life as a citizen of los angeles and what it shows. right? and to me that shows who he is, how hard he is working, where he is, etc. he does not seem to be trying so hard. if it is natural, it is natural. if it is not, it is not. do not force it. mindy: there are several candidates who are doing a good job. donald trump may be a case study in that he gets a lot of attention, but i would not advise the other candidates to copy trump.

--ey get themselves in -- whenuble whent hey they try to do that. they have tried to show a more brash style, and it looks silly, hurting them. you have hillary's campaign quite active. you have bernie's campaign quite active. i think they're using medium quite well. whether does fully themselves it does not come across as in inauthentic, so that is not a win.

nicholas: one of the challenges is that there are so many social media platforms, how do you -- each one is different, and it becomes very hard and time-consuming for candidates to be authentic on each of these platforms that they are sending their messages out through. i guess i am picking on hillary clinton, but if you look at her facebook page at her twitter feed, they are basically mirror images of themselves. if you do that through all the platform, you start to look very manufactured. but on the other hand i sympathize with how hard it would be authentic on all of these platforms all the time. you would die of authenticity eventually. shira: a lot of putting yourself out there for normal person and a politician who is used to putting themselves out there. >> hello, i'm chris and become -- and i am a sophomore at the college. it seems like there's a lot more political information out there. at the same time you of the ability to self select what is ratio get based on pages you like it here you follow on twitter. my question is do you think that social media increases peoples exposures do different things at stake points or further entrenches them in their own viewpoint? shira: you have done some work on this.

nicholas: i talked little bit about this before. in general, it leads to more entrenchment in their existing points of view because they seek information that is confirming rather than opposing. that is not true of everybody, and some people use the opportunity to expose themselves to different views. what we know about people pretty well is that if you give them a huge amount of information, they will select the stuff that already resonates with what they are thinking. shira: back down here. yes. >> i am victoria. i lead the women in public policy program here at the kennedy school. we've seen that the rise of social media on the enhancement of campaigns for nontraditional candidates. one of the things that also happens to women candidates, is that female candidates and women who participate in the social media space, even though over represented, are likely to have

aggressive shutdowns by other people participating in those venues. for those who blog regularly, they can get visceral attacks, and there are a lot of trolls who spend time doing this attacking. do you have advice for how candidates can most effectively handle that type of engagement? and two, what do you see as the future for campaigns beyond how these platforms are regulated so we have less visceral engagement shira: i think the first question is one for mindy. dynamic, where there is a lot of vitriol and also not just for candidates, but even voters who participate on social media, it is a deterrent, because people are attacked and really shut down. -- it is almost

as if they should not be allowed to express their views. if someone takes an opposing view, the other person reacts as if they are not allowed to have that view, and the discussion is really shut down. that is unfortunate. that hinders the ability for to -- for it to be a platform for discourse. i am more concerned about that intosiphoning people off their own camps. what is the reward for trying to express a view and having a discussion if you are going to have that kind of response? it is worse for women because of the types of attacks that it can can lead to. in terms of advice, you have two options, you engage or you don't. if you decide to engage, dealing knowledge those types of commenters or not? i think engagement is always better for the reasons we are talking about today. out there talking about you on social media

anyway. you want to be able to participate in that conversation and be part of it. and in terms of whether or not to engage those commentators, because of where the platform does not limit, i see this happen all the time with many women candidates. some of the women are really the best at being open online. especially members of the house. they get those kinds of cemments, and i always win when i see them. but they continue to do it. it helps in terms of the human -- in terms of the image their constituents have with them of someone who is open. some of those women on both sides are in swing districts. i think the reason they continue to be successful is people do see them as accessible. mike's the mind repeating -- >> do you mind repeating the second part of your western? >> do you see the future of

social media as better sense of regulation on platforms? we see particularly engendered aspects, that if they took twice -- took place in a forum, that mic would be cut because they had nothing to do with the discourse or were outside reasonable dialogue and might even be considered hate speech. one of the benefits of the social media platform is that people can express their authentic selves. the you see that as going on unchartered wild west, or do you think that over time there will be some more mitigation in those systems to create a more effective dialogue? mindy: it is such a tough line because where do you draw the line? where do you cut it off? what some people see as quite offensive, others see us appropriate.

this is a big issue in college campuses in terms of what is , and wheredebate those platforms tend to lead as -- is to be as open as possible. there are certain things that are absolutely acceptable, and complaint register a and accounts can be shut down. within those companies, there is really thoughtful debates that go on about where they draw those lines, but they tend to lean towards being more open because it is part of the comments of the -- part of the promise of the platform, that it will be for open discussion. >> my name is ignacio, i am a sophomore out of college. every once in a while a really bad tweet resurfaces and harms politicians. i was wondering what you thought nextoing to happen in the 40 years when people are running

-- people who are running for office have hundreds of thousands of tweets in their name. will that be any different, will people actually go back and look at all these tweets that people from my generation are tweeting now? will that affect us in the future? shira: or facebook photos. yeah, what is that next generation politician going to look alike, when we can see what they were like freshman year and not really caring. a memo to all of you. do you think the things we see now from politicians, that we things from their past resurface think it will be more harmful down the road? am hopeful that it is put into the proper perspective over time. i remember the first time that there was an ongoing debate about bill clinton smoking

marijuana. now you have every candidate talking about the things they have done during the college life, and we have had more context in the last 30 or 40 years and i suspect that will be the same. it is so difficult now for somebody to run for public office, in terms of opening themselves up to history. hopefully that will have the proper context over time. i am an optimist. mindy: social media has impacted our sensitivities. it might be a reason somebody exited the race in the past. it might become a huge deal in 24 hours over twitter and facebook, but then it goes away because there's so much else to cover. the news cycle has become so quick. >> my name is evan, i am a senior at the college. i am enjoying this, thank you

for coming out. when i think of the question of social media routing politics , i think of one of two effects. one is that everything nowadays is political, and becomes very political very quickly. one example i can think of is there is this woman who tweeted a joke, and then by the time she landed in south africa, she had been fired, she had to move. the other one is the comments section. the question that i have is two parts. the first one i have is, why do you think this seems to pop up everywhere and every explanation that people come up with, that it was short form, they all seem to go away. why does this always seem to be the case, and is it inevitable -- will it always be the case? nick the scale of these : platforms means that it is

very easy to get enough people concerned or offended that it snowballs very easily. for all the good things about social media, it can be a platform for a mob mentality , where people kind of react viscerally without thinking about it, or without giving the other person the benefit of the doubt often. unfortunately, that is part of human nature. when you create this kind of scale where everybody can say anything about anything, it becomes very hard to avoid that kind of very unfair and damaging dynamic. i have a since it will always be with us. >> hi there. my name is frankie, i'm a

freshman at the college. you talked a lot about how social media can be bad for discourse. talking about political issues. i was wondering if you have seen any better ways to do it. are there features that we could implement to improve social media websites, to improve discourse on them? in your studies, had you encountered anything like that? nicholas: i have an example or two. it is connected to the original point i made, which is you can use social media to start a conversation, but you're not going to create a policy paper on twitter. you need to take it somewhere else, either off-line or online. i think there are some examples starting a conversation in multiple places, where you find people who really want to be there, who really want to have a voice and perspective, and take

it to kind of a closed space. people can participate, like they do in the letter to the editor. you have to say who you are. and then you can try to work with other members of the community to solve a problem . it can be crowd sourced within some kind of guidelines in terms of what the problem is. that will lead to tremendous results. we have done this dozens of times across the country. at the end of it, you have specific policies that are created at the local level, sometimes with experts, sometimes with citizens, that eventually get the attention of the governor, the senator, the mayor, the administrator, and i think that is the way it can work. so again, we all agree that you cannot have the most productive conversation on social media, 20 47 but can be the invitation to invite people into a more private space with goals and -- based on what your goals and objectives are.

shira: i think there's a lot of room to make it better and will -- and improve the existing platforms for discourse. it is something i worked on a bit last year with it platform called change.org. it is an open petition platform , and petition is the oldest form and tool in our democracy to share your boards. -- share your voice. the one thing we found was that it was an incredibly powerful platform. through people signing petitions and the collective action of millions of individuals, there was a lot of change happening. we still have the same issue where it was very one way. about's -- about politicians shouting the public and being one way. this way it was shouting at decision-makers and corporations , but not giving them the headphones to actually listen -- in auctive way

productive way and engage in a dialogue. some people do not understand why things are they way they are, or why it is so difficult for things to change, or why people can't be working with government to institute the change. we actually created a new feature set of that platform to allow politicians to respond and start to engage in the dialogue, which was in use by dozens of dozens of politicians -- which has been used by dozens of politicians at this point. i'm not saying that is the whole answer, but it really was a response to the disconnect that it is wholly inefficient with this kind of dialogue. john: the hard thing is to get the public to comment spent a lot of time there. shira: and i think this will be our last question for the evening.

>> thank you. i would be interesting in talking about how you see fundraising moving, both by candidates and certain parties, think of move on and others, where is that going to go? how is it affecting these campaigns nationally now, and where do you see that having an impact in the future? thank you. shira: fundraising generally, or through social media? >> through social media. how is fundraising through social media, even e-mail, facebook, like bernie sanders and everybody and third parties? shira: sure. why don't we do a quick answer? we will start at the end. john: i think a lot of those fromns, i learned them

2004 with howard dean before social media, with the idea of empowering regular citizens to share couple of dollars here and there. one of the best uses of that was to shut down folks who would comment on blogs during the campaign. the organizers would say for every negative comment, i want our community to raise x dollars. take a look at what lawrence lessing's doing. he is using social media to organize his campaign, raise money, and try to ways -- try to raise awareness. not surprising. he is the one that has the highest portion of his tweets responding to people. he is working, talking to people, raising a decent amount of money with small donors to get there. shira: mindy? mindy: the great promise of the internet was that it was going to re-democratize the process. we talked about the ways it has in the ways it hasn't. with fundraising, it is another one of those stories that has two sides.

it definitely has, in some regard. you look at bernie sanders right now, and the fact that he was able to raise almost as much as hillary clinton in the last quarter. the great majority of that was from small dollar donors from social media and online. you see that with republican candidates who are doing that as well. marco rubio would not be where he is today if he had not done the same thing in his senate primary against charlie crist. he was running in single digits against a very entrenched incumbent and was able to do the same thing. that said, there is still an incredible influence over the system by major wealthy donors. the really is two sides to the story. that is actually one of the stories to watch in this election cycle, because even with howard dean, he was able to over perform where people expected, but he was ultimately -- was not ultimately victorious. barack obama was ultimately victorious, so there has been an

-- barack obama was ultimately victorious. nicholas: shira: nick shira: -- shira: make? -- nick? nicholas: i know absolutely nothing about fundraising. shira: fair enough. can we please give our awesome panelists a round of applause? [applause] shira: and thank everyone for coming, very much. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, wiich is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] announcer: next, senate leaders mitch mcconnell of kentucky and harry reid of nevada talk about the debt ceiling spending will. after that, a senate hearing on the irs treatment of troops applying for tax exempt status. followed by a discussion on republican efforts to impeach the irs commissioner. on the next

washington journal, cbs reporter rebecca shabbad has details of the two year budget agreement passed by the house and senate this week. joseph santos and dr. alice chan , executive director of doctors for america, examine health care in the u.s. as open enrollment for 2016 begins. will take your calls, and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> it's a very touchy business, being the son or daughter of a dictator. you would not wish this kind of life on most people. it is a collection of interesting, sometimes blurring stories.-- luriong but there are also stories about mother and daughter ship, nature and nurture, and even policy.

announcer: "children of monsters," which looks at the lives of children of 20 dictators, including mussolini and saddam hussein. to talk tole knowledgeable people. i cannot talk to any family members, which was usually the case. there were only so many around to talk to, and only so many willing to say what they know or doubled their feelings -- or die vulge their feelings. these sons and daughters, most of them are famous are important , some of them become dictator, but most of them are footnotes and asides. you really have to dig to find out about them. announcer: sunday night on c-span's "q&a." on thursday, the senate finished up work on the two-year, $80 billion defense

and social programs bill and raised the debt ceiling. the house approved the bill earlier in the week. sanity majority leader -- senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and minority leader terry read discussed the bill -- harry reid discussed the bill. this is about 20 minutes. mcconnell: this agreement is not perfect. i sure could some -- i share some concerns. this is the bottom line, this is an agreement that rejects tax hikes, secures long-term savings through entitlement reforms, and provides increased support for a military. all of this at a time when we confront threats in multiple theaters. each of these items was a republican goal heading into the negotiation, and were achieved in the agreement before us.

i am encouraged that we have the missing advocate reform to social security since 1983, resulting in 16 $8 billion in long-term savings -- $168 billion in long-term savings. i'm encouraged that it would help provide resources for our time of diverse and challenging global threats. when we see isil consolidating gains in iraq and syria, when we see portions of assad marching alongside iranian soldiers, and hezbollah militias supported by ,ussian aircraft overhead colleagues know that i will respect whatever choice that make when the agreement comes up for a vote. there are differences of opinion, and that is ok, but i ask every colleague to also consider what this agreement would mean for the men and women who voluntarily put themselves in harms way so that we may live

free. commanders tell us that additional resources are required, required to ensure their safety and preparedness. this fully offset agreement would help provide that. along with connecting the most significant social security reform in over three decades. along with rick -- along with repealing another piece of obamacare. i hope senators would join me in voting for it. me to say a few words about the speaker of the house. there is a lot you can say about john boehner. he loves his breakfast every morning at pete's diner. ample. fan of the tide -- tie dimple. he is one of the most genuine guys you would ever meet. manyw because we thought

battles together in the trenches. he never breaks his word, he never buckles in a storm. we had amazing is how such a relationship, especially when you consider the other party -- that's just the opposition, but the senate, that's the enemy. that may have been true for passed house and senate leaders, but it was not true for us. that you might not expect it, i'm a little more bourbon and john is a little more merlot. -- i am like henry clay, i have always- considered john a friend. it is hard not to consider what john is accomplished in his career. hea concerned ohioan,

took on an incumbent in a primary and won. as a freshman congressman, he took on lobbying schemes and banking scandals and prevailed. as an engineer of the contract with america, he took on decades long power lock and triumph. as a member of leadership once considered politically dead, he his colleagues. as an inheritor of a diminished -- a diminished house minority, he dared to believe that conservatives would rise again, and helped grow the largest republican majority since flappers were dancing the charleston back in the 20's. john boehner has wandered the valley.

john boehner has also been to the mountaintop. john boehner has slid right back into the valley and then ascended to great heights yet again. he does it all with hard work. he does it with earnestness and honesty that i have always admired. talks about struggling to make it, it is not platitude. when john gets choked up about americans reaching for their dreams, it is not surmised. this is the guy who had to share a bathroom with 11 brothers and sisters, imagine that. this is a guy whose parents slept on a pullout sofa. this is a guy who worked hard behind the bar and eventually found his way atop the roster. maybe that's why he's so humble stop -- so humble. maybe that's why when he orders breakfast at pete's, they don't

call him "mr. speaker," they just call him "john-john." here is what i know about speaker john boehner. he says the code he lives by is a simple one. do the right thing for the right reasons, and the right things will happen. i've always found that to be true. i found it to be true at our battle sitting side-by-side for conservative reform, sometimes from a position deep in the minority. we had our share of moments, that's for sure. but he always strived to push forward. as i said about john boehner the day he announced his retirement, grace under pressure, country and institution before self.

these are the things that come to mind when i think of them. -- think of him. i wish john boehner the best in retirement. i thank him for always working hard to do the right thing, for his family, for his district, for his party, for his country. farewell, my friend. we bid farewell to one speaker today, we know we will soon be saying hello to another one. the house will vote later this morning on the nomination of congressman paul ryan. i think it is important to wait for that vote to curb the four -- before making full comments, but it also goes without saying that paul ryan is one of the most respected guys around here. everyone knows he is smart and serious, and i look forward to working closely with them in finding conservative solutions for our country.

mr. president, i understand there is a bill at the desk to do a second reading. the titlerk will read of the bill for the second time. >> the act to authorize the export-import rank of the united states, and for the purposes. >> i would object to further proceedings. the objection has not been heard, the bill will be placed on the calendar. mr. democratic leader? sen. reid: last night, the house passed a bipartisan budget agreement. it will keep our government open, funded, and free from default. 100% of democrats in the house voted for this. 68% of republicans voted against it. let's pause just a minute, understand what i just said.

68% of republicans in the house of representatives voted in default in full faith and credit of our great country. 68% of republicans voted to close our government. i present this legislation now before the senate. i join my colleagues in supporting this agreement. it is not perfect, as my republican leaders and friends said. no legislation is. but this account was his two major priorities that democrats contains two major priorities that democrats have supported. it ensures that everyone is equal in the middle class and the padding on. -- and the pentagon. the budget for the middle class is good for the economy and the country. i think the people for working so hard to make this agreement what it is today. i think -- thank speaker obama,

mitch mcconnell, and nancy pelosi -- president obama, speaker boehner, mitch mcconnell, and nancy pelosi. i appreciate the good work speaker boehner did. to reach these negotiations, east of us have discussions directed at each other. we also know that a lot of the work was done by our staff, our respective staff. my chief, drew wilson, represented the senate to look -- the senate democrats. the senate democratic caucus is aware of drew's expertise, hard work, fairness and openness. he was assisted by gary myrick, a democratic reform leader as a number of people on my

team who helped a great deal. think there is anyone in the senate who doesn't know who she is. she is next burden health care. -- she is an expert in health care. george all worked literally night and day to get this to the point where we are able to be here on the floor today, seeking support. mr. president, i am so grateful for the wonderful staff that i have, but there were others involved. senator mcconnell's negotiator in this was hazel marshall. he is a good person. he was resolute. he carried forward what the republican leader wanted, but

like my staffers, you never get exactly what you want, but everybody enjoyed working with him. dave and stewart is a good man with all admire the work he has hope that the next speaker paul ryan will use him, he is a talented man. and mrs. pelosi's able negotiator. let me say word about speaker pelosi before i move on. admire this woman. in the housewart of representatives and will go