virtually everything. there are ways you can do that and do it better that is less harmful to the environment, and that is what koch is trying to do. we produce pollution control devices that other companies are using. we are proud of our record there. this isn't about being against the environmental movement. when you start harming some peoples lives, then i'm not sure we are making some of the right decisions. >> in a recent interview, charles koch claimed that oliticians are beholden to corporations and cronyism to get reelected and deemed that welfare for the wealthy. the koch network has poured millions of dollars into our political system.

do the kochs agreed that the candidates are beholden to them? mr. lombardo: the last part of your question was -- >> duty koch -- do the kochs agree that the candidates are beholden to them? mr. lombardo: that's a great question. i'm going to answer it the way charles recently has answered that, and that is, beholden is the wrong word in that charles is frustrated right now, to be honest with you, very frustrated that a lot of the candidates, the network that he's a part of along with a lot of other donors, hundreds of donors, thousands, have not done a lot things they said they were going to do, ok? he's quite frankly very frustrated and we have not at this point in time supporting ny presidential candidate, mr. koch believes is worried right now that none of them are going to do what they say they're going to do.

the folks we supported in 2014, frankly, a lot of them have not lived up to the things that i have been talking about in terms of fighting corporate welfare, in terms of supporting criminal justice reform among other things. beholden -- everybody who votes for someone or contributes money to them, you are hoping that they are going to do what they said they were going to do. if you call it beholden, you can call it a holden, but to me it's -- i give five dollars to a candidate because they said they were going to do something, and i go wow, i agree with that, i want them to do that, and giving them five dollars. you can call that beholden, or 500 million dollars, whatever it might be -- we are expecting them to do the things they say they were going to do, and frankly, a lot of them were. >> since 1997, the koch brothers have poured close to $80 million into climate change denial groups. climate change really threatens everyone on this planet that predominately poor communities

of color, which it seems you are suggesting koch cares as deeply about and if they really do care deeply about these communities, how does climate change denial to protect koch's bottom line drive fairness and prosperity for these communities? mr. lombardo: did question. -- good question. the climate change issue is a complex one. charles has said recently in a lot of interviews that the climate is changing, that the data that has been shown over the last 100 years or so is that the temperature has increased by 8/10 degree centigrade, and that carbon is up and there is probably some correlation between the two. what concerns us is the politicize asian in some of

these respects. you talk about the most is advantaged in society, some of the solutions being offered are going to harm the very people that we purport to want to help, especially when you look at the disadvantage throughout the globe and in other parts of third world countries. we think it's an important issue. he environment is important to us. but the solutions that people talk about, we need to think about the actual people. yes? >> recently on local television, i'm seeing advertisements from some group with an innocuous name about thanol subsidies and maybe need to moderate or end the mandates for them.

what is the koch position on that issue? >> we oppose all ethanol subsidies. we are in ethanol manufacturer. -- an ethanol manufacturer. we think it's a great product and it should stand on its own. the subsidies and these sorts of things really disrupt the markets, these products should stand on their own if there economically viable, if they provide value for people, then they're going to work and they're going to survive and they will thrive. any alternative out there, we support all forms of energy, these all forms of energy have to stand on their own, and they have to provide economic value, they have to provide value to people in their everyday lives. we oppose ethanol subsidies. and we're in the business. >> one difference between

george soros and the koch brothers is that the conservatives in this country have not defamed george soros from the united states senate floor as harry reid has. that gets to the question that i want to ask. i'm very impressed with the industries that the koch brothers run, but i think that the one issue that you failed to address is the news media entertainment stranglehold in this country, and i wonder why with all their money the koch brothers don't buy abc, cbs, or nbc. ask them. mr. lombardo: if i had one to choose, i would go with espn. listen, i think we can spend hours and hours talking about quote unquote media bias in the country. i'm not sure quite frankly that's the biggest problem we

face, in terms of being maligned on the floor of the senate, that is senator reid's prerogative. he's protected by the u.s. constitution to do that. he knows he's protected when he's on the floor of the senate and he can say whatever he wants. i think a lot of people in this country just wish that he would try and help people improve their lives rather than going after u.s. citizens. >> my name is sheila. i have a quick question about the koch's clinical involvement. while the kochs claimed they did not enter the political sphere until the bush administration, david coke did run for vice resident on the libertarian ticket in 1980 and koch industries spent hundreds of thousands on political contributions during each presidential cycle since the 1990's. i was wondering why the kochs are trying to hide their long

involvement in politics, and if you could answer that for me. mr. lombardo: i would argue with that these is that anyone is trying to hide their political involvement. throughout the years koch was involved in politics through their contributions. david koch did run for vice president in 1980 on the libertarian ticket, and so what i was referring to was that the seminars that started by charles and david with a group of donors actually started in 2003, but both of those facts are correct. >> the koch network has made climate change denial litmus tests for supporting political candidates. if it's truly sincere about criminal justice reform, will the koch network pledged to only support pro-criminal justice reform candidates? mr. lombardo: i guess is the question that if we support a

political candidate who has a different view on climate change that that makes that support a climate change enier. i would argue the hypothesis, we have supported a lot of different candidates over the years and we will continue to do that to some extent, although as i said, i think there's some level of frustration of people getting things done. the support that we will do moving forward, is a lot going to depend on their positions, political candidates positions on the issues i've laid out today. and have very little to do with their support on some of these other issues. >> we have time for one ore. >> what is the koch's position on means testing for certain government benefits? mr. lombardo: we don't have one right now on means testing. that is not something that

we've talked about. it's clearly something that i think candidates are going to start talking, i hope the political candidates will get into that. some of the substantive policy issues, this is a fun election cycle and i think people are getting entertained, i hope it's some point it starts to migrate to important issues like that, but we don't have a position right now. thank you very much. i appreciate it. [applause]

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the foundation have safe guarded our collections and is summer the last two volumes of the government we call the bible for federal hall. tonight their scholars are with us. in partnership with the national park service we stand ready to unleash federal hall's educational power. by 2020 an array of visionary programs will unif you recall eliminating the ideals and contradictions of american democracy.

>> the national conservancy marks its 10 anniversary in 2016. we will embark on the community of visitors and new yorkers we serve. and our first 10 years we shared new york's rich role in the invention of america, a sweep of history from the indigenous people to the beginnings of the dutch colony, from the revolutionary war to america's first seat of government. we have gratified to have the support of the new york trust. shall be white and leon leedy foundation, funded the last two volumes of the documentary history of the first federal congress, a comprehensive forty-year project we call the bible of federal hall. tonight their scholars are with us. in partnership with the national park service we stand ready to unleash federal halls educational power. by 2020, we will illuminate ideas and ideals, and the contradictions of american democracy forged here between 1789 and 1790. we thank williams the pipeline

company for their annual support of the harbor conservancy. we thank them for their contribution for the great debate and for opening their store, and making available the books of the panelists after the program. we welcome c-span who will share the evening with viewers across america. the challenge posed to our moderator is to probe the election race through the prism of federal hall's rich political history. since 1992, he has hosted the new york times close-up, and interview series. he is the author of several noteworthy books -- only in new york, a collection of essays taking aim at our city and the illustrious and not so illustrious residents. grand central, and the history of new york in 101 objects. ladies and gentlemen, join me n welcoming sam roberts. [applause] sam: thank you to all of you for coming. thank you to our panel for agreeing to participate. this is less of a debate than it is a conversation. the stated challenge is to probe the presidential race through the prism of federal hall's rich history. notwithstanding the popularity of hamilton on broadway, new yorkers mostly don't care about history.

we are consumed by the president. we are infatuated with the future. ken jackson likes to say that history is for losers. he looks at places where it is celebrated, places that wallow in their past because nothing much happened there next. no offense as he points out here jamestown sank into the mud, and the first written reference to the pilgrims landing on a rock came 121 years after they landed. i have been covering new york for nearly 50 years. ken jackson says something else that may be i took for granted.

america begins in new york. and it began right here at this site. no site in new york city embodies that beginning more than federal hall. what distinguished new york from the rest of the america was its dutch roots. they did not come here to escape religious persecution. they didn't come here to proselytize. they came to make money. if you did not get in their way you were welcome. you can call it tolerance, indifference. it defined new york and america. at this site, right here, peter zinger was acquitted. they called the morningstar of liberty which subsequently

revolutionized america. hree decades later in 1765 the stamp act, 250 years ago this week, the stamp act congress convened. john kruger was the mayor of new york and drafted a declaration of rights a decade before that other declaration in philadelphia. it demanded no taxation without representation. not even most new yorkers know this. for 18 months beginning in 1789 new york was the nation's first capital. washington was inaugurated here at this site on this stone, gripping the railing that you

can see in that empty room. holding the bible you can also see there. washington stormed out of the chamber one day when senators postpone their debate on a treaty. they did not object to the treaty. they could not hear over the noise of the new york traffic. washington never returned to the senate after that. some things don't change. congress has debated slavery and immigration at this site. fleshed out the body of laws and the government from the bare bones of the constitution. congress approves 12 amendments to the constitution. the first two signal their priorities, congressional pay and representation. if that had been ratified we would have 6000 congress

members now. the remaining 10 which for ratified became the bill of rights. then we were lucky. thanks to hamilton, they all packed up and departed for a southern marsh. it was not a swamp, it was a marsh. looking ahead to life in philadelphia, abigail adams lamented it will not be broadway. tonight at the site where history happened we are pleased to be joined by journalists who bring historical context and diverse perspectives to their ork. the first woman to hold that position, she is now an op-ed columnist, author of america's women. she is in the midst of writing

a book on older women, not from personal experience. peggy noonan, for president reagan, author of seven books, her book the time of our lives will be published in november. isabel wilkerson, the first black woman to win the pulitzer prize, the author of the award-winning warmth of other suns, the epic story of america great migration. a panel of historians convened concluded that the founding fathers were improvisers, inventors, and compromisers. i would like to ask the panel, given the way the government is

working these days, if the founding fathers came back and were sitting with us tonight, would they think they had gotten it right? ladies? >> they would have had no clue. i am not sure i agree. the idea they would come back, and there would be all of these women running around. i would love to envision thomas jefferson seeing hillary clinton. it is hard to put them in a context like that. they were extraordinary people for their time but i don't get into the founding fathers were the best and we can never do it again.

>> many came here to mary as they did. >> can i tell you one thing bout the marrying. they asked woman to come over from england and cap saying things like anyone of good disposition under the age of 55 years old with make a wonderful wife. it is the last time that came up. >> you know that from your next one. >> with a think that the government we have now was working the way they nvision? >> i think that some of the founding generation, not insignificant number of them ho walked these halls were not at all certain united states of america, which they were busy nvesting, would endure the

democracy, still be a republic. 230 years later i think they might think, that worked. but after that i think they would see all my goodness, the rampant dysfunction, discord and very often incoherent of washington and they would be completely confused by it. if they look at the 2016 election they would see things that astound them. they would see a number of leading candidates who actually have or had no experience in elective office. running for president of the united states and being leaders. they would see other candidates who are something that the founders in a general sense of

poured -- abhorred, professional politicians, not citizens who went into politics after working some years in some profession, in some honest work and as good citizens deciding to leave the fields, go to washington and do actual public service by representing their state or their congressional delegation, sir for a limited time and then go home. they will be shocked by the idea that politics is a profession that can last 50 ears if you are lucky. they would be shocked by the professional consultants, shocked by super pac, by billionaires.

all that alexander hamilton would say is what is a billionaire? so obviously it is more than two centuries later. so much would be startling for them. maybe the biggest would be our continuance as a democracy and the republic. >> i would say given most of our founding fathers were also slaveholders, they would be stunned and speechless to know who was in the white house right now. i think that would be -- they would not have been able to comprehend the possibility of the people who had been brought here against their will by hundreds of thousands, our first president was a slaveholder, he actually believed in gradualism, that

people of african dissent could be mainstreamed into the society as a whole. it would have been incomprehensible that at any time in our country's history they could have imagined a person of african descent in the white house. >> let me ask you, what they have been surprised that it took so long, or would they be thinking he is now that he finally got there, being held to a different or higher standard as president because he is black? >> it would be hard. i think they could not comprehend the day when it would happen. if you understand how they would have thought, it reminds us of a fact that this is hallowed ground for our country's history but reminds us how intertwined the issue in

the economics, and urgency of and save -- enslavement was to the country in new york. we are on wall street. it was named after a wall, a wall built by enslaved africans. a lot of people don't realize hat. and on this street, the wall was built with enslaved people, by the 1700s this was a arket. a market in which the things were sold were not commodities but human beings. it is entwined and a part of the foundation of the city, part of the foundation of our country. new york was on par with the charleston, south carolina as a port of arrival of goods being sold out of the slave trade but

also those arriving to be sold and rented on this very space. >> we talk about the founding fathers as being compromisers. whatever happened to compromise? eric cantor wrote recently that he never heard of a football team that won by throwing only hail mary passes. what happened to the ability to solve problems incrementally, to take baby steps, to make small compromises to go forward, and to do it in a non-vitriolic way? wrote scorpion tongues, have things gotten worse in her ability to talk civilly to each other and deal with each

other? >> when john quincy adams was running for president they kept saying he had affairs with his made when he was ambassador to russia, his wife was an illegitimate child -- on and n. you think it is not that bad right now. if they have the internet god only knows what they would have done. it is bad enough as it was. i don't know that in terms of character there was any difference. we have a moment right now -- and congress a man was hit in the head with a cane. it is always south carolina. it has always been this crazy street. we are in a moment with a crazy

streak. what is going to have to happen is that people who are doing this will have to realize you are going to lose. then things will calm down. >> you work for a person known for being civil. what happened? >> may be in the past 25 years, certainly the past 10-15 a number of things came together. everyone and politics got maximalist. no one could put forward a modest bill and save this modest bill will do something. let's agree on it. it is small. we are in agreement on the essentials. nobody wanted to do that anymore. there was no legacy or fame and

it. you cannot have a piece by piece immigration bill that will take maybe five years to pass. you can start with small pieces. no, it has to be comprehensive and huge, earthshaking and famous. we are living in a time that more and more candidates are and will be somewhat charismatic. charismatic characters are interesting but they are not necessarily legislators. that is part of what is going on in washington now. legislative inability on the part of leaders to move things forward. another thing i have seen happen, there is so many people making so much money on the divisions that drive us crazy. left-wing people, right wing people, they are always going to their own bases and getting them mad. getting them frustrated.

you write that congressman and you tell them he better not dare back a, b, c. america has been undergoing geographically something of a big sort. people who are like-minded are more likely to be living together in places like new york and texas. people who are culturally like-minded navigate toward media that will comfort or inspire, or back up their iases. all of these things have the effect of putting daggers in the idea of compromise and going forward together a, and taking a chance on the other guy. >> the speed with which people can coalesce around an idea, a

rumor, a preconceived idea would be easier now than at any time in our country's history. we have these silos where people can find comfort, and social media and cable television with like-minded people. that can swell up and create its own energy. there are studies now among technological and sociological colleagues looking at confirmation bias, some that drives everybody crazy. it is the idea of that instead of ever being convinced of anything, when we absorb information we are looking to confirm what we already believe. it can build up because people are only listening for the things they actually believe already. you work so hard to convince someone else of our ideas when in fact what we're doing is

creating even more of a confirmation bias as people get deeper and deeper into what they know. it is something in which when we are exposed to new data, new tudies, new information on one side, now you must believe what we are saying because here is a study. the response is that we look for the aspect of it, the one thing that confirms we already knew. >> i'm so sorry. >> you are agreeing to uch. >> let's have a faux fight to make him happy. there is a little bit of a -- i don't have this fully thought ut but in american now there is a slow motion low-key french revolution going on where

everybody hates every establishment. everybody hates leaders of every profession, the political establishment, throw the bums out. they hate the media establishment such as it is. they hate all establishments about the u.s. military and heir own doctor. that is everybody who is trying in their a way to make america run no c is constantly under threat. >> if we are all interested in what each of us believe, and only want to hear what we already believe then, what do we make of columbia who says of donald trump, a first in american politics, a candidate with no believe system other than the certainty that

anything he says is right? how do we account for this phenomenon? >> donald trump is a punishment for having two-year long presidential races. truly believe it. i want to go back to something peggy says. so we can have a debate. when i was growing up, and we were the new left, doing all of that stuff, i belonged to the nuns -- students for decent styles. not wearing strapless dresses. we didn't believe anyone who was in authority could be trusted. we didn't think anyone in authority except our parents if we like them. it evolved into the politics of that era.

it is a crazy time of politics in which the democrats, the left would be unwilling to compromise, unwilling to work the way things used to work. i remember when bill clinton was running, the first time talking to one of the super left politicians in new york city and saying how can you be for bill clinton, he is a compromiser. she said i am so tired of losing. we are not going to do this anymore. and the democratic party changed at that point. right now the thing we have got is not a political problem, it is a republican problem. we hate everything, we hate everybody. we're not going to compromise. it is not the two parties being crazy. it is one party right now.

>> i am of two minds on the. -- that. there is a lot of feeling on the republican side that they have been trying to compromise for 20-40 years and at the end of the day they look back and they always got worse. spending got higher, taxation got higher, regulation got igher. the power of the government and its ability to intrude in your life always became bigger. they think where did we get this? by compromising. this is the time america is in serious problems, i understand

those in the tea party who say look, now is the time where you just have to start getting tough. at the same time, i looked at a speaker of the house who navigated his way as well i think as a human being could the past few years who has such a conservative voting record, who led the republicans in congress to a great victory in 010 and continued in 2014. and he essentially is leaving because he is tired of handling, or no longer handling his feisty, rambunctious and in some cases destructive and ignorant base. i don't know how to balance these two thoughts. i have great sympathy for how republicans, conservatives feel

in a general way, but to lose a man who was so legislatively capable of making a deal, it feels not good at all. i rue it. >> you have written the gap between those who run the government and those who are overned has now grown -- >> i forget. can you tell me what else i have said? i thought i would put him on he spot. >> i remember you were talking in the context of immigration and how it was easy for people to say let immigrants in or let them say. what about the people living next door to them or whose jobs they were take sng >> thank you. i shouldn't have spending cut

you on the spot. look, america's leaders, america's political leaders, our congressmen and senators, the people who have populated the federal government, i'm going to repeat something i said before. they used to live normal livings. they used to experience the normal harassments of normal life in america. they worked jobs. they got a paycheck. they had no specific or great status. they knew what it was to just be normal. and then they would go into government. i'm being very general. we can all see exceptions to what i'm saying. i just don't see that heanings in government now. i see an entire, two generations now, an actual governing class where people have come from the upper middle

class and go to fabulous schools, populate our government. these are people who want to go into politics for the rest of their lives and are building a career within this thing called government. they are leading lives that are detached from normal people. they haven't been in touch with the fears and anxieties of normal people for a long time. they are protected. bill clinton once said -- this is not to pick on clinton but it comes to mind. in the 1990s he told the new yorker that he had come to understand in some new way that crime in america -- this was in the early 1990s -- crime was experienced as a harassment and a daily anxiety by many americans. and i thought he's president of the united states now. why would it occur to him now? why wouldn't he have known that in the past 20 years living a

normal life? gauze in the past 20 years he had been in a limosine as a governor. do you know what i mean? he hadn't experienced normal life in 20 years by the time he got to be president. this is bad. i just don't want this to be. if i could go like this and change it i would. but we all would. sorry i answered so long. >> anyone else? >> but i was looking for my point. it takes time sometimes. >> the point is the point. >> this is the place as we said earlier where grace was first debated. as isabelle has written in her book and wrote in the "new york times" this past year, if the event of the last year in america have taught us anything, it is that as much progress has been made over the generations the challenges of color and tribe were not rocked away in another country or confined to a single region but persist as a national problem

and require the commitment of the entire nation to resolve. well, if a bill clinton or a barack obama couldn't get the nation to honestly confront race, who can? >> well, i think that it takes more than one person. this is something that goes back to 1619 with the arrival of the first people of african descent in jamestown and created a system of enslavement that had not existed anywhere in the world until that time. this is the basis, the foundation upon which the country was built. and we are still dealing with it. i often say just to remind people that enslavement lasted for far far longer than the time that african americans have been free. none of us alive today will ever see the moment at which we

reach sort of the average, the neutral moment at which they are equal because it was 246 years of enslavement and so many far few years of freedom. and that enslavement went on for 12 generations. to many great do you have add to grandparent to get to that? that is a very, very long time. so this is something that is so much bigger than any one person. when i'm overseas people that's the first question that i get often from europeans who will say, well, there is an african american president. why is this going on? and this is so much more than one person. it is an american challenge, not just one person's responsibility. >> if we have held barack obama to a higher standard, what about a woman in the white

house? you have written about women in politics, obviously. margaret sullivan, editor of the "new york times" pointed out since 2013 we have assigned a full time reporter to cover the clintons. are other candidates as she said facetiously have been spared that particular blessing. are we treating hillary clinton by a different standard, higher, lower, differently? and should she be? >> well, yes we are. and it's inevitable partly because she might be the first woman but she's hillary clinton. nobody else in the history of america has had a story like that. she has had a whole life in the white house. she left the white house. she became a senator. she's been secretary of state. she's been -- oh, my god in heaven. it's natural that you look at her in danchte way.

that doesn't mean you judge her politics any differently. and i still think that we will once we start having debates and things kind of quiet down a little bit from right now which -- i love this. i've got to tell you this has been so interesting over the last few months. but she will be judged as a candidate like everybody else. people will be trying to decide -- they're not going to elect her. women never vote for women because they're women. women vote for women because they agree with their positions. it's an absolute law. so she will be judged in different ways. but i think it is ok. >> will people not vote for her because she's a woman? >> there's more women who vote than men. i don't think -- donald trump is ahead in the polls. obviously there are people out there not making very reasonable decisions right now. but that's partly i think because they're bored and it's

fun right now hand they sort of want some seernt tainment. it's like barack obama. at the end people chose him not because he was black although that was -- but because they thought he would be better. they thought the stuff he would be doing would be better than the stuff that had been going on in washington. this is an unanswered political question of our time. and it's something i ponder. so i will throw it out to you, see if you have an opinion. one day in 1988 i was working for george h.w. bush when he was running for president. his pollster was a guy named bob, a really talented professional sober person. he was telling me, we were in his office. we had been there to talk about something and the conversation alighted into recent polling that he had done.

he told me a bunch of interesting off-kilter stuff that for some reason i will never forget. such as, when i asked him, i said what countries do americans really like and not like? i was just curious. and he was quizzical. and he said the americans still don't like the japanese but they like the germans. go figure that out. this is 1988. it's 30 years after the war. but that's a digegregs. he was going -- he told me about his polling on bush and mike duke cack kiss and he said, and women are going more democratic and american are going more republican. now, i had heard that for a few years. i didn't pay a lot of attention to polling but that was something sort of a cliche by then. and i said, why is that? why do women vote more democratic and men more republican? and he said we don't know. and then he said -- he thought it had something to do with the