compared with other major accounts under the subcommittee's jurisdiction, your request is one of the most ambitious, as measured on a percentage basis. like most big organizations, the smithsonian faces enormous challenges which we will discuss at length today. we recently learned of the need for enormously costly repairs to the national air museum. if approved, this effort will place extraordinarily dass extraordinary burdens on the budget for the foreseeable future. the subcommittee congratulates the smithsonian on the news of the opening of the national museum of african american history and culture on september 24 of this year. the committee has met its funding commitment, one half the total cost for construction of the museum. we are pleased that this extraordinary public-private partnership, enabling the museum to be built has proved successful.

the construction is now nearly complete. construction of the african american museum and the proposed repairs to the national air and space museum are illustrative of the very real challenges the subcommittee faces. both increasing demand for and shrinking supply of federal dollars to address many legitimate priorities. for this reason, it is essential that the smithsonian outlined and clearly communicate its highest and greatest priorities. every member of the subcommittee would like to support the 10% increase for funding for the smithsonian. but, given the incredible demands, it is probably not realistic. difficult funding decisions will have to be made. the subcommittee will do its very best to adjust the smithsonian's most urgent priorities. i look forward to your testimony and continuing to work together. in closing, i want to commend you for the smithsonian's efforts to improve the display and storage of your vast collections. based on the input this committee received from members

on both sides of the aisle, it is very clear, that the preservation and care of these lifeless and irreplaceable collections remain a high priority of this committee and this congress. i am happy to yield my good friend, mrs. mccallum for any opening remarks you would like to make. >> i would also like to welcome you here. this will be your first budget hearing before the subcommittee. you were appointed the secretary of the smithsonian this october. i am pleased that an opportunity to learn more about this institution and how you plan on working through some of the challenges as the chairman pointed out. the smithsonian was created for an infusion of knowledge. it has the ability to capture the imagination, a both children and adults. it has something for everyone. in particular, the unique

imagination. it is truly a delight for families, the interactive craft, native book stories exploratory , learning that is there. i have to tell you, it is a destination for some children i know well whenever they come to town. i also want to applaud you for the triumphant opening, which is providing joy for a record number of visitors. young people and adults alike. i got to be there for the opening exhibit, it was fabulous. the smithsonian institution, the budget request is $922 million, an increase of $82 million over the 2016 enacted level. these increases will help support the smithsonian's research program, their diverse collections, and make essential investments for both the facility and the workforce. in regards to your collection, i would note that the

administration has not proposed funding for the american treasures program. the park service program began in 1999. it was instrumental in joining with others to preserve national historic collections. some of which are housed in your museum at the smithsonian. for example, the star-spangled banner flag was a recipient of "save america's treasures." i hope it is given an opportunity, if smithsonian will support efforts to restore the program which has a direct connection between reserving your collections. like other agencies within the jurisdiction, smithsonian is facing challenges with the maintenance backlog. many are operating with equipment more than 50 years old. currently, the smithsonian's index running from the national research county is considered

poor. in order to achieve acceptable facilities condition index score and ensure health and safety for guests and employees, the budget requests $163 million. this amount will continue major renovations at the national zoo and other priority areas, including the national museum of american history, and natural history. it also provides $50 million increase to the national air and science museum, beloved by millions and one of the most visited museums in the world. unfortunately, it is facing significant challenges with a deteriorating facade which allows moisture into the building. this funding is the first of several significant increases the smithsonian will be requesting to address issues that the air and other museums.

all of these are large investments there in the , long-term interests of the nations. it is also the federal government's responsibility to provide necessary funding to ensure the 28 million visitors to the smithsonian have a safe and enriching experience. i am pleased that the national american -- history of african-american history will be opening this fall great it is a chance to learn about the rich cultural achievements of americans of african descent. it will also be the first digital museum on the national mall. that means anyone can share the experience. people in minnesota are so excited that they will be able to be there as part of the opening. virtual collections provide amazing educational opportunities for millions of children. and, you are bringing the museum right into customs. -- right into classrooms.

you provide scientific and artistic light to this nation. i yield back to mr. chair and thank you for your time. mr. calvert: and with that i yield to you dr. sport in. dr. skorton: thank you for this opportunity to testify. on behalf of the entire smithsonian institution, we appreciate the continuous, generous support of congress. this support makes for a huge and very collections of national treasures accessible to the american public. from display of the star-spangled banner, to research on the evolution of the tyrannosaurus rex, we take our obligation to the american public very seriously. this unique public-private partnership is working well.

today, i would like to share a few of our recent achievements, and touch on the two major objectives. strengthening our intellectual foundation, and strengthening our physical infrastructure. your support advances the civic, educational, scientific, and artistic life of our nation. just a few recent highlights. our new museum of african american history opens on the mall this november. consider the zika virus. the department of defense is working with us to map the zika outbreak. the national zoo is looking at

how it might spread through non-human factors. the smithsonian institute in panama is studying the zika-carrying mosquitoes' genetic makeup. always, but especially in an election year, the museum of natural history and portrait gallery offer insights into our nation's leaders. our diverse music collections would comprise the largest in the world if they were all in one place. now, they are, at a new website called "smithsonian music." a gallery reopened in november, the brentwood gallery, following a two-year renovation. it's debut exhibition, "wonder," is attracted more than 368,000 visitors in just the first four months. welcomed the new hammock of veu -- the new panda cub bei bei into the zoo.

represents our extensive work in a species biodiversity. in addition to the nearly 30 million visits to our museums in washington and new york are the, we are extending access and education across the country. we now have 208 affiliate museums. including puerto rico and panama. our traveling exhibition service reaches 4.5 million people annually. we offer online educational materials in the k-12 to students of all ages, and teachers with more than 2000 learning resources available online. all of them for free. our science education center has been helping to transform formal science education on the k-12 level for more than 30 years. this curriculum is used in every state in the country, and in 25 other countries around the world. we have more than one at a 38

million objects in our collection. to expand access, we have traded millions of electronic images and records, and become leaders in the field of three-dimensional scanning. i was recently at the national air and based museum as our experts carefully climbed into the apollo 11 command module to create a three-dimensional scan of its interior. revealing for the first time, notes, and a calendar written inside by american astronauts. what a discovery. all of this information we will offer online this summer for everyone to explore for free. such treasures explain why the air and space museum is among the top three most visited museums in the world. and we're gearing up to transform it so it will be there for generations to come. this is a perfect example of one of our major objectives -- strengthening our physical infrastructure. our request also includes funds for construction of the

space -- the earth space museum's collections module at the center in virginia. funds for revitalization's projects, and for planning and design of future projects. these funds will enable the institution to continue major revitalization work at the national history museum, the zoo, and the national museum of american history. our other priority is strengthening our intellectual foundation and programs. our ranks of curators have shrunk substantially, especially in some of our museums. we need to reverse this long-term trend in the loss of curatorial and research staff. we need new experts who can continue to acquire and exhibit our unique collections while also ensuring the availability of the collections for critical research. the smithsonian does face a future that holds exciting opportunities and imposing challenges. working with the congress and the administration, we will

aggressively address these challenges and take full advantage of many new opportunities. again, i thank for the opportunity of testifying. thank you mr. chairman. mr. calvert: as you mention in your opening statement, the national air and space museum which is the most visited museum in the united states, and the second most visited in the world, behind only the louvre in paris, is in need of major repair work. the projection i have seen, projects the cost to be extraordinary, nearly $600 million. this exceeds the total cost of a new museum of african american history and culture. can you explain in some detail, the nature of the repairs needed, and why the estimated cost to address them is so high? dr. skorton: thank you, mr. chairman. the museum is 40 years old.

we have projected for a long time the need to update mechanical systems in the building. that accounts for something on the order of magnitude of $200 million in projected costs. much of the rest of the cost is due to an unanticipated problem found in the clay of the exterior of the building. it will require replacement by new materials for the safety of the public going into the building and for the building's own integrity. it will also be necessary, from my perspective, to keep as much of the museum open during the revitalization as possible, given the enormous appetite the american public has to visit the museums and gain from the collections. some of the funding will go to the necessity to move items to off-site storage, while a particular part of the museum is being worked on, and then moved back. when you add all these things up, it does come to an

extraordinary number. our plan is to continue funding for this project for another year. and to do the construction over a pe -- over a 5 year period until fiscal year 2022. mr. calvert: what were the replacement costs to just tear the existing museum down and rebuild it? dr. skorton: this was the very first question i asked when i was brought on board. they told me about the very challenging price tag on repairing this building. although it is counterintuitive, at first you would think it would be much more parsimonious to replace the building, but it turned out to be much more expensive, on the magnitude of $2 billion. please bear with me why i explain why that would be. we would have to have a place to move the entire collection. since it is such an enormous

building, with such an enormous collection, all the objects in there, including very large objects we have to rent or build , a massive storage facility. we would have to shut the museum down for years. in addition to the generous, steadfast support congress has given us, we have been able to raise some funds through retail operations, imax theater, shops, and so on. of course, we would lose that revenue. when you add it all up, although i say it is counterintuitive, given the very expensive project to replace it while keeping say, half of the museum open throughout the project is , actually much less expensive than it would be to replace the entire building. but i thank you for the question. mr. calvert: and of the $600 million, how much do you anticipate would be funded through federal appropriations, and how would it be a just through non-federally funded

sources? dr. skorton: i would have to ask that the entire amount is funded through federal means, and may i please expand on that? i had a great opportunity in my career to participate in fundraising for a variety of distinguished, nonprofit institutions. the smithsonian uses the leverage that you supply, by providing steadfast support. in my experience, it is difficult to build philanthropic funds for repair, as opposed to something new. i must hasten to add that in planning for the future of the national air and space museum, we have plans for approximately $250 million of changes to the way we show exhibits to the public. increased use of interactive and electronic technology, a whole different approach. funds,ent to raise those

the additional $250 million through philanthropy, and we are on our way to do that. but the actual reconstruction of the building itself, i am asking be completely done through federal funds. mr. calvert: before i asked betty to take over and ask questions, why don't you explain some of the items you brought here to show us? dr. skorton: thank you, mr. chairman. although i gave you an amateur's rundown before, i will give you some professionals to give you a more in-depth and it's a synced discussion. succinctth and discussion. i want to thank you for letting us share the collection today. dr. rubinstein from the national history museum brought the inkwell used by abraham lincoln to sign the emancipation proclamation. from the portrait gallery, we

have the cracked plate portrait of a family can taken by the president's favorite photographer. dr. kelly from the astrological observatory has brought prototypes from a protected heatshield, part of nasa's solar probe spacecraft. dr. eleanor harvey from the art museum has brought thomas moran's beautiful watercolor of the excelsior geiser at yellowstone national park. >> america's first national park. dr. skorton: i have been warned to stay out of this. [laughter] that is above my pay grade. >> whatever you say, i agree with completely. >> my name is harry rubenstein, i am the chair of political history at the museum of american history. this is a inkstand that sat on

the desk of major thomas accor at the war department telegraph office. as you know, abraham lincoln would go to the telegraph office once or twice a day to keep tabs on what was happening during the civil war. in the summer of 1862, rather than swapping stories and jokes, he sat quietly at major eckhert's desk, at what became the emancipation proclamation. he kept this and eventually saved it and presented it to the government. inkwell will be in the opening of the african american museum, and will then move back to american history for our exhibition on american democracy. thank you. >> you can see that these are part of the stand, but these are

little ink wells, with little figures of gryphons. this is one of our genuine treasures. it is a portrait of abraham lincoln taken by gardner at his studio here in washington, d.c., which was located at the corners of seventh and d streets. it was taken february 5, 1865, just a month before lincoln's second inaugural. at the time the picture was taken, there was the expectation there would be many opportunities to photograph the president during his upcoming second term. the large glass plate negatives

that was used to produce this print cracked, probably when a varnish was applied to it after developed. just one print was made from this large glass negative before the negative was discarded. it was irreparably damaged. what makes this image so evocative, is the expression we have on lincoln's face. this is a man that's also much trial and tragedy, but there is hope that you see in that faint smile. that to the war that has 20 nation is under is drawing to a close. and there is hope for the future. the portrait came into our collection in 1981. it is one of the true treasures of our holding. >> hi, i am dr. kelly clark and i have brought with me a

prototype the solar probe. this will fly in 2018 on nasa's probe mission to actually touch the sun. here in the picture you will see we are going to collect parts of the sun. it is not just a scientific enterprise, it is also somewhat practical. ending the sun will help us her, which space weat can save our national power grid. these instruments will all fly in 2018. >> good morning. my name is eleanor harbin, i am the curator at the american art museum. as a former geologist and art historian, i bring to you thomas moran's painting of an excelsior geiser, painted in 1873 after congress set aside yellowstone

is the first national park area . the park behind you, yosemite, was set aside by abraham lincoln as a protected preserve in the middle of the civil war. it was the postwar sanctuary recognizing the power of nature as something we hold dear, as part of america's cultural infrastructure. this watercolor was reproduced along with a fleet of others to help promote visitor ship to yellowstone. i also see the proposals based on a northern pacific railroad campaign europe, called "see europe, but see america first." they created both of the railroads and infrastructures so you can go watch old faithful and excelsior geiser erect in full display. it was a patriotic moment in america when we recognize we have such unique features in this country that instill a kind

of civic pride and make people want to explore the vastness of the country that we have here. >> i want to be quick to indicate that the coverage on that, the first one was a historical coal, not a political comment. [laughter] [laughter] >> since we have the portrait of abraham lincoln here, who wisely designated yosemite to be the the first acquired national park, that was very wise of him. >> yes, it was. [laughter] >> mr. chairman, i must say, the smithsonian family values every single aspect of the american park service itself, celebrating its 100th anniversary. >> we were just playing a joke. ms. mccollum: we have some great ones in minnesota.

i wanted to take an opportunity. we met in the office and i have been doing more and more homework. i want to understand how to better -- where you see yourself going in the future, because now that we have all these surprises for the air science museum renovation. last january, they gave us permission to explore creating exhibit space in london. it is my understanding that such a venture would be done completely using private funds. but you have been talking about leveraging a lot of private funds here today for current collections and current buildings. i am concerned that congress has not been a full part of the discussion. i bring this up because at a minimum, the smithsonian is an establishment of the united states and their funds are held in the united states treasury. in the event of a lawsuit they , are represented by the

department of justice. so we are intertwined here. in 2006, the smithsonian entered into a business venture with showtime network that drew the ire of congress because of a lack of consultation. the former secretary revealed that in hindsight, the smithsonian should have consulted with the congress. can you tell us when we will know more about smithsonian's finance regarding london? maybe it is on hold -- how do you plan on consulting with congress? and as you look around and address the problems to domestic facilities like the national zoo, can you really rely on having enough private contributions to assist you with the deferred maintenance operations? if not, we have to come back and ask the federal government to address some of these problems. can you give us an update on

where you are in london and elsewhere, and if time permits, i have a question about the arts and industry building as well. dr. skorton: i would like to try to answer what i heard were three questions. first of all, in the extremely important matter of consultation with congress, not only do we of our funding because of your generosity and foresight but we are an , organization in the public trust. i cannot agree with you more. it is hard for me to look backward on what might or might not have happened in earlier consultation, but i pledge to you and the entire subcommittee, that we'll make consultation and transparency a hallmark of our administration. it is very important for all the reasons that you stated, including, but not limited to issues you brought up. secondly, i heard you raise a

very important issue of leveraging federal funds in other ways. i will be very quick about this. we do that in two ways. roughly business or retail operations, like the shops in the museums, the imax theaters, the magazine, other things you can purchase or derive a benefit. secondly, philanthropy, outright gifts. the smithsonian has been very effective in both retail and philanthropic sides. but as you mentioned and as the chairman mentioned, the needs are very challenging. it is going to take everything we do to keep pace with the very strong support you have given us, and with those who purchase things from us, and those who give philanthropic donations. i take it very seriously. i believe as a personal

observation, i am still new at the smithsonian and washington, i believe part of the reason my predecessors were so successful in raising philanthropic funds is because of the stalwart congressional support. it is my experience, that when there is solid public funding, other people will also join in. so i thank you very much for that because you made philanthropy possible. now to the main focus of your question about london, it ties together a lot of these issues you raise. i think the opportunity for the united states to tell a story overseas in a time of, today is one of those terrible days where we are thinking so much about the international situation, to be able to tell the story of america overseas would be a good thing for the smithsonian and a good thing for the country. however, given the pressure on

federal funds, and the pressure on us, that you have indicated, we have to make sure, and iparty -- and i have already pledged earlier and will pledge again today, we will not use the federal funds for this and not do the project unless the finances can stand completely on their own. including not interrupting other flows of funds that we have to do. i believe that is what you are asking me. i can't tell you today whether the project will come to fruition. i hope to have an answer for you through our board of regents on the second week in april at our next full board meeting. but i think it is an exciting prospect. we have to have it stand completely on its own bottom. i am not there yet. ms. mccollum: real quick, the smithsonian art and industry building is an icon on the national mall, right next to the capital. an important role in the history

of the smithsonian. at one time it was included by the national trust, one of the most endangered historic sites in the united states. the building was closed in 2004 for renovation, and it was last spring, almost 10 years later that they mentioned they would use it for short-term exhibits. could you update the committee on how you see the arts and industry buildings on your south campus? the current condition of the building, and when will you finally be able to host events? is the challenge still adequate plumbing and hvac systems there? and i hope you also talk to congress about renovating the gardens there, too. we are already starting to hear about that, right adjacent to the building. dr. skorton: i will talk specifically about the arts industries building, and if you

have more specific questions about the garden areas surrounding i will answer those as well. i have one of these dream jobs. one of the parts is that i have a dream office that looks right of the capital. in my line of sight is the arts and industries building, also the carousel room. as a look at those three objects i often focus on the art industries building and asked myself the first time i came for interviews nearly two years ago, what are we going to do with this beautiful victorian building? the second oldest in the smithsonian universe. as you said only recently has , the building been reopened. the systems you mentioned are up and running now. i asked for the installation to be there last october. thank you for recognizing that. it was a beautiful chance to use the building. and so it is ready for those occasional uses right now. we are opening it for those kinds of uses this year.

we are beginning to plan and are now at the point where i have something concrete and intelligent to share with you about more strategic uses of the building going forward. it is another one of those areas where we need to stay in touch with this and the other subcommittees to oversee the funds for the smithsonian. but this will be the year where you will see more use made of that building. ms. mccollum: thank you, i will follow-up with your staff on the questions of the garden. >> wonderful exhibits. >> thank you for all you do for us. >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you to everybody who brought such interesting exhibits for us to see. that was really a pleasure.

we are very appreciative of the work that you do. i echo all the things that they said earlier. i want to talk a little about the things you say you do to the smithsonian, outside of d.c. and we havemaine, been fortunate to work with you on a variety of things. recently, the portland museum of art had a retrospective on realism, which we were able to do with the cooperation of the smithsonian. that is really important for small states like maine, that do not have the resources, and can access your resources. i wanted to talk to you about the marine geo program that is growing within the smithsonian. it is an important part of what you do in research. a lot of coastal communities interested in things like climate change, but we do not have a marine geode site in maine. i want to talk about the additional funds requested for

marine geode staff. will you be able to expand the number of partner sites? have you thought about how you could work with more narrowly focused organizations interested in becoming research sites, either by providing additional resources to expand research, or encouraging a consortium model that would allow them to contribute to one of our particular interests? dr. skorton: thank you very much. i hear two important questions embedded in what you asked me. let me take a moment to talk about our activities outside of d.c. it is really important. it is a lucky subset of the united states that can get to them all. it is expensive to get here. one of the reasons my predecessors began a vigorous thrust on digitization. those who have access to the internet, most but not all, can review major parts of the collection. also, being in the public

sector, where the taxpayers are paying for it in every corner of the country, it is extremely important that we are responsive to their appetite to taste the smithsonian. beside the traveling exhibition service, embedded in your comments about the portland museum, we have other projects on the research and -- the research end that touch the nation and the world. our mission, which was part of the letter to establish the endowment 107 years ago, our mission is to increase and diffusion of knowledge. we talk a lot about the diffusion of knowledge, the interface between the public in these unbelievable collections. but the research part is unbelievably important, whether we are talking about zika, climate change, you name it. in that geode consortio were set

up for the research thinking of the smithsonian touching communities everywhere and help gain knowledge that would raise all the ships. for those who are not familiar with it, the marine geode is a study that examines coastal waterways. coastal waterways are very important because that is where there is a tremendous concentration of life forms. in our country, a tremendous concentration of population. the interaction between the human population in the wildlife that lives at the edge of the coastal areas is very important to study. we do not have enough funding so far to expand to the extent that i would like to expand. we do have a request as part of this to continue staffing and planning for marine geode.

it was made possible through accommodation of yours or to and generous contributions of an individual from our smithsonian national board. it is my hope to leverage the funds through true philanthropy so we can begin to think more broadly about bringing more partners on. we have very good intentions in that regard. i need to be cautious in what i promise, because we do need to raise more funds. but i think, spending my whole life in science, but it is very important that that scientific research touches parts of the country, but scientists and people who want to participate, be able to access areas far spread. i am with you in intention, and will work my best to make it a reality. >> thank you very much. >> thank you mr. chairman, and thank you for being here today.

we have votes registered going on. so come to my office and talk to me. i would like to talk to you about some of the things -- panama, what is going on in panama, and what the smithsonian does there is very important. i want to talk about the cladding -- the same thing that happened with the national art gallery, it needs to be replaced, the exterior of it? dr. skorton: in a sense yes, and since no. isn't that a helpful answer? >> i get that answer all the time. [laughter] dr. skorton: it turns out, that when the exterior was cut, it was cut to a thickness about twice as thick as the thickness of the clatting of the air and space museum. our thinner cladding was done to save funds and speed along

construction at a time they were trying to get the building done for the bicentennial. in the case of the gallery of art, it was possible to reuse that thicker cladding. is not possible to reuse this one. it will be discarded and used from scratch. in my response, that is why it is such an expensive project. >> is it the same issue relative to what caused the necessity for placing it? dr. skorton: in part, it is. >> the other thing i would like to talk you about is, are you getting pressure on the arts and industries building down there to use it as the hispanic museum? or is that a question you don't want to answer? dr. skorton: i want to answer any question you have, i want to give you the right answer. first of all, part of our charge, part of what you expect us to do, is tell the story of

america in all its completeness and beauty. the story of the american latino is a very important part of telling the story. as you know, a new museum for the smithsonian is always established by an act of congress. that act has not occurred. however, my predecessors have already begun some years ago, to begin to gear up our efforts to tell the story of latinos in america. the two secretaries that preceded me. we have a project that you have been very generous in funding for a latino fund that allows us to fund some projects that have been very effective. we also have been hiring, even though we don't have a specific museum, we have been hiring curators with expertise in telling the story of latinos in america. they are working in various places throughout the smithsonian latino center. we have multiple exhibits, five or six in the last year, touching on some of those areas.

so, it will be in your hands to decide, should we have a national museum of the american latino -- continuing to tell the story of the american latino. >> i got a tell you, it is not fair that you bring in all this neat stuff that distracts us so we don't listen to your testimony. the epa could bring in a sample, but that's not very exciting. you have an advantage that others don't. [laughter] dr. skorton: it is true, the world is not fair. but i am so glad to be on my side of it. thank you very much. >> thank you for your work in bringing these treasures. i want to talk about your comments on the value of that -- of outreach and education. i think we are in environment in this country where we are witnessing an historic

write-down in people -- historic breakdown in people's faith across our social spectrum in institutions. part of that i believe, is a lack of civic engagement. part of that, is because we just don't teach civics anymore in our classrooms and in our schools. there is this they missed -- is this famous quiz circulating that when you ask a certain age cohort who won the civil war, the majority will say the british. that is a function of just not having access to history or the traditional civics lessons that we all were taught when we were growing up. so i would like you to amplify in your comments the importance of education, not just in washington. and whether the smithsonian has a mission, or would consider having a mission, with respect to greater civic engagement and civic education across the country.

dr. skorton: thank you very much. first of all, before when i quoted the mission statement of the increase and diffusion of knowledge, it is incredibly important that it involves not just people crossing thresholds of our beautiful museums here in new york city and elsewhere, we need to go out and help people where they live. as i mentioned very briefly in the opening remarks, the education work of the smithsonian, for example, in stem disciplines, is very well established throughout the country as people wish to use it. as you know, our k-12 system is a local phenomenon, largely. we are there for people who want to use it. that use occurs in every state of the united states. however, i think we could be doing even more in terms of outreach. i think that outreach could and

should occur in two directions. it is one thing for us to offer educational services and arts and culture and history and science, or to partner with people who want to do scientific research. it is something else to get their input. one of the hallmarks i hope to bring to the smithsonian, which is already been a part, but i hope to strengthen it, is to listen more to the public about what they want. the first thing i will do is start small and close to home. i think we owe some focus on the city of washington, since the city of washington is where our home base is. with the help of mayor bowser, i am establishing a youth advisory council to meet from high school students in washington, d.c. i am hoping those high school students will be able to tell me what they're interested in, what

they believe they need. and i want to go directly to the place where we would like to education to occur. the first meeting of this group i hope will be the very next month. and i hope to ask them the very question you're asking me indirectly, and that is, what you think we need that we could do for you? in terms of a direct answer to your question about the lack of focus on civics, i am sure you know because it is an area of interest of yours, and everyone on the subcommittee, there is a lot of consternation about where american youth are in terms of their knowledge of american history and civics. there are other organizations, nonprofit, that have been brought up to deal specifically with the civics problem. what we can do is treat things -- is three things at the smithsonian. we can offer exposure to the history of the united states and its culture through the collections themselves. secondly, these museums already offer enormous numbers and are

very effective types of public programs, public outreach programs. some of those are done through smithsonian associates, some are done individually in different ways. again, all we can do is offer and hope they will come. additionally, i want to find out what the public would like from us. in asking those questions, ask, what can we do to be helpful in broadening your perspectives? one quick end to this very long-winded answer -- when i have a few minutes and my daily schedule, i walked from my office and go to the museums and talk to the visitors. i talked to the families and tourists who come in. one of the things they ask most consistently, not a scientific sample, but just in my nine months of asking them, parents will ask, what can you do to help my kids understand a bewilderingly changing world? if they don't specifically ask about civics, they want to bring our kids along. so i appreciate your question.

>> if you would find some time to visit with me in my office, i would love to follow up and understand what kind of outreach you have to teachers and schools across america, and how it can be helpful. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, and we would love to spend the day with you doctor, but unfortunately we have to go vote. saved by the bell. [laughter] i would like to get into more depth somewhere down the road. i will visit the air and space museum with you, that is a huge number, as you know. we will find out how we are going to do this. i know it has to be done. you are the most visited museum, and it's certainly a national treasure. with that, we are adjourned. dr. skorton: thank you very much. [indiscriminate chatter]

[chatter] >> earlier this week, candidates donald trump and ted cruz exchanged tweets about each other's wives.on washington journal , we asked you whether or not certain things or people should

be off-limits during a presidential race. >> it was the anti-trump super pac that started this story. posting a picture of a nude melodia trump from 16 years ago, leading up to the utah republican caucus. that is the picture you see. that prompted a response from donald trump, basically saying "lying ted cruz just used a gqture of melania from a shoot. be careful lighting ted or i will spill the beans on your wife." later, heidi cruz came into the picture when donald trump retweeted this picture, showing a side-by-side comparison of heidi cruz with a grimace on her face next to a picture of melania trump, saying that the images are worth 1000 words. that printed a tweet from ted cruz, saying "donald, don't attack women, your wife is lovely and heidi is the true

love of my life." that's just part of the story that took place, among many other things in campaign 2016. we ask you if there is anything off-limits when it comes to a campaign, whether it be a wife, family, or other things. ted cruz is the first tweet of the morning when it came through was from bill. nothing is or should be off-limits in a political campaign. is a contact sport. "when if you can, lose if you must but always cheat." you to share his opinion or not on twitter and give us your thoughts on the phones as well. pages of the financial times this morning take a look at these events. the headline from the story this morning. u.s. race turns nasty as wives are dragged in. it is become a part and parcel view of this election.

spouses and children are off-limits. mr. trump did not the controversy, he has come under fire for making derogatory remarks about women. there was a long, vicious history of dirty politics in american history. we are adding a new bold chapter in 2016. say i don't think we go lower than "hand size." what is f-limits when it comes to political campaigns? give us your thoughts on the phones. first, houston, texas. brenda, good morning. is there anything off limits? caller: yes. i do think that candidates' families should be off-limits. thank you for attending -- taking my call. i think the family should be off-limits. glad that was exposed. i wonder how would it be

received if michelle obama have been posing nude. thank you for taking my call. host: because you said you are about the families -- we will continue on. fairview, tennessee. nick? caller: let me preface this by saying political correctness is destroying our country. off-limits? n-word.t use the to be fair i hear people calling your show before the morning is over with the word racist will be used. needs to be off-limits unless it's absolute truth. that they are making and i position that is absolutely true. we need to get the word racist out of the dialogue. it's very offensive to people all over the world.

being accused of a racist is the worth now -- worst now and there's no basis for it. host: what do you think about wives, children? are they part of this as well? caller: children absolutely no. we denigrate children all the time now with various other measures. you should have a show about sex education and how children are denigrated by the left. wives, i have next feelings about that. if the wife put yourself in the public domain, she is good fodder. was supposedly off-limits when clinton was doing his nonsense with other women. in the publicf domain and she needs to eat it like anything else.

adults are a different story. children are the angels of the world. host: children came in early on when it came to ted cruz's daughters. he would use them in adds. cartoonist to figure them as monkeys with ted cruz being the organ grinder. you may think that is fair game or not. you may think it's not off-limits to go that way. give us your thoughts on the phone lines and on our social media pages. leslie from massachusetts, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't think the family should be any part of the political scene whatsoever. the only thing i'm going to say is i am a donald trump supporter and i sincerely hope this is not a tactic by ted cruz. about heard comments has other things. i sincerely hope -- i'm a fourth

generation marine corps veteran. i think our world war ii vets would turn over seeing what's going on on the political scene today. host: you talked about families. is anything off-limits? now i don't think either one of them are acting presidential. we want our president to act presidential. i think this banter back and forth between each other is totally unnecessary. i think they should be speaking about what the american people are concerned >> coming up, we will talk about the latest developments in the syrian refugee migrations to the u.s. and europe. then, health-care reporter for

the latestll discuss information on the rollouts of the affordable care act, plus the ongoing challenges to the law. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal beginning live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. ♪ starting monday on c-span, the supreme court cases that shaped our history come to life with the c-span series, "let marquesas." the 12 part series explores real-life stories and constitutional dramas behind some of the most significant decisions in american history. john marshall in marbury versus madison said that this is different, the constitution is a blood will document and it sets up the political structures, but it is also a law. if it is a lot we have the courts to tell us what it means and that is find a by the other branches. >> what cedric scott apart is --t fact that is the only in the first anti-presidential case. >> who should make the decisions

about those debates. the supreme court said it should make the decisions about this debates. >> landmark cases begins this monday night at 10:00 eastern on c-span and c-span.org. next, editorial cartoonists on their influence on the presidential election. then, they discussion about europe's efforts to combat terrorism and deal with refugees. after that, a look at what a contested convention is. and how republican party rules may affect the cleveland convention this summer. >> political cartoonist and humanities scholars discuss the power of editorial cartooning and its influence on the presidential election. they also talked about censorship and freedom of speech. from the new hampshire institute of politics, this is just over an hour and a half.

>> good evening. the executive director of new hampshire humanities and i'm so pleased to have you all here for what promises to be a lively conversation about a complex subject. that is actually a perfect description of what we do here i new hampshire humanities, we foster spirited and civil conversations on complex issues. [laughter] informed by the knowledge of experts and the wisdom provided by all of you. somee you all experience a-ha moments tonight, the wonderful occasions where you see some thing from a different perspective or gain a new insight. i encourage you not only to contribute our thoughts to this conversation, there will be when he of opportunity for that, but to listen carefully and respectfully to others, even if, especially if, you disagree with them.

tonight's discussion is the second of three events for our panelists. two of them appeared on the exchange this morning on new hampshire public radio and you'll probably catch the rebroadcast of that show on your drive home tonight. tomorrow, we have 1100 high school students and their teachers will gather at unh to consider the same issues that we will wrestle with this evening. 1100. [laughter] you think this is a very marvelous way to develop the skills of citizenship that are young adults. tonight's program would not be possible without the generosity of the new hampshire institute of politics and political library at the college. we are so grateful for your work to host us here. you'll notice on the back of your programs that this event is part of a nationwide celebration of the centennial of the pulitzer prizes. we are one of 46 humanities councils around the country mounting programs this year and their other organizations besides eumenides councils, better highlighting the

astonishing contributions to journalism, historical analysis, and artistic creation, recognized by the pulitzer foundation of the past 100 years. you'll find a link to the full list of pulitzer programs taking place this year at our website. and now it is my pleasure to turn the program over to our moderator, it is wonderful to have you back in state after you abandoned as two years ago. for greener pastures. [laughter] [applause] >> i'm not sure that sounds like a complement exactly. this is a bigger crowd than i imagined. i'm so happy to be appear. i am playing hooky from work today and tomorrow to be part of this. i was at the concord monitor are many years, almost when he five years, including a stretch as editor of the paper, -- [laughter] >> one of my favorite parts of

being editor was working with our political cartoonist at the monetary. paper, wery small were very lucky, they still are very happy -- lucky death a very talented cartoonist, many papers in this country have either decided that or political cartooning is not something that they wanted to support anymore. we can talk about why that is a wrongheaded decision tonight. wouldtor: i thought i very briefly tell you is on a panel and give a little bit of introduction to each of them. let each of them tell you in their own words about their work, briefly, and we will open it up to questions. i will start with a question or two and it will take some from the audience. our broad theme is freedom of speech and whether there are limits and whether there should be limits. but really, the night is yours, so anything you would like to ask about their work or cartooning, donald trump has gone but we can talk about him, too. so, we'll start right here. 's my left is joel pett

cartoons have appeared in hundreds of papers and magazines across the country. including the washington post, new york times, l.a. times, boston globe. he cartoons for the lexington herald leader, contributes weekly to usa today, and writes a regular feature in cartoons for the l.a. times. he was a finalist for the blood for editorial cartooning in 1989 and 1998. before winning in 2000. [applause] is aator: next to him professor of international cooperation at brandeis. is "the recent book cartoon that shook the world." she is the founder of the western -- project, a data collection and archives focused on islamic extremist groups in the west and she leads the team at brandeis funded by the national institute of justi at

the u.s. department of justice. that is studying islamic terrorist networks. [applause] moderator: on the other side is signe wilkinson who is best-known for her work at the philadelphia daily news. she is the first e-mail cartoonist to win a pulitzer prize for editorial cartooning. that was in 1992. she served as president of the association of american editorial cartoonists. from 1994-1995. in 2005, she published a collection of her work titled " one nation under surveillance." [laughter] [applause] on the very end, is the publisher emeritus of the nation magazine, and was the magazine editor from 1970-1995. and a publisher and editorial director from 1995-2005. before that, he was editor of in your times magazine and wrote a

monthly column about the publishing business. he is the author of "kennedy justice." and several others. this is a terrific panel. [applause] i think will start by letting each of them speak briefly about their own works and show some slides and perhaps even draw a bit and then we will turn it over to questions. let's start with you. joel: thank you so much, i've actually been fired from usa today and the l.a. times sense that bio. [laughter] [applause] i went to the reception before hand and i really wanted coffee and they did not have coffee, but i've been reading about new hampshire sunday thing somebody here has harrowing. -- harrowing. [laughter]

we only have five minutes each so i will blow through these pretty quickly. the already saw this one. i drew that in september, you can see the dates. and the front. an asrelevant or ill of it was then. moderator: can you all see it? joel: there's a separate screen there. pushing buttons. start pushing them all. there we go. sure. >> [indiscernible] this was last summer, w action took go $100,000 speaking fee to speak to disabled iraq veterans, which i thought was kind of rich. [laughter] joel: i was honest and hillary clinton category.

that was way more than we are getting tonight. from the humanities council. play out to offend. this is here because it was not run -- it was run, i'm sorry that was different one. last fall, our new tea party governor of kentucky matt evans joined in a chorus of other voices from around the country in saying that we do not want anymore syrian refugees in here. as background, the only thing i like about this guy, is that he has three adopted kids from somalia. [laughter] joel: i mean, really, everything else about him is just wretched. who is against adopting kids? not even me. [laughter] joel: i drew this cartoon of his aides, and his cowering under the desk there. you don't have to fear these kids, those are your kids. he went crazy and called a press conference denouncing me as racist and announcing the letson herald leader, or my boss is

african-american, my publisher is african-american, we have been the leading progressive voice in kentucky for 30 years. he denounced us all as racist. wingt out in the right hate radio sphere, and we were just in a data for 24 hours, everybody at the paper, as salesman, everybody would these various phone call screaming at us for being racist. from all over the country. not from her own readers, of course. [laughter] joel: that is kind of like a great reaction. the publisher hated it, but i thought it was really cool. [laughter] joel: it's about guns. no matter how much shooting goes on, it's always good for the gun industry, right? one of my favorite things working in the bible belt is comparing the christian bible belt-types to religious fanatics

around the world because they really hate it. remember last summer when our county clerk refused to -- after they legalize gay marriage, the kentucky county clerk said we are not signing those things. you can see what it is. [applause] joel: around the world, there are some pretty serious repercussions as you probably are aware for doing this kind of work. in this country, they just fire you. the corporation comes for you and says, right after the charlie hebdo thing, my obligatory two or three drawings about that, i drew this thing of the corporate-types coming for me, essentially. they were not wild about that in

sacramento. it, -- theye condition that but they cannot take it. to illustrate my previous point, in this country, you do something that people don't like they write you a nasty letter give you a nasty phone call. the guy in the middle is a syrian cartoonist who for a while was actually on the side of the government there, but when they started crossing lines he did not agree with, he drew a few cartoons against them and his reward was to be dragged out into the country and being within an inch of his life and had to have all of his fingers broken. people criticize is a lot for -- because he criticized the country. it seems like undeserving and you should go to rougher -- rush-hour cuba or whatever. action, i'm really patriotic. this is the country that lets you do this kind of stuff. [applause]

joel: the thing about cartoons is that you saw with the donald trump incoming a caricature, not much for take him up but with a lot of people, you only need a couple of things to make them them. like for donald trump, that is already donald trump. [applause] can put his fat, nasty looking face and his fish mouth underneath it. but basically, it is already donald trump. you just need the invective of course. [applause] joel: sorry about that. i have not mastered the art of doing this without my body. [applause] joel: it is often the hair, like with ronald reagan it was that. once you had that, you sort of had ronald reagan.

[applause] [laughter] joel: and then this is the last one, living in kentucky i've had the great good fortune of having my career exactly match that of mitch mcconnell. [applause] joel: he was elected to the senate in 1984 when i started work there. -- cally, with mitch, [laughter] [applause] you do that, you already have an. -- got him. [laughter] [applause]

moderator: if you cannot get heroin this is really -- [laughter] moderator: we'll go next to you. this is a tough act to follow. in 2005, a certain danish newspaper did a cartoon contest or it signe: it was not a contest, it was a survey. they asked all the newspaper illustrators in denmark to produce a picture of mohammed, as they saw him. if thented to test illustrators were afraid to draw mohammed, they wanted to see if political correctness had muted the ability of our danish newspaper illustrators to stand up and make pictures. cartoons.

as some very important things that were going on in danish society at the time. -- hadthat a bunch of gone to the -- because the newspaper was too critical of muslims. the result was very ambiguous. because there were not that many -- about 100 cartoonist in the and only a few of them actually sent an a drawing. out of the 12 drawings that were actually of a are very different nature, all of them. some made fun of the newspaper. arabic,ally said, in that the editors of the newspaper are a bunch of reactionaries. and it is a boy named mohammed who is a student in school that

everybody knows because it is in a very immigrant neighborhood. ,e was wearing a soccer shirt defending a soccer club that is primarily immigrants oriented. from an exercise that producednths later, it deadly riots across the world. there were a lot of -- one was six months later, hearing that people -- did they understand them? did they ever actually notice that some of these cartoons are positive to muslims echoed -- muslims? i wrote a book about it. we such travelers all over the world, called "the cartoons that

shook the world." i spoke to all the main leaders in the episode as well as some of the cartoonists. i read a book about it. of course, i had the illustration in the book. because i wrote about what the meaning of these cartoons, what do they describe. one of the problems with cartoons is that you all understand the cartoons because you know the background. do you think this has any meaning whatsoever in pakistan? arepictures and cartoons forms for own imagination. that is why i wrote a whole chapter about the history of depicting mohammed. have -- i raise money, it costs money to produce books. it costs money to get nice pictures in books. so, i raise money to pay for the

right to reproduce this picture. beautiful page from a manuscript showing mohammed writing and to work together with ali. there are hundreds, many hundreds, of such pictures. i wrote about why it is that so many people have come to believe that muslims do not tolerate depictions of mohammed went so evidently there are lots of such depictions. and on current -- i found -- ankara pictures and posters of mohammed. both shia muslims and other sex withinislam -- sects islam revere mohammed. many people were angry not because of the depictions of mohammed, but because they were

disrespectful. all of the muslims were angry at the cartoons because they actually seem to say that all muslims are terrorists. and they felt maligned by the application that all muslims are terrorists because of their faith. this is a very -- i write academic books, i have my evidence in order. i put these images in my book. theurprise was that university that publish the book, actually censor the book and took all of these images out. [gasps] signe: there were different images showing different divisions of mohammed. here is the second part of the story. this is why censorship is bad. because, most sensors try to erase the tracks of what they do. because, they do not want you to

know -- that there has been censorship. yale university, i made an agreement that i would redraw the pictures and return for a forward in the book that marked that the book had been censored. everybody would know that what had happened. they had to go ahead and do it, they had signed the legally and binding contract with me, and i had legally and binding contract with them, but not with -- the right to the illustrations of the book. they wanted me not to put that in. they developed a 15 page memorandum that said world war iii would break out if these images were published in the book. i was called into a meeting where the vice president of yell university told me that there is fear about what happened to me and my children. i know that it is blasphemous when i was doing, and it is punishable by death.

intimidation was involved. that is typical. we could talk about intimidation. it is typical that when censorship is -- intimidation is next. luckily, i did have many good friends who helped me, 16 associations and learned societies published very large protests notes about what had happened. it was truly a unique event in academic publishing. , in my view,ces have been quite significant. there is a lot of talk about the rights of people to make pictures and artists. but, actually, i think the real important thing about free speech is the right to education. the right to consume knowledge. and because of this act of censorship, readers today cannot actually -- pictures. there are a lot of misunderstandings about what they looked like, what they were about, what they said. there's even more

misunderstanding about why muslims were angry and why there were protests, at the end of the day, the conclusion from this episode was, the wrong one. the conclusion was, that muslims don't tolerate images of mohammed. and if we make them, they will shoot us. but, that is not true. terrorists, are in the business of shooting people. they shoot cartoonists. because, they want to send a message for the same reason that they should choose, kill jews, kill shia muslims. they are looking for targets. so, when this happens, in january, 2015, the two men walked in to the editorial offices of charlie the -- charlie hebdo the magazine in thes, and shot and killed

11 members of the editorial staff. everybody believed it was because they may pictures of mohammed. it was not. it was because they were a good symbolic target. there are not assassination squads lurking in every parking lot of every publisher. every day in the world. in fact, the terrorists -- but, we have now come to the conclusion that you cannot even show these things. now, how many people actually know that this is what charlie hebdo's piece looks like? all is forgiven, i am charlie. this is the cover from after the shooting. this is mohammed. it does not look like mohammed to me. it does not actually look like mohammed to most people, but this is the language, the type of script that charlie hebdo, this magazine had specialized in. it is all come principle to different.

i never understood. [laughter] danger of notl an ability to speak about controversial issues is that we all become a lot more stupid. [applause] moderator: do you have the clicker? >> i want to thank the council on humanities and particularly kathy masters who helped us get here, she deserves a pulitzer prize for organization, trying to organize cartoonists to do anything is virtually impossible. so thank you. [applause] i also wanted to say a quick

word about the pulitzer prizes, a friend of ours, a cartoonist, if you tell them who is on the journey, they will tell you who is going to win the prize. and in my case, that turned out to be quite true. in 1991, i did quite a few cartoons about the supreme court nomination of clarence thomas. which, those of you who were around, who would remember, was super controversial because he impropriety with anita hill. so, i had many cartoons about the supreme court-anita hill-clarence thomas. those were in my pulitzer entries. you fill out the matchbox with

several cartoons and if you are really lucky, you get a jury that is mostly women. and i got the prize. i want you to know that if you are going for a pulitzer, find a jury first, and then adjust your prize. -- quickly, that sort of gets to some of the things that people think about me. she is the woman cartoonist. and i am one of very few women cartoonists, and i have done a number of cartoons on women's issues, and i have done most of them as cartoons that men could do, too. however, there are some that aren't. that's not working. [laughter] >> [indiscernible] [laughter]

>> or this next one. we want to end all abortion. [laughter] done. i am the mother of two daughters. i'm very interested in this. and this. and they wonder why more women don't get into politics. [laughter] >> i had one writer right in, this is quite recent, a very long letter saying this rot down -- brought down the tenor of the newspaper. [laughter] >> ok. so, noted. all right. [laughter] >> donald duck staffing, this

was last fall before he even came out as full-blown fashion. i'm proud of this. the hair makes the man. as you well know. did you read in the new york times story the other day that he has this butler who does all of this stuff for him, but he comes his own hair. very telling comments. of course, ted cruz. the carpet bomber, your member that. -- the lettery writer was saying, ok, this was so objectionable that i did these guys flashing, i also felt like -- and i had one guy say, in fact, ted cruz was not -- did not participate in that back-and-forth. bombs have aen and certain amount of comparing

size, too. i'm not the only cartoonist to as notice that. i feel that way about ted. his eyelashes i love. [laughter] >> let's see, who is next? [laughter] these, i can't do these beautiful sketches that jolted, so i just did a couple of quick ones, what i do at but itnot every night, seems like every night, has there not been way too many debates? when there is a debate on, i sketch and i just pick a photo and tweet at the sketches, so ben carson all of a sudden talked about fruit. that was ben carson and his fruit salad. [laughter] >> marco rubio. this was from a few nights ago.

of icon a great sort that i got marco rubio sketch from. you have a certain age will know that the cartoon ended in 1975, but you younger people do not know who he is. it is marco rubio. and then donald trump. i'm sorry, the color is really bad on this one. it's bright orange. suddenly it occurred to me in the middle of one of the debates tanning guy must be san with the white eyes and the orange face. i just went for it. that was new hampshire, you'll got to see him, you must have noticed. lastly, free at last. free at last. everything in america will be free at last. [laughter] [applause]

>> i am not a cartoonist, and i figured out that you are not high school students. [laughter] >> i apologize for not being able to do this great thing that our cartoonists are doing up here. here isn i am doing up that in 30 years, as editor, then as publisher of the nation magazine, only once did the staff march on my office. as a bastion of ward people, they take ideas very seriously, as those of you who read it no. but when they marched on my office, it was with a petition that demanded that we not publish something. and that something was a cartoon. very -- let me tell

you a little bit about it before i show it to you. i got a call one day from david levine, the great caricaturist who does the caricatures when he was alive for new york review. he was an old friend of mine because when i was in law school many years ago, i started a political satire magazine called "monocle." our motto was in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. our editorial policy was the views of our contributors, no matter how conflicting and contradictory are the views of the editors, and we signed up a bunch of great cartoonists and caricaturists to do things for the magazines and david levine was one of them. so i knew him from them. he calls one day, and he said that he had done a caricature for new york review books for an

article that was coming out about the caribbean basin and it was a caricature of henry kissinger and it was too strong for them. and where we interested. and i said, describe it to me. so he said, it shows henry kissinger on top, and the world in the form of a woman's body on the bottom and henry kissinger is screwing the world. so i said, well david, i'm very interested, but it is going to get me in a lot of trouble. he said, why will it get you in trouble? issa come i don't know, but i know that it will. [laughter] >> i said send it on down. he sent it down. let's see if we can get it on the screen. here it is. [gasps] [laughter] >> to me, this is a spectacular

statement. there is henry kissinger with a view in his face that mingles evil in ecstasy under an american flag blanket. so, i called david wright up and i said, david, we will run it. two and a half hours later, the petition signed by 24 members of the nation staff and i thought i'd employed only 23 -- [laughter] >> landed on my desk. objecting to our publishing this. was, what i will do is call a staff meeting, so i called the staff meeting to discuss it, and at the beginning of the meeting i said, there are three ground rules to this discussion, the first is, we are not going to take a vote at the end, because, it is wrong to vote on matters of aesthetics.

and luckily, nobody asked me why. [laughter] >> the second was that everyone should feel free to say whatever they want to say, but, if you want to make the adjustments for changes in this picture, don't. because it has been given to us on a take it or leave it basis. we can talk about than a minute. said, i toldi david we are going to publish this, that does not mean that we have to publish it if there are good reasons not to. i can rethink that, but it will have the wit of temperature -- with a censorship about it, just know that. rightly or wrongly. with that is the way into the discussion, we entered the discussion in the most articulate objection -- the mustard to give a person at the beginning of the discussion was a young woman who was our assistant circulation manager and she summed up the general look, at thech is,

nation we're supposed to be fighting against stereotypes, and this cartoon reinforces the stereotype that sex is something that an active mail on top does to a passive woman on bottom. and that it is somehow dirty and evil and not nice. so, with that as the basis of the discussion, we had our discussion, and christopher hitchens, who many of you probably know about, then was working for us, he is a british guy who later became more conservative and left. but he's to wear white suits through the office, and christopher said, i don't think this is an act of sex, i think this is an act of rape. and i think that henry kissinger is forcing himself on this woman. -- the young woman who it

you had objected say, i do not agree with you, if you look at her hand on the mattress, it looks to me like the grip of passion. and christopher leaned over to ,he young woman, gripped her and said trust me, my dear, it is not the grip of passion. [laughter] >> integrating meshach sent. so we had the discussion and then i invited david to come back and to have the discussion with the staff, itself. and we went through it a few times, and david -- he was shown no courtesy. david, in my view, was as good as it gets when it comes to caricatures. david,not do better and quite seriously about his work. you are shown no deference, he would no particular respect for what he had done. showed all the wrong things. in an office like the nation.

said, i'm just showing what normal people do. nation is against -- is not against political correctness, the people at the nation, although, i, myself, worry about that a lot. and try not to be a prisoner of political correctness. at the end of it i asked david if he was sorry that he came and he said, no. he said, he has been doing this work for more than 20 years. and he has never had a serious discussion about what he does as he did at the magazine. so he was glad to have that. the article, the cartoon. got mail and letters on it from a bunch of cartoonists, praising the cartoon. and saying that they were glad that we ran it. we ran a statement by the staff

and the letter from the staff which was the petition that they had originally sent in. we got letters endorsing the staff's point of view, and i sort of forgot about it. i didn't really forget about it, but i put it aside, the nation is a weekly magazine. editing a weekly magazine is a crisis a week. although, not that dramatic. and then, along came what you heard about earlier, the danish mohammed. for the first time, it occurred to me that what the of jacked is that we are objecting to were not political incorrectness, they were objecting to political correctness in the form of a cartoon. of a visual image. because, of what happened in said, let me just look into the history of what has happened to cartoonists in

this country. so i started looking at it, and i found that from the very beginning, cartoonists were thrown into prison, they were killed. the leading arab cartoonists of around that time, a man was killed on the streets of london. when there were first rumors that he was murdered because of under the order of yasir arafat because of an insulting cartoon that he had run of him. and then, they were rumors that it was massaged her it because he was consulate criticizing israel and the cartoons and they never found out who did it. question that i asked myself is, what is going on here, why do people get so emotionally enraged at these cartoons, which are regarded by the general public as trivial

and not serious. and i decided to write my own book about it. the other book had not come out yet, but i was not writing about the danish mohammed, so i included, i did not think the danish mohammed cartoons were great cartoons, but i included one in my book because i wanted to show what the argument was about. and like your editor and publisher, my publisher told me that they were not interested in having me publish this and they gave a series of reasons. i think they boiled it down to what you have already heard. was, itofficial reason would be dangerous. bookstores,n getting blown up the way that charlie hebdo got blown at. or which could be blown up the way that charlie hebdo got blown up. because people all over the world were, indeed, protesting and people have gotten killed in the course of it.

thatyself, i decided because it was not a great cartoon, and they had it in there, and as i thought, rightly or wrongly, you could go on the internet and google the cartoons of the danish mohammed anytime he wanted to. for me, it was not a great issue of principle, and also, what we decided to do was we got a cartoon by the french cartoonist , which i wish i'd put up on the board, it is in the book. you see artoon was hand with a pen on its, and it draws a sentence, and the pen says i will not draw mohammed, -- ihat says, i will not, will not draw mohammed about 100 times are a thousand times. and by the time you finish, he has drawn mohammed with the

sentence. it seemed to me, the ultimate statements about it because of what it implies. which i hope we can talk about in conversation. so, that is what i'm doing up. no, i am not a cartoonist, thank you very much. [applause] moderator: thank you so much. this a wonderful start. one reason i was excited to be asked to be the moderator was because i seize the opportunity to have a chance to ask you what you thought of something that happened right in the wake of the charlie hebdo attacks. people remember that in the days and weeks following the attacks, suddenly everybody was a fan of the charlie hebdo magazine even though most of us had never heard of it before. there were facebook people taking on the slogan, je suis charlie. there were rallies and marches.

and ventured out came out with quite a productivity desperate -- provocative statement. gary trudeau is somebody has cartoons have been banned over and over again when they have been controversial. he has been a symbol of what happens when you go too far for an editor or a publisher. sometimes your cartoons get maimed. what he said was surprising. in the wake of those fatal attacks, he said, essentially, just because you can offend somebody, does not mean that you should. he wrote a piece published in the atlantic magazine and he said that when free-speech absolutist have failed to knowledge is that because one has the right to offend a group, does not mean that one must. when that group is that the right to be average, they are allowed to be -- feel pain. read them should be discussed in the context of response body. absolutismsion and he comes childish and unserious it -- unserious, it becomes its own kind of fanaticism.

it is kind of a rebuke. i'm wondering what you think. i would like deer from everybody, but let's start with signe wilkinson. here is another charlie hebdo cover. love is stronger than hate. can we agree on that? i would hope so. but, look, it is two guys, and look, one of them might be mohammed. here it becomes again, a huge controversy, and this is what as you said earlier, this is what charlie hebdo did really well, and i think this is a great cartoon, even though under what we have been talking about, it would not be published here because it might offend some sensibilities.

when the danish cartoons came out, i of course, immediately, wanted to go in draw mohammed. because i'm a cartoonist. but, my editor said, that's really not quite in our wheelhouse, the daily news is a very local paper, and my editor backed me up on many, many things. so i stood about it for a while. and a couple of days later i figured out how to put mohammed a cartoon. assistant is a little slow. here we have all -- a big fat book of offensive religious cartoons. of course that is mohammed, third from the right. i did not get any complaints about this cartoon. essentially, it backs up what you just said. and that is, people complain

about stereotypes, but they complain about negative stereotypes, if it is a happy, laughing, jolly mohammed, everybody is down with it. world'st around the many, many times, again after charlie hebdo and again, nobody came after me, my publication, or my children. think, you have to do what you have to do on these things. to talk a little bit more about the positives and negatives. it is not just about mohammed, it is about all symbols for all religions. in 1992 whens back i was doing -- next image, please. this is a tiny little drawing that one with a letter to the editor in my newspaper, it is not mostly funny, just an illustration. it was about complaints about palestinians targeting jew so, the star of david is obviously the scope of this site

on the very badly drawn gun. i was a younger cartoonist ben, and i have improved. but i know david levine. i drew that, and about three months later, we were in the midst of a senate campaign where a local woman was running -- back to the clarence thomas hearings, but he was a pennsylvania senator and he was in trouble by this woman who had a lot of steam. so, his camp started a whispering campaign about him -- about her being anti-semitic because one time, somebody at her presbyterian church had spoken who is a palestinian, a bad guy. was, herself, she anti-semitic. so, i drew this little cartoon.

that will with letters on the subject. this tiny little john got me into more trouble than pretty much any other thing, will not any other thing, but many other things that i've ever drawn. feminism's owne -- and other little, mild invectives like that. people came in and asked for my -- that i could be better off in advertising. something like that. we had an entire page of letters that went after me, personally. and the newspaper. they went after me saying that the star of david is always off-limits because it is a religious symbol, sacred to the jews. back one.ack,

this one, star of david, perfectly ok, nobody commented. nextse, and this one, the one, because the people who are upset did not agree with the point of the cartoon. so again, it is the point that you are making earlier, it is how the symbol is used. if one bans the symbol, you cannot use it either way. you cannot use it for the positive or the negative. and you cannot let one group on a symbol. sorry. the cross is available for all christians, it is available for everyone. if somebody does something in the name -- something bad in the name of christianity, the cross ought to be able to be used as a symbol and a cartoon about it. so, my line in all of these things is, if you do not want your profits used in a negative

cartoon, do not do negative things in the name of your profit. [applause] >> -- signe: here is the newspaper. one more. last one. just to reinforce where we came from as a country. this is a joseph kepler cartoon 1890's i think, 1870's. it is the vanity, the religious vanity fair. and it has, it mocks every single religion at the time, mohammed was not involved and themohammed followers to not start immigrating here until the 1890's, although some were

slaves. jew on theve the left, presbyterian, catholic, mormons, even if episcopalian, he got into this. even the free love, guru at the time, it says free love, your road to heaven. this is our heritage. we look skeptically at all religions. and as new religions come to the united states, they must join this religious vanity fair. for the good, and for the bad. thank you. [applause] >> i had one reservation about this. first i should confess, i was

brought up in a culture where my dishes,ap three sets of one dairy, one me, and one for my father's bacon. [laughter] view -- the thing that i don't know that i agree with you on, is there a famous aesthetician philosopher who is inhat the caricature the business of mythologizing the world by physiognomy rising it. words,s using to be big but he said this amalgam, diffusion, appeals to the emotional mind, and expense to the emotional mind. and i think, and he gave us his pitt, that hebert that they could say

were a parasite, but then he says a cartoon by the great deal ray, showing somebody as a toadstool, because of a toadstool on the ground. on the crown of england. isme, it is not just that it negative, that causes the reaction, it is the amalgam, this fusion that brilliant cartoonist achieve, and caricatures achieve, and that the nation, i think of another dispute that we had over a cartoon, it did not happen the way though david levine happened, but it was a robert grossman cartoon, and labor came out, saying that abraham lincoln might be gay, robert grossman did a cartoon of abraham lincoln , it was not a negative cartoon about lincoln, but it showed lincoln with his hatchet, and it with breasts and a

woman's body and fishnet stockings. and we got a lot of complaints about it, including some from doug ireland's is a friend and a contributor. saying, whativist he is saying that to be a gay arson -- gay man is to have woman inside of your body and th is so discredited and so unreal, the nation is out of it and does not understand this statement. says, he wrote back saying, he was sorry if you offended him, but for him, as a cartoonist, all it was when he heard about this book was the abraham lincoln and his image came into his mind. the question is, were we right are wrong to publish it, i think they were right to publish it. but i understood the anger of people who felt that they were a

part of a discriminated minority and who we heard about before with trudell who said that cartoonist punch up, and this is not a case of punching up, it was a case of punching. so, that is what i have to say. know, from this year's political campaign, white man are the discriminated against class. concerned,as i am under your rules, i cannot try white man anymore. [laughter] >> can i change my rules? [laughter] is he right that they went too far and you can go too far? that statement coming as it did in the aftermath of charlie hebdo was widely interpreted by many of not most other cartoonist as having a subtext which was basically,

they had it coming. a lot of us were stunned and angry that year he had written that. a smooth it over to her on television. and it culminated, at least for me, and a panel similar to this at the national cartoonist society, which is not political cartoonist, but an umbrella group of comic strip writers and green card people and animators. group ofy big, big disparate cartoonist. i got to be on this panel with gary and a couple of others. he did not back down from it, he did repeat as victor said, that he thought, and he is quite right, we're not supposed to -- we're supposed to punch up. but, that the second, third generation algerians and other former french colonists who were

living on the outskirts of terrorists and not assimilating well, that it was picking on them. whenmy viewpoint was, somebody has a gun, that changes the whole power thing. them, iay, i said to was going to start my own religion that worships --. [laughter] of his characters, anybody who draws him, is in for some trouble. [laughter] joel: he did not think it was that funny. neither did they, really. one more question, and we will open it up to questions from the audience. this will be brief. richstruck me is, what a target donald trump is for cartoonists, and how some cartoonists have made a whole industry this year and drawing donald trump as a buffoon, a

clown, someone preposterous. but suddenly, his campaign has taken on quite a dark turn. , he was on television this morning, saying the republican party tried to deny him his party nomination, even if he is within reach of sufficient delegates. he said, we would have riots. this is him, predicting riots. it feels like a very different kind of racism here. does it change the way you feel about drawing him, if the prospect of violence as already happened at some of his rallies? it is not funny, what you do with that? joel: first of all, i think cartoonists made the same , andke, prognosticators the rest of the media, to think he was a buffoon, thinking he would be next -- gone and next